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Speaker 3: Host you are now listening to? True Murder, The most
Speaker 3: shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
Speaker 3: have written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK.
Speaker 3: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 3: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 3: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 5: Good Eating. This is your host Dan Supaski for the
Speaker 5: program True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime
Speaker 5: history and the authors that have written about them. In Creekstone, Texas,
Speaker 5: a small quiet suburb of Houston, football was king and
Speaker 5: David Temple was a prince. A former high school and
Speaker 5: college gridiron star turned coach, had a fairy tale marriage
Speaker 5: to bright, vivacious Belinda Lucas, a teacher at the local
Speaker 5: high school who was so warm and popular her colleagues
Speaker 5: called her the Sunshine Girl. The fairytale ended savagely on
Speaker 5: January eleventh, nineteen ninety nine, when Belinda's lifeless body was
Speaker 5: discovered in the closet. Her skull had been shattered by
Speaker 5: a shotgun blast at close range. She was eight months pregnant.
Speaker 5: There was no damning evidence directly linking the brutal murder
Speaker 5: to husband David, who stood by, emotionless and dry eyed
Speaker 5: as police searched the crime scene. But a dog at
Speaker 5: eight year investigation would expose a shocking history of domination, infidelity,
Speaker 5: and rage, ultimately resulting in an epic court room battle
Speaker 5: for the ages as a scandalous truth was revealed about
Speaker 5: love betrayed and innocent lives shattered. My special guest this evening,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Catherine Casey with her latest true crime
Speaker 5: classic Shattered. Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview,
Speaker 5: and welcome back to the program. Catherine Casey, Thank.
Speaker 6: You, Dan, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. First off, it's my favorite question.
Speaker 5: I always ask it, what in particular brought you to
Speaker 5: this case? How did you come to want to write
Speaker 5: about this particular case.
Speaker 6: I live in Houston, Texas, and this happened right outside,
Speaker 6: right west of the city, and it made major headlines
Speaker 6: down here. This was a very big case. Belinda was,
Speaker 6: as you said, a beloved teacher, and she was eight
Speaker 6: months pregnant, and David was this lone star football hero
Speaker 6: both in high school and college, and it just seems
Speaker 6: like such an improbable end to what was a fairytale marriage.
Speaker 5: Right Well, now let's go back and introduce the characters
Speaker 5: in this incredible story. Here. First off with David Temple,
Speaker 5: the football star, and we're talking about Creekstone, Texas, a
Speaker 5: suburb of Houston, and maybe you can tell us how
Speaker 5: important football is in this community of Creekstone, at this
Speaker 5: high school, and how big a star David Temple really was,
Speaker 5: and go back to David Temple and introduce his life
Speaker 5: growing up and really a little bit about David Temple.
Speaker 6: David actually grew up in Katie, Texas, which is right
Speaker 6: next to Creekstone, and Katie is like Friday night lights
Speaker 6: gone mad. It's the kind of place where they closed
Speaker 6: up the stores on Friday nights so that everybody could
Speaker 6: go to the football game. Football is king, it rules,
Speaker 6: and David Temple was the football player that turned the
Speaker 6: Katie High School team around. They had a remarkable year
Speaker 6: of the year that he was there. They almost won
Speaker 6: it all and he was a big reason for that.
Speaker 6: He then went off to college and had a remarkable
Speaker 6: we were at Stephen F. Austin and Acadocius. He was
Speaker 6: a talented athlete from the time he was young, and
Speaker 6: because he was he was treated differently. He had also
Speaker 6: grown up in a family that was kind of Katie hierarchy.
Speaker 6: They go way back in the Katie area and people
Speaker 6: like them. They're they were well thoughtoed they were. They
Speaker 6: were thought of his very good people, good church going family,
Speaker 6: and they had this remarkable son. But David also had
Speaker 6: this other side. He was incredibly violent on the football field.
Speaker 6: At one point they were calling him the Temple of Doom.
Speaker 6: On the field, he once nearly broke another players back.
Speaker 6: He also was known to go into rages off the
Speaker 6: fields and people had to be very careful around him.
Speaker 6: He had a problem with a high school girlfriend and
Speaker 6: she refused to see him again, and the rumor was
Speaker 6: that he had strangled her pet rabbits.
Speaker 5: Well. To be fair though, did he have any run
Speaker 5: ins with the law whatsoever? We did?
Speaker 6: At one point he did. He was arrested for stealing
Speaker 6: uh fuzzbusters remember those from back in the eighties, the
Speaker 6: uh yeah, for the in the cars. I can't think
Speaker 6: what's the other name is, but they're they're radar detective okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: And he he was arrested along with another young man,
Speaker 6: a player on the team, and he ended up actually
Speaker 6: being uh. I think he pleaded no contest or something
Speaker 6: on the charge, and he was suspected and I think
Speaker 6: around seven or eight different instances different robberies in the
Speaker 6: Katie area. And the other player at the time said
Speaker 6: that they were using the Fuzzbusters or selling the Fuzzbusters
Speaker 6: to get money for drugs for steroids. I'm sorry. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: he did have a run in with the law. And
Speaker 6: the people in Katie and the police department knew about David.
Speaker 6: They had heard the stories about his bad temper. It
Speaker 6: was rumored that he had once tried to run an
Speaker 6: elderly couple off the road. I mean, this is a
Speaker 6: kid that from Jang' was acting out and doing really
Speaker 6: showing a violence side, and everybody looked the other way
Speaker 6: because he could play football.
Speaker 5: Sure, No, he went to college and had a successful
Speaker 5: football career, and so now he becomes a high school
Speaker 5: football coach and obviously as well as a teacher at
Speaker 5: Katie High.
Speaker 6: As it, he was at another school in the a
Speaker 6: Leaf School district, which is right next door, right, he
Speaker 6: was in the middle school there.
Speaker 5: Okay, so he had a successful career as a teacher,
Speaker 5: at least till this incident. Anyway, he did.
Speaker 6: He was pretty well liked. Actually, he was a pretty
Speaker 6: good coach. He came down a little tough on the
Speaker 6: kids sometimes and he'd had to be pulled aside and
Speaker 6: told to, you know, ease off. They were just junior
Speaker 6: high school kids, just high school kids, and actually was
Speaker 6: high school. He was coaching high school, but teaching in
Speaker 6: the middle school at the ninth grade center. So he
Speaker 6: you know, he was a little bit on edge at times,
Speaker 6: but he was fairly well liked actually when it got
Speaker 6: to that point.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the parents of David Temple, and
Speaker 5: if I'm not correct, to Ken and Maureen, and now
Speaker 5: he also has some siblings, and maybe he can tell us,
Speaker 5: because they're very important to this story as well. Tell
Speaker 5: us about the siblings of David Temple and give us
Speaker 5: their approximate ages of who they are in relation in
Speaker 5: relationship the age did David, Well, I know.
Speaker 6: You were in front of me, but I believe that
Speaker 6: each of them are two years apart. I think Darren
Speaker 6: is two years older and Kevin is two years younger,
Speaker 6: David being the middle son, and they were very close brothers.
Speaker 6: They grew up to be very close.
Speaker 5: Now this is important later, but there is testimony that,
Speaker 5: and this is part of the community as well. Not
Speaker 5: everybody is a hunter or a fisherman, but these people
Speaker 5: have a little bit of a tradition of hunting in
Speaker 5: their in their family. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about that. That did they as a family go hunting?
Speaker 5: How did they get interested in? How involved were these
Speaker 5: people in hunting?
Speaker 6: Well, in the Katie area is the main flyway and
Speaker 6: ducks and geese fly over it, and most of the
Speaker 6: young men grow up hunting, and David did along with
Speaker 6: his two brothers. As a matter of fact, their house
Speaker 6: was a jason to a rice field, which of course
Speaker 6: is kind of lures in birds. So sure it was
Speaker 6: a great place to go out even after school during
Speaker 6: the season and shoot. So the father Ken gave each
Speaker 6: of the boys shotgun at a different time. So this
Speaker 6: was a big part of their lives. It's a big
Speaker 6: part of the entire community in Katie, Okay.
Speaker 5: So now he's a successful teacher, he's a successful coach,
Speaker 5: he's been a star football player, and as you've talked about,
Speaker 5: he's privileged and arrogant and has a violent streak and
Speaker 5: has gotten away with things for years. Now he meets
Speaker 5: a woman named Belinda Lucas and when does he meet Belinda,
Speaker 5: And what are the circumstances when they do meet, and
Speaker 5: where did they meet? And tell us about Belinda and
Speaker 5: her life and her parents.
Speaker 6: Well, Belinda grew up in Nagadocius, Texas, which is about
Speaker 6: I think it's about three or four hours north of Houston.
Speaker 6: And David did not get into one of the big
Speaker 6: name schools. He was quite disappointed about that, and he
Speaker 6: ended up at Stephen Faustin and Acadocius and he was
Speaker 6: a big man on campus. The year that Belinda met him,
Speaker 6: his picture was up all over all over the city.
Speaker 6: He was on the cover of the football team's program,
Speaker 6: so there were actually posters in a lot of the stores.
Speaker 6: Belinda grew up in this small town, well not small town,
Speaker 6: small city, and she was the fifth child of Tom
Speaker 6: and Carol Lucas. She was a twin. She has a
Speaker 6: twin sister named Brenda. And Belinda was just a really
Speaker 6: special human being from the very beginning, she was just
Speaker 6: one of those people had just kind of glowed and
Speaker 6: she loved people. She was very athletic, she was always busy.
Speaker 6: She just she could laugh and make everything go away.
Speaker 6: She loved children. One of her brothers his deaf, and
Speaker 6: Belinda was the only one in the family that learned
Speaker 6: sign language in order to be able to talk with
Speaker 6: him using sign language. She was just she had a
Speaker 6: really good heart, and she really loved family, and she
Speaker 6: grew up wanting a really good family. The problem was
Speaker 6: that within her nuclear family there was quite a bit
Speaker 6: of tension. And it wasn't that, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 6: like a courier in ives, you know, Christmas. It was
Speaker 6: Things were always a little strained at the Lucas house,
Speaker 6: and it became more so she got older, and it
Speaker 6: ended up that she moved out during college because of
Speaker 6: roles that her father was putting down. So she was
Speaker 6: a little bit estranged from her family, not completely, but
Speaker 6: a little bit. And when she met David, David kind
Speaker 6: of took over her life and she was pretty much
Speaker 6: absorbed into the Temple family.
Speaker 5: No, she didn't recognize any of this violent streak when
Speaker 5: she first met him. She was caught up with his
Speaker 5: charm and his good looks and his importance in the community. Obviously,
Speaker 5: she was charmed enough for these people to date and
Speaker 5: tell us about the meeting and tell us what she
Speaker 5: first thought her first impressions of David were when she
Speaker 5: talked to her girlfriends about meeting him and her relationship.
Speaker 6: Well, this was a pretty heavy thing to have the
Speaker 6: star of the football team as your boyfriend are interested
Speaker 6: in you in the beginning, sure, and he was actually
Speaker 6: dating someone else at the time who he dropped immediately
Speaker 6: when he started to see Belinda. She was really taken
Speaker 6: by him. And I don't know that David had the
Speaker 6: tendency talking to his previous girlfriends. He has a tendency
Speaker 6: to really cater to a woman, to really put her
Speaker 6: on a pedestal, to the extent that he's known to
Speaker 6: beat up other guys in bars if they even look
Speaker 6: at the woman as at a woman who's his girlfriend.
Speaker 6: So you know, he was very He gave a lot
Speaker 6: of roses. He was the kind of guy who showed
Speaker 6: up with flowers, the kind of guy who left love
Speaker 6: notes on her car. On the other hand, from the
Speaker 6: very beginning in the relationships, he was always very controlling.
Speaker 6: It was always, you know, you come to my family's
Speaker 6: house for Christmas, you come with me when I want
Speaker 6: to go out. If I tell you I'm coming over,
Speaker 6: I'm coming over there was very little, he tended to
Speaker 6: segregate the women, all of his girlfriends, and he did
Speaker 6: the same thing with Belinda. Pretty soon he had segregated
Speaker 6: her from her family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you do give an example too, when Brenda was
Speaker 5: wanted to come down and at a Christmas I'm jumping
Speaker 5: ahead a little bit, but it showed the domination where
Speaker 5: he canceled those plans that were for Christmas and said, listen,
Speaker 5: you know she had to tell her sister, you know,
Speaker 5: that the planet had changed, and the idea that the family,
Speaker 5: that she wouldn't see her own family at Christmas and
Speaker 5: instead they would spend with his family was a really good,
Speaker 5: clear example of that kind of domination. That's pretty good
Speaker 5: evidence of it for sure.
Speaker 6: Well, if David, Belinda told many people that David just
Speaker 6: didn't want her to see her family at all. She
Speaker 6: called him, he called him terrible names and talked to
Speaker 6: belittle of them and said that he didn't want after
Speaker 6: they did get married and they had a child, that
Speaker 6: he didn't want their son around Belinda's family at all.
Speaker 6: So he really did. He made a I don't know
Speaker 6: if it was a conscious effort, I think it was,
Speaker 6: but it certainly a concerted effort to cut her off
Speaker 6: from her support system, and that included her sister and
Speaker 6: brothers and her parents.
Speaker 5: Now, the event that we talk about is in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety nine. But when did they get married? When did
Speaker 5: they meet? And when did they get married?
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Speaker 6: And David, Well, they've been married about seven years when
Speaker 6: she died, so they must have been married about ninety
Speaker 6: two and they had met in Yeah, they got married
Speaker 6: early in ninety two, and I think they began dating
Speaker 6: about a year earlier, so they were married for about
Speaker 6: seven years. They had a three year old at the time.
Speaker 5: And his name is his name is Erin or Evan
Speaker 5: Evan Evan. Okay.
Speaker 6: The little girl she was carrying was to be named
Speaker 6: Aaron right right now.
Speaker 5: In a conversation she had with her girlfriend, I guess
Speaker 5: the marriage obviously, we'll get to that. But the marriage
Speaker 5: had changed. So was she very aware of changes with
Speaker 5: David and his This was her dissatisfaction in relationship. How
Speaker 5: did the relationship her marriage fair? He said it was
Speaker 5: nomination separation, but was there violence? How what would you
Speaker 5: characterize the marriage like and when did it really deteriorate
Speaker 5: or when did it change?
Speaker 6: You know, I think it actually happened gradually, Dan, I mean,
Speaker 6: this is really this marriage had the fairy tale beginning.
Speaker 6: He proposed to her on the football field, dropped down
Speaker 6: on his knees in front of all of their friends,
Speaker 6: and you know, he was this chivalrous guy. And then
Speaker 6: you know, within a year they were living in a
Speaker 6: rental house in a small town outside Nacadocius, and she's
Speaker 6: starting to say that he's never home and she tells
Speaker 6: a friend, I wonder if he's going out on me.
Speaker 6: I wonder if he's seeing other women. But then immediately
Speaker 6: she would change her minding. Oh well, no, David wouldn't
Speaker 6: do that to me. I know, David wouldn't do that
Speaker 6: to me. Belinda really wanted the family. She really wanted
Speaker 6: the whole Norman Rockwell family. You know, she didn't have
Speaker 6: that growing up. Her family wasn't that close. It was
Speaker 6: important to her and she was willing to overlook a
Speaker 6: lot and a lot of times she was willing to
Speaker 6: talk herself out of things. But David, it appears, had
Speaker 6: a wandering eye from you know, at some point in
Speaker 6: the marriage that developed as they went along.
Speaker 5: Now the thing is they have a three year old
Speaker 5: and they have a daughter on the way. So he
Speaker 5: has a son, they have a son, there's a daughter
Speaker 5: on the way. Tell us about the preparation for the child.
Speaker 5: And it seems like if she didn't think that he
Speaker 5: was stepping out on her, she was definitely now telling
Speaker 5: her girlfriends that she was disappointed she had to hire
Speaker 5: somebody to put up some shelving in the nursery. He
Speaker 5: didn't seem to be so interested. And I think understandably
Speaker 5: that would be a big fear of you're eight months
Speaker 5: pregnant and somebody looks like they're not so interested, So
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Well, she didn't. It had actually started this summer before
Speaker 6: they had gone about six weeks where they didn't talk
Speaker 6: at all, and Belinda was telling her friends that she
Speaker 6: didn't believe that he loved her anymore. And then suddenly
Speaker 6: they got back together and she was pregnant, and she
Speaker 6: at first acted like everything was wonderful, but then she
Speaker 6: started talking about David really not wanting a baby girl
Speaker 6: and him not being excited, and as you said, he
Speaker 6: didn't help prepare the nursery. She would show up at
Speaker 6: Katie High School to go to work and talk about
Speaker 6: how she had had to paint the room all by herself,
Speaker 6: and how she'd had to put the crib together by herself.
Speaker 6: And as you said, she had this idea for a
Speaker 6: shelf she wanted to put up in the baby's room,
Speaker 6: and it was one of those things that was really
Speaker 6: important to her, you know how sometimes things take on
Speaker 6: added meaning to people, and she really wanted his help
Speaker 6: with this, and he never did do it. He never
Speaker 6: got that shelf up.
Speaker 5: Now let's introduce the another one of the main characters
Speaker 5: in this incredible story. Heather Scott and who is she?
Speaker 5: Where did she come from? She was new to this area.
Speaker 5: And tell us a little bit about Heather Scott, her background.
Speaker 5: Who was she?
Speaker 6: She grew up in a little town outside College Station.
Speaker 6: She had a lot in common with Melinda. They're both
Speaker 6: very pretty. She was a cheerleader like Belinda was. She
Speaker 6: dated a football player. They were both teachers, and they
Speaker 6: were both twins. They both had twin sisters, and they
Speaker 6: were both very bright. And she had gone to College
Speaker 6: Station to Texas A and M and she had a
Speaker 6: teaching degree. And she followed a friend and moved to
Speaker 6: Houston and started teaching in the Katie School district in
Speaker 6: the fall of nineteen ninety eight. And actually I think
Speaker 6: it was a little bit before that she moved in,
Speaker 6: But she was at David's school teaching English in the
Speaker 6: fall of nineteen ninety eight, and before long they started
Speaker 6: showing up places together. She wasn't the type of person
Speaker 6: that had a lot of boyfriends that was out all
Speaker 6: the time. Her roommate said that she they actually kept
Speaker 6: to themselves for quite a while after Heather moved to Houston.
Speaker 6: But you know, she was well liked and very pretty,
Speaker 6: and David noticed her.
Speaker 5: Now there's another important character, just to go backwards just
Speaker 5: a step, and another person, a friend and a co
Speaker 5: teacher as well, and the friends of mutual friends of
Speaker 5: Heather and David is a man named Quinton and quintin Harmon,
Speaker 5: I think, but anyway, Quentin also was well, it was
Speaker 5: flirtatious with Heather, was flirting with Heather, and David and
Speaker 5: Quinton had spoken about Heather and their own relationships. Maybe
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about Quinn because he's an
Speaker 5: interesting character in this story as well.
Speaker 6: Well. Quentin was married to Tammy and they had daughters.
Speaker 6: They had three daughters, and he was taken with Heather.
Speaker 6: It was kind of a flirtation. He and Tammy were
Speaker 6: going through a little bit of a rough spot and
Speaker 6: he was interested a little bit in Heather, although he
Speaker 6: never pursued it the way that David did. But the
Speaker 6: really interesting thing is that Quentin and David were very
Speaker 6: very uh uh. They were always trying to one up
Speaker 6: each other. So when Quinton put a like a fountain
Speaker 6: in their backyard, well then David had to put one
Speaker 6: in and his head to be bigger, in his head,
Speaker 6: to be better sure, And David was always telling Quinton
Speaker 6: what to do and where to go, and always trying
Speaker 6: to lure Quintin out to do things that Quinton really
Speaker 6: didn't want to do, as far as going out to
Speaker 6: bars and topless places and everything. So it became one
Speaker 6: of those relationships where there was just a lot of,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of a guy relationship where there was
Speaker 6: a lot of back and forth and ego, you know,
Speaker 6: going into it. So Quentin actually noticed Heather first and
Speaker 6: said something to David, and in no time at all,
Speaker 6: David was interested in Heather.
Speaker 5: No, it progressed. It started off obviously of flirtation, but
Speaker 5: there was the happy hour at the bar, apparently on
Speaker 5: Thursday in the neighborhood bar, and Quinton would had gone
Speaker 5: to this happy hour, and I guess a lot of
Speaker 5: the teachers decided to go on Thursdays to this happy hour.
Speaker 5: So how does a happy hour and the bar play
Speaker 5: into all this?
Speaker 6: Well, Quentin actually I think he only went once, but
Speaker 6: David started showing up after he went with Quinton once
Speaker 6: and they saw Heather there, and then David became kind
Speaker 6: of a regular on Thursday night. It was easy for
Speaker 6: him to get out because Thursday nights were Juvie football games,
Speaker 6: and all he had to do was tell Melinda that
Speaker 6: he was observing looking at the kids coming up for
Speaker 6: the next year, right, and he started showing up and
Speaker 6: before for along Heather and David were sitting together talking
Speaker 6: and flirting, and they started acting like a couple. People
Speaker 6: started noticing them together. And then Heather's roommates started coming
Speaker 6: home and finding David's trucks out in the driveway in
Speaker 6: front of the house and Heather's purse in the living room,
Speaker 6: and they were upstairs in the bedroom.
Speaker 5: And she's another important character in this and her name
Speaker 5: is Tara Hall. Is that correct?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Now this is another part of very bizarre part of
Speaker 5: this story as we proceed here is that what does
Speaker 5: you know, Christmas happens and some interesting developments there. I
Speaker 5: think to illustrate his character, you talk of the Christmas
Speaker 5: present situation. Christmas, maybe you can tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about that, and then when and how he broke
Speaker 5: the news that he was not going to be spending
Speaker 5: New Year's Eve with his wife despite being more than
Speaker 5: eight months pregnant. Tell us a little bit about Christmas
Speaker 5: and New.
Speaker 6: Year's Well, we know about Christmas and New Year's because Brenda,
Speaker 6: Belinda's twin, came right after Christmas and stayed there, and
Speaker 6: she saw a lot of tension between the two of them,
Speaker 6: and she even heard Belinda say to David at one point,
Speaker 6: you really don't want this baby girl. So there was
Speaker 6: a lot going on right then, things had gotten really,
Speaker 6: really difficult. And that Christmas he gave Heather a gold
Speaker 6: necklace for Christmas, and he didn't give Belinda a gift.
Speaker 6: And then New Year's Eve Ril around, which was Belinda's
Speaker 6: birth well it was two days before was Belinda and
Speaker 6: Brenda's birthday, right, and Brenda didn't see a gift being
Speaker 6: given to her sister for the birthday. And at dinner
Speaker 6: that night with his parents, he announced that he was
Speaker 6: going hunting on New Year's Eve, and he did. He
Speaker 6: left New Year's Eve afternoon, left his eight eight month
Speaker 6: pregnant wife at home, and was gone for the weekend.
Speaker 6: Only he didn't go hunting, That's not where he was Heather.
Speaker 6: He was at Heather's apartment at her townhouse for that weekend.
Speaker 5: Now, just before we get any further, you talked a
Speaker 5: little bit about Heather Scott and came from a decent
Speaker 5: background but how is she reconciling this situation here the
Speaker 5: pregnant wife, New Year's Eve, Christmas? How does she? How
Speaker 5: does her friend Tara Hall approve of this? How what's
Speaker 5: the conversation between Tara and Heather about this relationship and
Speaker 5: David Temple?
Speaker 6: Well, it was appearing to Terra that Heather was getting
Speaker 6: relatively serious about David. On the other hand, Heather would
Speaker 6: later say that she really didn't ask David about his family,
Speaker 6: that she really didn't want to know, except at one
Speaker 6: point she asked if he had children, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 6: he had one boy, and and he had a little
Speaker 6: girl on the way. So she knew he was married,
Speaker 6: She knew he had children. She knew when he was
Speaker 6: with her on New Year's Eve that his pregnant wife
Speaker 6: was home alone, well not alone with her little boy.
Speaker 6: And she continued to see him. And I think that
Speaker 6: says a lot.
Speaker 5: Now, three days before January eleventh, nineteen ninety nine, what
Speaker 5: does David say to Heather? And Heather say to David
Speaker 5: that will end up being very important, and it is
Speaker 5: very important.
Speaker 6: He told her, I think I'm becoming total I think
Speaker 6: I'm falling totally in love with you. And she said,
Speaker 6: I don't think I can keep going on this way. Well,
Speaker 6: she said she loved she thought she loved him too,
Speaker 6: and then at another time said, but I don't think
Speaker 6: I can keep going on this way. But he didn't
Speaker 6: seem upset about it. He didn't seem worried, right, and
Speaker 6: nothing changed. She didn't really cut off the relationship.
Speaker 5: Sure wasn't an ultimatum. Now, the faithful day of January eleven,
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety nine, Belinda and her friends. She has a
Speaker 5: group of friends that they are playing Bunco that evening
Speaker 5: that night, and she's looking forward to some Mexican foods enchilada.
Speaker 5: She really liked tell us about her friends because they
Speaker 5: are major characters in this as well. About the evening
Speaker 5: plan playing bunko with her friends, well.
Speaker 6: She Tammy and quite a few of the teachers from
Speaker 6: Katie High School were all planning to get together to
Speaker 6: play bunco. They played once a month, and Belinda was
Speaker 6: an enthusiastic bunko player, and she was with everything. She
Speaker 6: was just really full of life, and she hadn't seemed
Speaker 6: quite that happy the last month or so before, but
Speaker 6: she she really loved bunko and so She had told
Speaker 6: people Evan got sick that day, and she told people
Speaker 6: all day long that she's still planned to go to
Speaker 6: Bunco that night.
Speaker 5: Now the what else happens in the day. She did
Speaker 5: she speak to any of those ladies that day before
Speaker 5: previously the Bunco game, where they just they just assumed
Speaker 5: that she would show up and if not, if they didn't,
Speaker 5: She didn't contact any of those ladies that day. What
Speaker 5: was her day? What was the rest of her they like,
Speaker 5: what did she do well?
Speaker 6: She went to school that morning and she complained that
Speaker 6: she wasn't feeling well. She'd been to the doctor and
Speaker 6: he told her that he thought the baby might come
Speaker 6: a little bit early. Right, and Evan was sick. Her
Speaker 6: son was sick, but she'd given him some he'd woken
Speaker 6: up and thrown up in the middle of the night.
Speaker 6: She'd given him some Thailand off and dropped him off
Speaker 6: with daycare and said that if he started running a
Speaker 6: fever or anything, to call and that David would come
Speaker 6: and get him. She said that she had talked with
Speaker 6: David and he had agreed to pick Evan up if
Speaker 6: Evin was ill. So she went to Hey, guys, Itida.
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Speaker 6: Eighteen plus school that morning, and talked to her fellow
Speaker 6: teachers and everything, and then about eleven o'clock the phone
Speaker 6: rang and it was the daycare center and they were
Speaker 6: calling to say that Evan was running a fever high
Speaker 6: enough that it violated their policy to keep him there,
Speaker 6: so somebody had to come pick him up. And at
Speaker 6: that point she started calling David, and she called and
Speaker 6: called and called and couldn't get him, and finally left
Speaker 6: Katie High School to go pick Evan up, saying that
Speaker 6: she would be back for a meeting she had about
Speaker 6: two o'clock that afternoon, but she needed to get him home.
Speaker 6: So she went to Tigerland, which is the daycare center,
Speaker 6: and picked up Evan, who was just like a wet noodle.
Speaker 6: You know how three year olds are. And I don't
Speaker 6: know if you have kids, Dan, but when they're sick,
Speaker 6: and yeah, when they're sick and they're on medicine and
Speaker 6: they're running a fever. She picked him up and he
Speaker 6: slept all the way to the car and they said
Speaker 6: he hadn't eaten anything that day. The poor little guy
Speaker 6: was really sick. Sure, so she went home and continued
Speaker 6: to call David. Finally got in touch with him, and
Speaker 6: he left Katie High School or left a leaf the
Speaker 6: Junior High where he worked at the ninth grade center,
Speaker 6: and came home to take care of Evan. She did
Speaker 6: you want me to keep going?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll I can ask you a question to set
Speaker 5: this up. So now she is at home and she
Speaker 5: is go backwards just a little bit. She picked up
Speaker 5: some soup from the Temple family Maureene earlier, so she
Speaker 5: had some homemade soup and she came home and then
Speaker 5: David comes to the home and so I guess describe
Speaker 5: the situation according or as David describes it to police
Speaker 5: tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Well, she gets home about noon, and then he comes
Speaker 6: home shortly after to take care of Evan, and she leaves,
Speaker 6: and she goes back to Katie High about one o'clock
Speaker 6: and then leaves thereafter her meeting and stops at her
Speaker 6: mother and father in laws house and picks up this
Speaker 6: soup and she leaves there. I think it was right
Speaker 6: around two twenty and heads to She left the school
Speaker 6: at two twenty. She stopped at the temple's house and
Speaker 6: then she drove home, and he later said that she
Speaker 6: arrived home about quarter to three, which would be about
Speaker 6: right depending on it looking at the distances. And he
Speaker 6: said that she came in the house tired and went
Speaker 6: upstairs to rest, and he took Evan out. Now Evan
Speaker 6: had been ill and had been in bed, and there
Speaker 6: was a note on the counter about one to give
Speaker 6: him tyland all. But David said that he took David
Speaker 6: or that he took Evan to the park and then
Speaker 6: to a grocery store to buy a drink, and then
Speaker 6: to a home depot and then returned back to the house.
Speaker 6: And I think it was right around five o'clock or
Speaker 6: so he came running to a neighbor's house and said
Speaker 6: that his back door window had been smashed in, and
Speaker 6: the call to nine one one was made about fifteen
Speaker 6: minutes later.
Speaker 5: Ten minutes later, so he came to the Riguero family
Speaker 5: next door, Mike Riguero and his wife's home, and because
Speaker 5: he knew them and also left his left Evan there,
Speaker 5: the three year old, while he proceeded to run, and
Speaker 5: as you've describe in your book very vividly, Mike Riguero
Speaker 5: runs behind him because David indicates that there's something going
Speaker 5: on that the back door's open, there's glass broken.
Speaker 6: So then what happens, Well, Mike gets to the door
Speaker 6: to the gate going into the backyard and Shaka, the
Speaker 6: dog Belinda and David's dog, it's a child, brown child,
Speaker 6: look like a bear. It was well known in the
Speaker 6: neighborhood to be very frightening. It was very aggressive. Dogs
Speaker 6: won't let him in the yard. So he sees David
Speaker 6: run into the house and Mike has to hold the
Speaker 6: gate shut to keep Shaka from attacking him. Right, and
Speaker 6: he's downstairs when the nine one one call is made.
Speaker 6: When David makes the nine one one call.
Speaker 5: And what did David say to police?
Speaker 6: He said that he had just gotten in and he
Speaker 6: found his wife in the bedroom closet, the master bedroom closet,
Speaker 6: and she was dead, and that there were brains that her,
Speaker 6: that it looked like she'd been shot in the head,
Speaker 6: and that there was brain matter everywhere. And they told
Speaker 6: him they at first they tried to talk him into
Speaker 6: doing CPR, right, but he kept saying that he couldn't
Speaker 6: do that, you know, there was too much damage. She
Speaker 6: was dead. Then they tried talking him into doing CPR
Speaker 6: for the baby, right, you know, because there is a
Speaker 6: period of time I think it's fifteen to twenty minutes
Speaker 6: or something where they can still deliver a child because
Speaker 6: the oxygen is still flowing into the fetus or into
Speaker 6: the infant, and this is in you know, this is
Speaker 6: eight months. This baby is you know, able to live
Speaker 6: outside the room. It was you know, nearly full term.
Speaker 6: But he doesn't do it.
Speaker 5: And he knows. They ask him if he does know
Speaker 5: how to do CPR, and he indicates that he does.
Speaker 6: Then he does, Yeah, he does, because he's a football coach,
Speaker 6: you know, from sports and everything. So he The police
Speaker 6: arrive and they've seen Mike Raggerio outside and they circle
Speaker 6: around and come to the gates and they try to
Speaker 6: get into the yard and the dog won't let them
Speaker 6: into the yard either. They're actually at the point where
Speaker 6: they're pulling their gun and they're going to come in
Speaker 6: because what they've heard is that there's somebody in need
Speaker 6: of help inside and they don't know what the situation is,
Speaker 6: so as far as they know, there's a human life
Speaker 6: hanging in the balance inside the house, sure, and they've
Speaker 6: got this dog that won't let them in. So they
Speaker 6: pull their gun to go into the backyard, to go
Speaker 6: in the back door, and at that moment, David walks
Speaker 6: out and stops them from shooting the dogs, locks the
Speaker 6: dog up in the garage, and they go inside.
Speaker 5: Now what do they find? What do they initially find
Speaker 5: because they're at antennae is up, that's their job. What
Speaker 5: do they initially find and where do they find Belinda's body?
Speaker 6: Well, they walk through the house. Actually just one of
Speaker 6: them walks through the house. A sergeant Goslin walks into
Speaker 6: the house and you know, walks up the stairs where
Speaker 6: David had told him to walk and then walks into
Speaker 6: the bedroom, the master bedroom, and over to the left,
Speaker 6: and what he sees is an obviously dead woman, kind
Speaker 6: of on her side a little bit enough so that
Speaker 6: he can see that she's very pregnant, and she's still
Speaker 6: and not moving and very obviously dead. And he knows,
Speaker 6: based on the nine one one call and everything, that
Speaker 6: it's been too long, so he turns around and walks
Speaker 6: back out gets down on stairs. In about that time,
Speaker 6: the EMT show up. So the sergeant then brings one
Speaker 6: of the EMTs up, who looks at Belinda's body and
Speaker 6: verifies that it's past the point for life saving measures,
Speaker 6: past the point where she can save the feet us
Speaker 6: anything can be done for the baby, and leaves in
Speaker 6: a short time later. Linda's declared dead.
Speaker 5: Now, what did the police find. We'll start with the
Speaker 5: bedroom because that's where we are. What did they find
Speaker 5: particularly unusual or odd in particular the hangars and some
Speaker 5: clothing in the closet itself that looked like the would
Speaker 5: be perpetrator move something there, and then was a TV
Speaker 5: set as well. Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 5: crime scene and what police saw immediately.
Speaker 6: Well, there were it appeared that it was a robbery
Speaker 6: because the back door had been smashed in the window
Speaker 6: it's been smashed. And downstairs on the first floor, as
Speaker 6: you said, a TV was taken off its standing laid
Speaker 6: on the side. But as they looked through the house,
Speaker 6: they saw things that didn't make sense based on it
Speaker 6: being a robbery. They saw jewelry and including David's gold
Speaker 6: championship ring sitting out plain view. They saw Belinda's jewelry
Speaker 6: boxes undisturbed in the closet. Once they started really looking
Speaker 6: at the scene where the body was, they realized that
Speaker 6: there wasn't enough blood splatter for the fact that her
Speaker 6: skull had literally been shattered and emptied, and so they
Speaker 6: began looking for her, you know, her brain basically and
Speaker 6: the blood splatter. And what they found is that somebody
Speaker 6: had taken the clothes on the bottom rack and pushed
Speaker 6: them over in order to cover up all of the
Speaker 6: blood splatter and everything. Then that the brain matter that
Speaker 6: was splattered against the closet wall.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of unusual, it is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, usually that's not Usually a robber is not going
Speaker 6: to stay around long enough to rearrange the clothes.
Speaker 5: So they had this undisturbed TV or this TV said
Speaker 5: move the clothing on the hangars moved to cover up
Speaker 5: the brain matter they also had they were suspicious about. Well,
Speaker 5: they thought the broken glass was unusual. Where the glass
Speaker 5: actually landed, Yeah, unusual.
Speaker 6: This was a big deal because if somebody's trying to
Speaker 6: break glass to get into a house, that means that
Speaker 6: the door is shut and locked. And what they found
Speaker 6: was and if you do that, if you if you
Speaker 6: show something through a door, you propel that glass forward,
Speaker 6: most of it's going to go forward. Some of them
Speaker 6: might fly in unusual places, but most of it's going
Speaker 6: to go forward. Well, what they found was that the glass,
Speaker 6: the majority of the glass was over to the far left,
Speaker 6: some of it very far left, in the in the
Speaker 6: TV room or in the den. So it appeared that
Speaker 6: the back door had actually been open already when the
Speaker 6: glass was broken, which didn't make sense for a robbery,
Speaker 6: but did for a stage robbery.
Speaker 5: So that was there basically their conclusion at that time
Speaker 5: that he was the lead suspect and this was a
Speaker 5: stage crime scene. And well did they make an arrest
Speaker 5: of David Temple? And what is his demeanor? Again, you
Speaker 5: cite it so many times, what was his demeanor?
Speaker 6: You know, he was unemotional even when his parents came
Speaker 6: to the scene. He was unemotional. He didn't appear to
Speaker 6: be grieving at all. He didn't, you know, appear to
Speaker 6: want to help the police to solve the crimes. He
Speaker 6: was very quiet. They took him down to the police
Speaker 6: station for questioning, but he didn't give any information. He
Speaker 6: recited his story about having taken Evans, this sick little boy,
Speaker 6: to a park, into a grocery store, into a home depot,
Speaker 6: and didn't really at any point appear upset by what
Speaker 6: had happened.
Speaker 5: Now, what is important is how his family reacts to
Speaker 5: the accusation that he had committed murder, and then some
Speaker 5: of his friends, obviously and obviously Belinda's friends and family
Speaker 5: start off with the different reactions from his arrest. Immediately,
Speaker 5: what does the Temple family do and what is their reaction,
Speaker 5: and what are other people's reaction like Belinda's family, the.
Speaker 6: Temple family, the police felt from the beginning that the
Speaker 6: Temple family, circles away against had been standing up for
Speaker 6: David for a very long time, and the police felt
Speaker 6: that they were doing that from the first night of
Speaker 6: the killing. That they were indignant about being questioned, They
Speaker 6: were uncooperative, they were not helping with the case at all.
Speaker 6: On the other hand, at first the Lucas's Belinda's parents
Speaker 6: at first didn't They never considered the idea that maybe
Speaker 6: their son in law could have done this. Really, they
Speaker 6: were devastated by what could have happened, but that didn't
Speaker 6: dawn on them. But Belinda's older brother Brian and her
Speaker 6: twin sister Brenda both immediately believed that David could be involved,
Speaker 6: especially of course when they found out about Heather. The
Speaker 6: relationship with Heather.
Speaker 5: Now, how long did it take for police to actually
Speaker 5: find out what the actual or what the truth were
Speaker 5: regarding his other relationship with relationship with Heather? How long
Speaker 5: did it take for police to put that altogether? What
Speaker 5: did they make of that? And how did they proceed
Speaker 5: legally from there? You talk about the not everybody knows this,
Speaker 5: but sometimes they put something and maybe can explain this
Speaker 5: much better than I can. The grand jury. Why they
Speaker 5: would take evidence to the grand jury, and what is
Speaker 5: the intention by doing that? Why can't they just go
Speaker 5: to trial? Why can't they just be charged? Explain that
Speaker 5: as we proceed with this.
Speaker 6: Well, a lot of times prosecutors they'll use a grand
Speaker 6: jury as a way of testing a case. They'll bring
Speaker 6: in their evidence and then talk to grand juris about
Speaker 6: whether or not they feel there was enough there. And
Speaker 6: another thing they do is they have people testify in
Speaker 6: front of a grand jury, which is a sworn testimony,
Speaker 6: and they have of the evidence. You know, they had
Speaker 6: the testimony recorded, and what it does is it locks
Speaker 6: in what these people are saying at that particular time,
Speaker 6: so it kind of puts them on the record. So
Speaker 6: it's a good investigative tool actually, and so they you know,
Speaker 6: they they had a very good suspicion that David Temple
Speaker 6: was with the killer, that he had killed Belinda in
Speaker 6: order to get rid of her to be with Heather r.
Speaker 6: And they talked to Heather about that at one point
Speaker 6: and she admitted that, yes, he had said that he
Speaker 6: loved her and everything, but she was spanning by David.
Speaker 6: She said that, you know, she couldn't believe that he
Speaker 6: would have done that, and you know, and she was
Speaker 6: very much in his corner. But they the police had
Speaker 6: a problem, and that's that the prosecutor didn't think he
Speaker 6: had enough evidence unless he had the murder weapon right,
Speaker 6: and they could not find a shotgun. It was an
Speaker 6: unusual shotgun shell. It was double lot and it was
Speaker 6: a reload and so and it was it was not
Speaker 6: a one that was done like a manufactured reload. So
Speaker 6: it was done by somebody on like you know, just
Speaker 6: at home with a reload machine and with reload equipment.
Speaker 6: And uh. The prosecutor told them that he needed that
Speaker 6: shotgun and they couldn't find it. And they looked, and
Speaker 6: they looked. They they dragged, you know, they were dragging
Speaker 6: the ponds in Katie, Texas, they were going to the parks,
Speaker 6: they were walking through rice fields. There were massive searches
Speaker 6: for this weapon, but they couldn't come up with it.
Speaker 6: And the prosecutor on the case said that he wouldn't
Speaker 6: take the case without it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they also had actually said they need to
Speaker 5: put the shotgun in hands. So it's important. It's important
Speaker 5: a little bit later when they do do not get
Speaker 5: the shotgun, but they settle for second best or as
Speaker 5: close as they can to that. So we'll talk about
Speaker 5: that just in a bit now. So there's no murder weapon,
Speaker 5: there's not really enough evidence. And they realize too that
Speaker 5: he is can afford and just from the behavior of
Speaker 5: the family itself and his importance and certainly that he's
Speaker 5: going to get a very good defense. Laur So when
Speaker 5: this thing is going to go. You talked about the
Speaker 5: grand jury. This thing doesn't takes a long time before
Speaker 5: they can ever indict this person. Explain how long it takes.
Speaker 5: There's one particular homicide detective that really this really bothered
Speaker 5: and it was his mission to have this case cleared,
Speaker 5: and also how long it took. And finally, what was
Speaker 5: the evidence gathered by the Crown attorney and that she
Speaker 5: felt was going to be enough evidence to be able
Speaker 5: to take to the jury and convict this person. David Temple.
Speaker 6: Well, there was a cop name, a homicide cop named
Speaker 6: Mark Schmidt, and this was his first homicide case. It
Speaker 6: was actually Tracy Shipley's first too. They were both working
Speaker 6: this case and there was a guy named Chuck Leitner,
Speaker 6: and they were working really hard on this case but
Speaker 6: couldn't get anywhere with it. So it languished and it
Speaker 6: sat collecting dust on Mark's desk for a very long time.
Speaker 6: It would turn out to be eight years before this
Speaker 6: case ever entered a courtroom, and every time there was
Speaker 6: some type of a new forensic discovery, Mark Schmidt would
Speaker 6: send in the evidence again and try to find it
Speaker 6: and try to find something, anything that they could use
Speaker 6: because they felt certain that David Temple was getting away
Speaker 6: with murder. Sure well it didn't, you know it, Just
Speaker 6: as I said, languaged and the family kept pushing. Belinda's
Speaker 6: family kept pushing to try to get this thing into
Speaker 6: a courtroom. But they made a lot, they hit a
Speaker 6: lot of resistance. And then Mark sent in a shirt
Speaker 6: and it came back from the FBI lab. It was
Speaker 6: one of David's. It was David's jacket, like a warm
Speaker 6: up jacket, right, and a pair of tennis shoes. And
Speaker 6: the FBI lab returned it and said that there was
Speaker 6: gunshot residue on it. And not only that, but they
Speaker 6: it matched the gunshot residue on Blinda's clothing.
Speaker 5: And this was a different This was a development. Sorry,
Speaker 5: this was a development as well because initially they did
Speaker 5: the GSR process at that time, initially, immediately after the murders,
Speaker 5: there was no GSR evidence that would be able to
Speaker 5: be used at trial. So this is a maybe you
Speaker 5: can explain it just a bit. This is a leap
Speaker 5: in either technology or the process or further testing. Again,
Speaker 5: initiated by probably Mark Schmidt and the police themselves to
Speaker 5: say it, could you submit to this further testing.
Speaker 6: Well, it was one of those things where it a
Speaker 6: lot of times in life, it's timing. And they had
Speaker 6: submitted these clothes early on, but then nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 6: because remember we're going back to ninety nine here, sure,
Speaker 6: and all the clothes that were in the queue at
Speaker 6: the FBI and Quantico to be tested, and because of
Speaker 6: nine to eleven, everything involving nine to eleven got fast tracked,
Speaker 6: and these and cases like this really were just pushed
Speaker 6: to the backs. So this sat for a very very
Speaker 6: long time. The initial results that came back were not
Speaker 6: did not find anything, but they kept testing with these
Speaker 6: new tests that were coming out. As Mark kept resubmitting,
Speaker 6: He actually went to DC and and carried these clothes
Speaker 6: at one point David's close and this one time finally
Speaker 6: it came back and there was a match. They found
Speaker 6: GSR and there was a match. So at that point
Speaker 6: they started talking, but they still weren't ready. Well, then
Speaker 6: the Scott Peterson case happened in California, right, and Tom Lucas,
Speaker 6: Belinda's dad, who had you know, never given up the
Speaker 6: hope that there would be some justice for his daughter's killing,
Speaker 6: called or emailed I forget which the DA's office here
Speaker 6: in Houston, and said, you know, you're either going to
Speaker 6: pursue this case or I'm going to go in and
Speaker 6: tell everybody in the world, you know, on the world
Speaker 6: wide web, that you know what's happened here, and why
Speaker 6: why aren't you doing anything about it? Well, the DA
Speaker 6: here in town brought it into one of his or
Speaker 6: to his top assistant prosecutor, a woman named Kelly see Seigler,
Speaker 6: and asked her to take a look at it. And
Speaker 6: it sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes. And
Speaker 6: she looked at it, and she gave it to another
Speaker 6: guy in the office and he looked at it, and
Speaker 6: they came away thinking they had maybe a sixty percent
Speaker 6: chance of getting a conviction. Sure, and that was enough
Speaker 6: to go with. So they arrested David.
Speaker 5: Now that the trial courtroom drama is incredible in this
Speaker 5: book a lot. I got to say, I've read a
Speaker 5: lot of true crime books, and what happens is that
Speaker 5: there's not so much mystery in the trial, you know,
Speaker 5: and they're not so exciting. I mean, some trials are exciting.
Speaker 5: This one's very exciting, and you've really captured that. Now
Speaker 5: we won't go into all the testimony at the trial,
Speaker 5: but who are the key witnesses at trial? It's and
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about the testimony of the
Speaker 5: Temple family and David himself. It's incredible.
Speaker 6: Well, the first half, of course is the prosecution. The
Speaker 6: prosecutor put on his witnesses, and sure she put on
Speaker 6: her witnesses, and she had both of the Harlan's. Tammy
Speaker 6: and Quinton testified about the turmoil in the Temple's marriage,
Speaker 6: how and how David was still controlling with Belinda, and
Speaker 6: then Brenda got up and testified about the the way
Speaker 6: there was so much tension in the house that Christmas,
Speaker 6: after Christmas through New Year's Eves, and Heather testified for
Speaker 6: the prosecution. This is an instance. One thing we didn't
Speaker 6: touch on, Dan is that, as this case language language,
Speaker 6: two years after the killing, David had married Heather.
Speaker 5: That's right, Yeah, we forgot about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a big one. And they were living together
Speaker 6: raising Evan, David's son, and both of them are still teaching.
Speaker 6: So and in this instance, because they weren't married when
Speaker 6: this all happened, she could be forced to testify. They
Speaker 6: weren't husband and wife at the time, so she was
Speaker 6: put on the stand, and she was very hostile witness.
Speaker 6: It was very tense in that court room the whole
Speaker 6: time she was on the stand. But this was really
Speaker 6: an amazing case. A lot of the little pieces started
Speaker 6: to fall together. What Kelly Seeler did is she started
Speaker 6: putting before the jury all of these little things that
Speaker 6: lined up to form this really damning picture. David never
Speaker 6: called the police trying to push this investigation on, never
Speaker 6: tried to find out who had murdered Belinda. In fact
Speaker 6: told people he didn't care that Belinda wouldn't want anybody
Speaker 6: to look into this, all of this bit about the dog,
Speaker 6: the staged crime scene, and then she managed to put
Speaker 6: a shotgun in David's hand. As you mentioned earlier, Yes,
Speaker 6: she found someone who could say that David's father had
Speaker 6: given David a twelve gage shotgun, and that all of
Speaker 6: the all the Temple boys had twelve gauges, and that
Speaker 6: there were no twenty gauges, as David's dad would later
Speaker 6: when he got on the stand, would contend that David
Speaker 6: had and this is a kid who had been out
Speaker 6: hunting with them Temple boys a lot, so any knew guns,
Speaker 6: and he knew hunting, and he knew that David Temple
Speaker 6: had a twelve gage shotgun like the one that was
Speaker 6: used to murder Belunda.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then she put a lot of information to
Speaker 5: them to use their own logic too, because you know,
Speaker 5: the dog is very important because nobody could get in
Speaker 5: that yard. How could a burgerlar get in the yard.
Speaker 5: And then who walks around and broad daylight in this
Speaker 5: neighborhood without these neighbors who are friends noticing somebody with
Speaker 5: a big shotgun. Yeah, and then nothing stolen, So everybody
Speaker 5: knew who this was. But they took this case to
Speaker 5: the jury without a lot of the normal forensic evidence.
Speaker 5: And now you talked about the Temple family testifying. What
Speaker 5: about David Temple.
Speaker 6: Testifying, Well, you know, it seemed obvious on the stand
Speaker 6: that the Temples were trying really hard to protect David.
Speaker 6: The impression in the room was that they were doing
Speaker 6: their best to bolster him up. But in truth, it
Speaker 6: just made them and him look bad because it made
Speaker 6: them look as if they were lying. And David was
Speaker 6: actually a pretty good witness on the stand, he did
Speaker 6: pretty well up there compared to his parents, but he
Speaker 6: maintained that he hadn't done it. He was trying to
Speaker 6: shift the blame toward a neighbor boy, the boy who
Speaker 6: lived right next door, and he was, you know, pretty forceful,
Speaker 6: he maintained. His lawyer, Dick de Garon, maintained that David
Speaker 6: and Belinda had a wonderful marriage and that there wasn't
Speaker 6: any real problem between them. Between them, but of course
Speaker 6: that's a problem because David was having an affair and
Speaker 6: later married the woman he was having the affair with.
Speaker 6: So David on the stand wash he was kind of
Speaker 6: like the football player he'd been on the seals. He
Speaker 6: was just really focused and pushing really hard and doing
Speaker 6: his best to cut through and force the blame in
Speaker 6: other places.
Speaker 5: So the jury basically what was the deciding factor for
Speaker 5: the jury?
Speaker 6: You know, I think that in all honesty, this is
Speaker 6: a really unusual case. I think that if the defense
Speaker 6: attorney had not put on a case and they had
Speaker 6: settled after the prosecution finished, I think David probably would
Speaker 6: have been acquitted. But the defense when they started actually
Speaker 6: kept making him look worse, and I think it was
Speaker 6: actually the testimony of the Temple family that swayed the
Speaker 6: jury because they saw that the Temples were dancing around
Speaker 6: things trying to make David appear innocent, and that they
Speaker 6: weren't telling the truth about things like David's relationship with
Speaker 6: Belinda and knowing about David's relationship with Heather right after
Speaker 6: the killing. So there was a lot of a lot
Speaker 6: that came out of the Temple testimony.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it was an incredible victory. And what was
Speaker 5: the inevitable sentence for mister David Temple?
Speaker 6: Fifty five years?
Speaker 5: So it's it's an actual life sentence.
Speaker 6: Well, it's the equivalent of a lifestentence. Yeah, he'll be
Speaker 6: Ellis I think it's fifty five. I've written so many books.
Speaker 6: I get a little confused at times, right, But yeah,
Speaker 6: it's fifty five or sixty five years, and he'll be
Speaker 6: eligible for a geriatric parole at some point. His case
Speaker 6: still is an appeal. The Appeals heard it in January
Speaker 6: and they have not come down with a decision yet.
Speaker 5: Yeah. It's a very interesting case, very interesting case indeed,
Speaker 5: and very interesting book. And I want to thank you
Speaker 5: very much for this very informative interview about your incredible book,
Speaker 5: new book called Shattered, and I'm sure the audience appreciated
Speaker 5: our interview. It was great. Thank you very much, Catherine.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you Dan.
Speaker 5: You've been listening to the program True Murder with my
Speaker 5: special guest Catherine Casey with her book Shattered. And this
Speaker 5: is a true murder, the most shocking killers in true
Speaker 5: crime history and the authors that have written about it.
Speaker 5: Have a good evening. Thank you very much, Catherine. Good night,