to my daddy's eyes." i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. this is "dateline." they were so happy at first. romance turned to danger. she fell over the edge. accidental death. >> but it wasn't. >> she said you'll know who did it. a mystery of nearly 20 years heads in to court. the husband is on the precipice. >> did you kill your wife? >> i did not kill her.

>> what happened on the cliff's edge. hello. welcome to "dateline." when police got word that someone had fallen off a cliff, they weren't surprised. the place was known to be dangerous. but even they could not guess that it could take almost 20 years to find out what really happened to a woman out on an evening hike with her husband. here's more. every couple has it. a shared movie or song or a special place. for this couple, this was it. two rocks forming a lover's chair on the edge of a cliff. >> that was our spot. we bring a high batch i, a

couple of lawn chairs, a cooler. she'd bring her work from graduate school. >> they had 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 view seemed limitless. >> it sort of framed by trees that you could look down to the right and see the view of george washington bridge. >> what they couldn't see from here, of course, was the future. had they caught even a glimpse of what was to come, surely they would have abandoned this place forever. steven and jody met in the late eads 70s in georgia. he was in the army. a bookworm who loved the civil war. she taught history. theirs was a meeting first of minds, then hearts. >> how would you sort of describe those early years? were they loving or exciting? >> yes.

they were -- we were in love. >> from there, marriage, a house, a son jonathan in 1983. >> how would you describe jody as a mom? >> she was really devoted. >> life was good. even as the years went by, even with the demands of work and family, steven says he and jody 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 that would be the most critical day in our life, our marriage. >> it was a day like any other day? >> yes. >> here was the plan. husband and wife would drive into manhattan and go to a comedy club, a lighthearted 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 jody, sharing a wine cooler. >> they were other people sitting in their cars. they walked up, looked over the spot where the binoculars were and walked up to this sort of open view. >> he says they then turned and took a narrow well-worn 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 winend a blanket. for whatever reason, jody stood up too. the edge of the rock at her feet. >> what was your last glimpse of your wife? >> just standing up and stumbling forward. >> jody had gone off the cliff. >> i didn't know how bad things

were. i was stunned. >> what did you do? >> i got down on my stomach. i stuck my head over and just yelled, jody, jody, talk to me. i just yelled down there. >> but no response. he grabbed a flashlight and flagged down a motorist who came here to the palisades interstate parkway police station. lieutenant walter seer i was on duty. >> until he came through that door, it was a quiet night. then all hell broke loose. >> a frantic man was telling him, a woman had fallen from the lookout above and that her husband was waiting for help. the police called in an experienced climber. >> i was there as a rescue mission. 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. about ten feet down, he caught sight of a ledge. >> the minute i got to the ledge, i observed a person.

i think it was two credit cards. >> on a ledge ten feet down? >> yes. >> it was what he didn't see that confused him. there was no signs that the woman's body had also hit that ledge or any part of the cliff. >> nothing. no blood, no hair, no clothing. no fibers, no skin. >> by that point, the officer had arrived up at the lookout. since there was nothing the husband could do, he was told to get the husband out of the way and drove him back down to police headquarters. on the way, steven recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. >> we were walking and she said for me to go back to the car to get blankets. she slipped and i didn't see her anymore. >> rescuer had made it to the base of the cliff, more than 100 feet from the top. he expected to find a wounded woman there. but he didn't. >> i'm saying, she's not here.

at the first point, i said maybe this was a hoax. maybe she never went off the cliff. he and another rescuer began to walk along the base, pointing flashlights north. finally, about 30 feet away, the beams landed on something white. it was jody lying motionless next to a tree. >> there was a lot of blood on that tree. the blood was actually raining down the tree. that's where the severe impact took. >> jody sharp had not survived the fall. it was clear she had slammed into that tree. as he began to move the body, he noticed something else. >> a note of an alcoholic beverage that emanated from her body. >> when you smelled that, did you think maybe she had had too much to drink and fell? >> entered my mind, yes. >> at that moment, steven sharp was sitting 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? >> how badly she hurt. why isn't she coming back to me? >> that's when an officer walked in the room and broke the news to steven. jody was gone. >> i don't remember who came in and told me. >> that 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 microscope. when "dateline" continues. for this product is overwhelmingly positive. this toothpaste sensodyne repair & protect can actually repair and protect sensitive teeth. and as long as they brush twice a day, everyday, then they can expect to continually have that

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it was the worst night of his life and in 1929, 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. he burst into tears and i cried, i cried like a baby. i wasn't ashamed. >> he remembers his distraught son's reaction, but little else from those dark hours. >> were you sleeping? were you eating?

>> drinking. >> you were drinking. i lost my wife, my son lost his mom. >> there was plenty of sympathy among family and friends, to be sure. for the man newly widowed with a small child to raise on his own. his wife had died in a freak accident off a cliff of all places. how could that happen? and that's exactly what police who were there the night of jody's death wanted to know too. >> right away, i got a feeling that there was something definitely wrong. >> it nagged at the rescuer. why was she perched on a ledge feet bee lore where her husband said she had fallen. >> where is she? she should be here or part of her should be here? >> either she should be here or the pocketbook down with her. >> another thought dawned on him. if jody had tumbled, why hadn't see hit the side of the cliff? there was no blood or hair

anywhere on the rocks. the location of jody's body seemed off to him. way off. >> she was like 30 to 40 feet away to the north. a person falls aught of the cliff, usually they go south. should have been off 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 under way. the officer was surprised steven was willing to leave the lookout as rescuers were still looking for her. >> 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 sharp got into his patrol car. >> if it was my wife or girlfriend, they would have had to pry me away. >> he willingly got into the

patrol car. >> without a word said. >> stranger seem, when it was described how he had fallen, he made a mental note. >> there was no emotion. like he was reading a script. >> did it occur to you, maybe he's in shock? >> i've seen people who have lost loved ones and i've never seen anybody act that way. >> but 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 the water fountain. he was looking over his shoulder at me and splashing water into his face and into his eyes to make it look like he was crying. >> you thought he was faking tears? >> absolutely. absolutely. >> a death scene where the pieces didn't connect. a husband who appeared nonchalant. from a cop's 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 and saying to myself, this isn't right. something is 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 really was nothing to indicate that her fall was anything but an accident. a few months later, the ruling was in. the bergen county medical examiner concluded the manner of jody sharp's death could not be determined. an accident was as likely as anything else. case closed. or was it? >> refere >> reporter: the suspicions grow. was there a weapon at this

rendezvous. >> wine, cheese, crackers, claw hammer. bells going off. >> when "dateline" continues.

jody's death had been a horrible accident and the merck wasn't arguing with him. >> it was telling this man

something sinister had just happened. >> you didn't think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> there wasn't a smoking gun, really. just something dark that he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jody's death. >> he did not react like somebody who just lost his wife should have reacted. >> the detective moved his investigation from the physical evidence to the less tangible clues. he quickly learned from jody's friends that this was a couple not in love but in crisis. the subject wasn't wine and roses on the cliffs, it was divorce. >> she was going to go through with it, yes. absolutely. >> jody's long-time friend told detectives that jody had been determined to take her 10-year-old son jonathan and leave her husband. she was convinced steven had been cheating on her. >> she couldn't prove anything,

but women called the house. sometimes they called and hung up on her. >> she had served her husband divorce papers on september 8, 1992. less than two weeks later, she was dead at the base of the palisades. the timing made him more eager to talk to the wid other scharf. >> he's consented to talk, right? >> yes. >> two days after his wife's death, steven scharf was freely answering detectives questions. yes, he and his wife were talking divorce, as they had sometimes done during their tempest euhus marriage. it was true, there were other women. >> he told us they had an open marriage, they were seeing different people. he actually said he had been with 50 to 60 women. >> she was okay with it according to him? >> according to him, yeah. >> he told detectives that he and jody were unhappy with their free love lifestyle.

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

from the kitchen with that hammer. he forgot to put it in the garage. he put it in the basket with the picnic items. it was convenient. >> they asked if they could check out the drawer and the rest of steven's house that night. he agreed. as it turned out, something potentially far more telling was happening away from the action. >> i said, look, mr. scharf, i'm your local police department. >> he was a local officer told to keep an eye on mr. scharf as they looked through his house. he started talking to him about jody and steven interrupted me and he looks at me and he goes, you don't believe me. >> then the officer says, scharf said something that almost knocked him off his feet. >> i said i believe an accident occurred. i said, was it an accident? he put his head down and he said no.

>> he believes that was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, including lineham. but they had spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting that feeling that a reinterview at that point would have done anything. >> they still believed they could find solid evidence but they didn't. >> the cause of death at that time was listed as undetermined. so officially, it wasn't a homicide. >> in time, the detectives moved on to other cases. steven scharf moved on, too. 14 years after his wife's death, he remarried. tina scharf says he was a loving, ideal husband. >> they were like two puzzle pieces made for each other. each of us complemented and completed the other. >> in his happy new life, he's never forgotten about jody. >> but he might have been

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

on a cold case. >> dr. michael bodden has determined this couldn't have been an accidental fall. >> in december of 2008, detectives paid one more visit to steven scharf. >> they wouldn't tell me what it was for. i had no idea what it was about. it didn't make sense. >> 16 years after that fatal night on the cliff, police were back and steven scharf was in for a shock. >> after all these years, you thought it was done. >> not until they reached behind and hand me this thing, this arrest warrant. >> reporter: coming up. the case heads into court with a surprise from the stand. >> steven and jody scharf's only son has some dark secrets to share. >> did you see that abuse? >> i did. >> when "dateline" continues. you've got to get in there, like...

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"the new york times" is reporting that papadopolous may have sparked the russia investigation. it began during a night of heavy drinking in a london bar including a promise of dirt on hillary clinton. this new year's eve approaches, authorities are working around the clock to keep everyone safe. in new york city's times square, party-goers expect heightened security and very cold temperatures. now back to "dateline." >> reporter: welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. years after jody scharf fell to her death, a prosecutor reopened the case and brought in a famous forensic pathology to re-examine the evidence. what would he uncover? here again with more. what stuck in his mind -- >> in every murder trial, time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. >> 16 years. >> sometimes it hurts a case.

memories fade. evidence is lost. witnesses die. but time can also put evidence in a new light. such was the case in the trial of steven scharf. 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 marshalled some facts starting with the crime scene, where the prosecutor said the cliffs showed no sign of an accidental tumble. >> no debris, no clothing, no blood, no hair, no tissue. >> then there was the husband himself, cool and collected in

the back of a police car. >> i didn't see any emotion from him at all, sir. >> who later confessed, the proper says, to killing his wife. >> and then i said it was an accident? and he said, no. >> but those facts were not where the case ended. the prosecutor argued that 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. >> dr. michael bodden, the famous forensic pathology who said the crime scene spoke of a murder, not an accident. >> if a person falls accidentally, the individual will be within a couple of feet of the base of the building. >> that didn't happen in the case of jody scharf. her body landed 50 feet out from

the top of the cliff and 30 feet to the north. >> she had to have been propelled from that point. >> jody had to have been thrown or pushed to her death, he said, 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 that tumbles down the cliff base. >> dr. maryan clay was the bergen county medical examiner who first ruled the circumstances could not be determined. now on second look, she says, the victim's wounds or lack of them, told her something different. something vital. if jody 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 mrs. scharf's body. >> but why would steve have

killed his wife? the biggest reason, the prosecutor argued, was that steven did not want a divorce. he didn't want a custody fight and he didn't want to split assets with jody. and there was yet another motive for steven, said the prosecutor. a potential payout. >> usa life insurance company. >> an insurance representative testified about a $500,000 policy taken out against jody scharf months before her death. payable to a primary beneficiary. >> can you tell us the policy owner? >> steven f. scharf. >> jody scharf was simply worth more dead than alive. her friend, marian feared that he might do something violent if she pushed for the divorce. even so, marian said she was determined to get away from her husband. >> she was going to have the divorce papers served on steven

and she was very afraid of it. >> yet, was steven violent enough to kill his wife? an unlikely but powerful witness was about to testify against steven scharf. >> i'm here for my mother. >> his own son took the stand against him. now a businessman, jonathan scharf painted his father as an angry, violent man who terrorized his mother. >> do you see that abuse? >> i did. >> jonathan scharf 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 -- >> now in court, he had even more to tell about his childhood. like the afternoon he sat cowering in the back seat of a car watching his mother suffer.

>> my mom was driving and my dad was hitting her with the bottom of his fist. i was begging him to stop doing it. >> he also remembered the last day of his mother's life. he was 10. he said his mother told his father that she didn't want to go out with him alone. >> she said i wanted to go out with you, i wouldn't be divorcing you. >> where was the proof that steven had planned to kill jody that night? well, there was the hammer in the picnic basket. but there was also testimony from this woman. one of steven's old girlfriends. >> i even mentioned to my girlfriend that it was a perfect relationship. >> terry scofield had been dating steven mofrnnths before death. >> did he tell you whether or not he was married? >> actually, he said he was not married. >> she remembered something strange steven said to her on the beach over that labor day

weekend. >> he was under a lot of stress and the stress would be resolved by the end of september. >> two weeks later, jody scharf was dead. teri now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful light. >> oh, no. the end of september. the light bulb went off immediately. >> it also went off for marian. in the most chilling testimony of the case, she said when she heard her friend was gone, she immediately remembered something jody said just weeks earlier. >> she said that during this conversation that 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 the cliffs on a summer night. steven'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, considerate. >> the prosecutor -- >> the defense was ready to show how steven scharf, far from villain, was the real victim in this story. >> reporter: coming up -- >> they've destroyed the crime scene area. >> new questions about the evidence and was there another reason why a son might implicate his dad. >> who does the money go to? >> it goes to me. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. nd shoulders' dry scalp care it nourishes the scalp and... ...keeps you up to 100% flake free head and shoulders' dry scalp care

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steven scharf is not guilty. >> 18 years after the death of his first wife, more than a decade after the investigation first stalled, steve scharf was being called a pillar. but his defense attorney argued there was no new evidence in this case, no new eyewitnesses. only new opinions. >> talking about the same old facts and circumstances. >> he said 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, steven scharf, has been wrongfully charged with her death. >> and one reason the 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 fatal 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 eyewitnesses, 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 steven scharf's supposedly odd demeanor for themselves. >> why didn't you? >> not an interrogation. he wasn't in custody. i don't know. >> the defense attorney also argued that 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 shall 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 flipflop. 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. she determined that jody had been drunk the night she fell off the cliff. she had a blood alcohol level of .12. that was over the legal limit. would be equivalent to approximately four 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 dr. cyril wex. he had a resume of star studded investigations too, as high-profile as the prosecution's doctor. only he had a totally different take on how jody scharf died. >> i would call this an accidental death. >> in his version, which he demonstrated with of all things a teddy bear, jody fell off the cliff and on to jagged rocks just below, causing her mortal wounds. her body then catapulted.

>> out goes the body and it hurls into the air. >> into the tree canopy which then carried her through the abyss and into that distant tree. >> this is what i think happened to explain those injuries of the chest and of the head. >> but there was another bubble to burst in the prosecution's case. the motive for murder. steven scharf wasn't a grieving killer, his attorney said. his client never made a claim on that insurance policy. it was only after the money was turned over to the state, years later, he said, that steven scharf even bothered to collect. >> wouldn't it throw fuel on the fire not to do it. whoa, i know i look guilty because i am guilty, i better not make this claim. >> you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

they had been talking breakup for years. the divorce papers just the latest legal -- in a growing spat. >> the prosecution paints a picture of someone who frankly 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. saying one thing and not following through. >> though it is true steven scharf did not want a divorce, he says he wanted to give the marriage another chance. and as for that former girlfriend, terry scofield, she recounted steven's mysterious statement just before jody's death. >> just give me to the end of september and everything will be okay. the stress will be -- a lot of the stress will be gone. >> the defense attorney says that was steven's clumsy way of trying to dump his girlfriend.

speaking of which, he added, those other women did not bother jody at all. she was seeing other people herself. >> the person on the bottom half of both of those is who? >> jody scharf. >> the record keeper of the dating service testified that jody's name was on an application. she even checked off the interests she'd like to share with a man. the attorney offered that as proof of steven and jody's open marriage. but what really rankled the defense, torn at the heart of steven scharf 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 jody. 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 was 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. >> 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. >> in the end, the lawyer called stephen scharf's son a spoiled brat. >> that sounds like some spoiled kid. >> who was not a credible witness.

in closing, balinkas insisted that 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. >> soon it would be in the hands of a jury. coming up -- >> it was the light bulb. you couldn't help but think, hmm, that's interesting. >> the jurors speak. >> stephen, did you kill your wife jody? the verdict. manolo! you're so cold, come in! what's wrong? it's dry... your scalp? mine gets dry in the winter too.

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welcome back. the jury is about to decide the fate of steven scharf. here is the conclusion to our story. 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! >> did you throw her off the palisades?

>> i did not. i did not. i didn't hurt jody. i didn't push her. i didn't cause her to get hurt. i didn't kill my wife. >> we talked to stephen scharf at the bergen county jail where he's been held ever since his arrest in 2008. he and his wife tina say they've paid a high price for something he didn't do. >> we visited through a plate glass. our daughter is 2 1/2 and has still 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 john. it's a tragedy for my wife, it's a tragedy for my daughter. and for myself. >> still, he decided not to take the stand in his own defense but told "dateline" that what he said 18 years ago about his wife's death is the truth. >> i wish it didn't happen. i wish we had gone to the comedy club. but i didn't -- i'm innocent.

>> 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. >> others were thinking guilty. >> it was several things. it was no one thing that had made up my mind. >> 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? >> the jurors deliberated for 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. >> guilty. later, jurors said what united them was the testimony of jody's friend, telling them that jody was terrified of her husband. >> that possibly she was telling everyone, if something happens to me it's my husband. >> and it was another woman in stephen's life who also swayed the jury. terri schofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jody's death, that his stress would soon be over. >> once i heard that, that was something that pushed me towards what decided in the end, was that statement. >> 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 cliff, it was a cold-blooded execution. but stephen scharf says they condemned him for all the wrong reasons, not on the facts of his wife's death but on his and jody's tumultuous open marriage.

>> so you think this was a moral judgment on the part of the jurors. >> yes. and i suppose some people would say, well, he was punished for his moral weakness. but this is a murder trial. >> but for rescuer michael chiai, it's a fitting end to a story that's 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. >> for close friends like marion, the verdict does not remove the sting of the loss. >> i'm angry that 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'd have the house. he'd have whatever he wanted. and she'd be out of the way.

now, i think that was sad. >> that is all for "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." her name is pepper. >> i lived a secret life. >> she was kidnapped at age 4. >> we got in the car, and we never went back. >> she spent decades trying to find her way home again, and she finally made it. or so she thought. >> i said, i think i'm rhonda christie, or do you know rhonda patricia christie. and then there was a long pause. >> pepper's story had many ups and downs.