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 stephen was too 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 bergen county medical examiner concluded the manner of jody scharf s death could not be determined. an accident was as likely as anything else. case closed. or was it? coming up so 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. red flares are going up. they ve reached the top of the pole by that point. when over the edge continues.
dr. michael baden has reviewed the evidence and has determined that this could not have been an accidental fall. in december of 2008 detectives paid one more visit to stephen scharf. they wouldn t tell me what it was for. i had no idea what this was about. i mean, it didn t make 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 reached behind and 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 scharf s only son has some dark secrets to share. did you see that abuse? i did. when over the edge continues. ver the edge continues.
ever since they were newlyweds in a starter apartment in new jersey. up here the air was fresh and the views seemed limitless. vi it sort of framed by trees. but you could look down and to the right and see the view of the georgeri washington bridge. reporter: 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 jodi met in the late 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? were they exciting? yes. they were you know, we were in love. it was ecstatic. reporter: from there marriage, a house, a son
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. oh it is true stephen 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 stephen 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 stephen s 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.
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 you would 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 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 top of the pole at that point. did you think that might be a murder weapon? yeah, i thought that might have been plan a. and he didn t you d it. so he went to plan b. which lineham believed was to push or throw jody off that cliff. so detectives asked stephen scharf the obvious. what was a hammer doing in that picnic bag? he told us he fixed the