Transcripts For MSNBCW Dateline Extra 20181225

Hello and welcome to dateline extra. Im craig melvin. When police got word that someone had fallen off a cliff, they werent surprised. The place was known to be dangerous. But even though b couldnt gues that it would take almost 20 years to find out what really happened to a woman out on an evening hike with her husband. Heres Chris Jansing. Every couple has it. A shared song. A favorite movie. Or maybe a special place. Stephen schaaf says for him and his wife jodi this was it. Two rocks forming a lovers chair on the edge of a cliff. That was our spot. Wed bring our hibachi, a couple of lawn chairs, a cooler, and shed bring her work from graduate school. Theyd been escaping to this magical place for years. 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 couldnt 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 jonathan in 1983. And how would you describe jodi as a mom . She was really devoted. Life was good. And even as the years went by, even with the demands of work and family, stephen says he and jodi still made time for each other. Like that last summer sunday in september of 1992. Stephen says it was supposed to be a date night. It wasnt no idea that that would be the most critical day in our life, our marriage. It was a day like any other day . Yes. Here was the plan. Husband and wife would drive into manhattan and go to a comedy club, a lighthearted night on the town. But they made a detour here to the palisades, to their spot. Stephen remembers pulling up to the scenic s lookout, sittin in the car with jodi, sharing a wine cooler. There were other people there sitting in their cars, and we walked up,he looked over the sp where the binoculars are, and then walked up, you know, to this sort of open view. He says they then turned and took ahe narrow wellworn path those rocks. They sat there as the night fell around them. Heou with his back against the rock, holding her as she sat directly in front of him. At some point something goes terribly wrong. Yes. He says he stood up intending to go back to the car to get wine and the blanket. For whatever reason jodi 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, and stumbling forward. Jodi had gone off the cliff. I didnt know how bad things were, but i was stunned. What did you do . I got down on my stomach, i stuck my head over, and i just yelled. Jodi. Jodi, 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 p police station. Lieutenant walter seary was on duty. This will he came to that doorwi it was a very quiet nigh. 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. Police called in michael chiofi, an experienced climber. I was there as a rescue mission. I thought she was alive. He began to lower himself off the side of the cliff where the womans 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 think it was two credit cards. On a ledge ten feet down. Right. But it was what he didnt see that confused him. There was no sign that the womans body had also hit that ledge a or any part of the clif. Nothing. No blood, no hair, no clothing. No fibers. No skin. By that point officer walter seary hadic arrived at the lookout. Since there was nothing the husband could do towa help in t rescue, seary was told to get him out of the way and drove him back down to police headquarters. On the way stephen recounted the awful momentph 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 didnt see her anymore. As seary and the man arrived at the station, rescuer chofi 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 didnt. Te i said shes not here. I thought maybe this is a hoax, maybe she never really went off the cliff. Reporter he and another rescuer began to walk along the base, pointing their flashlights north. Finally, about 30 feet away, the beams landed on something white. It was jodi, lying motionless next to a tree. There was a lot of blood on that tree. And the blood was actually draining down the tree. Thats where the severe impact took. Thats whereer she really jodi sharp had not survived the fall. To chiofi it was clear. She had slammed into that tree. Asd they began to move the bod he noticed something else. She had an odor of an alcoholic beverage. That emanated from her body. So when you smelled that, did you think, well, maybe she had had too much to drink and fell . That entered my mind, yes. D, at that moment stephen sha was sitting in a room at the police station, waiting for someone to tell him what had happened to his wife. Do you remember whats going through your mindmb at that poi . How badly is she hurt . Where is she . Why isnt she calling back to me . And thats when an officer walked into the room and broke the news to stephen. Jodi was gone. I dont even remember who came in and told me. And what was your reaction . T denial. It was, you know, how could this 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. Ur when over the edge continues. When over the edge continues today is the day youre going to get motivated. Get stronger. Get closer. Start listening today to the Worlds Largest selection of audiobooks on audible. And now, get more. For just 14. 95 a month, youll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two Audible Originals exclusive titles you cant find anywhere else. If you dont like a book, you can exchange it any time, no questions asked. 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Entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. Tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms, or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio®. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®. Entyvio®. Relief and remission within reach. Theres no place likargh e im trying. Yippiekiyay. Mom. Welcome back to dateline extra. It started out as a romantic date for a new jersey couple. But it ended in tragedy. Jody and Stephen Scharf hiked to a favorite spot along the palisades cliffs to take in the view. But a short while later jody fell over the edge and questions about what really happened that night began to mount. Heres Chris Jansing. It was the worst night of his life, and now Stephen Scharf, in the Early Morning hours of september 21st, 1992, had to tell his 10yearold son, jonathan, his mother was dead. I said come on, jonathan, we need to take a walk. And i told him. And he immediately burst into tears. And i cried. I cried like a baby. I wasnt ashamed. He remembers his distraught sons reaction but little else from those dark hours. Were you sleeping . Were you eating . Drinking. You were drinking. I lost my wife. My son lost his mom. There was plenty of sympathy among family and friends to be sure. For the man newly widowed with a small child to raise on his own. His wife had died in a freak accident, off a cliff of all places. How could that happen . And thats exactly what police who were there the night of jodys death wanted to know too. Right away i got the feeling there was something definitely wrong. It nagged at rescuer michael chiofi. Why was jodys purse on a ledge just feet below where her husband said shed fallen . Where is she . She should be here. Or part of her should be here. Thats the first thing that came to you. Either she should be here or the pocketbook should be down with her. And it wasnt fitting. Another thought dawned on him. If jody had tumbled, why hadnt she hit the side of the cliffs . There was no blood or hair anywhere on the rocks. And the location of jodys 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 theyre going to go south or theyre going to go right down. She should have been right down where i got off the ropes. Thats where she should have been. 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 walter sirry 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 still be alive down there . No. None at all. Sirry says he couldnt 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 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 at all. Like he was reading a script. Did it occur to you, well, maybe hes in shock . No. Ive seen people who have lost loved ones, and ive never seen anybody act that way. But 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 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 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 the totality of the circumstances. Everything every little thing was clicking in my mind, im saying to myself, this isnt right. Somethings 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 jodys fall was anything but an accident. A few months later the ruling was in. The Bergen County 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 . Coming up so you didnt 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. Theyve reached the top of the pole by that point. When over the edge continues. Welcome back to dateline extra. Police began to question Stephen Scharfs behavior after his wife fell from the edge of a cliff. To them he just didnt seem live a grieving husband. But did their suspicions amount to anything more than a hunch . Here again is Chris Jansing. 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 Lineham something sinister had just happened. So you didnt think this was a horrible accident . No. There wasnt any smoking gun really. Just something dark lineham thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jodys death. He did not react like somebody who just lost his wife should have reacted. And so the detective moved his investigation 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. Jodys longtime friend marianne hilferty told detectives 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. And sometimes theyd call and hang up on her. In fact, lineham learned jody had served her husband divorce papers on september 8th, 1992. Less than two weeks later she was dead at the base of the palisades. The timing made him even more eager to talk to the widower scharf. Theres a sitdown with mr. Scharf. Hes consented to talk, right . Yes. Two days after his wifes death Stephen Scharf 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. And it was true. There were other women. He told us they had an open marriage, they were seeing different people. He actually said he had been with like 50 to 60 women. She was okay with it, according to him . According to him, yes. But he told detectives he and jody had become unhappy with their free love lifestyle. 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 werent buying the story for another reason. They had found something suspicious inside scharfs car. A bag filled with items youd 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 didnt youd 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 drawer in his kitchen with the hammer and he just forgot to put 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 stephens 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, im your local police department. Ted errenberg 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 dont 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. Errenberg 3w4r50e6believed ta stunning confession. He ran to tell the other detectives, including lineham. But they had just spent hours grilling the man. We werent getting that feeling, that a reinterview at that point would have done anything. The detectives still believed they could find solid evidence to implicate Stephen Scharf, but they didnt. We took it as far as we could go. It hadnt been the cause of death at that time was listed as undetermined. So officially it wasnt a homicide. In time the detectives moved on to other cases. Stephen scharf moved on too. 14 years after his wifes death he remarried. Tina scharf says hes been a loving, ideal husband. It was like we were two puzzle pieces made for each other where each of us complemented and completed the other person. But even in this 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. Bergen county had a new prosecutor, and he was eager to revisit old case files. Among them an unexplained death here on the cliffs of the palisades so many years ago. The death of jody scharf. It was this renewed push since 2002 to look into the cold cases. Kibat marcos covered the trial for the record newspaper in new jersey. On one hand, he says, it didnt seem the prosecutor had any reason to pursue the cold case. In terms of hard evidence, it had absolutely nothing new. But the prosecutor did have someone new. A famous name to join the investigation into jody scharfs death. Dr. Michael badden, 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 very cold case. 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 wouldnt tell me what it was for. I had no idea what this was about. I mean, it didnt 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. Im here for my mother. Stephen and jody scharfs only son has some dark secrets to share. Did you see that abuse . I did. When over the edge continues. Ver the edge continues. Hello. Im dara brown. Heres whats happening. President trump is spending christmas in washington during this Government Shutdown tweeting i am all alone, poor me, in the white house waiting for the democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed border security. Rescuers continue their search for survivors of that tsunami that struck in indonesia. More than 370 people were killed and at least 1,400 others were hurt when the waves crashes ashore without warning on saturday. Thats whats happening. Now back to dateline. Welcome back to dateline extra. Years after jody scharf fell to her death a new prosecutor reopened the case and brought in a famous forensic pathologist to reexamine the evidence. What would he uncover . Here again is Chris Jansing. Whats stuck in his mind in every murder trial time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. 16 years 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. 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. The state marshalled some familiar facts to tell its story, starting with the crime scene, where the prosecutor said the cliffs showed no sign of an accidental tumble. No debris, no clothing, no blood, no hair, no tissue. And then there was the husband himself. Cool and collected in the back of a police car. I didnt see any emotion from him at all, sir. Who later confessed, the prosecutor said, to killing his wife. And then i said, it was an accident . And he said, no. But those facts were not where the case ended. The prosecutor argued that they simply set the stage for the real case, a story told by the victims friends, family, and most importantly by a star witness. My opinion is that the manner of death is homicide. Dr. Michael baden, the famous forensic pathologist, told jurors the crime scene spoke of a murder, not an accident. If a person falls accidentally, the individual will be, you know, within a couple of feet of the base of the building. And that didnt happen in the case of jody scharf. Her body landed 50 feet out from the top of the cliff and 30 feet to the north. She had to have been propelled from that point. Jody had to have been thrown or pushed to her death, he said, and likely from another spot entirely on those cliffs. He wasnt the only expert who saw it that way. The head and chest injuries are not consistent with someone that tumbles down the cliff face. Reporter dr. Marianne clayton was the Bergen County medical examiner who first ruled the circumstances of jodys death could not be determined. Now on second look she said the victims wounds, or lack of them, told her something different, something vital. If jody had tumbled innocently down the palisades, she would have had broken bones everywhere. She did not. There were no visible injuries on the back of mrs. Scharfs body. But why would stephen have killed his wife . The biggest reason, the prosecutor argued, was that stephen did not want a divorce. He didnt want a custody fight. And he didnt want to split assets with jody. And there was yet another motive for stephen, said the prosecutor. A potential payout. Usaa Life Insurance company. An insurance representative testified about a 500,000 policy taken out against jody scharf months before her death, payable to a primary beneficiary. Can you tell us the policy owner . Stephen f. Scharf. Jody scharf was simply worth more dead than alive. Her friend marian hilferty testified jody feared stephen might do something violent if she pushed for that divorce. Even so, marian said, jody was determined to get away from her husband. She was going to have divorce papers served on stephen, and she was very afraid of it. Yet was stephen violent enough to kill his wife . An unlikely but powerful witness was about to testify against Stephen Scharf. Im here for my mother. His own son took the stand against him. Now a businessman, Jonathan Scharf painted his father as an angry, violent man who terrorized his mother. Did you see that abuse . I did. Jonathan scharf said he realized his father had likely killed his mother only after that arrest in 2008. This videotaped interview shows him recalling the dark past for the first time to police. She got coffee thrown at her a lot. Now in court he had even more to tell about his childhood. Like the afternoon he sat cowering in the back seat of a car watching his mother suffer. My mom was driving, and my dad just hitting her with the bottom of his fist. And i was begging him to stop doing it. He also remembered the last day of his mothers life. He was 10 and said his mother told his father that she didnt want to go out with him alone. She said, if i wanted to go out with you, i wouldnt be divorcing you. But where was the proof that stephen had planned to kill jody that night . Well, there was the hammer in the picnic bag. But there was also testimony from this woman, one of stephens old girlfriends. I even mentioned to my girlfriend that it was a perfect relationship. Terry scofield had been dating stephen months before jody scharfs death. Did mr. Scharf tell you whether or not he was married . Actually, he said he was not married. And she remembered something strange stephen said to her on the beach over that labor day weekend. He was under a lot of stress, and the stress would be resolved by the end of september. Two weeks later jody scharf was dead. Terry now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful light. I was like oh, no, the end of september, and then the light bulb went off immediately. It also went off for marian hilferty. In perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecutions case, hilferty told the jury that when she heard her friend was gone she immediately remembered something jody said just weeks earlier. She said that during this conversation i have with him if anything happens to me youll know who did it. She said, youll know it was him. The prosecutors position was clear. A husband with a motive. The perfect setting. The violent intent to kill his wife. Or was there another way of look at that couple perched high on those cliffs on a summer night . Stephens new wife says the prosecution has it all wrong. My husband is not capable. That is not the man he is. My husband is sweet, kind, loving, considerate. The prosecutor the defense was ready to show how Stephen Scharf, far from villain, was the real victim in this story. Coming up they destroyed the crime scene area. New questions about the evidence and was there another reason why a son might implicate his dad . Who does the money go to . It goes to me. When over the edge continues. Continues. Welcome back to dateline extra. We continue now with over the edge. Once again, Chris Jansing. Stephen scharf is not guilty 18 years after the death of his first wife, more than a decade after the investigation first stalled, Stephen Scharf was being called a killer. But his defense attorney, edward linkus, argued there was no new evidence in this case, no new eyewitnesses, only new opinions. Im talking about the same old facts and circumstances. Valinkas said the state was hoping to win a murder conviction by painting his client as a terrible husband, that it couldnt prove he was a killer in 1992 and it couldnt prove it today. My client, Stephen Scharf, has been wrongfully charged with her death. And one reason the prosecutor couldnt prove murder had to do with slop yip police work, the defense attorney said, suggesting it had been like keystone cops on the palisades that fatal night. You never photographed the body before you moved it, did you . No, sir. Why didnt they take photographs . They destroyed the crime scene area. They didnt even bother to question potential eyewitnesses, he said. Instead, they cleared visitors from the lookout. There might have been someone who saw something or heard something. There might have been. Theres a possibility that might have happened. And if police were so suspicious of his client two nights later, the defense said, why didnt they videotape their interview with him . That way jurors could have judged Stephen Scharfs supposedly odd demeanor for themselves. Why didnt you . Its not an interrogation. He wasnt in custody. I dont know. The defense attorney also argued that police misinterpreted what his client said in his home just hours later. My client never said this wasnt an accident. And as for that hammer police thought was a weapon the hammer was examined by the forensic experts. There was nothing found on that hammer. And the defense attorney pressed the medical examiner on her flipflop. Undetermined manner of death in 93, now it was a homicide . Really . Are you trying to say that youre learning from your mistakes on this case . You may call them mistakes, sir. I did the best i could in 1992 documenting what i had observed with mrs. Scharf. The medical examiner was helpful to the defense in one critical way, though. She determined that jody had been drunk the night she fell off the cliffs. Jody had a blood alcohol level of. 12. That was over the legal limit. Would be equivalent to approximately four average sized drinks, wine or beer, Something Like that. A drunken slip and fall, argued the defense. To back that up, the lawyer had his own heavy hitter. Famed forensic pathologist dr. Cyril wecht. Wecht posted a resume of starstudded investigations too, as highprofile as the prosecutions dr. Baden. Only wecht had a totally different take on how jody scharf died. I would call this an accidental death. In wechts version, which he demonstrated with of all things a teddy bear, jody fell off the cliff and on to jagged rocks just below, causing her mortal wounds. Her body then catapulted. And out goes the body and it hurtles into the air. Into the tree canopy, which then carried her through the abyss and into that distant tree. This is what i think happened to explain those injuries of the chest and of the head. But there was another bubble to burst in the prosecutions case, the motive for murder. Stephen scharf wasnt a greedy killer, his attorney said. His client never made a claim on that insurance policy. It was only after the money was turned over to the state, years later, he said, that Stephen Scharf even bothered to collect. Would it throw fuel on the fire not to do it . Well, i know i look guilty because i am guilty, id better not make this claim. Youre damned if you do. Youre damned if you dont. The other alleged motive, divorce, was flimsy as well, he said. Jody and stephen had been talking breakup for years. Those divorce papers just the latest legal salvo in an ongoing marital spat. The prosecutor paints a 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 stephens mysterious statement just before jodys 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 stephens 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. The person on the bottom half in both of those is who . Jody scharf. The Record Keeper of a dating service testified that jodys name was on an application. She even checked off the interests shed like to share with a mate. The attorney offered that as proof of stephen and jodys 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 had painted his father as a brute and possibly a killer. I never hit jody. It made me sick to my stomach. The young man wasnt to be believed, said the lawyer. For one thing, when police interviewed jonathan back in 2008, the young man described his dad as a good guy. He was a, you know, fairly decent, you know, fairly decent parent. It was only after detectives told him his dad had just been arrested that the son turned on his father. She got coffee thrown at her a lot. Before you found out that your dad was arrested, did you lie . Yes. And did you lie more than once . Yes. Why would jonathan turn on his father and lie . The defense lawyer said it was jonathan, not his dad, who was motivated by greed. If Stephen Scharf was convicted, his son would get all that insurance money. Whos the money go to . It goes to me. In the end the lawyer called Stephen Scharfs son a spoiled brat. That sounds like some spoiled kid. Who was not a credible witness. In closing, valinkas insisted this wasnt a murder case, just a sad story about a woman who tumbled drunkenly to her death. This case is an accident, nothing more, nothing less. Soon it would be in the hands of a jury. Coming up it was the light bulb. You couldnt help but think, hmm, thats interesting. The jurors speak. What would they decide . Stephen, did you kill your wife, jody . The verdict. When over the edge continues. S im not picking it up. You pick it up im not picking it up. Ill pick it up theyre clean cuz my hineys clean. Oh yeah im charmin clean. Charmin ultra strong just cleans better. Enjoy the go with charmin. danny after a long day of hard work. You have to do more work . vo automatically sort your expenses and save over 40 hours a month. danny every day youre nearly fried to a crisp, professionally vo you earned it, were here to make sure you get it. Quickbooks. Backing you. The jurys about to decide the fate of Stephen Scharf. Heres Chris Jansing with the conclusion of our story. 18 years after a night that ended in his wifes death off a cliff Stephen Scharf stood accused of murder by the state of new jersey. And through it all one thing he wants you to know is this. He would never have laid a hand on his beloved jody. Never. Stephen, did you kill your wife, jody . I did not hurt jody. I did not. Did you throw her off the palisades . No, i did not. I did not. I didnt hurt jody. I didnt push her. I didnt cause her to get hurt. I didnt 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 theyve paid a high price for something he didnt do. Our daughters 2 1 2 and has still never been held by her father. Because we dont have contact visits. Its not just a tragedy for jody. Its a tragedy for jon. Its a tragedy for my wife. Its a tragedy 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 wifes death was the truth. I wish it didnt happen. I wish wed gone to the comedy club. But i didnt im innocent. But had the jury gotten that same message . When they walked into that deliberating room for the first time, some jurors in fact planned to vote not guilty. There wasnt enough evidence for me. Thats what it was. Others were thinking guilty. It was several things. It was no one thing that made up my mind. Jurors went back and forth over the evidence. And heres what they came to believe. That jody was likely drunk and that her husband knew it. And 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. And the charge of murder of jody ann scharf, the verdict is . Guilty. Guilty. Later, jurors said what united them was the testimony of jodys friend, telling them that jody was terrified of her husband. That possibly she was telling everyone if something happens to me its my husband. And it was another woman in stephens life who also swayed the jury. Terry scofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jodys death. That his stress would soon be over. That was something that pushed me towards what we decided in the end. It was the light bulb. To them it wasnt jody who slipped but her husband, with that menacing statement. They believed it wasnt just a fall from the cliffs, it was a coldblooded execution. Stephen scharf was sentenced to life in prison. He says the jurors condemned him not on the facts but for his and jodys tumultuous open marriage. So you think this was a moral judgment on the part of jurors . Yes. And i suppose some people would say, well, he was punished for his moral weakness. But this is a murder trial. But for rescuer michael chiofi its a fitting end to a story thats haunted him since that night on the palisades. This has never left me. Its been years. I went back there myself without people knowing it several times because it bothered me. Something was wrong. For Close Friends like marian hilferty the verdict does not remove the sting of the loss. Im angry that he took the life of a beautiful person. Thats what bothers me the most. That he would do that. And think that he was going to get away with it. He wanted the insurance money. He wanted his son. Hed have the house. Hed have whatever he wanted. And shed be out of the way. Now, i think that was sad. Thats all for this edition of dateline extra. Im craig melvin. Thanks for watching. That was just solving the problem. A husband vanishes without a trace. He left a young daughter behind