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.

Read moreIn the intro to 48 Hours, Temple says:

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.

1. 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…”

2. 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?
3. 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.
4. Notice, too, the pronouns disappear at times. It’s another red flag.
5. 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.

6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.

9. 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?

10. 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.

11. 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?
12. Notice how Temple never sniffles either with all of his crying?
13. 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?

14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.