48 HOURS MYSTERY - FRIDAY, AUG. 6, 2010 and SATURDAY, AUG. 7, 2010

NOTE: AUG. 6 IS THE LAST FRIDAY NIGHT BROADCAST OF 48 HOURS MYSTERY.

48 HOURS MYSTERY WILL BE BROADCAST SATURDAYS AT 9:00 PM AND 10:00 PM AUG.14 - 14-SEPT. 4

FRIDAY, AUG. 6, 2010, (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT)

A FEDERAL PROSECUTOR KIDNAPPED AT GUNPOINT ON HIS BIRTHDAY RECOUNTS HIS BIZARRE HOSTAGE ORDEAL ON 48 HOURS MYSTERY "LIVE TO TELL: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY"

On Jan. 21, 1998, the night before his 38th birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was walking home in lower Manhattan, when he was kidnapped at gunpoint, triggering a 25-hour hostage ordeal which would range from the horrific to the oddly humorous.

Intent on stealing $50,000 from his bank account, Alpert's kidnappers, named Sen, Ren and Lucky, blindfolded him and drove him to Brooklyn, where he was kept in an apartment full of gun-wielding youths and prostitutes. Alpert spent his entire birthday in captivity, as his captors alternated between violent threats, friendly requests for legal advice and offers of celebratory marijuana and sexual favors.

Alpert worked to endear himself to his abductors in the hope they would spare his life, all the while blindfolded and memorizing clues that could be used later to capture the criminals. Then, just as Alpert was expecting the men to kill him, the kidnapping took another strange turn.

Now, Alpert recounts the bizarre events of his kidnapping - from his abduction to his release - in LIVE TO TELL, "The Birthday Party."

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SATURDAY, AUG. 7, 2010, (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT)

11 YEARS AFTER THE HUNT FOR THE MURDERER OF AN ALASKAN FISHERMAN WENT COLD, A DOCTOR'S WIFE IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE -

NOW, ANOTHER DEATH TURNS THIS MURDER CASE ON ITS EAR ON 48 HOURS MYSTERY: "LOVE AND DEATH IN ALASKA"

Mechele Linehan is described by her Olympia, Wash. neighbors as a pillar of the community. But to Alaskan authorities, the physician's wife and PTA mom was a manipulative seductress who they suspected was responsible for the murder of an Alaskan fisherman a decade earlier.

The body of Kent Leppink was discovered in woods outside Anchorage on May 2, 1996. He had been shot point blank in the back, stomach and face, but more disturbing than the crime was a sealed letter Leppink sent to his parents days earlier with instructions to open it if something were to happen to him. In the letter he named three suspects, including the woman he wanted to marry, Mechele Linehan (then known as Mechele Hughes), a local exotic dancer, and Scott Hilke and John Carlin, who in a bizarre twist also claimed to be engaged to Linehan.

According to many, Hughes was a conniving temptress who used her feminine wiles to prey on vulnerable men. And Hilke, Carlin and Leppink were not immune to her charms, showering her with gifts. While Linehan refutes the notion that she was engaged to the three men during this period, authorities were always convinced that Linehan masterminded the murder while Carlin carried it out. Despite a financial motive of collecting on a life insurance policy and a series of suspicious letters, investigators had no murder weapon or DNA to connect them to the crime. That is, until 2004, when a new witness and forensic technology led a determined cold case squad right back to their initial suspects and eventually Linehan and Carlin were convicted.

Now, another death turns this case of sex, power and murder on its ear.