Linehan sentenced to 99 years in prison

In imposing the maximum sentence possible, state Superior Court Judge Philip Volland called the 1996 murder of fisherman Kent Leppink a "heinous crime."There are two Linehans, one that people are clearly charmed by and the other that is manipulative and greedy, Volland said. The murder of Leppink by his friend and fiancee, two people with whom Leppink could expect a trusting relationship, "elevates this crime to the worst case of first-degree murder."

Linehan, now 35, was convicted in October of the 1996 crime. It was a murder case that languished with the Alaska State Troopers for a decade before Linehan and a former boyfriend, John Carlin III, were arrested in 2006. Prosecutors say she conspired with Carlin to dupe victim Kent Leppink into believing she loved him, took out a life insurance policy on him and then had Carlin kill him.

Carlin was sentenced in January to 99 years for allegedly firing the handgun that killed Leppink.

Both Linehan and Carlin say they are innocent.

Linehan pleaded with Volland for leniency in his sentence. Her lawyers asked for a sentence of just five years.

She said she does not "fit the narrative, nor have I ever fit the narrative of the prosecution."

More than a decade ago she worked as a dancer at the Great Alaskan Bush Co. and made "poor choices." She met Leppink and Carlin there.

"I beg you from the bottom of my heart to allow me to go back to my family," Linehan told Volland.

Linehan says Leppink was a client of hers at the Bush Company whom she befriended. He became obsessed with her, though, and fabricated a relationship in his head. He lied to his friends and family about them, she says. She says it was his idea to take out the life insurance but both of them tried to cancel it days before his death.

She says she doesn't know who killed Leppink.

At the time of his death, Leppink was financially broke, obsessed with Linehan and had lost a considerable amount of weight, his family has said.

In the end, Leppink changed the beneficiary of his life insurance policy to his family, to whom he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. They got the money.

At Carlin's sentencing, he said he wondered if Leppink didn't orchestrate his own murder, then blame the people around him whom he wanted to punish. Carlin questioned whether it was a last act of revenge against the woman who rejected him - and who rejected Carlin himself, he said, even as he protected Linehan from Leppink by lying about her whereabouts.

In the decade after Leppink's death, Linehan went on to marry a physician, have a daughter, earn a master's degree in public administration and open a cosmetic laser treatment center in Olympia.