Search warrant provides few clues

Sheriff's officials say Robert Temple is not a suspect in his wife's disappearance, although a search warrant indicates police considered him.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 14, 1999

BELLEAIR -- The morning after his wife disappeared, Robert G. Temple decided to visit his daughter in Illinois. But first, he drove to a Largo Wal-Mart to pick up a few cleaning supplies.

At about 9:30 a.m., Temple, 49, filled his shopping basket with $73.51 in merchandise, including: paint, a paint brush, Clorox disinfectant, a sponge, towels, refuse liners, Febreze spray, lemon ammonia, a scrub brush and tape.

At 3 p.m., he left for Illinois.

Two days later, police visited a condo owned by Temple and his wife, Rosemary Christensen, after reports from co-workers indicated that the woman was missing. Using a locksmith to get inside, police found no sign of Christensen, 44, a real estate agent.

But they found an incense box with blood on it. They found carpet torn up and removed in a bedroom. In the same room, they found a freshly painted wall and a paint brush in the kitchen sink.

Pinellas sheriff's officials say that Temple is not a suspect in his wife's disappearance. But in a search warrant released Monday containing the above and other details, it is clear police immediately focused on the Belleair Forest Drive resident.

"Temple had only purchased cleaning supplies and other items that could be used to either hide or destroy evidence," detective John Tillia said in a Sept. 2 warrant used to search the condo.

Sheriff's spokesman, Sgt. Greg Tita, said Monday evidence retrieved from the home so far has not linked Temple to any wrongdoing.

"We're still not naming any suspects, especially Mr. Temple," Tita said. "In fact, he is cooperating with us as best he can. There has been no evidence to link him to his wife's disappearance that we've been able to substantiate."

Temple, who did not return calls for comment, has hired defense attorney Denis de Vlaming who said his client's condo was undergoing renovations before Christensen disappeared, which explained the supplies Temple bought on Aug. 27.

"I know it sounds suspicious," de Vlaming said. "But all the work was under way before she ever disappeared."

Temple, in a Sept. 2 news conference, admitted that he seemed like a good suspect under the circumstances. He admitted carpeting removed from the apartment might have had his wife's blood on it -- blood from a knee injury she suffered, he said.

"As far as the cleaning supplies," he said Sept. 2, "I'm the one who cleans house."

Police also might have focused on Temple because of his criminal record. Temple was arrested in 1997 for allegedly beating his wife three weeks before the couple married. The charge was reduced to disorderly conduct charge to which Temple pleaded no contest.

Temple also was convicted in 1975 for involuntary manslaughter in Los Angeles for the death of his companion's 18-month-old son. Temple served five years but says others were responsible for the child's death.

On Aug. 26, the last day she was seen, Christensen picked up a client at the Belleair Beach Resort Motel to show several homes. The client, Shirley Sapp, later told police that Christensen's cell phone rang twice while she was with her.

After the first call at 3:30 p.m., Sapp said she asked her, "Is that your husband?"

"'Christensen indicated," the search warrant said, "that it was and advised Ms. Sapp that her husband didn't realize the long hours she had to put in at work and could not understand that she was just trying to make a living."

A second call, Sapp told police, came an hour or so later. Christensen said this call was also from her husband.

Sapp said she told the woman, "It must be nice to be loved."

Sapp said Christensen replied, "It was sometimes kind of annoying."

Christensen made an appointment to see Sapp at 11 a.m. the next day -- an appointment Christensen never kept.

Temple said he last saw his wife that same night, Thursday night, Aug. 26, when he said she left to go to a party with people she met on an alternative-lifestyles site on the Internet, people neither of them knew.

About midnight Aug. 26, the search warrant said, Temple called his boss to say he could not go to work the next day "because he had family problems."

At 3 p.m. Friday, he left for Illinois with a woman he said worked with him at Amerinet, a Clearwater telemarketing company.

A manager at Amerinet told police, according to the search warrant, that he thought Temple may have been having a relationship with the woman.

When police visited Temple and Christensen's condo after receiving a missing person's report, they found a note written by Temple to his wife.

"I was hoping to see you before I left," Temple wrote. "But I decided to go ahead and go today instead of waiting until tomorrow. Tried phoning and beeping you but guess you were out of range."

De Vlaming said some things belonging to Christensen were later discovered missing from the apartment indicating Christensen planned a trip of at least several days. Among the items: her cellular phone and charger, clothing and an alarm clock.

Christensen left her car in the driveway, has made no withdrawals from bank accounts she shared with her husband and has not contacted work or relatives since Aug. 26, police say.

The search warrant said Christensen had confided to a friend that she had been "conversing" with a man from North Carolina on the Internet and had told the man she was unhappy with Temple.

Christensen told the friend, the warrant said, that her husband "retrieved these deleted (computer) messages and was upset and angry."

"We're still treating this as a missing-person case," said Tita, the sheriff's spokesman. "We're trying to substantiate that she is still alive."

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