Love And Death In Alaska

The Cold Truth In Alaska - A Crime Of Money, Power, Greed And Sex

(CBS)  Upset, Kent's dad went back to Michigan, not realizing that within hours of his departure, Kent had mailed his parents a letter - a letter so alarming that when they got it, they immediately called. But they failed to reach him.

"Actually, it was a letter inside a letter, and the first letter asked us not to read the second letter unless something happened to him," Kent's mom explains.

Something already had happened. Kent's body was found on May 2, 1996, off a deserted road 90 miles south of Anchorage - the same day the letter arrived. He had been shot three times. There were shell casings near his body, but no murder weapon was found.

Detective Linda Branchflower says it was pure chance that an electrical crew happened to be in the woods that day and discovered Kent's body after spotting his red jacket.

It was impossible to determine an exact time of death, only that it had been within day or two.

Steve Dehart was among the first investigators to get to the crime scene. Aside from the shell casings found at the crime scene, he never imagined for a second that the victim himself would provide even more critical clues through that letter to his parents.

While they say they agonized over opening the second letter, they honored Kent's wishes and only opened it after getting the news that something had happened.

"It's the most painful thing that ever happened to us. The first thing we did was open the second letter," Betsy remembers. "It was really terrible."

It was terrible, because in that second letter Kent seems to solve his own murder. "Mechele, John or Scott were probably the people or persons that probably killed me. Do me another favor, make sure Mechele goes to jail for a long time," Betsy reads from the letter.

The letters gave police at the time three ready-made suspects: Mechele, and her two remaining boyfriend-fiancés, John Carlin and Scott Hilke.

Hilke says he was surprised that he was a suspect, because he was not in Alaska at the time of the crime.

Right up until the eve of Kent's disappearance, he'd been in Lake Tahoe with Mechele. Though they had broken up, she had asked him to meet her there for a few quiet days together.

He now thinks the timing was no accident. "Her intent was to be out of the state when anything bad that was going to happen, happened," Hilke says. "I believe now I was used as an alibi."

Hilke says he didn't shoot Kent, but failed a polygraph when asked about it.

But Det. Branchflower says while polygraphs are sometimes helpful, they are sometimes "absolutely wrong."

Investigators came to believe this one was wrong. Although they never checked all the airline and phone records, they nonetheless decided Hilke had in fact not been in Alaska. Mechele, however, had flown back the night before Kent was found.

A day later, police interviewed her. In the interview, she began to sob when told Kent had met a violent death. Later, through tears, she told them that Kent did own a gun.

She also told investigators something else, which in their minds was the most incriminating fact of all: there was a $1 million insurance policy on Kent’s life.

Investigators say Mechele had actually paid for Kent's policy herself, and had named herself as the main beneficiary.

But even Kent had second thoughts, and a clue at the crime scene proved it: a change of beneficiary form. After days of indecision, Kent had taken Mechele off the policy completely. But if she didn’t know that, then the million dollars could be a million motives, authorities reasoned.

"Kent had no more money. His only value would be a life insurance policy and they were going to squeeze that out of him. That was going to be the last drop of value that he was going to be able to provide Mechele," Branchflower says.

If Mechele had a motive, did she perhaps also have help? To police, a mysterious note found days later in Kent’s car hinted at a conspiracy with one-time fiancé John Carlin.

The note, which investigators called the "Hope note," indicated Carlin had purchased a cabin in Hope, Alaska and was inviting Mechele to use it. But Branchflower says there was no cabin, and that they'd made it up.

But the cabin sounds very real in the typed note - a hoax made to look like a genuine exchange between Carlin and Mechele, and meant for Kent to find.

Carlin writes he's fixed the roof and cleaned the fireplace. "You guys enjoy your stay,” he says, making it sound like Mechele wouldn’t be alone that weekend.

She scrawls back, "Great! Please don’t let anyone know where we’re at…. Love you and thanks again."