Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas Murder (37 page)

“Yes,” Leithner said.

Leithner targeted David Temple in a rush to judgment and ignored all evidence to the contrary, DeGuerin insisted, but the detective disagreed. “I don’t think we concluded he was the only suspect early on,” he said, pointing out that they had investigated others, including Joe Sanders. “I don’t believe…that we had tunnel vision.”

“Did you call David names during that interview?” DeGuerin charged.

“I don’t believe so,” Leithner said, shifting uncomfortably in the witness stand.

DeGuerin then put up photos of the pet-food dishes in the garage, and implied that David would testify Shaka was confined there at the time of the murder. How was that possible, when Angela Vielma would testify that she walked past as David returned home? Vielma didn’t see the dog, and Shaka didn’t rush out barking at her. Yet, even if the dog wasn’t free to attack a burglar, Leithner insisted there were other signs that the crime scene was staged. “That’s just one element,” he said.

When Mark Schmidt took the stand, he folded his hands on his lap and waited. The day had been a long time coming, and Schmidt had been so anxious about his testimony that he had much of the three binders that made up the Temple murder book memorized. “I’ve been living with it for almost nine years,” he’d say later. “I wasn’t going to walk into that courtroom unprepared.”

“Are you nervous?” Siegler asked, after Schmidt introduced himself.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a slight shrug.

Schmidt, too, said he’d looked at the back door with the broken glass that night, inspected it, and didn’t see the dent. Siegler asked about the many shotguns the sheriff’s department sent in for testing throughout the years, the two from Joe Sanders, the one stolen by his friend, one from a neighbor who called, worried that her dead husband might have committed the murder. All had tested clean for glass, blood and brain matter. They’d searched rice fields and ponds, and had never found the murder weapon.

Then Siegler had Schmidt lay out David’s statement about where he’d been that night, locking in entries on a large timeline she’d constructed for jurors, including when David said Belinda arrived home, when he was seen on the videos at Brookshire Brothers and Home Depot. On the screen, Siegler showed photos from the stores’ surveillance videos. The picture that emerged was that if David planned to kill Belinda, he had hours to prepare from the time she returned to school until 3:45, when he said she arrived home. The exhibit showed the two main blocks of time unaccounted for: the first, half an hour after Belinda arrived home and before David showed up at Brookshire Brothers. David said he’d gone to a park, but no one had come forward to corroborate his account. The second unexplained half hour: when the trip from the grocery store to the Home Depot took three times what it should have.

Schmidt testified that Joe Sanders cooperated, as did all of the teenager’s friends, voluntarily turning over shotguns for testing and giving statements. Meanwhile, none of the Temple family tried to push the investigation. “Did any member of the Temple family talk to you about offering a reward?” Siegler asked.

“No, ma’am,” said Schmidt.

“The grand jury did not indict David Temple in 1999?” DeGuerin asked, when he began questioning Schmidt, implying the jurors decided there wasn’t enough evidence.

Siegler jumped up to object, which the judge sustained, but DeGuerin simply asked the same question again, following it by, “There was no [indictment] in the case until 2005?”

“Correct,” said Schmidt.

On the stand, Schmidt appeared anxious but resolute. He played with his tie at times, and when he frowned, deep furrows etched his brow. DeGuerin was as determined, and attempted to give the detective little wiggle room. “The house was a mess when you released it, right?” DeGuerin asked, describing fingerprint dust covering walls and doors. It seemed an odd thing to point out, since it suggested that forensics had done a thorough job, yet hadn’t uncovered any unexplained fingerprints.

“Yes, sir,” Schmidt agreed.

The defense attorney asked if the television stand on the chest of drawers, the one next to the dish with David’s jewelry, could have obstructed the view of the jewelry, perhaps explaining why it wasn’t stolen. “Possibly, yes, sir,” Schmidt said.

The detective agreed that there was no question that just after 4:30 on the afternoon of the murder, David Temple was shown with Evan at the Brookshire Brothers grocery store. That was about the time the Roberts boys would testify that they heard what they believed to be a gunshot. If David wasn’t even in the neighborhood, how could he have murdered his wife?

Of all those who would take the witness stand, Quinton and Tammey Harlan had the most intimate views of David’s and Belinda’s lives. Quinton took the stand first, talking about everything from how gingerly he handled Shaka to the way David cheated on Belinda. Then, he recounted how David called Belinda names. At times the jurors eyed David, as if wondering about all they were hearing. While Quinton couldn’t put a .12-gauge shotgun in David’s hands, the two men had talked about bird hunting, David describing the many times he’d gone as a young man, and Quinton had seen a box of shotgun shells in the Round Valley house.

Yes, Quinton admitted, he, too, had flirted with Heather Scott that fall, kissed her and bought her gifts, and when Tammey discovered it, it had nearly destroyed his marriage. But he talked more about David’s conduct, how he derided Quinton for not controlling Tammey. Quinton said David had once asked him if he’d leave Tammey for Heather.

“I said no, but asked him if he’d leave Belinda,” Quinton said. “David said, ‘I don’t know.’”

Dick DeGuerin objected, charging Siegler was mounting a character assassination, attempting to prove David was guilty by smearing him in front of the jurors. The judge disagreed, and the testimony went on.

“Did David Temple ever do anything on the spur of the moment?” Siegler asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Harlan answered. The implication was that if David intended to murder Belinda, he’d have a plan, including where to dispose of the murder weapon.

There were so many incidents that contradicted DeGuerin’s portrait of David as a loving husband. Before Belinda and Erin were even buried, David asked Quinton, “How’s Heather?” And when Quinton asked why David wasn’t cooperating with the investigation, he said, “What difference is it going to make?” and “It isn’t going to bring Belinda back.”

“Did you ever see David drive Evan without a car seat?” Siegler asked.

“No, ma’am,” said Harlan.

When he took over, DeGuerin attempted to paint Quinton with the same brush being used to tarnish David Temple. Wasn’t it true that while Tammey was at home with their children, Quinton was at school e-mailing Heather and afterward going out with the other teachers drinking? Quinton disagreed, saying he’d only been to one happy hour that year. Yet he admitted, “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”

When it came to his relationship with Heather, Harlan described it not as flirtation but lust, and said that it came at a time when he was unhappy with his marriage.

“You blame your relationship with Heather on David, don’t you?” DeGuerin charged.

“No, I take full responsibility for my stupidity,” he said.

David was joking when he insulted Belinda, DeGuerin insisted.

“No, sir,” Quinton disagreed.

When it came to Tammey, Quinton said, “My wife is strong willed. You’ll see.”

“I’m sure we will,” DeGuerin said.

While her husband testified, Tammey Harlan sat in the prosecutors’ witness room outside the courtroom. At one point, she looked up and saw Darren and Kevin across from her, in the defense conference room. Darren stood up, opened the door and stared at her, and she saw incredible anger in his eyes. He then sat down at the table and continued to watch her with contempt.

Once she took the stand, Tammey looked as Quinton described her, strong willed, yet there was another element: heartbroken. She blamed herself, she confessed, because she’d moved away from Belinda during that final fall and winter. But she said she felt she had to, “if I was going to save my own marriage.”

Like Quinton, she described David as verbally abusive and controlling, and added that he disparaged Belinda’s family, calling the Lucases “white trash, crazy and fat.” At one point after some emotional testimony about their son-in-law’s snipes, Tom and Carol got up and left the courtroom, furious.

Yet Tammey went on, describing Belinda as a bright woman, a competitive, forceful individual, except when she was around David. Then Belinda appeared meek, submissive. “I would tell her to stand up to him and tell him how she felt and not allow him to treat her that way,” Tammey said. “Belinda was incredible. She was a much better wife than I am…. She put up with a lot, and she just always smiled and kept going.”

“What did Belinda do with her keys when she entered the house?” Siegler asked. Tammey said her friend kept them on a tray by the kitchen telephone, and that she kicked her shoes off when she walked in the door. On the day of the murder, the keys were found on the staircase, and Belinda’s shoes were still on her body. Lastly, Tammey insisted that Belinda would never have allowed David to take Evan out when he was sick or to put him in the truck without a car seat.

“Are you testifying today that all the blame belongs to David Temple?” Siegler asked.

“No, no,” Tammey answered. “Quinton is a grown man. He makes his own decisions. He’s the one who chose to do what he did.”

“You hate David Temple, don’t you?” DeGuerin asked.

“I do not like David,” Tammey replied.

The defense attorney attacked much of what she’d testified to, but Tammey Harlan refused to back down. Then DeGuerin painted a scenario where Belinda felt threatened and Evan was in the house. He asked Tammy if her friend would have left her son unprotected to hide in a closet. Tammey said Belinda would have protected Evan, but what went unsaid was that Belinda knew David loved the boy and that, if he was the attacker, Belinda would have known that he wouldn’t have hurt their son.

“You called Heather ‘Barbie bitch,’ didn’t you!” DeGuerin insisted.

“That’s right,” Tammey said, looking not at all apologetic.

Thursday of the second week, a stir ran through the courthouse. Word was out that Heather would take the stand. When she walked in, David Temple’s wife looked dangerously thin, not at all the attractive blonde she’d been when he first met her. Before the trial, Tara Hall had warned Siegler that Heather didn’t like to have her actions questioned and that she would become quarrelsome. “But I still didn’t see it coming,” says Siegler.

That day from her perch in the witness stand, Heather fought to be in control. She argued, over and over again trying to insert testimony, attacking the detectives and the prosecutors, claiming they’d been unkind to her and kept her for hours on end, an assertion that rang hollow when Siegler pointed out that Heather had arrived at Clay Road with Hall that day to give her statement in their own car. She could have left at any time, and was, in fact, only there for two hours. Although called by the prosecutors, it quickly became clear that Heather was testifying for the defense.

That fall of 1998, Heather said she was unsure of herself and seeking flattery when she flirted with two married men. Yet she minimized the importance of her relationship with David, describing sex with him by saying, “It wasn’t memorable.”

A titter went through the courtroom that caused the judge to threaten to clear the crowd if they didn’t maintain silence. The relationship, she said, was little more than a flirtation, and David was in love with Belinda. Yet Heather wore a wedding ring, one David had given her, and that alone made her statements seem less than honest.

At times Heather became so contentious, refusing to answer questions, that the judge removed the jury to chastise her. “You don’t need to be getting in an argument with either of these lawyers. You’re not going to win,” Judge Shaver warned. “Listen to their questions and answer them, and don’t volunteer anything else.”

“Did you kiss Quinton Harlan while you were flirting with David Temple?” Siegler asked.

“Yes I did,” Heather responded.

After Belinda died, Heather said she saw David as a friend, yet again the marriage appeared to prove otherwise. When Siegler asked Heather if the grand jury in April 1999 was soon after something terrible had happened, Heather looked confused. “Are you talking about the detectives questioning me?” she asked.

“We’re kind of here about Belinda’s death,” Siegler said, not trying to hide the sarcasm. “I’m talking about that.”

The moment hit hard to many in the crowd who had seen the photos of the crime scene, with Belinda’s head shattered, the right side of her face a hole, her pregnant belly exposed to the world. There were pictures Siegler decided she couldn’t show anyone, those she didn’t want to see, of Erin’s tiny body nestled inside her mother, cold and dead, a perfectly formed baby who would never be born.

Then there were those declarations David made three days before Belinda’s murder, when he said he was falling in love with Heather.

“I do not agree to those words in my statement,” she charged. Yet Heather had signed or initialed every page.

“Are you saying that Tracy Shipley made those words up?” Siegler asked.

“They were forced upon me,” Heather replied. Yet she’d given that same testimony in front of the grand jury, leaving the impression that she was being evasive.

“There were no discussions of a divorce [from Belinda], were there?” Siegler asked.

“No,” Heather agreed.

What other option was there that would allow Heather and David to be together? Siegler asked. The implication hung in the courtroom: David didn’t talk of divorce because he was already planning to murder Belinda.

When it came to Heather’s first statement to police, Siegler said, “You left out the sex, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t intentionally leave it out,” Heather protested.

“Come on, Mrs. Temple,” Siegler said, rolling her eyes.