the jury s about to decide the fate of stephen scharf. here s chris jansing with the conclusion of 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? no, i did not. i did not. i didn t hurt jody. i didn t push her.
the jury s about to decide the fate of stephen scharf. here s chris jansing with the conclusion of 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? 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.
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. terry scofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jody s death. that his stress would soon be over. that was something that pushed me towards what we decided in the end. it was the light bulb. 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 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.
jonathan in 1983. and how would you describe jodi as a mom? she was really devoted. life was good. and even as the years went by, even with the demands of work and family, stephen says he and jodi 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. 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. but they made a detour here to the palisades, to their spot. stephen remembers pulling up to the scenic s lookout, sittin in the car with jodi, sharing a wine cooler. there were other people there sitting in their cars, and we walked up,he looked over the sp
happened. so you didn t think this was a horrible accident? no. there wasn t any smoking gun really. just something dark lineham thought 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. 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 wasn t wine and roses on those cliffs. it was divorce. she was going to go through with it. yes. absolutely. jody s long-time friend marianne hilferty told detectives jody had been determined to take her 10-year-old son jonathan and leave her husband. she was convinced stephen had been cheating on her. she couldn t prove anything,