Deliberations begin in Temple case
State prosecutor Lisa Tanner on Monday speed-walked between corners of a Harris County courtroom, mimicking how quickly she said David Temple could have staged a burglary to cover up his pregnant wife’s violent death 20 years ago.
Tanner’s demonstration sought to tie a bow on the prosecution timeline of events Jan. 11, 1999, the date Belinda Temple was found with a gunshot wound to the head in the master bedroom closet of her Katy home.
Before jurors started to deliberate a verdict in Temple’s retrial, Tanner told them the husband had killed his wife, washed his hands and changed his clothes before going to the store with his sick 3-year-old son, establishing an alibi. He ditched the gun and arrived home, where he staged the break-in in seconds, the prosecutor said.
“The circumstances are damning,” Tanner, of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said during closing arguments. “Only one person could do this.”
Defense attorneys countered with their version of events — that the ex-football coach did not have the time or means to kill his spouse. They said Belinda and David were only home together for several minutes before he went shopping with their child. The lawyers alternately tried to convince jurors that between three and six other people — namely, a teenage neighbor of the Temples’ and a cohort of friends — could have committed the crime.
“The possibility of guilt is not enough,” attorney Romy Kaplan told the jury panel. “There are many, many reasonable doubts in this case.”
After four hours of closing arguments and a couple hours of deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women were taken to a hotel to be sequestered overnight along with four alternates. The jury’s discussions began at the end of 18 days of witness testimony in the trial, which was marked with stories about a fraught relationship between David and Belinda, as well as deep dives into the investigations of David Temple and an alternate suspect.
State prosecutors said the former football coach, now 51, was the sole person with the motive and opportunity to fatally shoot his wife.
From the outside, the couple’s marriage seemed perfect, prosecutors said. But Belinda’s sister and close friends knew David made fun of his wife for gaining weight during her pregnancy and that Belinda feared her husband didn’t want the baby at all, according to testimony.
Belinda suspected David was having an affair, which proved to be true. David was forming a relationship with a coworker, Heather Scott, and he professed his love for her just three days prior to Belinda’s death.
Prosecutors argued that Belinda was in the way — Scott had attempted to end the relationship because of David’s marriage — but defense attorneys contended that having an affair does not make one a murderer. David Temple married Scott almost two years after his first wife’s death.
“This betrayal does not prove he killed her,” attorney Stanley Schneider said. “It proves he’s a lousy husband.”
The real suspect, Schneider said, was 16-year-old Riley Joe Sanders. He was mad at Belinda, his neighbor and teacher, for tattling to his parents about how much he was missing school. Sanders was also friends with people who had committed a burglary over the New Year’s holiday, laying the foundation that he knew people who could help him break in to the Temples’ home, according to the defense.
Schneider said Sanders cut class Jan. 11 and likely went to a friend’s house, where he was hiding his dad’s gun. After the burglary and shooting, Sanders and his friends escaped over the Temples’ back fence and hid the gun at his friend’s house again until investigators came knocking, the attorney said.
Investigators never located the murder weapon. Defense attorneys pointed to an expert’s testimony that indicated a spent shotgun shell found in Sanders’ gun, recovered at his friend’s house, could have produced a bullet matching what was found at the murder scene.
Sanders told jurors he had no involvement in a burglary or shooting and that he was driving around and trying to find marijuana on the day of Belinda’s death.
Defense attorneys also claimed no one could place David Temple with a shotgun. Two people testified during the trial they saw shotgun shells in Temple’s possession, however, and the football coach was a hunter, prosecutors said.
“I think the question is, why isn’t there a shotgun in your closet?” said Bill Turner of the Attorney General’s Office.
Prosecutors reiterated to jurors several things that bothered investigators about the scene. The Temples’ aggressive dog didn’t prevent the burglary, and the appearance of a broken-in door and a lack of stolen items pointed to a staged event.
Temple’s defense argued investigators had tunnel vision in the case and didn’t properly investigate Riley Joe Sanders as a suspect. Two doctors also determined the 3-year-old son didn’t witness the murder or view any violence, meaning David and the son weren’t home when Belinda was killed, Schneider said.
David Temple was indicted in the murder in 2004 and found guilty by a Harris County jury in 2007. He was released from state custody in 2016, when an appeals court determined he wasn’t granted a fair trial because of prosecutorial misconduct.
A new legal team represented Temple in the retrial, and the Attorney General’s Office served as special prosecutors in the case. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office recused themselves after Temple’s first verdict was reversed.
Jury deliberations are scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday.