A 51-year-old former Texas high school football coach was found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife for the second time on Tuesday after his first conviction was overturned in 2016, according to reports. David Mark Temple was accused of killing his wife more than 20 years ago.
Temple, on Tuesday, was found guilty in the 1999 murder of his wife Belinda Temple, a high school teacher, who was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.
The former football coach was having an affair with a coworker at the time, and staged a burglary on January 11, 1999 at his home in the Houston suburb of Katy and shot his wife dead, prosecutors said during the hearing. The court also heard that the child she was carrying at the time also died during the incident.
However, Temple’s defense team argued that Belinda was killed by her 16-year-old student who was their neighbor.
Temple was not charged on the killing until 2004, and was found guilty three years later. An appeals court had upheld Temple’s conviction in 2007, however, his lawyers had appealed again, citing that the prosecutor had withheld evidence. The conviction was eventually overturned in 2016 and Temple was let go. He eventually married the woman he was having an affair with at the time of his wife’s death
However, Temple, on Tuesday was found guilty by a jury, who voted unanimously in the verdict. The jury, after going through all the evidence, also rejected the defense attorneys’ claim of an alternate suspect, the teenage neighbor, in the crime.
The verdict was read by state Judge Kelli Johnson as Temple cast his face downwards while his family members present in the court, including his adult son, burst into sobs, reports state.
The victim’s brother, Brian Lucas, while speaking to Houston’s KPRC, said: “A little over two decades I’ve fought, behind the scenes, to get justice for Belinda. It’s done for a change…Baby Belinda can finally rest.”
The 51-year-old, who was sentenced to life in prison in his first trial, has not yet been sentenced after being found guilty. Temple faces life imprisonment again.
