Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Kent Leppink

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

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Hi, Crime Junkies, and happy Crime Junkie Thursday. We only have two more of these before we close out the summer, which means only two more Vault episodes. If you've been enjoying all of the extra Crime Junkie time, click the link in our show notes and use the promo code FREESUMMER to get the rest of August in the fan club for free. And if you can't join right now, that's okay. There are so many free ways to support our show and

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It would mean a lot to me if you left us a five-star review and told others what you love about our show. You can do that while you're listening to this Unlocked Fault episode. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, I got a doozy for you.

Okay. When I started looking. And today, I got a doozy for you. Okay. When I started looking into this case, I kept reading, like, the same summation over and over again. Like, it is this love triangle gone wrong. And like, okay, we've seen that before. Love triangles all too often end in tragedy. But this, this case, calling it a love triangle would be the understatement of the century, because in all of my years of crime junkieing, I have never seen anything like this.

This is the story of the murder of Kent LaPinck. In In early May 1996, Ken and Betsy LaPink are in their Michigan home when they get a call all the way from Alaska. Now, Betsy was probably equal parts hopeful and terrified when she picked up that phone, because just a day or so before, Betsy and her husband had gotten a disturbing letter in the mail from their adult son who lived out in Alaska. When they had opened the envelope, they found two things, a short note and another sealed envelope. Britt, will you read some of the excerpts of the note for us? Sure.

So it says, quote, please put the enclosed envelope in your safe deposit box. Do not open it. I talked to you about, quote, insurance policies. This is mine. If I didn't think that things could get a little rough up here, I wouldn't have sent this to you. It'll be safer there, end quote. And then it goes on to say, quote, it's not funny to talk about getting killed, but in today's world, you have to expect anything. If you think anything fishy has happened to me, then you can open up the other envelope I've sent. End quote. Quote, don't get all nervous and call me on the phone about this." End quote. Okay, at least to me, maybe it's my mom-ness, maybe it's just me being a concerned crime

junkie. If someone says, hey, don't worry about this, but also worry about this, I'm going to freaking call. Open this letter if I'm murdered? Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm calling immediately. And second of all, I'm not waiting to open. I'm opening that letter the second I get there.

Totally. So Betsy kind of had like the same thing. Like, it's don't call me was like out of the window. It's code for call me. Yes, exactly. So she calls him and when she got no answer, she left this panicked voicemail asking Kent, who is her son, to call her right away. This is an emergency.

So now, picking up this phone call from so far away, part of her hope that it was her son Kent, and he would tell her, everything is fine, that weird letter I sent you, like I've just been at my A for a couple of days. Yeah, like just ignore it. I was freaking out, whatever. But a bigger part of her knew it wasn't. And that was confirmed as soon as she realized it was the sheriff's department calling to inform her and her husband that their adult son Kent had been found near Hope, Alaska, murdered. Utility workers had found his body outdoors off an isolated access road. He'd been shot once in the back, once in the stomach,

and once in the face. He had been out there some six to 48 hours before he was found on May 2nd, and authorities were quick to classify it as a homicide since no weapon or no vehicle had been found there at the scene. It was obvious to them that someone else had killed Kent there,

and then his killer got away. Betsy couldn't believe that he really had been in danger. Before they even opened that second letter, that open in case of emergency letter, they had their suspicions about what it might say. They knew Kent had been having problems with his fiance for a while now. Kent had talked to both his parents about their issues, but no one thought it would end in murder. But what they read in that second letter painted a much stranger picture than they ever could have imagined. So these are excerpts pulled from Tom Brennan's book, Dead Man's Dancer, The Michelle Linehan

Story. Quote, Since you are reading this, you assume that I'm dead. It was my time and there's nothing that can change that. There are a few things I'd like you to do for me, though. I hate to be vindictive in my death, but paybacks are hell. Use the information enclosed to take Michelle down. Make sure she is prosecuted.

Fraud. She took me for a lot of money on the impression we were getting married. This may be hard to prove without me present, but give it a shot. It is a Class B felony in Alaska. $15,000 can be proved because you sent it to us. Insurance fraud. Have the IRS auditor turn her in." End quote.

Then Kent goes on to point the finger squarely at the people he thinks are responsible for his murder. Quote, Michelle, John, or Scott were the people or persons that probably killed me. Make sure they get burned. And then the letter ends in a bizarre way. And, Britt, I want you to read this part. Okay. It ends, quote, make sure they get burned. Make sure Michelle goes to jail for a long time, but visit her there. Tell her how much I really did do love her. Tell her you love her and help her. End quote. Okay, I guess I'm confused. I assume Michelle is the fiance you mentioned before. Right, right. But he's saying she probably murdered him. Mm-hmm. Make sure she goes to jail.

Mm-hmm. Make sure she pays. Make sure she burns. Yeah. But tell her I love her. Tell her you love her. And help her? It's weird, right?

I mean, weird is kind of an understatement to me. Like, this doesn't make any sense. And it might not make sense to you and me, but it did make sense to people who knew Kent. His relationship with his fiance, Michelle, was toxic to say the least. And part of the reason it was so toxic concerned two other men, those two names in the letter,

Scott and John. So let me give you a little background on what was going on in Anchorage from like 1994 to 1996 when Kent died. And listen, pay attention because it's messy. So Michelle moved from Louisiana to Alaska to work as an exotic dancer and save money for veterinary school. She worked at this pretty popular spot in Anchorage during the time, and there was like a bit of an economic boom going on there, and the town was drawing in a lot of men for

work. So girls like making some good money, pulling in a thousand to like $3,000 a night by some accounts. But those were just her tips. She was getting a lot more outside of the club from men who were trying to woo her. And while she had different boyfriends outside of work, there were three men in particular who played a prominent role in her life and who all came into her life around the same time in late 1994. The first was a guy named John who had moved to Alaska with his sick wife and teenage son.

Now his wife passed away shortly after the move and John found comfort and companionship in Michelle. He'd been a pretty well-off guy. He was living off this like $1.2 million settlement that he got from a previous employer where he lived in New Jersey after basically he was exposed to lead-based paint and got some kind of settlement. Oh, wow. Now, according to Tom Brennan's book, John used a lot of that settlement money on Michelle.

He gave her money for a down payment on a house. Eventually he gave her like this $11,000 engagement ring, which she accepted. But that's not the only engagement ring she accepted. In October 1994, Michelle meets Kent. Kent was a newish minted fisherman. He'd originally been from the Midwest. There when he lived there, he helped run this family grocery store business, but he was caught embezzling $100,000 from the family.

He's ousted and through a series of connections found himself in Alaska as a fisherman. Now he meets her at the same club, meets Michelle. And after only knowing her for about a month, he proposed in November of 1994. And at this point she had broken off things with John, right? No, she had not. Oh.

Yeah, and she doesn't break things off with either Kent or John when she meets this guy named Scott and accepts his marriage proposal that same month on Thanksgiving. Now, Scott is a traveling salesman who also became infatuated with Michelle, this beautiful woman. And at the time, he was like married to someone

in California, but like the marriage was really on the rocks. They were kind of separated. And when he meets Michelle, at one point, he ends up quitting his job to stay in Alaska with her, basically living off of his savings and his 401k. So though neither John or Kent and Michelle like actually set a wedding date, Michelle and Scott do. They set a wedding date for Thanksgiving 1995, just one year after the proposal. So just to be clear, Michelle is engaged to three men. Yes. At the same time. Yes. Who all met her at work? How is she keeping this a secret from all three men?

Girl, that's the thing. She doesn't even try to keep it a secret. They all know about one another. They all know that they're all engaged to the same person. And that's not even the strangest part. So for a while, Scott was living with Michelle in the house that John helped her by. Oh my god. And during this time, Kent would also kind of live there on and off too.

Like he would sometimes sleep on his fishing boat. But many nights he would stay on Michelle's couch while Michelle and Scott shared her bedroom, shared her bed. And also while he was sharing his fiance with him, I'm so confused. Correct, correct. Oh my God. Now, hang on. Again, girl, this isn't the strange part yet. I'm not even there.

So at some point, Scott is like hanging something up on the wall or trying to hammer in a nail or whatever, whatever. But he notices that the wall is like straight mush. And when they have someone look into it, they discover that the house is overrun with dry rocked. And they bring someone in to inspect it. And this person basically tells Michelle like, this house isn't inhabitable you need some like major repairs no one can live here so John does his favorite thing again John's the one that gave her the down payment and he comes to the rescue he comes to save Michelle in her time of need he invites Michelle to come live with him and his son while he fixes up her house so she can live in it again.

But John knows that Scott and Kent also live there. So he invites all of them to come live with him. You can't see me right now, but like I'm like full like face palm. What is going on? Listen, like let me just take a moment to say that the sheer act of them all living together is not what I think is so unhealthy. Booze, if you are all consenting adults who find joy and fulfillment through cohabitating

with multiple partners, good on you for finding each other and making it work. But these three men and Michelle, this group of four were not, under any circumstances, let me tell you, were not making it work. Yeah, it sounds like it's going to end up like a nature documentary to me. Is it gonna end up with someone murdered? Spoiler, like yes. They all wanted to be Michelle's number one.

They were constantly vying for her attention and affection. And there was this really unhealthy habit of them spying on one another. Mostly John and Kent did the spying with Kent being more aggressive with his tactics. Scott, on the other hand, seemed to be Michelle's genuine favorite. I think he got kind of tired of the messy situation and he actually went back to work and started traveling again. When he did, Michelle would meet up with him every five to six weeks wherever he was for work for his sales job.

They would stay at some fancy hotel or resort and basically have these romantic getaways. This drove Kent up a wall. According to the book, Kent would go through people's emails, like I said, pretty extensively. He would also go through their mail. He would go through their credit card statements. He even found a way to spy on Scott and Michelle while they were having sex in the house, like before Scott moved out. So that was actually something I was kind of wondering. Like you said, obviously all three guys knows that she's engaged to other guys.

But does Kent know that they were being intimate with Michelle? And based on what you said, it kind of sounds like, yeah, for sure. Yes. So this is another weird twist to the story. Kent actually didn't want to have sex with Michelle until they were married. And he actually didn't even want to see her naked or anything until they were married, which again, listen, if you want to save yourself the marriage, cool, but it's really hard for me to understand his mindset. Like how do you- Like reconciling that, yeah.

Yeah, like you want to wait, which is fine, but you're okay with your fiancé having sex with other people before you're married. To me, it just doesn't jive. And from emails that he sent to Michelle that I've seen, it almost seemed like he somehow thought that he knew what was happening. Again, knew she was having sex with other people, but somehow thought it was all just going to stop once they were married. So he knows that they're having sex because he literally spies on them and watches them in the house and he even spies on them when they're not in the house. Like he was so obsessed with

Michelle he would try and track her down when she was with Scott or with other people. Like one time she was visiting Scott in Louisiana where she was from and they were at some resort together like they normally would be when who waltzes in to serve them coffee in bed one morning but Kent. Oh my god. Yeah, not as like a cute like, hey I'm here. I don't know but he like played it off as this kind of this weird aha gotcha moment.

I mean was Michelle pissed? I guess I still cannot wrap my head around this whole arrangement or even like Michelle's feelings about the entire situation, if you will. I can't either. And honestly, I think it's partly because like Michelle was saying different things to different people and like even doing different things, right? She would say one thing, but then do another. So she was definitely annoyed that he showed up, but instead of like sending him packing

or being like, this is inappropriate. You can't, we've got to set boundaries or whatever. Or again, even instead of just getting like pissed and breaking up and calling off the engagement, I guess Michelle was like, hey, since you're here in Louisiana, can you do me this huge favor? I have this car, like where, cause again, she's from there, so it must be like a family

car. Can you just like drive this back to Alaska for me? That would be amazing. So, he does it for her. What? Like, he does it for this, yeah, I don't know. That's like a really long drive too. It's a really long drive.

So for as much as this arrangement seemed to grind Kent, and as much as like Michelle didn't like it, like he's still willing to do anything to win her affection. And she's still willing to like keep him in her life. And he'll do anything to still marry her. So what does Ken's family think about their relationship? Or I guess is he even in contact with them after the whole like family grocery store embezzlement thing? He is. He's actually in contact with them after the whole, like, family grocery store embezzlement thing? He is.

He's actually in contact with most of them, I think all but like one brother at this point. And I think ultimately his family forgave him for all the embezzlement, whatever. They wanted to see him succeed. I mean, his dad even helped him out with some money towards a down payment on his own fishing boat. And they definitely knew about Michelle, but they also knew it was messy because one time, shortly before Kent's death, his dad went out to Alaska to help Kent get his boat ready for the season. And at this time, it's a time when he would

have been engaged to Michelle and living with John. And now at this point, his dad hadn't met Michelle. So he's super excited to finally meet this fiance that Ken spent so much time talking about. But when he landed, it was actually Kent and John there to pick him up at the airport because Michelle was MIA. Now, John even offered to have dad stay with them all. But Ken, Ken who is Ken's dad, was like, yeah, I'm gonna hard pass on the slumber party. Like, I've got my own hotel. I'm so good. Same, same. So the whole time Ken's in town, Michelle never surfaces. And Ken admits to his dad that he doesn't know where Michelle is. You see, the more he spied on her, the more secretive she got.

And she would go out of her way to make sure Kent didn't know where she was or who she was with, though most of the time she was with Scott. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, which is kind of unrelated, which is, strict parents create creative children. This is true. Strict fiancees create creative fiancees, but also don't have like a shady fiance, is also my rule. Yeah, I mean, there's also a lot of other things going on right now.

So while Ken's dad is there, his dad goes the whole trip without meeting his son's fiance. And he doesn't feel any better about their relationship when Ken starts making calls to his parents in late April. According to court filings, Ken tells his mom on the phone about a million dollar life insurance policy that was purchased by Michelle's grandparents as some kind of wedding present to them.

So when Betsy, Kent's mom, hears this, she says she was shocked, and she told Kent, quote, Kent, that's sick. That's absolutely sick. I've never heard of such a thing in all my life. Making her more concerned was the fact that in this same call Kent was telling her about how he Yet again couldn't find Michelle and he said he had reason to believe that she was in a tiny town about 90 minutes away called hope and he tells his mom that he's gonna actually go looking for her there mom like Begs him not to go. I mean, this idea he can't find her, he's

going to some remote town, combined with this news about the life insurance, it made her stomach churn. She was literally afraid for him and told him, quote, don't go. Don't go alone and just get out of there. But it was too late. He was calling her from a stop that he made along the way to Hope. Wait, isn't Hope where he eventually was found dead? It is, but he didn't die on this trip. This is the weekend of April 27th and 28th. He connected with his mom actually again after his trip on the 27th and 28th and said that he hadn't been able to find Michelle. And he told her about how he's literally going around this tiny town showing people her picture, but no one recognized her.

Now, he ended his call with his mom by leaving her with some ominous words. He says, quote, John Carlin knows where she goes and he won't tell me. End quote. And just to be clear, John Carlin is like the John from our story, the one that everyone's living with. I mean this whole thing just doesn't feel healthy to me. Like just let this girl go guy. I think that's everyone's feeling at this point, but his love or his infatuation with Michelle was an unhealthy obsession at this point. And he was out of his mind with jealousy. So this, all of this background, this is what the family knew when they got the call that

Kent was dead. When they opened that second letter saying that if something happened to him it was probably Michelle, John, and Scott or one or some combination of all three. The LaPinks shared the letter with police, but little did they know, letter or no letter, police were already looking squarely in Michelle's direction because of a couple of things found in Kent's pocket when he died. When the first responders on the scene, May 2, 1996, went through the pockets of a dead man looking for some identification, the first responder came across some

vitally important information. First, he found the man's identification showing that our dead man was Kent LaPink, who lived in a house in South Anchorage. Second, he found a checkbook showing an account belonging to Kent LaPink and someone named Michelle Hughes. But the address on the checks showed a home in Wasilla, some 60 miles north of Anchorage. The third and possibly most interesting thing they found was a recently dated change of beneficiary form for a large life insurance policy. This form named Kent's family as the beneficiaries if anything were to happen to him. So the first thing police do?

They head to the address listed on the checks to talk to the woman who shares a bank account with a dead man. According to an episode of People Investigates called Alaskan Temptress, when police pull up, their spines prickle right away because in the back of the house is Michelle and Two guys going through all of Kent's stuff. Wait, do they know he's dead already? Nope when police asked like what they're doing They tell them that Kent had stolen some of their stuff and they were there to get it back and the officers are like listen Like why don't you just put all that down leave Leave that all right there and just come talk to me for a minute. Tell

me how you even knew this guy. So Michelle tells police that she was his fiance, but not really. Nicole Hold up. What do you mean, not really? Ashley Well, she tells police that Kent was gay, and that their engagement was all a front for his family, who she says wouldn't have been accepting of his homosexuality. Is that even true? To tell you the truth, no one really knows. Based on the source material I have found, you can find a number of people who will say everything from Kent was straight as they come,

to Kent was bi, to Kent was gay, and we don't have Kent to ask. What I do have though is a number of emails that went back and forth between Kent and Michelle, and in none of them that I have access to, does he allude to being anything other than in love with her and wanting to marry her? And in none of them do either of them make mention of all of this being some kind of show for other people? Like he seems genuinely infatuated with her and you know she's

talking to him about buying a wedding dress, like it's really gonna happen. And again, you've got to be kind of obsessed with someone to go across the country, bust them with another guy, drive the car. So whatever Kent's sexuality, I don't think it matters. What matters is I think the engagement was real and Kent thought there was really going to be a wedding. Now it is worth mentioning that there was one reported incident where John actually called the cops because he says that Kent made like a sexually suggestive motion towards John's teenage son, who's also named John.

Now Kent said it was all a joke. Ultimately, no charges were pressed. So I don't know where this really fits into the bigger picture. And truthfully, whether he was or not, I don't think that that would have mattered at all to Michelle, like in the bigger scheme of things, because we do know actually that John was at least bi. There are some emails between him and Michelle that reference an affair he had with a male sex worker. So she obviously knew about that and was okay with that.

What would be the difference if Kent was interested in men as well? I think the only thing that matters is that she was telling police they weren't really a couple, but nothing she was telling Kent backed that up. And police were onto her pretty quickly. They couldn't wrap their heads around the situation that they were all in. And when they started... SAME. Is he right?

And when they started piecing a timeline together of Kent's last movements, they felt even weirder about Michelle and John. They find that for most of the days prior, Michelle had been out of town at Lake Tahoe with her other, other fiance, Scott. But she had flown home close to the time they think Kent was killed. And when exactly was that? I know he was found on May 2nd, but could they really pinpoint a time as to when he had actually been killed? Kind of, but it's a really large window, like I said earlier.

By the time they were able to take him away, the Emmy estimated that Ken had died, remember, some six to 48 hours before he was found. So yeah, a kind of giant window there. Right. So it's not that Michelle like 100% couldn't have done it, but it would have been tight. John on the other hand had been in town the whole time. Police pressed John about whether or not he owned a gun like the one believed to have been used in Kent's murder.

No, he said. He swore up and down. He never bought one, never had one. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But to police, the motive was seeming clear because they were piecing together Kent's last movements and trying to understand that change of beneficiary form in his pocket.

So when they meet with Kent's lawyer and insurance agent, here's what they learn. Kent and Michelle go try and take out a new life insurance policy on both of them together. They're going into business together, which is like part of that fishing boat that he just bought. They were gonna do their own business or whatever. And they tell the insurance agent, we each want one million dollars in case something happens. The other person can like pay off the boat and take care of the business, whatever. Kent gets the one million policy on his life, but the insurance company will only insure Michelle for up to 150,000 because she's not the one who's actually like bringing in the money,

like it kind of makes sense. Then on April 18th, Kent goes to his lawyer and asks his lawyer to make Michelle the sole beneficiary of his will. And they do that. And before this, everything was going to Kent's family out in Michigan or whatever. So then, that's April 18th, he comes back to his lawyer the very next day, April 19th, and he's pissed. He's telling his lawyer that Michelle is having an affair

with John, which like, yeah, but like, this isn't new news. I don't even know why he's so pissed right now. I was gonna say like, he's known that for a while. They're living all together in the same house. He knew that the day that they came in before. Right. Yeah.

But it seems like the thing that pissed him off is that he was doing his overly snoopy thing again. And apparently, he was trying to get a local hospital to tell him if Michelle was receiving psychiatric treatment from them. And they were like, hi, no, we cannot tell you that. And they actually called Michelle to let her know that some dude named Kent was like coming in asking about her records. And so he's pissed that they like gave her the heads up. So now Kent's asking his lawyer if he can sue the hospital. And unsurprisingly, the lawyer's like, yeah, you have no case, dude. Like that's

never gonna happen. That's not even like a charge you can like put against a hospital like that. I'm okay, whatever. Now, it doesn't seem like any legal changes were made to his estate then on the 19th. But a week later, on April 26, Kent comes back to his lawyer. This is around the time that Michelle disappeared. Remember, when Kent's like calls his mom saying he can't find her, he's going to go try and track her down in hope. So he tells his lawyer that he can't find her. He also tells his lawyer that she had

stolen some stuff from him. So at this visit, he asked the lawyer to get rid of the new will, go back to the one that left everything to his parents. And it's at this meeting that he also tells his lawyer that he just changed the beneficiary of his life insurance policy back to his family, which again, we know is true because that's what's found in his pocket. I mean, this whole situation is just so toxic. Even Kent's lawyer is telling him this.

He's like, dude, listen to yourself for a minute. He told investigators that he strongly urged Kent to get out of this relationship for good. But we know Kent didn't listen, because that very weekend, that's when he's off trying to track Michelle down in hope. So quick question, did Michelle or John or Scott have any ties to Hope? What made Kent even think that that was where he could find her? Well, that's the other piece of the puzzle that police had.

When they searched his truck that was found back in Anchorage, Wasilla, one of those, they found a note in the glove box. It was a tight letter that it looked like was from John to Michelle. And here, Brett, I want you to read part of this letter. So it says, quote, Dear Michelle, the roof on your cabin in hope is finished. It will not leak anymore, end quote. And then it kind of goes on saying John is happy. He bought the cabin for Michelle that, you know, it makes a fine getaway. And then it ends, quote, you guys enjoy your stay in the cabin this weekend.

"'With all the love I have for a wonderful woman as you.'" End quote. Now, at the bottom of this typed out letter, there's also a handwritten reply from Michelle that says, quote, "'Great, please don't let anyone know where we're at, "'but you already know that, end quote. Then there's some talk like in this handwritten part about like a generator or whatever,

but knowing this was in Kent's car, knowing he was in Hope looking for her, police believe that he went to Hope looking for this cabin that Michelle was using, thinking that he was probably gonna surprise her the same way he surprised her and Scott in bed in Louisiana. But plot twist, when police look at land records, no one in this story even owns any cabin in Hope or anywhere else. What?

Yeah, so police start immediately putting together a picture in their minds of John and Michelle setting up this elaborate hoax to lure Kent out to Hope to murder him for the life insurance money. Okay, but I guess I have a couple of problems with this theory. Like one, Michelle wasn't even the beneficiary anymore. And two, Kent went to Hope looking for her and came back just fine. Like, I guess even if he went back the second time to try and find her, his car wasn't in Hope. Like, it was back at home, right?

Correct on both of those things. But here's the scoop. Michelle didn't know Kent made the change to the insurance policy. And police believe that John went with Kent to Hope that second time. Remember that call to Kent's mom after he got back the first time and he was like, fine, and he told her John knows where she is. I mean yeah and like I see the motive clear as day but everything feels just so circumstantial to me. I mean it is right? I mean they need something solid to tie Michelle and John to the murder. That's why no one's been arrested at this point. I mean, they still don't even have a murder weapon. So they need something physical.

What they tried to do is to track down everyone's email communications, hoping that, you know, if there was some plot to kill Kent, maybe there'd be written proof of it. But conveniently, the computer that Michelle and Kent shared was missing. No. Maybe not exactly missing, just not available to police because on May 5th, when they go and talk to Michelle and try to retrieve this, this is just three days after Kent was found, Michelle tells police that the computer is broken and she'd sent it off to her sister in Utah

to have it repaired. And by the time they get it back, everything has been wiped. They have nothing. Oh my God. And with that, investigators have to let John and Michelle and Scott all go on with their lives, even though they believed in their heart of hearts that at least some of them were probably stone cold killers.

But it's not over till it's over. And though time is often an investigator's enemy, in this case, a little time brought them closer than they'd ever been to the truth. In the early 2000s, a cold case unit had been formed in Alaska. And one case that the department could never quite shake was the murder of Kent LaPinck. So the new crew dusted off the old case, and when starting from scratch,

there were two holes that they spotted right away, holes that in spotted right away. Holes that in 1996 couldn't be filled. But now, it was a whole different ballgame. One of those holes was John's son, who again, was also named John. Back in 1996, he was a teenager and his dad wouldn't let police question him alone. But now, younger John was a grown man, and nobody did he have a story to tell.

Younger John tells investigators that after Kent's murder, he found a gun in his dad's house, and his dad freaked out. And later, he walked in on his dad, cleaning it in the sink with something, like some kind of liquid that smelled like what he said smelled like bleach. So this is great for detectives, but there are still some missing pieces. I mean, how could dad John be washing a gun he swore to police back in the day he never

owned? So police ask son John about this and he says no his dad did own a gun just like the one that killed Kent. In fact he bought it shortly after they moved to Alaska. He bought it from like some guy. So the detectives they decide to like go through old newspaper archives and within just two hours they had found a classified advertisement promoting the sale of the exact kind of gun they believe killed Kent. Oh my god. Now they end up tracking this guy down.

He can't like say for sure that it was him in a picture, but it's like all lining up. Again, it's building on this circumstantial evidence. Things are starting to tie up into a nice little bow for detectives. But the final piece, that second hole that they can now fill with time, is the computer. Remember in 1996 it had been wiped, but with new technology police were able to pull emails off of it between all of the lovers. And there's no like outright murder plot to be fair, but it did poke holes in everyone's stories. Michelle was telling John that she didn't want Kent around, but Michelle was telling Kent that the wedding was on,

and she was telling him that she didn't want to be living around John anymore. And Kent and Michelle got in many, many heated all caps arguments. And there was one kind of sus email from Michelle to John talking about a country where for $10 million you can buy citizenship and they wouldn't extradite you for anything. So with all of this, police now felt that they had enough to convene a grand jury, and a grand jury thought they had enough to indict. By this time, it was 2004, and John, Michelle, and Scott all had gone their separate ways

living separate lives. So none of them are engaged anymore. So none of them actually got married. Accurate. None of them are engaged. Okay, so none of them actually got married accurate So Michelle was shocked when police showed up to her suburban home in Olympia, Washington To arrest her and take her back to Alaska Her new life as a doctor's wife and mom was a far cry from where she came from and now she was going to have to Face all of that over again. When John heard about her arrest and heard that police were looking for him,

he turned himself in. And to be clear, they were the only two indicted. Police never arrested Scott and he was never indicted by a grand jury. John and Michelle were tried separately, but with much of the same evidence and witness testimony. In court, prosecutors relied heavily on young John's testimony.

They relied heavily on that letter Kent wrote to his family from the grave, or not technically from the grave, but that's what they called it. And they relied heavily on testimony from someone who knew Michelle and said that she was obsessed with this one movie where the main character has her husband or lover

or whatever killed for life insurance money. And they showed that like she wanted to be just like this person. There was also really interesting testimony at trial from Michelle's sister. This is the one that she like sent the computer off to or whatever. So what's interesting is that police say that the computer that was sent to her wasn't postmarked and sent out until May 6th. Remember, police were asking Michelle about the computer on May 5th. So she had the computer but didn't turn it over.

And then the next day after police are asking for it, she gets rid of it. Oh yeah, like I'm going to get rid of it. Yeah. Also, Michelle's sister said that when Michelle came to see her after the murder and they were talking about Kent's death, Michelle wasn't sad about losing a fiance. She told her sister that she was glad that Kent was gone and she wished someone had tortured him first. I mean, when you first started that, I was like, I mean, technically she has two other fiancés, so okay. But God, that went-

Tortured him. Yeah. That's dark. Unsurprisingly, the jury found them both guilty, but they appealed. Their main arguments were that they said the court couldn't use Kent's letter from beyond the grave because they have a right to face their accuser. And they said all that nonsense about the movie Michelle liked was just that, nonsense. It should never have been allowed in court.

And the courts agree on both accounts. According to reporting by Megan Holland in the Anchorage Daily News, some random dude puts up bond money so Michelle can await her new trial outside of prison, but for John It's too late. He was actually murdered by a group of men while he was incarcerated After years of fighting the charges were dropped and the prosecution Ultimately declined to retry either of the cases So even though John was dead like the appeals had already started and they let that go through and his conviction was ultimately overturned.

So that's it? That's the end of the story? Who actually killed Kent then? Who's being held responsible for this? Well, no one is being held responsible. And as for who, I mean, it's still a little bit of a mystery to this day. Before he died, John did an interview with Dateline where he alluded to the fact that it was Michelle.

He admitted that, yes, he really did have a gun, like the one that killed Kent, but it had gone missing before the murder. And he says that when his son found it, he thought Michelle was trying to like set him up and he didn't want his son's prints on it. And that's why he cleaned it. So, Young John's testimony is at least like somewhat true.

He admits to having the gun, he admits to cleaning it. And he said that he lied to police about the gun back in the day, cause he knew it would look really bad. He told Keith Morrison, quote, "'I put ammonia and water. That's what we did in the Marine Corps, hot water and ammonia. When I was cleaning it, Michelle came walking in and she stood there and she saw the solvent in the sink and just looked. And then John came around a minute later because he followed her in and he stood

there and he watched it. He said that after he cleaned it, then he got rid of the gun without telling Michelle, you know, what he was doing with it because He said that after he cleaned it, then he got rid of the gun without telling Michelle what he was doing with it because he said that he didn't trust her. Okay. I guess I just, I don't know if I buy it. What about the hope note? Is he saying that Michelle wrote that all on her own to lure him out there? No.

No. So he actually admits to writing the hope note, like in conjunction with her. But he says that it wasn't some like plot to get Kent out there so they can murder him. He says that the whole plan was just to use the note to get Kent off Michelle's back. So I guess he says the goal of it was to make Kent think that Michelle was in Hope in some cabin that didn't exist so she could actually go to Lake Tahoe with Scott where we know she was. And it honestly kind of makes sense when you think about it because the note was so vague, right? There's no cabin. He spends days like going around showing her picture, like looking for her.

So if they were trying to get him there to kill him, why not be more specific? Why not put an address and get him to go to a specific place? Right. And honestly, when I really think about it, I think there's a bigger problem with the setup theory in general. We know Kent didn't drive out there the time he was killed. Someone took him. So why on earth would you go somewhere alone with John, or even Michelle for that matter, when you just wrote a letter to your parents basically saying that you think that they're trying to kill you? Right? So, I mean, on the one hand, Ken would always go back to Michelle and John no matter what,

right? Like, as toxic as this relationship was, we've seen this over and over. I mean, he was going to Hope because he wanted her back. So at least with Michelle, he might have been okay being alone with her. And I don't know if he would feel comfortable with John, right, like again, I think the problem with this case is like what people say and what they do

are two totally separate things. And so I don't know if he would go even with John, but he did tell his mom, like one of the last things he told her on the call was that John was the only one who knew where she was. So he had just spent two days in hope looking for her, not being able to find her. Is John his only hope to potentially finding her? And was he desperate enough to get in a car with a man that he thinks might kill him? But all of this, again, I don't know, but in the end, author Tom Brennan actually offers up

one more possible suspect. Young John. Oh. So if you think about it, Kent might have also believed that Young John knew where this fake cabin was. We know that Dad is trying to clean Young John's prints off of the gun. I read in court filings that Young John was said to be extremely homophobic, and interestingly, on May 3rd, this would have been just a day after Ken's body was found. Scott had actually called John's house to make sure Michelle had made it back from Lake Tahoe, okay. And young John was the one to pick up the phone.

He told Scott about Kent's murder and mentioned a quote, gut shot that Kent took. Now, Kent was shot once in the stomach, but police say they never told anyone that in the first days of the investigation. So did Young John know because he was there? Did he know because someone told him or someone around him talked about it? We might never know because Young John has lawyered up and isn't willing to talk about

the case anymore. But I think just talking about him as an alternate suspect points out that maybe every rock wasn't turned over and examined like it should have been. Scott for instance failed a polygraph question when asked if he was the one who shot Kent, buuuut police didn't seem to look further into him as like having potential involvement or at least in none of the like court filings or anything that I have access to. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any new charges will ever be brought in this case. Older John is dead, Michelle can't be tried again, young John isn't talking. So while many of the people in our story have gone on to live

unassuming lives among us, Kent's family still longs for justice that may never come. Don't forget if you want more crime junkie episodes like this one, new members can try the app for free for the rest of August. Just head to the link in our show notes to sign up and make sure you hit the follow button here so you don't miss any bonus content that we put out. We'll be popping back in your feed next Thursday with another and final vault episode. I'll see you then, crime junkies. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.

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