Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip Volland has dismissed the grand jury's indictment of murder against Mechele Linehan, the former exotic dancer who was charged in 2006 with conspiring to murdering her fiance 10 years earlier.
A jury found Linehan guilty of murder in 2007, but the Alaska Court of Appeals overturned the conviction last year, leaving it up to the state to decide whether or not to retry her case.
The judge took the action Tuesday because the grand jury that had initially indicted her had been given evidence that was later ruled to be inadmissible, because it was hearsay.
"The State should not present hearsay evidence to the grand jury 'absent compelling justification for its introduction,'" Volland wrote in his decision. "The State has not argued that there was a compelling justification for its introduction, and this court finds none."
The state could have decided to bring Linehan's case back to the grand jury. A status hearing is set for Jan. 17. The prosecutor, Paul Miovas, said that his office is still "assessing all the options."
One piece of evidence that an appeals court ruled should not have been presented in trial was a letter from her alleged victim, Kent Leppink, that was written to his mother. The letter said that Lineham and others were after him, and that if something were to happen to him, "Take Mechele down. Make sure she is prosecuted," Leppink wrote in 1996, shortly before he was killed.
Parts of the letter were also presented to the grand jury, through Leppink's mother Betsy Leppink. It was that testimony to the grand jury, Volland wrote, that was "likely the decisive factor in the grand jury's decision to indict."
In arguing against the motion to dismiss, Miovas had earlier wrote that the letter was just one piece of evidence that the grand jury was given. The rest of the evidence presented offered "sufficient evidence" to sustain an indictment.
Linehan's lawyer, Cynthia Strout, said that the letter was a large part of the state's case. She doesn't know what the state will ultimately decide, but for now it feels to her and Linehan that it's a "step toward justice."
Leppink, the victim, was 36-year-old's old when he died. He was found shot to death in Hope in 1996. Linehan and Linehan's other fiance, John Carlin, were arrested on murder charges in 2006. Both were convicted in separate trials in Anchorage, and both to 99 years in prison. Carlin was beaten to death while in prison in 2008.
That killing was another tragic twist in a story that captured the country's attention, in part because of Linehan's former profession, and because the new life she created for herself after she left Alaska, end ended up in Washington state. She went on to marry a doctor, have children, bake cookies for her church, and even earn a master's degree in public administration.
Here's a Dateline NBC segment on Linehan's ordeal:
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Contact Amanda Coyne at Amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com