Shattered

Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas Murder, by author and novelist Kathryn Casey, is a true-crime account of the killing of a pregnant woman whose body was discovered in 1999 in an upstairs closet in her home in Katy, Texas, near Houston. The book was published by HarperCollins in June 2010. Ms. Casey details numerous reasons that prove no one except David Temple had either motive or opportunity. Case synopsis Belinda Lucas and David Temple dated as classmates at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas. David became a high school coach, and Belinda a teacher. They married and had one child, a boy, who was three years old at the time of his mother's death. On January 11, 1999, Belinda, 30 years old and eight months pregnant with their second child, was killed by a single gunshot blast to her head. The weapon, a 12-gauge shotgun, was never found. The case remained long unsolved until the prosecutor determined that Temple, a football coach and teacher, had been an emotionally abusive husband involved in an extra-marital affair and, thus, had a motive for killing Belinda. Temple, represented by defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin, was convicted in November 2007 of murder in the deaths of his wife and unborn baby. He was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 30 years. He appealed the conviction.