Page 8 - Jody Sharp News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Something sinister had just happened. >> you didn't think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> there wasn't a smoking gun, really. just something dark that he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jody's death. >> he did not react like somebody who just lost his wife should have reacted. >> the detective moved his investigation from the physical evidence to the less tangible clues. he quickly learned from jody's 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 g...

They had been talking breakup for years. the divorce papers just the latest legal -- in a growing spat. >> the prosecution 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. saying one thing and not following through. >> though it is true steven 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 steven's mysterious statement just before jody's death. >> just ...

At the first point, i said maybe this was a hoax. maybe she never went off the cliff. he and another rescuer began to walk along the base, pointing flashlights north. finally, about 30 feet away, the beams landed on something white. it was jody lying motionless next to a tree. >> there was a lot of blood on that tree. the blood was actually raining down the tree. that's where the severe impact took. >> jody sharp had not survived the fall. it was clear she had slammed into that tree. as he began to move the body, he noticed something else. >> a note of an alcoholic beverage that emanated from ...

>> 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, this isn't right. something is 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 steven was too jaundiced. there really was nothing to indicate that her fall was anything but an accident. a few months later, the ruling was in. the bergen county medical examiner concluded the manner of jody sharp's death could not be det...

>> he believes that was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, including lineham. but they had spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting that feeling that a reinterview at that point would have done anything. >> they still believed they could find solid evidence but they didn't. >> the cause of death at that time was listed as undetermined. so officially, it wasn't a homicide. >> in time, the detectives moved on to other cases. steven scharf moved on, too. 14 years after his wife's death, he remarried. tina scharf says he was a loving, ideal husband. >> they were...