president on the road in missouri, this past week, helping us bring this week officially to an end. that is our broadcast on a fli night. thank you for being with us. have a good weekend. they were so happy at first, sharing a lover's perch high atop a cliff. but romance turned to danger. she fell from the edge, i would call this an accidental death opinion. >> was it? >> she said that, if anything happens to me, you'll know who did it. >> a mystery of nearly 20 years heads into court. and the husband is on the precipice. >> did you kill your wife jodi? >> i did not hurt jodi.

what happened on the cliff's edge. hello, and welcome to "dateline" extra. when police got word that someone had fallen off a cliff. they weren't surprised. the place was known to be dangerous, even they couldn't guess it would take almost 20 years what happened to a woman out on an evening hike without her husband. here's chris jansen. >> every couple has it, a shared song, a favorite movie, or maybe a special place. for him and his wife jodi, this was it. two rocks forming a lover's chair on the edge of a cliff. >> that was our spot. we would bring a hibachi, a couple lawn chairs, a cooler, and she'd bring her work from graduate school. >> they've been escaping to this

magical place for years, ever since they were newlyweds in a starter apartment in new jersey. up here, the air was fresh, and the views seemed limitless. >> it's sort of framed by trees, you could look down to the right and see the view of george washington bridge. >> what they couldn't see from here, of course. had they caught even a glimpse of what was to come surely they would abandoned this place forever? steven and jodi met in the late 70s in georgia. a book worm who loved the civil war. she taught history. there's was a meeting first of minds. >> how would you describe those first years? were they loving, were they exciting? >> we were in love.

we were ecstatic. >> from there, a marriage, a house, a son jonathan in 1983. >> how would you describe jodi as a mom? >> she was really devoted. >> life was good, even as the years went by, steven says he and jodi still made time for each other. like that last summer sunday in september of 1992. steven says it was supposed to be a date night. >> it wasn't -- no idea that would be the most critical day in our life, in our marriage. >> it was a day like any other day. >> yes. >> here was the plan, husband and wife would drive into manhattan and go into a comedy club, a light hearted night on the town. they made a detour here to the palisades, to their spot. >> steven remembers pulling up to the scenic lookout, sitting in the car with jodi.

sharing a wine cooler. >> we walked up, looked over the spot where the binoculars were, walked into this sort of open view. >> he then turned and took a narrow well warn path to those rocks. they sat there as the night fell around them, he with his back against the rock, holding her as she sat directly in front of him. >> at some point something goes terribly wrong. >> yes. >> he says he stood up intending to go back to the car to get wine and a blanket. for whatever reason jodi stood up too. the edge of the rock was at her feet. >> what was your last glimpse of your wife? >> just standing up and stumbling forward. >> jodi had gone off the cliff. >> i didn't know how bad things were, but i was stunned. >> what did you do? >> i got down on my stomach, i

stuck my head over the -- and i just yelled, jodi, jodi, talk to me. i just yelled down there. >> no response. he grabbed a flashlight and flagged down a motorist who came here to the palisades interstate parkway police station. lieutenant walter siri was on duty. >> until he came through that door, it was a quiet night. and then all hell broke loose. >> a woman had fallen from the look out above, and her husband was waiting for help. the police called in michael cheoffy, an experienced climber. >> i thought she was alive. >> he began to lower himself off the side of the cliff, where the woman's husband said she had fallen. she caught site of a ledge. >> the minute i got to that ledge, i observed a purse, i think it was two credit cards. >> on a ledge 10 feet down? >> right.

>> it's what he didn't see that confused him. there was no sign that the woman's body had also hit that ledge or any part of the cliffs. >> nothing, no blood, no hair, no clothing, no fibers, no skin. >> by that point, the officer had arrived at the lookout. since there was nothing the husband could do to help in the rescue, siri was told to get him out of the way and drove him back down to police headquarters. steven recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. >> we were walking and she said for me to get the blanket. she slipped and i didn't see her any more. >> rescuer cheoffey had made it to the base of the cliff, more than 100 feet below the top. he expected to find a wounded woman there. but he didn't. >> i'm saying, she's not here, i'm -- at the first point i said, maybe this is a hoax, maybe she never went off the

cliff. >> he and another rescuer began walking along the base, finally about 30 feet away, the beams landed on something white, it was jodi, lying motionless next to a tree. >> there was a lot of blood on that tree, the blood was draining down the tree. that's where she really -- >> jodi sharp had not survived the fall. it was clear, she had slammed into that tree. as they began to move the body, he noticed something else. >> she had an odor of an alcoholic beverage that emanated from her body. >> did you think maybe she had had too much to drink and fell? >> that entered my mind, yes. >> at that moment, steven sharp was sitting in in a room at the police station, waiting for someone to tell him what had happened to his wife. >> do you remember what's going through your mind at that point? >> how badly is she hurt? where is she?

why isn't she calling back to me? that's when an officer walked into the room and broke the news to steven. jodi was gone. i don't even remember who came in and told me. >> what was your reaction? >> denial. how could this happen. >> that question would haunt him and many others. and it would take years for the answers to finally come. coming up -- >> he was rubbing his eyes to make it look like he was crying. >> you thought he was faking tears? >> absolutely. >> curious behavior puts a husband under the micro scope. when "over the edge" continues. ( ♪ ) ♪ i feel like fire ( ♪ ) the 2018 cadillac xt5. ♪ worship me beauty, greater than the sum of its parts.

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it started out as a romantic date for a new jersey couple. it ended in tragedy, jodi and

steve hiked to a spot along the palisades cliff to take in the view. questions about what really happened that night began to mount. it was the worst night of his life. he had to tell his 10-year-old son jonathan his mother was dead. i said come on, jonathan, we need to take a walk. and i told him, and he immediately burst into tears. i cried. i cried like a baby. i wasn't ashamed. >> he remembers h s his son's reaction. >> were you sleeping, eating, drinking? >> drinking. >> i lost my wife, my son lost his mom. >> plenty of sympathy among family and friends to be sure.

with a man newly widowed with a small child to raise on his own. his wife died in a freak accident, off a cliff of all places. how could that happen. that's exactly what the police wanted to know too. >> right away i got a feeling that there was something definitely wrong. >> it nagged at rescuer michael cheoffe, why was jodi's purse on a ledge just feet below where her husband had fallen. >> where is she, she should be here, or part of her should be here. >> that's the first thing that came to you? >> either she should be here or the pocketbook should be down with her. >> another thought dawned on him, if jodi had tumbled, why hadn't she hit the side of the cliffs. there was no blood or hair anywhere on the rocks. and the location of jodi's body seemed off. way off. >> she was like 30 to 40 feet

away from us to the north. a person falls off the cliff, usually they're going to go south or right down. they should have been right down where i got off the ropes. >> someone else was scratching his head about that night for different reasons. it had to do with steven's behavior while the search was underway. officer walter siri was surprised steven was willing to leave the lookout as rescuers were still looking for jodi. >> did he give any indication, i don't want to leave, my wife could still be alive down there? >> no, not at all. >> he couldn't believe how willingly steven sharp got into his patrol car. >> if it was my wife, girlfriend, they would have had to pry me away from the scene. >> he willingly got into your patrol car? >> without a word said. >> stranger still, was how calm the husband seemed. >> when the officer heard steven describe how his wife had fallen, he made a mental note. >> there was no emotion in it,

he was reading a script. >> did it occur to you, maybe he's in shock? >> no, i've seen people lose loved ones and i've never seen anybody act that way. >> it was a particular moment later, inside the station house that really caught the officer's attention. >> he asked if he could get a drink from a water fountain. he was splashing water into his face, rubbing his eyes to make it look like he was crying. >> you thought he was faking tears. >> a death scene where the pieces didn't connect. a husband who appeared nonchalant. from a cops point of view, things were adding up and not in steven's favor. >> not just one thing. it was like the totality of the circumstances. everything -- every little thing was clicking in my mind. i'm saying to myself, this isn't right.

something's wrong here. >> gut instinct is one thing, but evidence is quite another. people handle terrible events in different ways. the police are paid to be suspicious. maybe their view of steven was too jaundiced, there was nothing to indicate that jodi's fall was anything but an accident. a few months later, the ruling was in. the burgen county medical examiner concluded the manner of jodi's death could not be determined. an accident was as likely as anything else. case closed. or was it. coming up -- >> you didn't think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> the suspicions grow. was there a weapon at this romantic rendezvous? >> you have your wine, cheese, crackers, claw hammer. they reaped the top of the pole at that point.

police began to question steven's behavior after his wife fell from the edge of the cliff. to them, he didn't seem like a grieving husband, but did their suspicions amount to anything more than a hunch? here again is chris jansing? >> jodi's death on these cliff's had been a horrible accident. her husband said so. the medical examiner wasn't arguing with him. detectives have a kind of sixth sense about cases. it was telling james something

center had just happened. he thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jodi's death. >> he did not react like somebody who just lost his wife should have. he quickly learned from jodi's friends that this was a couple not in love, but in crisis. the subject wasn't wine and roses on those cliffs, it was divorce. >> she was going to go through with it, yes. absolutely. jodi's long time friend said jodi had been determined to take her 10-year-old son jonathan and leave her husband. she was convinced steven had been cheating on her.

>> women called the house. and sometimes they call and hang up on her. >> in fact, he learned jodi had served her husband divorce papers on september 8th, 1992. less than two weeks later, she was dead at the base of the palisades. the timing made him even more eager to talk to the widower. >> there was a sitdown with mr. sharp, he's consented to talk, right? >> two days after his wife's death. steven sharp was freely answering detective's questions, yes, he told them. he and his wife were talking divorce, as they had sometimes done during their tempestuous marriage. >> he told us they had an open marriage. he said, he had been with 50 or 60 women. >> she was okay with it, according to him 1234. >> according to him, yes. >> he and jodi had become

unhappy with their free love lifestyle, they came to this romantic if treacherous spot to recommit to each other, to kiss and make up. >> and the spot where they went is not a spot where you would go to reconcile with anybody. >> detectives weren't buying the story for another reason. they had found something suspicious inside sharp's car. a bag filled with items you would expect for a romantic picnic, and one you would not, a hammer. >> you have your wine, cheese, crackers, opener, claw hammer. i mean, red flairs are going up, they reached the top of the pole at that point. >> did you think that might have been the murder weapon? >> yeah, i thought that might be plan a. >> which was to push or throw jodi off that cliff. so detectives asked steven sharp the obvious, what was a hammer doing in that picnic bag. >> he told us he fixed a drawer

in his kitchen with the hammer and he forgot to put it back in the garage. he put it in the bag with the picnic items. it was a convenient excuse for having that hammer. >> detectives asked if they could check out the drawer and the rest of steven's house that night. as it turned out something potentially far more telling was happening away from the action. >> i said, look, mr. sharp. i'm your local police department. >> ed was told to keep an eye on steven sharp that night, as detectives combed through his house. the officer says he began talking to steven about what had happened to jodi, when steven interrupted him. >> he finally looks at me and he goes, you don't believe me. >> and then the officer says sharp said something that almost knocked him off his feet. >> i said i believe an accident occurred. was it an accident? and he put his head down and he

said no. >> he believed that was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, including lynam. but they had just spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting that feeling, that reinterview at that point would have done anything. >> the detectives still believe they could find solid evidence to implicate steven sharp, but they didn't. >> we took it as far as we could go. the cause of death was listed as undetermined. so officially it wasn't a homicide about. >> in time, the detectives moved on to other cases. steven sharp moved on too. 14 years after his wife's death, he remarried. tina sharp says he's been a loving, ideal husband. >> it was like we were two puzzle pieces that were made for each other. each of us complimented and completed the other person. >> but even in this happy new life, he says, he's never forgotten about jodi. >> but he might have been surprised to learn that someone

else was thinking of her too after all these years. burgen county had a new prosecutor and he was eager to revisit old case files. among them, an unexplained death here on the cliffs of the palisades so many years ago. the death of jodi sharp. >> there was this renewed push since 2002 to look into the cold cases. >> he covered the trial for the record newspaper in new jersey. it didn't seem the prosecutor had any reason to pursue the cold case. >> in terms of hard evidence, it had absolutely nothing new. >> the prosecutor did have someone new a famous name to join the investigation into jodi sharp's death. dr. michael bodden, a world renowned forensic pathologist, who investigated the deaths of jfk and john belushi, and testified at the trial of o.j. simpson. he was about to turn up the heat

on a very cold case. >> he's reviewed the evidence and determined this could not have been an accidental fall. >> in december of 2008, detectives paid one more visit to steven sharp. >> they wouldn't tell me what it was for. i had no idea what this was about much it didn't make sense. >> 16 years after that fatal night on the cliff. police were back. and steven sharp was in for a shock. >> after all these years, he thought it was done? >> not until they reached behind and handed me this thing. this arrest warrant. >> coming up, the case heads into court with a surprise from the stand. >> i'm here for my mother. >> steven and jodi sharp's only son has some dark secrets to share. >> did you see that abuse. >> i did. >> when over the edge continues. copd makes it hard to breathe.

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your hour's top stories. president trump says he fired mike flynn because flynn lied to the fbi and vice president pence about contacts with russia during the presidential transition. the president has never said before that flynn got fired because of lying to the fbi. at a reagan library conference on defense, hr mcmaster said, the greatest immediate threat is north korea's attempts to develop long range nuclear capability. now back to dateline. years after jodi sharp fell to her death, a new prosecutor reopened the case and brought in a famous forensic pathology to reexamine the evidence. what would he uncover? here again is chris jansen.

>> time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. >> 16 years. >> sometimes it hurts a case. memories fade. evidence is lost. but time can also put evidence in a new light. >> such was the case of the trial of steven sharp, accused of killing his wife nearly two decades ago. >> there is no statute of limitations on murder. >> the prosecutor promised the evidence would tell a story as simple as it was brutal. a husband determined to avoid a costly divorce lured his wife to the edge of a cliff and forced her off it. >> if he has lied, he is guilty. >> the state marshall brought up some familiar facts, starting with the crime scene. where the prosecutor said the cliffs showed no sign of an doesn'tal tumble. >> no debris, no clothing, no

blood, no hair, no tissue. and then there was the husband himself. cool and collected in in the back of a police car. >> i didn't see any emotion from him at all. >> and then i said it was an accident? he said no. >> those facts are not where the case ended. >> the prosecutor argued they simply set the stage for the real case. a story told by the victim's friends, family and most importantly, by a star witness. >> my opinion is, that the manner of death is homicide. the crime scene spoke of a murder, not an accident. >> if a person falls accidentally. the individual will be, within a couple feet of the base of the

building. >> and that didn't happen in the case of jodi sharp. >> her body landed 50 feet out from the top of the cliff. >> she had to have been propelled from that point. >> jodi had to have been thrown or pushed to her death. and likely from another spot entirely on those cliffs. he wasn't the only expert who saw it that way. >> the head and chest injuries are not consistent with someone who tumbles down the cliff face. >> dr. mary ann clayton first ruled the circumstances of jodi's death could not be determined. now on second look, she said, the victims wounds or lack of them told her something different. something vital. if jodi had tumbled innocently down the palisades, she would have had broken bones

everywhere, she did not. >> there were no visible injuries on the back of her body. >> why would steven have killed his wife. the biggest reason was that steven did not want a divorce. he didn't want a custody fight. and he didn't want to split assets with jodi. there was yet another motive for steven, so the prosecutor. a potential payout. >> usaa life insurance policy. >> a $500,000 policy taken out months before her death. payable to a primary beneficiary. >> can you tell us the policy owner? >> stephen f.scharf. >> jodi was worth more dead than alive. her friend testified that jodi feared stephen might do something violent if she pushed for that divorce. even so, jodi was determined to

get away from her husband. >> she was going to have divorce papers served on steven. and she was very afraid of him. >> yet was stephen violent enough to kill his wife? an unlikely but powerful witness was about to testify against stephen scharf. >> i'm here for my mother. >> his own son took the stand against him. now a businessman, jonathan painted his father as an angry violent man who terrorized his mother. >> did you see that abuse? >> i did. >> jonathan said he realized his father had likely killed his mother only after that arrest in 2008. this videotaped interview shows him recalling the dark past for the first time to police. >> she got coffee thrown at her by him. >> now, in court, he had even more to tell about his childhood.

like the afternoon he sat cohering in the back seat of a car watching his mother suffer. >> my mom was driving and my dad is hitting her with the bottom of his fist. and i was begging him to stop doing it. >> he also remembered the last day of his mother's life. he was 10. and said his mother told his father that she didn't want to go out with him alone. >> she said, if i wanted to go out with you, i wouldn't be divorcing you. >> but where was the proof that stephen had planned to kill jodi that night? well, there was the hammer in the picnic bag. but there was also testimony from this woman. one of stephen's old girlfriends. >> i even mentioned to my girlfriend that it was a perfect relationship. >> terry schofield had been dating stephen months before jodi scharf's death. >> did he tell you whether he

was married? >> actually, he said he was not married. >> she remembered something strange stephen said to her on the beach that labor day weekend. >> he was under a lot of stress, and the stress would be over by the end of december. >> terry now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful light. >> then the light bulb went off immediately. >> it also went off for marion. in perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecution's case, she told the jury that when she heard her friend was gone, she immediately remembered something jodi said just weeks earlier. >> she said that during this conversation, i have with him. if anything happens to me, you'll know who did it. she said, you'll know it was him. >> the prosecutor's position was clear. a husband with a motive, the perfect setting.

the violent intent to kill his wife. or was there another way of looking at that couple perched high on those cliffs on a summer night. stephen's new wife says the prosecution has it all wrong. >> my husband is not capable. that is not the man he is. my husband is sweet, kind, loving. consider at. >> the prosecutor -- >> the defense was ready to show how stephen scharf, far from villain, was the real victim in this story. coming up -- >> they destroyed the crime scene area. >> new questions about the evidence and was there another reason why a son may implicate his dad? >> who does the money go to. >> it goes to me. >> when over the edge continues. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds!

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welcome back to "dateline" extra. we continue with "over the edge." once again, chris jansing. >> stephen scharf is not guilty. >> 18 years after the death of his first wife, more than a decade after the investigation first stalled, stephen scharf was being called a killer. his defense attorney argued there was no new evidence in this case. no new eyewitnesss. only new beens. >> we're talking about the same old facts and circumstances. >> the state was hoping to win a murder conviction by painting his client as a terrible husband. that it couldn't prove he was a killer in 1992, and it couldn't prove it today. >> my client stephen scharf has

been wrongfully charged with her death. >> and one aren't prosecutor couldn't prove murder had to do with sloppy police work, the defense attorney said, suggesting it had been like keystone cops on the palisades that night. >> you never photographed the body before you moved it, did you? >> no, sir. >> why didn't they take photographs? >> they destroyed the crime scene area. >> they didn't even bother to question potential eyewitnesss, he said. instead, they cleared visitors from the lookout. >> there might have been someone who saw something or heard something? >> there might have been. there's a possibility that might have happened. >> and if police were so suspicious of his client two nights later, the defense said, why didn't they videotape their interview with him? that way jurors could have judged stephen's odd demeanor for themselves. >> why didn't you?

>> not an interrogation, he wasn't in custody, i don't know. >> the defense attorney argued the police misinterpreted what his client said in his home just hours later. >> my client never said this wasn't an accident. >> as for that hammer police thought was a weapon. >> the hammer was examined by the forensic experts. there was nothing found on that hammer. >> and the defense attorney pressed the medical examiner on her flip-flop. undetermined manner of death in '93, now it was a homicide? >> really? >> are you trying to say that you're learning from your mistakes on this case? >> you may call them mistakes, sir. i did the best i could in 1992, documenting what i had observed with mrs. scharf. >> the medical examiner was helpful to the defense in one critical way, though opinion she determined jodi had been drunk the night she fell off the

cliffs. jodi had a blood alcohol level of .12. that was over the legal limit. >> it would be equivalent to approximately average sized drinks, wine or beer, something like that. >> a drunken slip and fall argued the defense. to back that up, the lawyer had his own heavy hitter, famed forensic pathologist, cyril wecht. wecht had a totally different take on how jodi died. >> i would call this an accidental death. >> in wecht's version, which he demonstrated with of all things a teddy bear. jodi fell off the cliff and on to jagged rocks just below, causing her mortal wounds, her body then catapulted. >> out goes the body.

>> into the tree canopy which carried her through the abyss and into that distant tree. >> this is what i think happened to explain those injuries of the chest and/or the head. >> there was another bubble to burst in the prosecution's case, the motive for murder. stephen wasn't a greedy killer his attorney said. his client never made a claim on that insurance policy. it was oath after the money was turned over to the state years later, he said, that stephen even bothered to collect. >> would it throw fuel on the fire not to do it? well, i know i look guilty because i am guilty, i better not make this claim? >> you're damned if you do, and if you don't. >> divorce was flimsy as well, he said. jodi and stephen had been talking breakup for years. those divorce papers, just the latest legal salvo in an ongoing

marital spat. >> the prosecution paints a picture of someone who is furious about this divorce. >> no one person ever indicated that my client was furious over this divorce. they had talked about divorce for years. maybe she was saying one thing and not following through. >> though it is true, stephen did not want a divorce, he says he wanted to give the marriage another chance. and as for that former girlfriend, terry schofield. she recounted stephen's misstatement just before jodi's death. >> just give me until the end of september and everything will be okay, a lot of the stress will be gone. >> that was stephen's clumsy way of trying to dump his girlfriends. speaking of which, he added. those other women did not bother jodi at all. she was seeing other people

herself. >> the person on the bottom half in both of those is who 1234. >> jodi scharf. >> the recordkeeper of a dating service testified that jodi's name was on an application. she even checked off the interests she'd like to share with a mate. the attorney offered that as proof of stephen and jodi's open marriage. what really rangeled the defense, what had torn at the heart of stephen was the testimony of his son jonathan. >> i remember her showing me her bruises. >> he had painted his father as a brute and possibly a killer. >> i never hit jodi. it made me sick to my stomach. >> the young man wasn't to be believed said the lawyer, for one thing, when police interviewed jonathan back in 2008, the young man described his dad as a good guy.

>> i think he's a fairly decent guy. it was only after detectives told him his dad had just been arrested that the son turned on his father. >> before you found out that your dad was arrested, did you lie? >> yes. >> and did you lie more than once? >> yes. >> reporter: why would jonathan turn on his father and lie? the defense lawyer said it was jonathan, not his dad, who was motivated by greed. if stephen scharf was convicted, his son would get all that insurance money. >> who does the money go to? >> it goes to me. >> reporter: in the end, the lawyer called stephen scharf's son a spoiled brat. >> that sounds like some spoiled kid. >> reporter: who was not a credible witness. in closing, he insisted this wasn't a murder case. just a sad story about a woman

who tumbled drunkenly to her death. >> this case is an accident. nothing more, nothing less. >> reporter: soon, it would be in the hands of a jury. coming up -- >> it was a lightbulb. you couldn't help but think, hmm. that's interesting. >> the jurors speak. what would they decide? >> stephen, did you kill your wife, jody? >> the verdict, when "over the edge" continues. with my moderate to severe crohn's disease i kept looking for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i was doing okay. then it hit me... managing was all i was doing. when i told my doctor, i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease even after trying other medications. in clinical studies, the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections,

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♪ the jury is about to decide the fate of stephen scharf. here's chris jansen with the conclusion of our story. >> reporter: 18 years after a night that ended in his wife's death off a cliff, stephen scharf stood accused of murder by the state of new jersey. and through it all, one thing he wants you to know is this -- he would never have laid a hand on his beloved jody. never. stephen, did you kill your wife, jody? >> i did not hurt jody. i did not. >> reporter: did you throw her off the pad salpalisades? >> i did not hurt her.

i didn't cause her to get hurt. >> reporter: we talked to scharf at the bergen county jail. he and his wife, tina, said they paid a high price for something he didn't do. >> our daughter is 2 1/2 and never been held by her father. because we don't have contact visits. >> it's not just a tragedy for jody. it's a tragedy for jon. it's a tragedy for my wife. it's a tragedy for my daughter and for myself. >> reporter: still, he decided not to take the stand in his own defense. but told "dateline," that what he first said years ago, about his wife's death, was the truth. >> i wish it didn't happen. i wish we had gone to the comedy club. but i didn't -- i am innocent. >> reporter: but had the jury gotten that same message? when they walked into that deliberating room for the first time, some jurors, in fact,

planned to vote not guilty. >> there wasn't enough evidence. for me. that's what it was. >> reporter: others were thinking guilty. >> it was several thing s. it was no one thing that made up my mind. >> reporter: the jurors went back and forth over the evidence. and here's what they came to believe, that jody was likely drunk. and that her husband knew it. and if that was the case, why would he let her get so close to the edge of a cliff? >> as the husband, knowing that your wife was drinking, would you bring her there? >> reporter: the jurors deliberated three days before deciding whether stephen scharf should be found guilty or not guilty of a single count of murder. >> on the charge of murder of jody ann scharf, your verdict is -- >> guilty. >> reporter: jurors said what united them was the testimony of

jody's friend, telling them that jody's terrified of her husband. >> possibly she was telling everyone, if something happens to me, it was my husband. >> reporter: and it was another woman in stephen's life who also swayed the jury. terry schofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jody's death. that his stress would soon be over. >> that was something that push med towards what we decided in the end. >> it was the lightbulb. >> reporter: to them, it wasn't jody who slipped but her husband, with that menacing statement. they believed it wasn't just a fall from the cliffs. it was a cold-blooded execution. stephen scharf was sentenced to life in prison. he says the jurors condemned him not on the facts, but on his and jody's tumultuous open marriage. you think this was a moral judgment on the part of jurors? >> yes. some would say he was punished

for his morals weakness. but this is a murder trial. >> reporter: but for rescuer michael cheoff, it's a fitting end to a story that haunted him since that night on the palisades. >> this has never left me. it's been years. i went back there myself, without people knowing it, several times, because it bothered me. something was wrong. >> reporter: for close friends like mary ann, the verdict does not remove the sting of the loss. >> i'm angry he took the life of a beautiful person. that's what bothers me the most. that he would do that. and think that he was going to get away with it. he wanted the insurance money. he wanted his son. he would have the house. he would have whatever he wanted. and she'd be out of the way. i think that was sad.

>> that's all for this edition of "dateline" extra. i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. ♪ he had deeper feelings for me than just friends. he managed to get me to care about him. he had my whole life wrapped up. >> she's at the center of a riveting courtroom drama. the wife whose entrepreneur husband was found murdered one cold autumn morning. >> our whole family has lost its brightest light. and we don't