Texas man gets 2nd life sentence for pregnant wife’s killing

Apr 21, 2023, 3:47 PM

David Temple is shown during his sentencing trial in the Harris County 178th District Criminal Cour...

David Temple is shown during his sentencing trial in the Harris County 178th District Criminal Court Monday April 10, 2023 in Houston. David Temple was convicted for the second time for the murder of his pregnant wife, Belinda Lucas Temple, in Aug. 2019, but the sentencing was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via AP)

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston-area high school football coach on Friday was sentenced for a second time to life in prison in his pregnant wife’s killing more than 24 years ago.

A jury sentenced David Mark Temple, 54, during a new resentencing trial, which began on April 10.

Authorities said Belinda Temple, 30, was fatally shot in her home on Jan. 11, 1999, in what was initially believed to be a burglary.

Prosecutors later accused David Temple of staging the burglary at his suburban Houston home and fatally shooting his wife, a high school teacher who was eight months pregnant, because he was having an affair.

David Temple later married the woman he’d been seeing. He had been a football coach at Alief Hastings High School and wasn’t charged in the killing until five years after it happened.

A jury initially convicted Temple of murder in 2007 and sentenced him to life in prison. But Texas’ top criminal court overturned that conviction in 2016 because prosecutors had withheld evidence.

Temple was convicted in August 2019 for a second time. But that jury could not decide on a sentence, prompting a judge to declare a mistrial. This month’s new resentencing trial has been delayed in part by the coronavirus pandemic.

Temple’s second wife filed for divorce in the middle of his retrial in 2019.

Defense attorneys had argued a teenager who lived in the Temples’ neighborhood was the killer.

United States News

Associated Press

US House panel investigates ties between US Interior secretary, environmentalists

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources are raising concerns about ties between Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and an Indigenous group from her home state that advocates for halting oil and gas production on public lands. The members on Monday sent a letter to Haaland requesting documents related […]

17 hours ago

FILE - Florida Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer sentences Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Browa...

Associated Press

Commission: Florida judge should be reprimanded for conduct during Parkland school shooting trial

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida judge who oversaw the penalty trial of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz should be publicly reprimanded for showing bias toward the prosecution, failing to curtail “vitriolic statements” directed at Cruz’s attorneys by the victims’ families and sometimes allowing “her emotions to overcome her judgement,” a state commission concluded […]

17 hours ago

FILE - A home burns as the Dixie fire jumps Highway 395 south of Janesville, Calif., Aug. 16, 2021....

Associated Press

California insurance market rattled by withdrawal of major companies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two insurance industry giants have pulled back from California’s home insurance marketplace, saying that increasing wildfire risk and soaring construction costs have prompted them to stop writing new policies in the nation’s most populous state. State Farm announced last week it would stop accepting applications for all business and personal lines […]

17 hours ago

Associated Press

Approval for Idaho phosphate mine reversed after judge rules US didn’t assess prairie bird impact

A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s Friday decision came […]

17 hours ago

Sen. Fred Mills asks a question to members of The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Servi...

Associated Press

Louisiana Senate passes bill banning gender-affirming car for transgender youths

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A controversial bill — that at one point had been presumed dead — banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths in Louisiana was passed by the Senate on Monday and is likely to reach the governor’s desk in the coming days. The bill, which passed in the Senate mainly along […]

17 hours ago

Ted Henifin, the interim third-party manager appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to help fi...

Associated Press

Mississippi’s capital only collects 56% of fees from its struggling water system

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s capital is collecting only a little more than half of the money it bills for water use, far below the rate at which most American cities obtain such fees, Jackson’s federally appointed water manager said Monday. Ted Henifin, appointed in November by a federal court to help improve Jackson’s troubled […]

17 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

5 mental health myths you didn’t know were made up

Helping individuals understand mental health diagnoses like obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder or generalized anxiety disorder isn’t always an easy undertaking. After all, our society tends to spread misconceptions about mental health like wildfire. This is why being mindful about how we talk about mental health is so important. We can either perpetuate misinformation about already […]

(Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona Photo)...

Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona

5 common causes for chronic neck pain

Neck pain can debilitate one’s daily routine, yet 80% of people experience it in their lives and 20%-50% deal with it annually.

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

Company looking for oldest air conditioner and wants to reward homeowner with new one

Does your air conditioner make weird noises or a burning smell when it starts? If so, you may be due for an AC unit replacement.

Texas man gets 2nd life sentence for pregnant wife’s killing