Alleged Belleair wife-killer disputes purported confession

When he stands trial for murder next week, Robert Glenn Temple will say he didn't kill his wife, Rosemary Christensen, a Belleair real estate agent whose body was found stuffed in a plastic tub near the Suwanee River.

But a signed and notarized document, which found its way to detectives Friday, says otherwise. In the purported confession, Temple appears to claim full responsibility for Christensen's death 12 years ago.

The 61-year-old Temple called the confession a fake in a jailhouse interview Monday. Investigators aren't sure what to make of it or whether they'll use it at Temple's trial, which starts Monday.

"I did intentionally stab to death my wife Rosemary Christensen," the typed confession, dated March 31, states.

"I also admit that Lesley Stewart later did tell the truth to authorities that, after the fact I asked her to help me clean up the blood at my home and with disposing of Rosemary's body, which she did. Together we cleaned my home and we transported Rosemary's body to the wooded area in Gilcrest County, Florida where Rosemary was buried and later found."

The document bears what appears to be Temple's signature, along with the signatures of a notary and a witness. It says the confession was made to make peace with God and to apologize to Christensen, to her family and to the author's.

Temple insisted he had never before seen the confession and called it a fraud concocted by a jailhouse snitch trying to win favor with law enforcement.

"I can think of several people in the law library that have serious charges that if they could turn state's evidence against me, it would go good on their charges," Temple said.

Temple fired his court-appointed assistant public defender this year and is acting as his own lawyer, despite his lack of a law degree or any legal training.

Temple said he will testify on his own behalf. He faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

Stewart, Temple's 22-year-old girlfriend at the time of Christensen's death, will be the prosecution's star witness against him.

Three years ago, Stewart solved the mystery of Christensen's August 1999 disappearance after she called lawyer Jay Hebert and asked him to make a deal with prosecutors for immunity.

Stewart and Temple spent nine years traveling the country and even had a child together before a falling out in Redding, Calif. That's where Stewart said Temple threatened her with a knife on the eve of the ninth anniversary of Christensen's death.

Temple said the knife incident never happened. He claims Stewart was angry he was leaving her and feared he would tell police she killed his wife.

Within days of contacting Hebert, Stewart told authorities in Pinellas County her version of what happened and led an entourage of prosecutors, detectives and crime scene technicians to Christensen's unmarked grave in a wooded area near the Suwannee River in Gilchrist County.

In Temple's version of events, Stewart and Christensen struggled during a physical confrontation after Christensen returned home unexpectedly and discovered Stewart hiding in a bedroom; Christensen fell on a large knife she kept around for protection against intruders, he said.

Temple said he was out buying beer and flowers for his rendezvous with Stewart and returned to find his wife lying in a pool of blood on the bedroom floor. He said he tried to revive her.

"When I was trying to resuscitate her and would hold her nose and blow in her mouth, I could hear gurgling sounds," Temple said. "I thought the blade had punctured her lung."

Temple said Stewart persuaded him to cover up the crime or face the blame for his wife's death.

The both agree they worked together to dispose of the body in a green plastic tub Temple bought at Wal-Mart.

"I cleaned up her hair and everything and tried to make her as pretty as I could to bury her, "Temple said. "I wasn't going to put her in no oil drum or garbage can. That's disrespectful."

Days after the stabbing, Temple told reporters he and his wife were swingers and that he suspected she'd taken off with someone she met online. He made a public plea for her return or for someone to call in to say she was OK.

Temple's success in winning a not-guilty verdict at trial will largely depend on whether the jury believes his story or Stewart's.

That's what makes the authenticity of his alleged confession so critical.

"They screwed-up on this one," Temple said, pointing out that the confession lists a wrong birthday for him. "Why would I say I was born on May the 20th instead of May the 10th?" Temple said. "Other than that, this is a pretty good lie."

He also pointed out a problem with the home address cited in the document.

"I told people I lived in Belleair Beach. I never did," Temple said. "I lived in Belleair, so that's the second error."

Temple also said he would never write a confession "to make peace with God," as the document states, because he's agnostic.

Investigators say fellow inmate Richard Elbert, 45, told them he signed the confession as a witness back in March and kept a copy. He waited until Friday, eight days before Temple's trial, to hand over the document to detectives. It's not clear why he suddenly decided to turn over the document.

Elbert, who is being held without bail on a dozen probation violations and a burglary charge, spends a lot of time around Temple inside the jail's law library.

Assistant State Attorney Bill Loughery, who is prosecuting Temple, said jail notary Gary Norlander would not have necessarily read the document before affirming Temple's signature.

The veracity of the document is still under investigation. Prosecutors are trying to determine if the confession is real and, if so, whether to use it at trial. Using it as evidence likely would require a continuance to try and authenticate the document.

Temple said he hasn't had adequate time to prepare his defense, review evidence or interview all the witnesses in the case. He's repeatedly asked for the case to be delayed.

As his trial date looms, Temple denies direct complicity in his wife's death, but says in a roundabout way he feels responsible.

"How do you say 'sorry' to somebody who died for your pleasure," Temple said. "If I had just — What's the old expression? — kept it in my pants, you know, and not had Lesley come over that night, none of this would have happened."

Temple finds encouragement in the recent acquittal of Casey Anthony, the Orlando mother accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

"Nobody believed Casey Anthony, and I see she got found not guilty," Temple said. "It's a matter of what the proof shows, and I believe I have enough proof to show I didn't kill my wife."