[4] On May 2, 1996, Leppink (age 36) was found dead in Hope, Alaska, with three .44 caliber Desert Eagle gunshot wounds.
On April 2, 2008, she was sentenced to 99 years and transferred to Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River, Alaska.
[4] He was found bludgeoned to death in his cell at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska, on October 27, 2008.
The letter, which Leppink wrote to his parents, said Linehan, Carlin, or Scott Hilke were "probably" responsible if he died under "suspicious circumstances".
On May 11, 2010, an east coast corporate executive, Brian C. Watt, from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, donated the money necessary to release Linehan from prison, paying a $25,000 bail bondsman fee.
[12] In his ruling, Volland wrote:The Court of Appeals repeatedly stated that the "letter from the grave" "appreciably affected" the jury's verdict at Linehan's trial.
If it did so at a trial where the evidence was contested, defense counsel present, and the jury given an even stronger limiting instruction on the use of the letter, this court cannot find that Betsy Leppink's repetition of Kent Leppink's accusatory statement in the letter was not a decisive factor in the grand jury's decision to indict.