the female jurors had done home experiments where they had showered and air dried. they were testing out this theory of how quickly the body dries coming out of the tub or shower? yes. at home? at home. if the faxing juror was correct, the panel had directly violated the judge s instructions to consider only what they had heard in court. the allegation was jury misconduct, a serious matter. attorney mark godsey runs the ohio innocence project. he saw the juror letter as a way to persuade the judge to grant ryan a new trial. it s unusual for a juror to come forward and say the jurors had violated the rules and performed experiments and brought that into the deliberations. the judge began reviewing affidavits from the jurors about just what went on during the deliberations. in one of those sworn statements, a juror said of those taboo home experiments, the times to air dry influenced my decision. jurors are not supposed to go home and do experiments.
glass and you re talking through one of those phone devices. mm-hmm. that s kind of a hard thing to take right there. it was. it was hard but so sweet to see him. a poignant reunion, father and son. and a father who completely believes in his son s innocence and would will anything to help. if there s any avenue to take, you have to take it. it s my son. you have to take it. your son didn t do it. sarah widmer died for reasons unknown. yes. give yourself a round of applause. beyond ryan s family and close friends standing behind him, it was a case that had galvanized a personal army. there were free ryan widmer t-shirts and wrist bands. he was getting a lot of support including an anonymous donor said to contribute $60,000. a stranger. yes. even the prosecutors were a bit worried. so much taxpayer money would be spent on a third trial. so many ryan widmer supporters beating very loud drums. a plea deal was floated.
the family would have known. sarah, always outspoken, wasn t the type to suffer in silence. sarah told everybody, she s a chatty person, she had just been with her family for an entire weekend without ryan being there. if there were any problems, believe me, they all would have known it and i probably would have known it because sarah probably would have called and yelled at me about something that my son was doing that wasn t nice to her. but none of that mattered now. the jury had spoken and the defense lawyer still couldn t get over the guilty verdict. it was awful. it was on my shoulders. it was my duty to get a proper verdict and i failed. ryan had become more than a client to him. i absolutely believed him. i had him to my home, i had him around my wife and kids. there was no question in my mind he was innocent. innocent. he did what lawyers often do after losing a case. he wrote a motion to have the judge let ryan go free or order a new trial.
i think i started crying because i felt so bad for him. sarah went back to new york and three weeks later returned to cincinnati as ryan s guest at his mother s thanksgiving dinner. that was the weekend they became intimate. the first time we were together i got pregnant. how did ryan take the news? he was shocked. obviously very bad timing. they kept the pregnancy a secret, as ryan s second trial would take place the following may. i decided, yeah, i was going to have the baby. and he was okay with that. but it was just difficult, because i m thinking, here i am pregnant, and you re facing another trial, and my child could potentially grow up without a father, which [ crying ] now he s in jail. with ryan sentenced to 15 years to life, sarah is raising their son.
that he could go to jail. in the courtroom, sarah s family sat cross room from ryan s. much as they had a previous year, during the couples fairytale wedding. but now, sarah s family support for him have eroded. for ryan s mom that was just another unexpected twist in the situation that seem to get stranger by the minute. her son, on trial for murder. to see my scared baby we. he was scared to death. but the prosecution s message for the jury was blunt. there had been a violent confrontation in the widmer house that night. ryan widmer purposely killed sarah stewart widmer and murdered her by drowning. the prosecutors began with the first moments of the case. ryan s call tonight one one. my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub. i think i was downstairs. i just came up and she was lying face down in the bathtub. on the stand, the emergency dispatcher testified that the voice on the phone that night was giving more details than