Kent Lippink's dead body was left on a hiking trail near Hope, Alaska, an hour from Anchorage. He was discovered by utility workers making their way to a job. But perhaps because of the conditions on that remote hillside, or because of the carefulness of the murderers, no physical evidence was found that could have tied anybody to the crime.
What little evidence there was, and common sense, pointed towards roommates Mechele Hughes and John Carlin, but not enough to bring them to trial. Leppink's death, however, was almost overshadowed by Mechele Hughes' story: a stripper who had perhaps had her boyfriend murdered in cold blood, by her lover. The salacious story gripped headlines around the country when the case went to trial, a full decade after the crime.