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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. >> i'm 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 couldn't prove ...

I don't know. >> the defense attorney also argued that police misinterpreted what his client said in his home just hours later. >> my client never said this wasn't 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 flip-flop. undetermined manner of death in '93, now it was a homicide? really? >> are you trying to say that you're learning from your mistakes on this case? >> you may call them mistakes, sir. i did the best i...

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 stephen's mysterious statement just before jody's death. >> just give me to the end of september and everything will be okay. the stress will be -- a lot of the stress will b...

>> and one reason the prosecutor couldn't 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 didn't they take photographs? they destroyed the crime scene area. >> they didn't 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. there's a possibility that might ha...