Former officers saw through evidence, sought truth in Temple case
In a conference room jammed with TV cameras and reporters, two longtime homicide investigators took their places alongside the family of a man serving a life sentence for killing his pregnant wife and the defense lawyers trying to win his freedom.
Stan Schneider and Casie Gotro hosted the news conference at their law office last month to call for an independent investigation of the prosecutorial misconduct that had landed their client, David Temple, in prison in the 1999 death of his wife, Belinda. Judge Larry Gist had just ruled that Temple deserved a new trial after finding that legendary former Harris County prosecutor Kelly Siegler violated the law dozens of times by withholding material evidence from Temple’s defense attorney.
The former cops, John Denholm and Steve Clappart, wore faces as straight as their ties. Inside, they felt out of place. At 58, Denholm had investigated and reviewed hundreds of murders in his 27 years as a cop. At 68, Clappart probably investigated over 1,000.
Denholm, a former lieutenant with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, says he looked up at the wall behind him at one point and saw a news clipping featuring Schneider that read, “The Crusaders of Death Row.”
He stood there thinking that he used to send people there. “I’m here to tell you,” he says, “there are some people that need killing.”
There are also people who should be in prison for the rest of their lives.
At separate moments, Denholm and Clappart had to decide whether Temple was one of them. Each had to figure out if the former Katy football coach demonized for killing his wife so he could be with his mistress actually had been wrongly convicted in 2007 by a prosecutor they both respected.
It became a choice between loyalty to the brotherhood and
doing the right thing. In a series of interviews, they told me their stories.
“It’s a gut-wrencher for me,” says Clappart, who wore a badge for 47 years. “If I ever had a hero, besides my dad, it was the DA’s office. I worked there for a long time, and I saw lots of things. I never saw anything like this.” ‘The wheel fell off’
For Denholm, the moment came in early 2007 during a rare mock trial. Denholm was in law school at the time, and Siegler asked him to play the role of Temple’s defense attorney, questioning law enforcement witnesses.
Denholm says he had read the voluminous offense report carefully and there seemed to be so many holes. He peppered investigators with questions. Why weren’t shotguns or shells found at the Temple home? Why weren’t there any witness statements demonstrating Temple’s guilt? What about the alternative suspects, the kids who had been involved in a similar burglary days before? What about the one kid, a neighbor who had a run-in with Belinda, who had been deceptive with investigators and who possessed a shotgun resembling the murder weapon with a spent shell?
“We’re having a test drive of the case,” Denholm recalls. “And the wheel fell off.”
Denholm told Siegler her case had problems. Her response, according to Denholm’s sworn affidavit, was that most of his questions were improper and she would have objected to them anyway.
“You know, to me,” Denholm says, “if it’s about procedure and not justice, that’s a big problem right there.”
He couldn’t understand how detectives and deputies he respected went blindly along with a ramshackle case.
“Someone blew this woman’s head off,” Denholm says. “Why wouldn’t you want to find him?”
Years later, in 2012, Denholm heard that a new witness had emerged, someone who’d overheard one of the youths confessing to the murder. Denholm was a defense lawyer by then, in a practice he likes to say represents “good people having a bad day,” not hardened criminals. Denholm told defense attorneys they needed the right person to investigate, someone willing to risk his own job to get at the truth. ‘A full 360’
That someone, he thought, was Clappart, an investigator at the DA’s office. Clappart’s bosses agreed, and he was assigned the case.
He and Denholm had clashed when they first met on a case decades earlier, but they had made up over drinks and been friends ever since.
They’re both quick, observant cops with tempers that can flare. Denholm, who grew up in Ohio, is an imposing figure, bald, with searing eyes and a sailor’s tongue. Clappart, gray, mustached and polite, was raised in the Heights. Both men idolize their fathers: Clappart’s was a Marine in Carlson’s Raiders, who arrived on Japanese-controlled Makin Island in 1942 with the help of the submarine Denholm’s sailor dad was on, the USS Nautilus.
Clappart was skeptical going into the Temple case. He knew an appellate court had upheld the conviction. He trusted the prosecutors involved. He himself had been subject to what he calls a couple of baseless accusations of wrongdoing in his career; neither held up in court. But after his second time through the 1,400-page Temple offense report, Clappart had his own strong doubts.
“It was like he went a full 360 on us,” says Schneider, Temple’s appellate lawyer. “He went from ‘David Temple is guilty. I know he’s guilty’ to ‘damn, this guy may be innocent.’ ”
Even as longtime friends and colleagues tried to ward him off, Clappart worked the case hard. And he worked it discreetly, the way he says he always has, drawing even more suspicion.
He corroborated much of the new witness’ story and gleaned new information from a suspect’s girlfriend, but when he tried to interview another suspect, a sheriff’s deputy had already gotten to him, muddying the waters. Through phone records, Clappart was able to surmise that Siegler had asked the deputy to intervene, and she had promptly arranged for top-notch legal counsel to represent the suspects.
“He’s a hero,” Schneider said. “When people say ‘what are cops supposed to be like?’ I think of Steve Clappart.” A costly pursuit
The old police officer’s integrity cost him dearly.
He and Denholm lost friends and respect. Among Siegler loyalists, they lost their hardearned reputations. They’ve been branded sellouts and traitors. They walk down the halls, and conversations cease. Colleagues who came up in the same violent trenches of the 1980s won’t return calls or texts; they’re always too busy for lunch.
“I’ve been told I’ve lost my mind, and (Dick) DeGuerin paid me,” Denholm says, referring to Temple’s revered trial attorney. “They ignore the fact that I’ve been saying this since 2007.”
For Clappart, the pain cut deeper. The hardened homicide detective tears up when he talks about the friends he’s lost.
I asked if, even for a moment, he considered just ignoring or downplaying the truth.
“It goes through your mind,” he admitted, his voice cracking. But he says he kept thinking of his dad, the Marine, who taught him the right thing is not always easy.
“You have that decision: right or wrong? I could ignore this. My life would be a whole lot easier. I could keep going, but would I be able to look myself in the mirror when I’m shaving?” Moment of vindication
Not everyone resented Clappart for taking the assignment. Once, he found a cardboard box left anonymously at his desk. Inside were a pair of Captain America cuff links and a note that read “everybody needs a shield sometimes.”
Clappart did the right thing until he couldn’t anymore. On Dec. 31, 2012, he packed his investigation into boxes, sealed them with packing tape and left them in a court storage room. After a combined 16 years with the DA’s office, he walked out and took a job in Liberty County.
Judge Gist’s recent ruling about Siegler’s misconduct left Clappart and Denholm feeling vindicated but still disillusioned.
“Up until this point, everybody thought we were pretty good police officers,” Denholm said with a chuckle.
“I think they probably do, somewhere, in their minds,” I said. “Don’t you?”
“If they’re honest with themselves,” he said, “they might.”
lisa.falkenberg@chron.com