MCS-23

At 10:32 p.m. on September 15, 1995, the Cape Girardeau Police Department received a 911 call. The caller said: "The emergency is, my homosexual boyfriend gave me AIDS, and I killed him, that's right, he's dead."

The caller did not say where he was calling from, but the 911 equipment automatically told the dispatcher where the call came from -- an apartment at 401 S. Pacific.

Police officers immediately rushed to that location.

They found Michael L. Temple, 36, lying dead on his couch, with obvious stab wounds to his chest. A bloody knife pulled out of his body was lying on top of the stab wounds.

Temple had been stabbed four times in the chest. The knife was a common steak knife with a wooden handle and a serrated blade. Of the four stabs to the chest, one went four to five inches deep into the chest, going into the pericardial sack surrounding the heart, and completely going through the aorta, inside one side of the aorta, and out the other. Another stab went three inches deep into the body, penetrating the left lung, and causing it to collapse. The other two stab wounds hit bones in the chest. They did not penetrate very deep, although one left a long ugly stab wound across the sternum. All four stab wounds were grouped in a cluster in the center of the victim's chest, right over his heart.

It was obvious that Michael L. Temple had been stabbed to death in his own home while lying on his couch.

Michael L. Temple was 36 years old. He lived alone in an apartment at 401 S. Pacific in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He was a slender man, thin, weighing only 150 pounds, 6 feet tall. He was a homosexual. He had AIDS. His blood alcohol level proved to .488 at the time of his death, almost five times the level of intoxication.

Temple’s telephone was off the hook. Fingerprints were found on it, ones capable of being matched to known samples if a suspect could be identified.

The Major Case Squad was called out.

Investigators made a tape-recording of the 911 call. Obviously, whoever made the telephone call was a potential suspect. Investigators began checking to see if anyone recognized the voice.

A footprint from a tennis shoe of a size different from Temple’s was found on a piece of paper next to the couch.

Pieces of a broken glass bottle were found on top of the victim’s body.

As Major Case Squad investigators interviewed neighbors and relatives and acquaintances of Michael L. Temple, the name of Steven Samuel Shelby, 38, came up as someone who had been hanging out with Temple recently.

Investigators located Shelby at his apartment at 4:00 a.m., approximately five hours after the body had been found. Shelby was sober and claimed to have been asleep. He denied any involvement, claiming he did not even remember "the gay guy's name" when two officers talked to him.

Shelby’s roommate ultimately incriminated him.

The roommate told police that Shelby had come home not long after 10:30 p.m. on the night of the killing, September 15, 1995. Shortly after arriving home, Shelby told his roommate: "I killed a guy tonight." His roommate thought he was pulling his leg, and said, "You shouldn't talk like that. Someone will believe you." He said, "No, I mean it. A guy gave me a [sex act] and I killed him."

Steven Shelby

Investigators then brought Shelby to the police station where he was questioned on videotape. After realizing that his 911 call to the police had been tape-recorded, he confessed.

He admitted to investigators Rick Price and Jimmy Smith that he had been at Michael Temple's apartment, drinking. He claimed Temple made a sexual pass it him, but that they were both clothed. He said he pushed Temple onto the couch and then hit him on the head with a beer bottle. After he hit him, Temple lay prostrate, looking up, but groaning and semi-conscious. Then, according to Shelby, he grabbed a knife from a nearby tabletop and stabbed Michael Temple in the chest as he was lying on the couch.

Shelby described the gurgling sounds the victim made as he was dying. Shelby admitted that Michael L. Temple was lying on his back on the couch at the time he stabbed him to death.

Shelby admitted that he was the person who made the 911 call. He said he made it because he just didn't want to leave Temple that way.

Shelby claimed to the officers that he had been drinking when the stabbing occurred.

Yet, his roommate, who had seen him just minutes after the killing, did not feel Shelby was drunk.

Shelby said that after getting home, he went to visit some neighbors (a woman and her teenage daughter). He drank coffee, watched TV, and played Nintendo games with them.

Investigators interviewed them. They did not feel Shelby was intoxicated while he was at their apartment from approximately 10:50 p.m. to midnight.

Investigators noticed blood on the shorts Shelby was wearing on the night of the killing. It ultimately matched to the victim.

The tennis shoe print also matched one of Shelby’s shoes.

At trial, Shelby claimed self-defense. The allegation was refuted by the crime scene, his original confession, and the testimony of the Medical Examiner, Dr. Michael Zaricor.

Zaricor confirmed that the stab wounds to the chest were the cause of death, particularly the one that severed the aorta. He said the stab wounds were the right size to have been made by the wooden steak knife found on Temple’s body. He could rule out suicide because of the depth and severity of the wounds to the chest and lung, and his examination of the wounds themselves and the crime scene. He noted that the angle of these stab wounds went from the victim's left to right, consistent with the killer standing above the victim’s head as he was lying on the couch, and stabbing with a right hand. He noted that the blood on the body running down its side was also consistent with the victim lying on the couch at the time he was stabbed; he was certainly not standing up. He noted that with the victim's blood alcohol level being .488 and with the antihistamine ephedrine being in his system, it was probable that Michael L. Temple was passed out at the time he was stabbed to death.

Perhaps Steven J. Shelby thought that with his victim being so pathetic, a jury might find him not guilty, or guilty of only some lesser offense. He was wrong.

The jury found Steven J. Shelby guilty of first degree murder and armed criminal action. On October 29, 1996, Circuit Judge John W. Grimm sentenced him to life in prison without parole for first degree murder, plus another life sentence for armed criminal action, with the sentences to run concurrently.