Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas Murder (24 page)

T
hat afternoon, the first day after Belinda’s murder, David and Ken brought Evan to the Harlans to play with Sydnee while they went to make funeral arrangements. Ken sat in a chair and talked to Tammey, who was torn up inside wondering if David murdered her friend. When she looked at David, she was struck by how calm he looked. His eyes, as they were the night before, looked clear, as if he’d hardly shed a tear.

After David and Ken left, Evan came into the kitchen.

“My mommy is in heaven,” Evan told her.

Evan didn’t seem to truly understand, and appeared confused when Tammey cried.

The bell rang at the back door of Katy’s Schmidt Funeral home. With so much press surrounding Belinda’s murder, the undertakers hoped to protect the Temple family from being seen walking in the front door. Richard Lenius, a former firefighter, worked part time as an embalmer, and he looked out and saw David, appearing calm and at ease.

In the back room, Lenius had been working on Belinda, trying with little success to repair the damage to her face. His efforts would go on throughout the afternoon, into the evening and much of the night. In all, Lenius spent twelve hours attempting to disguise the damage done to Belinda Temple’s face, but could do little. “There were too many missing pieces,” he says.

When he finally gave up, Lenius wrapped gauze around Belinda’s head. After arranging Belinda in the coffin, he wrapped Erin in a soft blanket and placed the dead baby next to her mother.

Late that afternoon at the Temple house, Kay Stuart arrived. The wife of David’s boss, Hastings’ head football coach, Kay intended to pay her respects. She wanted David and the family to know that she and her husband gave their sympathies. But when she walked in the house, Darren and Kevin flanked David, as if protecting him, and David appeared so unemotional that Kay wondered what was wrong with him. Her husband, Bobby, had said he’d meet her at the Temple home, so Kay sat with Maureen and waited. Understandably, David’s mother’s conversation was disjointed and emotional. Over and over, she talked about the call from Mike Ruggiero the night before, the one that began her nightmare.

“Maureen thought he was calling to say Belinda had gone to the hospital, to deliver the baby,” says Kay. “She thought it would be a happy call, and that she’d be going to meet her first granddaughter.”

The women talked, and Maureen mentioned that they’d hired an attorney for David, lamenting the cost, which she set at $30,000. Kay said nothing but wondered why David needed an attorney. Then Maureen glanced up at her and said, “Kay, surely I didn’t raise a murderer.”

Those words sent a shiver through Kay.

A little while later, the evening news came on, and David watched reports of Belinda’s murder, still showing no emotion. As far as Kay could tell, he didn’t shed a tear. When one of his sisters-in-law got up to put Evan in bed, she fussed over him a bit, and Kay heard David say, “Oh, you’re just going to make a sissy out of him.”

Heather Scott and Tara Hall were home late that afternoon with a friend named Beth when Leithner and Schmidt rang the bell at the town house on Perthshire. After a quick interview with Heather, during which she described her relationship with David as “more than friends,” Leithner asked if Heather, Tara and Beth would follow them to Clay Road for a longer interview. The women agreed. Once there, Schmidt talked to Tara, while Leithner splintered off with Heather.

During the interview, Heather labeled her relationship with David as “casual and romantic.” She talked about their meetings at happy hours, and insisted that he wouldn’t and couldn’t have murdered his wife. Off and on, Scott stopped talking, wondering out loud if Alief would find out about their relationship.

“We won’t disclose this to your employer,” Leithner assured her.

Scott said that David told her he was married and never indicated that he’d leave his wife, and that he never said anything derogatory about Belinda.

“Does he ever talk about hunting?” Leithner asked.

“No,” she said. “He never talks about hunting, and he never talks about guns.”

When Leithner finished typing, he gave it to her to read. “For the past three months or so, David and I have been sort of seeing each other once a week at happy hours,” Heather’s statement read. David, she said, drove her home, but they weren’t alone. Sometimes he came over on weekends and watched movies. Then she mentioned something that caught the detective’s interest, that six days before Belinda’s murder, Heather had told David she didn’t want to continue “with the way our relationship is going.”

David responded that was fine with him, she said, yet the conversation “didn’t really mean anything, however, as we still talk to each other at school and it seems that we are the same as we were.”

When Leithner asked, Scott described David as a passionate person, with many friends, who seemed close to his brothers. The last time she’d seen him on the day of the murder was at 10:30
A.M
., when he walked down the hall, “and said, ‘Hey,’ to me, but didn’t stop to talk.” An hour and a half later, David Temple left school early, after Belinda called about Evan’s illness. Just hours later, Belinda lay dead.

After Heather initialed each page and signed the end of her statement, Leithner asked her to take a polygraph, and Heather agreed. An examiner was brought in, and the test was given. When he finished, the polygraph examiner told Leithner that the test results suggested Heather Scott could be withholding information.

Meanwhile, in another part of the substation, Tara felt uneasy. She wanted to tell Schmidt what she knew about David and Heather, but at Clay Road, without interview rooms, he questioned her in front of the woman who’d accompanied them, Beth. “I knew whatever I said, Beth would tell Heather,” says Hall. She also knew of Heather’s inability to accept criticism, how ultrasensitive she was to others talking about her. So when Schmidt asked questions, Tara said little, other than that David and Heather were dating and that they went out with a group of other teachers to happy hours.

Approximately two hours after Heather and Tara arrived, Leithner and Schmidt said good-bye, and the women left the substation. On the way home in the car, Heather was anxious and upset, insisting she couldn’t understand how they could think David was involved in Belinda’s murder. “She felt she really knew him and there was no way he could have done it,” says Tara.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Heather insisted.

All day Tuesday, the day after their youngest child’s murder, Tom and Carol Lucas waited with Tom’s sister, Lorraine, at her house in Houston, hoping for news. David and his family never called. Tom and Carol did call the Temples, but David never returned their phone calls. Belinda’s parents hoped they’d be consulted on funeral arrangements, but that didn’t happen. For seven years, they’d never had a Christmas or Thanksgiving with Belinda. They’d never been included for Easters. Now, their daughter was dead, and the Temples never called to ask what they wanted for Belinda’s funeral.

That evening at the Round Valley house, the crime-scene investigators were finishing their work. Rossi and Holtke stood looking at the den television, the one on its side next to the wooden stand. They’d already picked up the splinters of wood that appeared to have been knocked off when the television was slid down off the stand and onto its side on the floor. One of the men suggested they put the television back on the stand and turn it on. What that might tell them was how roughly the set had been handled. Was it dropped when Belinda surprised a burglar, or had someone put it down gently, so as not to damage the set? If so, it seemed logical that it was someone who planned to use the set in the future and didn’t want it ruined.

Rossi and Holtke lifted the television and replaced it on the wooden stand. “We hit the button, and it started right up,” says Holtke. “The picture was fine.”

David’s 1991 Chevy pickup and Belinda’s red Isuzu had already been towed to the impound lot to be more closely inspected. Put in to evidence from the Isuzu was the Home Depot bag with the shelf brackets and Belinda’s cell phone with its charger. On the records, it was again noted that there was no car seat in the blue truck, the vehicle David said he’d taken Evan out in the afternoon of his wife’s murder.

After dark, the two crime-scene investigators finished with the house and notified their office that they were leaving. Paul Looney was called and told that they were releasing the house back to David.

When a homicide takes place, the detectives who investigate it take a new, clean, black three-ring binder out of their department’s supply closet. Each day, they type up their notes, recording what they’ve done, where they’ve been and whom they’ve interviewed. That binder, along with any others generated over the course of the investigation, is known as
the murder book
.

On that Tuesday evening, approximately twenty-eight hours after he’d responded to the crime scene, Leithner ended his report for the day, the report that would be printed and placed in the Temple murder book, with four words: “Disposition: Investigation to continue.”

T
hat Wednesday, the
Katy Times
ran its first piece on Belinda Temple’s murder. The headline read: I
NVESTIGATORS
P
UZZLED
B
Y
T
EACHER’S
M
URDER
. The paper reported that the scene at the Round Valley house appeared odd, not as chaotic as detectives expected in a burglary, and that there’d been no evidence the dog had been drugged, and therefore no explanation as to how a burglar could get past an animal so vicious it wouldn’t let police into the yard. “Lots of things didn’t look good for David Temple, but we were trying to be open-minded,” Schmidt later said, with a frown. “We didn’t want to get tunnel vision on this thing. We had a case to investigate, and no one wanted to arrest the wrong guy. We had to look at all the possibilities.”

By then, detectives were checking out a report of a man jumping fences in the Cimarron neighborhood hours before Belinda died. A neighbor reported the incident, thinking the man she saw could be the murderer. What police discovered was that he was a utility company meter reader. After a few calls, investigators confirmed that the man had remained on schedule throughout the afternoon and was miles away from Round Valley when Belinda was murdered.

Early that morning, Schmidt and Leithner left Lockwood and drove to downtown Houston, to the Harris County District Attorney’s office, to meet with the prosecutors overseeing the Temple case, Ted Wilson and Donna Goode. Once they arrived, they briefed the two A.D.A.s, giving them a rundown on what they knew about Belinda’s murder. Then Leithner asked again about having an expert interview three-year-old Evan.

Goode, who’d taken over that task, explained that she was in the process of finalizing arrangements for Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist who specialized in childhood trauma, to meet with Evan. As soon as they had everything lined up, including a court order signed by a judge, a date would be set.

From the courthouse, Schmidt and Leithner drove to the Hastings Ninth Grade Center, where David worked, and met with the principal, who’d arranged for them to use the main office boardroom to interview faculty members. That morning, many of the coaches at Hastings reported to talk to the detectives. Few offered anything that helped. One coach recalled a conversation with David regarding hunting, but couldn’t say if David mentioned using any specific type of weapon. They all insisted they’d never heard David talk negatively about Belinda. Going through the records, they found that David had only reported having problems with two students, one over a pot-smoking incident and the other when a student broke the windshield on David’s pickup truck. Neither incident appeared worthy of more investigation.

When they left that day, the detectives had little information, other than the knowledge that rumors were flying at Hastings over Heather and David’s relationship. “Well, I heard he might be seeing someone,” more than one teacher had admitted. But when asked if they’d heard of any threats against David, if anyone was angry with him for any reason, the detectives heard: “No.” “No.” “No.”

Meanwhile that afternoon, Tracy Shipley and another detective met at Katy High School to interview Belinda’s coworkers. When they walked through the hallways, the school was oddly quiet. “The kids almost looked sedated from the sadness,” says Shipley.

The morning began with Shipley talking to a Katy ISD police officer, asking for any complaints Belinda had made against a student or reports of any incidents involving Belinda on campus. When the Katy officer looked through the files, he found nothing to turn over. Afterward, Shipley and her fellow detective interviewed teachers. With each, Shipley explained that they were under no obligation to talk, and, when some asked, she said that David hadn’t been ruled out as a suspect, but that he wasn’t the only suspect. They were looking at other possibilities, including a burglary. The first interview was with Margaret Christian, the administrator at the parent conference with Belinda just two days earlier, her final duty before leaving the campus around 3:20 that afternoon. Christian recounted what others would, including how anxious Belinda had been to get home to check on Evan.

At Katy High, Shipley noticed that many of the men appeared to be in shock, while the women cried. At first, few said anything other than that David and Belinda appeared to have a happy marriage. The two closest to Belinda were Cindy O’Brien and Debbie Berger. While the other detective talked to Cindy, Tracy sat down with Debbie, asking her about Belinda. Debbie sobbed, describing Belinda as a wonderful woman and a great teacher, but she said little that helped, too frightened to focus. “I was petrified,” Berger would later recount. “I told that detective, you’re going to find my fingerprints all over the baby’s crib. I just finished making all those linens.”

Afterward, Tracy talked to the other detective and learned that he’d fared better with Cindy. Rather than frightened, O’Brien was angry. She wanted the detectives to know that David and Belinda’s marriage was far from the happily-ever-after stuff of fairy tales. Instead, Belinda worried that David might be having an affair, and just that summer, David and Belinda didn’t talk for weeks. One of the things O’Brien asked was, “How could anybody get past that dog?”

With that information, Katy High’s wall of secrecy fell. Citing what she already knew, Shipley reinterviewed teachers. This time she started out by saying, “I hear Belinda’s marriage wasn’t happy.” Looking relieved at not being the first to tell, they slowly opened up. One was Stacy Nissley, who repeated Belinda’s suspicions that David was having an affair and her sadness at thinking the marriage might be ending. It was Nissley who first told Shipley about New Year’s Eve. “David left Belinda home over the holiday,” she said. “He went hunting and never even called to check on her.”

Other teachers recalled how, when they visited Belinda’s house, she warned them not to go into the backyard where Shaka was kept. “Belinda said the dog was protective,” said one. “She said it might attack.”

Still, others defended David, including the coaches, some he’d known as a student and others he’d coached against at Hastings. They called David a good guy and, what Tracy heard over and over was, “David was a great Katy football player.”

“It was like David Temple was the hero of Katy, Texas,” says Shipley. “We didn’t care what he was like on the football field. We just needed to hear the truth. We needed to know what we were looking at.”

Before she left the campus that afternoon, Shipley confiscated the hard drive from Belinda’s school computer. The department’s computer experts would inspect it in hopes that it might lead to sources or perhaps even a suspect.

Back on Lockwood, Shipley wrote her report. When she finished, she took out a pen and paper and drew a timeline, recording what she’d learned about where Belinda Temple was at what time on that final day. She now knew from the teachers at Katy that Belinda left school sometime around 3:20 that afternoon. The 911 call came in at 5:38. The question all the investigators had to answer was, What happened in those two hours and eighteen minutes?

To their surprise, Schmidt and Leithner read in the
Katy Times
that Paul Looney said jewelry had been stolen from the Temple house. The detectives thought back to the scene and the jewelry boxes they’d seen that night, none of which looked as if it had even been disturbed. And then there was David’s jewelry, sitting out on the top of a chest of drawers, in the open, including a heavy gold ring. Ted Wilson contacted Looney, inquiring about the report, and Looney faxed over a list of the items that included, among others, a silver necklace, sapphire and diamond earrings, and a bracelet with the letters
EVAN
. Everything on the list was Belinda’s, nothing of David’s.

About ten that morning, after talking with detectives, Cindy O’Brien and Debbie Berger left Katy High and drove to the Temple house to pay their respects and talk to David. Many of Belinda’s coworkers were asking about setting up a scholarship fund for Evan. Although it was a cold, drizzly day, when they arrived, they found Belinda’s sisters-in-law, Lisa and Becky, in front of the house, along with David’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. Cindy and Debbie walked up, said how sorry they were about Belinda’s death, and then asked why they were outside.

“Mrs. Temple is at the beauty salon, getting her hair done for the funeral,” Becky said, appearing upset. “And the men are having a meeting inside.”

Cindy had called earlier and talked to one of the Temples, and she said, “But we had an appointment.”

“I’m sorry,” one of the sisters-in-law replied. “They asked everybody to wait outside.”

Later, David’s father would say that at that time, while the women and other relatives waited, he was inside the house asking David, “Is there anything we need to know?”

At first, David denied he had anything to tell his father and brothers. But Ken asked a second time. In response, David admitted that he’d been with another woman.

While inside the house David was confessing to his infidelity, outside, on the driveway, Debbie and Cindy waited patiently with the others. The minutes ticked by, the women shivering from the cold and rain. After fifteen minutes or so, Maureen Temple arrived. She parked her car and rushed into the house. More time passed, during which David’s mother would later say that her son told her what he’d just confessed to his father and brothers, that he’d been unfaithful to his murdered pregnant wife.

Outside, those waiting had no idea of the drama unfolding within the Temple house. But the conversation between mother and son must have been brief, for only minutes after she arrived home, Maureen, her cap of hair freshly styled for her daughter-in-law’s funeral, opened the door and invited all of them in. “She had a smile plastered on her face,” says Cindy. “She looked like she was welcoming us for tea and crumpets.”

Inside the house, David stood in the living room with his father and brothers. Debbie walked over and hugged him. “I’m so sorry,” she said, but David didn’t answer. Although he wasn’t crying, David appeared subdued and perhaps, Debbie thought, a bit “bored.”

The two teachers stayed about twenty minutes, offering their sympathies. When Cindy asked David what to do with the scholarship money, he replied, “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

The Temple household was a busy place that Wednesday. As is customary in the South, family and friends filtered in and out, coming to pay their respects to the grieving family. That afternoon, Quinton and Tammey arrived to see David and his family. When they walked in the door, Quinton approached David and embraced him, and both men cried. The Harlans stood and talked to David and his family for a while, and then David and Quinton went to the kitchen. Once no one was able to overhear, David asked, “How’s Heather? Is she okay?”

“She’s okay,” Quinton said. “Are you going to tell your parents about her?”

“I already did,” David said. “I didn’t want them to read it in the newspaper.” Then David advised Quinton to tell Tammey about his own flirtation, “Because it’s going to come out.”

At the district attorney’s office, Ted Wilson heard from Looney that David had taken his son to a psychologist. Eager to find out what the toddler said, Wilson drew up a search warrant for Evan’s records. That afternoon, the prosecutor interviewed Dr. Mark Hatfield, who said that he’d heard nothing from the toddler that led him to believe Evan had experienced anything traumatic, certainly nothing that suggested he’d witnessed his mother’s murder.

While Wilson talked with the psychologist, another warrant was being executed. Leithner and a physician from the medical examiner’s office met David at his attorney’s office, where David submitted to a full body examination. Inside Looney’s private office, replete with Southwestern art and leather furniture, David stripped naked. The physician pulled out magnifying equipment and examined him, inch by inch, searching for any scratches or cuts that could have resulted from either breaking the door glass or a struggle. “He looked in every cavity, even under David’s eyelids,” says Looney. “The doctor took forever, but he told me and Leithner that he didn’t find anything.”

Before he left the office, while alone with his attorney, David admitted to Looney what he’d already confessed to his parents and brothers, that he’d been having a relationship with another woman at the time of the murder. “Belinda’s family doesn’t know,” David said.

“It’s better that you tell them than someone else,” Looney advised him.

Meanwhile, Tara Hall fretted over her interview with Detective Schmidt the day before. When she finished teaching for the day and returned to the town house, she called someone she’d dated in college, a lawyer, and filled him in on the situation. “He urged me to be clear with the detectives about everything I knew,” says Hall.

After she finished talking to the attorney, Hall asked Heather if she wanted to discuss anything with him. Heather did, and Tara left her alone, to talk to the attorney privately. Whenever she thought about Belinda’s murder, Tara worried about her friend, hoping for Heather’s sake that David wasn’t the killer.

Later that same day, Hall’s attorney friend put in a call to Schmidt. “Tara would like to talk to you again,” he said. “She may have more to tell you.”

When Tara Hall voluntarily returned to Clay Road, this time she met with Tracy Shipley, and the two women were alone. “I told her that there was more to the relationship between David and Heather than I’d said earlier,” says Hall. “I told her about coming home and finding them upstairs, in Heather’s room, that he’d given her a gold necklace for Christmas, and that David had stayed at the apartment over the New Year’s holiday.”

There was something else Tara Hall told Detective Tracy Shipley: “A few days before his wife’s murder, Heather told me that David said he’d totally fallen in love with her.”