Man convicted of killing Leppink disputes testimony

Throughout the three-week murder trial of Mechele Linehan, the cast of characters included two men who never appeared in the courtroom even though their names came up as much as the defendant's.

One was the murder victim, Kent Leppink.

The other was John Carlin, who has been watching and reading about the trial from the Anchorage jail.

Carlin, convicted in April of first-degree murder, is the man who both the prosecution and defense say shot Leppink in May 1996. Prosecutors say he did it because Linehan asked him to. Defense lawyers say he acted on his own because he was obsessed with the former exotic dancer.

After Linehan's decision this week not to testify, the state's case against her went to jurors on Wednesday.

Carlin has insights into the events described in the Linehan trial and the characters who populate the drama. In the weeks before the murder, Linehan was a guest in Carlin's South Anchorage house. Leppink was, too. On occasion, so was Scott Hilke, the person everyone says was Linehan's true boyfriend.

Carlin has never spoken publicly about the state's case against him and Linehan. During four wide-ranging interviews over the past several weeks from the jail and others over the phone, the 50-year-old former steelworker from New Jersey maintained his innocence. He also spoke at length about Linehan, his relationship to her, Leppink's relationship to her as he saw it, and what it was like to live in the house they all shared. Carlin's version of what happened supports some of what Linehan's lawyers and the prosecution have said. But it also disputes much of it.

Here are excerpts from the interviews. Alaska State Troopers and the prosecution declined to comment for this story.

MEETING MECHELE LINEHAN

Carlin was recently widowed and had temporarily relocated to Alaska from New Jersey. He had just won a $1.2 million lawsuit when he met Linehan in the summer of 1995 at the Great Alaskan Bush Company.

She approached him and started talking. In idle conversation, he mentioned he was going on vacation to Amsterdam with a friend, and she said she always wanted to go there. He invited her. To his surprise, she said yes.

Several days later, she invited him to her Wasilla home, where he first met Leppink, nicknamed T.T., and Hilke, Linehan's boyfriend. "T.T. and Scott, when we sat down to play Monopoly, said, 'You have to let Mechele win.' 'Why?' 'You just have to.' Of course, I didn't. I won the Monopoly game and they laughed and said, 'You won't be coming back.' "

Linehan's vivacity charmed him on their trip to Europe. She was also generous with her money, spending thousands on him and his friend. "I thought, 'Wow, what a trusting person. What a good person.' And that really, how should I put this, that impressed me. It really did."

LINEHAN'S ALLURE

"Mechele has a captivating voice for the males, for whatever reason, and a look, too," Carlin said.

At the Bush Company, she was one of the two best looking dancers, he said. She wouldn't really dance, though, she would "roll around the stage," he said. Her real charm was in her talk, her great sense of humor, he said.

Besides him, Leppink and Hilke, other men orbited around Linehan, including a local lawyer, a pilot and a film producer, he said. She was magnetic.

LINEHAN AND LEPPINK

Leppink gave Linehan money, hoping to win her affections. Early on, he proposed to her, Carlin said.

"T.T. wrote on a check, 'Will you marry me?' and I think the diamond ring went into an ice cream sundae. ... Mechele told everybody about the check. Everybody, everybody, knew that T.T. had proposed to Mechele. And, during all that time ... Scott and Mechele are boyfriend, girlfriend. Part of his masochistic ways, T.T. is serving them breakfast in bed on the vacation that he tracks them down on."

T.T. ironed Mechele and Scott's clothes, Carlin said.

"Both her and Scott treated T.T ... like a fool, a jester," Carlin said. "They both would talk about T.T. and say how dumb he was. But T.T. wasn't dumb at all. He had a very high I.Q. I think that's where his masochistic personality would come out, where he would allow himself to be abused by them. ... The errand boy type of stuff."

T.T. believed that she had come around, though, and agreed to marry him. "I think Mechele was just conning him for that $2,300 or whatever it was for the wedding dress, that's what the whole thing was about," Carlin said.

WHO WAS KENT LEPPINK?

Carlin thinks Leppink was troubled about his sexuality -- a theory that has been tossed around in court and in court documents but never substantiated.

"(He was) a homosexual that was very unhappy with being a homosexual. He portrayed very openly a macho-man imagery. But he was very effeminate. Extraordinarily effeminate," Carlin said. "I remember once when Avon man come to the door, he actually ran around Mechele who was walking to the door to get it, and he got two of everything. He sat there and he put lotion on his feet, lotion on his head."

"Part of the problem with the investigation is you have T.T. running around saying things to all his buddies so they think, a heterosexual guy, you know, he loves women. But then you see his e-mails to me where he says, 'I'm a virgin with women.' And, you see a different person coming out. ... Part of the reason they think that he was heterosexual and couldn't be homosexual is that persona he was making up for them."

"If you had to describe T.T., a lot of what people say is quite true. Always had a smile on his face. Happy. Help you out in any way you'd want. Beautiful work ethic that his father instilled in him," he said. "T.T. was a good guy, but he had those crossed wires. I mean there was just one part of his brain short-circuited."

Linehan's lawyers say Carlin killed Leppink because he made gestures toward molesting Carlin's teenage son.

"Never. Never. Never. Never." Carlin said. "T.T. was never a threat to any child, that I can see."

"If I felt that way I would have kicked him out of my house, not killed him."

$1 MILLION LIFE INSURANCE

Prosecutors say Linehan manipulated Carlin into killing Leppink so she could inherit a $1 million life insurance policy that she incorrectly believed named her as beneficiary. Carlin says the prosecution's theory is wrong. He says he knew Linehan would get nothing if Leppink died. He, in fact, drove Leppink to his lawyer's the day Leppink tore up his will. "He wanted me to know ... for me to tell Mechele, so she would call him," Carlin said.

Linehan's lawyers say she tried to cancel the policy before Leppink's death.

"Let's say she was going to get a million dollars because I killed T.T. Where would she be? With Scott with the million dollars. That doesn't get me her," he said, poking again at the prosecution theory he did it to get to Linehan.

Carlin is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 9.