Did you see “48 Hours” last night? It was a fascinating mystery. There some good clues. Did you notice them?
I went to 48 Hours website today to see what people were saying about the case, and I see it is a toss up. Some people believe Rachael Mullenix is innocent, others believe she is guilty. One person suspects the father, Bruce, did it.
What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts below.
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Here is another audio clip of Eckhart from 48 Hours. What do you think when you listen to this? Does it support his story on 48 Hours, or diverge from it?
You can read my review of Bob Eckhart from earlier this week here.
Don’t forget to set your recorders for Saturday night’s “48 Hours Mystery”! The show is titled Lady In The Harbor.
My thoughts are below in the comment section.
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“48 Hours Mystery” profiled the story of Bob Eckhart, and Toni Soren (Heartsong) this past Saturday. Soren was found dead at the back entrance to the family home by her husband Eckhart. Soren was badly beaten in what cops called “overkill”. If you haven’t seen the show, you can watch it here, or you can read the story here.
I think people are likely torn in this case because there was no solid evidence to directly link Eckhart to the murder, and more than that, a jury did not convict him. However, on “48 Hours”, the jury foreman spoke out and clarified his position. He said that 10 or 11 of the jurors actually believed Eckhart was guilty, but they didn’t have the evidence to convict. You must remember that the police initially didn’t think that Eckhart could have done this, so they didn’t take a close look at him at the time when good evidence was still present. Eckhart wasn’t arrested for six years.
Read moreWhen I watched Eckhart from the very beginning of “48 Hours”, his speech seems contrived. He talked slowly and methodically. He seemed calculating. His emotions didn’t match his situation, and his words, at times, were very odd and unusual. Furthermore, Eckhart’s emotions were exceptionally dull. Other times, I believe they were flat out fake. The clues, to me, in this interview, were numerous and telling.
Here are some of my thoughts:
Eckhart says, “I remember my wife from meeting her the very first day with her eyes. I had seen her eyes for all of my life. I think I’ve… always been in love with her.”
Notice the words, “I think” here. Does that convince you? Do you tell people you “think” you love your spouse, or that you love your spouse? The words “I think” show doubt on the part of Eckhart. I suspect it is a subconscious slip of the mind.
Listen to Eckhart in the 911 call. When the operator answers, Eckhart screams as if he is in a panic, or about to go over the edge. As soon as the operator talks to Eckhart, his tone and pitch changes instantly. He calms down. People who are in a panic or on the edge can’t turn their emotions on and off sentence by sentence, or this quickly. This is a notable red flag for me.
Also listen to how Eckhart says, “My wife has been killed…by someone…here in my house.” I find that statement strange. Notice the pauses? Someone? Here in my house? It shows thinking, which is unusual. In emergency situations, we usually go into auto-pilot and just react.
Eckhart says, “My fear is a guy like this could be doing it again…He’d have to be the most horrible monster in the whole universe to do that.”
The words “a guy like this” are immediate red flags for me. It’s as if he is talking about people in general who do this, not “this guy” who killed his wife. Very strange.
I also find his benign choice of words for the “murderer” of his wife fascinating here. I wonder if he ever used the words “murderer” or “killer” when he talked about his dead wife. He certainly wasn’t in denial about this crime, because he had the news media at his house within days of her death. People who kill often sanitize their acts, and have a difficult time saying such harsh words as “murderer” and “killer”. Why wouldn’t he say “killer”? Does he ever use “killer” or “murderer”?
Then Eckhart tries to say that whoever did this must be a monster. Is that to say, “Look at me, I’m not. So how could I do this?”
Eckhart says when talking about Toni, “An incredibly beautiful little girl knocked on my door, and her name was Toni, and we talked for must have been six or seven hours,” Bob recalls. “We could connect completely with no walls, no shields. Everything was just magic.”
Do you notice how he never talks about Toni being the love of his life? How he loved her, how beautiful she was, how special she was, how this madman stole her from him? It’s eerily missing. Also, does he have to think back to their early marriage to say something even remotely nice about Toni?
Notice how Eckhart has no anger whatsoever that someone has killed his wife. Why? I would expect to see some emotions of violation. Not only was his wife killed, but the killer was in his house. I watched the tape of Eckhart showing the news media around his house a few days after the crime, and I just don’t see it. That’s puzzling.
Also, did Eckhart stay in the house after the murders? Didn’t he worry that staying in that house with his two sons after his wife was murdered? Wouldn’t you worry about your kids if that happened to you? Especially since the killer has never been found. Wouldn’t you worry they may come back to shut you up? Or harm your kids? How come Eckhart has no worry about that?
Also, the fact that his wife was murdered in that house doesn’t seem to bother him. That’s unusual, too. The sanctity of his home was violated, and that would bother most people.
Then notice when Eckhart talks about Toni’s extra-marital affairs. He says, “I think she had sex with another man once or twice.” Watch his shoulder shrug when he says this. His body language tells us he has doubts about this. This is fascinating. I don’t think he believes she slept with two men. So why is he trying to paint her in a negative light? When we lose a loved one, especially to murder, we usually idealize them. We don’t even remember the negatives. It’s way too painful, but obviously not for Eckhart. He seems to want to point them out, and possibly even exaggerate them.
At time marker 9:00, Eckhart says, “I used to describe it as living in nirvana.” Then a few seconds later, in a distinct change of emotion, he goes into what I believe is a “forced” cry. To me, the cry seems very contrived. Notice, too, there are absolutely no tears, which is always a huge tip-off. Somehow Eckhart went into the sob that comes naturally from tears in the sinuses, but he doesn’t have any tears. Oops! His facial expressions, too, don’t fit with a crying individual.
Watch Eckhart talk about how he found Toni. I find the tone of his voice an immediate red flag. It’s void of any emotions in what should have been a highly emotional and painful experience. If you didn’t know the topic he was speaking about, you’d think he was talking about something benign like lifting up or moving a sleeping dog. But he is talking about finding his MURDERED wife, the supposed love of his life. The alarm bells are blaring for me here.
He says, “I lifted her up with my arm like this, and I held her up, and when I saw her face, I freaked out.”
He “freaked out”? Knock me off my chair! This is nuts. Mind you, his wife was lying in a pool of blood, dead. Shouldn’t that have freaked him out? Apparently not. He had to pick her up to get freaked out. It shows you the lack of normal emotional responses Eckhart had. This is very abnormal. An innocent person would have been very traumatized by simply seeing their wife in a pool of blood. Second, they’d wonder if the killer was still around, but Eckhart is the exception time and time again.
The words “freaked out” are also chillingly cold for a man who loved his wife. Monsters freak us out, people we love when they are injured devastate us, tear us up, cause us searing emotional pain. Notice at that point, there are no emotions on Eckhart’s face whatsoever! That makes no sense. Our memories and emotions are highly intertwined. Eckhart is just an exception again.
Eckhart continues, “…and when I saw her eyes were beaten closed, I was just destroyed by it. I gently laid her back down and I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to remember this.'”
Notice Eckart didn’t cry, try to apologize to her, hug her, feel guilty he didn’t protect her, wasn’t there to help her, nothing. Notice it is all about Eckhart? Notice he has no emotions for what she endured, or her pain? There is no anger about who did this to her. It’s surprisingly missing, and so are the tears when we’d expect to see them the most. They are absent. All big red flags.
There was no rape, and there were no valuables taken. Clearly, this wasn’t a robbery, or a rapist, and what are the odds a stranger is going to go into overkill? What would be the point?
In talking about his alibi of being at the construction site, Eckhart says, “I was there until about…about 2:30.” The pause in his speech in indicative that he has to think about it. He doesn’t remember this. You would think his memories of that day would have been seared into his mind after an experience like that, wouldn’t you? But if he didn’t experience things as he tells us he did, he would constantly have to think to recreate what wasn’t.
Bob Eckhart says he was in tears the entire time he was at his son’s wedding six months later, yet when you see “48 Hours” show two clips from his son’s wedding, Eckhart is dancing. Check out his moves on the dance floor! He’s got this giddy swing going on, certainly not what a man would do if he was all choked up and devastated. In another clip shown earlier, Eckhart is standing by his son smiling. He certainly didn’t appear to be choked up as he said. Here Eckhart’s words seem to contradict his actions. It’s another red flag added to the pile.
Notice when Eckhart talks about his shrine to Toni, he is void of emotions again. His voice pitch gives no indication that he is upset, sad or emotional on any level. He talks about the object like objects. Where is his emotional connection? Is this shrine just a measure to pull on your heartstrings?
When Eckhart was brought into the police station six years later, he says, “I don’t think it is my blood.” If you were innocent and you knew it, would you say “I don’t think”…? I think you would say conclusively, “It is NOT my blood.” To me, the words “I don’t think” are an indication of hesitation, or insecurity.
Eckhart talks about being locked up before trial. He says, “Twenty months in jail is not something any one of us would want to do.” Look at his emotions! Wow. He woke up. He felt discomfort for the first time in this interview, and look at all his normal emotions that come blaring out. Isn’t this fascinating? Eckhart does have normal emotions when it is his pain. Why didn’t he have any emotions for Toni? Notice, too, he doesn’t talk about how vile it was to be locked up as an innocent man? Wouldn’t it have bothered you to be in jail for two years, if you were innocent?
Watch his new wife’s response when she is asked if she thinks it is conceivable that Eckhart could kill someone. Watch her head shake go all over the place as she says no. Try to say no, and do that. Go ahead. Don’t you feel ambiguous?
It is fascinating that Eckhart made no phone calls between 12:30 and 1:41, isn’t it? Isn’t that the perfect opportunity to commit a murder? Yet the rest of the day, he was on the phone. Hmm…. and he didn’t have an alibi for lunch. What are the odds? If he was out of town, surely he could have told police upfront that he went to Wendy’s, and they could have vouched they saw him. Surely the police should have done that. What did he do for lunch that day?
At the murder scene, there is a knife block on the counter right near the drawer where the knife was pulled from. As the prosecutor said, what stranger is going to ignore that and open drawers? It defies logic. It takes time to search for a knife, whereas pulling a knife from a knife block is quick and easy. That is certainly suggestive that whoever did this knew where all the knives were kept.
Listen in court when the police interrogate Eckhart on tape, and Eckart says he has no idea why his blood was found on her. He is calm, cool and collected. He says, “I have no idea…no idea at all.” There is no anger or frustration in his voice whatsoever. If the police are zooming in on you as the killer and you are innocent, are you going to be that calm?
Eckhart at one point says, “I don’t believe that any human being in the whole world has the right to harm another being in any way.” Watch how he shrugs his shoulder in doubt when he says that. You can’t miss it. He is saying something affirmative, very affirmative, yet his body language is telling us he isn’t convinced. Isn’t that interesting?
Dow from “48 Hours” asks Eckhart: “What would be your reaction if the jury finds you guilty?”
Eckhart says, “I have to accept the life that’s given me. And I have to continue to walk on my path. And if it happened that way, I’m certainly going to be very, very sad.”
Would you be sad if you were wrongly convicted? Or would you be mad and feeling violated?
Dow says: An innocent man going to jail? Eckhart replies, “Yeah, absolutely,” Bob says. “It would be a… [raised eyebrow as he thinks]…travesty.”
This is ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! He had to think about what it would be like for him, if he were to be wrongly convicted. He had no feelings to guide him. That was mind-blowing for me.
Watch Echart’s reaction when he hears the jury finds him “not guilty”.
Suddenly he is full of emotion, yet when he talked about Toni, we saw none of this. Does Eckhart only feel for himself? That’s very common for psychopaths. The only emotions they feel are their own. You sure do wonder. Look at his true and genuine smile!
Listen to how Eckhart talks to the reporters. In an angry tone, he says, “All I am going to say to you is I am free.”
You can feel Eckhart’s emotions here. This is what we should have seen when he was wrongly accused, but we didn’t (revealed or concealed). But now, his emotions are genuine, real and true. He is steaming mad! He glares at the media now. Is that because he has the confidence of a jury behind him (I don’t think he knew at that time what they would later tell “48 Hours”)?
He continues, “As I should be. I didn’t do it.”
I find it odd how he says he didn’t do it second, and not first. This is not a clue, it is just notable.
Dow says you’ve gotta know there are still people out there that think you killed your wife. Watch Eckhart. Look at his emotions. Listen to the inflection in his voice. All of this was completely missing when he talked about being wrongly accused. It was completely missing when he recollected memories of Toni. Why isn’t he Mr. Calm again? Instead, you see this anger in him. It’s the anger that I suspect bubbled up one day and was inflicted on his wife in a fit of rage–in a crime of passion.
Eckhart continues, “But I know what I did and what I didn’t do. I know I didn’t kill my wife, so what they think, that’s their problem to deal with. Hopefully somewhere along the line, I can create the…there will be enough truth that will be brought out in this case that exoneration will be complete.”
CREATE? Need I say more?
Eckhart continues, “They’re going to have to find the people who did this incredible act. I won’t rest until that is brought out.”
Notice “the people”? Isn’t this interesting? Does he think there is more than one person now? Why the change? Also notice he doesn’t use the words “killer” or “murderer”? Do they make him feel uncomfortable?
Eckhart also say he won’t rest until these people are brought to justice, but then why doesn’t he go out and try to find the true killer himself? If it bothered him that badly, why isn’t he on a quest? Do you see how ridiculous this statement is? He won’t rest until everyone else does what he wants. Give me a break!
I think you can see I’m not buying Eckhart’s story.
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Several people have written to me and asked for my opinion about Bob Eckhart. Eckhart was tried for the murder of his wife, Toni, but was set free by the jury–a jury which said they believed he was guilty, but weren’t able to convict due to a lack of evidence.
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David Temple: Is he an innocent man or a murderer? Unfortunately, we only have circumstantial evidence in this case so all we are left with is to listen to the facts, see if they add up, and to watch each of the players involved tell their story to see if they are consistent, and honest.
When I watched David Temple, I also had to wonder, was he interviewed by 48 Hours before or after his trial? If he was interviewed after the trial, the high stakes for Temple will have dissipated, and hence his clues to deception will have waned dramatically. I do not know the answer to this, but it would be interesting to find out. Normally, in most cases, there is plenty of audio and video footage from the trial where we can glean enough information that the interview timing is not important, but since court audio was not allowed in this case and no footage was shown, it becomes more critical.
However, even considering all of this, I still have major questions about Temple.
Very difficult to live back through that day. My name is David Temple. Belinda was the best thing that ever happened in my life. She was the mother of my child. She was fixing to give me my second child. She was pregnant. She got home about four o’clock. We just decided I would take Evan out and run around. We stopped at (grocery store), just to get a drink. We stopped, got two drinks, and I picked up cat food while we were in there getting the drinks. Then we decided to go to Home Depot. We’d have time to do that, making it home in time to take Belinda to eat dinner.
We pulled into the garage. We got my son out, started to walk towards the back door and I could see that the back door is open and that it’s cracked with glass and took my son across the street, and banged on my friends house, and handed them Evan and asked them if they could call 911. Then ran back across the street, went in through the gate into my house. Then making it upstairs to her lying in a pool of blood, in our closet, with her knees up underneath her stomach to protect her baby. Dove across the bed, and got the phone to call 911.
The intro piece by Temple is interesting on multiple levels. When David talks about facts, he seems to be quite precise, and gives us details. He says they got two drinks, he decided to buy cat food and that they decided to go to Home Depot because they would have time to do that before dinner. He talks about pulling into the garage, getting Evan out (we?), and seeing the back door. Yet when Temple goes into the house without Evan, suddenly the details and his thoughts vanish. Suddenly, he has no details of what he thought, or how he looked for Belinda in the house.
“…handed them Evan and asked them if they could call 911. Then ran back across the street, went in through the gate into my house. Then making it upstairs to her lying in a pool of blood, in our closet…”
I find it strange, too, how Temple just ran upstairs and found her. How come he didn’t look for her downstairs, call for her and wonder where she was? He seemed to instinctively know she would still be resting upstairs. Isn’t that a big assumption? Especially if someone broke into the house?
Notice that Temple tense changes as he speaks, too. This is a notable red flag. He talks in past tense through most of his recollection until he goes into the house. Suddenly then he says “…making it upstairs to her lying in a pool of blood.” Why doesn’t he say then I went upstairs, past tense? Or I made my way upstairs? Why present tense all of the sudden? Most people who are honest don’t have difficulty speaking in the proper tense.
Notice, too, the pronouns disappear at times. It’s another red flag.
I also found it interesting how Temple says he “Dove across the bed, and got the phone to dial 911.” By this, we can assume he used the master bedroom cordless phone. Holtke talks about what was recovered at the crime scene. He says “This is her cell phone, the cordless phone that was found in the closet,…”
Was there a cordless phone, and a cell phone found in the closet? Or just a cell phone which he refers to as a “cordless phone”? Because if there was a cordless phone found the closet, is that the one that Temple claims to have used to dial 911? If there was only a cell phone in the closet, there is nothing unusual here.
If Belinda retrieved a cell phone (and it wasn’t planted there), why didn’t she call 911? She managed to make it into the closet.
Also, notice how Temple tells us that he found his wife “with her knees up underneath her stomach to protect her baby.” In the crime scene photos, we see Belinda with her legs stretched out. Did Temple move her to check her pulse, or to attempt CPR which he said he couldn’t do? Do the investigators move Belinda, or the EMT? Or does Temple have a memory that is inconsistent with the crime scene? We need more facts here.
Temple clearly lies several times in the 48 Hours interview, and it doesn’t take anything more than common logic to see it. If he is innocent, why is he doing this? People only lie when they have something to hide.
(A) Temple says “January 10th, we were a happy threesome as anybody in the country. Being at the zoo. Her fryin’ chicken for me, which is my favorite meal, when we got home. That weekend was perfect.”
In that statement, Temple wants us to believe he was happily-ever-after in love with his wife, Belinda. However, if we look at the facts, that he was out cheating on his wife just 10 days before on New Year’s Eve (after lying to her), we see that Temple is willing to say anything regardless if it is the truth or not.
(B) Temple also tells us that he wasn’t falling in love with Heather Scott, and that he planned to break up with her. Yet Scott tells us, herself, in a written statement that Temple told her just three days before Belinda’s murder that he was falling in love with her. Add to that, that he marries her just two years later.
I also find it odd how Temple’s son comes home from daycare because he has a fever, but within no time that fever is miraculously gone and his son is fine to go out for the day to play. Most parents when they have a sick child don’t take the child out to play for the day–especially if it means they may have to miss work a second day to care for the child if he isn’t well.
Remember, Temple doesn’t tell us he had to run any specific errands. He tells us they went out to “run around”, and he tells us they basically didn’t have anything to do! I find this very strange and unusual.
I also wonder if it was common for Belinda to rest and sleep directly after work when she was pregnant. Was this normal or unusual behavior?
In Temple’s 911 call, I find it really odd how Temple is calm and that he has no fear for his life, that the gunman could still be in the house, or that he could be a target, too. This is extremely strange. Our natural instincts kick up in a situation where we see a loved one dead on the ground, murdered.
Temple even asks the 911 operator “Do I need to stay on here?” He wants to hang up before the police and EMTs show up. His lack of fear is abnormal here. Very abnormal.
Temple’s sobs in the beginning of the 911 call sound fake to me. He is doing what I call the “child sob”. He has this “I’m-out-of-breath stutter” that adults typically don’t get because adults don’t cry so hard they lose their breath, yet Temple oddly does. Notice, however, when Temple speaks to the operator, it stops?
Notice how Temple never sniffles either with all of his crying?
Later in the 911 call, the operator asks him “Okay, does it look like someone has made entry into the house, sir?” Temple says “It…it looks like it. I don’t know. When I ran my son across the street, gave him to a neighbor and came right back in.”
His statement is a bit odd and doesn’t make much sense, number one. Second, if your wife is laying there dead and you saw the back door was busted out, wouldn’t you know if someone made entry into the house? You’d be damn confident about it. You wouldn’t say “I don’t know”. This is a huge red flag for me. Why on earth would he have doubt? Why didn’t he panic at this point–that maybe they are still in the house? He had to realize the potential here, even if he had overlooked it before, but he doesn’t seem to do so. Why?
How come nothing was stolen from the house when jewelry was laying there? How come the TV was lying on the floor, yet still plugged in? What type of burglar is going to break in at 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon when people are most likely to come home from work or school? When the neighborhood is most likely to be busy with activity? Who is going to carry a shotgun in broad daylight? Who would risk being seen and identified at a normally very busy hour? None of this makes any sense.
At the end of the 911 call, Temple says without any sign of crying in his voice, “I got a policeman here. I’ve got a policeman that’s pulled up now.” Did he forget to continue sobbing and weeping? Suddenly, his agony dissipated.
With regards to Temple’s arrest six years after Belinda’s murder, I found detective Dean Holtke’s account very telling. Holtke pulled Temple over and arrested him.
“The only thing I’d asked him the entire time was, ‘You know what this is about, right?’ And he says, ‘No, what?’ I said, ‘Belinda,'” Holtke remembers. “He’s like, ‘You gotta be kidding me, man. That was like, six years ago.'”
If you are innocent of murdering your wife, are you going to say “You gotta be kidding me, man. That was like six years ago“? Or, are you going to defend your innocence and focus the police back to the truth?
I personally believe the jury got this case right, and justice was served.
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