Witnesses in Temple trial differ on times of slaying

Witnesses at David Temple’s murder retrial on Monday presented two possible times of the 1999 shooting of Belinda Temple, giving jurors the task of determining whether the ex-football coach had the ability to kill his wife based on his documented activities of the day.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors are seeking to nail down the husband’s exact whereabouts on Jan. 11, more than 20 years ago. David Temple told investigators that he arrived home early from his job at Alief Hastings to care for his 3year-old son, who was sick with a fever. While his wife was going to rest, he said he took their boy to the park, a grocery store and then a home improvement store.

One of the witnesses, a neighbor who was 9 at the time of the slaying, told authorities he and his brothers were watching the movie “Doctor Dolittle” when they heard a “boom,” which he recognized as a gunshot. Based on his recollection of what scene was playing when he heard the noise, investigators deduced that the gun could have gone off between 4:38 and 4:43 p.m. on Jan. 11, 1999.

Temple was recorded on surveillance video at a store between 4:32 and 4:38 p.m., and later at a Home Depot at 5:14 p.m., according to earlier statements in the trial. Temple wouldn’t have been at his home if the shots fired according to the children’s account, defense attorney Stan Schneider said during opening arguments.

In Temple’s first trial in 2007, however, prosecutors said the slaying took place shortly after Belinda Temple got home from her job as a special education teacher at Katy High School, before David Temple would have gone to the store.

Another neighbor told jurors on Monday that he heard two shotgun blasts around 5 p.m.

Jury members heard last week that a high school classmate saw Temple driving around a family property near 5 p.m., outside of the route he said he took from the grocery store to the Home Depot.

A married couple who lived cattycorner to the Temples told jurors on Monday that they didn’t hear any booms on Jan. 11. They did notice their dog barking along their fence, which separated their home from another family whose son was questioned in the killing.

The family’s dog was aggressive and would have likely bitten anyone who tried getting into their yard, former neighbor Jim Parker said. The couple didn’t recall hearing the Temples’ dog — a chow that was also known to be aggressive — barking that day.

Another witness, a former acquaintance of David Temple, testified on Monday and said that she noticed a partially full box of shotgun shells while moving the exfootball coach out of his home, possibly a month or two after the murder.

While investigators were never able to find a murder weapon in Belinda’s death, they determined that a shotgun was used.

Jenifer Stockdick, who is now a city councilwoman in Katy, said that she knew Belinda and David Temple through her husband at the time. They had trailers and went over to help him move out, she said.

Stockdick said she and the Temples weren’t particularly good friends, but got teary when asked to describe Belinda.

“She had a heart to serve,” she said.

Last week, a crime scene investigator also testified that he saw several decorative items at the home that indicated David Temple was a bird hunter. They are known to use shotguns, he said.

Belinda Temple was found shot in the head in her master bedroom closet. Her husband was charged in the murder in 2005, and found guilty by a Harris County jury in 2007.

The conviction was reversed about 10 years later, when an appeals court determined prosecutorial misconduct occurred in the first trial.

He is being prosecuted by the Texas Attorney General’s Office, asked to serve as special prosecutors after the Harris County District Attorney’s Office recused itself from the case in 2017.

Testimony is expected to last through the month in state District Judge Kelli Johnson’s court.

At the end of the day Monday, Johnson said she has released a public admonishment of the news station KHOU because of a media order violation. The station left a live stream running briefly after the opening statements concluded, against the judge’s orders, according to prior court proceedings.