The stripper and the steelworker

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - One by one, they came here to Alaska, each for his -- or her -- own reason. 

Its wildness is part of what called them. That, and getting away from what had come before. Good place for that; many locals still refer to the rest of the country, way down there, as "The States".  

John Carlin IV: There was something neat about Alaska. Something about it that just felt neat.

And one by lonely one, coincidence brought them together here in Anchorage, where they lived and desired and schemed through what would become the most significant few months of their lives.

Oh, and before long, one of them would be dead.

And suspicion would fall on the others. Was one of them the murderer?  Or more than one?

There was John Carlin the Third, a former steelworker from New Jersey who brought his dying wife and teenage son, John Carlin the Fourth, here on vacation and then stayed.

John Carlin IV: It certainly wasn't an easy situation by any stretch of the imagination.

There was Scott Hilke, a traveling salesman from California. Perhaps the most mature of the bunch. 

Also, Kent Leppink, a lonely fisherman who was making a fresh start after leaving the family business in Michigan.

Ken Leppink: I think he found his niche in Alaska.

And in the middle of the whole tangled mess, Mechele Hughes, a young and captivating beauty from New Orleans.

Honi Martin: She was very much a homebody. Just a really down-to-earth, good person.

Mechele Hughes came here to Alaska on little more than a whim, really. It was a trip with a friend. But once here she discovered the possibilities of making some real money, of paying for the college education that up until then she was unable to afford. She could save all the money she needed, she realized. To friends and family she could still be Mechele. But in this new job, she'd be "Bobbi Jo."

Now before you get the wrong idea about a young woman who decides to work at a - what do they call it? Gentleman’s club? - You should realize, says Mechele's friend Honi Martin, that this is sometimes the only available way for good people to get a start in life. It was the mid-'90s. Mechele was just 21.

Honi Martin: She went to work to dance, to put money away -- to do something with her life. She wanted to work with children. She had a gift when it came to animals. 

Mechele danced at a place called The Great Alaskan Bush Company in Anchorage. A favorite haunt of businessmen, fishermen, oil field men on R-and-R.

Honi was dancing there too, and just when she met Mechele. She was in dire need of a place to live.

Honi Martin: She's like, "Well, I have a spare bedroom, you can live with me." You know? It's like, "OK." And she didn't even know me.

By all accounts, Mechele's plan was paying off. Often, she was earning more than a thousand dollars a night, had soon bought a home in the suburbs. She was so good at what she did that some of her customers would pay her just to sit and talk.

Honi Martin: She could talk about the weather and make it sound good. And she remembered people's names. And that would make the person feel special. Like, "She remembered something about me. And so I must be special."

She loved to care for strays, said Honi, animals - or humans - in need of friendship. If Mechele had a fault, said Honi, it was a surprising degree of naïveté. 

Honi Martin: I worried that she didn't look at people as potentially dangerous.

Keith Morrison, Dateline NBC: She trusted people.

Honi Martin: Yeah, she was very trusting. And that scared me.

Still, the men showered her: furs, jewelry, trips, cash.

Honi Martin: They're as much to blame. You're not gonna just say, "Oh my gosh, you know how much money you've spent on me? You really gotta stop it." You know? (laughs) You're taking your clothes off. You're there to make money. It's like you do not want to go home with the same amount of money you would make as a waitress.

Mechele was sufficiently endearing that three of her clients not only spent lavishly for her attention, they had apparently fallen in love with her.

It was that traveling salesman Scott Hilke who fell first, and she, apparently with him. Though he was 17 years older than she. 

Honi Martin: I just thought he was just too old for her. And you know, eventually she'd find the right person. He just didn't seem to be the right person.

Back at the beginning, it was during those first incautious days back in 1994. Mechele agreed to marry Scott. An official engagement.

Honi Martin: We even went to Natchez, Mississippi to look at a place for a wedding to be held.

And just a month after Mechele met Scott, in walked the fisherman, Kent Leppink.

Honi Martin: I think he was a very shy man.

Kent had come to Alaska to give himself a new start.

And one fine evening, soon to be many evenings at the Great Alaskan Bush Company, shy though he was, Kent found himself enjoying the company of the delightful Mechele. He'd spend hundreds of dollars just to keep her nearby.

Honi Martin: He probably considered himself very fortunate to be able to have a friend like that.

Kent knew about Scott, of course. That relationship would have been obvious.

Not least because Kent, apparently at Mechele's invitation, started hanging around her house, even slept on the couch some nights, while Scott shared Mechele's bed.

Honi moved out, left Alaska, and Kent moved in.

Oh, but it got even more crowded.

John Carlin III, the former steelworker. He'd recently come into some money -- a settlement in a lawsuit over lead poisoning. His son, John Carlin IV, was just 16 then.

John Carlin IV: My mother had just died. My father most likely was very lonely, probably very depressed. Hanging out with Mechele, associating with Mechele, a beautiful young lady, it made him feel good. What's wrong with that?

Oh, perhaps nothing at all.

Just three lonely men and a babe.

It was a bizarre relationship that was about to go very sour.

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