ryan s mom made headlines when she was stopped for drunk driving. she had pleaded not guilty to the driving under the influence charge. but police say they found two open bottles of vodka in her car. she broke down, hospitalized. a terrible toll on her. i lived with it. many times, all three of us are together and you can just feel her going deeper and deeper into this. but it seemed for every person that came out to support ryan widmer, there were those who believed just as strongly on the other side that he had deliberately drowned his wife. one of those people would soon change everything. ten days after the juror deadlock, a phone rang in the prosecutors office. it was a woman with a hand grenade of a story. someone has come forward and said, this guy confessed to me. we want to find out more what she has to say and what she knows about this. the prosecutors investigate and came away convinced they had the long missing pieces to the
the jury was being told that ryan widmer s story didn t gibe with what he had told officers. that raised a question for the jury. is it possible that this young woman who drowned had never been in the tub in the first place? the bottom line is there would have been water everywhere. if there wasn t, it was cleaned up. if there was a cleanup, then there was something to hide. that was her murder. an expert witness for the prosecution spoke to the issue of whether a person can actually fall asleep in a bathtub and drown in a bathtub. her testimony was no, that can t happen. it would be virtually impossible for somebody without the influence of drugs or alcohol or something external to fall asleep and not wake up. so first, the sensation of water on your face would wake you up. two would be the gag reflex, water entering your airway, just choking. three, if for some reason, that
i would never have hurt her. i started crying because i just felt so bad for him. there s just no chance he had anything to do with it. three trials, three juries. we re scared that the truth may not come out. reporter: sometimes the shades are drawn early in a marriage even for a young couple so in love like newlyweds sarah reporter: sometimes the shades are drawn early in a marriage even for a young couple so in love like newlyweds sarah and ryan. everything in life was still fresh. at home on your average monday night. after his workday as a sports planner, ryan says he plopped down on the sofa, on an august night to chill with the bengals preseason opener against green bay. sarah, he says, went upstairs to draw a bath in the master. she liked her calming baths. the young dental hygienist had been tormented with more headaches that afternoon. the young couple in the suburban cincinnati home that evening had been married just under four months.
filed his motion, his fax machine started humming. it was a letter from a juror. he was having problems living with himself. he said it was a moral dilemma to let it go without bringing it to somebody s attention. the juror claimed there had been forbidden monkey business during deliberations, over nothing less than the biggest issue in the trial. damp head, dry body. he said that two or three of 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
i expected something to be wet. i expected there to be water on the floor. things were not adding up. something was screaming to me, something s bad, wrong. could this death have been deliberate? she was murdered. i love sarah. i would never have hurt her. i started crying because i just felt so bad for him. there s just no chance he had anything to do with it. three trials, three juries. we re scared that the truth may not come out. the bathtub mystery. hello and welcome to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. a young couple that appeared to be deeply in love. but less than four months after tying the knot sarah mysteriously drowned in their bathtub. ryan claimed it was an accident, but to investigators his story just did not add up. was this a tragic mishap, or was something more sinister at play?