Disclaimer: My inclusion of links doesn't mean I've judged those site to be impartial or anything, I'm just letting you know they exist. FWIW.
Find more information here:
MSNBC article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25876168/ns/dateline_nbc-crime_reports//
Anhorage Daily News' website:
http://www.adn.com/linehan/
Basic story goes something like this, from the best of my memory from reading/watching everything available to me regarding this case:
So, early 90's, Mechele Hughes of Louisiana, in her late teens, moves away from home and eventually lands in Alaska. Gets a job dancing at the...wait for it....Great Alaskan Bush Company strip club. By all accounts she's beautiful, charming, knows how to work it, and makes lots of money. At some point, while working there, she meets three guys, customers, whom she spends time with outside of the club. These men don't know each other previous to this...they all end up meeting each other through her.
The men are:
- John Carlin III, a widower who lives with his teenage son, John Carlin IV
- Scott Hilke: I want to say he was some sort of salesman...not sure, but he traveled for work it seems.
- Kent Leppink, nickname of "TT": former taxidermist turned fisherman; from most accounts had somewhat of a troubled past.
So it's all kind of squirrely here, but it seems like she was basically stringing them all along, because by most accounts, all three men asked her to marry them, and she said yes to all of them. I have no idea how she knew which engagement rings to wear when...sounds very confusing. Her and Kent get life insurance policies and name each other as beneficiaries. This was accounted for as some sort of beginning business or something, I'm not sure because I don't think that's ever really been explained. Anyway, making it even more confusing is their living arrangements--she and Kent lived in her house, but then she was getting home repairs done, so she and Kent moved in with the John Carlins. Sounds like Scott was around a lot, staying there, but I'm not sure if he was a permanent resident.
So life goes on...Mechele, Kent, Scott, John Carlin III, and the teenage John Carlin IV...all living together...Kent is in love with Mechele, Scott is in love with Mechele, John Carlin III is in love with Mechele, I'm pretty dang sure that Mechele is in love with Mechele. Heck, a teenage boy living with a stripper...John Carlin IV was probably in love with her, too (my own conjecture).
Who was Mechele in love with (besides herself)?
Good question.
So, it's Spring of 1996. It appears Kent is all excited about getting married and his dad visits him in Alaska. Kent's made all these plans to hang out with his dad and his fiance. But Mechele is AWOL. Wth? She knows his dad's coming...where'd she go? She remains AWOL while his dad is there, and dad leaves wondering what the deal is with his supposed future daughter-in-law. Kent finds a piece of paper. It's a note! The top half of the note is a print-out of an email or fax or something. It is from John Carlin III telling Mechele that her new cabin outside of Hope, Alaska is ready, he's so glad he bought it for her, and he hopes she [and Scott] have a great little getaway for the weekend. The bottom half of the note is a handwritten response from Mechele thanking him and reminding him not to tell anyone where she is.
See the note here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877809/
Kent's parents get a letter from Kent. It may or may not have also included Mechele's passport and/or ID, which may or may not have been stolen by Kent. For sure, there was a letter inside the letter. Kent wrote that if he was found dead in the near future, open the other letter.
A few days later, Kent is found dead. Shot three times. Guess where he was? Outside Hope, Alaska! Where was Mechele? Not in a cabin outside Hope, Alaska, but in Lake Tahoe with Scott! Hmm...so who was at the cabin outside Hope, Alaska? Nobody! There was no cabin outside Hope, Alaska! That's right, no cabin. Interesting.
Mechele says Kent wasn't really engaged to her, but it was a ruse because he was gay or bisexual or something. However, she also says that he was obsessed with her. So obsessed with her that she thought he was going to follow her to Lake Tahoe, and that's why it was necessary to write the note about the fake cabin.
Kent's parents open the other letter, and it basically says if I'm dead look at Scott, John III, or Mechele, and take her down.
Read parts of that letter here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877834/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877835/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877836/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877833/
The cops have their suspicions, but can't pin anything on anybody. Mechele and John Carlin IV load up her motorhome and head on down to Louisiana. Why her and the teenager? I have no idea. John Carlin III sells his house and comes soon after, and it sounds like the John Carlins go to...New Jersey (?) and Mechele goes to college and marries an army doctor, whom she's still married to today and they have a daughter. Oh, and at her trial it came out that she and her daughter flew to see Scott while her husband was in Iraq. Mechele and army doctor and daughter settle in Olympia, Washington, where they buy an old house and are happy.
Years go by. Alaska gets a new cold case team. They realize that John Carlin IV is an adult now and his father can't keep the cops from talking to him any more. So they interview him and he says he remembers seeing his dad and Mechele standing over the bathroom sink which contained a gun and clear liquid, which smelled like bleach. They can't find the gun, but they are able to track down the guy who sold John Carlin III the gun (!) through the newspaper ad he'd taken out to sell the gun in the first place.
There's also a laptop, which, IMHO says A LOT about this case. Kent had a laptop, which Mechele shipped to her sister soon after the murder. She asked her sister to erase everything off of the computer. Apparantly, on the way from Alaska to Louisiana with John Carlin IV, Mechele stopped to see her sister in Utah. Her sister told her she had not erased everything off of the computer, and Mechele was quite displeased. While the sister testified at Carlin's trial, she hid in Europe during Mechele's trial. Read more about the laptop here, in an Anchorage Daily News article:
http://www.adn.com/2007/03/24/117435/stripper-asked-sister-to-wipe.html
John Carlin III and Mechele get arrested and tried. He is found guilty and sent to prison. She is found guilty and sent to prison. He is found dead in his cell. Beaten to death, apparently. Mechele, as we all know, recently won an appeal, and will be getting a retrial.
Mechele's friends and family have a blog about her and the quest to get her out of prison. For more interesting (imho) reading, here's an old email from Mechele to her mom:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25877752/
I'm done for now. If only I spent as much time on my schoolwork :blushing: :angel: