and the location of jody s body seemed off to chiofi, way off. she was like 30 to 40 feet away from us to the north. a person falls off the cliff, usually they re going to go south or they re going to go right down. she should have been right down where i got off the ropes. that s where she should have been. someone else was scratching his head about that night for different reasons. it had to do with stephen s behavior while the search was under way. officer walter sirry was surprised stephen was willing to leave the lookout as rescuers were still looking for jody. did he give any indication i don t want to leave, my wife could still be alive down there? no. none at all. sirry says he couldn t believe how willingly stephen scharf got into his patrol car. i tell you, if it was my wife, girlfriend, whoever, they would have had to pry me away from that scene if i was still at the top of the cliffs. but he willingly got into your patrol car. without a word said. stranger
when the officer heard stephen describe how his wife had fallen, he made a mental note. there was no emotion in it. no emotion at all. like he was reading a script. did it occur to you, well, maybe he s in shock? no. i ve seen people who have lost loved ones, and i ve never seen anybody act that way. but it was a particular moment later inside the station house that really caught the officer s attention. he asked if he could get a drink from the water fountain. he was looking like over his shoulder at me and splashing water up into his face and then like rubbing his eyes to make it look like he was crying. you thought he was faking tears? absolutely. absolutely. a death scene where the pieces didn t connect. a husband who appeared nonchalant. from a cop s point of view things were adding up and not in stephen s favor. not just one thing. it was the totality of the
it back in the garage. he put in the bag with the picnic items. it was just convenient. a convenient excuse for having that hammer. detectives asked if they could check out the drawer and the rest of stephen s house that night. he agreed. but as it turned out, something potentially far more telling was happening away from the action. and i said, look, mr. scharf, i m your local police department. ted ehrenberg was a local officer told to keep an eye on stephen scharf that night as detectives combed through his house. the officer says he began talking to stephen about what had happened to jody when stephen interrupted him. he finally looks at me and he goes, you don t believe me. and then the officer says scharf said something that almost knocked him off his feet. i said i believe an accident occurred. and i said, was it an accident? and he put his head down and he said, no. ehrenberg believed that was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other
i got down on my stomach, i stuck my head over, and i just i yelled.st jody. 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 interstate parkway police station. lieutenant walter sirry was on duty. this will he came to that door it was a very quiet night. and all hell broke loose. the frantic man was telling them a woman had fallen from the lookout above and that her husband was waiting for help. the police called in michael chiofi, an experienced climber. i was there as a rescue mission. w i thought she was alive. he began to lower himself off the side of the cliff where the woman s husband said she had fallen. about ten feet down he caught sight of a ledge. minute i grot to that ledge i observed the purse.i i think it was two credit cards. on a ledge ten feet down. right.
but it was what he didn t see that confused him. there was no sign that the woman s body had also hit that ledge or any part of the cliffs. nothing. no blood, no hair, no clothing. no fibers. no skin. by that point officer walter sirry had arrived at the lookout. since there was nothing the husband could do to help in the rescue, sirry was told to get him out of the way and drove him back down to police headquarters. on the way stephen recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. we were walking and she said for me to go back to the car and get the blanket. and she slipped and i didn t see her anymore. as sirry and the man arrived at the station, rescuer chiofi had made it to the base of the cliff, more than 100 feet below the top. he expected to find a wounded woman there, but he didn t. i said she s not here. i thought maybe this is a hoax, maybe she never really went off the cliff.