The stripper and the steelworker

For John Carlin, sitting silent as the sordid details of his personal life were aired in court was torture. He listened as the prosecution painted him as a lovesick pawn, willing to do anything for the woman he loved -- even kill her fiancé.

And now he, and his attorneys, waited as the jury determined his fate.

Marcy McDannel: I thought the state had not even come close to proving its case.

But what did the jurors think?

Foreman: I kept thinking that the prosecution doesn't have it. Don't have the proof.

In the jury room, one piece of evidence didn't, at first, quite register with some members of the panel.

Freddie Wake: The Hope note, as we call it.

Foreman: When they first presented it, I had a hard time trying to incorporate that into how that could weigh upon his guilt.

That was the partly printed, partly hand-written note prepared by both Carlin and Mechele.  

It was quite believable - Carlin telling Mechele he'd fixed up a cabin in this little town so that she could spend some secret time here with an unnamed person. A lover, perhaps?

She responded in her own hand with thanks and a mundane follow-up question about the latch on the back door.

Donald Sanford: There is no cabin. There never was a cabin. That kind of floored me.

Some of the jurors were floored during closing arguments by the sudden realization that the 'Hope note" was purely and only a cruel ruse by Mechele and Carlin, so it must have been intended to lure Kent Leppink to Hope -- the place he was murdered.

And by then, many jurors were convinced Carlin would have done anything Mechele asked him to do. Anything.

Freddie Wake: I always felt that he helped to plan. He was a part of all that.

And he did lie about owning that gun, said the jurors… And his own son said he saw him washing it with bleach.

And, despite the defense's explanation, all those e-mails, taken together, looked to them a lot like a conspiracy.

The jurors couldn't help but think back to that love note from Carlin to Mechele, which said:

Donald Sanford: I think his - close to his words were "I’d give up my life for you."

Freddie Wake: OK.

Donald Sanford: Which is exactly what he did.

And so after less than two days of deliberation, a verdict:

“We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder in the first-degree as charged in the indictment.”

And sitting there in the courtroom, defense attorney Marcy McDannel was visibly stunned.

Marcy McDannel: I have clients that, you know, deserve a fair trial but probably should go to jail but not this guy. Not this guy.

Guilty? Sure, said Carlin's attorneys, guilty of tampering with evidence, guilty of poor judgment. But murder? Not a chance.

Now they feared the real culprit would get off the hook.

Marcy McDannel: My prediction is that this will substantially diminish her chances of being convicted, which is tragic. I mean if anyone was involved in this case, anyone, it was her.

Murder, as everybody knows, sends poison ripples through lives and generations of lives. Tragic what can happen to people connected by blood and testimony. JC III was on the basis of evidence supplied by his own son, convicted of being the triggerman who ended Kent Leppink's life. And yet that convicting son, John Carlin IV, says he is absolutely convinced that his father did not do it.

He's now had 12 years since Kent's murder to think about it.

Keith Morrison, Dateline NBC: There must of been some times during that period when you thought, "Well, may - maybe he did." And –

John Carlin IV: Well, I can honestly say no. I can honestly say no. For lack of a better answer, all I can say is he's smarter than that. He's smarter than to screw something like that up that badly.

A person as smart as his father, said Carlin IV, would have thrown the gun in the ocean on his way home, not brought it back to the house.

John Carlin III said not a word to the crowded courtroom during his trial. But once it was over, he had no shortage of things to say about the trial, his defense, and about Mechele Linehan.

John Carlin III: The prosecutor was prosecuting Mechele. My attorney was prosecuting Mechele. The jury got pissed off at Mechele, and I was sitting there.

And now here he was, convicted, waiting to be sentenced, waiting to see if, because of his conviction, Mechele Linehan might well walk free.

So now, John Carlin had a lot to say.

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