The binoculars were and walked up to this open view. Reporter he says they then turned and took a narrow, well worn path to the rocks. They sat there as the night fell around them. He with his back against the rocks, holding her as she sat directly in front of him. At some point, something goes terribly wrong. Yes. Reporter he says he stood up, intending to go back to the car to get wine and a blanket. For whatever reason, jody stood up, too. The edge of the rock was at her feet. What was your last glimpse of your wife . Just standing up and, you know, stumbling forward. Reporter jody had gone off the cliff. I didnt know how bad things were, but i was stunned. Reporter what did you do . I got down on my stomach. I stuck my head over and i just yelled. Jody, jody, talk to me. I just yelled down there. Reporter but no response. He grabbed a flashlight and flagged down a motorist who came here to the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police station. Lieutenant walter sery was on duty. Until he was there it was a quiet night and then all hell broke loose. Reporter the frantic man told them a woman fell from the lookout and that her husband was waiting for help. The Police Called in michael chiefy, an experienced climber. I was there as a rescue mission. I thought she was alive. Reporter he began to lower himself off the side of the cliff where the womans husband said shed fallen. Ten feet down he caught sight of a ledge. I observed a purse, two credit cards. Reporter on a ledge ten feet down . Right. Reporter it was what he didnt see that confused him. There was no sign that the womans body had also hit that ledge or any part of the cliff. Nothing. No blood, no hair, clothing, fibers, skin. Reporter by that point, officer walter sery had arrived at the lookout. Since there was nothing the husband could do to help in the rescue, sery 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. She slipped and i didnt e see her anymore. Reporter as sery and the man arrived at the station, the rescuer made it to the base of the cliff. More than 100 feet from the top. He expected to find a woman. I said, maybe this is a hoax. Maybe she never went over the cliff. Reporter he and a rescuer began to walk along the base. Finally, 30 feet away the beams landed on something white. It was jody lying motionless next to a tree. There was a lot of blood on the tree. The blood was draining down the tree. Thats where severe impact took. Thats where she really reporter jody scharf had not survived the fall. It was clear she had slammed into that tree. As he began to move the body he noticed something else. She had the odor of alcoholic beverage that emanated from her body. Reporter when you smelled that did you think maybe she had too much to drink and fell . That entered my mind, yes. Reporter at that moment, Stephen Scharf was sitting in a room at the police station, waiting for someone to tell him what happened to his wife. Do you remember whats going through your mind at that point . How badly is she hurt . Where is she . Why isnt she calling back to me. Reporter thats when an officer walked in and broke the news. Jody was gone. I dont remember who told me. Reporter what was your reaction . Denial. How could this happen . Reporter that question would haunt him and many others. 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. Reporter you thought he was faking tears . Absolutely. Reporter curious behavior puts a husband under the microscope. 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His wife had died in a freak accident, off a cliff of all places. How could that happen . Thats exactly what police who were there the night of jodys death wanted to know, too. Right away, i got a feeling that there was something definitely wrong. Reporter it nagged at the rescuer. Why was jodys purse on the ledge just feet below where her husband said shed fallen. Where is she . She should be here or part of her should be here. Reporter thats the first thing that came to you . Either she should be here or the pocketbook should be down with her. It wasnt fitting. Reporter another thought dawned on him. If jody had tumbled, why hadnt she hit the side of the cliff. There was no blood or hair anywhere on the rocks. And the location of jodys body seemed off way off. She was 30 to 40 feet away from us to the north. A person falls off the cliff, usually they go south or right down. Should have been right down where i got off the ropes. Thats where she should have been. Reporter someone else was scratching his head about that night for different reasons. It had to do with stephens behavior while the search was under way. Officer sery was surprised stephen was willing to leave the lookout as rescuers were still looking for jody. Did he give any indication, i dont want to leave, my wife could be alive down there . Not at all. Reporter sery said he couldnt believe how willingly scharf got into the car. If it was my wife, girlfriend, whoever they would have had to pry me away from the scene. Reporter he willingly got into the patrol car . Without a word said. Reporter stranger still was how calm the husband seemed. When the officer heard stephen describe how his wife had fallen he made a mental note. There was no emotion in it. No emotion. Like he was reading a script. Reporter did it occur to you that he was maybe in shock . No. I have seen people who lost loved ones. I have never seen anybody act that way. Reporter it was a particular moment later, inside the station house that really caught the officers attention. He asked if he could get a drink from the water fountain. He was looking over his shoulder at me, splashing water into his face and rubbing his eyes to make it look like he was crying. Reporter you thought he was faking tears . Absolutely. Absolutely. Reporter a death scene where the pieces didnt connect. A husband who appeared nonchalant. From a cops point of view things were adding up and not in stephens favor. Not just one thing. It was like the totality of the circumstances. Everything every little thing was clicking in my mind. Im saying to myself, you know, this isnt right. Somethings wrong here. Reporter 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 was really nothing to indicate that jodys fall was anything but an accident. A few months later, the ruling was in. The medical examiner concluded the manner of jody scharfs death could not be determined. An accident was as likely as anything else. Case closed. Or was it . So you didnt think this was a horrible accident . No. Reporter the suspicions grow. Was there a weapon at this romantic rendezvous . You have wine, cheese, crackers and a claw hammer. Red flags are going off, they reached the top of the pole at that point. If you told me a year ago where id be right now. Aah . I would have said you were crazy. But so began the year of me. I discovered the true meaning of paperless discounts. And the indescribable rush of saving drivers an average of 620. Why does fear feel so good . I fell in love three times once with a woman, once with a country, and finally. With myself. So, do you have anything to declare or not . Isnt that what im doing . 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But, if we dont make this move were going to have changes in our environment, and have a negative impact to hawaiis economy. Verizon provided us a solution using Smart Sensors on their network that lets us collect near Real Time Data on our power grid. colton this technology is helping us integrate rooftop solar, which is a very important element of getting us to our Renewable Energy goals. shelee if we can create our own energy, we can take care of this beautiful place that i grew up in. Reporter jodys death on these cliffs had been a horrible accident. Her husband said so. And the medical examiner wasnt arguing with him. But detectives have a kind of sixth sense about cases. It was telling james linum something sinister had just happened. So you didnt think this was a horrible accident . No. Reporter there wasnt any smoking gun really. Just something dark he thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jodys death. E he didnt react like somebody who had just lost his wife should have reacted. Reporter so the detective moved from the physical evidence to the less tangible clues. He quickly learned from jodys friends that this was a couple not in love, but in crisis. The subject wasnt wine and roses on those cliffs. It was divorce. She was going to go through with it, yes. Absolutely. Reporter jodys longtime friend told detectives that jody had been determined to take her 10yearold son jonathan and leave her husband. She was convinced stephen had been cheating on her. She couldnt prove anything, but women called the house. Sometimes theyd call and hang up on her. Reporter in fact, linum learned jody had served her husband divorce papers on september 8, 1992. Less than two weeks later, she was dead at the base of the palisades. The timing made him more eager to talk to the widower scharf. There was a sitdown with mr. Scharf. Hes consented to talk, right . Yes. Reporter two days after his wifes death, stephen was freely answering detectives questions. Yes, he told them. He and his wife were talking divorce as they had sometimes done during their tempestuous marriage. It was true. There were other women. He said there was an open marriage. He said he had been with 50 to 60 women. Reporter she was okay with it, according to him. According to him, yeah. Reporter he told detectives she and jody had become unhappy with the free love lifestyle so they came to this romantic, treacherous spot to recommit to one another. To kiss and make up. The spot where they went is not a spot you go to reconcile with anybody. Reporter detectives werent buying the story for another reason. They found something suspicious inside the car. A bag filled with items you would expect for a romantic picnic and one you would not. A hammer. You have wine, cheese, crackers, opener claw hammer. If red flags were going off, they reached the top of the pole at that point . Reporter did you think it was a murder weapon . I thought that might have been plan a. He didnt use it so he went to plan b. Reporter which he believed was to push or throw jody from the cliff. So detectives asked stephen the obvious. What was a hammer doing in the picnic bag . He said he fixed a draw in the kitchen with the hammer. He just forgot to put it back in the garage. He put it in the bag with the picnic items. It was just convenient. It was a convenient excuse for having the hammer. Reporter detectives asked if they could check out the drawer and the rest of stephens house that night. He agreed. But something potentially far more telling was happening away from the action. I said, look, im your local police department. Reporter ted aaronburg was a local officer told to keep an eye on stephen that night as detectives combed through the house. The officer said he began talking to stephen about what happened to jody when stephen interrupted him. He finally looked at me and he goes, you dont believe me. Reporter then the officer says he said something that almost knocked him off his feet. I said, i believe an accident occurred. I said, was it an accident . He put his head down and he said, no. Reporter aaronburg believes that was a stunning confession. He ran to tell the other detectives, including linum but they had spent hours grilling the man. We werent getting the feeling that a reinterview would have done anything. Reporter the detectives still believed they could find solid evidence to implicate stephen, but they didnt. We took it as far as we could go. The cause of death was listed as undetermined. So officially it wasnt a homicide. Reporter in time, the detectives moved on to other cases. Stephen moved on, too. 14 years after his wifes death he remarried. Tina said hes been a loving, ideal husband. It was like we were two puzzle pieces that were made for each other. Each of us complemented and completed the other person. Reporter even in this the happy, new life he says hes never forgotten about jody. But he might have been surprised to learn that someone else was thinking of her, too, after all these years. The county had a new prosecutor and he was eager to revisit old case files. Among them a death on the cliffs of the palisades so many years ago. The death of jody. There is a renewed push since 2002 to look into the cold cases. Reporter marcos covered the case for the record newspaper in new jersey. On one hand he said it didnt seem the prosecutor had reason to pursue the cold case. In terms of hard evidence there was nothing new. Reporter the prosecutor did have someone new. A famous fame to join the investigation into jodys death. Dr. Michael bodden, a world renowned forensic pathologist who investigated the deaths of john f. Kennedy and john belushi and testified at the trial of o. J. Simpson. He was about to turn up the heat on a cold case. Dr. Bodden reviewed the evidence and determined that it could not have been an accidental fall. Reporter in december of 2008, detectives paid one more visit to stephen. They wouldnt tell me what it was for. I had no idea what this was about. It make sense. Reporter 16 years after that fatal night on the cliff, police were back. And stephen was in for a shock. After all these years you thought it was done. Not until they reached behind and handed me this thing. This arrest warrant. Reporter coming up, the case heads into court with a surprise from the stand. Im here for my mother. Reporter stephen and jodys only son has some dark secrets to share. Did you see the abuse . I did. Come away with me barnabas but i am a simple farmer. My life is here. [telephone ring] ahoyhoy. Alexander graham bell here. No, no, my number is one, you must want two two, i say like my father before. [telephone ring] like my father before. 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Aaagh being in the know is a good thing. Thats why discover will alert you if your Social Security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites. The world is full of different hair. Thats why pantene has the perfect conditioners for everyone. From airlight foam, to nourishing 3 minute miracle, to the moistureinfusing gold series. We give more women great hair days every day. Pantene. What stuck in his mind reporter in every murder trial, time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. 16 years reporter sometimes it hurts a case. Memories fade, evidence is lost, witnesses die. But time can also put evidence in a new light. Such was the case in the trial of Stephen Scharf, accused of killing his wife nearly two decades ago. There is no statute of limitations on murder. Reporter the prosecutor promised the evidence would tell a story as simple as it was brutal. A husband determined to avoid a costly divorce lured his wife to the edge of a cliff and forced her off it. If he has lied he is guilty. R