But according to prosecutors, they aren't the only people she has fooled.
The 34-year-old Olympia wife and mother faces trial this week in Alaska on charges of first-degree murder. She was a stripper there in the mid-1990s when she allegedly was involved in the killing of Kent John Leppink.
He is one of three former fiances she met while working at the Great American Bush Co. in Anchorage, court papers say.
In October, Linehan was arrested in Olympia and charged in connection with the 1996 shooting death of Leppink.
After leaving Anchorage, Linehan, a high school dropout who at 14 moved from New Orleans to work in New Jersey as a stripper, settled down in Olympia.
She married Colin Linehan, a former civilian doctor at Madigan Army Medical Center who served in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. The couple live in a large, two-story home on Bigelow Street, and own and work at a Tacoma laser clinic.
Linehan previously worked as a temporary employee for the Washington State Executive Ethics Board, serving as an administrative assistant until April 2005, executive director Susan Harris said in an interview last year.
Some in Olympia who know Linehan say they can't believe she is guilty.
Neighbor Debby Saunders, working outside her home on Bigelow Street recently, said: "She's got a family, she's successful in life, so that tells me she's innocent. She's a good, caring mother, she's been a good neighbor, she speaks when she walks by. ... What happened to our system where it's innocent until proven guilty?"
Bob Zeigler, a former coordinator of the social-justice committee at St. Michael Catholic Church in Olympia, said he was struck by Linehan's sincerity and caring when she approached him several years ago to inquire about getting involved with the church's social-justice programs.
"She had called me to find out about what she could do to make a better world," Zeigler said. He added that he couldn't believe the allegations from news accounts that Linehan plotted to kill one of her fiances.
"It seemed from my interaction with her, she seemed totally different from the person that was described in the article," Zeigler said.
Even a Thurston County prosecutor who met Linehan when she was a victim of an embezzlement in her Olympia home said he was struck by her forgiving attitude as he prosecuted the criminal case.
"She was very compassionate, very understanding and very forgiving," said Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mark Thompson, who cautioned that he has no opinion on Linehan's innocence or guilt in the Alaska murder case.
Linehan's Tacoma attorney, Wayne Fricke, said his client is innocent.
"She denies all responsibility in the case," Fricke said. "It was a tragedy for (Leppink) to die, but she shouldn't have to pay for someone else's conduct."
Earlier this year, an Anchorage jury found co-defendant John Carlin III, 50, guilty of first-degree murder in connection with Leppink's shooting death. Carlin was another of Linehan's former fiances in Alaska during the 1990s.
Leppink was found dead near Hope, Alaska, about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, on May 2, 1996. The fisherman was shot with .44-caliber slugs in the back, abdomen and cheek.
Since Linehan's arraignment, she has been out of jail and living in Olympia. Her husband posted her $150,000 bail. She is required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet that monitors her movements. She is allowed to travel only to work and to perform local activities such as picking her daughter up from school, her Anchorage attorney, Kevin Fitzgerald, has said.
One of Carlin's attorneys, Marcy McDannel, said jurors heard ample testimony about how Linehan manipulated men. A fourth boyfriend, in addition to the three fiances, came to light during Carlin's trial, McDannel said.
"She really was pretty extraordinary in terms of what she was getting away with, inserting herself into wills and getting money," McDannel said.
"She just kept them all on the line, so to speak. It was quite the juggling act."
