Deadly Angel

An astonishing true story of bizarre love and lethal obsession in America's last frontier.

Mechele Hughes came to Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 4200), looking for a new life and easy money. As an exotic dancer at the Great Alaskan Bush Company in nearby Anchorage, she was soon earning thousands a night—and getting expensive gifts from admiring male clients. Three in particular fell under her spell. Each claimed to be engaged to her . . . and they all lived with her together in the same house. But in May 1996, the bullet-ridden body of Kent "T.T." Leppink, a local fisherman and one of her fiancés, was discovered in a wooded area ninety miles away—possibly slain by suitor number two, John Carlin III, at the stripper's urging.

Ten years would elapse before the arrests and trials of Mechele Hughes Linehan and John Carlin III. Was the real Mechele a murderess, a ruthless sexual manipulator as the prosecution claimed, killing for insurance money—or the loving wife and mother she had since become, dedicated to children, animals, and charitable causes?

Fred Rosen's book The Historical Atlas of American Crime, published by Facts On File, won the 2005 Library Journal Best Reference Source Award. Mr. Rosen is the author of many true crime books, including Lobster Boy, Did They Really Do It?, There But For the Grace of God, and When Satan Wore A Cross.