what did you do? i got down on my stomach and stuck my head over and i just yelled. jody! talk to me. i just yelled down there. but no response. he grabbed a flashlight and flagged down a motorist who came here to the palisades parkway police station. the lieutenant walter seary was on duty. until he came through the door, it was quiet. then all hell broke loose. a woman had fallen from the lookout above and her husband was waiting for help. the police called in michael chiafi. an experienced climber. i was there as a rescue mission. i thought she was alive. he began to lower himself off the cliff where the woman had fallen. he caught sight of the ledge. i saw the purse.
but i i m innocent. had the jury gotten that same message when they walked into the deliberating room for the first time, some jurors 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. here s what they came to believe. that jody was likely drunk and her husband knew it. if that was the case, why would he let her get so close to the edge of a cliff? as the 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. on the charge of murder of jody ann scharf your verdict is guilty.
palisades? 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 they have paid a high price for something he didn t do. we visited through a slate of glass. our daughter is 2 and a half and 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. 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. wish we had gone to the comedy club.
was sitting at police station. do you remember? how is she? why isn t she calling back? that is when the officer walked in the room and broke the news. jody was gone. i don t remember who came in and told me. what was your reaction? denial. 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.
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 recordkeeper 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 and jody s open marriage. but what really rankled the defense, what had torn at the heart of stephen scharf was the testimony of his son jonathan. i remember her showing me her bruises. he 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