>> i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales and this is dateline. >> they were so happy at first, sharing a lovers perched high

atop a cliff. but romance turned to danger. she fell from the edge. >> i would call this an accidental death. >> but whas 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, jody? >> i did not. >> what happened on the cliffs edge? >> hello and 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 would take almost 20 years to find out what really happened to a woman out on an evening hike with her husband. here's chris jansen. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> every couple has it.

a shared song, a favorite movie, or maybe a special place. stephen scharf says that for his wife and him jody, this was it. two rocks forming a lover's chair on the edge of a cliff. >> that was our spot. we would bring a couple of long chairs, a cooler, and she would 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 views seemed limitless. >> it's sort of framed the trees but you can look down to the right through the view of the 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. stephen and jody met in the late seventies in georgia. he was in the army, a bookworm who loved the civil war. she taught history. there is was a meeting first of minds. then hearts. >> how would you sort of describe those early years? with a loving? where they exciting? >> yes. they were. you know, we were in love. we were just ecstatic. >> from there, marriage. a house.

a son, jonathan in 1983. >> and how would you describe jody as a mom? >> she was really devoted. >> life is good. and even as the years went by, even with the demands of work and family, stephen says he and jody still made time for each other. like that last summer sunday in september of 1992. stephen says it was supposed to be a date night. ould be the most critical day and our life, in our marriage. >> it was a day like any other day? >> yes. >> he was the plan. husband and wife or drive into manhattan and go to a comedy clted night on the town. but they made a detour here, to the palisades, to their spot. >> stephen remembers pulling up to this scenic lookout, sitting in the car with jody and sharing the wine cooler. >> there were other people they are sitting in the cars and we walked up over to the spot where the binoculars were and walked up to this sort of open view. >> he says they then took a well worn path to those rocks. he said they sat there at as the night while around them holding her as he 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, jody stood up too. the edge of the rock was at her feet. >> what was your last glimpse of your wife? >> just standing up and, you know, stumbling forward. >> jody had gone off the cliff. >> i didn't know how bad things were, but i was stunned. >> with did you do? >> i got down on my stomach and stuck my head over and i just yelled, jody, jody, talk to me. i just yelled down there. >> but no response. he's got the flashlight and fled down a motorist who claim here to the palisades parkway police station. lieutenant walter siri was on duty. >> until he came through that door, it was a very quiet night and then all hell broke loose. >> the frantic man was telling them a woman had fallen from the look out above and that her husband was waiting for help. the police called in michael, 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 that ledge, there was a pars. i think there was two credit cards. >> on a ledge ten feet down? >> right. >> but it was 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, officer walter syria had arrived up at the look out. since there was nothing that the husband could do to help in the rescue, syria was told to get out of the way and drove

him back down to police headquarters. on the way, even recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. >> we were walking and she said for me to go back to the car and get the blanket, and she slipped and i didn't see her anymore. >> as siri and the man arrived to the station, the rescuer 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. at the first point, i said maybe this is a hoax. maybe she never went off the cliff. >> he and another rescuer began to walk along the base, pointing their 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, and the blood was actually draining down the tree. that's where a severe impact took. that's where she really, you know. >> jody scharf had not survived the fall. it was clear that 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. >> so when you smelled that, did you think maybe she had had too much to drink and fell? >> that entered my mind, yes. >> at that moment, stephen scharf was sitting in a room at the police station, waiting for someone to tell him what had happened to his wife. >> he remember was going through your mind at that point? >> how badly is she hurt? where is she? why isn't she calling back to me? >> and that's when an officer walks into the room and broke the news to stephen. jody was gone. >> i don't even remember who came in and told me. >> and what was your reaction? >> denial. it was, you know, how could this, 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. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on... ♪ [coughing] ♪ ...by, you know how i feel. ♪ if you're tired of staring down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy makes breathing easier for a full 24 hours, improves lung function, and helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand, and start a new day with trelegy.

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life. and now stephen scharf, the early morning hours of september 21st 1992 had to tell his ten-year-old son jonathan

that 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. 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 is 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 are there the night of jody 's death, wanted to know too. >> right away, i got a feeling there was something definitely

wrong. >> it nagged at rescuer michael chiofi -- why were jody's purse --, just feet where her husband said she fallen. where is she? she should be? here are part of her should be here. that's the first thing that came to you? >> either she should be here or pocketbook should be down here with her. and it wasn't fitting. in another thought dawned on him. if jody had tumbled, why headache she hit the side of the cliffs? there was no blood or hair anywhere on the rocks. in the location of duties body seemed off to chiofi. , way off. >> she was like 30 or 40 feet away from us to the north. a person who falls off a cliff usually, they're going to go south. are there going to go right down. she should have been right down, where i got off the ropes, that's where she should've been. >> someone else was scratching his head that night for different reasons. it had to do with stephens behavior while the search was

underway. officer walter surrey, was surprised even was willing to leave, the look out, as researchers were still looking for jody. did he give any indication i don't want to leave. my wife could be down there. now. none at all. >> siri says he couldn't believe how willing the stephen scharf got into his control car. i tell you if it was my wife, or girlfriend, whoever they would have had to pry me away from that scene, if it was still at the top of the cliff. he was willingly got into his patrol car. without a word. >> stranger still is how calm the husband seemed. when the officer heard stephen describe how his wife had fallen, he made a mental note. there was no emotion in it. none at all. it was like he was reading a script. >> did it occur to you that, maybe he's in shock? >> no. i've seen people who have lost loved ones, i've never seen anybody act that way. but it was a particular moment later inside the station house, that really caught his attention. he asked if he could get a drink in the water fountain. he was looking like over his shoulder at me and splashing

water up on his face, and then rubbing 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 cops point of view, things were not adding up and not in stephen's favor. >> not just one thing. it was the totality of the circumstances. everything. every little thing was clicking in my mind, and i'm 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 stephen was to jaundiced. there really was nothing to

indicate that jody's fall was anything but an accident. a few months later, the ruling was in. the county medical examiner concluded the manner of judy's death could not be determined. an accident was as likely as anything else. case closed. or was it? >> the suspicions grow. was there a weapon at this romantic rendezvous? coming up. >> you have your wine, cheese, crackers, claw hammer. red flags are going up they reached the top of the poll by that point. >> when dateline continues. isn't at its best. but a little metamucil everyday can help. metamucil's psyllium fiber gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down and also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic. lighten every day the metamucil way. and metamucil's psyllium fiber also comes in easy to take capsules. (rebecca) it wasn't until after they had done the surgery to remove all the toes

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had been a horrible accident. her husband said so. and the medical examiner was not arguing with him. but detectives have a kind of sixth sense about these cases and his was telling him, something sinister had just happened. >> you don't think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> there wasn't any smoking gun, really. just something dark he thought he could read between between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jody's death. >> he did not react like somebody who had just lost his wife should have reacted. >> and so 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 was not wine and roses on those cliffs. it was divorce. >> she was going to go through with it. yes. absolutely. >> jody's lifelong friend marion, told detectives that jody had been determined to take her ten-year-old son jonathan and leave her husband. she was convinced stephen had been cheating on her. >> she couldn't prove anything, but women called the house. and sometimes they'd call and hang up on her. in fact, detective lineman learned jody had served her husband divorced 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 widdower. >> there is a sit down with mr. scharf. he's consented to talk, right? >> yes. >> two days after his wife staff, stephen was freely answering detective questions. yes, he told them, he and his wife were talking divorce as they had sometimes done during

their tempestuous marriage. and 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 like 50 to 60 women. >> she was okay with it, according to him? >> according to him, yes. >> but he told detectives he and jody had become unhappy with their free love lifestyle. so they came to this romantic if treacherous spot, to recommit to each other, stephen said. to kiss and make up. >> the spot where they went is not a spot where you would go to reconcile with anybody. >> detectives were not buying the story for another reason. they had found something suspicious inside scharf's car. a bag filled with items you'd expect for a romantic picnic, and one you would not, a hammer. >> you have your wine, cheese, crackers, opener, claw hammer. i mean, red flags are going up. they reached the pole at that point. >> did you think it might be a

murder weapon? >> yeah i thought it might have been plan a. he didn't use it, so he went to plan b. >> which he believed, was to push or throw jody off that cliff. so detectives asked stephen scharf the obvious. what was the hammer doing in that picnic bag? >> he told us he fixed the draw -- 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 just convenient. a convenient excuse for having that hammer. >> detectives asked if they could check out the drawer in the rest of stephen's house that night. he agreed. but as it turned out, something potentially far more telling was happening away from the action. >> and i said look, mr. sheriff, i'm your local police department. >> ted ehrenberg was a local officer, told to keep an eye on stephen that night as detectives come to his house. the officer says he begins

talking to stephen about what happened to jody, when stephen interrupted him. >> he finally looks at me and he goes, you don't believe me. >> and then the officer says he said something that almost knocked him off his feet. >> i believe i said an accident occurred, and i said was it an accident? >> and he put his head down any said, no. >> he believed there was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, including detective--. but they had just spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting that feeling, that a re-interview at that point would've done anything. >> the detective still believe they could find salad evidence to implicate stephen scharf, but they didn't. we took it as far as we could. go ahead and bend, the cause of death at the time was listed as undetermined. so officially it wasn't a

homicide. >> in time the detectives moved on to other cases. stephen shark moved on. to 14 years after his wife's death he remarried. tina says he'd been a loving, ideal husband. >> it was like we were to puzzle pieces made for each other where each of us complemented and completed the other person. >> but even in this happy new life he says, he's never forgotten about jody. but he might have been surprised to learn that someone else was thinking over to after all these years. bergen county's prosecutor was eager to visit old case files. among them an unexplained death here in the cliffs of the palisades so many years ago. the death of jody charles. >> it was this renewed push since 2002 to look into cold cases. >> this man covered the trial for the record newspaper in new jersey. on one hand he says, it didn't seem like the prosecutor had any reason to pursue the cold case. in terms of hard evidence it

had nothing new. but the prosecutor did have some one new. a famous name to join the investigation into jody's death. doctor michael baden, in a world renowned forensic pathologists who investigated the death of john f. kennedy and john belushi and testified that the trial of o. j. simpson. he was about to turn up the heat on a very old case file. doctor michael baden, has room few the evidence indeterminate could not have been an accidental. fall. in december of 20 2008 -- detectives people more visit to stephen scharf. they wouldn't tell me what it was for. i have no idea what it's about. i mean it did not make any sense. >> 16 years after that fatal night on the cliff, police were back, and stephen scharf was in for a shock. >> after all these years, you thought it was done. >> not until they reach behind in hand 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. stephen and jody's only son, has some dark secrets to share. >> did you see that abuse? >> i did. >> when dateline continues. feel darkest before dawn. with caplyta, there's a chance to let the light shine through. and light tomorrow, with the hope from today. this is a chance to let in the lyte. caplyta is a once-daily pill that is proven to deliver significant relief across bipolar depression. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta treats both bipolar i and bipolar ii depression. and in clinical trials, movement disorders and weight gain were not common. call your doctor about sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants may increase these risks in young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements which may be life threatening or permanent. these aren't all the serious side effects.

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hour's top story, biden met with foreign leaders in japan for the g7 summit on friday, that negotiations continued in washington with no end in sight, republicans met with white house officials to discuss raising the 31 and a half trillion dollar debt ceiling, left without progress out of the june 1st deadline, and staying in japan there for a second president biden telling g7 leaders the u.s. will support an international joint effort to train ukraine soldiers on fighter jets. ukraine's president zelenskyy is expected to attend the summit tomorrow as tops continue, now back to dateline. back to dateline

welcome back to dateline, i'm craig melvin. years after jody fell to her death, a new prosecutor reopen the case and brought in a famous forensic pathologists to re-examine the evidence. what would he uncover? here again is christiansen. >> what's stuck in his mind -- >> in every murder trial, the time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. >> 16 years -- >> sometimes it hurts a case. memories fade, evidence blows off. witnesses die. but time can also put evidence in a new light. such was the case in a trial of stephen 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 marshaled some familiar facts to start its story. started with a crime scene where the prosecutor said the cliffs showed no sign of an

accidental tumble. >> no debris, no clothing, no blood, no hair, not tissue. >> and then there was the husband himself. cool and collected in the back of a police car. >> i didn't see any motion from him at all, sir. >> who later confessed, the prosecutor said, to killing his wife. >> and then i said, it was an accident? and he said now. >> 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 victims friends, family, and most importantly by a star witness.

>> my opinion is that the manner of death is a homicide. >> doctor michael biden, a famous forensic pathologists told jurors the crime scene spoke of a murder, not an accident. >> if a person falls accidentally, the individual will be, you know, within a couple of feet of the base of the building. >> and 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 face. >> doctor marianne clayton was the bergen county medical examiner who first ruled the circumstances of jody'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 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 stephen have killed his wife? the biggest reason, the prosecutor argued, was that stephen did not want to divorce. he did not want to custody fight. and he didn't want to split assets with jody. and there was yet another motive for stephen, said the prosecutor. a potential payout. >> usa a life insurance company. >> an insurance representative

testified about a 500,000 dollar policy taken out against jody scharf months before his death. payable to a primary beneficiary. >> can you tell us the policy owner? >> stephen f scharf. >> jody scharf was simply worth more dead than alive. her friend, marianne, testified jody feared stephen might be something violent if she pushed for that divorce. even so, marion said, jody was determined to get away from her husband. >> she was going to have divorce papers served on stephen, and she was very afraid of it. >> 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 scharf painted his father as an angry, violent man who terrorized his mother. >> did 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 video tape interview shows henry calling the dark past for the first time to police. >> she got coffee thrown out her a lot. >> 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 in my dad just hitting her with the bottom of his fist. and i was just like, begging him to stop doing it. >> he also remember the last day of his mother's life. he was ten and his 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 plans 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 magenta by girlfriend that it was a perfect relationship. >> terry scofield have been dating stephen months before jody scharf's death. >> did mr. scharf tell you whether or not he was married? >> actually, he said he was not married. >> and she remembered something strange that stephen 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. terry now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful light. >> i was like, oh no the end of september. and then the light buff bulb went off immediately.

>> it also went off for marion. and perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecution's case, marion told the jury that when she heard her friend was gone, she immediately remembered something jody just said 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, considerate. >> 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 is sun might implicate his dad? >> who does the money go to? >> it goes to me. >> when dateline continues. keep your laundry smelling fresh waaaay longer than detergent alone. if you want laundry to smell fresh for weeks, make sure you have downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters. introducing astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid-free spray. while flonase takes hours, astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can [ spray, spray ] astepro and go. known as a passionate artist. known for loving the outdoors. known for getting everyone together. no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer. fda-approved for 16 types of cancer, including certain early-stage cancers.

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>> 18 years after the death of his first wife, more than a decade after the investigation for stole, stephen scharf was being called a killer.

but his defense attorney argued that 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 that 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 reason the prosecutor could not prove murder had to do with slimy police work, suggesting you have been like keystone comps on the palisades that fatal night. >> you never photographed the body before you moved it, did you? >> no sir. >> why didn't he take

photographs? they destroyed the crime scene area. >> they did not even bother to question potential eyewitnesses, he said. instead, they cleared visitors from the look out. >> 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've judged stephen scharf's supposedly a demeanor for himself. >> why didn't you? >> he wasn't in custody, i don't know. >> they also argued that the police in misinterpreted with the clients said in his home just hours later. >> my client never said this wasn't an accident. >> and as for that hammer that police thought was a weapon -- >> the hammer was investigated by the forensic experts. there was nothing found on that hammer. >> and the defense attorney

press 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 are learning from your mistakes on this case? >> you make all the mistakes, sir. >> i did the best they 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's. she had a blood alcohol level of 0. 1 two. that was over the legal limit. >> would be a club lint to approximately four average sized drinks, wine or beer, something like that. >> a drunken slip and fall, argued the defense. the back that up, the lawyer

had his own heavy hitter. famed forensic pathologists doctor cyril. he posted a resume of star studded investigations to, as high-profile as the prosecutions doctor biden. only he had a totally different take on how jody scharf died. >> i would call this an accidental death. >> and his version, which he demonstrates with all things a teddy bear, she fell off the cliff on to jagged rocks just below causing her mortal wounds. her body than catapulted. >> and out goes the body, and hurdles 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 over the head. >> but there was another bubble to burst in the prosecution's case, the motive for murder. stephen scharf was not a greedy killer, his attorney said. his client never medic lame on that insurance policy. it was only after the money was turned over to the state, years later, he said, that stephen scharf 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'd better not make this claim. >> you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. >> the other alleged motive, divorce, was flimsy as well he said. jody and stephen had been talking breakup for years. those divorce papers just the latest legal salvo and an ongoing marital spat. >> the prosecutor 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. maybe she was, you know, saying one thing and not following through. >> though it is true stephen

scharf did not want a divorce, he said he wanted to give the marriage another chance. and as for that former girlfriend, terry scow field, she recounted stephens mysterious statement just before jody's death. >> just give me to the end of september and everything will be okay. a lot of the stress will be gone. >> the defense attorney says that was stephens clumsy way of trying to dump his girlfriends. and 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 in both of those is who? >> jody scharf. >> the record keeper of a dating service testified that jody'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 enjoji's open marriage. but what's really rankled the defense, would head torn at the heart of stephen 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. >> he was, you know, fairly decent, you know, fairly decent parent. >> it was only after detectives told him his dad had just been arrested that the sun turned on his father. >> she got coffee thrown at her a lot. >> 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 johnson, not his dad, who was motivated by greed. if stephen scharf was convicted, his son would get all of that insurance money. >> who's the money go to? >> it goes to me. >> in the end, the lawyer called stephen scharf's sun a spoiled brat. >> that sounds like some spoiled kid. >> who was not a credible witness. in closing, blinkers 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, that's interesting. >> the jurors speak. what would they decide? >> stephen, did you kill your wife, jody? >> the verdict. when dateline continues.

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welcome back to dateline. the jury is about to decide the fate of stephen scharf. here's chris jansen with the conclusion of our story. >> 18 years after a night that ended in his wife's death off a cliff, stephen scharf stud 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? >> no, 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 was held for more than two years after his arrest in 2008. he and his wife, tina, say that they have paid a high price for something he didn't do. >> our daughter is two and a half and still has 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 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'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 made up my mind. >> the jurors went back and forth over the evidence and

here is what they came to believe. that showed it 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 hum husband, knowing that your wife was drinking, would you bring her there? >> the jurors deliberated three days before deciding whether stephen scharf should be found guilty or not guilty of a single count of murder. >> and the charge of murder of jody and scharf, the verdict is? >> guilty. >> guilty. later, the jurors said that 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 stephens life who also swayed the jury. >> terry scofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jody's death. that his stress would soon be over. >> that was something that push me towards what we decided in the end. >> it was a lightbulb. >> 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 said the jurors condemned him not on the facts but for his and jody's tumultuous open marriage. >> so you think this was a moral judgment on the part of jurors? >> yes. and i suppose some people would say, well, he was punished for his moral weakness but this was a murder trial. >> but for rescuer michael, 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's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. >> i'm craig melvin. >> and i am natalie morales. >> and this, is dateline. >> her name is pepper. >> i lived a secret life. >> she was kidnapped at age