Naman Shrestha
In early 1999, the entire community of Houston was rocked to the core as the news of Belinda Temple’s brutal murder surfaced. What made her killing all the more unfortunate was the fact that she was eight months pregnant. At first, it was suspected to be the case of a burglary gone wrong, but as the investigators dug deeper, evidence pointed them to the victim’s husband — David Temple. The episode titled ‘Shattered Love’ of ABC’s ’20/20′ provides us with a detailed account of the entire case and the investigation that ensued. It also focuses on David’s claims of innocence, his love affair, and his motive for murder.
David Temple Called the Police After Finding His Wife Dead in Their House
When college sweethearts David and Belinda Temple started their married life in the suburbs of Houston in 1992, they were living the American dream. Over the next few years, they gave birth to their son Evan. At the time, David had been working as a football coach at Alief Hastings High School. In 1998, the couple got pregnant with their second child, a baby girl whom they planned to name Erin Ashley. However, by then, their marriage was far from the paradise it was in the initial years.
Things took a turn for the worse for the Temple family on January 11, 1999, when David discovered his 8-month-pregnant wife, Belinda, lying dead in the master bedroom closet of their house. He dialed 911 and informed the authorities of the situation, claiming that he had returned home from running some errands to find her shot in the back of the head. At first, the investigators were under the impression that the 30-year-old woman had been killed in the midst of a burglary, as several items in the house were out of place. For a short while, the authorities also suspected a next-door neighbor named Riley Joe Sanders to be responsible for the murder but couldn’t find any hard evidence against him.
David Temple Was Having an Extramarital Affair With a Coworker at the Time of Belinda’s Murder
However, when the detectives learned that David Temple had been having an affair with Heather Scott, one of his coworkers at Alief Hastings High School, they suspected that he might be involved in the murder in some way. According to Heather, a few days prior to the murder, she had a conversation with him about ending the affair because it was inappropriate. She also claimed that David confessed his love for her by saying something along the lines of: “I’m totally falling in love with you.” The investigators believed that his love affair with Heather gave him a motive to commit murder.
A couple of years after Belinda’s brutal killing, David tied the knot with Heather in 2001. A lack of evidence allowed him to continue with his life until November 30, 2004, when he was finally arrested and charged with the murder of his former wife, Belinda Temple. Nearly three years later, on October 16, 2007, his trial began. The prosecution accused the defendant of shooting his wife to death and then staging the crime scene to divert the police’s attention from himself. They also claimed that his affair with Heather motivated him to kill his wife at the time. Finally, on November 15, 2007, he was convicted of the crime and later sentenced to life in prison.
David Temple is Serving His Sentence at a Texas Prison Facility Today
In the following years, David Temple and his defense attorneys tried to appeal the court for a retrial. In 2016, their efforts yielded them a new trial and overturned the conviction against him. After a decade, he was released from prison as he awaited his retrial. On July 8, 2019, his second trial began. The prosecution and the defense presented almost the same evidence and arguments that they used in the first trial. The defense also claimed that the prosecution had miscalculated the timeline of the murder and also tried to shift the blame towards Riley Joe Sanders. In the midst of the retrial, Heather filed for divorce from David.
On August 6, 2019, the jury returned with a guilty verdict yet again, convicting him of murdering Belinda Temple. However, the judge was forced to declare a mistrial for the punishment phase after the jury was unable to decide on a sentence for the convict. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the new resentencing trial was further delayed. Finally, in April 2023, the resentencing trial of David Temple commenced and went on for a couple of weeks. Finally, on April 21, the jury spent two hours deliberating before sentencing the former football coach to life in prison again but with parole eligibility at 30 years. He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
During the resentencing, Belinda’s brother, Brian Lucas, directly addressed the killer from the stand, saying, “You are despicable. I want you to think about this every day for the rest of your life in prison. You completely ruined our family, you ruined your family. You deprived that. Nobody else deprived that, none of these jurors, you made that decision.” The victim’s twin sister, Brenda Lucas, also took the stand and said, “David, you not only took Belinda away from me. You took away my niece I never got to meet and watch grow up. Belinda should be here. Belinda should be teaching and enjoying life with family and friends.” Currently, he is serving his life sentence at Alfred D. Hughes Unit in Gatesville, Texas, with his parole eligibility scheduled for June 2040.
Read More: Heather Scott: Where is David Temple’s Second Wife Now?
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