. >>> located across the hudson river from new york city, bergen county, new jersey, ranks among america's wealthiest communities. its largest city is hackensack. just outside downtown is its own crossroads of the world. but virtually no one comes to the bergen county jail looking for good times. >> peanut butter and jelly. i ain't 4 years old. >> most of the roughly 800 men and 50 women here have only been charged with crimes. and are awaiting trial or the resolution of their cases. >> gentlemen, to your cells. go, fellows, put it down. to your cells. let's go. >> having spent nearly two years in the jail's maximum security unit as his case moves through the courts, david goodell has picked up a new skill or two. >> when i was locked in the cell by myself they kind of let me get like art activities. you got this for origami. i used to make ducks, flowers, birds, planes, like a butterfly, dinosaurs, frogs, everything. flower. it came out a little bit better, i was kind of rushing though. but it's the basic idea. >> i've been doing this job over 22 years. i believe david goodell is potentia

just outside downtown hackensack is the bergen county jail. most of the nearly 900 inmates here are accused of crimes and are awaiting trial at the resolution of their cases. the majority of them are from somewhere else. many say bergen county is better than other jails. >> this is a country club. play chess all day. no problems. three tvs. it's country club. >> the country club reference goes back as long as i've been here. so i look at it as a compliment. a country club is a professional, well-organized, strict with rules and regulations. some of the hardened criminals like the dirty, grungy type of jail. they're not going to find that here. >> right here in bergen county jail, they got good, good people. just straight up real. >> with seven prior stays, enrique cruz qualifies as the jail's unofficial tour guide. >> this spanish harlem mover, except for the white guy in the back. he's cool. that's spanish harlem. you have uptown over here. [ bleep ]. sit your ass down, man. stay still. >> over a period of 26 years, cruz has spent time not onl

but behind the walls at the bergen county jail in hackensack is a very different world. in the maximum security unit, surprise searches for contraband are a regular part olife. >> shake-downs here in the bergen county jail are performed on a continuous but sporadic basis. it's to catch the inmates off guard. >> spread your legs. >> i personally like that they get too comfortable being anywhere. i consider it my house, you're a visitor. you get in there, too comfortable, too bad. >> we're looking for contraband. >> he use as a weapon. grab somebody from behind. >> contraband can go from as far as a weapon and it also goes to excess. inmates can buy a newspaper, if they have 50 weeks of newspapers, it's got to go. >> these guys are here for a long term. they accumulate more stuff. >> today julio flores will lose some excess items in his cell. >> back it up. >> inmates are allowed only two pencils in a cell, anything over that is confiscated. >> how many pencils do you think you lost here today? >> irlost like six, seven pencils. it's very important, the pencils. >> flores r

conduct our investigate. >> reporter: that job would take several hours -- giving detectives from the bergen county major crimes unit, time to question neighbors. >> canvassing is the most time consuming thing, but you have to do that right away. >> reporter: former bergen county prosecutor, john molinelli was on the scene in those pre-dawn hours. >> unlike district attorney's office nationwide, in new jersey a county prosecutor is not just the chief law enforcement officer of the county, but also directly oversees the investigation of all major crimes. >> reporter: molinelli says from the first time he laid eyes didn't look right. so he asked the medical examiner to fast track an autopsy. >> you could see some indication that this wasn't just somebody who was just smoking in his bed and then the bed lit fire. >> reporter: what was your gut telling you as to what this could be? what you're looking at? >> the first thought was, "well, whoever did this act lit the crime scene in an effort to -- to frustrate law enforcement because dna evidence is always important." >> reporter: later that morning aut

the happy new life, he says, he's never forgotten about jody. >> but he might have been surprised to learn that someone else was thinking of her too after all of these years, bergen countyad a new prosecutor and he was eager to revisit old case fileds, among them an unexplained death here on the cliffs of the palisades so many years ago, the death of jody sharp. >> there was this renewed push since 2002 to look into the cold cases. >> marcos 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 new. >> the prosecutor did have someone new, a famous name to join the investigation into joetddy jody sharp's death. dr. michael baden, a world renowned forensic pathologist that investigated the deaths of john f. kennedy and john belluchi and testified at the trial of o.j. simpson. he was about to turn up the heat on a very cold case. >> michael baden has reviewed the evidence and determined this could not have been an accidental fall. >> in december of 2008, detectives paid one more visits to steven sharp. >> wouldn't tell me w

the time that's cut down to two bureaucratic oversight. >> it many jersey family suffered personal losses on september 11, 2001. in bergen county alone 107 people were lost. to honor their friends and family, people put together memorials, some are large like the one at highland seals that lists the names of every person that was lost. others are small like the tree that was dedicated to andy o'grady here at harrington park elementary school. three weeks ago, that tree was cut down. it used to be right here but it was cut down as part of a parking lot project. the school needed 15 new parking spaces and the tree was simply unmarked and in the way. i spoke to doctor adam, superintendent of the school district to get to the truth. >> this was a terrible accident done by the district contractor. >> the real reason for the tree removal? public safety. >> this project was run the concept of trying to provide the better traffic flow and more secure and safe place for people to drop off and pick up their children. >> the memorial was funded by a group of teachers who no longer work at the school. it makes sense that the current admini