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The Associated Press

The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE -- The elderly parents of Kent Leppink spent most of Friday listening to witnesses extoll the character of former stripper Mechele Linehan, then took their turn to recommend the maximum sentence for the woman convicted of plotting to kill their son.

"The life of our son meant little or nothing to Mechele Linehan," said Kenneth Leppink, a retired Michigan grocer.

"We've had 12 Christmas Days without Kent's chair at our table," said Betsy Leppink. "Twelve seasons of listening to Christmas songs like, 'I'll be home for Christmas,' knowing very well that Kent will never share another holiday with us."

The couple called for Linehan to serve 99 years without chance for parole.

"Mechele Linehan is an evil lady who continues to do deeds of deception and manipulation," Betsy Leppink said. "I fear for her next victim if she's ever permitted to enter society again."

The question of Linehan's fate will be delayed until Wednesday because witnesses Friday took longer than expected discussing her character.

The woman who left Alaska to earn college degrees, marry and have a child had been living a quiet life as the wife of an Olympia, Wash., doctor when she was charged with the murder of her former fiance, Kent Leppink, 36, in 1996.

The commercial fisherman was shot to death with a large caliber handgun at close range on a trail outside the tiny mining community of Hope about 70 road miles south of Anchorage.

Linehan was convicted in October of conspiring with another man who hoped to marry her, John Carlin III, to lure Leppink to the trail.

Carlin also was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced in January to 99 years in prison for firing the shots that killed Leppink.

In Linehan's monthlong trial, prosecutors claimed the former dancer tried to follow the plot of a 1994 movie, "The Last Seduction," in which a woman coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money.

Prosecutors contend Linehan's motive was financial. They argued that she was hoping to claim Leppink's million-dollar insurance policy, which he changed a few days before his death to name his parents as beneficiaries.

Linehan's husband, Dr. Colin Linehan, continued to defend his wife's innocence.

In an emotional statement, he told the Leppinks his prayers were with them, but that he also has a daughter who misses her mother.

The woman he married is not a manipulative monster, a figment he said was created by the media from information fed by police and prosecutors.

"Mechele's character ... has been reduced to a stereotype in a cartoon to fit a narrative that was full of lies, half-truths, conjecture and speculation," he said.

After her arrest, a media hailstorm descended on the family and likely influenced the fate of his wife, he said.

"I am convinced that the narrative out of the courtroom has made it's way inside the courtroom," he said.

Colin Linehan and a former Great Alaskan Bush Co. dancer, Honi Martin, who knew Mechele Linehan in 1995, recounted Mechele Linehan's love for animals, her generosity with needy people and her devotion to volunteer work.

Superior Court Judge Philip Volland also heard from the forensic psychiatrist Colin Linehan hired at a cost of $35,000 for a psychiatric evaluation of his wife.

Dr. Mark Mills concluded from tests and an examination that Mechele Linehan had a problem with authority but was neither a sociopath or a psychopath.

"Her mental state is unlikely to be that of somebody who schemed or planned the murder of anyone," he said.

Prosecutor Pat Gullufsen has asked Volland to impose the maximum sentence of 99 years.

Defense attorney Kevin Fitzgerald is pushing for the case to be sent to a three-judge panel with the power to reduce the minimum prescribed sentence of 20 years, though it's unclear whether state law even allows it.

Gullufsen and Fitzgerald will make sentencing arguments Wednesday. Mechele Linehan also will have a chance to speak before Judge Volland pronounces sentence.