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Daughter Of Slaying Suspect Worries About Young Sister

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By PETER BERNARD

News Channel 8

Published: September 22, 2008

CLEARWATER - The daughter of a man accused of killing his wife nine years ago said she is worried about the future of her 3-year-old half sister.

The child's father is Robert Temple, 58, who is being held in the Shasta, Calif., jail on a first-degree murder charge in connection with the 1999 fatal stabbing of his wife, Rosemary Christensen.

Three-year-old Alyssa's mother is Leslie Stewart, Temple's girlfriend, who is now living in a shelter for battered women after showing Pinellas County Sheriff's Office detectives the location in North Florida where she says Temple buried Christensen.

Temple's oldest daughter, Araina Templar, said Monday that she and her sister have been swept up in the incident surrounding her father and Stewart.

"I feel betrayed by the two of them. I'm not going to lie," Templar said. "I can't imagine my little sister going through this."

Temple has denied he killed his wife, saying he returned to the couple's Bellair condominium in 1999 to find Stewart frantic after she accidentally stabbed Christensen during an argument.

"I have never been an angel," Temple told an NBC news affiliate in California last week. "I'm not trying to say I'm a good person or a saint or anything I'm not. I deserve probably to go to prison. In fact, I'm sure I do for trying to cover up what happened."

Stewart's Clearwater attorney, Jay Hebert, said Temple accusing Stewart of Christensen's slaying is the act of "a very desperate man acting very desperately."

"I truly believe in my client's innocence," Hebert said. "I believe her involvement was extremely limited. I believe there's a great deal of evidence that will support that."

Stewart told investigators that on Aug. 26, 1999, she found several answering machine messages Temple left for her. Stewart, then 22, and Temple, then 49, worked for the same telemarketing firm and had been dating.

She went to the condo Temple shared with his wife and found Temple holding a drink and acting strange, she told investigators.

After Temple told Stewart he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a child, he then told her there is no such thing as a witness protection program, according to police reports.

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.

Stewart told investigators of Christensen's death after Temple threatened to kill Stewart and Alyssa, according to authorities.

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

"I think my Dad deserves to serve time for his role in all of this," Templar said. "But I believe 110 percent that Leslie does too. And I believe my sister needs to be with her family that loves her."

Temple emerged as a suspect after his wife vanished and 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, a Redding, Calif., 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.

Stewart blew the whistle on Temple this month, leading Pinellas County investigators to a place near the Suwanee River where she and Temple had buried Christensen's body, detectives said.

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

Information from Tribune archives was used in this report.

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