128: The Belinda Temple Case, Part 2 - REMASTERED

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Southern Fried True crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. I

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like circumstantial evidence. I've said this
before. It tells a story. Obviously

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you want DNA evidence, fingerprints and
other scientific evidence to bolster the story.

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But when it's a domestic crime,
the defense will be able to scoff at

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a lot of that evidence. They
will say, my client lived with the

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victim. Of course, his fingerprints
in DNA are in the house. In

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the Belinda Temple case, they needed
the gun. If they had found the

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murder weapon, David Temple probably would
have been arrested right away. It's probably

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the main reason this case went cold. The other issue we have to discuss

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as prosecutorial misconduct. Harris County DA
Kelly Siegler was excoriated over her actions in

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this case. What is sad is
that she herself like circumstantial evidence. She

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was indisputably a very effective trial lawyer. She's folksy, sarcastic, and very

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engaging. She tells that story and
she didn't need to play dirty. But

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was it as bad as people think
ended David's attorney playfair. He was also

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a famous and respected lawyer, and
he tried plenty of tricks himself. So

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David Temple got a second trial.
Welcome to Episode one twenty eight, The

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Belinda Temple Case, Part two,
The Trials of David Temple. Before we

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get started, I've got a correction
to make. Heather Scott was not from

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Kansas, as I stated in the
last episode. She was from Little Rock,

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Arkansas. However, she moved to
Franklin, Texas when she was in

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the eighth grade. I know it's
not a big deal, but I like

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to get things right. It also
means to me that it doesn't sound like

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Heather just fell off the turnip truck
from Kansas on the way to Houston,

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Texas. Franklin is about two hours
away from Houston. She was, essentially,

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at age twenty nine, a Texan
and had worked at Hastings High for

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a year. Then she moved into
the new ninth grade NX building along with

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David Temple and his coach and friend
Quinton Harlan. Tammy. Harlan would later

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say she found out from other teachers
that Heather was a groupie for coaches.

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Tammy called her Barbie bitch, something
she would proudly admit on the witness stand.

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Heather's flirtation started with Quinton, something
he would later have to embarrassingly admit

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in court. But then David,
ever competitive, started his own flirt campaign

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with Heather. The amount of emails
between the two were of a lotus.

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This wasn't just some casual hookup,
as he would later try to portray it,

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and if he wanted to call it
a hookup that he had ended,

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he probably shouldn't have married her.
In May of two thousand and one,

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two weeks before they married, David
bought a nice house in Richmond, Texas,

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about a half hour from Katie.
The house was beautiful and it had

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palm trees around the swimming pool.
Friends had been disturbed by David bragging about

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the money he had made when he
sold the house on Round Valley Drive,

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the house where his wife was murdered, and now he quickly moved on marrying

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Heather at a fancy country club and
settling into the new house with her and

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Evan. Heather proudly began telling people
that Evan called her mommy all on his

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own. Heather's mother would later speculate
to author Catherine Casey that Heather didn't have

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babies of her own because she and
David had this dark cloud over them.

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She did become a mother to Evan, and maybe she didn't want to risk

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having more children on her own if
David was ever convicted, or maybe she

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didn't want to have a baby with
a murderer. There are many people who

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believe that David's family knew he killed
Belinda, though not all would go on

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record. Becky Temple, Kevin's wife, had been close to her sister in

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law, Belinda, and she made
comments to both Brenda Lucas, Belinda's twin

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sister, and Tammy Harland, Belinda's
best friend. Becky not only suspected David,

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but seemed like she detested Heather.
She and Kevin were so angry at

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David for his relationship with Heather that
they stopped speaking to him for months,

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something Becky would later have to admit
to at trial, though by then she

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was towing the Temple family line.
She wasn't the only one who didn't like

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Heather. Initially, Kennemoreene Temple,
David's parents kept a shrine to Belinda in

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their home and were indeed frosty to
Heather for a while before finally accepting her,

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probably because David insisted on. At
Hastings football games, Tammy Harland,

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ever, the football wife there to
support Quinton, shouted at and heckled Heather

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when she tried to sit in the
section for coach's families. Heather, embarrassed,

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would get up and go to a
different section. After a few games,

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Heather walked into the stands with the
Temple family a show of solidarity.

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She was now on the fold,
but David and Heather were definitely living under

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a cloud. He knew he was
still under investigation. He was so narcissistic

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that even though he knew he was
being investigated, he still continued the relationship

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with Heather right after Belinda's murder.
Heather's roommate Tara Hall, later confirmed in

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court that David sentos Valentine's Day roses
a month after his wife's brutal murder,

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and that David and Heather immediately began
seeing each other again. At first,

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they just stayed at home at the
condo watching TV rather than being seen around

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town, but by the next football
season in nineteen ninety nine, they were

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ready to go public whether Tammy Harland
liked it or not. Maybe David did

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love her that much, But if
you were at risk for being tried for

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murder, wouldn't you stop the affair
and do everything you could to look like

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the grieving husband. David didn't seem
to care how it looked, and it

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did anger his family, and while
he eventually let Tom and Carol Lucas see

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their grandson, it was under his
supervision Adam McDonald's. There would be no

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weekends with Evan's other grandparents or with
his aunt Brenda, who began tape recording

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conversations with David, and soon even
those pitifully short visits stopped. None of

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y'all are supporting me. I don't
know what you expect me to do,

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he whined to Brenda on tape.
His strategy of keeping Evan from Belinda's family

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seemed to have worked. Maybe Evan
would have always believed in his father's innocence.

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Anyway. The bad part is Evan
missed growing up with his mother's family

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in his life, and they missed
him so much that it intensified they are

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already immense grief. Investigators were frustrated, even haunted. Detective Mark Schmidt said,

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I thought about Belinda Temple's murder before
I closed my eyes at night and

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first thing in the morning. But
police and the DA's office knew they only

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had one shot at David, and
there is no statute of limitations on murder.

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No matter how frustrated they were,
they still hoped to find the murder

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weapon, And of course they hoped
David would slip up and say something incriminating

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to someone who had come forward.
What Brenda Lucas had on those tapes made

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him look like a shitty husband,
and of course cruel and petty to Belinda's

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grieving family. The tapes may not
have had a confession, but they would

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prove to be damaging in court.
As I told you in the last episode,

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the DA's office did take the case
to a grand jury. It wasn't

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so much to get an indictment as
it was to get the testimony of certain

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witnesses on record before memories faded.
They had investigators, friends, neighbors,

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Belinda's co workers, and family members
called to testify. Even an alternate suspect

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who I briefly mentioned but haven't discussed
yet, agreed to testify without a subpoena.

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David of course, pled the fifth. When the grand jury was pulled,

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they said the case was weak,
but at least they had witnesses on

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record. Weeks turned into months,
and within a year, Belinda's case was

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no longer a high priority. Her
file sat on the desks of many investigators,

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but technically it was a cold case
now, and Belinda's family simmered.

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Obviously, they were hurting and angry
that David hadn't been brought to justice.

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The months slipped into years, and
then another pregnant woman was murdered and made

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national news when Lacy Peterson went missing
in December of two thousand and two in

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Modesto, California. They watched the
TV seeing her radiant smile everywhere, and

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of course thought of their beautiful Belinda. After Lacy and her unborn baby,

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Connor were found in April just a
few months later, washed up on the

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shores of San Francisco Bay, her
husband, Scott Peterson was arrested just five

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days later. Modesto police had already
been building a case against him without Lacy's

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body. As soon as they found
her, they arrested him. The similarities

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in the case polarized the family,
and the DA's office. Even the media

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picked up on the similarities. The
National Inquirer ran their photos on the front

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page, calling Belinda the new Lacy
Peterson and Heather Scott the new Amber Fry.

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I'm sure you haven't forgotten, but
just in case, Amber Fry was

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Scott Peterson's mistress. But modesto authorities
got lucky. Amber did the right thing

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and testified against Scott Peterson, while
Heather Scott would insist that there was no

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real affair, despite the fact that
they resumed their relationship almost immediately after Belinda's

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murder and got married two years later. The tabloid called David Quote an outrageous

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liar whose deceitful tricks seemed ripped directly
from Scott Peterson's game plan. Well,

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timing wise, it would be the
other way around, But this kind of

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sensational publicity helped. Belinda's father,
Tom Lucas, wrote to Harris County District

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Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and threatened to go
public with how he felt that his daughter's

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case had been mishandled and ignored.
It was then that Rosenthal emailed Kelly Siegler,

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one of his star prosecutors at that
point in her career, Siegler was

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working as a special prosecutor. She
liked cold cases. She reportedly kept a

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file of them on her desk labeled
Waiting for God. But she also later

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said that Peterson case had changed perception
and made the public more aware that these

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types of murders do happen. Husbands
and fathers do murder their pregnant wives and

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their unborn babies. She was right. By then, we had come a

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long way from charismatic assholes like Jeffrey
McDonald. I'm going to pause now for

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a short commercial break. When Kelly
Siegler took over the David Temple case,

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she had won nineteen out of twenty
death penalty cases, but David got lucky.

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It wasn't until September of two thousand
and three that the Texas state legislature

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passed to law mandating that the killing
of an unborn, viable infant was murder.

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Texas law requires murder with special circumstances
for capital cases, like one committed

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during the commission of another felony.
But Belinda was murdered in nineteen ninety nine,

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so her unborn but viable baby girl
didn't count. It was not a

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double murder, not a death penalty
case. Kelly Siegler was an infamous bulldog

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of a prosecutor. She wasn't just
well known in Harris County or even Texas,

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but nationally. There was a People
magazine article on her. They dubbed

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her a drama queen. A show
about her life was being shopped around for

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television. However, David's family also
hired a very famous and successful lone star

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lawyer named Dick de Geron. He
handled several high profile clients, most notably

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David Koresh before the Waco Siege,
obviously, and Robert Durst. If you've

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watched the documentary Jinks, you know
all about Robert Durst. If you haven't

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watched it, I highly recommend it. Already suspected in two other murders,

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Durst was accused of killing his landlord, whose dismembered body parts were found in

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Galveston Bay in two thousand and one. Dick de Geron convinced a jury that

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Durst didn't kill his landlord, but
just dismembered his body. Durst was amazingly

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acquitted on self defense. Newspapers were
calling the Temple trial the Clash of the

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Titans. Now. Siegler and Dagerran
were both known for dramatic courtroom antics,

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and they had also sparred before.
Dagerran had lost Siegler twice. Whether or

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not he held a grudge, he
had an excellent reputation as an attorney who

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was very prepared and chipped away at
witnesses like Perry Mason. According to the

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Houston Chronicle. With these two on
the case, legal wranglings delayed the trial

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until October of two thousand seven.
David had been out on a thirty thousand

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dollars bond since his arrest in November
of two thousand four. Sparks flew at

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the first hearing in February two thousand
five, when da Geran criticized Siegler for

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not getting an indictment from a grand
jury, she told the judge she would,

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but then Dageron asked for an evidentiary
hearing. It was a huge mistake.

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The Harris County Days Office had a
policy of keeping their case fall open

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to defense attorneys. It was more
than just a courtesy. Once some defense

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attorneys saw the evidence against their clients, they made a plea deal unless the

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defense attorney asked for an evidentiary hearing. Then the DA's office strategically closed their

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file and only gave up what they
had to by law, and they could

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do it painstakingly slow. By law, they only had to hand over reports

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after someone had testified, leaving the
defense to scramble before their cross examination in

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court. When DA Gerin asked for
the evidentiary hearing, Kelly Siegler looked at

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him and said, quote, are
you sure you want that, dick?

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You know that will close the file. You need to put that in your

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back pocket. It is very important. A few weeks later, Siegler did

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get an indictment from a grand jury. She had the gunshot residue evidence from

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the FBI and ace in the hole
that they didn't have five years earlier.

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I mentioned that in the last episode. It's why they supposedly made the arrest.

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Degeron lost his evidentiary hearing now that
there was an indictment. Under Texas

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law, he was no longer entitled
to the hearing. After a grand jury

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indict at David Temple. And remember, prosecutors do not have to put on

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their whole case for the grand jury, just enough to get an indictment.

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Degeron dunked back on Siegler in September
of two thousand and five when he got

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the GSR evidence called into question.
Initially, the first report showed gunshot residue

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on David's clothes and shoes. So
while David's arrest was initially based on the

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FBI's lab finally getting their report back, it wound up being useless. What's

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more, the DA's office knew that
the clothing sent to the FBI would need

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further testing. Remember what I told
you to keep in your pocket In the

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last episode, A lieutenant with the
Sheriff's department had been careful to say that

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there was no new evidence. The
arrest was based on increased work and totality

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of the evidence. I think increased
work and totality of the evidence actually meant

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that they had scored infamous prosecutor Kelly
Siegler because they knew for their testing,

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specifically, something called metallurgy testing was
needed for the GSR evidence to hold up

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in court. Then The Washington Post
wrote a story discrediting metallurgy testing as junk

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science in September of two thousand and
five, in the middle of all the

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pre trial hearings. It was a
pretty big scandal. Faxes were sent out

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to police departments all over the country. It would call many convictions into question.

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But the DA's office still had David's
clothes retested, and months later,

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in the middle of the trial,
the results showed GSR only on David's jacket

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and could not conclusively link it to
the GSR on Belinda's clothes. Dick de

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Geran, who had been objecting to
this evidence all along, went further.

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His team began looking into the testing
process that the articles of clothing had undergone,

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including the lab facilities itself. During
this investigation, the defense team found

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that the FBI labs shared the same
ventilation system as a shooting range, meaning

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that all of the gunshot residue from
the shooting range was going up into the

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vents and then coming back down into
the lab. And a new hearing,

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the judge sided with the defense.
Prosecutors had just lost their only piece of

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forensic evidence in the case, but
they trudged ahead. Siegler felt confident in

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how the case was going. In
total, she put five of the detectives

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on the stand, but three of
the detectives who worked the crime scene defended

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their investigation under hard grilling by Dick
de Garon. They also all testified to

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David Temple's lack of emotion at the
scene, how he avoided eye contact,

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and how his story kept changing during
questioning. When one of the detectives,

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Chuck Lythner, was on the stand, Kelly Siegler decided to face head on

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the only ace she believed Dick de
Geran was holding. She asked the detective

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if he had interviewed Joe Sanders Riley. Joe Sanders the third was one of

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Belinda's students and her next door neighbor. He was an admitted pothead who had

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missed so much school that Belinda went
to speak with his parents about his truancy.

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He had skipped one hundred and thirty
one classes already that year. She

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had also gone to Joe's parents and
complained that when they were out of town,

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sixteen year old Joe had thrown a
noisy party and she had to clean

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beer bottles out of her yard.
The next day, Siegler asked Detective Lythner,

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quote, did there come a time
when you were satisfied or completely finished

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in your mind that you had what
you needed from Joe Sanders? And he

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answered yes. Dick Degarran jumped up
and asked to approach the bench. He

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wanted it on the record that Joe
Sanders had failed multiple polygraphs. That is

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going to be denied. The judge
replied, we all know polygraphs are inadmissible

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in court, but de Geran tried
anyway, So he took another tack with

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the detectives, asking about ammunition found
in sanders home. Yes, it was

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double all shells like the one used
in the murder. But what all the

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detectives were able to testify to was
that Joe Sanders and his friends had all

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been thoroughly investigated. His friends because
they were with Joe on the day of

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Belinda's murder. All of the teens
and their parents allowed their homes to be

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searched, handed over all weapons,
and cooperated fully with the police. And

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yes, there were two twelve gaye
shotguns that Sanders had access to, but

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they had been fully tested. But
Dick de Geran called Joe Sanders a thug.

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He said the Temple family had always
suspected him, but try as he

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might, he could not shake the
officers. On cross examination. He would

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have to take his own shot at
Joe Sanders later on direct examination when he

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put on his defense, Kelly Siegler
was smart to get out ahead of the

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Joe Sanders question. It diffused whatever
bombshell Dick de Garon believed he would toss

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00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:14.160
out. During the defense, things
were going very smoothly. The other witnesses

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she put on were already damaging to
David's character. Quintin Harlan had detestified to

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00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:23.480
his own flirtation with Heather Scott.
Heather didn't break up the Harlan marriage,

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00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:27.480
but there really wasn't a un affair
to begin with. Quintin was bad for

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00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:33.440
David on the stand. He called
him manipulative and calculating, the type of

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man who planned out everything meticulously.
He also said David jeered at him for

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not controlling his wife the way David
supposedly kept Belinda in line as he went

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out partying at bars and strip clubs. He told Dick de Garon, my

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wife is strong willed. You'll see
he was right. Tammy Harlan, Belinda's

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best friend in particular, was bad
for the defense. She had firsthand knowledge

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00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:06.680
of the problems in the Temple marriage, and specifically how cruel and cold David

252
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was to his pregnant wife. He
didn't even buy her a gift for her

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00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:15.160
thirtieth birthday. Remember on December thirtieth, when he announced he was going hunting

254
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and actually spent New Year's Eve with
Heather Scott. Brenda Lucas, Belinda's twin,

255
00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:26.359
also witnessed that and would testify to
it. Brenda said he didn't buy

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her sister a Christmas gift either.
Tammy also knew more about Belinda's daily habits.

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She said that when Belinda came home, she put her keys in a

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tray on the table and immediately kicked
her shoes off. Remember, Belinda's keys

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00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:44.119
were found on the stairs going up
to the bedroom, and David claimed that's

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where she always dropped them. Already
said I thought that was weird, but

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00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:52.160
think about it again. She had
a toddler in the house and she's just

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tossing her keys on the stairs.
And also Crimescene photos showed that Belinda was

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still wearing her shoes Tammy. He
also said Belinda would never have allowed David

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to take Evan without a car seat. This was a point I wasn't so

265
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sure about because of court transcripts,
but evidently it was not something the defense

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00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:17.240
could definitively dispute. When David was
asked, he just said, I have

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no idea. Dagheran did not try
to explain the missing car seat and David's

268
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truck. Furthermore, Tammy testified that
Belinda certainly would not have allowed David to

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take Evan to a park when he
had been sick. The child had a

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fever. The soup Belinda picked up
from David's mom was still sitting on the

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kitchen table, and crime scene photos
Tammy helped paint a chilling picture. Belinda

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00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:45.599
didn't have time to put the soup
in the fridge, kick off her shoes,

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or put her purse and keys where
they normally would be. Why is

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00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:55.000
that? Probably because she was ambushed
when she walked in the door. Heather

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Scott Temple was called as a witness
for the prosecution, but she was hostile

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00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:04.480
and argued over Siegler painting herself as
a victim of police harassment. She was

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00:23:04.519 --> 00:23:08.960
even warned by the judge to stop
getting into arguments with the prosecution. You're

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00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.519
not going to win, he told
her. Still, Heather minimized the affair,

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00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:18.359
saying she was only flirting with two
married men, including Quentin, and

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she even said that sex with David
wasn't memorable, causing laughter in the courtroom.

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She also denied her initial statement to
police that three days before Belinda's murder,

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David told her he was falling in
love with her, and she had

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00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:37.240
replied, I feel the same way. I do not agree with those words

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and my statement, Heather insisted.
Siegler asked her if the detective had made

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00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:47.160
the statement up, and then Heather
said those words were forced upon her,

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00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:52.640
but the truth is she volunteered that
statement. In an interview with Detective Tracy

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00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:57.559
Shipley. Catherine Casey interviewed the detectives
about this official statement in her books Shattered,

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00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:03.880
which was really helpful in understanding Heather
Scott Temple's later claims of coercion.

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00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:08.359
This was a second interview with Heather
after a polygraph she had taken had shown

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00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:14.880
deceit. A male detective began the
interview being intimidating. He said, you

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00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.839
lied to me, didn't you.
She said, no, I just didn't

292
00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:21.839
tell you everything. He said,
that's the same as lying, and then

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00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:25.799
left the interview in a huff.
It was good cop, bad cop now.

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00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:30.319
Detective Tracy Shipley began the questioning,
but in a softer tone. She

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still made it clear though, that
leaving anything out was the same as lying.

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Heather started opening up to the female
investigator. She said David made her

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00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:42.599
feel good about herself, but she
still downplayed the relationship and the number of

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00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:48.119
times the couple actually had sex.
But she did say, quote to me,

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David was not dating me for the
sex. He didn't push the relationship

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00:24:52.519 --> 00:24:56.079
on me. I think she wanted
to be clear that she wasn't some horse

301
00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:00.160
sleeping around with him, but that
David was also not really asking her to

302
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:04.640
be in a relationship. Those are
contradictory statements, and she shot herself in

303
00:25:04.680 --> 00:25:10.359
the foot. Detective Shipley immediately followed
up, asking if David had ever told

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00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:14.559
Heather he loved her. Heather said
David told her, quote, you know,

305
00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:18.640
I think I have totally fallen in
love with you. Shipley asked,

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00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:22.519
what did you tell him, and
Heather answered, quote that I felt the

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same. Shipley told her they evaluated
a suspect for motive and being in love

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00:25:27.400 --> 00:25:32.920
with someone else could be a motive
to kill his wife. Detective Shipley later

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00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.440
said Heather gave a small smile and
said, you mean you think he killed

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00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:42.000
his wife for me. Shipley was
disgusted, but nuance doesn't necessarily go into

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00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:47.640
the official statement, but Heather's words
did, and when she saw them typed

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00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:51.799
up, she freaked out, especially
the part where she said David told her

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he was falling in love with her. It didn't mean anything, she insisted,

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00:25:56.440 --> 00:25:59.599
but Shipley told her if it was
true that David said it, then

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00:25:59.640 --> 00:26:03.119
it needed to be in the report. So Heather begrudgingly agreed to sign the

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00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:10.720
statement, and Detective Shipley dutifully noted
her objections and attitude, calling Heather Scott

317
00:26:10.759 --> 00:26:15.640
evasive and not forthcoming in her notes. Of course, Heather's polygraph was inadmissible,

318
00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:21.119
but her statement was not, and
now she was suggesting that she was

319
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.559
forced to say all that Siegler rolled
her eyes, but it didn't matter.

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00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:30.160
Heather's demeanor on the stand spoke for
itself, and her next witnesses would bolster

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00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:36.640
the case even more. Throughout the
trial, the prosecution maintained that David had

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access to hunting guns, obviously because
no murder weapon was found, but it

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00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.319
didn't mean David never had one.
Shotgun. Shells matching the type used to

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00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:49.440
murder Belinda were literally found in the
same closet where her body was found.

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There were also two hunting rifles found
in the same closet. One was a

326
00:26:55.480 --> 00:27:00.119
twenty two and the other a thirty
odd six, but no twelve gates shotgun.

327
00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:04.400
What David and later his brother and
father would testify to is that David

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00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:10.680
only ever had a twenty gage shotgun, which obviously was also not found.

329
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Their lie might have worked better if
they could have produced a twenty gage shotgun,

330
00:27:15.799 --> 00:27:19.720
but they couldn't. David's father,
Ken would insist though, that he

331
00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:25.200
bought his sons Kevin and Darren,
twelve gage shotguns, but David a twenty

332
00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:29.680
gage, all at the same time
in nineteen eighty five for Christmas. His

333
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:34.079
reasoning the twenty gauge was cheaper.
That would have been David's junior year in

334
00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:38.200
a high school, so you bought
your golden boy, star football player,

335
00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:45.279
most favored son the cheapest rifle.
Kin Temple was also a hostile aggravated witness,

336
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:49.920
snapping at Kelly Siegler when she basically
called bullshit on this story. A

337
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:55.559
high school friend of Kevin Temple's disputed
all of this, saying that all three

338
00:27:55.640 --> 00:28:00.279
Temple sons had twelve gage shotguns and
he had hunted with them for years.

339
00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:04.680
Though he was a reluctant witness,
Clint stock Dick was honest. He said

340
00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:08.920
the Temple family was like a second
family to him growing up. He also

341
00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:14.680
said the Temples used reloaded shotgun shells
like the one used in the murder.

342
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:18.680
He further testified that all of the
Temples, Ken and his three sons used

343
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:23.920
twelve gage shotguns. That's four total
plus one that was sought off, But

344
00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:27.920
he had never seen a twenty gage
shotgun at the Temple house or used by

345
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:33.160
Ken or any of his sons.
Clint insisted that David Temple always used a

346
00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:37.279
twelve gage shotgun when they hunted.
De Gerren could not get him to budge.

347
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:42.559
On cross examination, David's brother Darren
also insisted his brother used a twenty

348
00:28:42.599 --> 00:28:47.960
gates shotgun. He was really blase
about a lot of things on the stand,

349
00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:51.880
including whether or not he had lied
about his brother's affair to the grand

350
00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:56.960
jury. He denied saying David had
an affair, So Siegler handed him a

351
00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:00.880
copy of his testimony. He replied, there's a definition of affair that I

352
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:07.319
would like to discuss. Kelly Siegler, always quick witted and effectively sarcastic,

353
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:11.440
replied, are we doing a Bill
Clinton? Are we going to argue about

354
00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:15.480
what affair means? It was an
extremely clever come back, even almost ten

355
00:29:15.559 --> 00:29:19.519
years after Bill Clinton's sex scandal,
and it was not lost on the jury.

356
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:23.839
When Darren clarified, he meant unfaithful. Okay, sure, that's not

357
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:30.119
at all the same thing. Circling
back, Ken Temple went so far as

358
00:29:30.119 --> 00:29:33.400
to suggest that Evan wasn't sick that
day. When Siegler grilled him on this,

359
00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:38.279
he corrected himself by saying he was
quote not well, boy, these

360
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:45.119
Temple men love their semantics. An
affair just means unfaithful. Sick enough to

361
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:48.839
come home from school with a fever
just means not well. Maureen Temple,

362
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:53.960
David's mother, while not quite as
hostile, didn't fare much better. When

363
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:57.440
asked about the affair, She said, quote, well, he spent a

364
00:29:57.480 --> 00:30:02.880
couple of nights with a female school
teacher, not even naming her now daughter

365
00:30:02.920 --> 00:30:07.839
in law, the woman raising her
grandson. When asked to clarify, Maureene

366
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:11.880
Temple said it was a two day
weekend. I do not know about an

367
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:15.839
affair. I know about a two
day weekend. When outright asked if her

368
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:19.880
son was having an affair or not, Maureen lied and said no. Becky

369
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:25.880
Temple, Kevin's wife, was also
called by the prosecution. As I mentioned,

370
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:30.160
she had made several comments to people
about how she doubted David's innocence and

371
00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:33.160
how much she hated Heather Scott,
but now she was trying to be a

372
00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:38.240
loyal Temple family member. Siegler asked
her, do you remember a time,

373
00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:42.799
missus Temple, when you had a
conversation with Tammy Harlan and you told Tammy

374
00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:48.799
that you thought David killed Belinda.
Dick de Geran was furious and called for

375
00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:52.920
a sidebar. The jury was cleared
from the room, and despite de Geran

376
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:57.720
saying Tammy Harland was a liar and
the testimony was inflammatory, Kelly Siegler informed

377
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:02.920
the judge about the tape records Brenda
Lucas had that would prove what Becky Temple

378
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:06.920
had said. With a judge's help, Siegler and da Geran came to a

379
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:11.160
compromise. Becky Temple agreed to stipulate
to nine different statements she had made to

380
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:15.359
Brenda. Among those were that she
didn't speak to David for months after the

381
00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:19.240
murderer, and that her husband Kevin, had a falling out with his mother

382
00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:25.640
Maureen over Heather. Remember, Ken
and Marine were reluctant at first, but

383
00:31:25.799 --> 00:31:30.799
soon decided to accept Heather as part
of the family. This had upset Kevin.

384
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:34.519
Becky also told Brenda on tape that
she didn't want to see Heather because

385
00:31:36.279 --> 00:31:40.440
I don't like to be lied to. A Lot of the damage Becky could

386
00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:45.640
have done was mitigated by this compromise, but it still looked bad. None

387
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:48.720
of David's family members helped his case. It would have been better for them

388
00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:52.640
to have admitted that, yes,
he was having an affair, but he

389
00:31:52.680 --> 00:31:56.599
still loved his wife and he was
a good father. He and Belinda were

390
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:00.880
having problems, but that doesn't mean
he would have killed I think that by

391
00:32:00.920 --> 00:32:06.839
having Heather his family and ultimately David
insist that there was no real affair,

392
00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:10.319
de Geran thought it would take away
motive. David had a fleeing. He

393
00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:15.519
had no plans to leave or hurt
his pregnant wife. That is not the

394
00:32:15.559 --> 00:32:20.519
impression his family left with the jury. They appeared defensive, hostile, and

395
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:24.799
at times untruthful. That's the last
thing you want from an accused murderer's family

396
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:30.519
in court, and Dick de Geran
would have prepared them for Siegler's questioning.

397
00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:36.519
He was again a very well respected
trial lawyer, not just for his performance

398
00:32:36.519 --> 00:32:40.640
in trial, but in his exhaustive
preparation. There's no way he let David's

399
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:45.680
family get on the stand without preparing
them. But de Geran could not control

400
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:49.799
their behavior on the stand, no
matter how much he may have tried.

401
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:53.799
Some witnesses just will not save themselves
on the stand, no matter how much

402
00:32:53.799 --> 00:32:58.079
you try to prepare them. And
it's not like he had a choice.

403
00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:02.200
They were called by the prosecution.
As the trial progressed. There was also

404
00:33:02.319 --> 00:33:08.400
much testimony about the rice fields around
the Temple family home. Kin Temple reluctantly

405
00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:14.680
admitted that his sons knew the acreage
around their home very well, so lots

406
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:17.599
of places for David to have disposed
of the shotgun between the times that he

407
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:22.000
was caught on surveillance cameras. And
there is that witness who saw him at

408
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:28.000
the intersection of Morton Ranch Road and
Katie Hockley cut Off between four fifty and

409
00:33:28.079 --> 00:33:32.359
five pm. His name was Bug
Bendaman and he knew David from high school,

410
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:37.519
but maybe more importantly, he was
really into trucks. He was able

411
00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:42.400
to describe David's truck make and model, down to the shade of blue it

412
00:33:42.519 --> 00:33:46.960
was painted. Bendaman screwed up the
timeline for the defense, but actually helps

413
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:52.599
explain the gaps in the prosecution's timeline. The timeline of that day would be

414
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:57.559
important. Belinda came home between three
forty five and three fifty five. According

415
00:33:57.599 --> 00:34:00.680
to David's parents. She didn't leave
until three, so it had to be

416
00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:07.160
closer to four. David himself had
originally said it was four. David also

417
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:09.400
said she was tired, so he
told her to go rest as he took

418
00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:13.960
their son to go to the park, the son who was so sick he

419
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:16.280
was sent home from preschool with a
fever, and Belinda had stopped to get

420
00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:21.480
homemade soup for him. And then
David and Evan are spotted on a camera

421
00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:24.599
at four thirty two at the grocery
store, walking back out at four thirty

422
00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:30.480
eight. They were not on camera
again until fourteen, entering home depot,

423
00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:36.000
and then David was home by five
thirty. Despite David's claims of traffic,

424
00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:39.679
that is thirty six minutes of time
he couldn't account for. Though he changed

425
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:44.800
his stories about the parks he took
Evan to. His final story was that

426
00:34:44.840 --> 00:34:47.400
he changed his mind about the park, decided to stop at home depot and

427
00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:52.159
then go home, go home to
have dinner with his wife. Actually to

428
00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:57.199
take his wife out to dinner,
he said he always did on Bunco nights

429
00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:01.000
the Ladies dice game. Belinda was
expected at LA that evening, except as

430
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:06.679
Tammy Harlan would testify, dinner was
served at Bunco. I've played Bunco.

431
00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:09.679
There is usually dinner, even if
it's just or Derv's or pot luck.

432
00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.840
It's part of the fun. So
why would they have gone to dinner before

433
00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:19.320
she went to Bunco? Why would
he claim they always did when that could

434
00:35:19.320 --> 00:35:23.599
be so easily disproven. Brenda Lucas
was the last witness for the prosecution.

435
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:29.280
She testified till the last time she
saw her sister, on their birthday,

436
00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:34.920
December thirtieth, nineteen ninety eight,
just twelve days before her murder. Her

437
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:39.800
twin sister was extremely unhappy. David
openly belittled Linda, calling her a fat

438
00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:45.320
ass in front of her sister.
That's right, he called his eight month

439
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:50.440
pregnant wife a fat ass on her
birthday. Brenda was able to tell the

440
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:54.360
jury that David told Belinda he was
going camping for New Year's Eve, something

441
00:35:54.400 --> 00:36:00.480
at this point in trial was an
indisputable lie. Some of and his tape

442
00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:05.920
recordings were played, one of which
David explained that his jewelry wasn't stolen by

443
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:09.519
Belinda's killer because he had been wearing
it that day. There was a photograph

444
00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:15.599
in evidence of all of David's jewelry, his wedding ring, championship football ring,

445
00:36:15.800 --> 00:36:19.360
gold watch, and gold chain were
all sitting on a tray in their

446
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.880
bedroom when the crime scene text took
photos. Brenda didn't just prove he was

447
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:28.039
lying. But if you're a juror, are you asking yourself just why David

448
00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:31.920
wasn't wearing his jewelry. Maybe because
there would be no chance of getting blood

449
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:37.559
on it. And Brenda had an
even more damning statement from David on tape.

450
00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:42.960
When Brenda asked if he wanted the
crime solved, David replied, what

451
00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:47.079
difference would it make? It won't
bring Belinda back. Then he said Belinda

452
00:36:47.119 --> 00:36:52.119
wouldn't want all of this, She'd
want us to leave it alone. Someone

453
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:57.400
else had testified to a similar statement. When Quentin Harland testified, he said

454
00:36:57.440 --> 00:37:00.800
that a few weeks after Belinda's death, he asked of it if you wanted

455
00:37:00.840 --> 00:37:04.880
to know who killed Belinda, David
said, what difference is it going to

456
00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:07.880
make? It won't bring her back. You know. I gave David some

457
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:13.199
benefit of the doubt in my last
episode about the timeline. I do believe

458
00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:15.599
the heavy traffic in the area.
I do think a man whose wife has

459
00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:21.559
just been murdered can be rattled and
get a story confused. I do think

460
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:25.960
that some people react differently to crime
scene horror, so I even defended David's

461
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:30.920
lack of emotion as possibly shock.
But once you get to trial, all

462
00:37:30.960 --> 00:37:36.679
the little pieces start adding up to
something totally different. Kelly Siegler said,

463
00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:39.719
quote, this is a case of
little bits and pieces. You put the

464
00:37:39.719 --> 00:37:45.320
pieces together, and you have a
picture. I'm going to pause now to

465
00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:54.639
hear a word from today's sponsors.
Once the prosecution rested, Dick de Geron

466
00:37:54.719 --> 00:38:00.480
began his case with the opening statement
quote, David and Belinda Temple were deeply

467
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:05.880
in love with each other. David
and Belinda Temple were happy in their marriage,

468
00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:09.400
David was eagerly awaiting the birth of
a little girl both David and Belinda

469
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:16.119
named Aaron. I guess this was
his plan of action all along, but

470
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:22.400
after the disastrous performance by David's family
not to mention his new wife, I

471
00:38:22.440 --> 00:38:25.440
would have backed off this tactic at
least a little bit. When de Geron

472
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:30.320
began his questioning, David said,
I loved Belinda very much as well as

473
00:38:30.360 --> 00:38:35.239
she me, and loved my son
an unborn daughter, as I will to

474
00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:38.760
the day I die. Da Geron
asked him, can you expect the jury

475
00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:44.079
to believe a man can love his
wife and be unfaithful? David said,

476
00:38:44.320 --> 00:38:46.559
I made a mistake. I wish
I could go back and change, but

477
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:52.000
I cannot. But I loved my
wife very much from day one to the

478
00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:55.760
day she died. Then he was
asked to describe his relationship with Heather at

479
00:38:55.760 --> 00:39:00.039
the time of Belinda's murder, and
he minimized, of course, saying it

480
00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:07.960
was flirtatious emails, a casual romantic
relationship. Dig Geron asked him, were

481
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:13.079
you in love with Heather? Then
David answered firmly not at all. When

482
00:39:13.079 --> 00:39:15.880
it came to the question of when
David professed his love for Heather. He

483
00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:22.199
insisted that Heather and her roommate were
wrong, contradicting Heather's official statement. He

484
00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:27.840
said, I did not use those
words. I did not. He also

485
00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:30.760
claimed that Brenda lied about a lot
of things, including that he didn't give

486
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:36.760
Belinda a birthday present. He testified
that he gave her a purse for Christmas

487
00:39:36.760 --> 00:39:42.480
and perfume for her birthday. Heather's
roommate, Tara Hall, had testified to

488
00:39:42.519 --> 00:39:46.800
the nature of their relationship before Belinda's
murder, including that Heather confided in her

489
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:51.679
that he had said he was falling
in love with her, and she also

490
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:55.559
testified to the roses he sent for
Valentines a month after his wife's murder,

491
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:00.119
and how often David was at their
condo and would disappear here into Heather's room

492
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:06.239
and the weeks following his wife's death. It's why de Geran's strategy of denial

493
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:10.199
was so ill advised. There were
too many witnesses. Tara was at the

494
00:40:10.239 --> 00:40:14.480
New Year's Eve party. It was
at the condos she shared with Heather.

495
00:40:15.159 --> 00:40:17.000
She knew David was there and that
he had spent the night with Heather.

496
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:23.239
Siegler went after David easily on cross
examination. So when Brenda asked him if

497
00:40:23.239 --> 00:40:28.280
he slept with another woman on New
Year's Eve on that tape, was he

498
00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:34.519
lying yes? David admitted. Over
and over she asked him questions about things

499
00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:37.039
he had said while Brenda was secretly
taping him, and he had to admit

500
00:40:37.239 --> 00:40:42.679
he had lied. There were so
many things he lied about, stupid things

501
00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:46.360
like dinner before Bunco games and how
Belinda always dropped her keys on the stairs.

502
00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:52.119
He could have easily just said she
dropped them by mistake that day because

503
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:54.920
she was tired, But he was
trying to stick to his original statement as

504
00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:00.039
much as he could, and he
was also trying to casually revise it places,

505
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:05.760
shifting times around, insisting that Evan
woke up perky and full of energy.

506
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:09.039
He said that boat Bendaman, who
saw David miles away from where he

507
00:41:09.079 --> 00:41:14.360
claimed to be that day, must
have been mistaken. To his credit,

508
00:41:14.800 --> 00:41:17.719
he did not seem to get rattled
the same way his wife and family had.

509
00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:22.960
He appeared self spoken and reasonable.
But when you have to admit to

510
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:28.880
lying that many times, or simply
saying I have no idea, it doesn't

511
00:41:28.920 --> 00:41:34.559
matter how calm your demeanor is you're
still a liar. When Siegler asked him

512
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:37.840
about their sixteen year old neighbor,
who was Belinda's student, David said,

513
00:41:38.199 --> 00:41:43.639
I do not trust that Sanders kit. He said they'd had problems with him

514
00:41:43.679 --> 00:41:47.000
before. To be fair, Belinda
did find those beer bottles in their yard

515
00:41:47.079 --> 00:41:52.920
after his party, but that's a
far cry from cold blooded murder. Kelly

516
00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:58.079
Siegler asked, are you telling this
jury that you really believe Joe Sanders is

517
00:41:58.119 --> 00:42:00.599
the person who put a shotgun in
the back of your wife's head and blew

518
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:06.440
her face off. I have no
idea David shot back. I wouldn't doubt

519
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.440
it one bit if he did it. David also denied having a twelve gage

520
00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:15.719
shotgun that Clint Stocktic had described as
For the sawtoff shotgun he had, he

521
00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:20.159
said he threw it away because it
didn't work. You didn't own a shotgun,

522
00:42:20.360 --> 00:42:24.159
Siegler asked, no. David insisted, and what about the twelve gage

523
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:29.760
shells found in his closet. He
said, I don't know exactly where the

524
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:32.639
shotgun shells came from. They were
from previous use, is what I said.

525
00:42:34.559 --> 00:42:38.320
De Geron asked David about the alternate
suspect Joe Sanders. What is your

526
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:44.320
conclusion from these things? He was
talking about the shotguns the Sanders had willingly

527
00:42:44.360 --> 00:42:47.920
given to the police for testing.
David said, I would not like anybody

528
00:42:47.960 --> 00:42:52.519
to be falsely accused, because I
know how that feels. But that needs

529
00:42:52.559 --> 00:42:59.800
to be totally investigated. De Geron
recalled Detective Dean Holtke, who again tested

530
00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:05.159
that yes, two twelve Gage rifles
were found in the Sanders household, along

531
00:43:05.159 --> 00:43:07.920
with the same size shells as the
one used in the murder. But once

532
00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:13.400
Siegler was able to cross examine her
witness he was able to testify that no

533
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:19.360
glass or blood was found inside Sanders
shotguns and that the reloaded shells didn't match

534
00:43:20.159 --> 00:43:24.000
Dick. Degerren also trotted out the
Roberts family kids now teenagers, who said

535
00:43:24.039 --> 00:43:28.719
they heard a boom like a gun
shot at four thirty five while watching a

536
00:43:28.760 --> 00:43:32.679
movie. Because David was on camera
at four thirty two, Degeron was still

537
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:37.480
trying to prove the timeline wasn't possible
and that someone else shot Belinda at four

538
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:43.159
thirty five, but the Roberts kids
were the only ear witnesses. De Geron

539
00:43:43.239 --> 00:43:47.400
was able to produce. No other
neighbors heard a shot. The defense rested

540
00:43:47.639 --> 00:43:53.760
and the prosecutor called one final witness
in rebuttal. Joe Sanders, now,

541
00:43:53.800 --> 00:43:57.960
a twenty four year old, clean
cut young man, sat down on the

542
00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:01.719
witness stand. Questioned him about what
he did the day of the murder,

543
00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:06.920
about how he had cut classes and
spent most of the day either smoking pot

544
00:44:07.039 --> 00:44:10.360
or looking for more pot. Yes, he had been grounded after Belinda spoke

545
00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:15.679
to his parents about his truancy.
His parents took his truck away, but

546
00:44:15.760 --> 00:44:17.920
Joe said he wasn't angry. He
just left school at lunch time and took

547
00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:22.320
his truck back. He was polite
and talked about how Belinda Temple was kind

548
00:44:22.360 --> 00:44:27.119
to him. He said he saw
her daily at school and went to him

549
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:30.360
quote whenever he needed help. He
even said he saw her in the halls

550
00:44:30.360 --> 00:44:34.039
and she would joke with him,
telling him to hurry up and get to

551
00:44:34.079 --> 00:44:37.280
class. She was a very nice
lady, a good teacher, he said.

552
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:45.719
He also described how he had been
cooperative from day one, voluntarily testifying

553
00:44:45.719 --> 00:44:50.119
at the grand jury without a subpoena. He gave repeated statements to police.

554
00:44:50.679 --> 00:44:54.159
Siegler asked him why he agreed to
talk to the detectives because I wanted to,

555
00:44:54.239 --> 00:44:59.119
he said, I didn't try to
hide. When Dagherin got up to

556
00:44:59.119 --> 00:45:02.840
cross examine Sanders, his first question
was, have you been told you wouldn't

557
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:08.119
be prosecuted for your testimony? Kelly
Siegler jumped up and objected, and the

558
00:45:08.159 --> 00:45:14.920
attorneys got into a heated argument.
Degeron was insinuating that Joe Sanders had been

559
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:21.280
giving immunity from prosecution for Belinda's murder. In fact, he was given immunity

560
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:25.400
for being charged with possession of marijuana
back in nineteen ninety nine for agreeing to

561
00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:30.000
talk to detectives. This wasn't a
drug case, it was a murder case.

562
00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:36.320
As everyone waited, the judge read
back over the original grand jury testimony

563
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:40.880
and agreed with Siegler. The testimony
explained they were talking about marijuana, the

564
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:46.000
judge said, Dick de Geran said, but it doesn't. The judge then

565
00:45:46.159 --> 00:45:53.000
angrily warned Degeran, your question is
absolutely trying to mislead the jury. Degeran

566
00:45:53.079 --> 00:45:59.440
went back to questioning Sanders, basically
shooting rapid fire questions, hoping Sanders would

567
00:45:59.440 --> 00:46:06.159
slip up. Instead, Sanders remained
calm admitted to smoking pot, skipping classes,

568
00:46:06.519 --> 00:46:09.840
and insisting he was not angry with
Belinda Temple. He even told the

569
00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:14.840
court about how the week before the
murder, he was out shooting shotguns with

570
00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:19.000
his friends and then riding around and
his friends had knocked down some of the

571
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:22.440
Temple Christmas decorations. He said he
made the other boys put them back up.

572
00:46:23.079 --> 00:46:28.480
Dick de Gerren was never able to
rattle Joe Sanders. He couldn't catch

573
00:46:28.559 --> 00:46:34.480
him in a lie because Joe wasn't
lying. While David Temple had also remained

574
00:46:34.480 --> 00:46:39.199
calm, he had been caught in
numerous lies. Closing arguments began the morning

575
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:45.159
of Wednesday, November fourteenth, two
thousand, seven eighty A. Craig Goodheart

576
00:46:45.199 --> 00:46:51.400
began for the prosecution, pointing at
David Temple that man executed Belinda and his

577
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:55.440
unborn child, a cold blooded murder, There's no doubt about it. Did

578
00:46:55.480 --> 00:47:00.199
the Sheriff's department make mistakes? They
probably did, but that didn't mean that

579
00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:06.719
David wasn't guilty. Not one of
the shotguns the defense pointed to, including

580
00:47:06.760 --> 00:47:12.000
those at the disposal of Joe Sanders, tested positive for glass blood or brain

581
00:47:12.039 --> 00:47:16.159
matter, and there was no evidence
against Joe Sanders, What does your gut

582
00:47:16.159 --> 00:47:22.840
tell you? He asked, Goodheart
finished with David Temple is the only human

583
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:28.159
who had motive, opportunity, and
the desire to kill his wife. De

584
00:47:28.280 --> 00:47:34.199
Garin came out swinging with his alternate
suspect, there is more circumstantial evidence against

585
00:47:34.280 --> 00:47:38.119
Joe Sanders than against David Temple.
Do I think the evidence against Sanders is

586
00:47:38.239 --> 00:47:44.440
enough for a conviction? No,
but there is stronger evidence against him than

587
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:50.320
against David. Kelly Siegler then stood
up for her closing argument rebuttal. She

588
00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:53.760
said, no matter how much you
want to deceive, no one can do

589
00:47:53.800 --> 00:48:00.360
it perfectly. You know they lied
to you and insulted your intelligence. Temple

590
00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:06.320
family denied everything, acted like it
never happened. Why because the family knows

591
00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:10.280
him. Because the family knows what
happened. Facing the lack of a murder

592
00:48:10.320 --> 00:48:15.400
weapon, Siegler said, why don't
we have the murder weapon? Because he

593
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:19.719
got rid of it. She also
pointed out that even though David had said

594
00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:24.280
he checked Belinda's pulse specifically he said
he checked her cardo at artery, there

595
00:48:24.280 --> 00:48:29.800
had been no blood on his clothes
or hands. Then she said, quote,

596
00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:36.519
why was Belinda executed in the closet
because David the planner realized it was

597
00:48:36.559 --> 00:48:40.199
the most protected room in the house, without windows and surrounded by clothes to

598
00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:45.440
muffle the sound of the gun shot. Then Kelly Siegler went after Dick de

599
00:48:45.519 --> 00:48:50.760
Gerin's alternate suspect. She said,
quote, Joe Sanders, you know what

600
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:53.760
you learned from Joe Sanders. He
came here from Arkansas without a subpoena.

601
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:59.440
And what did he tell you?
I smoked weed. You know with all

602
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:04.519
your heart that David Temple is guilty, she said. The jury deliberated for

603
00:49:04.519 --> 00:49:07.119
a couple of hours that last day
of court and then rested for the night.

604
00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:12.599
The next day, they came back
with a verdict fairly quickly. In

605
00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:16.360
eight hours, they found David Temple
guilty. It took even less time for

606
00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:22.199
them to recommend he spent the rest
of his life in prison. I'm going

607
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:30.840
to pause now to hear a final
word from today's sponsors. For years,

608
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:36.119
David sat in prison for the murder
of his wife. But five years into

609
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:42.199
his sentence, his attorney got a
break. A man named David Glasscock approached

610
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:45.760
Dick Nageron, supposedly after he caught
a TV special on David's case. One

611
00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:52.639
night in May of twenty twelve,
after seeing the special, Glasscock felt uncomfortable

612
00:49:52.719 --> 00:49:57.480
with information he had been sitting on
about Belinda's murder. He told d garn

613
00:49:57.559 --> 00:50:01.159
that back in nineteen ninety nine,
he had over heard a disturbing story shared

614
00:50:01.159 --> 00:50:06.039
by one of his high school buddies
that not long after Belinda was killed,

615
00:50:06.679 --> 00:50:09.199
he was at a friend's house when
he heard a story about a burglary that

616
00:50:09.199 --> 00:50:13.760
had gone wrong. One of the
guys said that he had to shoot a

617
00:50:13.800 --> 00:50:17.639
dog and put it in the closet
during the theft. Glascock assumed a dog

618
00:50:17.880 --> 00:50:22.960
was code for Belinda, but he
did not share the information with anyone else

619
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:27.840
until he made the call to David's
defense attorney. The friend that Glascock was

620
00:50:27.880 --> 00:50:34.960
referring to was Riley Joe Sanders,
the third Dick Degeron's alternate suspect. Dick

621
00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.840
Geron believed Daniel Glascock's story, which
would later fall apart under more scrutiny,

622
00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:45.199
But the fire under Dick de Garren
had been lit again with the help of

623
00:50:45.239 --> 00:50:50.199
a man named Stephen Claphart, an
investigator at the DA's office. The evidence

624
00:50:50.239 --> 00:50:54.400
and information about the Belinda Temple murder
investigation was re examined, and it was

625
00:50:54.519 --> 00:50:59.920
learned that almost fourteen hundred pages from
the Temple case fall had been withheld.

626
00:51:00.840 --> 00:51:05.239
Only parts were given to the defense, and only during the trial after direct

627
00:51:05.239 --> 00:51:09.000
testimony. One of the main things
the defense claimed to have found was that

628
00:51:09.119 --> 00:51:15.480
Joe Sanders was indeed a real suspect
in Belinda's murder, a fact detectives disputed

629
00:51:15.559 --> 00:51:21.159
in David Temple's first trial. They
all testified that he had been ruled out

630
00:51:21.199 --> 00:51:24.360
as a suspect. What they did
find in the file was that a deeper

631
00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:30.880
investigation into Joe Sanders was not brought
up at trial. Between January eleventh and

632
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:36.679
February first, Joe was interviewed six
times by several different officers and provide a

633
00:51:36.719 --> 00:51:40.480
police with conflicting statements. Joe said
he was allowed to use his dad's guns

634
00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:45.280
whenever he wanted. Police found out
that early in January, Joe had taken

635
00:51:45.280 --> 00:51:50.920
his dad's twelve gate shotgun without permission
and then gave the gun to his friend

636
00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:53.840
Cody Ellis to hide. The teen
did hide the gun under his bed,

637
00:51:54.480 --> 00:51:59.079
but it was surrendered to the police
the moment they asked to search the Ellis

638
00:51:59.119 --> 00:52:02.239
home. As I told you about
in the first trial, all the shotguns

639
00:52:02.280 --> 00:52:07.199
the police seized were tested, including
those that belonged to Sanders as well as

640
00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:12.920
the Temple family. None of the
rifles tested positive for blood, brain matter,

641
00:52:13.159 --> 00:52:16.599
or glass. And as I told
you in the last episode, the

642
00:52:16.679 --> 00:52:22.639
medical examiner had concluded that the gun
had been put directly at the back of

643
00:52:22.679 --> 00:52:28.000
Belinda's head, and he testified that
there would have been blowback on and in

644
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:31.880
the barrel of the gun, and
a firearms expert testified at the first trial

645
00:52:31.960 --> 00:52:37.920
and explained that shotgun barrels do not
have rifling, a series of grooves cut

646
00:52:37.920 --> 00:52:42.920
into the barrel that leaves striation marks
on the bullets, so shotguns cannot be

647
00:52:42.960 --> 00:52:49.159
positively identified through ballistics the way other
guns can. The best thing the prosecution

648
00:52:49.239 --> 00:52:53.360
could have found would have been David
Temple's twelve gage shotgun, if for anything,

649
00:52:53.679 --> 00:52:58.920
just to prove he had one.
And it is much more difficult than

650
00:52:59.039 --> 00:53:04.119
some people might be to clean a
gun and leave absolutely no evidence. Lab

651
00:53:04.159 --> 00:53:07.559
tests more than likely would have shown
blood on the guns tested. The other

652
00:53:07.639 --> 00:53:13.480
issue de Geron and ap Pellet attorney
Steve Schneider used in David's appeal is that

653
00:53:13.559 --> 00:53:17.880
Joe also failed three polygraph tests,
which included the question did you kill Belinda

654
00:53:17.960 --> 00:53:23.719
Temple? Now, polygraphs can't be
used in court. We all know this,

655
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:29.199
but twice during the first trial,
de gern argued to get them in.

656
00:53:30.239 --> 00:53:34.119
But in the file records, on
February first, back in nineteen ninety

657
00:53:34.159 --> 00:53:37.599
nine, police told Joe's parents that
he couldn't be excluded as a suspect,

658
00:53:38.039 --> 00:53:45.000
and on February tenth, Ada Ted
Wilson ordered police to continue investigating Joe Sanders.

659
00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:50.360
De Geron would later say the defense
learned that many investigators thought Joe Sanders

660
00:53:50.519 --> 00:53:53.679
was a viable suspect, but it
was Kelly Siegler who had decided not to

661
00:53:53.719 --> 00:54:00.239
pursue the investigation against Joe, much
less prosecute him. Aaron said Sanders was

662
00:54:00.280 --> 00:54:05.360
cleared as a suspect because Siegler had
already set her sights on David Temple,

663
00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:12.480
but Assistant District Attorney Donna Good had
agreed with Siegler. She said, teenagers

664
00:54:12.519 --> 00:54:15.840
don't usually make good criminals. They
tend to be impulsive, leave evidence,

665
00:54:15.960 --> 00:54:21.480
get caught. The way the evidence
laid out Belinda Temple's murder was not like

666
00:54:21.599 --> 00:54:25.760
that. It was a calculated crime. Remember, Kelly Siegler was brought on

667
00:54:25.800 --> 00:54:30.679
as a special prosecutor by the Harris
County day after the Lacy Peterson case had

668
00:54:30.679 --> 00:54:36.599
put pressure on their then five year
old case. David Temple was their only

669
00:54:36.639 --> 00:54:43.039
suspect. As a team, Harris
County detectives and prosecutors had cleared Joe Sanders

670
00:54:43.880 --> 00:54:49.880
for years. Da Geron and Appellet
attorney Stanley Schneider accused Siegler of withholding evidence

671
00:54:50.679 --> 00:54:54.039
because the defense didn't have all of
the files during the original trial. They

672
00:54:54.079 --> 00:54:59.280
claimed they only knew that Joe had
skipped school and that Belinda had complained to

673
00:54:59.320 --> 00:55:04.239
his parents about his behavior. Degern
and Schneider also said they didn't know the

674
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:07.599
names of Joe's friends, or the
fact that two of Joe's friends had also

675
00:55:07.719 --> 00:55:14.480
flunked their polygraphs when asked if they
knew who killed Belinda, but investigators at

676
00:55:14.480 --> 00:55:19.119
the time had thought these tests could
not be conclusive. All the boys admitted

677
00:55:19.159 --> 00:55:22.760
to have tripped on LSD around the
time they took the polygraphs, and of

678
00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:28.000
course smoked a lot of pot.
Those drugs can cause paranoia, which can

679
00:55:28.039 --> 00:55:32.480
look like deception. During a polygraph
examination. When Joe Sanders was asked to

680
00:55:32.519 --> 00:55:37.679
take a polygraph for the fourth time, it was his parents who refused permission.

681
00:55:37.480 --> 00:55:42.360
They said he had been through enough
and was distraught over the brutal murder

682
00:55:42.360 --> 00:55:47.320
of his teacher. Furthermore, the
polygraph examiner explained that he didn't interpret their

683
00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:51.679
tests to mean that they may have
been involved in the murder, but that

684
00:55:51.719 --> 00:55:55.800
they knew something they weren't Divulging.
Investigators also pointed out that Joe and his

685
00:55:55.880 --> 00:56:00.800
friends had been in special classes at
Katie High School. They had lower IQ's,

686
00:56:01.679 --> 00:56:07.480
so one of their teachers helped the
examiner form the questions. The examiner

687
00:56:07.559 --> 00:56:10.719
finally asked one of the boys who
he thought killed Belinda Temple, and he

688
00:56:10.840 --> 00:56:15.679
said, my mom told me David
Temple did it. The original question had

689
00:56:15.679 --> 00:56:20.719
been do you know who killed Belinda
Temple, and the boys had answered no.

690
00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:25.000
They were trying to be truthful about
if they personally knew who killed Belinda,

691
00:56:25.280 --> 00:56:30.239
and there had been no physical evidence
whatsoever to tie Joe Sanders, Cody

692
00:56:30.360 --> 00:56:36.800
Ellis, or his other friend Corey
Reid to the Temple house. De gern

693
00:56:36.840 --> 00:56:42.000
and Schneider had theorized that the teenagers
looking for cash to score more weed,

694
00:56:42.480 --> 00:56:46.639
had broken into the temple home,
surprised Belinda, and then killed her because

695
00:56:46.679 --> 00:56:51.960
she was a witness. But the
scene at the Temple House had looked methodical.

696
00:56:52.639 --> 00:56:55.800
The only things out of place were
some opened drawers and that t V

697
00:56:57.280 --> 00:57:01.920
set carefully on its side. Belinda's
jewelry box sat untouched on the dresser near

698
00:57:01.960 --> 00:57:06.960
the closet where she was murdered.
David's jewelry lay on a tray on a

699
00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:10.679
table with a TV nearby. Belinda's
purse had been found in the downstairs closet.

700
00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:15.800
Nothing had been stolen, Her cash
and credit cards were still there.

701
00:57:15.519 --> 00:57:20.679
If the teenagers were on drugs looking
for cash, they didn't look very hard.

702
00:57:21.480 --> 00:57:24.039
They didn't take anything that could have
been pawned, and they didn't leave

703
00:57:24.039 --> 00:57:29.960
a mess you would expect, and
they certainly didn't leave any fingerprints or DNA

704
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:34.960
to prove they had been in that
house. But according to Dick de Gern,

705
00:57:35.440 --> 00:57:39.000
Joe Sanders took his eight month pregnant
teacher and neighbor to her closet and

706
00:57:39.159 --> 00:57:45.039
executed her. De Gerren and Schneider
also alleged that Heather Scott had been coerced

707
00:57:45.079 --> 00:57:50.199
into making that statement about her and
David declaring their love for one another in

708
00:57:50.199 --> 00:57:54.199
the days leading up to Belinda's murder. I already discussed this in detail because

709
00:57:54.199 --> 00:57:59.119
I did know it came up on
a pill. Heather only balked once she

710
00:57:59.159 --> 00:58:02.719
saw her words writing. She was
not coerced. She was questioned by a

711
00:58:02.760 --> 00:58:07.119
seasoned detective who knew that Heather's ego
would trip her up. She didn't like

712
00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:12.280
being thought of as a whore or
a one night stand, and she was

713
00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:16.800
in love with David. But David's
attorneys filed an appeal stating that David's conviction

714
00:58:17.239 --> 00:58:22.480
needed to be overturned due to all
the new evidence they were just uncovering.

715
00:58:22.440 --> 00:58:27.800
A two and a half month long
writ hearing was held with Judge Larry Guest

716
00:58:27.920 --> 00:58:31.880
presiding. Under Texas law. During
the time of the first trial, the

717
00:58:31.960 --> 00:58:37.000
defense was titled to the police reports, which made up many of the fourteen

718
00:58:37.079 --> 00:58:42.000
hundred pages that were uncovered in the
investigation, but they were only entitled to

719
00:58:42.039 --> 00:58:46.119
the reports after the officer had finished
testifying. But they believed, now many

720
00:58:46.199 --> 00:58:52.360
years later, that Kelly Siegler had
purposely excluded evidence and particular officers from testifying

721
00:58:52.840 --> 00:58:55.800
so that she would not have to
provide them with all of the evidence.

722
00:58:57.599 --> 00:59:02.760
Siegler also determined as lead prosecuter,
what was exculpatory and what evidence she deemed

723
00:59:02.880 --> 00:59:08.360
untrue and irrelevant. During the writ
hearing, thirty witnesses and two hundred exhibits

724
00:59:08.360 --> 00:59:15.440
were examined. The defense argued that
Brady violations had been committed through prosecutorial misconduct,

725
00:59:15.920 --> 00:59:20.599
causing David to have an unfair trial. Brady violations, for those that

726
00:59:20.639 --> 00:59:23.719
are unfamiliar, have to do with
the state or prosecutor in a case not

727
00:59:23.840 --> 00:59:29.960
handing over evidence that could benefit a
defendance case. Under the Fifth and Fourteenth

728
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:35.840
Amendments, a prosecutor has a duty
to disclose favorable evidence to defendants upon request

729
00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:40.360
if the evidence is material to either
guilt or punishment. Failure to comply with

730
00:59:40.400 --> 00:59:45.920
this duty has become commonly known as
a Brady violation. It was named for

731
00:59:45.960 --> 00:59:51.280
a precedent setting case from nineteen sixty
three called Brady the Maryland. Kelly Siegler

732
00:59:51.360 --> 00:59:54.639
testified at the writ hearing that she
didn't give the defense all the material regarding

733
00:59:54.719 --> 01:00:01.440
Riley Joe Sanders because she thought it
was irrelevant and ridiculous. Siegler later stated,

734
01:00:01.880 --> 01:00:06.440
I would give them all the discovery
they were entitled to, piece by

735
01:00:06.480 --> 01:00:10.480
piece, day by day, very
slowly and very miserably, they got what

736
01:00:10.519 --> 01:00:15.039
they were entitled to have. She
said she was going by the hard rules.

737
01:00:15.719 --> 01:00:21.039
The defense felt emotion for continuance,
but were denied, And I think

738
01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:25.159
this is what sunk Kelly Siegler.
Her ego was too big. She first

739
01:00:25.199 --> 01:00:29.880
ignored subpoenas to appear at the hearing, and when she did come, she

740
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:35.119
was haughty and sarcastic. She was
obviously irritated that her judgment had been called

741
01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:38.159
into question. It's not that she
was wrong, it was her manner.

742
01:00:38.639 --> 01:00:43.960
She did not come off as professional, but as disrespectful. And I do

743
01:00:44.039 --> 01:00:47.159
think it's important to note that Kelly
Siegler was following the letter of the law

744
01:00:47.400 --> 01:00:52.559
during the David Temple case in two
thousand and seven. The Michael Morton Act

745
01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:58.639
wasn't signed into law until twenty thirteen. I covered Morton's case of wrongful conviction

746
01:00:58.719 --> 01:01:02.840
in episode one ten. The Act, signed into law, requires prosecutors to

747
01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:07.559
open their files to defendants and keep
records of the evidence they disclose. The

748
01:01:07.679 --> 01:01:14.360
Daily Sentinel reported that Judge Giest sided
with defense lawyers who claimed Kelly Siegler violated

749
01:01:14.400 --> 01:01:20.119
this quote central tenant of modern criminal
law by not handing over the information she

750
01:01:20.199 --> 01:01:24.400
knew about that could have been helpful
in David Temple's defense. Well that central

751
01:01:24.440 --> 01:01:30.599
tenant was not an effect in two
thousand seven, reporters were basing their opinions

752
01:01:30.719 --> 01:01:34.760
of Kelly Siegler in the year two
thousand sixteen. At the end of the

753
01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:39.760
hearing, guests found that Kelly Siegler
had committed thirty six distinct acts of prosecutorial

754
01:01:39.800 --> 01:01:45.760
misconduct in the case of David Temple. Judge Giest recommended that David Temple receive

755
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:51.960
a new trial due to the Brady
violations. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

756
01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:57.320
would look over Judge gifts recommendation and
make the final decision. Judge Gifts said

757
01:01:58.199 --> 01:02:01.719
trial counsel's performance was not perfect,
but much of the difficulty he faced was

758
01:02:01.800 --> 01:02:07.639
driven by constant resistance of the trial
prosecutor to reveal necessary information. Trial counsel

759
01:02:07.719 --> 01:02:13.760
continued to seek helpful information from the
prosecutor, but little was disclosed prior to

760
01:02:13.840 --> 01:02:19.559
trial. It was literally impossible for
trial counsel to sufficiently investigate verify it or

761
01:02:19.639 --> 01:02:25.280
dispute the disclosures. Following this,
Kelly Siegler said, just because one judge

762
01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:30.719
made these ridiculous findings that none of
us can understand, he's not the final

763
01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:35.519
say. The Court of Criminal Appeals
is, thank god, and she was

764
01:02:35.639 --> 01:02:39.159
right. On November twenty third,
twenty sixteen, the Texas Court of Criminal

765
01:02:39.159 --> 01:02:44.519
Appeals granted David a new trial.
A little less than a month later,

766
01:02:44.639 --> 01:02:49.000
in December twenty sixteen, he was
released from prison to await his retrial.

767
01:02:49.719 --> 01:02:55.360
Kelly Siegler was absolutely demonized in the
press, understandably so. According to Judge

768
01:02:55.360 --> 01:03:00.000
Giest, either her conduct had gotten
a murderer out of jail or an innocent

769
01:03:00.039 --> 01:03:06.679
man had sat behind bars for almost
ten years. The Houston Chronicle was particularly

770
01:03:06.760 --> 01:03:09.840
scathing in their reporting on Kelly Siegler, but they weren't the only ones.

771
01:03:10.760 --> 01:03:15.880
Many reporters believed that Siegler used the
Temple case to bolster her TV career,

772
01:03:16.559 --> 01:03:22.880
and for the record, Siegler and
her show Cold Justice have been sued twice

773
01:03:22.880 --> 01:03:28.519
now for defamation. She was also
sanctioned for withholding evidence in another case,

774
01:03:29.119 --> 01:03:32.480
and it was a capital murder trial. While it's alarming to see the claims

775
01:03:32.519 --> 01:03:38.719
of defamation, prosecutorial misconduct, and
other shady behaviors of Kelly Siegler. It's

776
01:03:38.760 --> 01:03:44.079
not surprising that this kind of behavior
was borne out of the Harris County District

777
01:03:44.119 --> 01:03:49.880
Attorney's office, which has an upsetting
track record itself. Harris County, Texas,

778
01:03:49.960 --> 01:03:53.840
has executed more people than any other
county in the United States since nineteen

779
01:03:53.880 --> 01:04:00.440
seventy six. The Houston Law Review
study of the death penalty cases found ninety

780
01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:08.000
six percent of cases, judges accepted
the prosecutor's findings without additional investigations or evidentiary

781
01:04:08.039 --> 01:04:14.239
hearings. Kelly Siegler had won nineteen
out of twenty capital cases, and since

782
01:04:14.280 --> 01:04:18.199
the year nineteen seventy five, three
people condemned to die in Harris County were

783
01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:24.760
later exonerated. I admit because of
the writ hearing and the supposed thirty six

784
01:04:24.800 --> 01:04:30.280
distinct acts of prosecutorial misconduct, I
began to have my doubts, especially once

785
01:04:30.320 --> 01:04:36.239
I read all the articles about Kelly
Siegler's practices. Because of the defamation lawsuits,

786
01:04:36.599 --> 01:04:41.679
col Justice was put on hold.
It's still undecided if the show will

787
01:04:41.719 --> 01:04:45.360
come back. Then I came across
an article in the Houston Press by Craig

788
01:04:45.400 --> 01:04:50.880
Melso. He said, in the
rush to persecute Siegler and make a martyr

789
01:04:50.920 --> 01:04:57.079
of Temple, the media neglected to
compare guests findings to the trial record.

790
01:04:57.440 --> 01:05:00.679
If they had, they would have
seen that the findings don't stand up to

791
01:05:00.719 --> 01:05:06.639
scrutiny. They're afflawed and often contradictory
assessment of what actually occurred at trial.

792
01:05:08.400 --> 01:05:13.360
A closer look doesn't suggest proof of
a reckless prosecutor caught in her tracks,

793
01:05:13.599 --> 01:05:17.199
but of shrewd defense attorneys able to
kick up enough dust to cloud a judge's

794
01:05:17.280 --> 01:05:23.039
vision. So I got curious,
and I decided to look a lot harder

795
01:05:23.119 --> 01:05:28.000
at David's first trial than I had
planned. It At all seemed fairly straightforward

796
01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:31.519
to me in the beginning. Now
I wanted to see these contradictions for myself.

797
01:05:32.280 --> 01:05:36.800
This is why I decided to split
the episode into two parts. In

798
01:05:36.840 --> 01:05:44.320
that Houston Press article, most notably, Craig Melso pointed out de Geron had

799
01:05:44.360 --> 01:05:47.119
taken over the case in November two
thousand and four. By the time he

800
01:05:47.199 --> 01:05:53.119
sought an examining trial in February two
thousand five, he had had two months

801
01:05:53.159 --> 01:05:58.800
of unfettered access to the case.
Guests findings don't acknowledge that de Geron simply

802
01:05:58.840 --> 01:06:02.960
took a legal gamble and lost.
Do you remember that part earlier in this

803
01:06:03.039 --> 01:06:08.000
episode that I said to keep in
your back pocket? I told you it

804
01:06:08.039 --> 01:06:13.559
was really important. When Dick de
Garon asked for the evidentiary hearing in February

805
01:06:13.599 --> 01:06:17.800
of two thousand five, Kelly warned
him. She said to him, are

806
01:06:17.840 --> 01:06:21.119
you sure you want that? Dick? You know that will close the file.

807
01:06:23.280 --> 01:06:27.400
David Temple was arrested on November thirtieth, two thousand and four. The

808
01:06:27.480 --> 01:06:31.280
pre trial hearing where Dick de Garon
asked for an evidentiary hearing was on February

809
01:06:31.320 --> 01:06:35.719
first, two thousand and five,
meaning he did have all of December and

810
01:06:35.840 --> 01:06:40.920
January to look at all of the
evidence the DA's office had on his client

811
01:06:41.280 --> 01:06:46.719
and on his alternate suspect, Joe
Sanders, and Kelly Siegler warned him that

812
01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:51.000
in case he had forgotten, he
still had access to all the evidence she

813
01:06:51.079 --> 01:06:58.280
had unless he insisted on the evidentiary
hearing. As I told you, Harris

814
01:06:58.280 --> 01:07:02.000
County had a policy of keeping their
evidence opened for defense attorneys. It wasn't

815
01:07:02.039 --> 01:07:05.719
just to give them a fair shot. It was more because once they got

816
01:07:05.719 --> 01:07:11.000
to look at the evidence against their
clients, most attorneys wanted to plea bargain.

817
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:15.559
So Dick de Garin was full of
shit. He was either too lazy

818
01:07:15.599 --> 01:07:18.199
to look at the file, which
from his reputation is hard to believe,

819
01:07:18.880 --> 01:07:25.920
or he specifically asked for that evidentiary
hearing to close the file. Kelly Siegler

820
01:07:26.039 --> 01:07:30.800
later said Dick was a prosecutor before
a defense attorney. He should have known

821
01:07:30.480 --> 01:07:34.039
asking for the exam trial was a
dumb move. How do you prepare for

822
01:07:34.079 --> 01:07:41.000
a circumstantial evidence case without seeing the
evidence, unless, of course, that

823
01:07:41.119 --> 01:07:45.840
was his strategy. He saw the
evidence, knew Joe Sanders had been rightly

824
01:07:45.880 --> 01:07:50.039
dismissed as a suspect, but using
him as an alternate suspect might sway the

825
01:07:50.119 --> 01:07:56.760
jury. That would only work if
David had come off a sympathetic and truthful

826
01:07:57.280 --> 01:08:01.480
which he didn't. Or maybe da
Geron figured he might could leave an opening

827
01:08:01.559 --> 01:08:08.519
for his client on appeal and that
did work. David's second trial began on

828
01:08:08.639 --> 01:08:14.719
July ninth, twenty nineteen, twenty
years after his wife's murder, and during

829
01:08:14.760 --> 01:08:19.199
this time, Heather fold for divorce
from David. Obviously, no public reason

830
01:08:19.359 --> 01:08:24.039
was given, and she did not
change her testimony from the first trial.

831
01:08:24.600 --> 01:08:30.439
She still tried to protect David.
Following the finding of prosecutorial misconduct in the

832
01:08:30.479 --> 01:08:34.760
first trial, the Office of the
Texas Attorney General acted as a special prosecutor

833
01:08:34.840 --> 01:08:40.840
in the retrial. Their case was
still that David killed Belinda, but this

834
01:08:40.880 --> 01:08:45.960
time they theorized that David split up
the tasks of killing her and staging the

835
01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:50.840
burglary. According to the prosecution,
David could have killed Belinda between the times

836
01:08:50.840 --> 01:08:56.159
she got home and when he left
to run errands, then staged the burglary

837
01:08:56.199 --> 01:09:00.319
when he got home before he ran
to his neighbors for help. Prosecutors said

838
01:09:00.359 --> 01:09:04.880
that there was time between leaving the
grocery store and arriving at home depot when

839
01:09:04.960 --> 01:09:11.119
David could have gone somewhere to throw
the shotgun away. The defense's theory was

840
01:09:11.159 --> 01:09:15.960
that Joe Sanders killed Belinda and that
the timeline proved David couldn't have killed her.

841
01:09:15.479 --> 01:09:19.840
According to David's father, Belinda was
at his house until three fifty five

842
01:09:19.880 --> 01:09:25.720
p m. That meant Belinda probably
didn't get home until four twelve p m.

843
01:09:26.520 --> 01:09:30.520
David was seen on a surveillance camera
entering the grocery store at four thirty

844
01:09:30.520 --> 01:09:34.000
two p m. Based on those
times, David wouldn't have had time to

845
01:09:34.079 --> 01:09:39.560
kill Belinda between four twelve p m
and four nineteen p m when he left

846
01:09:39.560 --> 01:09:45.279
to run errands. The defense also
re emphasized that there was no physical evidence

847
01:09:45.319 --> 01:09:49.520
tying David to the murder. During
the trial, Joe Sanders testified that he

848
01:09:49.600 --> 01:09:54.800
had nothing to do with Belinda's murder. He was now thirty seven years old

849
01:09:54.880 --> 01:09:59.600
and married with children. He told
jurors that the murder of his former school

850
01:09:59.640 --> 01:10:03.840
teacher had stayed with him his whole
life, along with the suspicion against him.

851
01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:08.560
He was Riley Joe Sanders the Third, but he didn't want to keep

852
01:10:08.600 --> 01:10:13.000
the tradition and give his son his
name because it was still so tied to

853
01:10:13.039 --> 01:10:18.239
Belinda's murder. Joe Sanders's ex girlfriend
from high school also testified for the prosecution,

854
01:10:18.880 --> 01:10:25.039
telling the jurors that her then boyfriend
wasn't very good at keeping secrets and

855
01:10:25.119 --> 01:10:30.000
that he told her after Belinda's murder
that she was one of the only teachers

856
01:10:30.039 --> 01:10:35.000
who truly cared for him and wanted
him to succeed. And the whistleblower David

857
01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:40.920
Glascock, who started this whole thing, didn't testify a trial. They couldn't

858
01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:45.800
use him. He kept contradicting himself
on what he knew and when, and

859
01:10:45.880 --> 01:10:48.399
it came out that he didn't even
know the murder weapon was a shotgun until

860
01:10:48.479 --> 01:10:54.720
Dick de Geran told him during his
first interview. Glascock, with his own

861
01:10:54.760 --> 01:10:59.199
record of an assault conviction from two
thousand and eight, showed a substantial criminal

862
01:10:59.279 --> 01:11:04.239
history and a predilection for drugs.
That assault conviction was from when Glascock pulled

863
01:11:04.239 --> 01:11:09.720
a man from his car and beat
him so severely he required seven metal plates

864
01:11:09.720 --> 01:11:14.439
to be surgically inserted into his face
and head. It wasn't some silly bar

865
01:11:14.560 --> 01:11:18.720
fight. He almost killed a man
and a road rage incident. Daniel Glascock

866
01:11:18.840 --> 01:11:25.079
had no independent knowledge of the murder
except what Dick de Gern fed him during

867
01:11:25.119 --> 01:11:30.239
their interviews. Also, as it
turns out, Glascock's original epiphany, which

868
01:11:30.239 --> 01:11:34.960
he said came from watching a documentary
about the murder on the Investigation Discovery Network,

869
01:11:35.399 --> 01:11:40.279
couldn't even have happened when he said
it did. The show didn't er

870
01:11:40.439 --> 01:11:45.520
at all in the month of May
or any surrounding months, So essentially,

871
01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:49.680
David Temple was put on trial with
the same evidence. There was just more

872
01:11:49.720 --> 01:11:56.199
detail about Joe Sanders and his friends
during the initial investigation, and it didn't

873
01:11:56.239 --> 01:12:01.119
help Temple's case one bit. On
August six, two thousand nineteen, David

874
01:12:01.239 --> 01:12:06.279
was once again found guilty of murder. The jury was tasked with coming up

875
01:12:06.279 --> 01:12:11.840
with a sentence for David, with
the possibility ranging from probation to life.

876
01:12:12.359 --> 01:12:16.800
They deliberated for twenty hours but were
unable to make a decision. Two people

877
01:12:16.880 --> 01:12:23.159
wanted probation, six wanted between thirty
and forty years, and four wanted life.

878
01:12:23.720 --> 01:12:27.760
Because of this indecision, the judge
had to declare a mistrial. For

879
01:12:27.840 --> 01:12:34.399
the sentencing phase of the proceedings,
David's bond was set at one million and

880
01:12:34.479 --> 01:12:39.319
a sentencing hearing was set for March
of twenty twenty, but due to COVID

881
01:12:39.439 --> 01:12:44.640
nineteen, David's sentencing was again delayed. His family was not able to pay

882
01:12:44.640 --> 01:12:47.680
that high of a bond, so
David has remained in jail while awaiting his

883
01:12:47.760 --> 01:12:53.720
sentencing trial. Because of the deadlock
jury. During the sentencing phase of his

884
01:12:53.800 --> 01:12:59.520
second trial, David Temple and his
counsel requested a third trial rather than a

885
01:12:59.560 --> 01:13:03.600
new jury that would only review the
conviction and possibilities for sentencing, instead of

886
01:13:03.600 --> 01:13:10.199
getting to see an entire trial played
out before them. State law from nineteen

887
01:13:10.279 --> 01:13:15.199
ninety nine, the year of Belinda's
murder, required the same jury to determine

888
01:13:15.279 --> 01:13:19.560
guilt and sentencing. That law changed
in two thousand and five before David's first

889
01:13:19.600 --> 01:13:26.600
trial. Now a different jury could
be seated just to determine sentencing. David's

890
01:13:26.600 --> 01:13:30.840
attorney's request for a new trial was
made in January of twenty twenty, but

891
01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.399
was denied. Since then, there
has been no movement on the case because

892
01:13:34.439 --> 01:13:41.079
of the pandemic. Evan Temple's testimony
during the sentencing portion in his father's second

893
01:13:41.159 --> 01:13:45.560
trial was seemingly enough to impact the
jury. Now in his mid twenties,

894
01:13:45.960 --> 01:13:51.119
Evans still believes his father. He
also considers Heather Scott, David's now ex

895
01:13:51.199 --> 01:13:56.039
wife, to be his mom,
as she raised him the majority of his

896
01:13:56.159 --> 01:14:00.840
life and has treated him as her
own. He's a college guy working as

897
01:14:00.840 --> 01:14:05.000
an accountant and is happily married.
I am glad Evans seems to be living

898
01:14:05.039 --> 01:14:10.239
such a happy life, and I
am looking forward to a very unprecedented trial

899
01:14:10.359 --> 01:14:15.399
just for sentencing a mistrial only on
the sentencing portion is highly unusual. And

900
01:14:15.479 --> 01:14:19.800
though I believe David Temple is guilty, I'm not sure I agree that this

901
01:14:19.840 --> 01:14:25.520
new jury should only hear evidence of
his guilt. I think it should be

902
01:14:25.560 --> 01:14:30.399
a whole new trial. What's the
harm Glascock as a witness has been neutered,

903
01:14:30.560 --> 01:14:34.159
so to speak. Joe Sanders was
never a viable suspect, so let's

904
01:14:34.199 --> 01:14:40.520
put it all on again. It's
not like this case hasn't received enough publicity

905
01:14:40.960 --> 01:14:45.479
that new jurors won't know a lot
of this anyway. What worries me is

906
01:14:45.520 --> 01:14:51.319
that the publicity of Kelly Siegler's misconduct
has overshadowed the fact that she did do

907
01:14:51.439 --> 01:14:56.600
her job, even if she had
turned over every bit of evidence to Dick

908
01:14:56.680 --> 01:15:01.079
de Garin before trial. I do
not believe that reasonab bulgerors would believe that

909
01:15:01.159 --> 01:15:06.359
a pot had sixteen year old would
execute his pregnant teacher, and that even

910
01:15:06.399 --> 01:15:12.159
if he would, he would leave
no evidence at the scene. David Temple

911
01:15:12.239 --> 01:15:15.119
was a meticulous man. I don't
think you even need to split up that

912
01:15:15.199 --> 01:15:19.199
timeline. He had been home with
Evan since around one pm that day.

913
01:15:19.760 --> 01:15:25.119
He easily could have staged the break
in before Belinda ever walked through that door.

914
01:15:25.920 --> 01:15:29.680
No, I believe David Temple met
his wife at the door with his

915
01:15:29.720 --> 01:15:33.640
shotgun. Evan had a fever.
He probably gave him simochron and put him

916
01:15:33.640 --> 01:15:40.239
to bed. Belinda would not have
screamed. She would not have wanted Evan

917
01:15:40.319 --> 01:15:44.920
to see this. I think he
grabbed her purse in the soup and then

918
01:15:44.960 --> 01:15:47.600
marched her up the stairs to their
bedroom. She dropped the keys on the

919
01:15:47.640 --> 01:15:53.760
way. He probably did choose the
closet as the most soundproof room in the

920
01:15:53.800 --> 01:16:00.680
house. Maybe he told her to
get on her knees. Maybe Belinda crouched

921
01:16:00.720 --> 01:16:05.479
down, protecting her belly and unborn
child as her husband, the man she

922
01:16:05.600 --> 01:16:12.079
loved despite everything, put a shotgun
to the back of her head as she

923
01:16:12.199 --> 01:16:23.680
begged for mercy and blew her beautiful
face off. Southern Fried True Crime is

924
01:16:23.720 --> 01:16:28.520
produced by me Erica Kelly. Today's
episode was researched and written by me I

925
01:16:28.680 --> 01:16:32.239
also edited this long episode, so
apologies if it isn't perfect, and I'm

926
01:16:32.319 --> 01:16:35.960
sorry for the weight. I found
so much more detail I wanted to include,

927
01:16:36.079 --> 01:16:40.159
and I hope you found it as
fascinating as I did. I think

928
01:16:40.199 --> 01:16:43.399
we'll all be following in this case, and I'll make sure and update you

929
01:16:43.560 --> 01:16:47.359
on social media when David does finally
get his sentencing trial. Southern Fried's original

930
01:16:47.439 --> 01:16:51.560
music is by Rob Harrison of Gamma
Radio and the original graphic art is by

931
01:16:51.640 --> 01:16:56.239
Coly Horner. I've been reminding y'all, but don't forget to come find our

932
01:16:56.279 --> 01:17:00.279
new Facebook group search for Southern Fried
True Crime Fans Discussion, and please submit

933
01:17:00.359 --> 01:17:04.960
case suggestions to Southern Fried Truecrime at
gmail dot com. I do not accept

934
01:17:05.039 --> 01:17:10.399
suggestions on social media, and I
apologize if I am unable to answer your

935
01:17:10.399 --> 01:17:14.479
email. I get dozens of suggestions
a week and it takes me time to

936
01:17:14.520 --> 01:17:17.880
go through and check out each case. I will definitely contact you if I

937
01:17:17.920 --> 01:17:20.680
plan to use the case you submit
to see if you would like to be

938
01:17:20.760 --> 01:17:26.159
credited in the episode. Thank you
all so much for sending in these cases.

939
01:17:26.319 --> 01:17:30.560
I truly get my most interesting cases
from listener suggestions, so keep them

940
01:17:30.640 --> 01:17:33.119
coming. If you enjoy today's show, don't forget to subscribe and please tell

941
01:17:33.159 --> 01:17:38.119
a friend or rate and review on
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942
01:17:38.159 --> 01:17:42.000
like Stitcher and Spotify, as well
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943
01:17:42.079 --> 01:17:46.239
add free until next time. Thanks
so much for listening, y'all. Take care,