And Carlin acted alone, said Wayne Fricke, Linehan's attorney, in his opening statement.
Fricke described both Carlin and Leppink as obsessed with his client, who, at the time of the murder, was a 23-year-old ex-dancer from the Great Alaskan Bush Company. He said Leppink stalked her.
Carlin also wanted Leppink out of the way so he could get to Linehan, Fricke told the jury.
Fricke said that the state’s key witness, John Carlin IV, Carlin III’s son, has changed his story to police.
In his father’s trial and during grand jury testimony, Carlin IV testified he saw Linehan and his father cleaning a handgun in a bathroom sink with a substance that smelled like bleach shortly after the 1996 murder. But in interviews with police in 2005 and 2006, Fricke said, Carlin IV said only his father was cleaning the gun; Linehan wasn't there.
Linehan is accused of conspiring with Carlin to kill Leppink, a 36-year-old commercial fisherman and her fiance at the time. Carlin was convicted of the murder in April.
Fricke told the nearly all-female jury that his client had nothing to do with the murder, was devastated when she learned Leppink had been killed and cooperated with police until they charged her.
He also said she was never engaged to multiple men at once. She was trying to end her relationship with Leppink at the time of the murder, he said.
Find reporter Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 907-257-4343
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