Attorney General Dan Sullivan says the state will retry Mechele Linehan, the former stripper who was convicted for murdering her ex-finance. That verdict was overturned earlier this month. Linehan was convicted in 2007 of killing Kent Leppink. Prosecutors have claimed she was inspired by watching the 1994 movie “The Last Seduction,” in which a femme fatale coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money. The Alaska Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 5 that the trial judge wrongly allowed that connection to be made. The court also said the judge erred in allowing prosecutors to introduce a letter written by Leppink shortly before he was fatally shot. His letter to his parents asserted that Linehan would probably be responsible if he died suspiciously. The Department of Law says that even without that evidence, they will be able to win a second conviction.
The Associated Press
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