Son says gun was cleaned

But when his father's defense attorney got her chance, she turned the tables on the now 28-year-old John Carlin IV, saying he could just as easily have been the one to have killed Leppink.

Leppink and both Carlins were among the men wrapped in the web of Anchorage stripper Mechele Linehan, who both sides in the murder trial of John Carlin III say is somehow responsible for Leppink's death.

It took 10 years and a special cold case investigation team with the Alaska State Troopers before charges were filed against Carlin and Linehan in the death of Leppink, a commercial fisherman from a wealthy Michigan family. Leppink was found shot three times off a remote road near Hope in May 1996.

A $1 million life insurance policy that Linehan believed listed her as beneficiary may have been the motive, prosecutors said.

A turning point for investigators occurred when they re-interviewed son John Carlin IV in 2005; he was 17 at the time of the fatal shooting. Then, he described the bathroom scene for the first time.

When the prosecution's key witness walked into court Wednesday morning, he hastily stepped through the room to the witness stand and avoided looking at his father. The father and son, who share a distinct family resemblance, are estranged.

Prosecutor Pat Gullufsen asked him if he was nervous.

"A bit," he said, and stole a glance at his father. He avoided eye contact with the senior Carlin for the remainder of his three hours on the stand.

The son described surprising his father and Linehan in the bathroom . His father was washing a pistol in a sink half full of clear liquid. It smelled like bleach, he said. Linehan was in the bathroom doorway, watching, he said.

He said when they saw him, they seemed surprised. "I don't think they expected me home at that point."

When defense attorney Sidney Billingslea cross-examined the son, she revealed that he was, in fact, a suspect in the slaying until recently.

Trying to poke holes in the prosecution's case, the defense team has said a neighbor witnessed the younger Carlin reach into a rain gutter and retrieve something shortly after the killing.

A high school friend told troopers that after Leppink's slaying, the younger Carlin buried a gun, Billingslea said in court. And troopers applied for search warrants to tap his phone and gain access to his e-mails, even in recent years, the defense lawyer said.

The .44-caliber Desert Eagle handgun that prosecutors say was used in the slaying has never been found.

But defense attorneys did not point to a clear motive of why the younger Carlin would kill Leppink.

During his testimony, Carlin IV described as bizarre the dynamics in the South Anchorage house where he, his father, Leppink and Linehan lived. The younger Carlin said Linehan dated many men.

Both sides have described the former stripper as a femme fatale who controlled the men around her, using them to feed her penchant for luxurious fur coats, jewelry and household items.

Carlin IV said the stripper, who was just a few years older than he was at the time of Leppink's death, was like an older sister to him.

The stripper would come home to the four-bedroom, newly constructed house on Brook Hill Circle from nights of dancing at the Great Alaskan Bush Company and pour wads of cash from purple Crown Royale bags onto tables.

The exotic dancing continued even after Leppink was killed and the two Carlins and Linehan left Alaska, he said. As the younger Carlin and Linehan drove together to New Orleans after the slaying, she danced for a night in Houston when the pair needed cash, he said.

Carlin IV said he never believed Leppink when he said he planned to marry the stripper.

"He followed her like a little puppy," he said. "I think she humored him to a certain extent, and at times, I think she was annoyed."

He also described Leppink as "perverted" and said that on at least one occasion Leppink made sexual gestures that offended him.

Linehan posted $150,000 cash bail and is living at home in Olympia, Wash., waiting for her murder trial in September. The former stripper has changed her lifestyle since leaving Alaska -- she was living a soccer-mom life with her young daughter and physician husband until her arrest in October 2006.

Carlin III was a construction worker, remarried and living in New Jersey, when he was arrested. His son works at a construction and engineering firm in Seattle.

The case has garnered national attention. CBS' "48 Hours" and NBC's "Dateline" have sent teams to cover the trial.

Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com.