Page 6 - Jody Sharp News Today

>> do you remember what is going through your mind at that point? >> how badly is she hurt, where is she, why isnt she calling back to me. >> and thats when an officer broke the news, jody was gone about that. >> i dont even remember who 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 looks like he was crying. >> you...

>> 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 that is exactly what police who were there the nice of jodys dead wanted to know, too. >> right away i got a feeling that it was something definitely wrong. >> it nagged at rescuer michael. why jodys purse on a...

Stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, but they had just spent hours grilling the man. >> we werent getting that feeling that a re-interview at that point would have done gh . anything. >> but they still believed they could find solid evidence to implicate steven sharp, but they didnt. >> 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. steven sharp moved on too. 14 years after hi...

>> not just one thing, it was like the totality of the circumstances. everything -- every little thing was clicking in my mind and saying to myself, you know, this sb isnt right. >> 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 steven 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 b...

And sometimes they would call and hang up on her. >> in fact he learned gentlemengentlemejody had served her husband divorce papers and less than two weeks later she was dead. the timing made him even more eager to talk to the widower sharp. >> there was a hit-down with mr. sharp. >> yes. >> two days after his wifes death, steven sharp was freely answering detectives questions. yes, he told them, he and his wife were talking divorce as they had sometimes done during their tell pet chew us marria...

I did not. i didnt hurt jody. i didnt push her. i didnt cause her death. i didnt kill my wife. >> we talked to steven scharf at the bergen koubtter geagain ber jail. he and his wife say they paid a high price for something he didnt do. >> our daughter is 2 1/2 and still never been held by her father. because we dont have contact visits. >> its not just a tragedy for jody, its a tranlg dgedy for j. its a tragedy for my wife, its a tragedy for my daughter. and for myself. >> still he decided not t...

Strange steven stoaid to her on the beach. >> he was under a lot of stress and the stress would be resolved by the end of september. >> two weeks later, jody sharp was dead. terry now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful like. >> like, oh, no, the end of september and then the light bulb went off immediately. >> it open the before on for maryann. in perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecutions case, she told the jury that when she heard her friend was gone, she immediately rememb...

The biggest reason the prosecutor argued was that steven 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 steven said the prosecutor. a potential payout. >> usa life insurance company. >> an insurance representative testified about a $500,000 policy taken out against jody sharp months before her death. payable to a primary beneficiary. >> can you tell us the policy owner? >> steven f. sharp. >> jody sharp was...

Cool and collected in the back of a police car. >> i didnt see any emotion from him at all. >> 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 boden told ju...

>> you didnt think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> 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. >> 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 wa...