body. reporter: why would steven have killed his wife? the biggest reason the prosecutor argued was that steven did not want to divorce. he didn t want to custody fight. and he didn t want to split assets. and there was yet another motive for steven said the prosecutor. a potential pay out. u.s. life insurance company. reporter: insurance representative testified about a $500,000 policy. taken out against jodi months before her death. payable to a primary beneficiary. tell us the policy owner? steven. she was simply worth more dead than alive. her friend testified that she feared steven might do something violent. if she pushed for that divorce. even so, she was determined to get away from her husband. she was going to have the divorce papers served.
and sometimes they call and hang up on her. reporter: in fact. she served her husband divorce papers on september 8. 1992. less than two weeks later she was dead. at the base of the cliff. the timing made him eager to talk to the widower. there was a hit down. he s consented to talk. yes. reporter: two days after his wife s death. steven was freely answering detectives questions. yes he told them. he and his wife were talking divorce. as they had sometimes done during their marriage. and it was true. there were other women. he told us they had an open marriage and seeing different people. he had been with like 60 women. she was okay with it according to him? yes. he told detectives they had become unhappy with the free love lifestyle.
so you didn t think this was a horrible accident? no. reporter: there wasn t any smoking gun really. just something dark he thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after the death. he didn t react like somebody who just lost his wife should have reacted. reporter: and so the detective moved his investigation from the physical evidence to the less tangible clues. he quickly learned from friends that this was a couple not in love but in crisis. the subject wasn t wine and roses on the cliffs. it was divorce. she was going to go through with it. absolutely. reporter: her long time friend told detectives that she had been determined to take her ten year-old son, and leave her husband. she was convinced steven had been cheating on her. she couldn t prove it. but women called the house.
latest legal part in an ongoing legal spat. the prosecutor paints a picture of someone who is furious about this. 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. though it is true steven sharp did not want a divorce. he says he wanted to give the marriage another chance. and as for that former girlfriend, she recanted steven s statement just before the death. just give me until the end of september and a lot of the stress will be gone. the defense attorney says that was steven s 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
welcome back to at a time line extra. we continue now with over the edge. once again. steven is not guilty! reporter: 18 years after the death ov his first woif, more than a decade after the investigation first stalled. steven was being called a killer. but his defense attorney argued there was no new evidence in the case. in new eyewitnesss. only new opinions. we re talking about the same old facts. and circumstances. reporter: he said the state was hope lg to win a murder conviction by painting his client as a terrible husband. that it couldn t prove he was a killer in 1992, and it couldn t prove it today. my client has been wrongfully