"Hope Note"

Here is a quick post on the “Hope Note” fallacy. This note was written by John Carlin III, and he told Mechele to write on it to throw Mr. Kent Leppink off of Mechele’s trail. This was because he was stalking her at the time, as is demonstrated by the discovery and evidence. Mr. Carlin and Mr. Leppink were both spotted in Hope after the letter was written and before the murder, at different times. This was testified to in the trial.

But here is the rub: In an email dated 4/27/1996, Mechele tells John Carlin III to tell Mr. Leppink the she “flew to barrow i will be back when ever”. She then goes on to tell Mr. Carlin that “if you see him tell him bret got hurt and i went to take care of the girls”. Bret is Bret Riddell, who, again, in the trial contradicted his previous statements. Mr. Riddell deserves an entire post all to himself, but I digress. Mechele was not in Alaska at the time she wrote this, and when she returned, Mr. Leppink had been murdered.

On 4/28/1996, Mechele, while still away from Alaska, writes to Mr. Carlin, “WELL, I HAVE TO SAY I AM WONDERING WHAT DID HE SAY WHEN YOU SAID I WAS 2 ½ HOURS AWAY”. Mr. Riddell testified that the flight to Barrow to Anchorage was 2.5 hours total transit time. So what does this say about the “Hope Note”? She was covering her tracks on the email? OK… but it is this very same email where she casually mentions that you can buy a citizenship is the Seychelles for ten million dollars.

So, what is it? This criminal mastermind was using the “Hope Note” to lure Mr. Leppink to his death and covering her tracks in an email with the statement to tell Mr. Leppink that she was in Barrow? Then what about the Seychelles reference? You can’t have both, although both references were used by the prosecution. In fact, both references were cited by some of the jurors. Apparently they didn’t pay too much attention to the evidence. I challenge anyone on the jury or on the prosecution team to answer this conundrum.

I am not holding my breath. This is the same jury where one member expressed that she was “surprised” that they took Mechele to prison after their verdict (head slap here).