Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: David Temple beloved coach, murderer? (part 5)

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Belinda Lucas Temple, eight months pregnant, is murdered in her Katy, Texas, home. Investigators begin to look for a suspect, but they don't have to look very far. Police argue her husband wants to get rid of her so he can marry his mistress, a teacher in the high school where he teaches. But apparently at the time of the murder, David Temple is caught on video with his son somewhere else. Where to from here? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Eight months pregnant, Melinda Temple found dead in her own bedroom closet. The door to the home opened. In light of the fact police can't find the murder weapon, they circle back to David Temple. Temple's sex relationship with a fellow teacher, Heather, has been unearthed. There's still the issue of the video.

I'm Nancy Grace, and this is Killers Amongst Us. On Monday, January 11th, just like every day, Evan was in daycare while his parents were at work. But he was sent home early that day with a fever, and David came home to watch him. He took a bath, made sure his temperature was good and we just played and waited for mom to get home. When Belinda returned around four o'clock, David says she went upstairs to rest and that's when he took Evan out to play. We went to the

park in our neighborhood which we spent a lot of time at. He enjoyed being out, so that's where we went first. After that, he says, they made their trip to the grocery store and then to the Home Depot, never imagining what awaited them at home. When they got back, Temple says he saw the broken back door, dropped Evan off at a neighbor's, then ran up the stairs and found Belinda's body sprawled on the floor of the bedroom closet. Our friend Richard Schlesinger at 48 Hours to Catherine Casey, author of Shattered on Amazon. Was there video surveillance of David Temple with his son Evan at the park, the grocery store, or the Home

Depot? There was. There was video of him coming in with Evan. They stopped, and Evan rode a little mechanical horse out in front of the Berkshire Brothers grocery store. And then there was video later that afternoon of him going to the Home Depot. So there's surveillance video of Home Depot, and what was the name of the grocery store? Berkshire Brothers. I remember those little horses that you'd drop in a quarter or nickel and you'd ride around and around and around. What about the park where Temple says he took his son? Was there any video

surveillance there or did anyone place him there? You know, the park was a problem. The police officers went to the park for days afterward and tried to find someone, anyone who saw David and Evan there that afternoon. They were never able to find anybody who saw them. David actually changed which park he had gone to. He originally said it was one park and then he changed it to another. So that part of the alibi was never able to be substantiated. To Stephen Lampley, detective and author of Outside Your Door, I could see an apparent confusing the name of a park. Could you?

No, Nancy, you know which park you go to. You know, most people have a favorite park. In my opinion, he knew exactly which park he went to. Now, why he changed, I don't know. But I believe fully that he knew exactly which park he went to. What I'm trying to say is, yes, I would imagine he knows which park he went to. I mean, he's been living there for years and years and years. This is his hometown.

But I could also see him just rattling off the wrong name. Do I totally buy it? No. But since there's video surveillance of him at the Home Depot and the Brookshire Brothers grocery store, why would he be lying about the park? Listen to this. David maintains he has an airtight alibi, having been seen on surveillance videos at local stores that afternoon. But investigators start to

believe he might have had the opportunity to commit the murder before he left the house. At first glance, the detectives thought that David Temple had a potential alibi because there is a videotape showing David Temple in the store. So you would think, oh, wow, he really was running the errands that he said he was. But when you break it down, he's got plenty of time before he leaves the house that day to murder Belinda. And more evidence, including the behavior of the Temple's dog, Shaka, begins to pile up. One of the strongest pieces of evidence we had was Shaka.

Everybody, friend, neighbor, cop, anybody that knew anything about David and Belinda agreed on how ferocious and fierce and protective that dog was. I thought it was odd that anyone could get past the dog without someone recognizing it or coming over to see what the problem was. Shaka would not have allowed a stranger into that yard. He was very protective. If the police couldn't get past that dog, how would a burglar? To Brandi Chiancini with the KD Times, the owner of the KD Times, it's tough if your strongest evidence is behavior of a dog. I mean, the perp could be somebody the dog knew before. It could be somebody in the neighborhood. It could be the bug guy, the delivery guy, the yard guy, anybody that the dog may have known. That's a tough sell.

It is. However, Shaka was consistent in being extremely protective of the family. And really the only people that the dog healed to were David and Belinda. So even the neighbors said that the husband, when he went over there, Shaka was very aggressive towards him and would take a while to, when Belinda and David would go out of town and he would go feed Shaka, he would have to stand outside the gate and wait and talk to the dog. And it would take quite a bit of time for Shaka to calm down enough to allow him to come into the yard to feed, you know, to put feed out and it just doesn't seem logical that even if it was someone that Shaka knew that the dog would calm down quickly enough

before Belinda would have noticed that Shaka was barking and creating a stir in the backyard. Catherine Casey, though, let's follow this through to its logical conclusion. Does that mean that Belinda Temple came home? We know she was at school, I guess, until around three. Then she comes home. That David Temple comes home and shoots her dead while Evan is in the home? Would that be a working theory? Well, Evan had been sick and was on medication. And when he left daycare that day, Belinda carried him out and he was so tired he never woke up.

So the thought is that he was probably in his bedroom asleep at the time that all of this happened. The closet was kind of a perfect area to muffle the sound because of all the clothes around it. There was a lot of talk about how with the door closed and the shot might not even have been heard outside of the house. So the thought is that David was there that afternoon. Belinda arrived home around, he said in his original statement at 345 that afternoon from school. She walked into the house, and an argument ensued. David was angry. He'd been angry that afternoon when he left school. You know, Belinda was angry at David.

Tensions were high in that house. My thought is that he met her at the back door with the shotgun and that he'd been waiting for and that he walked her upstairs and walked her to the closet and executed her in the closet. He was done. David Temple had a history with women. In college, he had had a girlfriend and they'd been very serious and he was constantly pledging his affection and love for her. As soon as he met Belinda, he dropped the other girl and wanted her gone. He wanted Belinda gone in this case because he now had Heather, but it wasn't as easy with Belinda because they had Evan. She was pregnant with his

little girl. It was a more complicated situation. To Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Way in, Joseph Scott. Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, Nancy, we're talking about dogs, we're talking about video cameras and everything else. I think that one of the most important things here is what did they find relative to the body uh you know as a former medical legal death investigator in atlanta and in new orleans one of the first things that we do at the scene is to try to determine what's referred to as post-mortem interval i'd really like to know what the authorities did at the scene as far as examining the remains to judge the level of rigor mortis, postmortem lividity, the settling of the blood, and algor mortis, which is actually the body temperature. I'd like to know what the status was when the authorities first arrived and they made their initial assessment of the body. One of the interesting

things about Texas is that Texas doesn't have coroners. They're heavily reliant on the justice of the peace. I think in Houston, they have a medical examiner, but I don't know that any representative of a medical legal authority actually went to the scene to examine the body. So this is going to be key because if we can determine these changes that have happened after death relative to the body, that's going to narrow down the timeline a lot. And here we're relying on science. We're not relying on Dr. Doolittle movies, as you had mentioned earlier. And I'd really like to know what those figures were. While certain members of the police force are looking at David Temple, they backtrack to a neighbor student, not Riley Joe Sanders, but a student named Mark.

An autopsy is conducted on Belinda's body. It reveals that she was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. But the weapon cannot be found. However, there is someone nearby who has access to a 12-gauge shotgun, Belinda's troubled teenage student, Mark. Could he be a killer? He had been involved with a group of kids who had been involved in a house robbery, and one of the things that was stolen was a 12-gauge shotgun. Police bring Mark in for questioning. There were good reasons why

police were looking at the teenager next door as a suspect. One of them was that he wasn't where he said he was that afternoon. He told police initially that he was at school, but the truth was that he cut his classes and left early.

Another thing was that he repeatedly failed polygraphs that he agreed to take. As detectives dig deeper, they struggle to find hard evidence to link Mark to the murder. It turned out, however, when they took a closer look at the kid next door, that he didn't have a motive for doing this. He had never appeared angry at Belinda. There was no forensic evidence found that showed he had been ever in the Temple household. And there were others who substantiated his alibi for the day. Without a clear motive and with his alibi holding up,

police cross Mark off their suspect list. So you were hearing our friends at SCORN, and that was the voice of Catherine Casey who is with us right now, author of Shattered, with Riley Joe Sanders out as a suspect as well as his friends. Police start testing the evidence. What do they do, Catherine Casey? Well, they started looking at David's alibi and trying to put it together. They did things like timing the drive from the Temple House to the park. They tried to find someone who could place David at the park and Evan, but they were never able to do that. They timed the drive to Brookshire Brothers. They timed the drive to Home Depot. They timed the drive back. And they canvassed the neighborhood and

tried to find people who saw David that day or who had heard anything. And some people started coming forward. There were people who, there was one man named Binderman who said that he saw David that afternoon, a little after 5, I believe it was, and that David was in his, that he had Evan in the car with him. But he was in a place where he shouldn't have been. It wasn't on the route to Brookshire Brothers. It wasn't on the route to Home Depot. It was near David's parents' house. Uh-oh, because to Joe Scott Morgan, that's two inconsistencies now.

I was willing to let the confusion about the name of the park he was at slide, okay? But now he's somewhere he conveniently leaves out of his alibi. He's somewhere completely different. Now, could he have just driven by his parents' house? Sometimes I take a sentimental route when I know another route's faster, but that's not what happened here, according to police. No, and you know, that's striking, Nancy, when you begin to think about this. This is Mr. Everything in this town. I mean, he is known far and wide. He has great athletic exploits. He's the teacher. He's the friend.

He's everything else, but yet he can't remember basic geography. He can't remember these ideas or constructs about where he actually lives and spends his time. For me as an investigator, and I'm sure that Steve would probably agree with me on this, I'm going to have a real hard time with this if I'm pressing this guy for information and he is starting to hit upon all of these inconsistencies. It's not like he's in a foreign country, Nance. Well, so far I've only got two inconsistencies. But I look at the evidence in a different way. I'll look at it as if, if I want to prove this case, do I have evidence to make out a homicide prosecution?

Two inconsistencies, not enough. But as you say, it can mount. Bottom line, this is where police are left. And their doubts that Belinda was killed by a burglar escalate. The condition of the scene points to it being staged. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence in this whole alleged burglary explanation of David Temple's was the glass that came from the back patio door. If the glass had been broken by a burglar, police would have expected to find the broken glass directly behind the door. But most of the glass is off to an angle

on one side of the door. It doesn't add up. The common sense explanation for that is that glass was broken when the door was already open in a jar. Well, why in the world would a burglar do that? The robbery just didn't look like a robbery. There was jewelry that was sitting out in the open that would have been easily seen and easy to take

by a true burglar. There was a plate with David's watch and his gold championship ring from college sitting out in the open. No one had disturbed it. So why break into a house and shoot an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman in the back of the head, upstairs, in her closet, inside of her master bedroom, go through the whole house, walk out the back door and not

even take anything. Why do that? Yes, why? With no sex attack on Belinda Temple, nothing stolen from the home, nothing at all. What could be a possible motive? And then whatever the relationship was, it was not a secret anymore. And David knew that put him under suspicion. I knew there would always be a cloud there from what had happened and people would have doubts. Three months after the crime, a grand jury was convened and in the end indicted nobody. Not Riley Joe Sanders, the neighbor who police all but dismissed as a suspect not David Temple the man police believed committed the crime so how did you feel when you heard that they decided not to indict you you

don't get any joy from knowing that you didn't kill your wife she's still gone. With no hard evidence connecting anybody to this murder, the case went cold, and David Temple got on with his life. The case goes cold. Everyone seemingly gets on with their life. Will there ever be justice for Belinda Temple? Nancy Grace, Killers Amongst Us, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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