Did an Alaska Fisherman Point to His Murderers in a Letter Before His Death?
January 22, 2018In the mystery of who killed Kent Leppink, no clue was more tantalizing than a letter from the the victim written before his death suggesting where to find his alleged killers.
Three days before he died, Leppink, a 36-year-old fisherman who lived with Mechele Linehan and two other men — each of whom thought they were engaged to their exotic dancer roommate — mailed a letter to his parents back home in Michigan about his roommates.
“The letter that Kent wrote to his parents said if something happens to me under suspicious circumstances, it was Carlin and it was Hilke and it was ‘Chele who did it,” retired Alaska State Trooper Mike Sears says in a clip from tonight’s episode of People Magazine Investigates, titled “Alaskan Temptress,” which premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.
Mechele Linehan
Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News/MCT/Getty
Leppink’s letter referred to John Carlin III and Scott Hilke. Although Hilke had moved out and left the state by spring 1996, Carlin and Linehan eventually would be charged and convicted in the shooting death of Keppink, whose body was found May 2, 1996, in the woods 90 miles outside of Anchorage. He had been shot in the back, stomach and cheek.
• Watch the premiere of People Magazine Investigates: Alaskan Temptress on Monday, Jan. 22, at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.
Investigators who pursued the case learned that Linehan and Leppink together had taken out a $1 million insurance policy on him four weeks before the killing — but that Linehan was unaware Leppink had cut her out as a beneficiary shortly before he died.
Another former investigator, retired Alaska State Trooper Dallas Massie, says of the mysterious letter, “He’s speaking to you from the grave basically, at that point.”
Kent Leppink
Anchorage Police Department/Anchorage Daily News/AP
John Carlin III
Alaska Attorney General's Office/AP
It took 10 years for the criminal charges to be filed. Hilke was never charged, but Linehan and Carlin were both convicted of charges in connection with Leppink’s death. But with no murder weapon recovered, and the letter as circumstantial evidence, they were both exonerated, and Linehan returned to the life of a doctor’s wife and PTA mom that she had established in Olympia, Washington, after leaving Alaska.
Carlin, for his part, was murdered in prison before he was cleared. Now, authorities continue to say the case of who killed Kent Leppink is open and under investigation.
People Magazine Investigates: Alaskan Temptress airs Monday on Investigation Discovery (9 p.m. ET).