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And certainly Mr. Leppink had enough of a relationship [with Ms. Linehan] to have observations about Ms. In the context of [the letter], I don't find [this assertion to be] unduly prejudicial to Ms. Linehan at all. And it sort of sets in context [Mr. Leppink's] own kind of split reaction to her: on the one hand, accusing her of being involved in his death, [and] on the other hand, expressing his undying affection toward her and asking [his] parents to continue to visit her, even if she goes to jail-matters that I thought were relevant to his own state of mind.

This ruling suffers from the same flaw as the trial judge's earlier ruling regarding the first accusatory statement. It may be true that Leppink's assertion that Linehan had a split personality revealed something about Leppink's state of mind.

But this assertion revealed nothing about any issue that was disputed at trial. Viewed in the context of the other assertions that Leppink made in this letter, Leppink's assertion that Linehan had a split personality posed a clear danger of unfair prejudice.

Leppink was obviously asserting that Linehan had two distinct and contradictory sides to her personality. Leppink did not expressly characterize the second side of Linehan's personality. But given the context of the other assertions that Leppink made in his letter, Leppink's clear implication was that the other side of Linehan's personality was conniving and homicidal. It is an assertion of Linehan's fundamental immorality or duplicity, and it significantly enhances Leppink's accusation of murder.

Moreover, Leppink's assertion about Linehan's purported split personality constituted an implicit warning to the jurors not to give any credence to the exculpatory explanations that Linehan or her attorneys might offer to the murder charge.

For these reasons, we conclude that it was error for the trial judge to allow the prosecutor to present evidence of this second accusatory statement in Leppink's letter to his parents.

According to the State, Leppink's first accusatory statement was admissible to explain Linehan's state of mind-more specifically, to explain her apparent willingness to cooperate during her May 5th interview with the state troopers. To establish that the accusatory out-of-court statement was probative on this point, the State relies on the testimony of Leppink's brother, Lane Leppink.

Lane Leppink who lived in Michigan testified that he learned of his brother's death on May 4, According to Lane Leppink's testimony, he spoke to Linehan by telephone that day May 4th , as well as several more times during the following days.

Lane Leppink did testify that, after he learned about his brother's letter, he had further conversations with Linehan in which he mentioned his brother's accusation.

But neither the defense attorney nor the prosecutor asked Leppink to clarify exactly when he told Linehan about this accusation. At the end of the trial, when the parties made their arguments to the jury, the prosecutor did not once mention Leppink's letter during his opening summation. The prosecutor made one mention of the letter during his rebuttal summation, in the context of trying to explain why Linehan was apparently so forthcoming with information when she was interviewed by the state troopers on May 5th.

Here is the prosecutor's argument:. Prosecutor: Now, [about] the [defense attorney's] reference to [Linehan] volunteering information about the life insurance, and volunteering information about the Hope note [during her May 5th interview with the troopers]: There is no reference by her to either one of those things, the Hope note or the life insurance, until her interview on May the 5th.

You'll recall that on May the 4th she's had extensive conversations with Lane Leppink. And Lane Leppink has learned about the package that [his brother] Kent sent home, [the letter that was] in it, and what the allegations are.

So by the time [Linehan] is interviewed on May the 5th, she knows very well that the police know about life insurance, and that everybody knows he was down in Hope when he was killed. The prosecutor's argument rests on two major misstatements of the evidence. First, as we have just explained, the testimony does not support the prosecutor's assertion that Lane Leppink informed Linehan on May 4th about the accusation contained in his brother's letter.

In fact, the testimony contradicts the prosecutor's assertion. Lane Leppink testified that he himself was not aware of the letter and its accusation until May 5th.

As we noted earlier, Lane Leppink did testify that, after he learned of his brother's letter on May 5th, he informed Linehan about the letter in a later conversation. But neither attorney asked Leppink to specify the date or time of that later conversation. Second, the troopers had found the Hope note by the time they interviewed Linehan on May 5th. According to the testimony of Trooper David Tullis, the troopers found the note in the glove compartment of Kent Leppink's car when they searched the car on May 4th.

We note, moreover, that the prosecutor's argument runs contrary to the various cautionary instructions that the trial judge gave to the jurors about the contents of Kent Leppink's letter. Both during the presentation of the evidence and at the end of the trial following the summations of the parties , the trial judge instructed the jurors that they could use the assertions in Leppink's letter for only one purpose: these assertions could be considered only to the extent that they revealed Leppink's state of mind.

Here, for example, is the instruction that the jurors received at the very end of the trial:. The Court: Evidence of a letter Kent Leppink wrote to his parents was introduced for the purpose of showing his state of mind close to the time of his death. You have previously been instructed that the letter could be considered only for the limited purpose of deciding Kent Leppink's state of mind. As previously instructed, you may not consider that evidence for any other purpose.

Do not consider or discuss [this] evidence for any other purpose. It would [be] improper and unfair for you to do this. Under the terms of this cautionary instruction, the jurors were forbidden from considering the assertions in Leppink's letter for the purpose that the prosecutor argued-that is, for the purpose of assessing Linehan's state of mind or her strategy when dealing with the troopers.

In its brief to this Court, the State again argues that the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter to his parents was independently admissible to explain why Linehan appeared to be cooperative with the troopers during the May 5th interview. The State concedes that Lane Leppink did not know about his brother's letter when he spoke to Linehan on May 4th.

However, the State asserts that the trial testimony shows that Lane Leppink told Linehan about the letter on the following day, May 5th. This is not accurate. The trial testimony shows that Lane Leppink informed Linehan of the accusation contained in his brother's letter, and that he might have informed Linehan about this accusation as early as May 5th. But, as we have already explained, Leppink's testimony contains no information as to exactly when he first spoke to Linehan about the letter.

And because this question of fact was never presented to the trial judge, we have no ruling as to exactly when Lane Leppink first informed Linehan of the accusation contained in his brother's letter. On appeal, the appellee that is, the party seeking to defend the lower court's decision is entitled to argue for affirmance of the trial court's ruling on any ground revealed by the record.

Here, the State's alternative argument is that the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter was relevant because Linehan's knowledge of this accusatory statement helps to explain Linehan's conduct during her May 5th interview with the state troopers.

This argument hinges on the assertion that Linehan learned of the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter before she was interviewed by the troopers on May 5th. Because the State's proposed alternative ground for affirming the trial judge's ruling rests on a factual assertion whose truth is not obvious from the record, and which the trial judge had no occasion to address or resolve, we must reject the State's argument. This brings us, then, to the question of whether the erroneous admission of the two accusatory statements in Leppink's letter to his parents was so prejudicial to the fairness of Linehan's trial that we must reverse the jury's verdict.

To answer this question, our first task is to identify the applicable standard for assessing whether the error requires reversal. Linehan asserts that the erroneous admission of the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter violated her Sixth Amendment right of confrontation as defined in Crawford v. Washington, 7 and thus we must apply the standard that governs cases of constitutional error: that is, we must reverse her conviction unless we conclude that the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, we conclude that we need not resolve the question of whether the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter were testimonial hearsay-because we conclude that the error in admitting these statements requires reversal of Linehan's conviction even under the standard that applies to non-constitutional errors.

See, e. Coleman, P. Prudden, A. Downey, A. Even in cases where the victim's accusatory statement was found to be properly admitted to prove or explain the victim's ensuing actions, appellate courts have acknowledged that this type of evidence is fraught with inherent dangers, and that it requires rigid limitations on its admission and its use by the jury.

See United States v. Brown, F. In Linehan's case, when the prosecutor delivered his opening statement, the prosecutor informed the jurors of the accusation contained in Leppink's letter. Thereafter, the prosecutor asked several witnesses to confirm that Leppink had accused Linehan and Carlin of being the ones responsible for his death. We note, specifically, the testimony of retired state trooper Ron Belden, the testimony of Leppink's mother, Betsy Leppink, and the testimony of Leppink's brother, Lane Leppink.

It is true that, in Linehan's case, the trial judge instructed the jurors that the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter could be considered only for the purpose of ascertaining Leppink's state of mind near the time of his death. The prosecutor likewise reminded the jurors of this limitation. No one ever explained to the jurors how, or why, Leppink's belief or suspicion that Linehan and Carlin might conspire to kill him had any bearing on the jury's decision of the case.

Indeed, as we have explained at length in this opinion, Leppink's accusation had no bearing on the jury's decision of the case-except for the improper inference that, if Leppink had an intimate relationship with Linehan, and if he feared her or suspected her of wanting to kill him, then there must have been some good reason for his fears or suspicions.

We note that courts of other jurisdictions have generally rejected the claim that the erroneous admission of this type of evidence is harmless. United States, A. Ulvinen, N. Lew, P. Hamilton, P. Coleman, N. In Shepard v. United States, U. The Supreme Court rejected the government's various theories as to why this evidence was properly admissible, although the Court conceded that the wife's statement might have been relevant to negate any suggestion that she had purposely committed suicide.

In spite of this possible relevance, the Court held that the admission of the wife's out-of-court accusation was prejudicial error.

The Court stated:. It will not do to say that the jury might accept the [wife's] declarations for any light that they cast upon the [wife's will to live], and reject them to the extent that they charged [her] death to [someone] else. Discrimination so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds.

The reverberating clang of those accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds. Likewise, in State v. Although the trial court ruled [that] the letters' contents [were] admissible only for the limited purposes of impeaching [the] defendant's credibility and to explain and challenge the basis for the opinions of the psychiatric experts, and [although the trial court] carefully instructed the jury on these limited proper uses for the letters, we agree with [the] defendant that these instructions did not-and could not-adequately insure that the letters would not be considered as proof of the truth of the hearsay accusations they contained.

How could the jury possibly disentangle the charges in [those] letter[s] and treat the letter[s] only as evidence of state of mind, and forget about the substance of the charges? In the present case, we likewise find that the trial judge's limiting instructions were ineffective to cure the prejudice of the erroneously admitted evidence.

The jury heard several witnesses testify that, shortly before Leppink was killed, he wrote a letter accusing Linehan of complicity in his murder-essentially, an accusation from the grave. Moreover, the State's evidence was not limited to witnesses' characterizations of the letter. During the prosecutor's direct examination of Leppink's mother, Betsy Leppink, the prosecutor and Mrs. Leppink read the text of the letter aloud to the jury.

This being so, it is almost inevitable that the jurors would view Leppink's assertions as at least circumstantial proof of the matters asserted.

The unfair prejudice of this type of evidence is most acute in a prosecution like this one, where the State's case is based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. The State's ability to secure a guilty verdict hinged on convincing the jury to view a large number of ambiguous facts in the light most favorable to Linehan's guilt.

In this situation, the evidence of Leppink's posthumous accusations may well have been the weight that tipped the jury's decision. Here, we believe there is a substantial possibility that the error did affect the verdict. Accordingly, we reverse Linehan's conviction. Although we have concluded that Linehan's conviction must be reversed because of the improper admission of the accusatory statements contained in Leppink's letter, we will also address the other two evidentiary rulings that Linehan challenges in this appeal, to provide guidance to the superior court in the event that Linehan is retried.

In order to explain our analysis of this question, we must first describe the trial evidence concerning Leppink's life insurance. In mid, and again in early , Linehan told Leppink that she would marry him.

In February , Linehan and Leppink visited an insurance agent and applied for insurance policies on their lives. On April 1, , after the underwriting was complete and the company had agreed to issue the policies, Linehan paid the premium for both policies. Leppink was the sole beneficiary of Linehan's policy i. The remaining 20 percent was to go to Leppink's parents. During the month of April, Leppink returned to the insurance agent several times to change the beneficiary designation on his policy.

On April 22nd, Leppink removed Linehan as a beneficiary and instead designated his parents as the sole beneficiaries. The next day, April 23rd, Leppink removed his parents as beneficiaries and made Linehan the sole beneficiary. On that same day, Leppink asked the insurance agent about canceling the policy and getting his money back. Then, three days later April 26th , Leppink again removed Linehan as a beneficiary and designated his father, his mother, and his brother Ransom as the three beneficiaries.

This was the status of the policy when Leppink died a few days later. It was the State's theory that Linehan conspired to have Leppink murdered so that she could collect the life insurance. To support this theory, the prosecutor asked the trial judge for permission to present the testimony of Lora Aspiotis, a woman who was Linehan's friend from through February When the defense attorney objected to this proposed evidence, arguing that it was prohibited evidence of Linehan's bad character, the trial judge was openly skeptical of the defense attorney's assertion.

The trial judge also challenged the defense attorney to identify how the proposed evidence would create a risk of unfair prejudice, or how the proposed evidence would have any tendency to lead the jurors to decide Linehan's case on an improper basis.

The trial judge ultimately ruled that the prosecutor would be allowed to present Aspiotis's proposed testimony:. The Court: I don't think the remark by Ms. I find that its probative value is important to the jury. It is a statement that [tends] to reflect a certain intent and identification with the particular lead actress in that plot, or the person in that movie. There are some similarities between that movie and what happened here.

Aspiotis's testimony about the movie, I think I do need to address [that issue]. I think, in the context of this case, if [Ms. Where I differ with [defense counsel] about the analysis of those particular factors is that I think they're really case-specific, and there does not necessarily have to be an extremely close proximity in terms of time, or extremely close identity in terms of acts, for the evidence to be necessarily admissible.

I think you need to look at it in the context of the particular cases and the claims asserted by the State in its theory of the prosecution. And here the claim is one of a plan that appeared to evolve over months. I see a sufficient nexus between the plot line of this particular movie, where a lover is used as a vehicle to kill a husband, to establish [this] defendant's intent, preparation, and plan over months in engaging Mr.

And I will permit Ms. Aspiotis to testify to her understanding of the content of the movie and Ms. Linehan's admission about it. Following this ruling, the prosecutor called Aspiotis to the stand. Aspiotis testified that she was friends with Linehan from until February , when they ended their friendship. During the time they were friends, Aspiotis would often watch movies with Linehan at John Carlin's house in south Anchorage.

And eventually she talked him into trying to murder her husband for the insurance. Aspiotis: [The naive young man] ended up in prison, and she went free with all the money. Later in the trial, the prosecutor asked the trial judge to allow the State to hold a screening of the entire movie for the jurors. I would like to be just like her. Prosecutor: If [this evidence] is inflammatory, [Ms. Linehan] has adopted that inflammatory nature, whatever may be in there.

And then she has carried it out in this case. So, yeah, in that respect, [the evidence is inflammatory]. The judge described the plot of the movie in some detail on the record. The judge then described many of these differences. The trial judge also stated that he now agreed with the defense attorneys that the State had failed to establish any temporal proximity between Linehan's statements about the movie and the occurrence of Leppink's murder.

The judge explained that, when he ruled on the admissibility of Aspiotis's testimony, he was under the impression that the watching of the movie, and Linehan's statements about the movie, had taken place in February i.

But when Aspiotis testified, she could not remember when these events had occurred-thus diminishing the probative value of the evidence. The Court: [A]lthough there is some similarity in the theme [of the movie], the theme of manipulation, there are too many differences between the facts [of] this case, as I've heard them and as alleged [by the State], and the [plot of the] movie-differences that, when I read the case law on admitting these movies, would seem to be significant.

We don't have a situation here of repeated viewings [by the defendant], or [of] stark similarities between scenes in the movie and the crime in question. There are significant difference[s] here[. Linehan] because of her identification with a character in the movie who committed other murders and a large theft, rather than on the basis of the evidence in this case.

Based on these conclusions, the trial judge not only denied the State's request to screen the movie for the jurors, but the judge also barred the State from introducing any more testimony describing the plot of the movie:. The Court: Ms. The trial judge's initial ruling on this issue was flawed by the mistaken dichotomy that the trial judge drew between 1 admissions of a party opponent and 2 evidence of bad character. The fact that a particular out-of-court statement was made by a party-opponent means that evidence of the statement is admissible despite the normal bar on hearsay evidence.

See Evidence Rule d 2. However, it is a completely separate question whether this out-of-court statement is barred by the rules that govern the admissibility of evidence of a person's character. See Evidence Rules and For example, the defendant in a robbery case might remark to a police officer that he habitually cheats at cards. If the prosecution wished to introduce this statement at the defendant's trial by calling the officer who heard the defendant make the statement, there would be no hearsay objection to the proposed testimony-because the officer heard the defendant utter the out-of-court statement, and because the out-of-court statement is an admission of a party opponent.

But the defendant might well have an objection to this evidence under Evidence Rule a , because the proposed evidence appears to have no relevance to the robbery charge except to prove the defendant's bad character. Linehan had no hearsay objection to this proposed evidence. It was her own statement, it was being introduced through the testimony of a witness who personally heard her make the statement, and the evidence was being offered by her opponent in the litigation the State.

But this evidence clearly raised concerns under Evidence Rule , because it tended to prove Linehan's bad character and it was apparently being offered to show that Linehan acted true to character. Thus, the trial judge committed error when he initially failed to analyze the proposed evidence as character evidence under Evidence Rule But Rule b is not limited to evidence of conduct that qualifies as a crime or conduct that would generally be regarded as immoral.

Rather, it applies to evidence of any conduct that tends to prove a person's bad character. Evidence Rule a declares that evidence of a person's character is normally not admissible when it is offered as circumstantial evidence that the person acted in conformity with their character on a particular occasion.

And even when evidence of a person's character is admissible under one of the exceptions to this general rule, Evidence Rule declares that, in most instances, the person's character must be established by reputation or opinion evidence, and not by evidence of specific instances of the person's behavior.

Alaska Evidence Rule b 1 is essentially an amalgam of these two concepts. Rule b 1 declares that evidence of a specific instance of a person's behavior is not admissible when the sole purpose of this evidence is to prove the person's character so that the person's character can then be used as circumstantial evidence that the person acted in conformity with their character on another occasion.

This is a restatement of the principles codified in Rule a and On the other hand, neither Evidence Rule a nor Evidence Rule b bars evidence simply because the evidence tends to demonstrate a person's bad character. These two rules bar the evidence only if the purpose of the evidence is to prove, circumstantially, that the person acted true to character on the particular occasion being litigated.

If the evidence is legitimately being offered for a different purpose, then Rules a and b do not bar the evidence. When litigation occurs under Evidence Rule b 1 , the dispute most often arises because the proponent of the evidence asserts that they are not offering the evidence for the prohibited purpose of establishing character, but instead for some other case-specific, non-character purpose such as the ones listed in the second sentence of the rule.

Smithart v. If the primary relevance of the proposed evidence rested on the assertion that people who admire murderous villains can be expected to act like those villains if given the opportunity, then the evidence should have been excluded under Evidence Rules a - b. On the other hand, if the proposed evidence had a significant, case-specific relevance other than using Linehan's purported character as circumstantial evidence of her actions, then the evidence would not be barred by Rules a - b , and the trial judge would then be obliged to weigh the probative value of the evidence against its potential for unfair prejudice under Evidence Rule The parties have alerted us to several court decisions dealing with the question of whether evidence of a defendant's admiration for the protagonist of a movie, or the defendant's obsession with a movie, should be admissible when the defendant is prosecuted for committing a crime similar to the criminal acts portrayed in the movie.

Conceivably, a defendant's admiration for the protagonist of a movie might be probative of the defendant's plan or intent to commit acts similar to those committed by the protagonist.

But many law-abiding people are drawn to characters in literature or in the cinema who are villainous or roguish-even though they would not dream of engaging in the same crimes or misdeeds. Moreover, even if a defendant's statement of admiration for a villain really did manifest the defendant's true character, evidence of the defendant's statement would be barred by Evidence Rules a and b 1 if the evidence had no genuine purpose other than to establish, circumstantially, that the defendant probably acted true to character on some occasion.

For these reasons, courts require the government to show a particularly close nexus between the protagonist or the plot of a movie and the defendant's charged criminal acts before this type of evidence will be admitted. Thus, in Oree v. State, S. In Rushin v. In Beasley v. And in Jones v. State, N. In the present case, the trial judge made two rulings on this issue.

In other words, the judge found that this evidence tended to show that Linehan conspired with Carlin, or that she manipulated Carlin, to accomplish the murder. But after the trial judge heard Aspiotis's testimony, and after the judge had a chance to personally view the movie and to review the cases in this area, the judge essentially changed his mind.

This ruling, of course, gave rise to another significant issue: what to do about the testimony that Aspiotis had already given? As we explained previously, the trial judge decided to let Aspiotis's testimony stand, but to curtail the State from introducing any other evidence about the movie:.

Instead, it was misleading. Aspiotis described the actions of the movie's protagonist this way:. This description makes the plot of the movie sound like the State's view of Linehan's case-a murder that was plotted to obtain life insurance benefits.

This is a misleading portrayal of the movie. In other words, evidence of Linehan's statements about this movie should not have been admitted in the first place-and the jury heard an account of the movie that was misleadingly favorable to the State's case.

These errors should not be repeated at any retrial. Before Linehan's trial began, the parties litigated the question of whether the State should be allowed to introduce testimony that Linehan worked as an exotic dancer. The prosecutor argued that Linehan's work as an exotic dancer was relevant because that was how she became acquainted with Leppink, Carlin, and Hilke. Finally, the defense attorney contended that, despite the State's protestations, the State did want to rely on the fact that Linehan worked as an exotic dancer to prove her character-specifically, to prove that she was skilled at manipulating men for her own ends.

The trial judge concluded that the State should be allowed to refer to the fact that Linehan worked as an exotic dancer:. Linehan's employment. The jury would have a far better understanding of the relationships between the various people who were living with Ms.

Linehan at the time, and competing for her affections, by understanding how they met, [and] the context of how they met her. The fact that she was a performer enables [the jury] to understand how and why she related to the various people [in this case], including Mr.

Carlin, [and his son], and Mr. And I think that it is one of those things that is necessary for the jury to have a complete understanding of the case-and, indeed, how and why the crime may [have] occurred here. Linehan [was] an aider and abetter, or manipulated others into committing the crime here. I think [the jurors will] have a better understanding of how that could have happened by understanding what her employment was at the time. This ruling has two components.

The trial judge first concluded that Linehan's employment as an exotic dancer was relevant to explain her relationships with the various men involved in this case, and to explain the men's relationships with each other. Second, the trial judge concluded that Linehan's employment as an exotic dancer was relevant to explaining her conduct in this case and her influence over the men. The first portion of this ruling is the kind of decision that was properly within the trial judge's discretion.

However, the second portion of the trial judge's ruling poses difficult questions. In this second portion of the ruling, the trial judge found that Linehan's employment was relevant because it demonstrated that she was likely a skilled manipulator. Under this reasoning, the trial judge was essentially approving the use of Linehan's profession as character evidence. E-mails which, according to Branchflower, prove that Carlin in particular would have done a lot more for Mechele than just write the Hope note.

Anything including murder, Branchflower says. No answer from Carlin to Mechele was ever found, but for Branchflower the Seychelles e-mail helped clinch the case. But the defense stresses that most of the e-mails are ambiguous, or even make Carlin's case for him by showing that he and Kent were close. But the defense is about to run up against a potentially devastating witness, Carlin's son, who reluctantly drops his bombshell on the jury, and on his dad.

He describes in court seeing the pistol in the sink. I felt like I was betraying myself," Carlin's son admits. So much so, that he went to visit his father in jail just a few days later.

We're hoping he walks out the door and onto a plane by the end of the month. After a decade, the woman he'd hoped to marry, Michele Linehan - and another of her admirers, John Carlin - were charged with Leppink's murder.

Carlin's trial was first. Prosecutor Pat Gullefsen singled him out as the shooter, manipulated by Linehan into killing Kent for the insurance. With Mechele out of town, he says Carlin took Kent to Hope. Turns around, falls down, gets it in the stomach and gets it in the face," says Gullufsen.

That is not at all how the defense sees things. If Carlin later helped wash a gun, his lawyer says he was just cleaning another of Mechele's messes. But will the jury agree? After almost four days, jurors reached a verdict, finding John Carlin guilty as charged of first degree murder. At sentencing, he gets the maximum of 99 years in prison, not even eligible for parole until Back in Olympia, Mechele's friends are struggling to accept that the churchgoing PTA mom, entrepreneur and devoted wife they know, had such a colorful past.

Her husband Colin says he knew all about her past as a stripper. And it was something that I could definitely respect. She had absolutely no intention of doing that the rest of her life," he says. As for all those boyfriends, Colin says, "I didn't really ask any probing questions. I mean, I understood that she had relationships with all three of them at one point in time. Mechele says while all three men - Kent Leppink, Carlin, and Hilke - may have thought she wanted to marry them, she says the only person she agreed to marry was Scott Hilke.

And none of this, she says, was because she casts some spell on men or somehow manipulates them. Mechele says she never asked the men in her life for more than they already wanted to give. Her lawyers insisted on ground rules for the "48 Hours" interview - no discussion of specific trial evidence, like the e-mails, the life insurance and Kent's letters home. Mechele says Carlin did ask her to get married but that she said no.

But prosecutors say a message to Kent suggests he had every reason to think he was very much in the picture. We should get married within the next month. We should just do it and start our life. They were all infatuated, but she says she truly loved only Hilke. Carlin, she says, was like a big brother, and Kent became a bother. He'd been obsessively collecting information about her, including her Social Security number, credit cards, and phone bills.

He was even reading her e-mails, and tracking her every move. Asked if she was afraid of him, Mechele says, "I think I had become afraid of him toward that time. She only pretended to be "engaged" to get Kent off the hook with his parents, she says, because "TT" as Kent was called, was hiding a painful secret. I think he wanted to have a life that was thought to be normal," she says. Kent's mother insisted they wouldn't have cared for a second but that, in fact, Kent was not gay.

But Mechele's lawyer, Kevin Fitzgerald, says his behavior kept everyone guessing about a lot. I mean a very odd guy. And frankly, I think in the period of April I don't think he was well, mentally," he says. Fitzgerald says Kent's mental state explains much of the evidence, including those eerie letters home.

I mean that would be nuts! The same goes for the "Hope note" about that non- existent cabin. He says the setup was all John Carlin Senior's idea to get rid of a rival. But surprisingly, Mechele herself lets Carlin off the hook. You can call her a psychopath. You can call her a sociopath. But the bottom line is, that's not who she is," her husband Colin says.

Who she really is will be at the heart of her upcoming trial. Everyone at that point agreed John Carlin pulled the trigger. The question is what was her role? If standing trial for first-degree murder has Mechele Linehan even the slightest bit worried, you'd hardly know it. My job was to let the state present their evidence. I know I didn't mastermind this slaying," she says.

Another jury already had convicted Carlin of actually pulling the trigger. Now prosecutor Pat Gullufsen must convince this jury that Mechele was the mastermind -- the brains behind the crime. All she needed was somebody to do the dirty work, somebody to pull the trigger," Gullufsen told the court.

And if he can prove that, then, under Alaska law, Mechele will be just as guilty of murder as if she'd fired the fatal shot herself. Gullufsen feels that this is a very strong case. It's also very similar to the case against Carlin -- so similar in fact, that prosecutors will be calling many of the same witnesses. The evidence will be much the same too: the life insurance, the Hope note, the Seychelles e-mail and the washing of the gun.

Defense attorneys Wayne Fricke and Kevin Fitzgerald worry that Mechele's past will get in the way of the jury seeing what they say is the real Mechele today - a well-educated wife of a doctor, a home and business owner, and no longer that stripper that was so good at get men to do her bidding.

To keep the focus on Mechele's past, Gullufsen calls another former exotic dancer, a friend from 11 years ago, Lora Aspiotis. Remarkably, she produces a diary, in which she wrote down who watched what movie, and when, although her memory's a bit hazy. In court, Aspiotis can't find reference in the diary to the one movie she swears was Mechele's favorite, the thriller "The Last Seduction," starring Linda Fiorentino. Fiorentino plays a femme fatale who persuades her lover to kill her husband for money and for their future.

Asked what her reaction was to the movie, Aspiotis tells Gullfson, " She told me that that was her heroine and that she wanted to be just like her. In the movie, the husband is murdered, the lover goes to jail, while the femme fatale coolly walks away with a pile of cash. And, even though Aspiotis' diary doesn't prove Mechele liked or even saw this movie, Gullufsen wants the jury to see it now. By the time the judge rules against him, the jury knows all about the movie, and the prosecution moves on to its star witness, Carlin's son, again, with his startling story of seeing his father and Mechele washing a gun.

But the damaging story seems a little less so when the defense points out that before his grand jury testimony Carlin's son twice had told police his father was alone when washing a gun.

I remember seeing Miss Hughes standing at the doorway and my father in the bathroom with a firearm in the sink in a clear liquid,"the younger Carlin testifies. I think he's afraid of hurting me. He saw what had happened to his dad, and I think that it put him in a really bad position," says Mechele. But the damaging story seems a little less so when the defense points out that before his grand jury testimony, Carlin's son twice had told police his father was alone when washing the gun.

Mechele made a call to the insurance company in the days before Kent died. Was that innocent or very calculated? Gullufsen has another theory. And what about her reaction when police told her about Kent's death?

Was she really as upset as it sounds on tape? State Trooper Dallas Massie, who interviewed Mechele that day, testifies, "I've done a lot of death notification and it just seemed to me it lacked a bit of sincerity.

If I smiled, it made me bad, and if I cried, I was guilty or I feel like no matter what I did, it wasn't right, " Mechele explains. So the defense instead calls the one person here who might know Mechele well enough make the difference: her husband Colin. Asked what it was like to testify, Colin Linehan tells Spencer, "It's horrible.

Nerve shattering, anxiety-provoking, nightmare. You know, their son is dead. You can't take back that. I have nothing but sympathy for them. It kills me that in their hearts that they think Mechele had anything to do with that, because I know from the bottom of my heart and soul that she did not. Together, Kent and Betsy Leppink have coped with the loss of their son for years.

They believe Mechele was the mastermind behind his death. Isn't it? The problem is you're going to write the ending. She isn't," he tells jurors.

That's the package that the state has presented," he tells jurors. For nearly five weeks, the jury struggled with the central question of Mechele Linehan's tangled past. Is she just a suburban mom with a heart of gold, or a conniving ex stripper with a heart of stone?

It takes the jurors just two days to decide. Their verdict: guilty of murder in the first degree, as charged in the indictment. Asked if she was able to accept the verdict, Mechele says in tears, "I don't know that I -- could really accept it. You know, I think I-- I did the best I could.

For Kent's family, the whole experience has been bittersweet. They both subsequently filed an appeal against their verdict, maintaining their innocence. His estate, though, was allowed to continue the process. Therefore, today, Mechele Linehan, who had married Dr. Kriti Mehrotra. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reddit Email.