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Girlfriend Provides Key To Old Slaying

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON The Tampa Tribune and MARK DOUGLAS News Channel 8

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 11, 2008

Updated: 09/11/2008 12:34 am

LARGO - Robert Temple let his girlfriend go to her out-of-state family reunion with a caveat: If she didn't return to their travel trailer in Northern California, he would kill himself and their autistic daughter, Pinellas sheriff's authorities said.
Leslie Stewart didn't do what he wanted.

Once at the reunion, and with 520 miles between them, she decided she'd had enough of Temple's controlling ways.

She divulged a secret she held for nine years - setting in motion a series of coast-to-coast legal maneuvers that culminated this week in the discovery of a woman's body she had helped bury in North Florida and the arrest of Temple in connection with the killing.

With the arrest of Temple, 58, authorities say they have unraveled the disappearance of Rosemary Christensen, a Belleair real estate agent and Temple's wife, who vanished on Aug. 26, 1999.

With a telephone call to a Clearwater lawyer she had confided in at the time, saying she now wanted to tell the story, Stewart blew the whistle on Temple and led authorities to a place near the Suwannee River on Monday. There, they discovered Christensen's body.

Christensen, 43, had been stuffed in a green plastic storage bin from Wal-Mart and buried in a patch of woods in Gilchrist County, sheriff's investigators say. Her body was clothed in a nightgown and she was doubled over in a fetal position, they said.

Wednesday, Temple, 58, was charged with first-degree murder.

Christensen's sons, Radinck and Olivier van Vollenhoven, say they can finally bring a difficult chapter in their lives to a close.

"Olivier and I are relieved that our mother Rosemary has been found after all these years and that we can finally get closure and move on with our lives," Radinck said in an e-mail from the Netherlands. "We hope that the outcome in this case will help people in similar situations to ours not to lose hope and to continue believing that they will one day be reunited with loved ones they are missing," he said.

Concerns For Child's Safety

After Stewart made that telephone call last week, Pinellas sheriff's detectives and prosecutors hustled, in part out of concern for the little girl, age 3.

They flew in teams to Washington state, where the family reunion was, and to California, where they worked with the Redding, Calif., Police Department to arrest Temple in connection with a days-old assault Stewart had told them about, said Pinellas sheriff's Sgt. Tom Klein.

Temple had threatened Stewart with a knife on Aug. 25, a day before the anniversary of Christensen's disappearance, Klein said. Redding police didn't want to approach the trailer for fear Temple would so something to the child, so they waited until he drove out of the campground where the family was living.

Redding police stopped Temple's pickup and charged him with aggravated assault Friday, said Pinellas sheriff's Detective Jim Beining, and the child was taken into custody by California child protection workers, where she remains. Authorities arranged for a high bail of $500,000 on the assault charge while Pinellas authorities continued working the case.

On Sunday, Pinellas investigators brought Stewart to Florida, and Monday she led them to where she said she and Temple buried the body, according to sheriff's investigators and her attorney.

It was in a wooded area near land her father owned, Beining said, and a forensic specialist found the plastic tub by driving a probe two feet into the soil. When she pulled the pole back out of the ground, there was some green plastic on it from the bin. The tub had been wrapped with duct tape, and had been buried upside-down, investigators say.

Stewart became hysterical once Christensen's remains were discovered, said her Clearwater attorney, Jay Hebert.

"She was literally screaming in the woods damning him because of what he had done and what he had put her through," Hebert said.

The tub wasn't opened until it was brought to the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office. There, Christensen was identified through dental records.

She Had Had Enough

Stewart had grown weary of Temple's controlling methods, investigators say. Before he assaulted her with the knife, a police report says, they had been arguing about her wanting more freedoms. Among them: She wanted to return to school.

Standing over her as she sat, holding a knife to her face, he reportedly said, "You want to threaten my life, I'm going to end your life and Alyssa's going to have a better mother," the police report says, referring to their daughter. The child witnessed the confrontation.

For Stewart, it was the final straw, the report states.

She told police what happened with Christensen nine years ago, the report says. Stewart, then 22, and Temple, then 49, worked for the same telemarketing firm and had been dating. On Aug. 26, 1999, when she arrived to her home, Stewart found messages Temple had left on her answering machine, asking her to come over to the Belleair condominium where he had been living with his wife, the report says.

She complied, the report says. Drink in hand, Temple began talking strangely, she said. First, he told Stewart he had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a child, the report says. Then he told her there was no such thing as witness protection and, even if there were, the witness in question could still be found.

As she began to wonder where Christensen was, Temple led her into the couple's bedroom, the report says. Christensen, wearing a silk robe with a pool of blood near her abdomen, was at the foot of the bed, the report says. Christensen had been stabbed to death.

Temple claimed he was sitting in front of a computer when Christensen, who was supposed to be asleep, sneaked up behind him and hit him on the head with the butt end of a knife, the report says. They struggled and Christensen was stabbed.

Later, when Temple emerged as a suspect after his wife vanished, he told authorities and the news media that his wife was a swinger and that she had ran off with a man she had met online.

Stewart has also told authorities she helped clean up after the murder, the Redding Police Department report states. They tried cleaning the bedroom carpet with a carpet cleaner but that didn't work. Eventually, they just took the carpet up.

After the body was stuffed in what Stewart described as a Tupperware container, they brought it to the area near the river, the report says. Temple did the digging. The two also put some of her belongings in several different garbage bins at different apartment complexes and truck stops around Florida, the report says.

Attorney Bound To Silence

In the aftermath of the slaying, Stewart had contacted Hebert, the lawyer, and confided in him what had happened. Hebert said he tried then to persuade her to cooperate with investigators, but she didn't want to. The lawyer said he couldn't relate to authorities what she had said because he was bound by an attorney-client privilege.

She resumed contact the afternoon of Sept. 3. She had changed her mind, he said.

"'Do you remember me?'" Hebert recalled her saying. "Her name rang a bell, but when she said nine years ago it all added up and I immediately realized who Leslie Stewart was."

Hebert has worked out a conditional arrangement with the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office. If Stewart testifies - and if it is concluded that she had nothing to do with the slaying itself - she won't be charged criminally, Hebert said.

Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett confirmed a deal had been made. He noted Stewart led authorities to the body, was under much stress nine years ago, and has agreed to testify against Temple.

Back in 1999, Temple agreed to talk to investigators and provided them with his swinger theory. He also pleaded with reporters to encourage anyone who knew her whereabouts to call him.

When investigators tried to interview him after his arrest last week, he didn't say a word.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com. Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at (727) 536-8283 or mdouglas@wfla.com. WFLA reporter Rod Challenger and WFLA Intern Galina Tishchenko contributed to this report.

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