Officer: Temple break-in appeared staged
Sheriff’s investigator says scene ‘didn’t look right’ at ex-coach’s retrial in wife’s death
The Katy home where Belinda Temple was found shot to death in 1999 appeared to be the site of a staged break-in, a crime scene investigator testified on the third day of the murder retrial for the slain teacher’s husband.
“As an investigator, you know when you see something that doesn’t look right,” Sgt. Dean Holtke, of the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office, said Wednesday, explaining his expertise in the area. “It’s common sense.”
Belinda Temple’s husband, David, is standing trial for the second time in the 30-year-old’s death.
The former Alief Hastings football coach was found guilty in 2007, a conviction that was reversed in 2016 because of prosecutorial misconduct.
Holtke said that when he arrived at the Temples’ home on Jan. 11, 1999, he heard there was the possibility of a burglary and that a woman was dead.
The back door window pane was shattered, with a larger hole close to the door handle, according to crime scene photos shown during the trial.
When Holtke went inside, he said the broken glass on the ground wasn’t in a location consistent with forced entry, almost as if the door had been open when the glass shattered.
Some cabinet drawers were open but didn’t appear to be rummaged through, and most valuables seemed untouched, he said.
“It didn’t look right to us,” he said.
David Temple has sworn he arrived home from the store and park late that afternoon with his son, who had been sick earlier in the day, according to testimony. It was then that he discovered the break-in and his wife’s body, he said.
Belinda Temple, who was eight months pregnant, was a popular special education teacher at Katy High School.
She’d become suspicious of her husband, who was having an affair with a coworker, prosecutors said during opening statements Monday.
David Temple became emotional, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief as prosecutors showed gruesome photos of Belinda, face down on the floor of her master bedroom closet.