luck to you, thank you. thank you very much, neil. neil: the fallout from what the young men and women like that are doing because he s not the only one after this. i called usaa and the first thing they asked was are you ok? they always thank you for your service, which is nice because as a spouse you serve too. we re the hayles and we re usaa members for life. see how much you could save with usaa by bundling your auto and home insurance. get a quote today. neil: the ones that are doing like dick s sporting goods, wal-mart, kroger, some of the others, we are going the adhere to a policy that keeps a consistent at 21. you say that s wrong, why? well, federally, you know, i can purchase a long gun, a rifle or shotgun at the age of 18 and i believe that by dick s sporting goods and other stores changing the timing 21 they are only discriminating against a certain class of individuals, you know, they are just discriminating us by our age, no other reason. neil: he didn t think it was fair, he quit dick s sporting goods. if you re delta you disassociate with nra and if young workers in particular, you know what, i m out of here, is that the level at which this should be decided, in other words, corporate level, company deciding and have the governments stay out of it and let s go back to dagen mcdowell and sarah. sarah, what do you think? you have the first amendment and second amendment coming into conflict when you take delta it s sort of taking a political position on whether the nra should be recognized as a group of people who get discount ot company, georgia government threatened to retaliate against delta. what you don t necessarily see is the companies infringing on the second amendment, they don t have any obligation to uphold the way the government does, but these companies do have a protected right to speak out against guns just like someone like alex has the right to quit their jobs at those companies if they don t agree with what s at the end of the day an exercise of political speech. neil: what do you think, dagen? dagen: wal-mart and dick s did this, made announcement for pr purposes for public relation s purposes that s virtually signaling neil, we should point out that in term of assault-style rifles, dick s stopped selling six years ago and wal-mart three years ago. they don t want to dick s sporting goods dick s sporting goods sold shotgun to nikolas cruz, it was not used in the shooting. this is why they are making the move. i will raise the issue, they could be running into age discrimination problems at the state level because there are laws that prevent retailers from discriminating against somebody based on age n. this country it s legal to buy a shotgun and rifle, if you have a neil: some weapons you do have to be 21. dagen: handguns, you had to be 21 in this country since 1968 to purchase a handgun. why is that? because the vast majority of firearm deaths which are suicides and the majority of firearm hock sides in this country are committed with handguns. so i think that wal-mart and dick s run into a problem where you say, hey, you can go and fight and defend our freedoms in this country and serve in military at 18 but if you want to go hunt turkeys we won t sell you a gun until you are 21. neil: that beg it is issue that maybe the government should clarify this across the board. i say no, first of all, when you do something for political purposes like a lot of the sporting goods stores are doing, you make mistakes. the age discrimination is a good point. alex brought up a great point, look, there are a lot of crazy people that are in 30 s and 40 s that shouldn t be able to get guns. you look at the shooter in las vegas, he was in 50 s, bump stock guns with all the stuff, he never should have been given a long gun. the bottom line here is that anything that s done for political purposes without taking all the stats and all the information into account is a big mistake whether the government or private company. neil: interesting, earlier companies are more controversy but as i was just saying, they run back into it by whatever decision they make, but, again, they don t like to be in the middle of this, yet, they are all in the middle of it, aren t they? absolutely. delta is a great case study in that because they ended a program that really was not being utilized by a lot of people, i believe 13 individuals in total had taken advantage of this small discount program that delta had, they sparked anger within the georgia government where their corporate headquarters is located, they drew a lot of attention to the facts that that discount program existed in the first place that could have faded away and they exposed themselves to being at the whims of being a social media mob and now they put themselves in a position to have to respond to the whims of the internet when they do it in one case, they sort of have to respond to all kinds of controversies. dagen: there is this misconception that gun owners and people who stand for our second amendment and the entire bill of rights all belong to the nra and i think that these companies are alienating a lot of americans who are not card carrying members of the nra but who do own guns and respect our constitution and you start turning against those very americans, you better look out because they will not stop there. neil: second amendment advocates that are not moved by discount at international house of pancakes. no. neil: i don t even know. they are not to be one over by. and you wonder where the decisions are being made. sometimes we have discussions in the green room, we are here in northeast, new york city, manhattan, discussions about people talking very wisely about guns and whether certain peoples should get them and certain people shouldn t and they never owned guns in their life, people in the northeast, i wonder if decisions are made by people that have no idea what if i hear broad restriction of machine guns and illegal since 1986, but, again, when you start talking about well, you need a license to drive a car, well, you know what, that s not the same thing as the right which is layed out in constitution to bear arms, it is very different and these companies run the risk of alienating millions kill people with cars as easily and sometimes more easily than with guns. neil: does it trouble you that dagen knows the machine gun laws pretty well? yeah. bad combination. dagen: i m waiting for constitutional challenge to new york city gun law which essentially prohibits everybody from getting a concealed permit unless you are politician s friend or celebrity, so i m wait if that are constitutional challenge. neil: don t hold your breath or maybe do. everyone is looking at these probes going on in washington but no one is really noticing what vladimir putin has been up to in the meantime. he now says he has a missile that can go anywhere, any time and no one, no one comes close and we criticize the north korean dictator when he says this kind of stuff. after this. thou hast the patchy beard of a pre-pubescent squire! thy armor was forged by a feeble-fingered peasant woman. your mom! as long as hecklers love to heckle, you can count on geico saving folks money. boring! fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. neil: all right u in case you missed this, we ve got all this attention on this guy as far as corky leaders with weapons but no one seems to be focusing at all when it s this guy, vladimir putin, breaking about much the same. i want you catch this and tell me what you think. it s clear why they possess weapon, russia has such a weapon. no one has looked into us, you listen to us now. neil: two things that caught my attention on that, not only the interpretation but that the first interpreter disappeared and then a second interpreter came, what happened to the first interpreter? the message is from leader of russia, we ve got weapons beyond weapons, so just take that. former u.s. commander kirk, invisible missile, commander, he s clearly telling us, do not trifle, what do you make of it? you need to put it in context, neil, the presidential elections for russia are in a couple of weeks and while vladimir putin clearly set conditions to win overwhelming, he s still appeal to go his base, he wants to make russia look like the great power that it once was and while it still has 1500 nuclear weapons, when he talks about a none like this, okay, he s peel to go domestic audience, putting forth a new weapon that we know they ve had in development, it s had problems, the reality is when it comes to russia, all these weapons out there, they can overwhelm our defenses, we don t have enough to go against that many war heads and north korea still remains the first and foremost nuclear threat against the united states right now. neil: all right, they can overwhelm our defenses, we can overwhelm their defenses, we seem to have more of the weapon that is would be necessary to do the job, i guess, but he s clear i will i will clearly sending signal, look what i m doing, would it last time he got 96%, is he really going to 98, what s this about? he wants to solidify and make sure he understands just like in days in soviet unions where they used to have big parades and march and everything else, he wants to demonstrate that they are a credible power and deserve respect on the world stage and they have weapons of immense capability. you also have to remember, russia is a major arm s exporter and they are trying to build up business for themselves, if they ve got a new and advanced weapon that they can try to market oh to other countries, let s hope the nonnuclear version, he will definitely try and do that. he wants to keep his military industrial complex going as well. neil: neil: you know one of my favorite people, they promised they are going to try to tone down the politics, jimmy kimmel indicating he will do the same, what do you think? i think that jimmy kimmel has it in his power to bring country together, every morning on the radio, when we go on the radio, i am the great communicator and translator, i see the news and i see the divide. the country has come together. what we do every morning and i watch the news, this is not what we feel, the spin, we translate it in the morning. neil: tone it down because you are alienating a lot of people. jimmy is good. neil: he is good. but he has politicized going after republicans. i know. neil: obamacare. you mentioned colbert thing. i want to get your reaction, let s take a look at this. can you read what is on the memo. investigation update and devin nunes is redacted. dehave you been nunes is a and cbs won t let me say it either. i think this should be released. devin nunes is a yeah, could be anything. could. we don t know. any guesses what it might say underneath there? californian, public servant, former dairy farmer. former dairy farmer? yeah. because he seems to be milking it right now. neil: what do you think of that? i only know when i talk again on the radio, we are tired of it, let s be nice. as a matter of fact it s so bad, when i have to go to the news we say on the media, if i could plug am970 neil: absolutely. i tell you what we try to do, neil, it s getting so bad, the other day i said we should go let s have some fun so i got the guy who plays george washington in the geico commercial, we all have places to go. [laughter] neil: that is a great ad. one of the most brilliant jim is his name. neil: great booking. thank you. my producer, frankie, get this guy, he was great on the air. neil: that s great. you know, we know where he stands, the ratings have soared since bashing president trump. maybe he did, i had devin nunes and he dismissed it, do you think colbert went to devin nunes to do this or the other side? i think that colbert i say this and i m going to tick a lot of people. he s a comic genius, the numbers went up after attacking the president. neil: he s very good at it. i hope jimmy does it on sunday night, when the president brings everybody together at perfect shooting, neil, he talked to columbine parents, heart wrenching stories and he layered down the people, he went to young black father who got a kid who got shot in inner city of washington, d.c., the press never even talked about that. how did president trump have the ability, the understanding, the empathy as we say in italian because we don t talk about that. neil: why did he then he went to alec baldwin. [laughter] neil: pushing for darrell to do that? if you ask for it and tweet like that you are get it back. jimmy has to watch it because hollywood is guilty of me too movement and all the gun violence. neil: i could be wrong, but that was part of thinking, guys, we are in a big-ole glass house and we need to be careful. ting geico guy should go on. [laughter] neil: it is funny. you lighten up a little bit. what would have helped colbert, lightened up with others, he had corker and if he had try for nunes it could have been funny. maybe he has a good sense of humor. president trump bring out alec baldwin and darrell and have a trump-off at the white house. neil: frank sanatra. everybody has to lighten up, we are all from the greatest country on planet earth the united states of america. neil: big man with a horse. [laughter] neil: so true. we all have places to go. [laughter] c oh no. schwab, again? index investing for that low? that s three times less than fidelity. .and four times less than vanguard. what s next, no minimums? .no minimums. schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. introducing the lowest cost index funds in the industry with no minimums. i bet they re calling about the schwab news. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. out president trump defying global concern over his plans for new tariffs on steel and aluminum. coming up, a look at tim pact of his proposal. after a week of meetings on gun control, we will talk to congressman about what he thinks of the latest plans being tossed about at the white house. leland: plus late-night arrest after two people killed at central michigan university while the gunman allegedly opened fire. and clean-up after winter storm in the northeast.
through mexico for weeks arriving now at the southern border. border patrol has encountered or apprehended several members who have been climbing over the fence. we have to have borders. and we have to have them fast. we will make america strong again, safe again, proud again. we will make necke america great again. . welcome to the sunday edition of fox news. that was the president last night. you may have caught the speech. we ll bring some of it to you, of course, this morning. before we do, what s up with chris? i got my hair back. i got my hair back. the hair is doing well. the big question is why is chris wearing a slinky. if you were watching this show yesterday, you saw the fun we had yesterday, the fun the dogged had. and then we decided to let the humans do what the dogs were doing. brilliant idea. take a look he did not make it good job, though. still, he didn t catch it. chris, it s your turn. so griff emerges from the water, he s throwing his arms up and he looks happy but i can see something in his face. he turns white. we turn away from the camera and griff goes, i think i hurt my shoulder and i look down at his shoulder and it s four inches too low. watch this dump. it s like sumpman goin supermano the water. i was really laying myself out there. now my shoulder may not be in as much trouble as my ego, particularly with my big wave surfing buddies. i knew it was shallow. i knew what i was doing. i put myself out there to beat your 17 feet that i got too arced. and you threw your arms up. your pain threshold is impressive. my doctor saw this video and said, i can t belief you put your arms up. there eye there s your docto. our dr. mark siegel is a lifesaver. i cannot thank him enough. this is the best picture of the morning. there s this. last night griff and i stayed at a hotel last night for the show today. pete is cutting pizza for griff. he couldn t cut his pizza. we posed for the photo to do it as a joke. but watching griff, he can t cut his pizza. i had to cut his pizza for him. it s not fake news. this is what friends are for. in real life recome together and help each other outside. no one would have handled it the way griff did and came on the next morning saying i m still here to work. i wouldn t mepsz it for the world. it s the bromance, pete cutting my pizza. i m endeared to him. a good man. telling me i got to keep this thing in there to keep this thing from falling out. pete also, by the way, had his young daughter. he s tending to the elderly. did you cut the bites for both of them at the same time? both small bhiets. griff, we re thrilled that you re here this morning. we ll be poking fun all morning. send us your thoughts this morning, anything you want to say to griff. friends at fox news.com. it gave me a chance to prop up in the bed and get comfortable and watch the president s speech in washington, michigan last night. it was quite something. i think we have a montage to give you the best of hits. i d much rather be in washington, michigan than in washington, d.c. right now. is this better than that phony washington white house correspondents. these people they hate your guts. and then i m supposed to what about comey. did you watch him on the interviews? comey is a liar and a leaker. i did you a great favor when i fired this guy. because when you look at what was going on at the top of the fbi, it is a disgrace. two lovers, right, lisa, lisa and strzok. look at ho how many of those top officials were fired or removed. politicians have fallen for this junk. russian collusion. give me a break. the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. i had one of the fake news groups, what do you think president trump had to do with it. i ll tell you what. like how about everything. african-american unemployment has reached the lowest level in history. kanye west gets it. we need security, we need the wall. we re going to have it all. the wall has started. we will make america safe again and we will make great again. thank you. it was something. one hour and 20 minutes, a stem winder. it was entertaining, it was rousing. and he hit on some themes you re going to keep seeing here. he cease acing they re going to try to impeach me no matter what, firing the crowd up to say you ve got to come out in 2018. he used ronny jack san a jacn example. they re trying to tear me down, tear down the administration. but this is classic president trump. he s in his comfort zone, in his element, a reminder of how he was on the campaign trail. i love the attack of the senator, too. i ve got things on him expwhr it s amazing he s making a larger point that ronny jackson was smeared in the media day after day. and i turned it to another network, what the president calls fake news cnn, and they went 30 minutes on a panel, the president threatened the senator, how could he threaten a senate. they don t understand the ka teak he s making. he s in washington, michigan and the rest of the group is in washington, d.c. and you heard the crowd chanting, nobel, nobel. i don t know if you could hear it. who gets credit for it. me. everyone was at at the white house correspondent s dinner last night. the president was not there. probably the right decision for him. michelle wolf was the comedian and she was hoping to get some laughs but she went pretty deep and pretty personal on some heated attacks directed specifically at women and sara huckabee sanders. take a listen to some of this. i m a little star struck. i love yowz at aunt hid ya in the hand maid s tail. you would love it. she burns fat and then uses the ash to create a perfect like maybe she s born with it. maybe it s lies. i m not sure what the to called sara huckabee sanders, is it sara sanders, is it cousin huckabee, antty huckabee sanders, what s about white women that disappoint other white women. let me give you some context here. the dana p perino can listen to this. i got a really close view of it. the press secretary is there for the press. if there s one friend, one ally in the white house, as you re a member of the press trying to cover it, that s the person to try to get you the information. this is the first time i remember and i have attended this dinner several times over many years that i ve seen the comedian stoop this low in attacking the press secretary. it s a white house press dinner. and so you go after the very person, sara huckabee sanders, we should talk about how stoic and how remarkable. how beautiful she did look. this was in the realm of cheap shots, it s an 11 out of 12. do you attack on looks? pete, we have seen time and time again when you go that low you never win. as you say this happens all of the time at these dinners. why? because oftentimes you get criticized. and nobody laughed. it was boring, unfunny, smug, self important. ari fleissner tweeted this out saying, this is foul. it s uncalled for, nasty and not funny. the white house staff should stop attending this dinner. i totally agree with that. trump should never go to this dinner. there s no reason for him to go except i want to represent the greg gullfield corollariry unless he is the host. he would be funny. the guy is hilarious and imagine if they brought in a funny person who happens to be conservative if greg gutfeld hosts then the president should go. he s conservative but surprising. that s what s lost in comedy. you know what the jokes are going to be already. you want somebody that surprises you and makes you laugh. predid i believable is boring. that s why the trump speech in michigan was so much more entertaining. it could have gone on for another 40 minutes and i would have been fine. inscrunted. >inscripted. and the people fe connection that i ve been with you all along, you elected me because i gave you voice and those elites in washington, i m not going to be there because if i, as the president said in the speech, if i don t laugh then they mock me, if i laugh they mock what i m laughing at. you can t g even get out of bed. e-mail us. dprif could barely get out of bed today. you are such a trooper. we ve got other head lines we re following right now. a nation wise con hunt for an accused cop killer. police arresting this man, john williams with the fallen deputy s own handcuffs. i felt it was fitting where he killed my deputy, corporal gene cole and he was brought to justice using cole s handcuffs. he was found in a camp at maine at a four-day manhunt. expected to appear in court later this week. the 29-year-old killed a corporal, u gene cole. 14-year department veteran. leaving behind a wife and four grown children. members of the migrant caravan illegally entering the u.s. children and pregnant women sneaking in through a canyon notorious for drug and human smuggling. watch the caravan. watch how sad and terrible it is. the crime that they inflict on themselves and others inflict on them. it s a horrible dangerous journey for them. in a statement, the patrol agent warns that we expect everyone to enter through our front door and answer questions honestly. following that closely pell praise keeps pouring in for the president after the historic meeting between north and south korea. some supporters hinting at the nobel prize. that s very nice. thank you. nobel. i just want to get the job done. your next guest thinks he deserve it and president obama s prize should be stripped. one university is treating masculinity as a me mental healh issue. i love that you read that. so, what s new? we just switched to geico and got more. . i spoke to the president this morning of south korea. he gives us tremendous credit. and remember, iter was very rough three, four months ago. president trump touting his involvement in the historic end to the korean war. so does president trump deserve credit for this diplomatic achievement and perhaps eventually the nobel peace prize? our next guest thinks so. joining us is a national security expert and the director of the international studies. out the gates you make the case that this is worthy of a nobel prize. explain why. i do, pete. i think actually it s a slum dunk to be honest with you. think about it like this for a second. we gave, you know, president obama the nobel prize for essentially doing nothing, for being president obama and not being george w. bush. if that s the case, you have to give the nobel prize to donald trump. considering the fact how far we ve the come with the north korea crisis. go back to january when we wer talking about, you know, a bloody nose option with north korea. we were actually staring down the precipice of a nuclear war. millions of people would have died if that happened. considering how far we ve come and we re on the brink of something historicall his histo. critics should say what if it all falls apart, what if it goes sideways, what if the nuclear ambitions ramp up, what if? we re still in a good position. the president s maximum pressure campaign is the old cold war play book of containment. this is what we did to the soviet union for 50-plus years and this is how we were able to put them in a nice liting box and the soviet union collapse pped. pd. the same thing can happen to north korea. they re running out of money. that means within a couple of months north korea will actually be bankrupt. you can t build a lot of nuclear weapons, or icbms. others say it shouldn t be just president trump. you ve got to look at president moon, china and xi saying he s finally putting pressure on. but an do any of those things happen about forceful american leadership. about absolutely not. a lot of people said to the president you need to attack north korea or you need to do what president obama did, strategic appeasement and let north korea have the nuclear weapons. the president took the harder road and put the maximum pressure campaign on the north and that got us to the table. he put pressure on the chinese which a lot of people said were impossible but it worked. at what point do we learn or leslesson. before ronald right l there was jimmy carter and before this president there was president obama. when are we going to learn that strength is what brings people to the table and brings down evil empires. it s strength and diplomacy. we have to remember we put a lot of pressure on the north koreans but we also said that there is a seat at the table for them in the world community if they re willing to change their policies. that s important. nobody wants to ostracize them and nobody wants a war with the north koreans. but if they re willing to give up their nuclear weapons in a verifiable way where we can prove that they ve done it, there ice great things ahead for them. i think that s important. the 2009 nobel peace prize given to president obama was for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy. if that handshake was not cooperation between peoples, i don t know what is. thank you coming up, a tale of two washingtons, the president rallying his base many washington thip, michigan as journalist u.s. roast him in washington, d.c. does it show that the swamp still doesn t understand why he won? we ll debate it next. she once had dinner with vladimir putin. now jill stein the refusing to cooperate with congress over russian interference. hmmm. more and more people have discovered something strong. you know what s awesome? gig-speed internet. you know what s not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let s fix that. let s give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don t forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. welcome back. a couple of quick headlines for you. new secretary of state mike pompeo is on his way to meet with benjamin netanyahu. he met with saudi king salman. his final stop is in jordan this afternoon. the embassy quarters in jerusalem could be named trump town. they ve ordered a new section of land for embassies around the world. the move coming as other nations are expected to follow president trump s lead also moving their embassies to gentleman ru jerus. trump town. several rallies with president trump as he skipped the correspondent s dinner. i would call trump unstable or incompetent. tonight i m going to try to make fun of the president in a new way, in a way that will really get him. mr. president, i don t think you re very rich. like i think he might be rich in idaho, but in new york you re doing fine. ted lou adding on twitter, dear president trump ford is shedding most of its car lineup and gm cutting most of its jobs but i m super excited that you re doing an unhinged mega rally. it s tough to watch your toxic rallies. they do energize dems. thank you. does this prove that th they stl don t understand why trump woman. here to debate it, my panel. antwuan, let me give you the first crack. the rally clearly got a lot of attention last night. what did you make of the dueling rallies and what did you make of president trump s rally? i thought that the president went to where he s comfortable. he wept back to the campaign trail essentially. he went back to the rhetoric that he s used to and where he gets applause from his base. he started doing what donald trump does best and that s misleader in chief. he got the crowd going. but the truth of the matter is in michigan where he was at last night, the african-american unemployment rate is second high nest the country next to washington, d.c. people in flint, michigan still do not have clean running water. the truth of the matter, u.s. auto seam sales are declining. the president has some work to do in the state that he won in the last election psych disbll tony, let me get you to respond what was clearly an over the top scathing attacks by michelle wolf. it s taken all as you brought it up, ted lou doesn t know what he s talking about. you ve got info systems in my state of indiana bringing 11,000 jobs to the u.s., 3,000 to indianapolis with an average wage of 60 and $100,000. the president was there in indiana making sure that he was there for the announcement. things are glowing and things are building. something lessens, many more things are increasing. and as for michelle wolf and that entire experience at the white house correspondent s dinner, how does it prof that president trump does not right to show up and not to witness this attack on his press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. we should all be concerned about what is going on in flint. michelle wolf clearly went to a much harsher spot in attacking the white house press secretary. she obviously was composed about it but we heard groans from the audience. what did you make of the attacks on sanders. we all know what the white house correspondent s dinner is and it s been that way since the dinner has been in congress. gm has cut 1500 jobs in the united states. it s pure fact that auto makers like ford are cutting back on their american-made cars and the pact of the matter is that u.s. car sales are down in the country. you can t run away from the fact. you can have emotional arguments of whether it s true or not but the facts are nondisputable. tony, let me bring you back to wolf. are you surprised there are no calls from women s groups defending sara sanders this morning? i don t think we re going to hear a single one. that s part of the problem. we don t accept conservative women as women. that s a huge shi. ask conservative women across the country as whether they re considered woman. they re not given the same credibility, the same respect or the same protection. it s obvious, everywhere, constant and consist abou tant. ent. your party has been abuse of eive of women. stop it. hold on. it s sunday morning. and i appreciate you coming on. we could have this all day long. thank you for coming on. have a good sunday. the caravan of central american migrants arriving at the border today. how should the u.s. handle the situation? we ll talk to the head of a border patrol union. plus, charity hurt, miej l farage and mercedes schlapp who was at the dinte dinner and wald out. and the story behind a kick that s captured america s hearts. . it is your shot of the morning. a cow telling texas deputy to move over. i can read anything. charging his patrol car. police dash cam video capturing the beef while the car accident caused by the animal, thankfully nobody was hurt, incleukd the cow which ran off utterly upset. how much time did the producers spend on writing that script. good job. we ve underestimated the power of cows. that s right. i never have. moving on to other headlines, former green party presidential candidate jill stein refusing to comply with the senate s probe into russian meddling. stein s campaign denied part of the request for documents related to policy on russia. stein photographed with dining with vladimir putin in december of 15 called the request an overreach. also this, as a cold blooded cop killer is walking free, one of his victim s brothers is outraged over the release. telling the new york daily news, quote, i always said herman bell could get out when my brother comes back to us. now he s out bub i don out buty brother. and a brother and sister requiting about losing their parents and baby-sitter in a tragic car crash. look at this heartbreaking photo of the accident, leaving 8-year-old angie and 5-year-old zachary clemmons in critical condition. an suv striking their vehicle in texas killing their parents jim and clarissa and 8 week old sister. if you would like to held four siblings with medical cost, head to fox.com. the university of texas now treating masculinity as a mental health issue. are you listenin listen, pete urging males to develop a healthy sense of masculinity. men who enjoy taking care of people or become active is dangerous, claiming tradition nay ideals of masculinity place men into rigid boxes preventing them from developing their emotional maturity. i wish you could see griff s face. he fed me pizza. did that violate masculinity with that? rick, you re a mas you lynn guy. i didn t understand most of that. i was reading it as you were reading. it s not a real thing. not meant to be understand. don t change. stay the way you are. supposed to understand the subtleties of what was read between the lines maybe? stay golden. it s chilly across parts of the northeast. the great lakes at freezing, 32 in chicago, 37 in cleveland. down to the south a little better. but overall the eastern part of the country where we re pretty dry, except for parts of the northeast, this is a system moving through bringing the rain showers and snow back behind it, snow across upstate new york. it s going to stick around. scattered showers throughout the day and tomorrow and then a big warmup. and along with the warmup, this is a rook at wednesday afternoon, we re looking at the big severe weather situation monday, tuesday and wednesday. but wednesday will be the big day. possibly some tornadoes. and we haven t had a lot of that. heading into may, biggest severe weather month of the year. everybody needs to be watching closely. rick was also checking up on me last night as with abby. hey, man, are you okay? well our couch just got a lot more masculine as well. we got big daddy here. the nfl is making dreams come through. watch with the 141st pick in the 2018 nfl draft the seattle se hawks select sha keen griffin. one of the most heartwarming scene of the weekend. a one-handehanded linebacker receiving a call from the seattle seahawks letting him know that his dream was finally realized. one of 256 players chosen the nfl draft. here to break it down is big daddy of coastal advisers. always great to have you on. tell us of that story. yeah, his dream come true >. it s so heartwarming. everybody had to be cheering for him. i got to watch him play twice. it s incredible that he s going to be with his brother. and the one thing i m looking forward to is seeing him be on the kickoff team in front of the 12th man. you know that stadium is going to be it rocks already. just imagine when he goes out there. he s going to have a big fan base. you can tell. on griffin, they show him benching like ungodly amounts of weight. so from an inspirational point where he brings to that team is going to be really a motivation. yeah. i went to the place that got him ready for the draft in dallas when we us there. and you know michael johnson, the police car sprinter was working with him, trained him. and his heart, they had never seen anybody with such desire, passion and heart like his. break down the draft. give us a couple of winners, teams that won and teams that maybe missed the mark. i know you re a vikings guy, so i m not going to start there. thank. you know what, the cleveland browns did a great job. they had the first pick and obviously they shocked everybody going with baker mayfield. but you know after that they got the db they needed, an offensive lineman. and then my beloved giants, i think they did outstanding, got two guys in barkley and hernandez that are probably going to be day one starters. barkley could be one of the best runningbacks of all time if he puts it all together. yeah. who lost? the saints. that one really shook me up because i thought they traded so many picks and then to trade up to get a defensive end where everybody thought they were going to take lamar jackson. it would have been great with the offensive mind and this guy pulling the strings after drew hangs them up. a lot of highway da hoo that. the last pick of the nfl draft, trey quinn. you re not irrelevant anymore. he gets the free trip to california. i think he goes to disney world. and i want to give a quick shout out to my favorite referee dan who had surgery. he is laid up paralyzed, had some surgery. now he s back up on his feet. i hope to see him throwing flags later on. that is fabulous. not too many flags. thank you. president trump warning as the migrant caravan arrives at the u.s. border. once they get here they can walk right into our country. we have the greatest people on earth and they can t do anything because the laws are corrupt. how should your government be handling the illegal immigration surge. we re going to ask the head of the border patrol union next. charlie hurt, buy ron york, mercedes schlapp and nigel farage all here live. coming up. bln strong repair that you can trust. . they know once they get here they can walk into our country. we have the greatest people on earth and they can t do anything because the laws are corrupt. that was president trump last night calling out the caravan of central american asylum seekers as they set to arrive at the border today. so how should the u.s. handle this? here with inside president of the national border patrol council. art, it s good to see you again. this is going to be an interesting day and there s a lot of eyes on the border. how is this going to be handled? you know, it s a good question. one of the big issues that we re seeing that s happened in the past is a lot of these individuals, they cross with children. so they ve caught on how it works. usually the mom will cross with their child, they will be released in the united states pending obviously the asylum case and a lot of these people never show up to their cases. what they would do in the past is they would catch the father and the father would be returned. they caught on to that. what happens now is the nom shows up one day with the child, gets released, we never find them. the next day the father crosses with his child and we never find them either. they ve learned to game the system and that is one of the big issues. so you re saying the message is going out to meez migrants, bring a kid, you ll get in and not get prosecuted? that s what they ve been doing in the past, that they ve continued to do. obviously we ve heard that there are attorneys that are gone to mexico and spoken to the people in the caravan. they ve explained to them, told them what to do, what thot t no. president trump said it best. we ve got to fix the corrupt laws. he s doing a fantastic job bringing it to light, explaining what needs to be done but there are people in the middle that need to figure it out. we ve been hearing about this caravan for quite some time. we knew they were coming. that s right. so we shouldn t be surprised that they re gaming the catch and release system. people talk about what works and what doesn t. what has been done or could still be done in the immediate term to change their incentive and to change the system so they don t game it? the reality is, i mean, they re coming through mexico. mexico has allowed them to come through their country knowing that their entire intentions are to come illegally into the united states to game the system. i think mexico needs to take some of the responsibility too. the way i see it, mexico and their government has been aiding and abetting these individuals to enter our country. so mexico gave them a asylumn mexico. these folks are seeking asylum, they have a country to have asylum if they want to. they want to come to the u.s. what-mile-per-hour can the border sprole or i.c.e. do at the moment? they re choosing to come get asylum in the united states. but in the meantime they ve received asylum in mexico. shouldn t mexico be able to take them in. and if we apprehend them, shouldn t we be able to send them back to mexico? shouldn t somebody else take responsibility if they ve allowed them through their country but instead we re having to take them in, having to go through the asylum cases. it takes forever to get to a judge and in the end we don t know where these people are going to end up. and we don t know their intentions flp s really nintent. there s no way to see their true criminal record in their country of origin. we don t know what we re getting. they re going to apparently caravan to a specific spot on the border this afternoon. we ll find out what happens. and we wish for the best for the border patrol for a safe transfer or transition, whatever happens. thank you for joining us. thank you very having me on. president trump slamming democrat senator john kes ner calling for him to resign after his allegations about admiral ronny jackson. charlie hurt says this could backfire come november. what s so offensive about this shirt. backwards on your screen but it says just pray question mark. this teacher told th to take it off. . welcome back. two big initiatives coming from the fda, menu labeling and e-cigarettes. and our mark siegel sat down with the fda commissioner scott gottlieb and joins us now. what an interesting interview you had. let s start with the labeling on menus. there s bipartisan support for that. this is about health but it s also about educating people. exactly. i mean i comes from the affordable care act and they delayed a year putting it into place. but it s all about calories on menus. and dr. gottlieb feels it s a way to fight the obesity epidemic and a new way to have a new business model where you get thehealthy choices rather than choices that are bad for you. let s take a look. to have information on menu labels the average consumer will reduce their caloric intake every day by having better information. if you believe the data which shows that people become obese by eating 64-calories a day, you can reduce this by making information available, you re a long way towards achieving the target of reducing caloric intake enough. you believe it will be lead to pro-business? restaurants are going to reformulate their foods to make them more held healthy. some consumers are going to opt for the high calorie option but they ll know what they re getting. you know what, that salad looks a lot healthier. i m going to go that direction rather than the pizza. a lot of the manufacturers are complying with delivery moan menus it s going to help us cut down. healthy choices may be more expensive. a business may make more money with that. a rest rawpt chain is going to make more money. i talked to him about e-cigarettes. a big thing today. i see specifically young kids smoking e-cigarettes and i wonder if this is a healthier option for them. it s a gateway that leads to smoking cigarettes and he s disturbed that nobody is being compliant on this. children are getting e-cigarettes when they shouldn t. fda clamping down. i m concerned about youth becoming addicted to nick between through e-cigarettes. the terks cigarettes could offer an opportunity for the adult. you re going to see a series of enforcement actions from fda against manufacturers and outlets that are selling product to children to crack down on that. tough words but important to hear. very very important. e-cigarettes are a huge problem. they lead to nicotine addictions. dr. mark siegel, great to have you on this morning. and you re responsible for taking care of our griff jenkins. we love you for that. . coming up, charlie hurt, byron york, mercedes schlapp here on the show. three more big hours to come on a fox and friends sunday i d much rather be in washington, michigan, than in washington, d.c. right now. the president s speech in washington championship, michigan last night. everyone else is in washington, d.c. is this better than that phony washington white house correspondent s dinner? is this more fun? very very dishonest people. fake news. russian collusion, give me a break. comey is a liar and a leaker. north korea, a lot of good things are happening there. what do you think president trump had to do with it. i ll tell you what. how about everything. u. i think it s a slam dunk to be honest with you. you have to give the nobel prize to donald trump. members of the migrant caravan now illegally entering the u.s., sneaking in through a canyon n notorious for human trafficking. we will make america strong again, proud again, safe again. we will make mark great again. have you ever played in? on the show, yes. it s so fun so if you re wondering what on earth is going on on the plaza, we ask that question every morning. we are all about summer camps. it s already may this week and you re probably thinking about where you want to send your kids to camp. i want to climb that wall, abby. i m going to have to change. i think you could do it. i love rock climbing, yeah. you re not. i am doing it. no, no, no. put me in there. which of those things could griff actually do this morning. we re not sure. griff had his shoulder dislocated yesterday. fully out. he is a trooper. even after you landed in the pool both of your arms come up like this like superman, unbelievable. got to make it look good, compete. there we have. there s abby trying to warm me up. if you missed the show yesterday, we jump into a pool meant for dogs. it was shallow water. it was a great idea. griff jumped in and hit the bottom of the pool with his shoulder. jumps up, throws his hands up and he fully dislocated his shoulder. and he finished the show with his shoulder out of socket. soon the show was over he walkel was here, took care of him. what i ve learned about griff is he s a tough dude. a serious pain threshold. i ve learned my family here loves me. it was my fault. i threw the frisbee. pete was taking care of me and by the end of the night pete was feeding and cutting my pizza for me. i only had one hand. the best bromance. there we are right there. pete is cutting it. this is not fake news. we took the shot and two minutes later it was messing with i couldn t get the pizza to pull apart and pete was like, you need me to cut this thing up for you. you needed a good meal to be energized to balance out the energy he gave the crowd in michigan. and he talked about everything, that he s passionate about at the moment. north korea, immigration, economy, even ronny jackson, he got pretty endipt wit in-depth s well. take a look. i would much rather been in washington, michigan than in washington, d.c. right now. that i can tell you. is this better than that phony washington white house correspondent dinner ? these people hate your guts. and then i m supposed to what about comey. comey is a liar and a leaker. i did you a great favor when i fired this guy. because when you look at what was going on at the top of the fbi, it is a disgrace. two lovers, right? lisa, lisa and strzok. look at how many of those top officials were fired or removed. look at how these politicians have fallen for this junk. russian collusion. give me a break. if you listen to maxine waters, she goes around saying, we will impeach him. the people said, but he hasn t done anything wrong. oh, that doesn t matter. the denuclearization of the korea peninsula. i had one of the fake news groups this morning, what do you think president trump had to do with it. i ll tell you what. like how about everything. [ crowd chanting ]. african-american unemployment has reached the lowest level in history. kanye west gets it. we will make america great again. thank you, everybody. it was an hour and 20 minutes. it s a stem winder by definition meaning entertaining and rousing. he had the crowds going. it was a campaign style rally, of course. hit on a ton of core themes. they were chanting nobel as he was talking about north korea and the progress made on that peninsula. it was, as you said, abby, classic trump. and it was significant also, this is iz h ability, unlike any other president, to really connect with an audience who views that white correspondent s dinner as an elitist event that s fallen out of favor because of the off-colored jokes. we ll get to that. so he really i bet you he s going to do this. a smart strategy. this is his base. these are the people that want to hear from him. one issue that i would argue they re most passionate about is immigration. and he kubled down on that last night and the need for the wall. and this comes at the same time that the migrants are coming over the border near san diego. and here is what the president had to say about that last night. we have to have borders and we have to have them fast. we need security, we need to wall. we re going to have it all. and gb with again, that wall has started. we come up on september 28th and if we don t get border security, we ll close down the country. because we need border security. talking about when the budget comes up if the money is not in it, he will shut down the government. remember he sort of said i wanted to veto the last one. i won t do this again. well he s doubling down on that. september 28 is right before the midterms. president has got to fire up his base, the left is fired up to impeach him. the only showdown is coming today, as you mentioned. this caravan apparently 300 or 40400 are still together as a group there in southern california. young kids as young as 4 years old. pregnant women. they re going to force the cocon front tryings. confrontation. they re coming to the border. we ll hold a press conference. as twe were talking with one of the border parole presidents in the last hour, he really addressed that the president is putting focus on what needs to be done on situations particularly that we re going to see today. here s what he had to say. president trump said it best, you know. we ve got to fix the corrupt laws. he s doing a fantastic job bringing it to light, explaining what needs to be done. but there are people in the middle that need to figure it out. they re coming through mexico. mexico has allowed them to come through their country knowing that their entire intentions are to come illegally into the united states. i think mexico needs to take some of the responsibility to. mexico has been aiding an abetting these individual to enter our country. we don t know what record or criminal record they have from the country they re coming from. roughly 2:30 p.m. eastern time they re going to be in a meeting place in tijuana and they re going to walk to the border after meeting with legal counselors and present themselves at the border. that would be this afternoon. because te tijuana is right n the border of core no do right near san diego. some friends yesterday asked the question, a the they go througho cofirst why don t they ask for asylum in mexico. their goal is not mexico. it s the united states. it s not illegal to enter the united states and seek asylum. it s illegal to enter the united states and fraudulently seek seum. a lot of them are heartbreak. it shows how broken our system is. and this top i topic did note up at the white house correspondent s dinner. there was no time. you were watching the rally with president trump. but at the same time he said everyone else was left in washington, d.c. at the white house correspondent s dinner. and michelle wolf was the comedian. i don t know who michelle wolf is. but per usual they poke fun at themselves, at the administration. and it got pretty dark at one point, specifically against sarah huckabee sanders. take a listen to what he had to say. i m a little star struck. i love you as lydia in the hand maid s tale. you would love it. she burnse burns fat and uses t. i m never really sure what to call sarah huckabee sanders is it sarah sanders, it is sarah huckabee sanders, is it cousin huckabee, is it andty huckabee sanderersers ? so here s what i would say about this. because you hear the left and they re all about acceptance. they re all about inclusion. and this is the year 2018 the me too movement, this is the year of the women. one woman represents all women and we stand together and support each other and you see that play out last night. and you can t help but think except when you disagree with them or have principles or conservative values and then enbecomes conditional love. and that is really hard for a lot of people to understand. they also went at kellyanne conway hoping a tree falls on her, went to ivanka trump comparing her to a box of tampons. it was not form. trump should never go to this, trump white house members shouldn t go to this. it s the swamp rearing its head with all of its hate. unless greg gutfeld hosts which would actually be funny, he s hill lahilarious. we ll see if any pro-women groups come out to defend sarah huckabee sanders. it s the white house correspondent s dinner. and so sands job is to get white house correspondents the information they need. instead wolf went very very negative against sawndz. saunders. sander. i expect we ll hear a statement about whether or not that wu out of bound. i was just holding my breath. i don t think i can hold it long enough that either of those two things will happen. at the end of the day, politics only goes so far. we re all human beings, all americans. we ve got to stand together. but that is trump s message. we re all americans. we should put american citizens first, be in this together. they see him as divisive yet i would argue that believing in america is the unifying force. there s nothing unifying about what happened at that podium last night. do you realize sarah huckabee sanders has three kids and does that job every single day. she look beautiful last night. an e-mail from betty said shame on that so-called comedian for bullying and mocking sarah sanders. a she is a super mom and has more clas than anyone who attended. sarah sanders looking beautiful, all of the liberals must be jealous and unsecure. mercedes schlapp and her husband walked out of the event. there was a little uncomfortableness in the room last night. the argument is they want president trump because they want him at the dinner so bad. the nerd prom wants their. how uncomfortable would that have been in you were in the room with these jokes. washington township, michigan well better slamming jon tester asking for him to resign after his allegations against ronny jackson. charlie hurt says it could backfire come november. what s so offensive about this shirt. it says just pray. this teacher told to take it off. we ll be back with that. bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. that s why i switched to the spark cash card what jon tester did to this man is a disgrace. tester started throwing out things that he s heard. well i know things about tester that i could say too. if i said them, he d never be elected again. that was president trump doubling down on senator jon tester from montana after calling for the top democrat on the veterans affairs committee to resign over the unfounded allegations he brought against va pick admiral ronny jackson. here to react, washington times opinion editor and fox news contributor, the one and only charlie hurt. good morning, guys. let me ask you, so jon tester is down 18 points in january. he s one of the most vulnerable races and he just absolutely unloads on allegations against admiral jackson which turn out, according to the secret service and white house documents, to be completely unfounded. what do you say? yeah, no. it s really amazing. you know, nobody has any problem with taking accusations and thoroughly vetting them and investigating them and asking tough questions and inquiring from secret service what s true, what s not true. but what jon tester did was he went straight to the media and just dumped the whole garbage can of dirt on this guy without doing any sort of investigation whatsoever and claim that well, i can do this because i m trying to investigate. well i guarantee you that in the state of montana where donald trump won by 20 points, jon tester has never in his two senate races never been able to break 50% statewide. i guarantee you we ve already seen it. donald trump has put a bull s eye on this guy and he s going to go after him. and we got a taste of it last night. who knows what donald trump is talking about. i know things. but that s the way that donald trump does this and it s politically it s a brilliant way of doing it. if jon tester had any respect he would have went behind the scenes to the white house saying i got concerns about this guy, can you look at this before you bring him out for a hearing. but msh importantly what does it say about the media that jon test ers says i tester says i md this over to the media and they re going to run with it. what does that say? it s something that we ve seen for some time now. it s not just the media. in particular it s the washington media. they think that politics is a blood sport. and of course ronny jacksonson ijackson isnot a politician. not running for anything. comes in here with an impeccable reputation. the reviews that he got under president obama, under president bush, under president trump, you could not ask for a more sterling career. absolutely. and then suddenly he meets with political washington and the media in washington and he gets thoroughly slimed based on no evidence whatsoever, just the mosaccusations in montana, are the republicans lined up there? yes. you ve got three very very strong candidates. good to know. we ll leave it there. and follow that one closely. she s protrump, progun and pro-life. that is not the best part of her story. meet the millennial mom running for congress in ohio. i m going to speak with her she s pregnant with twins as well due on election day. you don t want to mes miss that. plus, with most insurance you know what s awesome? gig-speed internet. you know what s not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let s fix that. let s give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don t forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. welcome back. some quick headlinese headlines. authorities arresting john williams with the fallen deputy s own handcuffs. i felt that it was fitting where he killed my deputy, corporal gene cole and he was brought to justice using cole s handcuffs williams was found at a camp in maine after a four-day manhunt. he s expected to appear in court this week. police say the 29-year-old killed somer seth county sheriff s corporal, eugene cole, leaving behind a wife and four adult children. minnesota school districts remain closed tomorrow. on friday republican governor doug ducey reached a deal with lawmakers if ar 20% pay raise for teacher business 2020. other demands that need to be addressed are annual raises and $1 billion to restore state funding. christina hagen might be the most interesting can dad date cn the to 18 midterms. running against a former nfl player all while a mother and pregnant with twins. joining me now with her story, republican candidate for u.s. congress, christina hagen. great to have you with us this morning. absolutely. thank you so much. by the way, you told me your due date is election day. what are the odds of that in. >? god works in mysterious was you have a lot on your hands, a working mother. you have a 3-year-old girl, twins on the way. we ll get to that. but first, you are the second youngest state representative in the country is that right? that may be true. i m the youngest female to serve in the history of the ohio state house. and you ve been there about seven years. yes. why do you want to run now as congresswoman? i was thrilled to be on the campaign trail as president trump, one of the few ledge taye tores willinlegislators willingd with him. i think i m not alone when i say we re disappointed with the fact that people go to congress and fail to deliver on their campaign promises. as a legislator in ohio i ve been conservative, been protrump and always said i i ll do whati say i m going to do. legislating isn t quite as easy as catching a football. being the better choice has to be my experience. i ve been a legislator, a mother. my husband and i are raising our daughter in northeast. my opponent has been out of the state in the past several years, hasn t lived in northeast ohio for 13 years. as we ve gone through the op hoiopioidand heroin addict, havo deal with our tough issues and tough times, like the deaf sis from seven years ago, i ve been through the tough votes. my people know that and they know i m going to fight for them and not special interest. there are options and choices but there s only one person stead fast and fight in the community and that s me. let s talk about your day to day life as a woman, as a mother. you re about to have twins, a family of three. what is it like running for office, working in politics and juggling all of that at once. being a young woman, a millennial, conservative, those are all unique things in our progress. it s an honor to be a different voice in the legislative process. it s an honor to be from the working class and fighting for the people who understand what the middle class experiences good luck in the race and with your pregnancy. we look forward to following that closely. thank you so much. thank you. coming up, north korea has a time fable for its nuclear shutdown. what does it mean for the president s upcoming meeting with kim jong-un? what is so offensive about this shirt. it says just pray. well this teacher told to take it off. plus, summer is almost here if you believe it. we ve got our own summer camp on the plaza. rick testing out the archery. . all eyes are on the korean peninsula as north korea vow to shut down its nuclear testing site next month. this as president trump speaks with south korea and japan as he prepare to meet with north korea leader kim jong-un. jillian turner is live in washington with latest. we re learning more about that historic face-to-face encounter between the leaders of north and south korea that happened friday. the first between the leaders of the two koreas in over a decade. the meeting culminate culminatem jong-un agreeing to complete denuclearization of the peninsula and a joint statement where they committed to a new era of peace. now north korea says it will shut down its nuclear testing site in may and invite u.s. and south korean journalists and experts into the country known as the mer hit kingdom for a very good reason. president trump for his part isn t committing the united states to anything just yet but he s confident that no matter what, he ll do better than his predecessors. whatever happens happens. look, i may go in, it may not work out. i ll leave. i m not going to be a john kerry who makes the horrible iran deal. $1.8 billion in cash. you know what they got? they got nothing expwhr the the president letting the world know should the summit with kim go well, he wants full credit. one of the fake news outlets this morning, they were saying what do you think president trump had to do with it. i ll tell you what. like how about everything. even president moon says that. north and south korea are now deep in discussions about how and when to open up the closure of the north nuclear testing site to international visitors. a move towards transparency that just a few weeks ago would have seemed completely impossible. unbelievable. thank you so much. how about everything. how about everything. i do think the president is smart to set expectations to say we don t know exactly where this is going. look, north korea has played us time and time again. it looks hopeful. we ve sen hi seen history beinge and we hope it leads to something rail but you ve got to go in with caution. and he makes it clear if they re not following through on their promises with denuclearizing their country, then we ll walk away. i think what s significant is the announcement of jownlists being allow into the nuclear test site. people think they re going to clean it up or what not. i remember my years with greta and franklin graham. north korea is one of the most difficult places on the planet earth to access. and the fact that president trump has opened up so much that american journalists are going to be allowed to go to a nuclear site, that is sig can t. significant. that is not small. now the journalists may take a break and go check it out. we need our own inspector to confirm if we re going to cut this deal we held the line on the dmz for 50 years, in a war we lost a lot of american men for to hold that line against the communists. we re not going to give that away for the hopes that maybe some journalists will moderate it. we re going to get the deal and when we get the deal, then we change the terms. how do we get here. really tough talk. that s why a couple of months ago people were frequente freakt we were going to an all out war. and one saying his strategy, he took a lot of risk to get where we are right here. here s what he said. president trump took a lot of risks to get this far. he took the harder road and put the maximum pressure campaign on the north and that got us to the table. we also said that there is a seat at the table for them in the world community if they re willing to change their policies. if they are willing to give up their nuclear weapons in a verifiable way where we can prove that they ve done it, there s great things ahead for them. and you made i think the most important point. not just did the president say he was willing to go to war, but everyone believes him. the press freaked out. depress who is reading those clippings. kim jong-un. have you read the art of the deal before? this is classic art of the deal. you throw everything out there and in the end you get something more than nothing. that s the whole point. maybe we ll see. and harry suggested he may get the nobel peace prize for it and should for what he s done so far. you heard the crowd chanting that last night. considering what obama got his for, cooperation between peoples and strengthening international diplomacy. check, check. just saying. remember, president trump s summit in three or four weeks in an undit undisclosed location. ms13 gang members are using loop hopes in our immigration system to get into the united states. the violent group paying smugglers to coach them how to lie about their age. peter king recently revealing to congress that families are being pleasured by gangs to become sponsors and claim the children when thame come here. a trucker survives four days in the wilderness with no food, no water, walking all of the way home. jacob cartwright walking 36 miles from a snow covered oregon. he trailer got stuck after the gps sent him the wrong way. he was hauling potato chips but didn t eat any because he didn t want to damage the product. it was terrible but he was not damaged. an alabama school under fire for telling a shirt to change her shirt because it has the word pray on it. according to the school, the shirt violates dress code policy which states that teachers and students cannot wear clothes that reflect certain beliefs. i m not sure saying pray represents a specific belief. prayer is universal. alabama public schools, it shows you how far we ve gone. fight back. don t let it happen. how is the archery going out there? i ve moved on from archery. who won the last game? you won? have you heard of daca ball. i have not. they re starting a new game, can t touch their feet. if it touches your feet, you re gone which means you have to bend over the entire time. griff, you and i are too old to play this game. let s talk about the weather, show you what s going on this morning. temps chilly across the great lakes. below freeze in chicago at 31. tomorrow you ll be up to 72. the warm air is coming. we just need about another day or so to get there. here s today s forecast across the northeast. a little bit of rain. we ll have snow across the mountain areas, down across the mid atlantic temps in the 60s. and in the south, a beautiful day. tons of sunshine, absolutely spring conditions. enjoy it now. the storms move in tomorrow across parts of texas and oklahoma. in towards the northern plains, a beautiful day. cool across the great lakes. and the system in the northwest bringing rain and mountain snow. are you guys ready for g gaga ball? i need you to jump in there, rick. you can do it. come on. i like it. rick likes to be on the sidelines. i don t blame him. exactly. moving on, president trump facing some criticism for his antipoverty initiative, some calling it heartless. but our next guest used to be on welfare and he has a reality check next. paralyzed playing football but chris norton told us on fox & friends in 2015 he had a big goal to accomplish. now after my graduation walk, i guess do a walk for the wedding. he and his fiancee made that goal a reality and they ll join us live next hour. i love this story. incredible. . welcome back. time for you news by the numbers. first $1.45 billion, that s how much we ll spend on upgrading the america fighter jets. it will give the country s fleet of 85 planes, more capabilities similar to f-35. $130 million, how much the brand-new streaming deal between ak disoamazon and the nfl is wo. forking it over to carry 11 thursday night games each of the next two seasons. 630 episodes, the simpsons break the record tonight for the longest running prescripted series. can t let you break my record. it breaks the record set by gunsmoke which simpsons making fun of president trump s antipoverty initiative which is meant to break the cycle of poverty coming under fire. the notorious so-called southern poverty law center labeling the program as heartless saying, trump s executive order on work requirements punishes low-income people for being poor. but there is praise for the president. the next guest writing, quote, the point has often been made that the greatest charitable gesture is teaching those in need to help themselves. star parker is the founder and president of the center for sur ban renewal and edg educatin and joins us now. you see how it was characterized by the southern poverty law center. what is the real goal of what the president is trying to do. this is incredible what the president is doing and in particular in an election year to take on the antipoverty programs to ask all of the partner answer cabinet to streamline, look at this. we re spending $700 billion a year on antipoverty programs. we have spent $22 trillion in a war on poverty. the poverty rate hasn t changed. here the president is yet fulfilling another campaign promise. he wants to fix the inner cities, about 1.4 million african-americans voted for him knowing he s going to do and now he s attempting do that through this executive order that he signed last week. what happens this is actually part two of what he s trying to do to fix the inner cities. because part one was in the tax bill. there are opportunity zones in the tax bill so that capital will now flow into some of our most distressed zip codes so we can begin the process of creating jobs. we re very excited about this. i have run this policy institute here in washington, d.c. that works on welfare reform and all issues. we believe in market based issues to fight poverty. and what this is doing is allowing an opportunity for those of us concerned about the least of these, those that are really in distress, it gives us the opportunity to find out first of all where they are and then help them, help them help themselves. i m excite that the president is fulfilling this campaign promise. you can hear the passion in your voice. you understand what it s like to live on welfare. when you were young you experienced this first hand. how has that impacted the way you think about this today. it s up with of the reasons that i m so aggressive. i believed all of the lies of the left including what the southern poverty law center is saying now that that all of my problems are someone else s fault. i was in poverty for seven years, watching my life go in a dark hole. we have 34% of american people that live on the antipoverty promise that are going to die in that poverty. this is not what america is about. america and what makes us so exceptional and beautiful is if you re born poor, you don t have to die poor. but what we ve done has stopped the momentum. we have to go in and make sure that people understand they can control their lives, that they too have something to contribute and our policies and programs are standing in the way of that. you re talking about promoting economic mobility and not dependency. really appreciate you being with us this morning. thanks so much. up next, president trump tearing into james comey over his memos. you watch comey and you watch the way he lies, and then he s got the memos. i wonder when he wrote the memos. is comey telling the entire truth about the memo memos ? byron york says comey is leaving a trail of confusing statements. he joins us the next hour. summer is almost here so of course we built out our own summer camp on the plaza. we ll be racing go-carts. he s in the game. look at how he s running over kids. . summer is right around the corner and for parents out there, that means it s time to enroll your kids in a summer camp. which one do you choose. here to help break it down, some options, we ve got the president of the christian camp and conference association, greg hunter and roger peace, the ceo of world of life peace comps and family camps. we re having fun out here. greg, first, let s talk about i m a parent, two daughters. we ve sent them to camp. for those who have the younger ones coming up, why is camp so important? it s no secret that this is the most plugged in generation in history. with did kids being plugged in for eight hours a day for some teenagers, it brings together a lot of challenges for their development. camp provides a reset betton to get kids away from their daily routine to reset spiritually, physically, emotionally and have the time of their live while doinliechlife whiledoing it. what do we have here. look out, he s loose. we ve got go-carts, a rock wall, a climbing tower, gaga ball, soccer, bubble ball, archery. all kinds of things that you would normally see at camp creating fun activities always in a safe environment. does he get the keep the go cart? if he would like to, we d let him keep it. rick, are you playing bubble soccer? i m over here. look at. this what is this game? which one. yeah, you see rick? it s like a normal soccer game because you got bubble balls on you and you run around, bounce off one another, fall. a lot of fun. takes a normal sport and makes it. is rick winnin winning ? yeak at that. i think he just did. me may have scored a deal. greg, it s a christian camp old hold on. i m kicking this one. actually we do have a ski boat down there. who wants to tell me about that. we have tw take kids out, wen 9-mile lake. they do skiing, wakeboarding wake surfing, excuse me. can i do that? you can do it. with a banged up wing here? we ll take you. banged up wing. thankfully he didn t run me over. it s a christian camp? we are. is it a week? it s different. some are for one, two weeks. you do all kinds of fun things. roger, greg, thanks very much. still ahead, conservatives walking out of the white house correspondent s dinner after a series of attacking against team trump and the president just tweeted about it. plus, ed henry, nigel mirage, mercedes schlapp and maria part l bartiromo all comep live. r that you can trust. fake news. james comey is a liar and a leader! a lot of good things are happening. what do you think president trump had to do with it?i will tell you what i think it is a slamdunk. members of the migrant caravan illegal into the us sneaking into a canyon. a notorious drug and smuggling. the president said it best we have to get rid of the corrupt laws. jumped in and hit the bottom. right there. my shoulder may not be in as much trouble as my ego. [music] and he slammed his shoulder into the bottom of the pool. you loved it, we loved it and he is a trooper! how are you feeling right now? good! you know, getting text message from my wife saying you did pretty good but you are touching your shoulder. pulsing. like i said before i blame henry because you see me in there and i just died so far, even though i knew to dive shallow as a big wave surfer, i knew not to go too far forward with my heals up. at some point you just say we will ask henry about that later on the show. you are such a good person. you came in the makeup room yesterday before the show even started in the green room yesterday, you are covering. you said i had a rough night. hotel, i turned on the light and dark brown gunk came out. you got water. then you came here to get a red bull on the 16th floor under the vending machine. you are having a rough money i feel for you. and then that happened. thank you, you have to think positive! you are still here. let s listen, you are making slings great again. looking good, you have news coming fast and serious. the president of this morning i believe possibly watching the show because he just tweeted this moments ago. here are some of the things great evening last night in washington, michigan. enthusiasm, knowledge and love in the room was unreal. thousands of people who could not get in. i cherish you and will be back. washington, michigan was a big success. washington, d.c. just did not work out. they would segment the white house correspondents dinner was a very big boring bus. the so-called comedian really bombed. and greg gutfeld should be host next year. admitted president recognizes a common sense thing when he sees it. it is so predictable. they all it was locked and was boring and i turned the channel to greg gutfeld. it was refreshing, real comedy. they were having fun. it was must-see t.v.. unfortunately, these dinners just get ugly and it is not entertaining and it is not funny. and you look at greg gutfeld and he makes you laugh. you never know what he will say. if you are not watching the white house correspondents, you re probably watching the president in michigan last night. we really, he is always in his comfort zone at these rallies. utensil he is at his best, he loves being around people that are passionate about the same issues he is. he talks about everything from north korea, immigration and the economy. here s a little bit of what he said. i would much rather be in washington, michigan then in washington, d.c. right now. is this better than that phony washington white house correspondents these people hate your guts. and then i am supposed to and what about james comey? he is a liar and a leaguer?i did you a great favor when i fired this guy. because when you look at what was going on, at the top of the fbi, it is a disgrace, two lovers, right? lisa and peter strzok. look at how many of those top officials were fired or removed. look at how these politicians have fallen for this junk. russian collusion. give me a break! if you listen to maxine waters, jen but she goes around saying, we will impeach him. people said but, he hasn t done anything wrong. that doesn t matter! denuclearization of the korean peninsula. in the fake news this morning. what do you think president trump had to do with it? i will tell you what, how about everything. [chanting] african-american unemployment has reached the lowest level in history. kanye west gets it. we will make america great again! thank you everybody! it was one hour and 20 minutes of television. it was entertaining, he was in his element. i think tina april 20, 2018 as well. is he going to be on the ballot? his base will show up. he is talking about impeachment. if they win the house it will try to impeach him and they will try. this is a preview of themes that you saw coming up on stage others as well they possibly part of reelection efforts. a letter campaign themes are coming up. light it up blue will be on the back is john tester.the senator in montana.you know the name because it was all over the media this past week trying to tear down ronny jackson up to run the va. he is now withdrawn his name. the president was pretty upset about how all of that went down and is calling for tester to resign. here he was last night. senator john tester of a really great place, montana. he voted in favor of century city sprint did not vote for tax cuts. he took a gentlemen, what they said about this great american doctor, ronny jackson. an admiral in the navy. he served three presidents, president obama, president bush, they said he was fantastic. and john tester started throwing out things. i know things about tester that i could say. and if i send them, he would never been elected again. tester is certainly going to have a tough race out there. he was attorney of the year almost down 20 points the president won 20 points. looking at some tester couldn t quite get 50 percent in the last election. and now that he is losing some credibility on allegations, any of these boaters that are on decidedly, i would put about 25 percent for these members that have these middle of the road, this could be a problem. he is willing to tear someone else downplays political gain. he poses as moderate. he wants to look like one but he votes with chuck schumer and the democrats lock, stock and barrel. he is part of the resistance. put out a statement. the swing set. it is my duty to ensure montana veterans get what they need and have earned. i will never not fighting for them as their senator. i know some of montana veterans that take great issue with that including he is willing to smear a man rather than just giving him a chance to explain what he stands. he pointed out he did not have to go to the media.he could have gone to the white house with concerns. it was not about that. it was about politics for john tester. donald trump understands up a cnn, and you go crazy saying i know things, have not learned yet that the president knows that you make a critique as well as anybody? if you say something and do not back them up that is a problem. naming sources can always be a good thing so charlie hurt was on the shows moniesof the president put a bull s-eye on john tester . you could not ask for a more sterling career and then suddenly, he meets political washington and the media in washington and he gets thoroughly slimed. what john tester did was he just went straight to the media and just dumped the whole garbage can of dirt on this guy without doing any sort of investigation we donald trump but a bull s-eye on him and he is going after him. and well deserved! because there were options to could have gone back to the white house and said i have concerns about ronny jackson. can you please look into this before you put him up for hearing? he did not do that. he went to the media and said here allegations i have heard. talking about anonymous sources, john tester claimed in an interview with anderson cooper that he had 20 sources that john tester did not name that had these allegations. we have seen everyone from john five and now president trump i send this is a guy of stellar character. it will be interesting to see whether anyone else continues to push tester and say, give me five of the 20 names. that ronny jackson is unfit. as we mentioned yesterday, the damages done. this guys career charlie kirk, he did not, no one is putting actual bull s-eye on anyone s chest. we are talking metaphorically and politically. i just want to help them out. they cannot figure out literal versus metaphorical. maybe one day they will. this should be a wake-up call. it is important to get the facts right. so much more to come on the show. i want to bring you some of the headlines we are following closely. a nationwide manhunt for accused deputy killer is now over. authorities arresting this man, john williams with the deputies on handcuffs. i think it was a fitting that he killed my deputy, corporal jean cole and he was brought to justice using his handcuffs. williams was found at a camp in maine after a four day manhunt. is expected to appear in court later this week. please send a 29-year-old killed a somerset corporal. he leaves behind a wife and four adult children. also, the first members of the caravan of migraines now flooding into the country. a group of about 400 setting up shop near san diego on the mexican side. as children and pregnant women are part taking in three passes notorious for drug and human smuggling. we don t know if these people will end up. and we do not know their intentions. there is really no way to see their true criminal records in the country of origin. we do not know what record of criminal record they have and where they are coming from. in a statement rodney scott warns in part saying we expect and want to enter through our front door and answer questions honestly. will track this all morning long because this caravan is at the border today, there is a press conference and border patrol agents are watching and ready. this can be a showdown. the president tearing into james comey. he says the fired after drifters leaving a trail of confusing statements over how he handled this, next to request and paralyzed play football but chris norton told us on fox & friends in 2016 he had a big goal to accomplish. now after my graduation walk, i guess do a walk for our wedding! this is an amazing story. he and his fiancce made that goal a reality! you do not want to miss this story, it is just ahead. adults are just kids with much, much better toys. introducing the 2018 c-class sedan, coupe and cabriolet. the thrills keep getting better. lease the c300 sedan for $419 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. but as it grew bigger and bigger,ness. it took a whole lot more. that s why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. everything. what s in your wallet? fthere s flonase sensimist.f up around pets. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don t. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. if you want james comey and you watch the way he lies, then he has the memos. i wonder when he wrote the memos?i did you a great favor when i fired this guy. the president tearing into james comey about his memos. and as our next guest accuses him of creative accounting for leaking memos in the new op ed raising the question is he telling the entire truth about these memos? you to explain we have a fox news contributor and washington examiner chief political correspondent byron hayes. who is telling the truth what you make of this? one of the bigger things that james comey is doing. the president says he is a leaguer and there seems to be no doubt at all that james comey lived one of his memos not long after he was fired. he thinks one of his memos to a friend for the purpose of the fund giving it to the new york times. there seems to be no doubt about that but james comey is not denying that he is a leaguer. he has redefined leaking to mean this classified information was disclosed and while it certainly would be a leak, leaks are much more than that. the classic washington definition. let s the secretary has prepared a controversial new policy and someone who opposes it inside the organization gives a draft copy of it to the new york times. there is a big controversy. that is a classic washington leak. nothing is classified. it is not classified information it is a leak. i will regret had an interview with james comey. in exchange that improvised things. i told him about an unclassified conversation with the present. i do not consider it part of an fbi file. eroded as fbi director. as a work product. no, it was not. you sent i do not do sneaky things, i do not leak. but we can argue what a leak is but that is a leak, isn t it? it s not. is there such a thing is unclassified information between the president and the fbi director? and then is a good question but as far as the fbi is concerned as law enforcement and others there is also confidential information. you are not free if you are an fbi official to distort and reveal sorts of things about cases that are going on inside the fbi. nothing classified about them but you still cannot talk about it. in other things that james comey said was that he considered this his diary. it was a personal note he wrote to himself and like a diary. limitation of the peer members of congress, up and so they were released 10 days ago, members of congress were trying to read the memos. the fbi treated them like a secret. very few members of congress were allowed to see them and the ones who were had to have an fbi minder in the room they were not allowed to take notes or make copies. they were treated heavyset us with a straight face? i don t know! i don t have a straight face right now. i think he is very sensitive to the question of being a leaguer but i just think there is no doubt that he got it out. a great point byron. thank you very much! there he was paralyzed playing football in 2010. he told us in 2015 he had a big goal. after my graduation walk i guess i will do a walk for the wedding. lastly aspiring couple made that goal a reality! we will hear their credible story when they join us live. that they are! next. 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[music] we are back with a pretty incredible story. chris norton was paralyzed in a football accident back in 2010. just four years later, he was able to walk in his college graduation with the help of his fiancce. they share that moment on fox & friends in 2015. take a look. [video] now as my graduation walk i guess i will do a walk for our wedding. that goal has not become a reality. last week, actually exchanging their vows chris and emily norton walked down a seven yard aisle together as newlyweds. seven yards for seven years since his accident. joining us now to join there is racial story, chris and emily. of course, their story will be issued in people magazine. it is so great to have you with us this morning. chris, congratulations on accomplishing that goal.how are you feeling? thank you, i feel so great. just to know that i am married to emily. it is amazing! the seven yards walk was icing on the cake. the accident happened in 2010. emily, you met online dating in 2013. a lot of people say, this is someone that was told they will have a three percent chance of feeling anything from his neck down. what about chris inspired you that told you, you know what? i love him and this is someone i want to marry? there s so much about him that inspires me. he is the hardest worker i know. he is so determined. after the moment we first met, i think back and if i would have made a split-second judgment that he is in a wheelchair and life can be too hard, i didn t see him for who he was, i would have missed out on the best thing that ever happened to me. it just goes to show that is so important to see people for who they are because we are all facing challenges. i have challenges. you just can t see them. so i think we just spread love and kindness and to see people for who they are. this is a story about strength but also chris, a story about love and what two people can accomplish together. would you be where you are today if not for emily? absolutely not! emily has been such a support to me. she has literally been by my side every since i met her. she has really carried me a long way. i am the man i am today because of her. and my faith in god. i am unbelievably appreciative of her and what she is brought to my life and with love, it opens doors for possibilities of hope and miracles. chris, we are watching this video together review walking down the aisle. it gives you chills. i m going to put it back up on the screen. what is going through your mind in this moment. you are walking down the aisle and you have the woman you are about to marry holding in her arms. it is the first time you were able to walk that far. what are you thinking in that moment? i was unbelievable grateful. i have emily by my side. i am thankful and to know how far i have come, i will never forget that day. october 16, 2010, laying face down and motionless. to see where i m at today is really special to me. i m just very grateful. i focus on what i have been able to progress and the things i have in my life. the things i can do. it is so easy and like to focus on what you can t do or what you have lost. for me, i have made a habit to focus on the good things in life. i think it is a habit we can all make for ourselves. that moment was just so much gratitude. emily, i love it you said y all have challenges. we all have things we deal with they just might not be as visible as places are. what do you have, what advice for overcoming things? inspiring stuff to keep going when life feels like you can t go on one more day? yeah, there are so many times i feel down and i feel like this is the end and there are times i felt broken and there is no hope. i know chris has as well. the last few years with chris, i ve learned so much that when you have god, when you work hard, when you trust that you can take what you re going through and turn it into something so incredible that can reach so many people. anything is possible when you think about it in those ways. i look at chris and everything great that has come from his injuries and something that felt such a terrible thing. we are able to give back and do more than what we ever thought was possible because of the difficult times. we are way better off because of it. is amazing. and you foster five kids on top of all this chris, quickly before we go, do you have your next goal? my next goal really is to share my motivational speaking and through the seven yards documentary film that will be told about my story. just share everything that went into from the worst day of my life in 2010 all the way to the best day of my life last weekend on april 21. i m really excited to share those moments and experiences and help others overcome their adversity. we are so proud of you. emily you also inspire us. thank you for being here this morning. thank you very much. we appreciate it. for more video you can go to people tv, a great interview. so great to see them both. a secret meeting with kim jong-un stunned the world today new interstate, mike pompeo, revealed what it was like. i cannot wait for that. conservatives walking out of the white house correspondents dinner after a series of violent attacks against team trump. and pope francis greets katy perry. right she hang out with the pope after a year-long legal dispute with nuns? we will explain, coming up. [music] oh you re simply the best better than all the rest better than anyone anyone i ve ever met i m stuck on your heart, the best just got bigger. i hang on every word you say applebee s new bigger bolder grill combos. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. we have pride. we defend our flag. and we honor our flag. we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance. we do that proudly. and we stand for the national anthem. [applause] we believe a strong nation, must have strong borders! [applause] let s bring in the chief national correspondent, we love your book engility. we are grateful that you woke up so early because you are not in michigan, you re at the white house correspondents dinner which will get you a moment. quickly your response on the rally. you can hear the president talked about the flag, patriotism, issues he is passionate about including immigration. people criticized him for not going to the white house dinner but this is what his base wants. he was sitting at the heart of what they want. what a contrast. when you so that mean, hateful, bile under the want to say comedian or what she was last night i saw that. it was disgusting, despicable. sarah sanders should get in get an apology. what a contrast with the present was doing. talking about issues people really care about. i m going to do something that is very hard for me right now i m going to make the news. i m going to say that pete was right and i was wrong. whoa! should be put up a banner? he said the media with the enemy of the american people. things like that go too far whether pete wants to admit it or not. however, where i was wrong, i said i think the president should be a better man about it. and the media does their tasking should go to the dinner and attachment piece. it s gone. i was wrong. he will never go to this dinner and he shouldn t. what happened to sarah sanders last night was disgusting. and i say that as a former president of the white house correspondents. it was awful. pete is right to request your apology is fully accepted! enthusiastically accepted. he did note that we do the former president of the white house correspondents association. i will not make any swamp jokes it is what it is. but that is a powerful statement coming from you can you understand the power of the press and you are saying in this case, an apology is at the very least, needed for what was said last night here. at the briefing tomorrow at the white house correspondents association, as a former president is the something that i still cover the white house, bottom line, by the briefing tomorrow, of the association will see the need. although some of the board members tomorrow morning. i spoke with the president last night after the dinner and i told her, to her face i said look, it is not your fault. the comedian can say what they want whatever it is. but the association has the power and can temperamental directives disgusting and vile. what i did not say which i will call her tomorrow and say margaret love, we should put out at least a statement, an apology to sarah standards. who you work with professionally. she is a professional woman. and there is a if this were to happen to a woman who is serving, a spokeswoman for hillary clinton as president. there would have been an uproar, outrage and rightfully so. to go after her physical appearance, to say similar things, is obviously so far beyond the line that i hope the association apologizes to sarah sanders. in fact, when i was in the board a few years ago we had someone make some vile comments about jewish people in the country and around the world. first, we were thinking, why are we getting involved in his comments? we thought about it. a lot of members called me. i think i was vice president at the time. we ended after putting a state nut. some work sat with us for attacking helen thomas cute they said this is outrageous you represent the correspondence you shouldn t do this. bottom line, they should do better and say we apologize. absolutely. and, it has been suggested this morning that maybe if there was a garden a conservative comedian like greg gutfeld or something. has there ever been one? .no, we had conan o brien. i made a conscious point by the way, without attacking anyone there now. i knew that conan o brien understood the room and that he can be funny, he could poke fun at president obama at the time. but i will admit that as someone who is representing not just the association on that day but also fox news, i knew if i hired some comedian that was going to just rip the presidency pieces, it would look bad for me and for fox, i knew he was a professional and he would never have done to anyone what the comedian did last night. quickly, i know that we want to get to something but what was the mood in that moment when she was getting so personally attacked? i was in the first couple minutes of the routine, i will say was funny in the beginning. but then the f word and other was kept piling on. in personal attacks. in the room, i spoke with a lot of media people that you would think, in fact, our sharp critics of the president. they would tell me terrible, pathetic. they could not believe it. i want to blame you and give you one last thing. i was trying to explain in previous hours, why sarah sanders is a person that helps the press. and why because the president of the association, i would go to private and say we need access to the president for this event tomorrow. you have cameras, even though we battled a lot they would open things up. and sarah does the same thing. she fights with her media data date and briefings. but she does this to open it up for all of us and protect the first amendment. and by the way, we invited her to dinner at our event and we treated her like dirt! it was disgusting. i m actually getting more angry thinking about it. we invited her, she represented the president. she was treated with disrespect. next you re going to lose your voice! calm down. by the way, i m outraged also about what happened yesterday. i am so matt about losing. i am on team griff. washington sticks together. the swamp sticks together. we have to fight. i will see you next weekend. griff is doing a great job hope he feels better. thank you. we have other photos of griff being injured. stick with this, there is more to that story later on. quote - remember sailor! this came out in a tweet a while ago. coming up, calling out a double standard after a former navy seal was prosecuted for mishandling classified material. that sailor is here to react. more and more people have discovered something strong. dependable. long lasting. they ve found themselves in a chevy truck. and now, you can too. see for yourself why chevrolet is the most awarded and fastest growing brand the last four years overall. switch into a new chevy now. current competitive owners can gethree thousand dollars total cash allowance on most colorado pickups. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. ways to lthe northern belly fat. percussion massage. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? 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[heartbeat] did you leak other things? i do not consider what i do delete. we can argue what a leak is. but that is is dead? it s not. the president calling out james comey for not knowing what a leak is. he tweeted, remember sailor! . he is referring a sailor that was prosecuted for accidentally mishandling information. he also served one year behind bars for taking photos of classified areas in his nuclear submarine for the president hardened him this spring. in christian joins me now to talk about this. first, we saw the tweet, did you know he was referring to? and what you make of the comparison? james comey gets away with a leak here you take photos and you are in jail. absolutely. thank you for having me on. of course. i knew exactly what the president was talking about. and i spoke about this when he called me after he pardoned me. it is very upsetting that this person, james comey, prosecuted me to the fullest extent of the law and destroyed my life for low-level classification. i never disseminated it like him. i never give to 70 published in the new york times. you know, i simply took pictures javess mementos of my service and they destroyed my life. here he is going on a national book tour and writing about it on national television. that he leaked classified information. you took photos, you are leaving that particular assignment. he wanted a memento. you admitted it was a mistake. we did not try to give them three quarters or shared among the internet or post them on facebook or give them to the russians. he simply wanted them for yourself and you admit the mistake. why the double standard for someone who is admitted i am giving these memos to the press? well, you know it is reminiscent of hillary clinton. these high-level members of politics. james comey is a politician, clearly. they do not take responsibility for their actions. they think it is a joke.i took responsibility, i sit up like a man and i admit a mistake. albeit eight innocent mistake, i still mishandled classified information for they never got released. nothing ended up in the hands of the russians. or at the computer of a pedophile like hillary clinton email. i was prosecuted and sent to prison. and my life destroyed. christian, james comey also happens to say that sometimes a conversation between the president and fbi director is not classified. he was also able to look people in the eye and say it is not a leak. it is only when it is classified information. i wrote these memos on my government computer. there actually my diary. what is it about the psychology of someone, they must believe their own rhetoric in this particular case? what is he believe himself? i honestly believe that james comey is a narcissist. he is capable of justifying his own actions, regardless of the aftereffects. just like hillary clinton. you know, the end justifies the means.james comey clearly knows the law better than anyone according to james comey. he interpreted the same law to prosecute me completely different when not persecuting hillary clinton. james comey does better than the us code of justice and the american people who should be our president and who break the laws and who gets to decide. the laws according to james comey paid a lot of comments as their question. thank you for your time.hope the next chapter of your life is going well. we appreciate it. thank you for having me on. you got it. anytime. up next, the president says the days of other countries taking advantage of the us are over. it is hard for us to sell stuff into the european union, it was put there to take advantage of the united states. not anymore! the man who led the brexit campaign out of the european union for the uk. nigel will be here next. and saturday night live alumn, he says things like last night a running joke. he has has taken the next hour. [music] le plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! singers: safelite repair, safelite replace. from only the thickest, juiciest heinz tomatoes. no one grows ketchup like heinz™. bounty is more absorbent,mom per roll so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more life per roll. bounty, the quicker picker upper we need to help more tocalifornians get ahead.d, that s why antonio villaraigosa brought republicans and democrats together to balance the state budget with a budget reserve, while investing in local schools and career training. as mayor of la, he put more police on the streets and reduced violent crime by nearly fifty percent. that s antonio villaraigosa. a governor for all of california. it is very hard for us to sell stuff into the european union. it was put there to take advantage of the united states. but you are right, not anymore! there was a president assuring thousands in michigan last night that the days of being taken advantage by other countries are over! we have nigel with us. great to have you on! first your response. this is a message that resonates with so many people today. the president saying will no longer be taken advantage of from other places. they need to step up and play their part. yeah, i mean love, the european union sees itself as a rival. they do not want to do for any favors he was a cell their motorcars they are reluctant to take american products. especially agricultural ones, beef, etc. the real part here of course is a deadline was fast approaching. the proposed american tariffs on steel and aluminum. that is all going to be sold at some point during the course of the next week. this is how donald trump negotiates. he negotiates by talking tough and waiting for the other side to come to him. but the other side knows through this that he has prepared to walk away. it is how trump does business. i have to say, it is pretty effective and something that the european union is not used to. will this strategy work with the eu? is the first time i ve seen someone up to them. used it up to them as well, can we do this and still succeed? we did stand up to them but right now equestrian negotiations for our withdrawal deal. and british prime minister i wish to do more of what trump does and stand up and talk to. and hey, it is working in korea, isn t it? if it is working for kim jong-un, i reckon it will work with brussels. muslim mayor of london, put out a tweet after the president announced he is coming to the uk in the near future. this is with the mayor of london tweeted. if he, meaning president trump, comes london, you open the open and diverse city. they have chosen diversity over fear. and behold a liberal values of freedom of speech very dear. the resistance continues on your side. yes. his liberal values, is believe in free speech is so great that actually, he does not want donald trump to come to london at all! and when he does, he will support some idea of mass protests against the president and his presence. i would think that they are doing with the fact that homicide is up 44 percent this year! in london. get on with that, stop that. stop playing games. whether you like trump not, america is a key ally. and for the world in terms of defense, and security. the uk, us relationship matters a lot. the syrian airstrikes a couple weeks ago were a huge reminder that. nigel, always good to have you on the show! thank you. thank you. ,some conservatives walking out of the white house correspondents dinner after a series of violent attacks. mercedes was one of those people. she joins us live at the top of the hour. stick around! [music] . president trump: i d much rather be in washington, michigan than in washington d.c. right now. the president s speech in washington township, michigan last night. abby: everyone else is in washington d.c. sarah huckabee sanders, maybe she s born with it. griff: president trump tweeted this. the white house correspondents dinner was a very big boring bust. president trump: north korea a lot of good things are happening there. what do you think president trump had to do with it. i ll tell you what like how about everything. abby: members of the migrant caravan now illegally entering the u.s. sneaking in through a canyon notorious for drug and human smuggling. president trump said it best we ve got to fix these corrupt laws. abby: summer is almost here so of course we built out out our own summer camp on the plaza. griff: is rick waiting? oh, yeah look at that. abby: you know who will not be doing that this morning? our griff jenkins. griff: i m headed out right now. only on fox & friends of course are we talking politics and culture and summer camp for kids pete: we ve got a fox & friends summer camp out on the plaza we ll be out with that group later on. abby: we ve got bubble soccers, you could see right there, and this comes a day after we had dogs jumping in the pool and then we thought it was a brilliant idea to have humans do it as well so pete did it and then griff jumped in in his suit pete: and didn t realize how shallow the water was so his shoulder went like this into the bottom and came out like a champion with his arms in the air the man has a massive pain threshold which is unbelievable. abby: completely dislocated your shoulder. griff: this is true but nothing could keep me from being here on the couch with you guys because you re the best and mercedes schlapp whose joining us because there s so much news good morning. good morning i ve got to sign up all the five girls for summer camp so things for reminding me. abby: we have all the tips at the end of the show. mercedes just off the time you were at the white house correspond ens dinner last night everyone this morning is talking about michelle wolf and how at one point she goes after sarah huckabee sanders i want to play this clip and obviously want to get your reaction. i m a little star struck. i love you as aunt lidia. if you haven t seen it, you would love it. she burns fat and then she uses that to create a perfect smokey eye. like maybe she s born with it. maybe it s lies. i m never really sure what to call sarah sarah huckabee sanders, you know, is it sarah sanders, is it sarah huckabee sanders, is it cousin, but what s uncle tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? abby: mercedes, totally vile. is this the moment you walked out of the dinner? yes, matt and i stood up. at that point you just felt as it was coming along her speech which it would be about the abortion jokes or hitting being very critical of kellyanne, ivanka and then sarah sanders who was up on the stage and just going after sarah s looks, going after her job, making these false allegations. i mean it was just so incredibly disrespectful, shameful and disgusting and why these leftist comedians that was like her deplorable moment. that s why you start to realize that the president decided not to go to this dinner and at the same time it reminds us all why the president is honed in on these issues, and to go after these women, a woman going after these very talented women, i think was so incredibly offensive especially when they re going after sarah s looks and justine her job. i mean, it was something that we were just completely floored and that s when we decided we don t want to be part of this. perfect well good for you two for taking that stand in that packed room of the swamp. well somebody who knows a lot about this dinner is our own ed henry used to be the president of the white house correspondents association host of that dinner in 2013 and he had powerful comments like yours about what was said at that podium. listen to ed: earlier in the program. ed: what happened to sarah sanders last night was disgusting and i say that as a former president of the white house correspondents association by the briefing tomorrow i hope the white house correspondents association, you guys should put out at least a statement and apology to sarah sanders who you work with professionally to go after her physical appearance, to say some of the things, obviously it is so far beyond the line that i hope and pray the association apologizes to sarah sanders. pete: mercedes do you agree? do they need to come out and make a statement? look, who they apologize or don t apologize, sarah sanders has thick skin. she s one tough lady and i m very honored to work with her and that team and i find it just to be so mean-spirited and disrespect disrespectful how she was treated. again, we have to think ability when you think of sarah when you think of kellyanne and ivanka these women workday in and day out to help push the president s policies and when the president is out in washington, michigan talking about the issues that matter to the american people, the economy, defeating isis, securing the border, his results -oriented accomplishments is just so telling of why americans feel so many of them feel like that there is this sense of elitism, that there is a sense of disconnect, from these communities, from some of those in the leftist media, that really do not understand where the heart and soul of americans lie. griff: mercedes, ed was also point out the fact that sarah was the invited guest of the correspondent s association up on there, that s why she s there , the invited guest going into it which makes these insults even more damming. let me ask you this. should the white house, the president now for the second year, said i m going to do a rally i m not going to be there, i m not going to dignify them with my appearance. should the white house begin to start a conservation with the correspondent s association and say listen we re not going to send guests like sarah sanders if they re going to be attacked this way. well as you know, i mean the press office they work so closely with these reporters every day. i mean sarah, you know, talks to them, they have a relationship, you want to have a good working relationship with the press. that s important, but when you invite a comedian whose going to be so offensive and insult one of your guest of honors right on stage in front of, you know, millions of people when you re talking about those watching the show, i mean, you just have to really ask yourself if it s worth even going to the event. pete: uh-huh. we were having a really wonderful full time just having the conservations and engaging in dialogue with the different reporters and then after the personal attack on the women in the white house these talented women, it really makes you think , i mean, why be part of that and so we were very discouraged. i feel at the end of the day the trait that we all share which is that of the trait of the president is that we fight back. we re strong, we re united, we understand where we need to be focused on which are the policies that matter to the american people and if the so-called leftist comedian think s she was funny, it was just completely offensive. attacking conservative women and talking about abortion in a way that it was appalling. abby: women should stand up for other women. it stooped so low if anything, mercedes, it reminds us to be better, kinder, less judging people last night. it was horrible and i think everyone across-the-board can agree with that. i want to get your thoughts before we let you go on the president s rally last night in michigan. he talked about a number of issues but of course the big news this week was north korea and for the first time kim jong-un stepping foot on south korean soil since 1953 a historic moment. he talks about what led to getting to this point. let s play a little bit of that. president trump: whatever happens happens. look, i may go in, it may not work out, i leave. i m not going to be a john kerry who makes that horrible iran deal. $1.8 billion in cash. you know what they got? they got nothing so we re going to have hopefully a very successful negotiation over the next three or four weeks. abby: mercedes where does this go from here what happens next? clearly you re seeing president trump s leadership on this issue of north korea. he has been in constant communication with our allies, obviously working with the french president, he met with the german chancellor merkel as well as speaking to president moon from south korea and the japanese prime minister. this just shows that president trump is a coalition builder. he wants to ensure that we take the necessary steps to have a complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the korean peninsula. we are starting to see some progress. with that being said, it is going to be the maximum pressure campaign that we will continue to implement to ensure that north korea moves in that direction. yes, they have halted in terms of production of nuclear facility or building of a nuclear facility. yes they have stopped missile testing but at the end of the day this is just some of the steps that need to be taken. we re cautiously optimistic on where this is going to go with north korea but again, we re not going to render. we re going to ensure that we keep applying the maximum pressure campaign, which our international allies have supported and i think we re see ing progress in the right direction. pete: mercedes the president mentioned john kerry in the context of the iran deal because remember after the paris attacks john kerry brought james taylor to paris to play the guitar for our allies and that s a very different approach than fire and fury and bloody nose and the harsh tough talk that actually makes diplomacy work. what drives the strategy for this president? well i have to tell you when you get secretary mike pompeo who literally got sworn in and jumped on a plane to go over to the middle east to meet with the saudi arabian leaders and talk about the need of figuring out the difficulties that we re dealing with iran it s very telling. i think we have a very strong team in place and again, we ll see what the president moves forward. we re not going to get ahead of the president in terms of his position on the iranian nuclear deal but what he wants to see is a substantial fix in this deal. he recognizes that iran continues to be a problem. they continue to fund terrorist groups. they continue to destabilize the middle east region and obviously are a threat to iran, to israel, and so the key will be that we are going to look at this iranian nuclear deal and say what is in the best interest of the united states. pete: mercedes schlapp thanks for joining us and for you and for your husband for taking that stance. abby: and for get up so early. all right, turning to some other headlines and speaking of mike pompeo just moments ago, he was arriving in israel to meet with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. the new secretary of state discussing the iran nuclear deal with middle eastern allies this morning and pompeo is now revealing more details on that meeting with kim jong-un. we had a good conservation. he was very well prepared. i hope i matched that. we had a extensive conservation on the hardest issues that face our two countries. i had a clear mission statement from president trump. when i left there kim jong-un understood the mission. abby: the then cia director making the trip over easter weekend ahead of president trump s meeting with kim. also this morning, a nationwide manhunt for an accused deputy killer is over. authorities arresting this man, john williams with the fallen deputy s own handcuffs. williams was found at a camp in maine after a four-day manhunt and he is expected to appear in court later this week. police say the 29 year old killer the sheriffs corporate, the 13 year department veteran leaves behind a wife and four adult children. well, the hero of the waffle house shooting is stepping up in a big way yet again. shames shaw jr. now raising more than $189,000 for the victim s families after he wrestled away the ar-15 from the shooter last week. meanwhile the first funerals have been held, the first of the four victims to be laid to rest in tennessee. and the nfl draft is over and the league has a new mr. irrelevant wide receiver shows him by the washington red skins, earlier one-handed life backer griffin from ucf was drafted by the seattle seahawks reuniting him with his twin brother how cool is that but the draft s biggest bust was not a player it was a parrot. the bird was supposed to announce the tampa bay buccs fourth round him. in the 2018 nfl draft the tampa bay buccaneers select jordan whitehead. abby: many fans giving the parrot an f draft grade saying she folds under pressure. pete: not a good sign for the buccaneers this year. mr. irrelevant good luck. at least you got drafted. well i hope he does, but president trump holding montana ton senator john tester accountable for his allegations about ronny jackson. president trump: tester started throwing out things that he s heard. well i know things about tester that i could say too. if i said them, he d never be elected again. pete: so in a state won by trump , how vulnerable is tester in the coming mid-terms? we ll break it down, next. griff: and one university is now treating masculinity, pete, as a issue. how one school is combating people like pete. abby: it s a problem, a real problem. th it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don t. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. (daniel jacob) for every hour that you re idling in your car, you re sending about half a gallon of gasoline up in the air. that amounts to about 10 pounds of carbon dioxide every week (malo hutson) growth is good, but when it starts impacting our quality of air and quality of life, that s a problem. so forward-thinking cities like sacramento are investing in streets that are smarter and greener. the solution was right under our feet. asphalt. to be more precise, intelligent asphalt. by embedding sensors into the pavement, as well as installing cameras on traffic lights, we will be able to analyze the flow of traffic. then that data runs across our network, and we use it to optimize the timing of lights, so that travel times are shorter. who knew asphalt could help save the environment? president trump: tester started throwing out thins that he s heard. well, i know things about tester that i could say too. if i said them, he d never be elected again. griff: president trump slamming montana senator john tester after the secret service disputed allegations against ronny jackson, so in a state where trump won 57% of the vote just how vulnerable is senator tester in the mid-term elections here to break it down deputy news editor alexia mchammond how are you? good morning i m good thank you for having me. griff: this is going to be a big race. what is your reaction to what s now clearly been a race that the president is going to put essentially a bullseye on senator tester s back? senator tester is perhaps the most vulnerable democratic senator in this 2018 election. i ve reported on that for axios, as you just mentioned now trump won his state of montana by 20 points in 20156, but chaired to trump s 58% in a state which is much higher than his national average which suggests and shows that montana loves the president and you know senator tester is an interesting senator because although he s in a vulnerable position, he doesn t always act like it. he is the only red state democratic senator who voted against mike pompeo as secretary of state and in january he voted twice against the government funding bill so i think we can fully expect trump to sort of prioritize his senate race and unseat him come november. griff: now senator tester is also weighing in putting out a statement here where he says it s my duty to make sure montana veterans get what they need, and have earned and i ll never stop fighting for them as their senator. you know, senator tester only won the 2012 race by four points and he s a moderate guy in the middle trying to play both sides as you point out but you know, he had a really bad january down 18 points. is tester going to be a race where democrats begin to pull resources out and let him fend for his own? i don t think we can expect that. i think if anything we will see democrats sort of adding additional resources because we are seeing how the president is going to get involved. there are a couple of things that helped senator tester. one is that he doesn t really have a strong formidable republican challenger, and he s obviously part of the administration now and the state attorney general decided not to run so i think until that happens that could really help tester in his favor but i would expect democrats would if anything add additional resources to help him. griff: we shall see and it will be fun to follow your reporting on it thank you very much. thanks so much. griff: still ahead, the caravan of central american migrants arriving at the border this afternoon, so how should the u.s. handle this? we ll find out plus an about i trump comedian unleashing vile attacks as the host of last night s white house correspondent s dinner our next guest fellow comedian says it wasn t a roast it was being mean to people they don t like. stay tuned. tech: so you think this chip is nothing to worry about? well at safelite, we know sooner or later every chip will crack. these friends were on a trip when their windshield got chipped. so they scheduled at safelite.com. they didn t have to change their plans or worry about a thing. i ll see you all in a little bit. and i fixed it right away with a strong repair they can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! tech: being there whenever you need us that s another safelite advantage. singers: safelite repair, safelite replace. hey, want thedone.est internet? and now, xfinity mobile is included. you can get up to five lines. you can save 400 bucks or more a year, which you can spend on a funk-tastic music video. dance party boom. simple. easy. awesome. come see how you can save $400 or more a year with xfinity mobile. plus, ask how to keep your current phone. visit your local xfinity store today. pete: some quick headlines for you happening this week, tomorrow, major arizona school districts will remain closed as teachers walk out over pay and education funding and those head into a second week. on friday, governor doug doocey reached a deal with lawmakers for 20% pay raise for teachers by 2020 but still needs to address other demands like restoring state education funding we ll see how long that standoff continues, and tuesday, fox news kicks off its mid-term election series with a west virginia republican senate debate. congressman evan jenkins, state attorney general patrick morsey and businessman don plank enship squaring off ahead of november s election. the debate will be moderated live on this channel fox news channel at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. it is once again election season upon us. abby: you can feel it. all right well the anti-trump comedian making her point clear in her vile attacks last night as the host of last night s white house correspondent s dinner watch this. a lot of people want trump to be impeached i do not because just when you think trump is awful, you remember mike pence, you guys got to stop putting kellyanne on your show. all she does is lie. we re are graced with sarah s presence tonight. i have to say i m a little star struck. i love you as aunt lidia. pete: okay, well, fellow comedian is the writer and producer behind kevin can wait. he joins us now to react. abby: it s a great show great to have you on this morning. pete: you re the right guy to talk to. you know how to write jokes and deliver them. what do you make of last night? it was horrible. it was just straight up horrible the whole roasting has gotten out of hand. it s not a gentle, you know, hey we re both in the same business i m kind of making fun of you. it s like the personal attacks, it s vicious, it s not fun. it s not funny. i don t know who blames trump for not going? i don t. it s like being invited to a restaurant where you know you re going to get food poisoning you know it. why would you go? abby: do you think this speaks to a broader problem we re see ing with comedy today? rob schneider who i m sure you know is an snl alum, and he says saturday night live is ruining the joke, he says the fun of snl was always you never knew which way they leaned and you kind of assumed they would lien left and liberal but now the cat is out of the bag and they are completely against trump which makes it less interesting because you know the direction the piece is going and it is so predictable to his point, do you agree with that? i agree with it 110%. i don t know rob. it s like you re watching the same joke over and over and over again. there s zero surprise. leave it to the writers of snl to like ruin a knock-knock joke. like knock-knock, whose there? alec baldwin and he hates trump. it s the same thing. it s just predictable. a million years ago, phil hart man did a skit where he was ronald regan and he portrayed reagan as the smartest man on the planet with unlimited energy it was hilarious. you need an element of surprise or it s just not funny and then it s just a personal attack and boring and a yawn fest. griff: michael let me take you quickly into the writing part of this because when it came to michelle wolf s speech is it your sense that they wrote with a real intent to express the hatred that came out of that, that they didn t try and write something that will be funny and edgey but actually hateful. their writing for their friends is what they re doing. today i m sure the girl who hosted i don t even know her i don t know her name, she s going to go to her friends i said it. i did the joke and sarah was right there. it doesn t matter if it s funny they re not going to she s not even trying to entertain anybody she s got an agenda she wanted to hurt people feelings she wanted to plant her flag on mount hurt a lot and brag about it the next day. abby: yeah. it s boring and it s sad and it s not the spirit in which it s supposed to be. everybody is supposed to have a good time at the roast and sadly those days are over. you want to smack the other person down and have an agenda. pete: that s exactly right but it s predictable and boring which is the exact opposite of president trump and washington township in michigan totally unpredictable but interesting because you never know where he s going to go next. why can t comedy maybe learn from trump? i don t know. i don t know but i have more fun watching a trump rally than i did the white house correspondent s dinner. he s a better comic. abby: it s a great point. thanks for being with us and keep doing your show because it makes us laugh. we need some refreshing comedy today. pete: thank you, sir. appreciate it. we re doing what we can we have a good time. thanks you guys. pete: you got it. all right well president trump taking his message straight to the people, touting his tax cuts and all of the economic gains since he took office. maria bartiromo joins us next to talk about where the economy can go from here. abby: and you won t want to miss this one, a texas teen leaves her date speechless, greeting him by walking for the first time in 10 months. this is some incredible video coming in we re going to explain all of that to you coming up that is so sweet. president trump: so you ve got to get to the poll and we have some great people running. how have you done with the tax cuts by the way? [applause] president trump: and not only the tax cuts, the jobs that have been created. the jobs. let me tell you, our country is doing great. you know, the stock market which is not really the all-time indicator, because the countries actually doing much better than the stock market but the stock market is up almost 35% since the election. abby: that was president trump last night in michigan for one of his infamous president trump rallies. we want to bring in maria bartiromo host of sunday morning futures out in la. it s early there, maria. pete: we miss you. maria: [laughter] it is guys it s great to see you this morning. the president s right, abbey you know it. we all know it. we re talking about profit growth right now in the middle of the first quarter earnings reporting season we re talking about profit growth of 19%. 19% year-over-year is a huge number for s&p 500 profit that s what we re looking at for the first quarter overall economic growth about, you know, 3% or 2.7% is what s expected for the year 2018 and you are seeing this employment situation almost at full employment, so between the tax cut plan, between the regulation rollback, those two policies coming out of the trump adminitration as well as just the recovery from the bottom, we re looking at a pretty good economy right now and we get the jobs number out next friday, it s probably going to be a good number. pete: maria the president also talked about china and our trade relationship with them he said china puts china first. i put america first. he said i don t want an out and out trade war but we might feel a little bit of pain for the short term for the betterment of the long term. where is that relationship going maria: pete that is exactly what s happening right now. the reason i m here in la is i have an exclusive inter interview today with steven mnuchin the treasury secretary that s on first thing tomorrow on the fox business network and he s giving me this last interview before going to china and what s happening now everybody i ve spoken with these china experts i speak with from hnnk greenberg to several others , say the same thing to me me and steve schwartzman from blackstone group say china is going to make some changes. they know they cannot enjoy what they ve enjoyed the last couple of decades any longer things are going to change so my prediction the $375 billion trade deficit with china goes down perhaps by a hundred billion dollars, 275 and china is going to be moving their markets, they are going to be opening the markets more for foreigners in particular for american companies. you know that when you go to china right now, you can not and if you want to sell to the 1.3 billion population there is 10 industries that are deemed off limits that you will not get a foothold at all and even if you do you ll be able to own 49% of a joint venture a chinese company will be on the other side and they will be running the joint venture. they are going to move to change things. they are going to start opening up their markets and so this, you know, punch in the face that donald trump basically gave is working. his tough talk is working so going on a trip and i do believe that at some point we ll see china make concessions. griff: maria let me quickly point out one thing because in california the immigration stuff a few weeks ago the president talked about the program you re at ground central for how that impacts what is your sense of how the presidents comments are playing there in a state that depends heavily on them? maria: you know i think it s a real divided state right now, griff. the fact is people understand that for a country you need borders. everybody wants immigration, no doubt, we re a diversified country but it has to be legal immigration and i think there s a real push and pull going on here. we hear the loudest voices oftentimes that doesn t necessarily represent the broad state and by the way, we ve got an interview this morning on sunday morning futures with senator lindsay graham we re going to be getting into that as well as the fbi and the doj abusive of power here he s obviously on the senate judiciary so we ll talk about these james comey interviews he s doing where he s perjuring himself and the ig report is coming out in terms of what he did. abby: it s going to be a great show. i do have an important question of all the guests we have on the show nobody has more energy than you and it s so early there in la. what is your secret? what do you wake up and drink in the morning or eat, where does that energy come from? maria: you know what? i just gave up coffee recently so all i drink is water now and i went to bed really early last night. pete: it s called living well. griff: we want the truth here. maria: i m ready. griff: do you have dragon energy that we re seeing here? pete: it might be. maria: yeah i guess so me and kanye. [laughter] abby: we ll see you in a few minutes thanks so much. maria: thanks so much. abby: doesn t she have amazing energy? pete: and she lands an interview with steven mnuchin before he goes to china? abby: well we have other headlines i want to bring you starting on a serious note a brother and a sister reunited after losing their parents and a baby sister in a tragic car crash look at this heartbreaking photo so the accident leaving eight year old angie and 5-year-old zachary in critical condition and injuring their two younger brothers. an suv striking their vehicle in texas killing their parents and eight week old sister. if you d like to help the siblings with medical costs we ll have more on how you can help tomorrow morning with their aunt who will join us on the show on fox & friends it s so heartbreaking. also this, the first members of that caravan of migrants now flooding into the country the group of about 400 setting up shop near san diego on the mexican side as children and pregnant women are caught sneaking in through a passage notorious for drug and human smuggling. vice president mike pence is preparing for a trip to the u.s. mexico border in california and that s set for tomorrow where he meets with border officials and important timing for that trip. well the university of texas now treating masculinity as a mental health issue. a newly-launched program is urging male students to take more control over their gender identity and develop a healthy sense of masculinity. the program warns that men who enjoy taking care of people or being active is dangerous, claiming that traditional ideas and masculinity place men into rigid boxes preventing them from developing their emotional maturity. so you can t go help people? griff: apparently not. abby: well now to the best video you ll see all day a texas teen surprises her prom date by walking for the first time in 10 months watch this. [cheesier and applause] no! abby: this is amazing video so morgan posting her date s priceless reaction on social media. it s unknown what exactly caused the medical issue but the teen beauty, she was crowned prom queen as you can see there, walking for the first time, and the couple looks so happy. pete: very cool. abby: that s what life is all about those moments. pete: for sure. abby: rick how you doing out there? rick: beautiful story i love see ing that. we have an amazing time going on out here. these incredible games this one i ve never heard of it i bet it s like everybody knows about it now, gaga ball i think it s called? so we ll watch these guys, we ll talk a little bit about the weather big weather coming this week. we ve not had much in the way of tornadoes in fact every month so far we ve been below average overall we re about half what we would normally see this time of the year heading in towards may the busiest tornado season of the month and right on target think we re looking at activity tomorrow, tuesday right across parts of the areas from omaha down across the missouri river down towards kansas city and then wednesday get ready i think it s our biggest day to be looking at large tornadoes around parts of oklahoma throughout kansas and parts of missouri and texas so we ll watch it closely the other story is warming temperatures take a look at what happened, chicago you have a very chilly morning this morning, tomorrow you get a high of 72, fargo 77 beautiful down across much of the southeast, again by tuesday we start to see that warm air move towards the east and take a look at wednesday and thursday. boston, finally getting over 80 degrees, going to be beautiful. all right abbey? we got something setup for you out here. you got to climb this wall. pete: it has abbey s name on it. i agree. abby: well no, no, not what s happened with griff yesterday. i m steering clear of that. pete: you ve got to get back up that next day. that s why griff has one arm. abby: we got to be fighters on this show. you re a fighter griff because you re here today. griff: dragon energy. president trump warning his supporters not to get complacent because of the democrat s win in the 2018 mid-terms they ll impeach him. president trump: if you listen to maxine waters, we will impeach him. the people said but he hasn t done anything wrong. oh, that doesn t matter. griff: is he right? we ll debate that coming up next your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. have discovered something strong.e dependable. long lasting. they ve found themselves in a chevy truck. and now, you can too. see for yourself why chevrolet is the most awarded and fastest growing brand the last four years overall. switch into a new chevy now. current competitive owners can gethree thousand dollars total cash allowance on most colorado pickups. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. tech: so you think this chip is nothing to worry about? well at safelite, we know sooner or later every chip will crack. these friends were on a trip when their windshield got chipped. so they scheduled at safelite.com. they didn t have to change their plans or worry about a thing. i ll see you all in a little bit. and i fixed it right away with a strong repair they can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! tech: being there whenever you need us that s another safelite advantage. singers: safelite repair, safelite replace. abby: 15 minutes now to the top of the hour we are back with quick headlines pop star katy perry meets pope frances amid a major legal battle with a nun whose now asking the pontiff to intervene. sister rita calanan is appealing after the singer won the case buying a california convent the nun arguing perry shouldn t live there because of her lifestyle. also this music lovers looking for some affordable summer fun? abby: you could see hit artists like hall & oats for just $20 thanks to live nation starting tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. fans can nab cheap tickets to show during their national concert week sounds awesome pete over to you. pete: thanks, abbey, they turned up in droves to rally yesterday but president trump still warning michigan voters not to get complacent. president trump: if you listen to maxine waters, we will impeach him. the people said but he hasn t done anything wrong. oh, that doesn t matter. pete: here to debate that statement is fox news contributor and gop political analyst giano coldwell and democratic strategist joel payne so the president says it is the goal of democrats especially in the house to do exactly what they say they want to do like maxine waters and others have said which is impeach this president if they get the majority. is the president framing this debate correctly? no, you know this reminds me when i was a kid. pete: so they don t mean it? yeah, yeah, when i d get in trouble and try to deflector change the topic to something else because i don t want to focus on what the actual news is here is the actual news. the president was in michigan last night, okay? this approval rating is under 40 % in michigan, a state that he won and by the way macomb county where he beat hillary clinton by 12 points do you know what s in the bullseye of his tariff war against china and our allies? soybeans which is one of the biggest soybean producing areas in the country in macomb, michigan. the president doesn t want to focus on the fact that his agenda has an a failure and fail ing in the heart of trump country that s what the news is any focus on impeachment by the president is an attempt to deflect his base. pete: democrats have said many time and time again their goal ultimately is impeachment his biggest goal running an ad millions of dollars to impeach him, is he right? well here is the thing first and foremost want to say thank you to maxine waters for giving us this genius campaign strategy , this impeachment talk is really good to when it coming out in these mid-term elections. the question is especially for the party in power why should the voters come out? democrats have the reason why they should come out and now we have a reason why our voters should come out we talk about the conservatives and republican s and trump supporters so considering the fact there s so much emphasis being placed on this impeachment where there s literally nothing that the president has done wrong orem peachable i should say, this is an excellent time for us to get our base out. not only did we put together the tax reform and we passed those things over to the american people, we can now say the democrats want to obstruct further and impeach a president so this is i think an excellent strategy that we ve took in the democratic play book and turned it right back on to them. pete: joel honest question, besides resistance and some called that impeachment what is the police officer of democrats running in 2018? the platform is reverse all things that donald trump has done to ruin the progress of the obama-era. the economy everyone likes to brag about, could i finish my point, is that okay? the progress that he likes to brag about is all barack obama s progress. he did the hard work over the past eight years. he de regulated the economy. by the way, if you want to take another shot at maxine waters, i think you should come with something stronger than that. it s not a shot. i m giving her hugs and kisses. i love maxine waters. i ll ride with maxine and all the things she s done to fight for working families over the years. pete: if you re riding with maxine, then you re riding with impeachment because that s all she talks about. that s not all she talks about and that s a ridiculous misrepresentation of maxine waters and what democrats feel. pretty much. that is one part of what democrats are talking about which by the way the only reason they re talking about it is because the president is giving them amunition to talk about it. pete: there you go. real quick. there are democrats saying this is inappropriate to talk about impeachment you re talking about harry reed, nancy pelosi, who said we should i know harry reed, i worked for him. you ve got so much other stuff with donald trump. so with that being the case he have a very important question. what do democrats stand for and you said basically nothing. pete: go back to obama. thank you very much for your time we appreciate it. thank you. pete: summer s almost here so of course we just built a summer camp on the plaza. i m going to be climbing the wall we re doing other things coming up next just trying not to get hurt. your business. so this won t happen. because you ve made sure this sensor and this machine are integrated. atta, boy. & yes, some people assign genders to machines. & with edge-to-edge intelligence, you ll know your customers love this color, & don t love this one. never getting grape again. & you can adjust in near real time. & if someone tries to breach your firewall in london & you start to panic. don t. you ve got allies on the outside, & security algorithms on the inside. & if it s jammed up here, & it s hot in here. & you know both those things, you can do this. & your flowers won t wilt. at&t provides edge to edge intelligence. it can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. that s the power of &. & when her patient s blood pressure drops, she can share the information with. we need to help more tocalifornians get ahead.d, that s why antonio villaraigosa brought republicans and democrats together to balance the state budget with a budget reserve, while investing in local schools and career training. as mayor of la, he put more police on the streets and reduced violent crime by nearly fifty percent. that s antonio villaraigosa. a governor for all of california. go believe it or not summer is almost here and for you parents out there that means it s time to choose a summer camp for your kids but where do you begin here to help break down options is executive director of maryland s river valley ranch cam john. where is river valley and what do you got going on there? we re located just north of baltimore so we ve been there for almost 60 years and offer a variety of different activities, different camps for kids ages 7- 17. one of over 900 camps in the country. griff: it s really important to get your kids involved in camp. i want you to explain to me why you re also showing me what is abbey doing here? this is an activity called archery tag. this is between dodge ball, paintball and archery kind of a big soft foam tip on the end that keeps it safe but allows it to become a fun game for kids so we re just doing target practice griff: we ll try not to get shot what are these guys doing? so this is bubble ball it s a variation of soccer you can see provides additional fun for the kids and a twist on a common game. griff: hold on get me up on that tower, pete how you doing? pete: i don t know we ll find out. griff: what is pete doing up there? that is a vertical ropes course and all these new initiatives we have are designed to really challenge kids put them out of their comfort zone. griff: how about challenging pete. he looks very challenged up there. griff: you got it buddy hang in there. now you know it s things like this that builds esteem and really gets kids get away from computers. absolutely getting kids unplugged is one of the big missions of camp, getting them out in the open. abby: and confidence. teamwork, and really overcoming obsticles. abby: pete needs a confidence boost today. yeah, that s good. but they do something like this, how can i overcome something else in my life that s hard so that s what these are designed to do. griff: clearly, pete getting a little bit of confidence boost there at the very end, to add to his masculinity. abby: more fox & friends right after this. roundup for lawns has arrived to put unwelcome lawn weeds to rest. so draw the line. roundup for lawns is formulated to kill lawn weeds to the root without harming a single blade of grass. roundup, trusted for over forty years. pete: no way. abby: if you wonder what s going on this is a new game called gag a ball. you can t hit your feet. pete you re out, pete. out. griff: who got pete out? tomorrow is dan bongino, it s going to be a great show have a great sunday everybody. we re going to stay out here and play some ball. maria: good sunday morning from los angeles, north korea vows to shutdown its nuclear test site ahead of an anticipated summit between president trump and kim jong-un. meront controversy this morning surrounding james comey after he claims he s not a leaker and president trump calls on one democratic senator from a red state to resign hi everyone thanks for joining us i m maria bartiromo welcome to sunday morning futures. new word out of the today that north korea plans to make another step to signal and this follows leaders from both side holding a historic meeting in which kim jong-un said he
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. hello and welcome to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. sarah and ryan were newlyweds. a young coupled that appears to be deeply in love. sarah mysteriously drowned in their bathtub. ryan claimed it was an accident. to investigators, his story did not add up. was this a tragic mishap, or was something more sinister at play? here s dennis murphy. 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. 114 days to be exact. they vowed till death do us part. and that moment was only minutes away from arriving. they had begun the two of them with a blind date at a pub that worked out. sarah, sarah stewart had been fixed up by her friend, dana. dana had an inkling that sarah would hit it off with ryan. i came home. i said sarah is amazing. i think their personalities would get along. he said, well, let s see what happens. what happened over drinks and nibbles was chemistry. laid back ryan, the college jock and baseball player, super organized sarah, who needed everything just so talked about getting together. she said let me check my book. she gets out her little black book. she s looking through. he is peeking over looking. he said, later he calls us and tells us there was nothing written in her black book. reporter: a fast track courtship. and before very long. ryan was bringing his new girlfriend home to meet his mom, jill. i liked her a lot. probably number one thing that struck me the most was how beyond her years in maturity she was. poised, huh? yeah. sarah didn t have a problem telling anyone anything. so if you made sarah mad, you knew you made sarah mad. as for ryan he never seemed to lose it. i don t think i ve ever seen him upset. he doesn t get mad. he is so laid back and easy going, go with the flow. she is so on it organized this is where we are we have to be. he just says okay. jill enjoyed her days with ryan and his new girlfriend, sarah. our family tends to do a lot of barbecues and picnics and things like that. we would spend some time down on the lake in kentucky. they would come down there. were you pleased she was becoming a serious part of the family? i was very pleased, yes. the couple brought a nice four bedroom house together in a good neighborhood and ryan surprised sarah with an engagement ring. the ring in a dog collar. around the dog s collar. she was very excited. he was excited. sarah made him happy. reporter: soon the wedding invitations were in the mail. the bridesmaids knew they better snap to. she is a planner. she had everything ready to go. wanted to make sure the girls wore the same eye shadow. she gave us makeup kits for the wedding so we all looked the same. how was ryan doing? just as happy, happier than i have ever seen him with her. reporter: it cost sarah a big screen tv to seal the deal. but she got ryan to take ballroom dance lessons for the wedding. i was amazed. never in a million years. reporter: your son at dance lessons? she could get him to do more things than any woman he had ever dated. reporter: the wedding in april 2008 was a formal affair. the bride was beautiful. ryan s dance came off without a hitch. and the happy brides maids all matched just as sarah wanted. very beautiful. i mean every detail was planned obviously to a t because it was sarah. and she was gorgeous. awesome. probably the most fun wedding we had ever been to, ever. reporter: the newlyweds went to costa rica for their honeymoon and had a great time. then back to cincinnati to begin their journey together as mr. and mrs. ryan widmer. they worked really hard. built a beautiful deck. had a trip planned to cancun. they had everything to live for. reporter: august 11th should have been another day on the calendar in a young marriage? yes. august 11th, monday night. ryan remembers being downstairs watching monday night football. and sarah had gone upstairs to her bath. she was in trouble. 911, what is your emergency? my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub. i think. i went downstairs. i came up. she was laying face down in the bathtub. i got a call it was ryan. something has happened to sarah. emts were rushing sarah to the hospital. by then they worked on her for 45 minutes. but hadn t gotten a response. minutes later, jill was with her son waiting anxiously together in a room off emergency. finally, a woman came in and then we said is she gone? and she said yes. and he just dropped down to his knees and was just bawling and sobbing into the chair. reporter: sarah widmer, 24 years old, the bride of less than four months, was dead. her husband ryan told the emergency services people he thought she had fallen asleep in the bathtub and drowned. but the emts doing cpr tried everything they could to save her. they didn t understand one crucial observation they made at the home that night. there is something here that doesn t look right. a drowning in a dry bathroom? i expected something to be wet. there s a towel on the floor. there s a mat on the floor. but everything is perfectly dry. the questions deepen. 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(laughing) (vo) bounty, the quicker picker upper. with my bladder leakage, the products i ve tried just didn t fit right. they were too loose. it s getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the amazing services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again! this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you re up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. reporter: that monday night the cincinnati bengals were looking more than decent against green bay. fans across town, like jeff braley, wondered if this could finally be a miracle season for the back-then hapless local franchise of the nfl. but braley didn t get to see all of the game. he was a cop, a detective. and you don t get to pick your down time. i ve was at home watching the bengals game. i get a call from the sergeant. lieutenant, we re out on a drowning. the paramedics are working on her. but something s not right here. reporter: as he rolled to the house he knew some of what to expect. when you are a cop more than a decade you become familiar with the signs of the drowning like the froth about the victim s nose and mouth. your mind starts running immediately about possibilities. they initially tell me i have a 24-year-old drowning victim that died in the tub. i m thinking that we will find evidence of something. drugs. evidence of an overdose or something. as he pulled up the victim was already loaded in the back of the ambulance. the arriving police officer was still inside the house. and he gave the detective a fill on what he had found when he was led to the master bedroom where the 24-year-old woman lay on the carpet off the bath. he felt for a pulse. he assisted with cpr on what he described as a completely dry body with her hair being only damp. wet head, dry body. correct. for some one who drowned in a bathtub full of water. yes. go ahead and get her out of bathtub and get her on the flat surface. okay, okay. the 911 dispatcher had been quite clear. he instructed the husband to get his wife out of the bathtub and put her on the floor. i m dropping the phone. the husband went away and came back to say he moved his wife from the tub to the bedroom. go ahead and get back to cpr. try cpr. we ll be there in a little bit. reporter: the detective wondered along with the emts and arriving officers why a woman who drowned in a bathtub would be mostly dry. he needed to see the scene. what story would it tell him. i start mentally preparing myself based on what they told me. what do i want to see versus what do i see? he headed for the master bathroom. i expected something to be wet. expected water on the floors or towels or whatever it might be. it is not there. dry-dry. there is a small remnant of water, what you might call droplets on the bottom of the tub around the drain. other than that there is nothing. you got any bath mats. wet towels on the floor. there is a towel on the floor. a mat on the floor. everything is dry. reporter: he had a drowning victim that didn t appear to be wet. someone that supposedly fell asleep in the tub and pitched down in the water. but a bathroom that was dry and undisturbed though presumably the husband had to wrangle her limp body out of the tub as he moved her to the bedroom. whether it s lotions, soap, whatever is on the side they weren t knocked off. that bothered me if you are pulling somebody quickly out of the tub. that s still together. the detective making mental notes. something was screaming to me something is bad wrong, something bad really, really, really bad has happened here. more so than just a tragic accident where she drowned. the forensic techs arrived and were taking photos. cutting out sections of the bedroom carpet where the mixture of blood and fluid common in drownings had stained it. what they wondered was there another explanation for the stains. they wanted to get the things to our lab right away to start, start checking out some things. reporter: though it was early hours in an incident. so much would depend on the findings of an autopsy, the detective knew this was not a case that was going to be closed out that night. when i left the house at 2:00 a.m., i knew i had a suspicious death. still there were questions how long had sarah been out of the tub? and had she been out of the tub long enough for her body to air dry? it wasn t possible. you know if you are pulling somebody directly out of a tub of water the body has to be wet. no other way around it. unless a substantial amount of time has passed or we re not being told an accurate story of what transpired. question was it possible for ryan to lift sarah out of the tub without knocking over those bottles that the detective noted were undisturbed? was it possible for water not to be splashed around as she was moved to the bedroom? and that overriding question what had happened to the young wife in the master bedroom? we knew she had drowned from the scene itself. it was the manner in which she drowned that had raised all the questions. but detective braley would have the most questions for the seemingly happily married husband. was it possible there was stress in the marriage that no one knew about? i had to rely on the fact in the back of my mind that nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. as police consider foul play, friends and family wonder was there something medical behind this mystery. coming up did she have an aneurysm? did she have a seizure? was there something medical behind this mystery? she was complaining of headaches. i was telling her, how long has it been since you have been to the doctor? nce you have been to the doctor? with my bladder leakage, the products i ve tried just didn t fit right. they were too loose. it s getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. get stronger. get closer. start listening today to the world s largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you ll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can t find anywhere else. if you don t like a book, you can exchange it any time, no questions asked. automatically roll your credits over to the next month if you don t use them. with the free audible app, you can listen anytime, and anywhere. plus for the first time ever, you ll get access to exclusive fitness programs a $95 value free with membership. start a 30-day trial today and your first audiobook is free. cancel anytime and your books are yours to keep forever. audible. the most inspiring minds. the most compelling stories. text listen27 to 500500 to start your free trial today. sarah widmer had died of drowning in her home. and her body would be examined by the coroner. there was nothing for ryan, her husband of four months, to do but leave the hospital and head home. his mother, jill, took him back to the house in the wee hours. ryan asked me, mom i can t go back in there. can you go in and grab clothes for me. so i went upstairs. when i got to the bedroom. there were a couple pieces of carpet cut out of their carpeting which i thought was odd. it hadn t occurred to mother or son that the authorities were looking at sarah s death as anything but a tragic explainable incident of some sort. there were a million questions in our mind, did she have an aneurysm, did something medically happen to her? did she have a seizure? day light and word was spreading that sarah was gone. dana and chris, the couple who had fixed the newlywed up could not believe what they were hearing. we had just gotten back from a trip and told her i would call her as soon as we got back and we would get together to dinner. i didn t get a chance. shocking news. dana, a nurse, tried to make sense of what had happened to her dear friend. she thought back to her conversations with sarah. she was complaining of headaches, saying what do you think of her medical background? i said, maybe you should get your blood pressure checked, i said, you should get a checkup. there was that funny trait sarah used to have that people would kid her about, that she would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. maybe it was part of an underlying condition that explained her death. her mother-in-law noticed it when she first got to know sarah. jill was taking home videos in 2007. i panned over, there s sarah having a good time. sarah was sound asleep in the family room. there were 15 or 20 people in the room, laughing, talking, kids running around, and sarah went to sleep. sarah snoozing in the car. friends kidded her about it. she would always fall asleep at the beginning of movies, we would be nudging her, sarah, wake up. was it so noticeable that you guys joked about it? even at the dinner table, we would be saying, sarah, don t fall asleep. i would say, sarah, you have narcolepsy. she said, no. i m just tired all the time. had she fallen asleep and drowned in the tub? was that possible? ryan thought so. he said as much to the 911 dispatchers. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. but all the observations about sarah was just anecdotal information, not the stuff of real medical investigation. the medical examiner would have the first real results about sarah s death. what was he finding? no evidence of stroke, no evidence of a heart attack. but the medical examiner had discovered something else. bruising to sarah s head and neck. what had caused those injuries? the investigators checked off what they had so far. a young woman supposedly drowned in the bathtub with a damp head of hair and a dry body. it didn t figure. if you re pulling somebody out of a tub of water, it has to be wet. there s no way around it. a woman with unexplained bruises. and a husband whose story they didn t believe. ryan s story doesn t fit at all. we determined at that point we had a homicide. sarah murdered. and the authorities believed her husband ryan did it. how shocking is that to you? oh, i can t even tell you. they charge ryan with murder. i mean, you ve got to be kidding me. like why would they think why? and i can t even tell you what that was like. so on top of losing this beautiful member of our family, he didn t even get a chance to grieve because now we re scared to death and he s scared to death that he s going to be charged with murder. and that is exactly what would happen. just two days after his new bride s death, a warrant was issued for ryan widmer s arrest. by ryan s admission, he was the only one in the house. ryan murdered sarah or he s covering for somebody that did. it didn t seem possible at first glance. a clean cut young couple, him without a criminal record of any kind, them with no history of arguments, no problems in their marriage. what was the motivate for murder on a monday night? any boyfriend/girlfriend issues here? no evidence of that. money trouble? not that we can find. any anger issues with the guy? no. you re not getting a negative picture of this couple. no, we re not. as unlikely as it may seem, police say there s no other explanation for sarah s death. ryan is charged with his wife s murder. his family and friends were devastated. ryan and i were both so broken hearted. i could not have ever conceived, nor could ryan, that they would have had any idea that he would have been the person to hurt her and that it wasn t just a tragic accident. it broke my heart, knowing that he was feeling that grief and fear for his own life too. is there any moment when you think maybe i don t know the guy? never. maybe an instant of something awful happened? he never said anything where he was remotely angry. even sarah s family was behind ryan. so much so, the two families decided to delay sarah s funeral until ryan was out on bond. sarah s family were very livid about the fact that he wasn t guilty and they weren t going to go forward with the service until ryan could be there. the families are both on the same page here. yes. that you re four-square behind ryan. mm-hmm. and you re not going to even grieve together formally until he s there with you. right. the dead woman s brother, mike stewart, asked the judge to lower ryan s bond amount so he could attend the funeral. in our heart of hearts, we don t believe ryan would do this. but eight days before the judge lowered ryan s bond from $1 million to $400,000. by then it was too late. the funeral had already been held so out of town relatives could return home. it was a nice ceremony. her brother got up and said a few nice words. and i know that ryan wrote a letter that was read during the service. the minister that did their wedding did her funeral as well. chris and dana grieved for sarah. but also tried to comfort a shattered ryan. i remember him telling me, dana, i love her so much. ryan was so distraught, he felt he couldn t go back to the home he had bought with sarah. so while he waited for his trial date, he moved in with his mother. it was great to have him staying with me, but there s only one topic in the household, huh? there s two. one was continuing to talk about how much we miss sarah, trying to grieve for her. the same time this young man who lost the love of his love, he s trying to grieve for his wife and he s got a murder charge hanging over his head that he might go to prison the rest of his life. ryan wondered why couldn t everybody just see that he loved his wife and the death wasn t murder? coming up the case goes to court and out comes the evidence. it would be virtually impossible for somebody to fall asleep and not wake up. and later, ryan speaks out at last. so you think they wanted to make a case here? why would they arrest me a day after if they didn t want to make a case? t to make a case? 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(boy) hey look, i got it. bounty, the quicker picker upper. with my bladder leakage, the products i ve tried just didn t fit right. they were too loose. it s getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. get stronger. get closer. start listening today to the world s largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you ll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can t find anywhere else. if you don t like a book, you can exchange it any time, no questions asked. automatically roll your credits over to the next month if you don t use them. with the free audible app, you can listen anytime, and anywhere. plus for the first time ever, you ll get access to exclusive fitness programs a $95 value free with membership. start a 30-day trial today and your first audiobook is free. cancel anytime and your books are yours to keep forever. audible. the most inspiring minds. the most compelling stories. text listen5 to 500500 to start your free trial today. president trump is spending christmas in washington, tweeting, i am all alone, poor me. in afghanistan, a suicide bomber and three gunmen struck a government building killing 23 and wounding more than 20. all three agagunmen were killed. gud as sarah s relatives lead her to rest, her husband sat in a jail cell, charged with murder. investigators weren t buying his story. soon, a family member rethinking an incident that may not have been so innocent after all. had trouble been brewing in their seemingly happy marriage? sarah was wonderful. the most loving person. she was just a great person. sarah widmer had been a daughter, a wife, a loyal friend in her brief life. but in death, to those who would never know her, she would become simply the victim. the case could be summarized as briefly as a true crime paperback: the bathtub murder. radio host bill cunningham could feel the court of public opinion respond to the story. the bathtub murder case had the phone ringing. the idea that such a young man could be watching a bengals game, that was shocking. i had a large number of callers who said to me, he didn t it, he doesn t fit the profile, there was no history. i said, wait a minute, wait until the trial takes place. i m led to believe there is going to be clear and convincing evidence. seven months after sarah s death, the only jury that mattered was sworn in to hear the case against 28-year-old ryan widmer, a charge of aggravated murder. his friends stuck by him. his life hangs in the balance. that s a scary thought. sarah s family sat across from ryan s as they had the previous year during the couple s wedding. sarah s family s support for him had eroded. for sarah s mom, the situation seemed to get stranger by the minute. her son on trial for murder. i see my scared baby is what i see. i mean, he was scared to death. but the prosecution s message for the jury was blunt. there had been a violent confrontation in the widmer house that night. ryan widmer purposely killed sarah stewart widmer and murdered her by drowning. the prosecutors began with the first moments of the case. ryan s call to 911. my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub, i think. i was downstairs. i came up here and she was laying face down in the bathtub. the emergency dispatcher testified that the voice was giving more details than normal. the caller was rather calm. usually i can t get anything out of them. she s in the bathtub? the water is draining right now. i was out there watching tv. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. to the prosecutors, the husband was trying to place himself as far away as possible from the bathroom where sarah had died. he really gives very little information about her condition. it s more important for him to say i wasn t there and i don t have anything to do with this. and could sarah even be dead face down in the bathtub? could a body contort that way? that seems an odd position for somebody who has, quote, fallen asleep, to be face down with your face near the faucet. in terms of the possibilities of how the enclosed space of the bathtub is shorter than she is long. we re not talking about an mcmansion whirlpool tub. right. so much of the case was built upon the observation of first responding officers and emergency responders. they noted not only was ryan not wet. this man who had lifted his wife s body out of the tub just minutes before they arrived. sarah was also mostly dry. i noticed her body was dry. her hair was damp. others on the scene corroborated this observation. damp head, dry body. things were not adding up. it would seem to me her body would have been wet, the floor would have been wet, the carpet would have been wet. you re talking about from the time he says i m taking her out of this bathtub to the time that other people are there, her hair is described as simply damp, not even wet. the carpet s not wet. there s not water dripping off of her hair onto the rest of her body. the floor is not wet. the officer noticed something else. the victim s fingers and toes. we all know what happens to them when they ve been soaking in a bathtub. it was my understanding she had been in the water 20 to 30 minutes. i would have thought that her fingers would have been pruned up, her toes would have been pruned up. did you see any indication of that? no. from simple observations, the murder case had grown. the jury was being told that ryan widmer s story didn t gibe with what he had told officers. like the bathtub and tiles that should have been soaking wet but weren t. 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 didn t, the drop in oxygen would cause you to wake up. but maybe sarah hadn t fallen asleep. perhaps she had suffered a catastrophic but perfectly natural event. something to her heart, her brain. the coroner didn t find any. any evidence of heart problems? no. any evidence of brain injury or seizure? no. one of the amazing things about sarah widmer is that she had regular medical care, for a person her age, she went twice in two years for a regular physical. this is not a person who didn t have the opportunity to interact with her medical professionals. and to the coroner, the bruising he saw on sarah s neck and scalp while performing the autopsy looked ominous. the wounds significant, and not in the right spot to have been caused by the emts lifesaving efforts. the three bruises able to be seen on the right side of the scalp, another faint bruise on her forehead. she s got a significant degree of neck hemorrhage. she s undergone significant cpr. however there is no hemorrhage anywhere in the area of the chest. so it s difficult to try to rationalize that the hemorrhage in her neck can be the result of cpr. as the coroner saw it, the significant bruising on sarah s neck was caused by ryan s forceful drowning of her. do you have an opinion as to the manner of sarah s death? yes. the manner of death was homicide. and that took prosecutors into the realm of speculation. what had happened in the bedroom that night if sarah hadn t drowned by herself in the bathtub? this forensic pathologist had one scenario explaining a damp head but dry body. her head was pushed over the edge of either the bathtub or the sink or the toilet, either forwards or backwards, either into water or under running water. that s how she died. experts also noticed these strange prints, invisible to the naked eye. the prints were most likely made by a small person. if ryan had forced sarah over the side of the tub, had she tried to brace herself as she was pushed into the water? to my experience, those look like prints going in a downward motion. how do you fight back? keep your head out of the water? put your hands against the tub, or put your hands on the bottom of the tub? do you grasp at somebody and lose your only hold on life? a stark image, a husband pushing his wife s head underwater and holding her there until she drowned. she had been subjected to something forcibly drowning her. the jury had to wonder what the motivation could be for such an awful crime. sarah s mother was now testifying for the prosecution. she said when she was out shopping with sarah, her daughter seemed to feel she needed to check everything with ryan who could see her purchases on his computer. she would buy something, ryan would call her as soon as she bought it, sometimes, telling her did you really need it, why did you buy it or something. he thought she was spending too much money. he was very concerned about her shopping habits. correct. there were still stresses, things going on in their family. even the prosecutors had to acknowledge that this didn t necessarily add up to a clear motive for murder. but they believed there were things happening in the little house that no one but sarah or ryan knew about. anybody who has been married or in a relationship knows that what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage is not always apparent to the outside. but was the prosecution s case too thin? too much observation lite with not enough persuasive hard evidence? the defense would argue passionately that it was and that ryan had nothing to do with his wife s sudden death. ryan s defenders were not giving up. coming up i know that she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. h asleep in the bathtub before n so many interesting details. ancestrydna was able to tell me where my father s family came from in columbia. they pinpointed the columbian and ecuador region and then there s a whole new andean region. that was incredibly exciting because i really didn t know that. we never spoke about that in my family. it just brings it home how deep my roots are and it connects me to them, and to their spirit, and to their history. 20 million members have connected to a deeper family story. order your kit at ancestry.com. to a deeper family story. with my bladder leakage, the products i ve tried just didn t fit right. they were too loose. it s getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the amazing services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again! singular focus, a distinct determination to do whatever it takes, and use every possible resource to fight cancer, and never lose sight of the patients we re fighting for. our cancer treatment specialists share the same vision: experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care, specialists focused on treating cancer using advanced technologies, and more precise treatments than before. working as hard as we can-doing all that we can- for everyone who walks through our doors. this is cancer treatment centers of america comprehensive cancer care network. and these are the specialists we re proud to call our own. treating cancer is more than our mission. it s our passion. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. what was the toughest thing you had to surmount? that we had a lovely 24-year-old woman who was dead and no one could explain why. the defense wasn t going to be able to tell the jury what caused sarah widmer to drown that night. but they were going to show that ryan widmer had no reason to hurt his wife. and as far as damp hair/dry body, they would explain that. the bottom line for the defense i know one thing. ryan widmer had nothing to do with his wife s death. ryan widmer s defense attorney argued his client was plagued from the get-go by the unhappy choice of words on that 911 call. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. it sets the alarms going. exactly. had ryan told the 911 dispatcher only that his wife was unconscious, it wouldn t have been suspicious. the only thing ryan knows is, she fell asleep in the tub. they jump on that and say he s a liar. the coroner, his attorneys says, was all too quick to rule the death a homicide. he had no idea she was suffering from a headache that day. remember, an expert witness for the prosecution said it would have been impossible for sarah to fall asleep and die in the tub. but those who knew her sleep habits say it may have been a sign of an undiagnosed, underlying medical condition. sarah s boss, a dentist, testified sarah s quirky sleep habits were well-known around the office. she would go to her car and take a nap. that s odd because people don t usually do that. the dentist recollected that sarah had not been feeling well on that last day of her life. she had a sore throat. her stomach had been bothering her earlier in the day. she was still feeling crummy later in the evening when she spoke to a friend. she had a headache and the back of her neck was hurting. she sounded tired. she didn t sound like she felt very good. sarah turning off the day and retreating to her bathtub? that sounded just like the sarah they knew. she would always leave our house and say she had to get home and take a bath. sarah dozing off in the tub was a trait that her friend from childhood days was very familiar with. she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. we had talked about that, because i had fallen asleep in the bathtub too. the sleeping habits, the headaches. the defense claimed they could have been the symptoms of an underlying and potentially fatal condition that went undetected, something an otherwise healthy young woman wouldn t take that seriously. even with all their scientific art, argued the defense, sometimes pathologists simply cannot say why a person died. a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine testified that unexplained deaths occur far more often than many of us would guess. nationwide, there are approximately 300,000 episodes of sudden death per year. of those episodes, 1 to 2% occur in young people. one-third of those young people that die have normal autopsies. in other words, people sometimes just die, and their autopsies may never reveal the cause. but the issue that might decide the case was the observation by the arriving officers and emts of damp hair and dry body. what looks suspicious was easily explainable, says the defense. hair simply stays wet longer. if you get out of a pool or bathtub, the skin dries before the hair? yes. the defense told the court you have to look at the clock, the elapsed time of the incident. the defense claims sarah s body dried off in the time between when ryan spoke to the dispatcher and when the police arrived. what about the fingers and toes that should have been pruned up but weren t? no one knows what time sarah got into the tub. we don t know if she was primping in front of the mirror. we don t know any of that stuff. and by the way, says the defense, you can t have it both ways. if ryan had killed sarah in the small bathroom, there should have been water splashed everywhere. if there was a violent struggle, there would be water, on the floor, on the walls, on the counter, everywhere. if they want to claim that it was a staged scene where he cleaned up the water, where is the wet towel? and investigators looked for wet towels. in the dryer, even in the garage. nothing. and say for argument s sake there had been a struggle. you would think ryan would have gotten scratched up as sarah fought for her life. but ryan didn t have a mark on him. how would sarah have reacted? sarah was a very spunky person and she was small in stature, probably 5 1 . i think she weighed around 140 pounds. but she wasn t frail by any stretch of the imagination. she was a strong girl. she would have gone for her attacker? i heartily believe, yes. she had beautiful french manicured nails. none of them were damaged at all. she didn t have skin from ryan underneath her. and the very notion of ryan attacking sarah is preposterous, say their friends. ryan is a lot like my husband in the aspect of, when there s an argument, chris says, okay, what can we do to fix it and let s move on. that s kind of how ryan was. as far as accounting for the bruising noted to her neck and scalp, to the defense, they were certainly caused by the emts working on sarah. 45 minutes of resuscitation efforts. not five, not ten. 45 minutes. it looked perfectly consistent to this emergency room doctor, an expert for the defense. i was not surprised at the injuries at all based on the prolonged cpr and the number of intubation attempts. add it all up, results of lifesaving efforts, skin that may well have dried before the authorities show up, and you are left, the defense argued, with an unexplained death, something that experts tell you happened. and jurors, the reason you didn t hear about love affairs or out of control finances is because none of those things existed. motive. they don t have motive. it didn t add up that this man of 27 years who has never even shown anger in his entire life would all of a sudden kill his wife. it made no sense. i hope that you agree that ryan widmer is not guilty of any wrongdoing. what the prosecution would tell the jury in its closing argument was that while they may never know if ryan killed his wife of four months, that he nonetheless did, and that the clock was ticking as he staged his scene before calling 911, and that explains the dry body/damp hair mystery. sarah widmer was either out of the bathtub for a long period of time or her body was never fully in that bathtub. they claim ryan spent so much time cleaning up the scene before he called for emts, that sarah s dead body was showing signs of rigor mortis when she arrived. she was she was already dead by the time they got there. rigger motoris was setting in. now it was up to the jury to decide. we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know without a doubt that ryan did not do this. 23 hours of deliberation. the verdict. and the controversy. 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(laughing) (vo) bounty, the quicker picker upper. with my bladder leakage, the products i ve tried just didn t fit right. they were too loose. it s getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. and everyone i ve ever opioloved away from me.thing everything. i blew my ankle out and i got prescribed pain pills by my doctor. if making my detox public is gonna help somebody i m all for it. i just wish i would ve had a warning. welcome back to dateline extra. attorneys had mounted a vigorous defense. the newlywed had no motive to kill his wife. she had merely dozed off in the tub. prosecutors said evidence at the time crime scene proved it. now it was up to the jury to decide. here again is dennis murphy. about the only fact of the case that was indisputable was that sarah widmer had drowned. but was it a natural death in her bathtub? what about the suggestion of a neurological event, something with her heart? the medical examiner could not find anything. her medical history was devoid of anything that would suggest these things. or had sarah died at the hands of her husband ryan? they had failed to prove their case. they failed. the jury was out all day. the couple s friends waited. we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know without a doubt that ryan did not do this. and we pray to god that everyone else sees that too. billy cunningham, i immigrate america. ryan widmer might have wished that the listeners on bill cunningham s radio show had been on his jury. the calls split 90/10 in favor of ryan widmer, because during the trial there was no smoking gun. ryan s mother agreed. she was cautiously optimistic. i never let myself get cocky. i just felt that in having sat there and listened, there were a lot of holes and not a lot of evidence. he felt like there was a lot of reasonable doubt. the jurors were hard at work. they asked for the tub where sarah had been found dead to be brought to them in the jury room. by the second day, ryan s defense attorney was getting anxious. when they re out more than 20 hours, it s clear that somebody is saying that this isn t as straightforward as it seems. correct. but the prosecutors weren t worried by the long jury deliberation. we knew it was going to be a lot of evidence to weigh. they had two counts to died. count one, aggravated murder. and count two, nonpremeditated murder. did it happen suddenly, without prior thought? final, after 23 hours, the jurors reached a verdict. the lawyers were summoned. it s a very traumatic moment. your heart is racing, you re anxious to hear what the jury says. it s a profound moment. as jill hurried back to the courtroom, outside, a storm hit with biblical fury. she saw that as an ominous sign. the skies just opened up. there were tornado warnings. and it all just culminated when the verdict was about ready to be read. ryan widmer took his place at the defense table. the defendant will please rise. the verdict on count 1, aggravated murder, we the jury find the defendant ryan k. widmer is not guilty. a moment of relief for ryan. the jury did not believe he killed his wife with premeditation. but he still faced the second count of murder. we the jury in this case find the defendant is guilty. guilty. the jury had decided that ryan widmer did indeed murder his wife sarah. is there anything you wish to say? the accused, now the convicted, would kiss his wedding ring and address the court for the first time. he hadn t taken the stand, as was his right. i love my wife. i did not hurt her. i was never given a chance. the day after she passes away they charged me with murder. if i had an answer, i would give the answer to what happened to her. but i can t. i was not in the bathroom with her. he was very upset. he doubled over when addressing the court. i was surprised that he was at outspoken as he was. but he indicated to the judge and everybody that he loves sarah and he would never have hurt her. i love my wife and i did not hurt her. ryan widmer was given the mandatory sentence, 15 years to life in prison. he said two or three of the jurors had done home experiments where they showered and dried. home experiments, what was that all about? ryan widmer was about to get a break when the bathtub mystery continues. a break when the bathy continues. of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. get stronger. get closer. start listening today to the world s largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you ll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can t find anywhere else. if you don t like a book, you can exchange it any time, no questions asked. automatically roll your credits over to the next month if you don t use them. with the free audible app, you can listen anytime, and anywhere. plus for the first time ever, you ll get access to exclusive fitness programs a $95 value free with membership. start a 30-day trial today and your first audiobook is free. cancel anytime and your books are yours to keep forever. audible. the most inspiring minds. the most compelling stories. text listen27 to 500500 to start your free trial today. welcome back to dateline. ryan widmer insisted to the judge that he did not hurt his wife, sara. but the jury had spoken and ryan was headed to prison. then, a stunning twist. a juror, troubled by an incident was about to deliver a bombshell and it would turn this case upside down. what went on behind the closed doors of that deliberation room? with more of our story, here is dennis murphy. ryan widmer had been convicteded of murdersing his wife, sara, and was given the mandatory sentence, 15 years to life in prison. he was cuffed and moved to a holding cell. he stopped next to me and said, can i say goodbye to my mom? they said, no, just keep moving. how difficult was that? beyond difficult. dana, who had set up her friend with her college roommate, was devastated. she wasn t murdered. one of my best friends. there isn t a whisper of doubt that said my best friend may have been murdered? no. absolutely not. my impression was that the community was stunned by the verdict. the verdict was so unpopular in the court of public opinion that candlelight vigils were staged to protest the jury vote. there has never been a case for candlelight vigils about a condemned kilter. it s never happened before. bill cunningham regards himself as a conservative, but even he felt this was a case of justice denied. this is one of the flimsiest and one of the weakest i ve ever seen. someone out there following the trial was mike, a young newlywed himself and a web page designer. even though he had never met ryan, he launched a free ryan widmer website. the goal is for him to get a new trial. if he doesn t get a new trial, i believe it s going to outrage a lot of people. angry citizens, taxpayers, voters. even though the real trying was over, the prosecution hadn t completely called it quits. they found evidence that he had been on the site, but no evidence that he followed through. if they were such a happy kubl, why somebody on the computer searching, looking for a hookup spot? that makes no sense to me. the judge had not allowed the web surfing or other pornography investigators say they found on his computer to be introduced as evidence since there was no way to know if sara even know about ryan s internet trolling. still, was it a sign that their marriage was not as happy as friends and family believed. my understanding of some of these sites, supposedly, that he visited ended up being pop ups on a computer and i m not the most computer literate person, but i don t think the full story was told there, either. and i don t understand if they got the verdict they want, why they have to continue to attack my son and my family. and ryan s mother said if the couple had fought over anything, the family would have known. sara, always outspoken, wasn t the type to suffer in silence. sara told everybody everything. she s a chatty person. she had just been with her family for the entire weekend without ryan being there. if there were any problems, believe me, they all would have known it and i probably would have known it because sara probably would have called and yelled at me about something me son was doing that wasn t nice to her. and the defense lawyer couldn t get over the guilty verdict. it was awful. this was on my shoulders. it was my duty to my client to get a request proper verdict and i failed. ryan had become more than a duty to him. i had him around my wife and my kids. there was no question in my mind he was innocent. innocent. he wrote an order for a retrial. it was a roller coaster ride. he may be in prison for 15 years. he may be. the appeals process can take forever. as ryan widmer got processed into the ohio prison system, his trial was way from over. the day after the attorney filed his motion, his fax machine started humming. the fax 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 instructions to consider only what they had heard in court. the allegation was jury misconduct, a serious matter. this attorney runs the ohio innocence project. he saw the juror letter as a way to persuade the judge to grant ryan a new trial. it s unusual for a juror to come forward and say the jurors performed experiments and brought that into the deliberations. the judge began reviewing affidavits from the jurors about just what went on during the deliberations. in one of those sworn statements, a juror said of those taboo home experiments, the times to air dry influenced my decision. jurors are not supposed to go home and do experiments. in the end, the judge agreed. four months after ryan widmer s conviction, he ruled that the husband would get another trial. the not guilty verdict on the aggravated murder count, however, would remain. so the prosecution could only retry him on the second count of unpremeditated murder. his mother scraped together enough cash to post the $400,000 bond for him. ryan was released from prison. by then he had already spent five months behind bars. the quest for justice can deplete both bank accounts and emotions. yes. how far are you prepared to go? i m prepared to go to the day i die, if i have to live on the street in a cardboard box at the end of this, i ll do what it takes to get my son out of this. ryan and his family ended up not only at the brink of financial bankruptcy but also at the edge of emotional collapse. he says he can t sleep. he says he sees her when he closes his eyes. he misses her. he still wears his wedding ring. everything in ryan s life was spiraling down. he lost his job after the guilty verdict and was left to do odd jobs. the house he and sarah bought together went into foreclosure. now another jury would be asked to peer inside the mystery of a marriage and decide what happened behind those closed doors. the prosecutors would have to convince other jury that ryan widmer had killed his wife. it s got to be hugely frustrated, you got a guilty verdict, you ve got to do it over again. on the other hand, we knew how a jury would react to our evidence. on the other side of the choice, the defense has seen your case. and we can t change it very much. ryan widmer trial, take two. imagine ryan at 6 2 . a new juror makes a dramatic return to the scene of the drowning. and later, ryan widmer tells his own story. did you kill your wife? no, i did not. i couldn t hurt sara emotionally let alone physically. so you re saying you re wr g wrongfully convicted? i m 100% wrongfully convicted. 100% wrongfully convicted. i m ken jacobus and i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what s in your wallet? why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they re always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. we re the tenney s and we re usaa members for life. call usaa to start saving on insurance today. a little more than a year after a jury found ryan widmer guilty of murder, only to have the verdict thrown out, it would start over again. this time a new defense team would take over ryan s case. the new lawyers worried that even though they were starting the trial with a clean slate of jurors, the verdict from the first trial would still hang over the accused. he s still innocent until proven guilty. everyone thinks and knows he was proven guilty. across the courtroom, the prosecution team was the same. it would hammer home the argument that a healthy 24-year-old woman just does not die alone in a bathtub. did you see any evidence that sarah suffered a seizure that caused her death by drowning? no. sarah s body dry to the touch, the officers and emts testified. and the bathroom where her husband lifted her soaking body out of the tub was also not wet. towels, a rug, magazines, all appeared to be dry. the juror would again hear the 911 call that to the prosecution s ears, sounded odd. she was face down in the bathtub. the message was, my wife s dead and i wasn t around when it happened. but unlike the first trial, the defense lawyers asked to take the jurors to the home where ryan and sarah had lived to inspect for themselves the very bathroom where she died. the lawyers had made a pretrial visit. the first thing we said was, man, this is small. they wanted the jurors to see for themselves that this was a cramped space in a modest builder s home. imagine ryan at 6 2 and sarah, 5 1 , 5 2 , and imagine them interacting in here. it was such a small bathroom, a defense expert argued, that if there had been a violent struggle, both husband and wife would have shown more obvious bruises and scratches. i would have expected to see more injury if a violent struggle had occurred. but the prosecutors argued that widmer, in an explosion of anger, could have overtaken his wife so quickly that she would have had no time to fight back. and in their closing arguments, they told the jurors that ryan widmer not only killed his wife but also delayed calling 911 to buy time to cover up his crime. things looked so nice because ryan widmer had the opportunity to reset the scene. he had time to put things back into place. but ryan s defense lawyers were hopeful this jury would see the case the way they did. an innocent man on trial for a murder he did not commit. absolutely believe him. no doubt in my mind. the case was given to juror number two. and it seemed as though everyone in cincinnati was on the edge of their seat, waiting for its decision. but three days into deliberations, nothing. the jurors asked to see the judge. there s an impasse. he sent them back to deliberate some more. it is desirable that the case be decided. it was turning out to be the longest deliberation in warren county history. as the jurors left for a long holiday weekend, the specter of a mistrial hung in the air. dana and chris once again waited with ryan. we have to make sure he knows we re here. that s what we do as friends, support him and be hopeful and have the faith that this is going to turn out the way that it s meant to turn out. the jury returned to work on tuesday morning. but at 5:00 p.m. on the fourth day of deliberations, they asked to see the judge again. the note reads we cannot agree and further deliberations will not serve any purpose. they were deadlocked. walking out of the courtroom, ryan widmer s frustration spilled out. ryan s parents vowed to stand by their son. they had already spend more than a half a million dollars on his defense, tapping out bank accounts and retirement plans. we know he s innocent and we ll do whatever it takes. we ll move forward. ryan s dad gary was firmly behind his son. but in another odd twist, it had taken ryan s arrest to reunite the pair. he had been out of his son s life for 13 years, the consequence of a bitter divorce. he hadn t even known there was a sarah until he learned his son had been charged with her murder. father was reintroduced to son while ryan was in jail. this is the first meeting you ve had with your boy in a long, long time. he s on the other side of the glass and you re talking through one of those phone devices. mm-hmm. that s kind of a hard thing to take right there. it was. it was hard but so sweet to see him. a poignant reunion, father and son. and a father who completely believes in his son s innocence and would will anything to help. if there s any avenue to take, you have to take it. it s my son. you have to take it. your son didn t do it. sarah widmer died for reasons unknown. yes. give yourself a round of applause. beyond ryan s family and close friends standing behind him, it was a case that had galvanized a personal army. there were ryan widmer t-shirts and wrist bands. he was getting a lot of support, an anonymous donor said to contribute $60,000. a stranger. yes. even the prosecutors were a bit worried. so much taxpayer money would be spent on a third trial. so many ryan widmer supporters beating very loud drums. a plea deal was floated. we felt it was a subject worth bringing up. but the kists said there was no way ryan was taking a deal. they offered a plea, which they hadn t done in two trials. and he turned it down? of course he turned it down, he says i m innocent, why would i admit to something i would never have done that i did not do? ryan widmer was gambling that the next jury would acquit him. but his roll of the dice was taking its toll not just on him but on his family as well. 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. you could 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 deadlocked, a phone rang in the prosecutors office. it was a woman with a hand grenade of a story. someone came forward and say this guy confessed to me. we want to find out more what she has to say and what she knows about this. the prosecutors came away convinced they had the long missing pieces of the puzzle. a confession and a motive. jay clark, the defense attorney, would have to worry overtime about this bombshell of a witness. because the new witness feared for her life, saying that ryan widmer had threatened her, her identity would not be disclosed to the defense team until the beginning of the trial. and trial three would begin with virtually everyone holding their breath. who was this person and what did she know? the mystery witness takes the stand. and what a story she has to tell. comes r coming up she strols in wearing a suit with decently done hair, normal makeup. sarah had found out that she cheated on her when she went away with her mom. she said they were in the living room and arguing about his pornography. but why this story now? the pain and the hurt in her mom s face. and i m a mom and i couldn t do that they needed to know the truth. ve had quite the career. yeah, i ve had some pretty prestigious jobs over the years. news producer, executive transport manager, and a beverage distribution supervisor. now i m a director at a security software firm. wow, you ve been at it a long time. thing is, i like working. what if my retirement plan is i don t want to retire? then let s not create a retirement plan. let s create a plan for what s next. i like that. get a plan that s right for you. td ameritrade. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. ryan widmer was heading to court for a third trial, charged once again with murdering his wife, sarah. this time, the prosecution would introduce a mysterious new witness, a woman who claimed ryan threatened to kill her if she ever told all she knew. who was she and what secrets could she share? returning to our story, here is dennis murphy. mr. widmer, is there anything you wish to say? the first trial ended with a mistrial. the second with a hung jury. with this next you re reach a verdict? these three jurors from the last trial said the prosecutors failed to convince them that ryan widmer had killed his wife. there s just nothing to prove to me he had anything to do with her death. and the next group of jurors would also not be able to reach a unanimous decision. we sat in jury deliberations for 36 hours. the likelihood of 12 jurors coming to the same conclusion was very unlikely. we really didn t think that another jury would not be deadlocked. they would soon find out. ryan widmer s extraordinary third trial for the murder of his wife was about to start all over again. the prosecutors felt it was their duty to argue their case for sarah. we re committed to seeing that justice is done for the victim of this case. and that s what we ve got to think about. it promised to be a judicial groundhog day. repeat testimony from the emts and arriving officers at the widmer home. the oddity of a bathtub drowning victim with a damp head and dry body. a 911 call that to some listeners volunteered too much. and jurors to the wife s neck and head that spoke to the prosecutors of homicide and not resuscitation. the facts which came out in this case gave rise to the idea that there had been an assault that occurred which progressed into an instant of domestic violence. and this time, sarah s own mother described the couple s relationship as more tense than she had in the previous trials, telling the court that ryan and sarah s arguments made her very uncomfortable. they would just call each other names and get hateful with each other. i told them, you guys have to stop, i can t take it. what really was stunning was something that haunted the defense since they learned about it the previous summer, the prosecution s mystery witness who would testify that ryan confess to the crime. her anymore was jennifer crew from iowa. it was the first time the defense would get a look at this person that ryan had allegedly confessed to. and they worried. she strolled in wearing a suit, decently done hair, makeup. how did this woman who lived 500 miles away from ryan widmer have such a starring role? it turned out she watched dateline s story from the first trial. after watching the show, she sent ryan an e-mail telling him how bad she felt about his plight. i felt sorry for ryan. i asked him what i could do to help him. before long, the two were in frequent touch. struck up e-mail, texts, ultimately a phone relationship. correct. as the relationship continued, ryan sent her photos of his dogs and asked her to send him a picture of herself. initially she sent this one of a friend. she says things got a little racy on the phone. he told me he was watching porn in his mom s basement. there was even talk of jennifer visiting ryan in ohio for a three-way. ryan asked me to ask my friend and i said i would. but the reason jennifer was on the stand was to testify about one phone conversation in particular. one very different than their usual banter. it was october 26th, 2009. jennifer said she had been asleep when ryan called. it sounded to her as though he had been drinking. he was crying. and he was saying, i did it. i did it. i killed sarah. i did it. i thought what he meant was that he didn t do enough to save her life that night. he said, no, jen, listen to me, i did it. she said ryan told her it had started with a fight between the two of them. sarah had found out that he had cheated on her when she went away with her mom. he said that they were in the living room and they were arguing about his pornography. what happened when she came upstairs? she was getting ready for the bath. he said their argument continued, he said sarah told him that the marriage was over. ryan, she testified, then told sarah nobody leaves me, nobody ever leaves me, and i mean nobody. that s when jennifer crew says ryan hit his wife. she fell backwards and hit her head. he said, jen, i blacked out, i blacked out. but why this story now? jennifer crew waited until almost two weeks after the second jury had deadlocked before coming forward, even though ryan had allegedly confessed to her eight months earlier. she said she had promised ryan she would not reveal his secret and said she was unnerved when he gave her a veiled threat. i promised him i would never tell anybody. he said, i hope not, i don t want you to be where sarah is at. but she said she thought the jury would have convicted ryan. when they didn t, she contacted authorities after seeing pictures of sarah s mother. i saw the sadness and the pain and the hurt in her mom s face. i m a mom, i couldn t do that to them anymore. they needed to know the truth. coming up she came downstairs crying and she was like, he did it. she was scared, actually. she was upset. when the bathtub mystery continues. n the bathtub mystery continues. this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. japanese stocks plunged. did dow dropped below 22,000 on monday following the treasury secretary s failure to reassure investors. and the death toll in sunday aup tsunami has fallen to 429. rescuers are sifting through debris for any signs of life. now back to date line. welcome back. ryan widmer was in court for trial number three, again. prosecutors charged that he had murdered his wife, but this time they called a bombshell witness. her name was jennifer crew and she claimed ryan confessed he killed sarah after the young bride threatened to leave him. the details of jennifer s story were stunning. but would a jury believe her? once again, dennis murphy. surprise prosecution witness jennifer crew had just taken the stand and her story was a lot to absorb. ryan confessing, fighting with a wife who was leaving him, blacking out in the bathroom. would the jurors believe any or all of it? the defense had to make certain they didn t. but they were worried that they might. i think she had invented this story and started to live it and really wanted to believe it. so they aimed for the jugular. could this woman be trusted? she had a jaded past. theft convictions, stealing. that s not something that an honest, credible person does. a one-time bartender at a strip club who managed the dancers, jennifer crew admitted to misdemeanor brushes with the law. you were convicted of theft? yes, sir. also of fraudulent practices, correct? i believe that s when my record states. she was also in a methadone treatment program for her addiction to painkillers. you were using oxycontin for five years. you ve used false names to get drugs? yes, i did. the defense indicated because of her addiction to drugs, her memory was not to be trusted. when detectives talked to you, you told them that your memory is not very good, didn t you? i don t recall saying that. do you remember telling them, i don t remember verbatim the conversation between you and ryan? i do not remember the conversation verbatim. the defense hammered on what day the phone call came through, even the day it was placed. you told investigators the call was in the middle of the night. i was asleep and i thought that the call came in later than it did. everything critical in terms of time, duration, any memory about the call, was all different once she got to testify, but only after she saw her phone records. after jennifer crew stepped down, the prosecution called the woman s fiance to try to undo any damage to her testimony caused by the defense. he confirmed that she related the alleged confessional phone call to him immediately after hanging up that night. she came downstairs crying, she s like, he did it. she was scared, actually. she was upset. if the jury believed jennifer crew s story, ryan widmer was sunk. the defense called a witness about the emotional call from ryan. it was another woman who had become interested in ryan widmer s case after seeing our first dateline report. melissa from seattle, like jennifer from ohio, struck up a phone and e-mail relationship with ryan in 2009, she said was she drawn to the case after the death of her sister-in-law. how often did you talk? three times a week. he talked about sarah a lot, he was having a hard time accepting everything. melissa s husband supported her friendship with ryan. was it a little out there? yeah, but i was still comfortable with her and our relationship. without a shout of a doubt, i was 100% behind her. i did feel strongly about supporting him. there was just no chance he had anything to do with it. but the importance of the seattle friendship. their phone call finished just 15 minutes before the call to jennifer in iowa. melissa said ryan was perfectly composed for almost two hours when she spoke to him that night. how do you know he was not upset or drunk? every conversation we had, he had never been intoxicated or upset. melissa was convinced that jennifer crew made up the whole story about the confession. i was shocked that somebody would go under oath on the stand and lie. but still, had the defense paid a price by putting yet another woman on the stand. is there a larger issue here? is there a risk about these women getting involved in ryan widmer? that s easy to get sucked into that. but he s never been able to grieve for sarah. he s never been able to mourn for her. she contacted him and it was companionship. it was time to wrap up trial number three. the prosecutor saying it was a sudden violent murder. anybody who s been in a relationship knows that sometimes things go off, they snap, for no good reason. i think something like that happened. at some point ryan saw that his perfect marriage was falling apart and that s what led us here. the defense arguing a medically undetermined death by natural causes. it s probably going to bother me for the rest of my life, what happened to sarah we ll never know. sarah had drowned. but how? a third jury retired for deliberations. another stunning development. a new sarah enters ryan s life. coming up he just want telling me how much he loved sarah and he could never, ever love another woman as much as he loved her. i think i started crying because i felt so bad for him. do you love ryan? i love him, yeah. later, ryan tells all. she s awesome. loving, caring. you guys kept it secret. oh, yeah. i knew they would try to make it into something negative. e it into something negative. w?w?uhió the jury had been out for a day. again, it seemed everyone in cincinnati was waiting for a verdict. while widmer still had a number of ardent supporters, trial watchers say this time things were changing in the court of public opinion. you have a candlelight vigil for now, and you could probably hold it in a phone booth. one strong voice that had turned against widmer was radio talk show host bill cunningham. he was disguchted with how ryan used the free ryan widmer website. he used the free ryan widmer website to pick up chicks. it sounds like it fell apart for you on the character issue. it did. the wallpaper of the case changed. day two in the courthouse was going round and round. i felt awful. i was nauseous. i hadn t felt that way for 20 years. the jurors were working their way through the evidence. they parsed the 911 call. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. the more you listen to it, the more and more it starts to sound like it was staged. there was sarah s body. officers testified it was too dry. 2 1/2 minutes after being removed from a tub, you would expect a body to be wet. the alleged confession as recounted by jennifer crew. i just don t believe anything she said. the prints in the tub. under normal circumstances you cannot leave those kind of fingertips on the side of a tub trailing down. the bruising to sarah. both the defense and the prosecution put up good arguments about that. that that s teetering on a razor s edge with me. at the end of the second day, they took their one and only vote. they had a verdict. a blast of calls went out. the kists got the news. i said, i can t believe they re back so soon, i m worried. the judge asked for the jury ballot. anxious? very. sick. ryan widmer stood with his lawyers. his life hanging in the balance. i can actually hear ryan shaking. i can hear it. it s that silent in there and he s that nervous. the verdict. we the jury in this case find the defendant ryan widmer is guilty of murder. guilty. ryan dropped his head to the table. he was hysterical. he was crying. he was a mess. a bad, bad, bad dream. ryan composed himself enough to proclaim to the court his innocence. i did not do this, judge. i don t know why this has to keep going on. my life has been ruined. i love sarah. i would never have hurt her. never. outside the court, ryan s father gary slumped to the ground. the son he was recently reunited with after years apart taken from him again. it was a horrifying moment. it just totally caught up with me at that point, the total shock. i just went weak. ryan widmer for the second time was given the mandatory sentence, 15 years to life. as court officers handcuffed him and led him away, few people were aware of a young woman on his side of the benches, crying. this is also a sarah. sarah manhurst. she s another twist in the story that has had so many. do you love ryan widmer? i love him, yeah. sarah wore an engagement ring and is the mother of ryan s son, born in the summer after trial number two. what did you name the baby? his name is ryan. you see ryan s face in the baby s? yeah. sarah, a canadian via new york, like jennifer from iowa and melissa from seattle, also became aware of ryan after our first dateline program on the case aired back in 2009. i thought that he was railroaded. she sent an e-mail to ryan saying how sorry she felt with him. he sent one back. soon they were talking on the phone. a little more than a month later, sarah came to cincinnati to visit ryan. she stayed with him at his mother s house. i thought it was a little awkward, because we had talked on the phone but hadn t met. he was telling me how much he loved sarah and could never love another woman as much as he loved her. i started crying because i felt so bad for him. sarah went back to new york and three weeks later returned to cincinnati as ryan s guest at his mother s thanksgiving dinner. that was the weekend they became intimate. the first time we were together i got pregnant. how did ryan take the news? shocked, obviously very bad timing. they kept the pregnancy a secret, as ryan s second trial would take place the following may. i decided, yeah, i was going to have the baby. and he was okay with that. but it was just difficult, because i m thinking, here i am pregnant, and you re facing another trial, and my child could potentially grow up without a father, which now he s in jail. with ryan sentenced to 15 years, sarah is raising their son. i m still in shock. i can t believe this happened to him. if in your own mind you couldn t get to beyond reasonable doubt, if there was a sliver of doubt that he had done this thing, would you have stayed? never. i would never have stayed with him. there s no way he could have done this, ever. but had he? in the course of three trials, played out before three jurors, ryan widmer s guilt or innocence has been passionately debated. he s now telling his story. widmer speaks from prison, when we return. did you kill your wife sarah? you think they fabricated this. i know they did. why would they have it in for you? e. this young husband is about to make a startling claim. jennifer, i did it. i m telling you, i did it. did that conversation happen? nope, and never happened. so jennifer crew s story is made up? 100% made up. breathe freely fast, with vicks sinex. my congestion s gone. i can breathe again! ahhhh i can breathe again! ughh.. vicks sinex, breathe on welcome back. after three years and three remarkable trials, sarah and her loved ones had finally received justice. her husband ryan was convicted of her murder. through it all, ryan never took the stand to tell his story, but he did share it with us. listen closely and decide for yourself what really happened in the widmer s bathroom. now with the conclusion of our story, here s dennis murphy. this is ryan widmer s story as he tells it. he remembers a loving relationship with his wife sarah that was right from the first date. we hit it off perfect. was there any friction? none whatsoever. everything was cool? perfect. he only had one worry about sarah. my biggest problem with her was her sleep. she would work a regular day and need to be going to bed early or taking a nap. something wasn t healthy about it. you re 24 years old. but he says they fell into their everyday lives, their jobs, walking the dog, building a deck on their house. all routine, he says, until that august night. sarah had come home from work, he says, with a headache. they had dinner, watched tv. she s what? laying on the couch. she says her neck is killing her, she s going to get in the bath and go to bed. ryan says he stayed downstairs and watched the game until he too was ready for bed. upstairs to the master bedroom and back. tell me what you see, just like a videotape recording. i walk in the room. i walk over to the night stand. and i put some things down, turn on the tv. and then i walked in the bathroom. i saw sarah, i knew something wasn t right. she was just unconscious. how did you see her? her head was just underneath the water. i don t even remember. was she face down in the tub as you told 911? all i remember, yeah, just finding her. i mean, i knew it wasn t good. she was laying in the water. i don t know what else to say other than it wasn t right. the only thing i remember certain things because of what i heard on the 911 tape. it s such a shocking image, you would think you would remember. i wasn t thinking i would have to remember what did i see, what did i do. head, nose, under the water? underwater, yes. what did you do next? i tried to get a reaction out of her and i got not guilty. that s when he says he called 911. i think she s dead. when you chose that word, i think she fell asleep. when you chose that word, falling asleep it s not about choosing a word. it s about what i said. it was her sleeping issue. they re saying that 911 call is suspicious. they re telling us he s downstairs what s going on, she s upstairs. i was watching the football game. i don t know what they wanted me to tell them. maybe just get an ambulance here quick. i don t know. i called and that s what i said. i don t know. prosecutors say the first arriving officer was at the house no more than six minutes after the 911 call was answered and less than three minutes after ryan lifted sarah s body out of the tub. the observations of the arriving officer, what do we have here and why is this woman s hair damp and why is her body dry? it doesn t make sense. i understand that. how do you explain it? i left the house and there was cops there by themselves and they came up with the story they came up with. you think they fabricated this? i know they did. you think they wanted to make a case here? i know they did. why would they arrest me the day after if they didn t want to make a case? why would they have it in for you? why would they lie? emts and police officers don t even work for the same agency. they clearly do when they get up to testify, they re coached what to say. what about the story of the woman who says ryan confessed to her that he killed sarah? listen to me, i did it. here s jennifer crew from iowa on the stand saying he called me one night, he was sloppy, and he confessed to me. right. jennifer, i did it. i m telling you i did it. mm-hmm. did that conversation happen? nope. it never happened. jennifer crew s story is made up? 100% made up. the same goes, ryan told us, for sarah s mother s testimony about hearing hateful arguments between the couple. they would just call each other names. she s a liar. sarah s mom is making this stuff up? we were never mean to each other. never. a one-time mother-in-law from an earlier life who he says is embellishing the reality of his marriage. now ryan widmer has a baby with a new sarah. she s awesome, so loving, caring. there are similarities i see in sarah, my wife, as i see with sarah now. you guys kept it secret? oh, yeah. because i knew they would try to make it into something negative. in that court of public opinion, the women from far away places, iowa, seattle, new york, who became involved in his case, didn t go down well with everyone. a character issue. we talked to somebody who says you re using the free ryan widmer website as a dating service, just a way to meet women. i don t know who said that, but it s not true. but investigators wondered how good the marriage really was based on what they found on widmer s computer. did you have an unhealthy addiction to porn? no. but you looked at porn? yes. he says that certainly does not mean anything and does not make him a murderer. did you kill your wife sarah? no, i did not. i couldn t hurt sarah either emotionally or physically. she didn t get in your face and say she s leaving you? no. didn t happen? didn t happen. you were watching the ball game. not upstairs and found her in a bad situation and that s it? that s it. you don t know how she died? no. you say you re wrongly convicted? i m 100% wrongly convicted. and the 30 jurors or more found you guilty after hearing the story? yes. they re not getting it? they re not getting it at all. but these jurors from his third trial are confident they got it right. they say among other things it came down to what they saw as sarah s too-dry body, oddities in the 911 call, prints on the tub, and the unlikeliness of an out of the blue medical event striking sarah in the bath. i went into it believing he was innocent. but everything that was put together with the evidence came down with four or five facts that we could not deny. we believe he intentionally drowned her. and the guilt of ryan widmer will also never be doubted by the prosecutors. do you believe he actually did this thing? absolutely. she was murdered and he killed her. and he was the only one who could have done it. ryan widmer lost a federal appeal in february. i m not letting this stand. i m going to fight this until it s made right. the passage of time hasn t made the events inside the little house on crested owl court any clearer. and time of course brings changes. sarah manners and ryan are no longer a couple, but she told us she still believes in his innocence. and more change. his mother jill passed away. nothing, it seems, stays quite the same except the central mystery itself. and that will likely be argued for years still to come. that s all for this edition of dateline extra . thank you for watching. it s been 15 years of frustration, of tears, and fighting for what we wanted. how long can you keep reliving your sister s murder? reporter: it all began when this bestselling author married this elegant executive. they brought us together. they made us a family.
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. sarah and ryan witmer were newlyweds. sarah stee sar sarah mysteriously drowned in the bathtub. ryan claimed it was an accident. to investigators their stories did not add up. was this a tragic mishap or was something more sinister at play? it would take years. here s dennis murphy. 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 for just under four months. 114 days to be exact. they vowed till death do us part. and that moment was only minutes away from arriving. they had begun the two of them with a blind date at a pub that worked out. sarah, sarah stewart had been fixed up by her friend, dana. dana had an inkling that sarah would really hit it off with her husband s former roommate ryan willmer i came home. i said sarah is amazing. i think their personalities would get along. let s see what happens? what happened over drinks and nibbles was chemistry. laid back ryan, the college jock, and super organized, who needed everything just so talked about getting together. she said let me check my book. she gets out her little black book. she s looking through. he is peeking over looking. he said, later he calls us and tells us there was nothing written in her black book. it was a fast track courtship, and before very long, ryan was bringing his new gfr home to meet his mom, jill. i liked her a lot. probably number one thing that struck me the most was how beyond her years in maturity she was. poised, huh? yeah. sarah didn t have a problem telling anyone anything. so if you made sarah mad, you knew you made sarah mad. as for ryan he never seemed to lose it. never seen him upset. he doesn t get mad. he is so laid back and easy going, go with the flow. she is so on it organized this is where we have to be? he just says okay. jill enjoyed her days with ryan and his new girlfriend, sarah. our family tends to do a lot of barbecues and picnics and things like that. we would spend some time down on the lake in kentucky. they would come down there. were you pleased she was becoming a serious part of the family? i was very pleased, yes. reporter: the couple bought a nice four bedroom house together in a good neighborhood and ryan surprised sarah with an engagement ring. he put the ring in a dog s collar. that s all i know. she was very excited. he was excited. sarah made him happy. reporter: soon the wedding invitations were in the mail. the bridesmaids knew they better snap to. she is a planner. she had everything ready to go. wanted to make sure the girls wore the same eye shadow. she gave us makeup kits for the wedding so we all looked the same. how was ryan doing? he was just as happy, i mean, happier than i have ever seen him with her. reporter: it cost sarah a big screen tv to seal the deal. but she got ryan to take ballroom dance lessons for the wedding. i was amazed. never in a million years would i think reporter: your son at dance lessons? she could get him to do more things than any woman he had ever dated. reporter: the wedding in april 2008 was a formal affair. the bride was beautiful. ryan s dance came off without a hitch. and the happy brides maids all matched just as sarah wanted. very beautiful. i mean every detail was planned obviously to a t because it was sarah. and she was gorgeous. it was awesome. probably the most fun wedding we had ever been to, ever. reporter: the newlyweds went to costa rica for their honeymoon and had a great time. then it was back to cincinnati to begin their journey together as mr. and mrs. ryan widmer. they worked really hard. built a beautiful deck. had a trip planned to cancun. they had everything to live for. reporter: august 11th should have been another day on the calendar in a young marriage? yes. august 11th, monday night. ryan remembers being downstairs watching monday night football. and sarah had gone upstairs to her bath. she was in trouble. 911, what is your emergency? my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub. i think. i went downstairs. i came up. she was laying face down in the bathtub. i got a call it was ryan. something has happened to sarah. emts were rushing sarah to the hospital. by then they worked on her for 45 minutes. but hadn t gotten a response. minutes later, jill was with her son waiting anxiously together in a room off emergency. finally, a woman came in and then we said is she gone? and she said yes. and he just dropped down to his knees and was just bawling and sobbing into the chair. reporter: sarah widmer, 24 years old, the bride of less than four months, was dead. her husband ryan told the emergency services people he thought she had fallen asleep in the bathtub and drowned. but those emts doing cpr trying everything they could to save her didn t understand one crucial observation they made at the home that night. there is something here that doesn t look right. coming up, a drowning in a dry bathroom? i expected something to be wet. there s a towel on the floor, a mat on the floor, but everything is degree. the questions deepen when the bathtub mystery continues. myste. oh, hey jeff, i m a car thief. what?! i m here to steal your car because, well, that s my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you ve got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate. and be better protected from mayhem. like me. hey, batter, batter, [ crowd cheers ] like everyone, i lead a busy life. but i know the importance of having time to do what you love. at comcast we know our customers time is valuable. that s why we have 2-hour appointment windows, including nights and weekends. so you can do more of what you love. my name is tito, and i m a tech-house manager at comcast. we re working to make things simple, easy and awesome. the cincinnati bengals were looking more than decent against green bay. fans across town, like jeff braley, wondered if this could finally be a miracle season for the back-then hapless local franchise of the nfl. but braley didn t get to see all of the game. he was a cop, a detective. and you don t get to pick your down time. i m at home watching the bengals game. i get a call from the sergeant. lieutenant, we re out on a drowning. the paramedics are working on her. but something s not right here. reporter: as he rolled to the house he knew some of what to expect. when you are a cop more than a decade you become familiar with the signs of the drowning like the froth about the victim s nose and mouth. your mind starts running immediately about possibilities. they initially tell me i have a 24-year-old drowning victim that died in the tub. i m thinking that we will find evidence of something. you know, we re going to find some drugs or evidence of an overdose or something. as he pulled up the victim was already loaded in the back of the back of the ambulance. the arriving police officer was still inside the house. and he gave the detective a fill on what he had found when he was led to the master bedroom where the 24-year-old woman lay on the carpet off the bath. he felt for a pulse. he assisted with cpr on what he described as a completely dry body with her hair being only damp. wet head, dry body. that s correct. for someone who drowned in a bathtub full of water? yes. go ahead and get her out of bathtub and get her on the flat surface. okay, okay. the 911 dispatcher had been quite clear about it. he had instructed the husband to get his wife out of the bathtub and put her on the floor. i m dropping the phone. the husband went away and came back to say he moved his wife from the tub to the bedroom. go ahead and get back to cpr. try cpr. we ll be there in a little bit. reporter: the detective wondered along with the emts and arriving officers why a woman who drowned in a bathtub would be mostly dry. he needed to see the scene. what story would it tell him. i start mentally preparing myself based on what they told me. what do i want to see versus what do i see? he headed for the master bathroom. i expected something to be wet. i expected there to be water on the floors or towels or whatever it might be. it s simply not there. dry-dry. there is a small remnant of water, what you might call droplets on the bottom of the tub around the drain. other than that there is nothing. you got any bath mats. wet towels on the floor. there is a towel on the floor. a mat on the floor. but everything is perfectly dry. reporter: he had a drowning victim that didn t appear to be wet. someone that supposedly fell asleep in the tub and pitched facedown in the water, but a bathroom that was dry and undisturbed, even though presumably the husband had to wrangle her limp body out of the tub as he moved her to the bedroom. whether it s lotions, soap, whatever is on the side they weren t knocked off. that bothered me if you are pulling somebody quickly out of the tub. that s still together. the detective making mental notes. something was screaming to me something is bad wrong, something bad really, really, really bad has happened here. more so than just a tragic accident where she drowned. the forensic techs arrived and were taking photos. cutting out sections of the bedroom carpet where the mixture of blood and fluid common in drownings had stained it. what they wondered was there another explanation for the stains. we wanted to get those things to our lab right away to start checking out some things. reporter: though it was early hours in an incident. so much would depend on the findings of an autopsy, the detective knew this was not a case that was going to be closed out that night. when i left the house at 2:00 a.m., i knew i had a suspicious death. still there were questions how long had sarah been out of the tub? and had she been out of the tub long enough for her body to air dry? it wasn t possible. you know if you are pulling somebody directly out of a tub of water the body has to be wet. there s no other way around it unless a substantial amount of time has passed or we re not being told an accurate story of what actually transpired. question was it possible for ryan to lift sarah out of the tub without knocking over those bottles that the detective noted were undisturbed? was it possible for water not to be splashed around as she was moved to the bedroom? and that overriding question what had happened to the young wife in the master bedroom? we knew that she had drowned just from the scene itself. it was the matter in which she drowned that had raised all the questions. but detective braley would have the most questions for the seemingly happily married husband. was it possible there was stress in the marriage that no one knew about? i had to rely on the fact in the back of my mind that nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. as police consider foul play, friends and family wonder was there something medical behind this mystery? coming up. did she have an aneurysm? did she have a seizure? she was complaining of headaches. i told her how long has it been since you ve been to the doctor? ? every insurance company tells you they can save you money. save up to 10% when you bundle with esurance. including me, esurance spokesperson dennis quaid. he s a pretty good spokesperson. ehhh. so when i say, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412, you probably won t believe me. hey, actor lady whose scene was cut. hi. but you can believe this esurance employee, nancy abraham. seriously, send her an email and ask her yourself. no emails. no emails. when insurance is affordable, it s surprisingly painless. howdoing great dad!r does this thing got? looking good babe! are you filming. at booking.com, we can t guarantee you ll be any good at that water jet thingy. but we can guarantee the best price on a hotel, like this one. or any home, boat, treehouse, yurt, whatever. get the best price on homes, hotels and so much more. booking.com, booking.yeah reporter: sarah widmer had died of drowning in her home. and her body would be examined by the coroner. there was nothing for ryan, her husband of four months, to do but leave the hospital and head home. his mother, jill widmer took him back to the house in the wee hours. ryan asked me, mom i can t go back in there. can you go in and grab clothes for me. so i went upstairs. when i got to the bedroom, there were a couple of pieces of carpet cut out of their carpeting, which i thought was odd. it hadn t occurred to mother or son that the authorities were looking at sarah s death as anything but a tragic explainable incident of some sort. there were a million questions in our mind, did she have an aneurysm, did something medically happen to her? did she have a seizure? reporter: day light and word was spreading that sarah was gone. dana and chris, the couple who had fixed the newlywed up could not believe what they were hearing. we had just gotten back from a trip and told her i would call her as soon as we got back and we would get together to dinner. i didn t get a chance to do that. shocking news to say the least. shocking news. reporter: dana, a nurse, tried to make sense of what had happened to her dear friend. she thought back to her last conversations with sarah. she was complaining of headaches, saying what do you think of her medical background? i said, maybe you should get your blood pressure checked, i said, you should get a checkup. there was that funny trait sarah used to have that people would kid her about, that she would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. well, maybe that wasn t so funny. maybe that was a part of an underlying condition that explained her death. her mother-in-law noticed it when she first got to know sarah. it was christmas 2007, and jill was taking home videos. all of a sudden i panned over. there s sarah having a good time at the family christmas. and sarah was sound asleep in a chair in the family room. we were 15 or 20 people in a room and we were laughing, talking. kids running around, and sarah went to sleep. sarah snoozing in the car. friends kidded her about it. she would always fall asleep at the beginning of movies, we would be nudging her, sarah, wake up. was so so noticeable you guys were joking about it? even at the dinner table, we would be saying, sarah, don t fall asleep. i would say, sarah, you have narcolepsy. she said, no. had sarah fallen asleep and drowned in the tub? was that even possible to do? ryan seemed to think so. he said as much to the 911 dispatcher. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. but all the observations about sarah was just anecdotal information, not the stuff of real medical investigation. the medical examiner would have the first real results about sarah s death. what was he finding? no evidence of stroke, no evidence of a heart attack. but the medical examiner had discovered something else. bruising to sarah s head and neck. what had caused those injuries? the investigators checked off what they had so far. a young woman supposedly drowned in the bathtub with a damp head of hair and a dry body. it didn t figure. if you re pulling somebody directly out of a tub of water, the body has to be wet. there s no way around it. a woman with unexplained bruises. and a husband whose story they didn t believe. ryan s story doesn t fit at all. we determined at that point we had a homicide. sarah widmer murdered, and the authorities believed her husband ryan did it. how shocking is that to you? oh, i can t even tell you. to charge ryan with murder? you ve got to be kidding me. like, why would they think why? and i can t even tell you what that was like. so on top of losing this beautiful member of our family, he didn t even get a chance to grieve because now we re scared to death and he s scared to death that he s going to be charged with murder. reporter: and that is exactly what would happen. just two days after his new bride s death, a warrant was issued for ryan wid mer s arrest. by ryan s own admission he was the only one in the house, so ryan murdered sarah or he s covering for somebody that did. reporter: it didn t seem possible at first glance, a clean cut young couple, him without a criminal record of any kind, them with no clear cut history of arguments, no problems in their marriage. where was the motive for murder on a monday night? any boyfriend, girlfriend issues here? there was no evidence whatsoever to point that there was a girlfriend, boyfriend. money trouble? not that we could find. did you find any anger issues in the guy? no, no. you re really not getting a negative picture of this couple? no, we re not. reporter: as unlikely as it may have seemed, police said there was no ere explanation for sa sarah s death. ryan widmer was charged with his wife s murder. this is the state of ohio versus ryan k. widmer. his family and friends were devastated. ryan and i were both so brokenheart brokenhearted, i could not ever have conceived, nor could ryan that they would have had any idea that he would have been the person to hurt her and that it wasn t just a tragic accident. it broke my heart knowing that he was feeling that grief and fear for his own life too. is there any moment where you think maybe i don t know the guy? maybe there was this instant of something awful happened? never. never i ve never even seen anything where he was remotely angry. even sarah s family was behind ryan, so much so the two families decided to delay sarah s funeral until ryan was out on bond. sarah s family were very lived about the fact that he wasn t guilty, and they were not going to go forward with the service until ryan could be there. the families are both on the same page here? yes. that you re four square behind ryan, and you re not even going to grieve together formally until he s there with you. the dead woman s brother asked the judge to lower ryan s bond amount so he could attend the funeral. in our heart of hearts we don t believe ryan did this. but eight days would pass before the judge lowered ryan s bond from a million dollars to 400,000. by then it was too late. the funeral had already been held so out of town relatives could return home. it was a nice ceremony. her brother got up and said a few nice words, and i know that ryan wrote a letter that was read during the service. the minister that did their wedding did her funeral as well. reporter: chris and dana grooe grieved for sarah, but also tried to comfort a shattered ryan. i remember him telling me, dana, i love her so much. reporter: ryan was so distraught he felt he couldn t go back to the home he d bought with sarah. so while he waited for his trial date, he moved in with his mother. it was great to have him staying with me but. there s only one topic in the household. well, there s two, one was continuing to talk about how much we missed sarah, trying to grieve for her, but at the same time this young man who lost the love of his life, he s trying to grieve for his wife, and he s got a murder charge hanging over his head that he might go to prison for the rest of his life. ryan widmer why couldn t everyone see that he loved his wife and that she died a death that perhaps even a medical examiner could never satisfactorily explain but that it wasn t murder? coming up, the case goes to court and out comes the evidence. it would be virtually impossible for somebody to fall asleep and not wake up. and later, ryan widmer speaks out. so you think they wanted to make a case? why would they arrest me a day after if they didn t want to make a case? when the bathtub mystery continues. life isn t a straight line. things happen. and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but at fidelity, we help you prepare for the unexpected with retirement planning and advice for what you need today and tomorrow. because when you re with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there s nothing to stop you from moving forward. i m milissa rehberger. the government shutdown enters its 12th day at the top of the hour. nancy pelosi says on thursday democrats will pass measures to reopen the government, but they won t include funding for a border wall. the president s invited pelosi and other congressional leaders to the white house for a briefing on the wall tomorrow. the family of an american arrested in russia on spying charges is speaking out saying his innocence is undoubted. back to the bathtub mystery. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. as sarah wid mmer s relatives ld her to rest, her husband ryan sat in a jail cell. investigators weren t buying his story. soon a surprising ally would bolster their case, a family member rethinking an incident that may not have been so innocent after all. had trouble been brewing in this seemingly happy marriage? here again is dennis murphy. sarah was wonderful. the most loving person. she was just a great person. sarah widmer had been a daughter, a wife, a loyal friend in her brief life. but in death, to those who would never know her, she would become simply the victim. the case could be summarized as breezily as the title of a true crime paperback, the bathtub murder. radio host bill cunningham could feel the court of public opinion responding to the story. the bathtub murder case had the phone ringing. the idea that such a young man could be watching a bengals game and within a few seconds turn from a ben gal s fan long suffering to a murderer was a little bit shocking. for months, listeners debated whether the husband could have done it? i had a large number of callers who said to me, he didn t do it. he doesn t fit the profile. there s no history. i said to them wait a minute, wait until the trial takes place. i m led to believe there s going to be clear and convincing evidence. seven months after sarah s death, the only jury that mattered was sworn in to hear the case against 28-year-old ryan widmer, a charge of aggravated murder. his friends stuck by him. his life hangs in the balance. that s a scary thought. there is a chance he could go to jail. in the courtroom sarah s family sat across the room from ryan s, much as they had the previous year during the couple s fairy tale wedding but now sarah s family s support for him had eroded. for ryan s mom that was another unexpected twist in a situation that seemed to get stranger by the minute. i see my scared baby is what i see. he was scared to death. the prosecution s message for the jury was blunt. there had been a violent confrontation in the widmer house that night. ryan widmer purposefully killed sarah stewart widmer and murdered her by drowning. the prosecutors began with the first moments of the case, ryan s call to 911. my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub. i just came up here, and she was laying facedown in the bathtub. on the stand, the emergency dispatcher testified that the voice on the phone that night was giving more details than normal. it seemed that the caller was rather calm. usually i can t get, you know, anything out of them. she s in the bathtub? yes, the water s draining right now. i was out there watching tv. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. to prosecutors john arnold and travis view, the husband was trying to place himself as far away as possible from the bathroom where sarah had died. he really gives very little information about her condition. it s really more important for him to say i twlunwasn t there,i really don t have anything to do with this. and could sarah even be dead facedown in the bathtub? could a body contort that way? that seems an odd position for somebody who s, quote, fallen asleep, to be facedown with your face near the faucet almost bent into. in terms of the possibilities of how the enclosed space of the bathtub is shorter than she is long. we re not talking about a mansion whirlpool tub here? right so much more was based upon the observation of the first arriving officers and emergency responders. they noted not only was ryan not wet, this man who had lifted his wife s body out of the tub just minutes before they arrived, sarah was also mostly dry. i noticed that her body was dry. her hair was damp. and others on the scene corroborated this observation, damp head, dry body. things were not adding up. it would seem to me her body would have been wet. the floor would have been wet. the carpet would have been wet. you re talking about from the time he says i m taking her out of this bathtub to the time that other people are there, her hair is described as simply damp, not even wet. the carpet s not wet. there s not water dripping off of her hair onto the rest of her body. the floor s not wet. and the officer noticed something else, the victim s fingers and toes. we all know what happens to them when they ve been soaking in a bathtub. it was my understanding that she d been in the water for 20 to 30 minutes. and i would have thought that her fingers would have been pruned up. her toes would have been pruned up. and did you see any indication of that? no. reporter: from simple observations, the murder case had grown. the jury was being told that ryan wid mer s story didn t jive with what officers on the scene had taken note of like the bathtub and surrounding tiles that should have been soaking wet but weren t, and that implicitly 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? bottom line is there would have been water everywhere. if there wasn t, it was cleaned up, and if there was a cleanup, then there was something to hide, and that was her murder. and an expert witness for the prosecution spoke to the issue of whether a person can actually fall asleep 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, and then three, if for someone reason that didn t, the drop in oxygen would cause you to stimulate and wake up. but maybe sarah hadn t fallen asleep. perhaps she d suffered a catastrophic but perfectly natural event, something to her heart, her brain, the coroner didn t find that. any evidence of heart problems? no. any evidence of brain injury or seizure? no. one of the amazing things about sarah widmer is that she had regular medical care. for a person her age she went twice in two years for a regular physical. this is not a person who didn t have the opportunity to interact with her medical profession. and to the coroner, the bruising he saw on sarah s neck and scalp while performing the autopsy looked ominous, the wounds too significant and not in the right spot to have been caused by emt s life saving efforts. the things that were the most disconcerting were the three bruises which were able to be seen on the right side of the scalp. she s got another faint bruise on her forehead. she s got this significant degree of a neck hemorrhage. she s undergone significant cpr. however, there is no hemorrhage anywhere in the area of the chest so it s difficult to try to rationalize that the hemorrhage in her neck can be the result of cpr. as the coroner saw it, the significant bruising on sarah s neck was caused by ryan s forceful drowning of her. do you have manner of sarah ? yes, the manner of death was homicide. that took prosecutors into the realm of speculation. what had happened in the bedroom that night if sarah hadn t drowned by herself in the bathtub? this forensic pathologist had one scenario explaining a damp head but dry body. her head was pushed over the edge of either the bathtub or the sink or the toilet, either forwards or backwards, either in a pool of water or under running water. that s how she died. an expert also noted these strange prints invisible to the naked eye. he couldn t say when they were left on the tub or even that they came from sarah, but felt confident that the prints were most likely made by a small person. if ryan had forced sarah over the side of the tub, had she tried to brace herself as she was pushed into the water? from my experience those look like prints that are going down in a downward motion. how do you fight back? do you try to keep your head out of the water? do you put your hands against the back of the tub, or do you put your hands on the bottom of the tub and try to lift out of the water? or do you grasp at somebody and lose your only hold on life? a stark image, the husband pushing his wife s head under water and holding her there until she drowned. this was a drowning. she had been subjected to forcibly holding her throat over some object to drown her. but the jury had to wonder what the motivation could be for such an awful crime. sarah s mother who had initially supported ryan was now testifying for the prosecution. she said that when she was out shopping with sarah, her daughter seemed to feel she needed to check everything with ryan who could see his purchases on her computer. she would buy something, ryan would call her as soon as she bought it sometimes, telling her did you really need it. why d you buy it or something? he thought she was spending too much money. he was very concerned about her shopping habits? correct. there were stresses, things going on in their family. but even the prosecutors had to acknowledge this didn t necessarily add up to a clear motive for murder, but they believed there were things happening in the little house that nobody but sarah or ryan knew about. anybody who s been married or in a relationship knows that what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage is not always apparent to the outside. but was the prosecution s case too thin? too much observation with not enough persuasive hard evidence. the defense would argue passionately that it was, and that ryan had nothing to do with his wife s sudden death. ryan s defenders were not giving up. sarah s friends take the stand to share his side of the story. coming up. i know that she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. when the bathtub mystery continues. continues. is boost®. delicious boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33% more protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. boost® high protein look for savings on boost® in your sunday s paper. what was the toughest thing you had to surmount? that we had a lovely 24-year-old woman who was dead and no one could explain why. the defense wasn t going to be able to tell the jury what caused sarah widmer to drown that night. but they were going to show that ryan widmer had no reason to hurt his wife. and as far as damp hair/dry body, they would explain that. the bottom line for the defense i know one thing. ryan widmer had nothing to do with his wife s death. charlie ritgers, ryan wid mer s defense attorney argued that his client was plagued from the get-go by the unhappy choice of words on that 911 call. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. had ryan told the 911 dispatcher only that his wife was unconscious, it wouldn t have been spususpicious. the only thing ryan knows is she fell asleep in the tub, but they jumped on that and said he s a liar. the defense argues the coroner had been all too quick to rule her death a homicide. he had no idea she had unusual sleep habits. remember, an expert witness for the prosecution had said it would have been impossible for sarah to fall asleep and die in the tub, but those who knew her sleep habits said it may have been a sign of an undiagnosed, underlying medical condition. sarah s boss, the dentist, testified that her quirky sleep habits were well-known around the office. she would normally grab a quick lunch and then go out to her car and take a nap for 30 or 45 minutes. people don t generally do that. and the dentist recollected that sarah hadn t been feeling well on that last day of her life. she had a sore throat. her stomach had been bothering her earlier in the day. she was still feeling crummy later that evening when she spoke to a friend. she had a headache and the back of her neck was hurting. i mean, she sounded tired. she didn t sound like she felt very good. sarah turning off the day and retreating to her bathtub, that sounded just like the sarah they knew. she would always leave our house and say she had to get home because she had to take her bath. and sarah dozing off in the tub was a trait a friend from childhood days was very familiar with. she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. we had talked about that because i had fallen asleep in the bathtub before, too. the sleeping habits, the headaches, the defense claimed they could very well have been the symptoms of an underlying and potential fatal condition that went undetected, something an otherwise healthy young woman wouldn t take all that seriously. and even with all their scientific art argued the defense, sometimes pathologists cannot say why a person died. a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine testified that unsplaexplained deaths occ far more often than many of us would guess. there are approximately 300,000 episodes of sudden death a year. one-third of those young people that die have normal autopsies. in other words, people sometimes just die, and their autopsies may never reveal the cause, but the issue that might decide the case was the observation by the arriving officers and emts of damp hair and dry body. what looked suspicious was easily explainable said the defense, hair simply stays wet longer. if you get out of a swimming pool or a bathtub, your skin dries before the hair. yes. the defense told the court you have to look at the clock. the elapsed time of the incident. the defense claimed that sarah s body dried off in the time between ryan first speaking to the 911 dispatcher and when the police officer arrived, and what about the fingers and toes that should have been pruned up but weren t? well, no one knows what time sarah got into the tub. we don t know if she was primping in front of the mirror. we don t know any of that stuff. by the way suggested the defense, you can t have it both ways with the dry bathroom theory. if ryan had killed sarah in the small bathroom, there also should have been water splashed wherever. if there was a violent struggle, then there would be water on the floor, on the counter, on the walls, everywhere. and if they want to claim that it was a staged scene where he cleaned up the water, well, where s the wet towel? and investigators looked for wet towels. in the dryer, even in the garage, nothing. and say for argument s sake there had been a struggle, you d think ryan would have gotten scratched up as sarah fought for her life, but ryan didn t have a mark on him. how would sarah have reacted if she would have been attacked? sarah was a very spunky person, and she was small in stature, probably 5 1 , i think she weighed around 140 pounds, but she wasn t frail by any stretch of the imagination. she was a strong girl. so she would have gone for her attacker? i full heartedly believe, yes. and sarah s french manicure was in pristine condition. there was no damage tots nails. she had beautiful fren frencfrench man french manicured nails. ryan s a lot like my husband chris in the aspect of when there s an argument chris just says what can we do to fix it, and let s move on. that s kind of how ryan was. as far as accounting for the bruising to her neck and scalp, to the defense they were certainly caused by the emts working on sarah. we re talking about 45 minutes of resuscitation efforts, not fives not ten, 45 minutes. i was not surprised at the injuries at all based on the prolonged cpr and the number of intubation attempts. add it all up, injuries the result of life saving efforts, skin that may well have dried before the authorities showed up, and you are left, the defense argued, with an unexplained death, something that experts tell you happens. and jurors, the reason you didn t hear about love affairs or out of control finances is because none of those things existed. motive, they don t have motive. it didn t add up that this man of 27 years who has never even shown anger in his entire life would all of a sudden kill his wife. it made no sense. i hope that you agree that ryan widmer is not guilty of any wrongdoing. but the prosecution would tell the jury in its closing argument that while they may never know why ryan killed his wife of only four months, that he nonetheless did and that the clock was ticking as he staged the scene before he called 911. that, they said, explains the damp hair, dry body mystery. sarah widmer was either out of that bathtub for a longer period of time, had been dead for a longer period of time, or her body was never fully in that bathtub. and they that ryan spent so much time cleaning up the scene before he called for emts that sarah s dead body was showing signs of rigor mortis when they arrived. she was already dead by the time they got there. they had difficulty didn t wa baiting her, because her chin wanted to fall. now, it was up to the jury to decide if ryan widmer had kills his wife. coming up we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know, without a doubt, that ryan did not do this. 23 hours of deliberation. the verdict and the controversy. when the bathtub mystery continues. bathtub mystery continues. but we can guarantee the best price on that thar rental cabin or any hotel, home, boat, yurt, whatever. just don t get carried away with the wild west thing. hey guys. get the best price on homes, hotels and so much more. booking.com, booking.yeah welcome back to dateline extra. attorneys representing ryan widmer had mounted a vigorous defense. the newly wed had no motive to kill his wife sarah, they said. she d simply dozed off in the tub. prosecutors were equally adamant that the young man was a killer, claiming evidence at the crime scene proved it. now, it was up to the jury to decide. here again is dennis murphy. about the only fact of the case that was indisputable was that sarah widmer had drowned. but was it a natural death in her bathtub. what about the suggestion, something with the heart? that the medical examiner could not find? her medical history is completely devoid of anything that even would suggest these things. or, had sarah died at the hands of her husband ryan? they had failed to prove their case. they failed. inside the warren county courthouse, the jury was out all day. the couple s friends waited. we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know without a doubt that ryan did not do this, and we pray to god that everyone else sees that, too. billy cunningham. i am a great american. ryan widmer might have wished the callers on billy cunningham s radio show were on his jury. during the trial, there was no smoking gun. ryan s mother agreed. she was cautiously optimistic. i never let myself get cocky. i just felt that in having sat there and listened that there were a lot of holes, and not a lot of evidence. never felt like it was a slam dunk, but i felt like there was a lot of reasonable doubt. the jurors were hard at work. they asked for the tub where sarah had been found dead to be brought to them in the jury room. by the second day, ryan s defense attorney was getting anxious. when they re out more than 20 hours, it s clear that somebody s saying that this isn t as straightforward as it seems. correct. but the prosecutors weren t worried by the long jury slip ration. we knew it was going to be a hard case for them to weigh a lot of evidence. they had two counts to decide. count one, aggravated murder. did ryan premedicate the murder? and count two, non-premeditated murder. did it happen suddenly, without prior thought? finally, after 23 hours, the jurors had reached a verdict. the lawyers were summoned. it s a very traumatic moment. your heart s racing. it s in your throat. and you re anxious to hear what the jury says. it s profound. as jill hurried back to the courtroom, outside, a storm hit with biblical fury. she saw that as an ominous sign. the skies just opened up. there were tornado warnings and it all just culminated when the verdict was about ready to be read. ryan widmer took his place at the defense table. the defendant will please rise. verdict on count one, aggravated murder, we the jury find the defendant ryan widmer is not guilty of aggravated murder. it was a moment of relief for ryan widmer. the jury did not believe that he killed his wife with premeditation. but he still faced the second count of murder. the verdict reads, we the jury in this case find the defendant ryan widmer is guilty of the lesser included offense of murder. guilty. the jury had decided that ryan widmer did, indeed, murder his wife, sarah. mr. widmer, is there anything you wish to say? the accused, now the convicted, would kiss his wedding ring and then address the court for the first time. he hadn t taken the stand, as was his right. i loved my wife. i did not hurt her. i was never given a chance. the day after she passes away, they charge me with murder, i didn t even if i had an answer, i would give the answer to what happened to her, but i can t. i was not in the bathroom with her. he was very upset. he doubled over when addressing the court. in fact, i was surprised that he was as outspoken as he was. but he indicated to the judge and everybody that he loved sarah. he would never have hurt her. i love my wife and i did not hurt her. coming up something amiss in the jury room. said that two or three of the female jurors had done home experiments where they had showered and then air dried. home experiments? what was that all about? ryan widmer was about to get a break. when the bathtub mystery continues. e bathtub mystery continues. he s a pretty good spokesperson. ehhh. so when i say, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412, you probably won t believe me. hey, actor lady whose scene was cut. hi. but you can believe this esurance employee, nancy abraham. seriously, send her an email and ask her yourself. no emails. no emails. when insurance is affordable, it s surprisingly painless. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. ryan widmer insisted to the judge that he did not hurt his wife, sarah, but the juror had spoken, and ryan was headed to prison. then, a stunning twist. a juror troubled by an incident was about to deliver a bombshell, and it would turn this case upside down. what went on behind the closed doors of that deliberation room? with more of our story, here s dennis murphy. ryan widmer has been convictconvic convicted of murdering his wife, sarah, and given the mandatory sentence. he was cuffed and moved to a holding cell. he stopped next to me and said, can i say good-bye to my mom and he said, no, just keep moving. how difficult is that? beyond difficult. dana, who had set up her friend sarah with ryan, her husband s college roommate, was devastated. she wasn t murdered. one of my best friends. so, there isn t a whisper of doubt that says my best friend may have been killed by this absolutely not. as close as you were to her, you still defend him? i do. my impression was that the community was stunned by the verdict. the verdict was so unpopular in the court of public opinion that candlelight vigils were staged to protest the jury vote. there has never been a case where hundreds of americans come out of their homes carrying candlelights to listen to prayers about a condemned, convicted killer. it s never happened before. talk radio host bill cunningham, a lawyer by training, regards himself as a hang em high conservative, but even he felt this was a case of justice denied. judging this case against 100 other murder trials, this is one of the flimsiest and one of the weakest i ve seen. i m the creator of the website, and someone out there following the trial was mike, a young newly wed himself, and a web page designer. he so believed in ryan s innocence that he launched a free ryan widmer website. the goal is for him to get a new trial. if he doesn t, i believe it s going to outrage a lot of people. angry citizens, taxpayers, voters. even though the real trial was over, the prosecution hadn t entirely called it quits. in their post-verdict victory lap, they spoke of things that the judge had not allowed the jury to hear. the weekend before his wife died, when she d been away visiting relatives, they say ryan had frequented a website called adult friend finder, an organization that bills itself as the world s largest site for swingers. we found evidence that he d been on the site, but no evidence that he followed through. if they were such a happy couple, why somebody on the computer looking for a hookup spot? that makes no sense to me. that would combat the idea of the happy couple. the judge had not allowed the web surfing or other pornography investigators say they found on his computer to be introduced as evidence, since there was no way to know if sarah even knew about ryan s internet trolling. still, was it a sign, as the detective thought, that their marriage was not as happy as friends and family believed? my understanding of some of these sites, supposedly, that he visited, ended up being popups on a computer, and i m not the most computer literal person, but i don t think the full story was told there, either. and i don t understand if they got the verdict they want, why they have to continue to attack my son and my family. and ryan s mother said, if the couple had fought over anything, the family would have known. sarah, always outspoken, wasn t the type to suffer in silence. sarah told everybody everything. she s a chatty person. she had just been with her family for an entire weekend without ryan being there. if there were any problems, believe me, they all would have known it and i probably would have known it, because sarah probably would have called and yelled at me about something my son was doing that wasn t nice to her. but none of that mattered now. the jury had spoken, and defense lawy lawyers couldn t get over the guilty verdict. it was awful. this is was on my shoulders. it was my duty to my client to get a proper verdict, and i failed. ryan had become more than a client to him. i absolutely believe in him. i had him in my own, around my wife and kids. there was no question in my mind he was innocent. he did with lawyers often do after losing a case. he wrote a motion to have the judge let ryan go free or order a new trial. a long shot. ryan was in prison and would likely stay there. it s been a roller coaster ride and i can t let myself get my hopes up. he may be in prison for 15 years. he may be. and this appeal process, it can take forever. in fact, as ryan widmer got processed into the ohio prison system, his case was far, far from over. the day after defense attorneys filed their motion, their fax machines spit out some shocking information. as we speak, it isn t the end of things. that s correct. the fax was a letter from a juror. he was having problems living with himself, he said it was a moral dilemma for him to allow it just to go without bringing up to somebody s attention. the juror claimed there had been forbidden monkey business during deliberations. monkey business 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 then air dried. they were testing out this theory of how quickly that s correct. the body dries coming out of the tub or shower? yes. at home. if the faxing juror was correct, the panel had directly violated the judges instructions to consider only what they d heard in court. the allegation was jury misconduct. a serious matter. attorney mark godsey runs the ohio innocence project. he saw the juror letter as a way to persuade the judge to grant ryan a new trial. it s unusual for a juror to reveal those kind of things. the judge began reviewing affidavits from the jurors about just what went on during deliberations. in one of those sworn statements, a juror said of those taboo home experiments, the times to air dry influence my decision. jurors are not supposed to go home and do experiments. in the end, the judge agreed. four months after ryan widmer s conviction, he ruled that the husband would get another trial. the not guilty verdict on the aggravated murder count, however, would remain. so, the prosecution could only retry him on the second count of unpremeditated murder. his mother scraped together enough cash to post the $400,000 bond for him. ryan was released from prison, but by then, he d already spent five months behind bars. the quest for justice can deplete both bank accounts and emotions. yes. how far are you prepared to go in this? i m prepared to go until the day i die, if i have to live on the street at the end of this, i m going to do whatever it takes to get my son out of this. and ryan and his family would end up not only at the very brink of financial bankruptcy, but at the edge of emotional collapse. he says he can t sleep. he says he sees her when he closes his eyeses. he misses her. everything in ryan s life was spiraling downward. he d lost his job after the guilty verdict and was left to do odd jobs for supporters. the house he and sarah bought together went into foreclosure. and now, another jury would be asked to peer inside the mystery of a marriage and decide what exactly happened behind those closed doors on crested owl court. the prosecutors would have to convince another jury that ryan widmer had killed his wife. it s got to be huge little frustrated. you got a guilty verdict and you got to do it again. on the other hand, by that point, we knew how a jury would react to our evidence. on the other side of the coin, the defense has seen your case. they certainly have. and they can now counterpunch. and we can t change it very much. ryan widmer trial, take two. coming up imagine ryan at 6 2 and sarah, 5 1 , 5 2 , and imagine them actually interacting in here. a new jury makes a dramatic return to the scene of the drowning. and later, ryan widmer tells his own story. did you kill your wife, sarah? no, i did not. i couldn t hurt sarah emotionally, let alone physically. so you re saying you re wrongly convicted? i m 100% wrongfully convicted. i m going to fight this until it s made right. when the bathtub mystery continues. and i don t add up the years. but what i do count on. is staying happy and healthy. so, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. new boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33% more high-quality protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals your body needs. all with guaranteed great taste. the upside- i m just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life look for savings on boost® in your sunday paper. when heartburn hits. fight back fast with tums smoothies. it neutralizes stomach acid at the source. tum tum tum tum tums. smoothies. .and introducing new tums sugar-free. a little more than a year after a jury found ryan widmer guilty of murder, only to have the verdict thrown out, it would start all over again. this time a new defense team would take over ryan s case. defense lawyers jay clark and lindsay gutierrez worried that even though they were starting the trial with a clean slate of jurors, the verdict from the first trial would still hang over the accused. well, he s still innocent until proven guilty. everyone thinks and knows he was proven guilty. across the courtroom, the prosecution team was the same. and it would hammer home the argument that a healthy 24-year-old woman just does not die alone in a bathtub. did you see any evidence that sarah suffered a seizure that caused her death by drowning? no. sarah s body dry to the touch, the officers and emts testified. and the bathroom where her husband lifted her soaking body out of the tub, it was also not wet. towels, a rug, magazines, all appeared to be dry. the jury would again hear the 911 call that, to prosecution ears, sounded odd. she was laying face down in the bathtub. the message was, my wife s dead and i wasn t around when it happened. but unlike the first trial, the defense lawyers asked to take the jurors to the home where ryan and sarah had lived to inspect for themselves the very bathroom where she died. the lawyers had made a pretrial visit. the first thing we said was, man, this is small. they wanted the jurors to see for themselves that this was a cramped space in a modest builder s home. imagine ryan at 6 2 and sarah, 5 1 , 5 2 , and imagine them actually interacting in here. it was such a small bathroom, a defense expert argued, that if there had been a violent struggle, both husband and wife would have shown more obvious bruises and scratches. i would have expected to see more injury if a violent struggle had occurred. but the prosecutors argued that widmer, in an explosion of anger, could have overtaken his wife so quickly that she would have had no time to fight back. and in their closing arguments, they told the jurors that ryan widmer not only killed his wife but also delayed calling 911 to buy time to cover up his crime. things looked so nice because ryan widmer had the opportunity to reset the scene. he had time to put things back into place. but ryan s defense lawyers were hopeful this jury would see the case the way they did. an innocent man on trial for a murder he did not commit. absolutely believe him. no doubt in my mind. the case was given to jury number two. and it seemed as though everyone in cincinnati was on the edge of their seat, waiting for its decision. but three days into deliberations, nothing. the jurors asked to see the judge. there s an impasse. he sent them back to deliberate some more. it is desirable that the case be decided. it was turning out to be the longest deliberation in warren county history. as the jurors left for a long holiday weekend, the specter of a mistrial hung in the air. dana and chris kist once again waited with ryan. we have to make sure he knows we re here. that s what we do as friends, support him and be hopeful and have the faith that this is going to turn out the way that it s meant to turn out. the jury returned to work on tuesday morning. but at 5:00 p.m. on the fourth day of deliberations, they asked to see the judge again. the note reads, we have decided that we cannot agree and that further deliberations will not serve a useful purpose. a hung jury. no verdict. by best count, they were deadlocked, seven guilty, one undecided, four not guilty. at a press conference, ryan s parents vowed to stand by their son. they d already spent more than a half a million dollars on his defense, tapping out bank accounts and retirement plans. we know he s innocent. we ll move forward. ryan s dad, gary, was firmly behind his son, but in another odd twist, it had taken ryan s arrest to reunite the pair. he d been out of his son s life for 13 years, the consequence of a bitter divorce. he hadn t even known there was a sarah until he learned his son had been charged with her murder. father was reintroduced to son while ryan was in jail. this is the first meeting you ve had really with your boy in a long, long time. through a glass wall. you re talking through one of the phone devices. yes, sir. that s kind of a hard thing to take right there. it was. it was hard, but it was so sweet to see him. a poignant reunion, father and son. and a father who completely believes in his son s innocence. and will do anything to help him. if there s any kind of avenue to take, you have to take it. it s my son. you have to take it. your son didn t do it. sarah widmer died for reasons unknown. yes. give yourself a round of applause. and beyond ryan s family and close friends standing behind him, it was a case that had galvanized a personal army. there were free ryan widmer t-shirts and wristbands. he was getting a lot of support including anonymous donor said to contribute $60,000. yeah. a stranger. yes. even the prosecutors were a bit worried. so much taxpayer money would be spent on a third trial. so many ryan widmer supporters beating very loud drums. a plea deal was floated. we felt it was a subject worth bringing up. but the kists said there was no way ryan was taking a deal. they offered him a plea, which they hadn t done in two trials. and he turned it down? of course he turned it down, he says, i m innocent, there s no way i would take a plea. why would i admit to something that i would never have done that i did not do? ryan widmer was gambling that the next jury would acquit him. but his roll of the dice was taking its toll not just on him but on his family as well. 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, the three of us are together, and you could 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. and one of those people would soon change everything. ten days after the jury deadlocked, 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 came away convinced they had the long missing pieces to the puzzle. both a confession and a motive. and jay clark, the defense attorney, would now have to worry overtime about the state s new bombshell of a witness. did you guys know what they had up their sleeve? literally no. reporte because the new witness feared for her life, saying that ryan widmer had threatened her, her identity would not be disclosed to the defense team until the beginning of the trial. and trial three would begin with virtually everyone holding their breath. who was this person and what did she know? the mystery witness takes the stand. and what a story she has to tell. coming up she strolls in wearing a suit with decently done hair, normal makeup. sarah had found out that he had cheated on her when she went away with her mom. he said that they were in the living room and they were arguing about pornography. but why this story now? i saw the sadness and the pain and the hurt in her mom s face, and i m a mom and i couldn t do that to them anymore. they needed to know the truth. when the bathtub mystery continues.ry continues. plus 21 vitamins and minerals including calcium and vitamin d, to help your family be their best. carnation breakfast essentials®. to help our family b[ dobaxter.ng ] it s bedtime. peace of mind should never be out of reach. [ voice command beep ] xfinity home. xfinity home connects you to total home security you can control from anywhere on any device. and it protects you with 24/7 professional monitoring. i guess we re sleeping here tonight. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. call, go online or demo in an xfinity store today. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. ryan widmer was heading to court for a third trial, charged once again with murdering his wife, sarah. this time, the prosecution would introduce a mysterious new witness. a woman who claimed ryan threatened to kill her if she ever told all she knew. who was she? and what secrets could she share? returning to our story, here s dennis murphy. mr. widmer, is there anything you wish to say? the first trial ended in a mistrial. the second with a hung jury. would this next jury reach a verdict? these three jurors from the last trial said the prosecutors had failed to convince them that ryan widmer had killed his wife. there s just nothing to prove to me that he had anything to do with her death. and that the next group of jurors would also not be able to reach a unanimous decision. we sat in jury deliberations for 30-plus hours. and the likelihood of 12 jurors coming to the same conclusion was very unlikely. we really didn t think that another jury would not be deadlocked. haid they d soon find out. ryan widmer s extraordinary third trial for the murder of his wife was about to start all over again. the prosecutors felt it was their duty to argue their case for sarah. we re committed to seeing that justice is done for the victim of this case. and that s what we ve got to think about. it promised to be a judicial groundhog day. repeat testimony from the emts and arriving officers at the widmer home. the oddity of a bathtub drowning victim with a damp head and dry body. a 911 call that to some listeners volunteered too much. and injuries to the wife s neck and head that spoke to the prosecutors of homicide and not resuscitation. the facts which came out in this case gave rise to the idea that there had been an assault that occurred, which progressed into an instance of domestic violence. and this time, sarah s own mother described the couple s relationship as more tense than she had in the previous trials, telling the court that ryan and sarah s arguments made her very uncomfortable. they would just call each other names and get hateful with each other. i even told them, i said, you guys have to stop, i can t take it. but what was really new and stunk was something that had been haunting the defense since they first learned of it the previous summer. the prosecution s mystery witness that would testify that ryan had confessed to the crime. it was a woman named jennifer crew from iowa. it was the first time the defense would get a good look at this person who ryan had allegedly confessed to, and they were worried. she strolls in wearing a suit, decently done hair, makeup. but how exactly did this woman living 500 miles away from ryan widmer come to be involved in the case in a starring prosecution role? it turned out she watched dateline s story from the first trial. after watching the show, she sent ryan an e-mail through the free ryan widmer website, telling him how bad she felt about his plight. i felt sorry for ryan. i asked him what i could do to help him. before long, the two were in frequent touch. struck up e-mail, texes, ultimately a phone relationship? correct. as the relationship continued, ryan sent her photos of his dogs and asked her to send him a picture of herself. initially, she sent this one of a friend. she says things got a little racy on the phone. and he told me that she was watching porn in his mom s basement. there was even talk of jennifer visiting ryan in ohio for a three-way. ryan asked me to ask my friend and i said i would. but the reason jennifer was on the stand was to testify about one phone conversation in particular. one very different than their usual banter. it was october 26th, 2009. jennifer said she had been asleep when ryan called. it sounded to her as though he had been drinking. he was crying. and he was saying, i did it. i did it. i killed sarah. i did it. i thought what he meant was that he didn t do enough to save her life that night. he said, no, jen, listen to me, i did it. she said ryan told her it had started with a fight between the two of them. sarah had found out that he had cheated on her when she went away with her mom. he said that they were in the living room and they were arguing about his pornography. what happened when she came upstairs? she was getting ready for the bath. ryan said that the argument continued, that she kept saying she can t do this anymore, being married. he said that sarah told him that the marriage was over. ryan, she testified, then told sarah nobody leaves me, nobody ever leaves me, and i mean nobody. that s when jennifer crew says ryan hit his wife. she fell backwards and hit her head. and he said, jen, i blacked out, i blacked out. but why this story now? jennifer crew waited until almost two weeks after the second jury had deadlocked before coming forward, even though ryan had allegedly confessed to her eight months earlier. she said she had promised ryan she would not reveal his secret and said she was unnerved when he gave her a veiled threat. i promised him i would never tell anybody. he said, i hope not, because i wouldn t want you to be where sarah s at. but she said she thought the jury, like the first one, would have convicted ryan. and when they didn t, she contacted the authorities after seeing pictures of sarah s mother. i saw the sadness and the pain and the hurt in her mom s face, and i m a mom, and i couldn t do that to them anymore. they needed to know the truth. coming up she came downstairs crying and she s like, he did it. she was scared, actually. chef was upset. when the bathtub mystery continues. mystery continues. dr. scholl s. only dr. scholl s has massaging gel insoles that provide all-day comfort. to keep him feeling more energized. dr. scholl s. born to move. 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your stories this hour. democrats are promising to vote on measures to open the government. nancy pelosi said they d vote on thursday. president trump invited congressional leaders to the white house for a briefing on the border wall. meanwhile, u.s. border agents reportedly fired tear gas at migrants early tuesday morning as they tried to cross the border from tijuana to san diego. now back to the bathtub mystery. well p come back. ryan widmer was in court for trial number three, again. prosecutors charged that he d murdered his wife, but this time, they called a bombshell witness. her name was jennifer crew, and she claimed ryan confessed he killed sarah after the young bride threatened to leave him. the details of jennifer s story were stunning. but would a jury believe her? once again, dennis murphy. surprise prosecution witness jennifer crew had just taken the stand, and her story was a lot to absorb. ryan confessing, fighting with a wife who was leaving him. blacking out in the bathroom. would the jurors believe any or all of it? the defense had to make certain they didn t. but they were worried that they might. i think she had invented this story and started to live it and really wanted to believe it. you were convicted of so they aimed for the jugular. could this woman be trusted? she had a jaded past. theft convictions, stealing. that s not something that an honest, credible person does. a one-time bartender at a strip club who managed the dancers, jennifer crew admitted to misdemeanor brushes with the law. you were convicted of theft? yes, sir. also of fraudulent practices, correct? i believe that s when my record states. she was also in a methadone treatment program for her addiction to painkillers. you were using oxycontin for five years. about five years, yes. you ve used false names to get drugs. yes, i did. and the defense indicated because of her addiction to drugs, her memory was not to be trusted. when the detectives talked to you, you told them that your memory is not very good, didn t you? i don t recall saying that. do you remember telling them, i don t remember verbatim the conversation between you and ryan? i do not remember the conversation verbatim. the defense would hammer on her confusion about what hour the phone call came through, even on what day it was placed. when investigators met with you, you told them the call was in the middle of the night. i was asleep and i thought that the call came in later than it did. everything critical in terms of time and duration and any memory about the call was all different once she got toch the, but only after she saw her phone records. after jennifer crew stepped down, the prosecution called the woman s fiance to try to undo any damage to her testimony caused by the defense. he confirmed that she related the alleged confessional phone call to him immediately after hanging up that night. she came downstairs crying, and she s like, he did it. she was scared, actually. she was upset. if the jury believed jennifer crew s story, ryan widmer was sunk. so, the defense called a witness to refute the iowa woman s story about an emotional call that night from ryan. and it was another woman who became interested in ryan widmer s case after seeing our first dateline report. melissa waller from seattle, like jennifer crew from iowa, struck up a phone and e-mail relationship with ryan in the fall of 2009. she said she was drawn to his case after the death of her sister-in-law. how often do you think you guys talked? three times a week. sometimes more, sometimes less. we talked about sarah a lot. he was having a really, really hard time accepting everything. melissa s husband supported her friendship with ryan. was it a little out there? yeah, but i m so comfortable with her and our relationship that without a shadow of a doubt, i was 100% behind her. i did feel strongly about supporting him. there s just no chance that he had anything to do with it. but the importance of the seattle woman s story for the defense was that she, too, had a lengthy phone call with ryan that finished just six minutes before he called jennifer crew in iowa. the call, in which he allegedly confessed to killing his wife. melissa waller said ryan was perfectly composed when she spoke to him for almost two hours that night. how do you know that he was not drink, he was not upset? every phone conversation i ve had, he s never been intoxicated or emotionally distraught. i knew that all the times i had talked to him, he was never drunk or upset. melissa was convinced that jennifer crew had made up the whole story about the confession. i was shocked that somebody would go under oath on stand and lie. but still, had the defense paid a price by putting yet another woman on the stand? is there risk for you about these women getting involved with ryan widmer? it s easy to get sucked into that. but i think you have to understand what ryan was going through. he s never been able to really grieve for sarah. you can t do that when you re under the gun, charged with her murder. they contacted him, and it was companionship. it was time to wrap up trial number three. the prosecutor saying it was a sudden violent murder. anybody who s been in a relationship knows that sometimes things go off, they snap, for no good reason. i think something like that happened. at some point, ryan saw that his perfect marriage was falling apart, and that s what led us here. the defense arguing a medically undetermined death by natural causes. it s probably going to bother me for the rest of my life, what happened to sarah we ll never know. sarah had drowned. but how? a third jury retired for deliberations. another stunning development. a new sarah enters ryan s life. coming up he just was telling me how much he loved sarah and he could never, ever love another woman as much as he loved her. i think i started crying, because i just felt so bad for him. do you love ryan? i love him. yeah. just who is she? later, ryan tells all. she s awesome. so loving, scacaring. there are similarities i see in sarah my wife that i see with sarah now. you kept it secret? yeah, because i knew they would try to make it into something negative. when the bathtub mystery continues. tery continues. if your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn s symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn t worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn s. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio®. if your uc or crohn s treatment isn t working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®. entyvio®. relief and remission within reach. the jury had been out for a day. again, it seemed everyone in cincinnati was waiting for a verdict. while widmer still had a number of ardent supporters, trial watchers say this time things were changing in the court of public opinion. you have a candlelight vigil for him now and probably you could hold it in a phone booth. one strong voice that had turned against ryan widmer was talk radio show host bill cunningham. he was disgusted with how he exploited the free win widmer website. he used the free ryan widmer website to pick up chicks. instead of using that to find his innocence, he was bringing in hot babes from washington and iowa. for you, it sounds like it fell apart on a character issue. it did. to me, by the third trial, the evidence didn t change. the facts didn t change, but the wallpaper of the case changed. day two and the jury in the courthouse was going round and round. my stomach was cramping, my shoulders were hurting, i just felt awful. i was nauseous, i didn t i hadn t felt that way for 20 years. the jurors were working their way through the evidence. they parsed the 911 call. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. the more you listen to it, the more and more it starts to sound like it was staged. and there was sarah s body. officers had testified it was too dry. 2 1/2 minutes after being removed from a tub, you would expect a body to be wet. the alleged confession as recounted by jennifer crew. i just don t believe anything she said. the prints in the tub. under normal circumstances, you cannot leave those kind of fingerprints on the side of a tub trailing down. the bruising to sarah. i think both the defense and the prosecution put up good arguments about that. that s on a teetering on a razor s edge with me. at the end of the second day, they took their one and only vote. they had a verdict. a blast of calls went out. the kists grabbed a stunned ryan. we immediately jumped in the car. ryan says, i can t believe they re back this soon. this is too quick. i m worried. the judge asked for the jury ballot. anxious? very. sick. sick. yeah. ryan widmer stood with his lawyers. his life hanging in the balance. i can actually hear ryan shaking. i can hear it. it s that silent in there and he s that nervous. the verdict. we the jury in this case find the defendant ryan widmer is guilty of murder. guilty. ryan dropped his head to the table. i was hysterical. he was crying. he was a mess. a bad, bad, bad dream. ryan composed himself enough to proclaim to the court his innocence. i did not do this. i don t know why this has to keep going on. i mean, my life has been ruined. i love sarah. i would never have hurt her. never. outside the court, ryan s father gary slumped to the ground. the son he was recently reunited with after years apart taken from him again. it was a horrifying moment. and i think it just totally caught up with me at that point, the whole total shock, and i just went weak. ryan widmer, for the second time, was given the mandatory sentence, 15 years to life. as court officers handcuffed him and led him away, few people were aware of a young woman on his side of the benches, crying. this is also a sarah. sarah manhurst. and she s still another twist in the story that has had so many. do you love ryan widmer? i love him, yeah. sarah wore an engagement ring and is the mother of ryan s son, born in the summer after trial number two. what did you name the baby? his name is ryan. you see ryan s face in the baby s? yeah. sarah, a canadian via new york, like jennifer from iowa and melissa from seattle, also became aware of ryan after our first dateline program on the case aired back in 2009. i thought that he was railroaded. i really did. she sent an e-mail to ryan saying how sorry she felt with for him, and he sent one back. soon they were talking on the phone. a little more than a month later, sarah came to cincinnati to visit ryan. she stay with him at his mother s house. i thought it was a little awkward, you know, because we had talk eed so much on the pho, but we hadn t met. he was telling me how much he loved sarah and could never love another woman as much as he loved her. i think i started crying, because i just felt so bad for him. sarah went back to new york and then three weeks later, returned to cincinnati as ryan s guest at his mother s thanksgiving dinner. that was the weekend they became intimate. the first time we were together, i got pregnant. how did ryan take the news? he was shocked, obviously, very bad timing. they kept the pregnancy a secret, as ryan s second trial would take place the following may. i decided, yeah, i was going to have the baby. and he was okay with that. but it was just difficult, because i m thinking, here i am pregnant, and you re facing another trial, and my child could potentially grow up without a father, which and now he s in jail. with ryan sentenced to 15 years to life, sarah is raising their son. i m still in shock. i can t believe this happened to him. if in your own mind you couldn t get to beyond reasonable doubt, if there was a sliver of doubt that he had done this thing, would you have stayed? never. i would never have stayed with him. there s no way he could have done this, ever. but had he? in the course of three trials, played out before three juries, ryan widmer s guilt or innocence has been passionately debated. he is now telling his story. widmer speaks from prison, when we return. did you kill your wife, sarah? coming up you think they fabricated this? oh, i know they did. why would they have it in for you? why would they lie? emts and police officers don t even work for the same agency. this young husband is about to make a startling claim. jennifer, i did it. i m telling you, i did it. uh-huh. did that conversation happen? nope, it never happened. so, jennifer crew s story is made up. 100% made up. when the bathtub mystery continues. welcome back. after three years and three remarkable trials, sarah widmer and her loved ones had finally received justice. her husband, ryan, was convicted of her murder. through it all, ryan never took the stand to tell his story, but he did share it with us. listen closely and decide for yourself, what really happened in the widmer s bathroom that fateful night? now, with the conclusion of our story, here s dennis murphy. this is ryan widmer s story as he tells it. he remembers a loving relationship with his wife sarah that was right from the first date. we hit it off perfect. was there any friction? none whatsoever. everything was cool? perfect. perfect. he only had one worry about sarah. my biggest problem with her was her sleep. she would work a regular day and need to be going to bed early or taking a nap. i just thought something wasn t healthy about it, you re 24 years old. but still, he says, they fell into their everyday lives, their jobs, walking the dog, building a deck on their house. all routine, he says, until that august night. sarah had come home from work, he says, with a headache. they had dinner, watched tv. she s what? laying on the couch. because she doesn t feel so hot. she says her neck is killing her, she s going to get in the bath and go to bed. ryan says he stayed downstairs and watched the game until he too was ready for bed. upstairs to the master bedroom and bath. tell me what you see, just like a videotape recording. i walk in the room. i walk over to the nightstand and i put some things down, turn on the tv. and then i walked in the bathroom. and that s when i saw sarah, i knew something wasn t right. she was just unconscious. how did you see her? her head was just underneath the water. i mean, i don t even remember. was she face down in the tub as you told 911? all i remember, yeah, just finding her. i mean, i knew it wasn t good. she was laying in the water. i don t know what else to say other than it wasn t right. the only thing i remember certain things because of what i heard on the 911 tape. it s such a shocking image, you would think you would remember. i wasn t thinking, i m going to have to remember. head, nose, mouth down under the water? everything, yeah. what did you do next? i tried to get a reaction out her, and i got nothing. that s when he says he called 911. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub and i think she s dead. when you chose that word, i think she fell asleep it s not about choosing a word. it was her sleeping issue. whatever, i don t know. they re saying, this 911 call is suspicious, because this guy is giving us too much information. he s telling us, he s downstairs, she s upstairs. you know why i was watching the football game. i don t know what they wanted me to they will them. maybe, i just need an ambulance as soon as possible, get her quick. i don t know. i called and that s what i said. i don t know. prosecutors say the first arriving officer was at the house no more than six minutes after the 911 call was answered, and less than three minutes after ryan lifted sarah s body out of the tub. the observations of the arriving officer, what do we have here, why is this woman s hair damp and her body dry. yeah, well it doesn t make sense, ryan. i understand that. so how do you explain it? i left the house and there was cops there by themselves and they came up with the story they wanted to come up with it. you think they fabricated this? i know they did. so, you think they wanted to make a case here? i know they did. why would they arrest me the day after if they didn t want to make a case? why would they have it in for you? why would they lie? emts and police officers don t even work for the same agency. they clearly do when they get up there to testify, because they re clearly coached into what to say. and what about the story of the woman who says ryan confessed to her that he killed sarah? listen to me, i did it. here s jennifer crew from iowa on the stand saying, he called me one night, he was sloppy and he confessed to me. right. jennifer, i did it. i m telling you i did it. mm-hmm. did that conversation happen? nope. it never happened. so, jennifer crew s story is made up? 100% made up. the same goes, ryan told us, about sarah s mother s testimony about hearing hateful arguments between the couple. they would just call each other names. she s a liar. sarah s mom s a liar? she was making this stuff up? we were never mean to each other. never. a one-time mother-in-law from an earlier life who he says is embellishing the reality of his marriage. now ryan widmer has a baby with a new sarah. she s awesome, so loving, caring. there are similarities i see in sarah, my wife, as i see with sarah now. you guys kept it secret? oh, yeah. because i knew they would try to make it into something negative. and in that court of public opinion, the women from far away places, iowa, seattle, new york, who became involved in his case didn t go down well with everyone. a character issue. we talked to somebody who says you re using the free ryan widmer website as a dating service, just a way to meet women. i don t know who said that, but that s not true. but investigators wondered how good the marriage really was based on what they found on widmer s computer. did you have an unhealthy addiction to porn? no. but you looked at porn? yeah. but ryan says that doesn t mean anything. and certainly doesn t make him a murderer. did you kill your wife, sarah? no, i did not. i couldn t hurt sarah emotionally, let alone physically. she didn t get in your face and say she s leaving you? no. didn t happen? did not happen. you were downstairs watching the ball game and you found her in a bad situation? yeah. and that s it. you don t know why she died? nope. but you didn t put her head under water? nope. you say you re wrongly convicted? i m 100% wrongly convicted. and the 30 jurors or more found you guilty after hearing the story? yep. they re not getting it? they re not getting it at all. but these jurors from his third trial are confident they got it right. they say among other things, it came down to what they saw as sarah s too dry body, oddities in the 911 call, prints on the tub and the unlikeliness of an out of the blue medical event striking sarah in the bath. i went into it believing he was innocent. but everything that was put together with the evidence came down with four or five facts that we could not deny. we believe he intentionally drowned her. and the guilt of ryan widmer will also never be doubted by the prosecutors. do you believe that he actually did this thing? absolutely. she was murdered. and he killed her. and he was the only one that could have. ryan widmer has petitioned the u.s. district court to overturn his conviction, as the u.s. supreme court declined to hear his case. i m going to fight in this until it s made right. the passage of time hasn t made the events inside the little house on crested owl court any clearer. and time, of course, brings changes. sarah manhurst and ryan are no longer a couple, but she told us, she still believes in his innocence. and more change. his mother, jill, passed away. nothing, it seems, stays quite the same, except the central mystery itself, and that will likely be argued for years still to come. that s all for this edition of dateline extra , i m craig melvin. thank you for watching. raig melvin thank you for watching a gorgeous evening. girls night out. kenya was bright, pretty, adored by everyone. i felt like she was my twin. partying with friends. somehow she disappeared. they said, are you with kenia? i said, no, i thought she was with you. where was she? clues found on a surveillance tape and reports from witnesses. this one left for dead. was evil stalking young women?
wet, waters on the floor. could this death be deliberate? i started crying because i just felts 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. sarah and ryan were newly weds a young couple that appeared to be deeply in love. but less than four months after tying the knot sarah mysteriously drowned in her 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? it would take years of police work and three sen saegzal trials to uncover the stunning truth. here s dennis murphy. sometimes the shades are drawn early in a marriage, even for young couples so in love like newly weds sarah and ryan. everything was so fresh. after his workday as a sportswriter ryan said 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 couple in the suburban cincinnati home that evening had been married for just under four months, 114 days to be exact. they vowed until death do us part, and that moment was only minutes away from arrival. they d begun the two of them with a blind date at a pub that worked out. sarah, sarah stuart had been fixed up by her friend, and dana had an inkling that sarah would really hit it off with her husband s former roommate. i said i think their personalities would get along. and he said, well, let them go to dinner and we ll see what happens. laid-back ryan, a college jock and baseball player, and super organized sarah who needed everything just so talked about getting together again. she said let me check my book, and she gets out her little black book, and he s peeking over looking and later he calls and tells us, you know, there was nothing written in her black book. it was a fast track courtship and before very long ryan was bringing his new girlfriend home to meet his mom, jill. i liked her a lot. i probably remember the one thing that struck me the most was how beyond her years in maturity she was. sarah didn t have a problem telling anyone anything. so if you made sarah mad you knew yowl made sarah mad. as for ryan he never seemed to lose it. he never seemed upset. he doesn t get mad, you know. he s so laid-back and easygoing and she s so organized, this is where we have to be and he just says, okay. jill enjoyed her days with ryan and his new girlfriend, sarah. our family tends to do a lot of barbecues, picnics. she was becoming a serious part of the family. i was very pleased, yes. the couple bought a nice house together in a good neighborhood and ryan surprised sarah with an engagement ring. he put a ring around the dog s collar. she was very excited, he was very excited. and soon the invitations were in the mail. the bridesmaids knew they better snap to it. she was a planner. she wanted to make sure the bridesmaids wore the same make-up, same eye shadow. how was ryan? he was just as happy i ve ever seen him with her. it cost sarah a big screen tv to seal the deal, but she got ryan to take ballroom dance lessons for the wedding. and i was amazed. your son would take dance lessons? yeah. she could get him to do more things than any woman he had ever dated. the wedding in april 2008 was a formal affair. bride was beautiful, ryan s dance came off without a hitch and the happy bridesmaids all matched just as sarah wanted. every detail was planned obviously to a tee because it was sarah and she was gorgeous. kind of the most fun wedding we ve ever been to, ever. the newly weds went to costa rica for their honeymoon and had a good time. they worked really hard, built a beautiful deck on the back of their house, they had a trip planned to cancun. they had everything to live for. so august 11th should have been another day on the calendar. ryan remembers being down stairs to watch monday night football, sarah had gone up stairs. she was in trouble. she was laid face down in the bathtub. i got a call, it was ryan, something s happened to sarah. the emts were rushing sarah to the hospital. by then they d worked on her for 45 minutes but hadn t gotten a response. minutes later jill whitmer was with her son. finally a woman came in and we said is she gone, and she said, yes. he just dropped down to his knees and was just balling and sobbing, went to the chair. sarah whitman, 24 years old, the bride of less than four months was dead. her husband ryan told the emergency services people he thought she d fallen asleep in the bathroom and drowned. but those emts doing cpr didn t understand one crucial observation they made at the home that night. there s something here that doesn t look right. coming up a drowning in a dry bathroom? i expected something to be wet. there s a towel on the floor, a mat on the floor but everything s perfectly dry. the question deepens. when the bathtub mystery continues. n deepens. when the bathtub mystery continues. there s no place like home argh! i m trying. yippiekiyay. mom. reporter: that monday night the cincinnati bengals were looking more than decent against green bay. fans across town, like jeff braley, wondered if this could finally be a miracle season for the back-then hapless local franchise of the nfl. but braley didn t get to see all of the game. he was a cop, a detective. and you don t get to pick your down time. i was at home watching the bengals game. i get a call from the sergeant. lieutenant, we re out on a drowning. the paramedics are working on her. but something s not right here. reporter: as he rolled to the house he knew some of what to expect. when you are a cop more than a decade you become familiar with the signs of the drowning like the froth about the victim s nose and mouth. your mind starts running immediately about possibilities. they initially tell me i have a 24-year-old drowning victim that died in the tub. i m thinking that we will find evidence of something. drugs. evidence of an overdose or something. as he pulled up the victim was already loaded in the back of the ambulance. the arriving police officer was still inside the house. and he gave the detective a fill on what he had found when he was led to the master bedroom where the 24-year-old woman lay on the carpet off the bath. he felt for a pulse. he assisted with cpr on what he described as a completely dry body with her hair being only damp. wet head, dry body. correct. for some one who drowned in a bathtub full of water. yes. go ahead and get her out of bathtub and get her on the flat surface. okay, okay. the 911 dispatcher had been quite clear. he instructed the husband to get his wife out of the bathtub and put her on the floor. i m dropping the phone. the husband went away and came back to say he moved his wife from the tub to the bedroom. go ahead and get back to cpr. try cpr. we ll be there in a little bit. reporter: the detective wondered along with the emts and arriving officers why a woman who drowned in a bathtub would be mostly dry. he needed to see the scene. what story would it tell him. i start mentally preparing myself based on what they told me. what do i want to see versus what do i see? he headed for the master bathroom. i expected something to be wet. expected water on the floors or towels or whatever it might be. it is not there. dry-dry. there is a small remnant of water, what you might call droplets on the bottom of the tub around the drain. other than that there is nothing. you got any bath mats. wet towels on the floor. there is a towel on the floor. a mat on the floor. everything is dry. reporter: he had a drowning victim that didn t appear to be wet. someone that supposedly fell asleep in the tub and pitched down in the water. but a bathroom that was dry and undisturbed though presumably the husband had to wrangle her limp body out of the tub as he moved her to the bedroom. whether it s lotions, soap, whatever is on the side they weren t knocked off. that bothered me if you are pulling somebody quickly out of the tub. that s still together. the detective making mental notes. something was screaming to me something is bad wrong, something bad really, really, really bad has happened here. more so than just a tragic accident where she drowned. the forensic techs arrived and were taking photos. cutting out sections of the bedroom carpet where the mixture of blood and fluid common in drownings had stained it. what they wondered was there another explanation for the stains. they wanted to get the things to our lab right away to start, start checking out some things. reporter: though it was early hours in an incident. so much would depend on the findings of an autopsy, the detective knew this was not a case that was going to be closed out that night. when i left the house at 2:00 a.m., i knew i had a suspicious death. still there were questions how long had sarah been out of the tub? and had she been out of the tub long enough for her body to air dry? it wasn t possible. you know if you are pulling somebody directly out of a tub of water the body has to be wet. no other way around it. unless a substantial amount of time has passed or we re not being told an accurate story of what transpired. question was it possible for ryan to lift sarah out of the tub without knocking over those bottles that the detective noted were undisturbed? was it possible for water not to be splashed around as she was moved to the bedroom? and that overriding question what had happened to the young wife in the master bedroom? we knew she had drowned from the scene itself. it was the manner in which she drowned that had raised all the questions. but detective braley would have the most questions for the seemingly happily married husband. was it possible there was stress in the marriage that no one knew about? i had to rely on the fact in the back of my mind that nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. as police considered foul play friends and family wondered was there something behind the mystery? did she have an aneurysm? did she have a seizure? was there something medical behind this mystery? she was complaining of headaches. i was telling her, how long has it been since you have been to the doctor? e doctor? reporter: sarah widmer had died of drowning in her home. and her body would be examined by the county coroner. there was nothing for ryan, her husband of four months, to do but leave the hospital and head home. his mother, jill, took him back to the house in the wee hours. ryan asked me, mom i can t go back in there. can you go in and grab clothes for me. so i went upstairs. when i got up stairs to the bedroom there were a couple of pieces of carpet cut out of their carpeting which i thought was odd. it hadn t occurred to mother or son that the authorities were looking at sarah s death as anything but a tragic explainable incident of some sort. there were a million questions in our mind, did she have an aneurysm, did something medically happen to her? did she have a seizure? reporter: daylight and word was spreading that sarah was gone. dana and chris, the couple who had fixed the newlywed up could not believe what they were hearing. we had just gotten back from a trip and told her i would call her as soon as we got back and we would get together to dinner. i didn t get a chance. shocking news. reporter: dana, a nurse, tried to make sense of what had happened to her dear friend. she thought back to her last conversations with sarah. she was complaining of headaches, saying what do you think of her medical background? i said, maybe you should get your blood pressure checked, i said, you should get a checkup. how long have you been to the doctor? there was that funny trait sarah used to have that people would kid her about, that she would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. maybe it was part of an underlying condition that explained her death. her mother-in-law noticed it when she first got to know sarah. it was christmas 2007 and jill was taking home videos. all of a sudden i panned over. there s sarah having a good time at the family christmas. and sarah was sound asleep in a chair in my family room. there were 15 or 20 people in the room, laughing, talking, kids running around, and sarah went to sleep. sarah snoozing in the car. friends kidded her about it. she would always fall asleep at the beginning of movies, we would be nudging her, sarah, wake up. was it so noticeable you guys joked about it? even at the dinner table, we would be saying, sarah, don t fall asleep. i would say, sarah, you have narcolepsy. she said, no. had she fallen asleep and drowned in the tub? was that even possible to do? ryan seemed to think so. he said as much to the 911 dispatchers. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. but all the observations about sarah was just anecdotal information, not the stuff of real medical investigation. the medical examiner would have the first real results about sarah s death. what was he finding? no evidence of stroke, no evidence of a heart attack. but the medical examiner had discovered something else. bruising to sarah s head and neck. what had caused those injuries? the investigators checked off what they had so far. a young woman supposedly drowned in the bathtub with a damp head of hair and a dry body. it didn t figure. if you re pulling somebody out of a tub of water, it has to be wet. there s no way around it. a victim with unexplained bruises and a husband whose story they didn t believe about a ho-hum night watching football and then finding his wife dead in a bath. ryan s story doesn t fit at all. we determined at that point we had a homicide. sarah murdered. and the authorities believed her husband ryan did it. how shocking is that to you? oh, i can t even tell you. they charge ryan with murder. i mean, you ve got to be kidding me. like why would they think why? and i can t even tell you what that was like. so on top of losing this beautiful member of our family, he didn t even get a chance to grieve because now we re scared to death and he s scared to death that he s going to be charged with murder. and that is exactly what would happen. just two days after his new bride s death, a warrant was issued for ryan widmer s arrest. by ryan s admission, he was the only one in the house. ryan murdered sarah or he s covering for somebody that did. it didn t seem possible at first glance. a clean cut young couple, whim out a criminal record of any kind, them with no history of arguments, no problems in their marriage. where was the motive for murder on a monday night? any boyfriend/girlfriend issues here? there was no evidence whatsoever. money trouble? not that we can find. any anger issues with the guy? no. you re not getting a negative picture of this couple. no, we re not. as unlikely as it may seem, police said there was no other explanation for sarah s death. ryan is charged with his wife s murder. his family and friends were devastated. ryan and i were both so broken hearted. i could not have ever conceived, nor could ryan, that they would have had any idea that he would have been the person to hurt her and that it wasn t just a tragic accident. it broke my heart, knowing that he was feeling that grief and fear for his own life too. is there any moment when you think maybe i don t know the guy? never. maybe an instant of something awful happened? he never said anything where he was remotely angry. even sarah s family was behind ryan. so much so, the two families decided to delay sarah s funeral until ryan was out on bond. sarah s family were very livid about the fact that he wasn t guilty and they weren t going to go forward with the service until ryan could be there. the families are both on the same page here. yes. that you re four-square behind ryan. mm-hmm. and you re not going to even grieve together formally until he s there with you. right. the dead woman s brother, mike stewart, asked the judge to lower ryan s bond amount so he could attend the funeral. in our heart of hearts, we don t believe ryan would do this. but eight days would pass before the judge lowered ryan s bond from the $1 million to the $400,000. by then it was too late. the funeral had already been held so out of town relatives could return home. it was a nice ceremony. her brother got up and said a few nice words. and i know that ryan wrote a letter that was read during the service. the minister that did their wedding did her funeral as well. chris and dana grieved for sarah. but also tried to comfort a shattered ryan. i remember him telling me, dana, i love her so much. ryan was so distraught, he felt he couldn t go back to the home he had bought with sarah. so while he waited for his trial date, he moved in with his mother. it was great to have him staying with me, but there s only one topic in the household, huh? there s two. one was continuing to talk about how much we miss sarah, trying to grieve for her. but at the same time this young man who lost the love of his life, he s tried to grieve for his wife and he s got a murder charge hanging over his head that he might go to prison for the rest of his life. ryan wondered why couldn t everybody just see that he loved his wife and the death wasn t murder? the case goes to court and the case goes to court and out comes the evidence. it would be virtually impossible for somebody to fall asleep and not wake up. and later, ryan speaks out at last. so you think they wanted to make a case here? why would they arrest me a day after if they didn t want to make a case? when the bathtub mystery continues. when the bathtub mys continues. this is not a bed. it s proven quality sleep. the new sleep number 360 smart bed, from $999, intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts. so you can get a running start on the holidays. and now get 48-month financing on all sleep number 360 smart beds. ends monday. hey kurt, are you watching the best of geico ? i sure am, linda. they ve been saving folks money for years. and now they re re-airing some of their all-time greatest hits. with classics like. hump day. caveman airport. and even. celebrating squirrels. this crudité is great, but those geico ads are even better. but that s not all. vote today and you can enter for a chance to appear in an upcoming geico commercial. just visit geico.com/bestof. oh, geico. hello. here s what s happening. it is now the third day of the partial government shutdown. lawmakers are expected to continue negotiations on the funding for the border wall on thursday. over 800,000 federal employees will not get paid until congress reaches a deal. and in indonesia at least 281 are dead. more than 1,000 are injured and dozens of people are still messing after a tsunami devastated the region. it s believed the tsunami was triggered by an under water volcanic eruption. now back to dateline. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. as sarah widmer s loved ones laid her to rest her husband sat in jail charged with murder. t the family was convinced he was an innocent man, but investigators weren t buying the story. a family member rethinking an incident that may not have been so innocent after all. had trouble been brewing in this seemingly happy marriage? here again is dennis murphy. sarah was wonderful. the most loving person. she was just a great person. sarah widmer had been a daughter, a wife, a loyal friend in her brief life. but in death, to those who would never know her, she would become simply the victim. the case could be summarized as briefly as a true crime paperback: the bathtub murder. on talk radio in the greater cincinnati area host bill cunningham could feel the court of public opinion responding to the story. the bathtub murder case had the phone ringing. the idea that such a young man could be watching a bengals game and within a few seconds turn from a bengals fan to a murderer was a little bit shocking. for months listeners debated whether he could have done it. i had a large number of callers who said to me, he didn t do it, he doesn t fit the profile, there was no history. i said, wait a minute, wait until the trial takes place. i m led to believe there is going to be clear and convincing evidence. seven months after sarah s death, the only jury that mattered was sworn in to hear the case against 28-year-old ryan widmer, a charge of aggravated murder. his friends stuck by him. his life hangs in the balance. that s a scary thought. sarah s family sat across from ryan s as they had the previous you re during the fairy tale wedding. for ryan s mom that was an unexpected twist in a situation that seemed to get stranger by the minute. her son on trial for murder. i see my scared baby is what i see. i mean, he was scared to death. but the prosecution s message for the jury was blunt. there had been a violent confrontation in the widmer house that night. ryan widmer purposely killed sarah stewart widmer and murdered her by drowning. the prosecutors began with the first moments of the case. ryan s call to 911. my wife, she fell asleep in the bathtub, i think. i was downstairs. i came up here and she was laying face down in the bathtub. on the stand the emergency dispatcher testified that the voice on the phone that night was giving more details than normal. it seemed that the caller was rather calm. usually i can t get anything out of them. she s in the bathtub? the water is draining right now. i was downstairs watching tv. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. to the prosecutors, the husband was trying to place himself as far away as possible from the bathroom where sarah had died. he really gives very little information about her condition. it s more important for him to say i wasn t there and i don t have anything to do with this. and could sarah even be dead face down in the bathtub? could a body contort that way? that seems an odd position for somebody who has, quote, fallen asleep, to be face down with your face near the faucet. almost bent into in terms of the possibility of how the enclosed space of the bathtub is shorter than she is long. we re not talking about a mcmansion whirlpool tub. right. so much of the case was built upon the observation of first responding officers and emergency responders. they noted not only was ryan not wet. this man who had lifted his wife s body out of the tub just minutes before they arrived. sarah was also mostly dry. i noticed her body was dry. her hair was damp. others on the scene corroborated this observation. damp head, dry body. things were not adding up. it would seem to me her body would have been wet, the floor would have been wet, the carpet would have been wet. you re talking about from the time he says i m taking her out of this bathtub to the time that other people are there, her hair is described as simply damp, not even wet. the carpet s not wet. there s not water dripping off of her hair onto the rest of her body. the floor is not wet. the officer noticed something else. the victim s fingers and toes. we all know what happens to them when they ve been soaking in a bathtub. it was my understanding she had been in the water 20 to 30 minutes. i would have thought that her fingers would have been pruned up, her toes would have been pruned up. did you see any indication of that? no. from simple observations, the murder case had grown. the jury was being told that ryan widmer s story didn t gibe with what he had told officers. like the bathtub and surrounding tiles thereat have bethat shoul been soaking wet but weren t. 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 didn t, the drop in oxygen would cause you to stimulate you to wake up. but maybe sarah hadn t fallen asleep. perhaps she had suffered a catastrophic but perfectly natural event. something to her heart, her brain. the coroner didn t find any. any evidence of heart problems? no. any evidence of brain injury or seizure? no. one of the amazing things about sarah widmer is that she had regular medical care, for a person her age, she went twice in two years for a regular physical. this is not a person who didn t have the opportunity to interact with her medical professionals. and to the coroner, the bruising he saw on sarah s neck and scalp while performing the autopsy looked ominous. the wounds too significant and not in the right spot to have been caused by emts lifesaving efforts. the things that were most disconcerting were the three bruises on the side of her scalp, the faint bruise on her forehead, the significant debris of a neck hemorrhage. she s undergone significant cpr, however there s no hemorrhage anywhere in the area of the chest, so it s difficult to try to rationalize that the hemorrhage in her neck can be the result of cpr. as the coroner saw it, the significant bruising on sarah s neck was caused by ryan s forceful drowning of her. do you have an opinion as to the manner of sarah s death? yes. the manner of death was homicide. and that took prosecutors into the realm of speculation. what had happened in the bedroom that night if sarah hadn t drowned by herself in the bathtub? this forensic pathologist had one scenario explaining a damp head but dry body. her head was pushed over the edge of either the bathtub or the sink or the toilet, either forwards or backwards, either into water or under running water. that s how she died. experts also noticed these strange prints invisible to the naked eye. he couldn t say when they were left on the tub or even that they came from sarah but felt confident that the prints were most likely made by a small person. had she tried to brace herself as she was pushed into the water? to my experience, those look like prints going in a downward motion. how do you fight back? do you try to keep your head out of the water? do you put your hands against the back of the tub or put your hands on the bautdm of the tub and try to lift out of the water? or do you grasp on somebody and lose your only hold on life? a stark image, a husband pushing his wife s head underwater and holding her there until she drowned. she had been subjected to forcibly holding her throat over some object to drawn her. the jury had to wonder what the motivation could be for such an awful crime. sarah mother who had initially supported ryan was not testifying for the prosecution. she said when she was out shopping with sarah, her daughter seemed to feel she needed to check everything with ryan who could see her purchases on his computer. she would buy something, ryan would call her as soon as she bought it, sometimes, telling her did you really need it, why did you buy it or something. he thought she was spending too much money. he was very concerned about her shopping habits. correct. there were still stresses, things going on in their family. even the prosecutors had to acknowledge that this didn t necessarily add up to a clear motive for murder. but they believed there were things happening in the little house that no one but sarah or ryan knew about. anybody who has been married or in a relationship knows that what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage is not always apparent to the outside. but was the prosecution s case too thin? too much observation lite with not enough persuasive hard evidence? the defense would argue passionately that it was and that ryan had nothing to do with his wife s sudden death. ryan s defenders were not giving up. sarah s friends take the stands to share his side of the story. coming up i know that she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. when the bathtub mystery continues. before when the bathtub mystery continues. this is not a bed. it s proven quality sleep. the new sleep number 360 smart bed, from $999, intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts. so you can get a running start on the holidays. and now get 48-month financing on all sleep number 360 smart beds. ends monday. this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. to put on our website? i mean i would have but i m a commercial vehicle so i don t have hands. or a camera.or a website. should we franchise? is the market ready for that? can we franchise? how do you do that? meg! oh meg! we should do that thing where you put the business cards in the fishbowl and somebody wins something. -meg: hi. i m here for. i m here for the evans wedding. -we ve got the cake in the back, so, yeah. -meg: thank you. -progressive knows small business makes big demands. -you re not gonna make it, you re not gonna make it! ask her if we can do her next wedding too! -so we ll design the insurance solution that fits your business. -on second thought, don t.ask that. so shark invented duo clean. while deep cleaning carpets, the added soft brush roll picks up large particles, gives floors a polished look, and fearlessly devours piles. duo clean technology, corded and cord-free. what was the toughest thing you had to surmount? that we had a lovely 24-year-old woman who was dead and no one could explain why. the defense wasn t going to be able to tell the jury what caused sarah widmer to drown that night. but they were going to show that ryan widmer had no reason to hurt his wife. and as far as damp hair/dry body, they would explain that. the bottom line for the defense i know one thing. ryan widmer had nothing to do with his wife s death. ryan widmer s defense attorney argued his client was plagued from the get-go by the unhappy choice of words on that 911 call. she falls asleep in the tub all the time. electing to say she fell asleep in the tub, sets the alarm string. exactly. had ryan told the 911 dispatcher only that his wife was unconscious, it wouldn t have been suspicious. the only thing ryan knows is, she fell asleep in the tub. they jump on that and say he s a liar. the defense attorney argued the coroner had been all too quick to rule the death a homicide. he had no idea she was suffering from a headache that day. remember, an expert witness for the prosecution said it would have been impossible for sarah to fall asleep and die in the tub. but those who knew her sleep habits say it may have been a sign of an undiagnosed, underlying medical condition. sarah s boss, a dentist, testified sarah s quirky sleep habits were well-known around the office. she would normally grab a quick lunch and go out to her car and take a nap for 30, 45 minutes at a time. the dentist recollected that sarah had not been feeling well on that last day of her life. she had a sore throat. she was still feeling crummy later in the evening when she spoke to a friend. she had a headache and the back of her neck was hurting. she sounded tired. she didn t sound like she felt very good. sarah turning off the day and retreating to her bathtub? that sounded just like the sarah they knew. she would always leave our house and say she had to get home because she had a take her bath. sarah dozing off in the tub was a trait that her friend from childhood days was very familiar with. she had fallen asleep in the bathtub before. we had talked about that, because i had fallen asleep in the bathtub before, too. the sleeping habits, the headaches. the defense claimed they could have been the symptoms of an underlying and potentially fatal condition that went undetected, something an otherwise healthy young woman wouldn t take that seriously. even with all their scientific art, argued the defense, sometimes pathologists simply cannot say why a person died. a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine testified that unexplained deaths occur far more often than many of us would guess. nationwide, there are approximately 300,000 episodes of sudden death per year. of those episodes, 1 to 2% occur in young people. one-third of those young people that die have normal autopsies. in other words, people sometimes just die, and their autopsies may never reveal the cause. but the issue that might decide the case was the observation by the arriving officers and emts of damp hair and dry body. what looks suspicious was easily explainable, says the defense. hair simply stays wet longer. if you get out of a pool or bathtub, the skin dries before the hair? yes. the defense told the court er you ever you have to look at the clock, the elapsed time of the incident. the defense claims sarah s body dried off in the time between when ryan spoke to the dispatcher and when the police arrived. what about the fingers and toes that should have been pruned up but weren t? no one knows what time sarah got into the tub. we don t know if she was primping in front of the mirror. we don t know any of that stuff. and by the way, says the defense, you can t have it both ways. if ryan had killed sarah in the small bathroom, there should have been water splashed everywhere. if there was a violent struggle, there would be water, on the floor, on the walls, on the counter, everywhere. if they want to claim that it was a staged scene where he cleaned up the water, where is the wet towel? and investigators looked for wet towels. in the dryer, even in the garage. nothing. and say for argument s sake there had been a struggle. you would think ryan would have gotten scratched up as sarah fought for her life. but ryan didn t have a mark on him. how would sarah have reacted? sarah was a very spunky person and she was small in stature, probably 5 1. i think she weighed around 140 pounds. but she wasn t frail by any stretch of the imagination. she was a strong girl. she would have gone for her attacker? i full heartedly believe, yes. she had beautiful french manicured nails. none of them were damaged at all. she didn t have skin from ryan underneath her. and the very notion of ryan attacking sarah is preposterous, say their friends. ryan is a lot like my husband in the aspect of, when there s an argument, chris says, okay, what can we do to fix it and let s move on. that s kind of how ryan was. as far as accounting for the bruising noted to her neck and scalp, to the defense, they were certainly caused by the emts working on sarah. 45 minutes of resuscitation efforts. not five, not ten. 45 minutes. it looked perfectly consistent to this emergency room doctor, an expert for the defense. i was not surprised at the injuries at all based on the prolonged cpr and the number of intubation attempts. add it all up, the injuries the result of lifesaving efforts, skin that may well have dried up before the authorities showed up, and you are left, the defense argued, with an unexplained death, something that experts tell you happened. and jurors, the reason you didn t hear about love affairs or out of control finances is because none of those things existed. motive. they don t have motive. it didn t add up that this man of 27 years who has never even shown anger in his entire life would all of a sudden kill his wife. it made no sense. i hope that you agree that ryan widmer is not guilty of any wrongdoing. what the prosecution would tell the jury in its closing argument was that while they may never know why ryan killed his wife of four months, that he nonetheless did, and that the clock was ticking as he staged his scene before calling 911, and that explains the dry body/damp hair mystery. sarah widmer was either out of the bathtub for a long period of time or her body was never fully in that bathtub. they claim ryan spent so much time cleaning up the scene before he called for emts, that sarah s dead body was showing signs of rigor mortis when she arrived. she was already dead by the time they got there. they had difficulty intubating her because her chin kept wanting to fall. rigor mortis setting in. now it was up to the jury to decide. we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know without a doubt that ryan did not do this. 23 hours of deliberation. the verdict. and the controversy. when the bathtub mystery continues. when the bathtub mystery continues. 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[woman 7] go to mypsaproof.com to see proof in action. welcome pack to dateline extra. attorneys reptding ryan whitmer had mounted a defense. the newly wed had no motive to kill his wife, they said. prosecutors were week wale adamant the young man was a killer, claiming the evidence at the crime scene proved it. now it was up to the jury to decide. here again is dennis murphy. about the only fact of the case that was indisputable was that sarah widmer had drowned. but was it a natural death in her bathtub? what about the suggestion of a neurological event, something with her heart? that the medical examiner could not find anything of her medical history was devoid of anything that would suggest these things. or had sarah died at the hands of her husband ryan? they had failed to prove their case. they failed. the jury was out all day. the couple s friends waited. we re scared that the truth may not come out. we know without a doubt that ryan did not do this. and we pray to god that everyone else sees that too. ryan widmer might have wished that the listeners on bill cunningham s radio show had been on his jury. the calls split 90/10 in favor of ryan widmer, because during the trial there was no smoking gun. ryan s mother agreed. she was cautiously optimistic. i never let myself get cocky. i just felt that in having sat there and listened, there were a lot of holes and not a lot of evidence. never felt like it was a slam dunk, but i felt like there was a lot of reasonable doubt. the injuries were hard at work. they asked for the tub where sarah had been found dead to be brought to them in the jury room. by the second day ryan s defense attorney was getting anxious. when they re out more than 20 hours it s clear that somebody said this isn t as straightforward as it seemed. correct. but the prosecutors weren t worried by the long jury deliberation. we knew it was going to be a lot of evidence to weigh. they had two counts to died. count one, aggravated murder. and count two, nonpremeditated murder. did it happen suddenly, without prior thought? finally after 23 hours the jurors had reached a verdict. the lawyers were summoned. it s a very dramatic moment. your heart is racing, you re anxious to hear what the jury says. it s a profound moment. as jill hurried back to the courtroom, outside, a storm hit with biblical fury. she saw that as an ominous sign. the skies just opened up. there were tornado warnings. and it all just culminated when the verdict was about ready to be read. ryan widmer took his place at the defense table. the defendant will please rise. the verdict on count 1, aggravated murder, we the jury find the defendant ryan k. widmer is not guilty. a moment of relief for ryan. the jury did not believe he killed his wife with premeditation. but he still faced the second count of murder. we the jury in this case find the defendant is guilty. guilty. the jury had decided that ryan widmer did indeed murder his wife sarah. is there anything you wish to say? the accused, now the convicted, would kiss his wedding ring and address the court for the first time. he hadn t taken the stand, as was his right. i love my wife. i did not hurt her. i was never given a chance. the day after she passes away they charged me with murder. if i had an answer, i would give the answer to what happened to her. but i can t. i was not in the bathroom with her. he was very upset. he doubled over when addressing the court. i was surprised that he was at outspoken as he was. but he indicated to the judge and everybody that he loves sarah and he would never have hurt her. i love my wife and i did not hurt her. coming up something amiss is the jury room. said that two or three of the female jurors had home experiments where they had showered and then air dried. home experiments. what was that all about? ryan widmer was about to get a break, when the bathtub mystery continues. break, when the bathtub mystery continues. 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host bill cunningham, a lawyer by training, regards himself as a hang em high conservative. but even he felt this was a case of justice denied. judging this case against a hundred other murder trials, this is one of the flimsiest and one of the weakest i ve ever seen. my name is mike, i m the creator of the website. someone out there following the trial was mike, a young newlywed himself and a web page designer. even though he never met ryan, he so believed in his enowe sense that he launched a free ryan widmer website. the goal is for him to get a new trial. if he doesn t get a new trial, i believe it s going to outrage a lot of people. angry citizens, taxpayers, voters. even though the trial was over, the prosecution hadn t entirely called it quits. they spoke of things the judge had not allowed the jury to hear. before she died, they say ryan had visited the website of an organization that bills itself as the world s largest site for swingers. if they were such a happy couple, why was somebody on the computer surfing for a hookup? the judge had on the part of the allowed the web surfing or other pornography they found on his computer to be introduced as evidence since there was no way to know if sarah knew about it. but was it a sign, as the detective thought, that their marriage was not has anticipate as friends and family believed? my understanding that some of these sites supposedly that he visited ended up being pop-ups on a computer. i m not the most computer literate person, but i don t think the full story was told there either. and i don t understand, if they got the verdict they want, why they have to continue to attack my son and my family. and ryan s mother said if the couple had fought over anything, the family would have known. sarah, always outspoken, wasn t the type to suffer in silence. sarah told everybody, she s a chatty person, she had just been with her family for an entire weekend without ryan being there. if there were any problems, believe me, they all would have known it and i probably would have known it because sarah probably would have called and yelled at me about something that my son was doing that wasn t nice to her. but none of that mattered now. the jury had spoken and the defense lawyer still couldn t get over the guilty verdict. ryan had become more than a client to him. i absolutely believed him. i had him to my home, i had him around my wife and kids. there was no question in my mind he was innocent. innocent. he did what lawyers often do after losing a case. he wrote a motion to have the judge let ryan go free or order a new trial. a long shot. ryan was in prison and would likely stay there. it s been a roller coaster ride. i can t let my hopes get up. he may be in prison 15 years. he may be. the appeals process can take forever. the day after the attorney 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 instructions to consider only what they had heard in court. the allegation was jury misconduct, a serious matter. this attorney runs the ohio innocence project. he saw the juror letter as a way to persuade the judge to grant ryan a new trial. it s unusual for a juror to come forward and say the jurors performed experiments and brought that into the deliberations. the judge began reviewing affidavits from the jurors about just what went on during the deliberations. in one of those sworn statements, a juror said of those taboo home experiments, the times to air dry influenced my decision. jurors are not supposed to go home and do experiments. in the end, the judge agreed. four months after ryan widmer s conviction, he ruled that the husband would get another trial. the not guilty verdict on the aggravated murder count, however, would remain. so the prosecution could only retry him on the second count of unpremeditated murder. his mother scraped together enough cash to post the $400,000 bond for him. ryan was released from prison. by then he had already spent five months behind bars. the quest for justice can delete bank accounts and emotions. yes. how far are you prepared to go? i m prepared to go to the day i die, if i have to live on the street in a cardboard box at the end of this, i ll do what it takes to get my son out of this. ryan and his family ended up not only at the brink of financial bankruptcy but also at the edge of emotional collapse. he says he can t sleep. he says he sees her when he closes his eyes. he misses her. he still wears his wedding ring. everything was spiraling downward for ryan. he lost his job after the guilty verdict and was left to do odd jobs. the house he and sarah bought together went into foreclosure. now another jury would be asked to peer inside the mystery of a marriage and decide what happened behind those closed doors. the prosecutors would have to convince other jury that ryan widmer had killed his wife. it s got to be hugely frustrated, you got a guilty verdict, you ve got to do it over again. on the other hand, we knew how a jury would react to our evidence. on the other side of the choice, the defense has seen your case. and we can t change it very much. ryan widmer trial, take two. a new jury makes a dramatic return to the scene of the drowning. and later, ryan widmer tells his own story. if your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn s symptoms are holding you back, 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that sarah suffered a seizure that caused her death by drowning? no. sarah s body dry to the touch, the officers and emts testified. and the bathroom where her husband lifted her soaking body out of the tub was also not wet. towels, a rug, magazines, all appeared to be dry. the juror would again hear the 911 call that to the prosecution s ears, sounded odd. she was face down in the bathtub. the message was, my wife s dead and i wasn t around when it happened. but unlike the first trial, the defense lawyers asked to take the jurors to the home where ryan and sarah had lived to inspect for themselves the very bathroom where she died. the lawyers had made a pretrial visit. the first thing we said was, man, this is small. they wanted the jurors to see for themselves that this was a cramped space in a modest builder s home. imagine ryan at 6 2 and sarah, 5 1 , 5 2 , and imagine them interacting in here. it was such a small bathroom, a defense expert argued, that if there had been a violent struggle, both husband and wife would have shown more obvious bruises and scratches. i would have expected to see more juror if a violent struggle had occurred. but the prosecutors argued that widmer, in an explosion of anger, could have overtaken his wife so quickly that she would have had no time to fight back. and in their closing arguments, they told the jurors that ryan widmer not only lled his wife but also delayed calling 911 to buy time to cover up his crime. things looked so nice because ryan widmer had the opportunity to reset the scene. he had time to put things back into place. but ryan s defense lawyers were hopeful this jury would see the case the way they did. an innocent man on trial for a murder he did not commit. absolutely believe him. no doubt in my mind. the case was given to juror number two. and it seemed as though everyone in cincinnati was on the edge of their seat, waiting for its decision. but three days into deliberations, nothing. the jurors asked to see the judge. there s an impasse. he sent them back to deliberate some more. it is desirable that the case be decided. it was turning out to be the longest deliberation in warren county history. as the jurors left for a long holiday weekend, the specter of a mistrial hung in the air. we have to make sure he knows we re here. that s what we do as friends, support him and be hopeful and have the faith that this is going to turn out the way that it s meant to turn out. the jury returned to work on tuesday morning. but at 5:00 p.m. on the fourth day of deliberations, they asked to see the judge again. the note reads we cannot agree and further deliberations will not serve any purpose. they were deadlocked. defense, tapping out bank accounts and retirement plans. we know he s innocent and we ll do whatever it takes. we ll move forward. ryan s dad gary was firmly behind his son. but in another odd twist, it had taken ryan s arrest to reunite the pair. he had been out of his son s life for 13 years, the consequence of a bitter divorce. he hadn t even known there was a sarah until he learned his son had been charged with her murder. father was reintroduced to son while ryan was in jail. this is the first meeting you ve had with your boy in a long, long time. he s on the other side of the glass and you re talking through one of those phone devices. mm-hmm. that s kind of a hard thing to take right there. it was. it was hard but so sweet to see him. a poignant reunion, father and son. and a father who completely believes in his son s innocence and would will anything to help. if there s any avenue to take, you have to take it. it s my son. you have to take it. your son didn t do it. sarah widmer died for reasons unknown. yes. give yourself a round of applause. beyond ryan s family and close stands standing behind him, it was a case that had galvanized a personal army. there were ryan widmer t-shirts and wrist bands. he was getting a lot of support, an anonymous donor said to contribute $60,000. a stranger. yes. even the prosecutors were a bit worried. so much taxpayer money would be spent on a third trial. so many ryan widmer supporters beating very loud drums. a plea deal was floated. we felt it was a subject worth bringing up. but the kists said there was no way ryan was taking a deal. they offered a plea, which they hadn t done in two trials. and he turned it down? of course he turned it down, he says i m innocent, why would i admit to something i would never have done that i did not do? ryan widmer was gambling that the next jury would acquit him. but his roll of the dice was taking its toll not just on him but on his family as well. 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. you could 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 it was a woman with a hand grenade of a story. someone came forward and say this guy confessed to me. we want to find out more what she has to say and what she knows about this. the prosecutors came away convinced they had the long missing pieces of the puzzle. a confession and a motive. jay clark, the defense attorney, would have to worry overtime about this bombshell of a witness. because the new witness feared for her life, saying that ryan widmer had threatened her, her identity would not be disclosed to the defense team until the beginning of the trial. and trial three would begin with virtually everyone holding their breath. who was this person and what did she know? the mystery witness takes the stand. and what a story she has to tell. 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death. and the next group of jurors would also not be able to reach a unanimous decision. we sat in jury deliberations for 36 hours. the likelihood of 12 jurors coming to the same conclusion was very unlikely. we really didn t think that another jury would not be deadlocked. they would soon find out. ryan widmer s extraordinary third trial for the murder of his wife was about to start all over again. the prosecutors felt it was their duty to argue their case for sarah. we re committed to seeing that justice is done for the victim of this case. and that s what we ve got to think about. it promised to be a judicial groundhog day. repeat testimony from the emts and arriving officers at the widmer home. the oddity of a bathtub drowning victim with a damp head and dry body. a 911 call that to some listeners volunteered too much. and jurors to the wife s neck and head that spoke to the prosecutors of homicide and not resuscitation. the facts which came out in this case gave rise to the idea that there had been an assault that occurred which progressed into an instant of domestic violence. and this time, sarah s own mother described the couple s relationship as more tense than she had in the previous trials, telling the court that ryan and sarah s arguments made her very uncomfortable. they would just call each other names and get hateful with each other. i told them, you guys have to stop, i can t take it. what really was stunning was something that haunted the defense since they learned about it the previous summer, the prosecution s mystery witness who would testify that ryan confess to the crime. her anymore was jennifer crew from iowa. it was the first time the defense would get a look at this person that ryan had allegedly confessed to. and they worried. she strolled in wearing a suit, decently done hair, makeup. how did this woman who lived 500 miles away from ryan widmer have such a starring role? it turned out she watched dateline s story from the first trial. after watching the show, she sent ryan an e-mail telling him how bad she felt about his plight. i felt sorry for ryan. i asked him what i could do to help him. before long, the two were in frequent touch. struck up e-mail, texts, ultimately a phone relationship. correct. as the relationship continued, ryan sent her photos of his dogs and asked her to send him a picture of herself. initially she sent this one of a friend. she says things got a little racy on the phone. he told me he was watching porn in his mom s basement. there was even talk of jennifer visiting ryan in ohio for a three-way. ryan asked me to ask my friend and i said i would. but the reason jennifer was on the stand was to testify about one phone conversation in particular. one very different than their usual banter. it was october 26th, 2009. jennifer said she had been asleep when ryan called. it sounded to her as though he had been drinking. he was crying. and he was saying, i did it. i did it. i killed sarah. i did it. i thought what he meant was that he didn t do enough to save her life that night. he said, no, jen, listen to me, i did it. she said ryan told her it had started with a fight between the two of them. sarah had found out that he had cheated on her when she went away with her mom. he said that they were in the living room and they were arguing about his pornography. what happened when she came upstairs? she was getting ready for the bath. he said their argument continued, he said sarah told him that the marriage was over. ryan, she testified, then told sarah nobody leaves me, nobody ever leaves me, and i mean nobody. that s when jennifer crew says ryan hit his wife. she fell backwards and hit her head. he said, jen, i blacked out, i blacked out. but why this story now? jennifer crew waited until almost two weeks after the second jury had deadlocked before coming forward, even though ryan had allegedly confessed to her eight months earlier. she said she had promised ryan she would not reveal his secret and said she was unnerved when he gave her a veiled threat. i promised him i would never tell anybody. he said, i hope not, i don t want you to be where sarah is at. but she said she thought the jury would have convicted ryan. when they didn t, she contacted authorities after seeing pictures of sarah s mother. i sought pain and hurt in her mom s face. i m a mom, i couldn t do that to them anymore. they needed to know the truth. it was a lot to absorb. ryan confessing, fighting with a wife who was leaving him, blacking out in the bathroom. would the jurors believe any or all of it? the defense had to make certain they didn t. but they were worried that they might. i think she had invented this story and started to live it and really wanted to believe it. so they aimed for the jugular. could this woman be trusted? she had a jaded past. theft convictions, stealing. that s not something that an honest, credible person does. a one-time bartender at a strip club who managed the dancers, jennifer crew admitted to misdemeanor brushes with the law. you were convicted of theft? yes, sir. also of fraudulent practices, correct? i believe that s when my record states. she was also in a methadone treatment program for her addiction to painkillers. you were using oxycontin for five years. you ve used false names to get drugs? yes, i did. the defense indicated because of her addiction to drugs, her memory was not to be trusted. when detectives talked to you, you told them that your memory is not very good, didn t you? i don t recall saying that. do you remember telling them, i don t remember verbatim the conversation between you and ryan? i do not remember the conversation verbatim. the defense hammered on what day the phone call came through, even the day it was placed. you told investigators the call was in the middle of the night. i was asleep and i thought that the call came in later than it did. everything critical in terms of time, duration, any memory about the call, was all different once she got to testify, but only after she saw her phone records. after jennifer crew stepped down, the prosecution called the woman s fiance to try to undo any damage to her testimony caused by the defense. he confirmed that she related the alleged confessional phone call to him immediately after hanging up that night. she came downstairs crying, she s like, he did it. she was scared, actually. she was upset. if the jury believed jennifer crew s story, ryan widmer was sunk. the defense called a witness about the emotional call from ryan. it was another woman who had become interested in ryan widmer s case after seeing our first dateline report. melissa from seattle, like jennifer from ohio, struck up a phone and e-mail relationship with ryan in 2009, she said was she drawn to the case after the death of her sister-in-law. how often did you talk? three times a week. he talked about sarah a lot, he was having a hard time accepting everything. she flew to ohio to visit a friend and go with another supporter to a bowling fundraiser organized for widmer s defense. she even made this video tribute to ryan and sarah that she posted on youtube. the call in which he allegedly confessed to killing his wife. melissa walters said ryan was perfectly composed when she spoke to him for two hours that night. how do you know he was not drunk, not upset? every phone conversation i ve had, he has never been intoxicated or distraught. all the times i talked to him, he was never drunk or upset. she was convinced that jennifer crew with made up the whole story. i was shocked that she would lie. had the defense paid a price by putting yet another woman on the stand? is there risk for you about these women getting involved with ryan widmer? it s easy to get sucked into that. it s important to understand what ryan has been going through, he s never been able to grieve properly for sarah. they contacted him. it was companionship. it was time to wrap up trial number three. the prosecutor saying it was a sudden violent murder. anybody who s been in a relationship knows that sometimes things go off, they snap, for no good reason. i think something like that happened. at some point ryan saw that his perfect marriage was falling apart and that s what led us here. the defense arguing a medically undetermined death by natural causes. it s probably going to bother me for the rest of my life, what happened to sarah we ll never know. sarah had drowned. but how? a third jury retired for deliberations. another stunner. a new sarah enters ryan s life. do you live ryan? just who is she? later, ryan tells all. you guys kept it secret, didn t you? oh, yeah, i knew they would try to make it into something negative. here we go. discover. i like your card, but i m absolutely not paying an annual fee. discover has no annual fees. really? yeah. we just don t believe in them. oh nice. you would not believe how long i ve been rehearsing that. no annual fee on 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fearlessly devours piles. duo clean technology, corded and cord-free. and fearle sly devours piles. connecting people. .uniting the world. . the jury had been out for a day. again, it seemed everyone in cincinnati was waiting for a verdict. while widmer still had a number of ardent supporters, trial watchers say this time things were changing in the court of public opinion. you have a candlelight vigil for now, and you could probably hold it in a phone booth. one strong voice that had turned against widmer was radio talk show host bill cunningham. he used the free ryan widmer website to pick up chicks. it sounds like it fell apart for you on the character issue. it did. the wallpaper of the case changed. day two in the courthouse was going round and round. i felt awful. i was nauseous. i hadn t felt that way for 20 years. the jurors were working their way through the evidence. they parsed the 911 call. my wife fell asleep in the bathtub, i think she s dead. the more you listen to it, the more and more it starts to sound like it was staged. there was sarah s body. officers testified it was too dry. 2 1/2 minutes after being removed from a tub, you would expect a body to be wet. the alleged confession as recounted by jennifer crew. i just don t believe anything she said. the prints in the tub. under normal circumstances you cannot leave those kind of fingertips on the side of a tub trailing down. the bruising to sarah. both the defense and the prosecution put up good arguments about that. that that s teetering on a razor s edge with me. at the end of the second day, they took their one and only vote. they had a verdict. a blast of calls went out. the kists got the news. i said, i can t believe they re back so soon, i m worried. the judge asked for the jury ballot. anxious? very. sick. ryan widmer stood with his lawyers. his life hanging in the balance. i can actually hear ryan shaking. i can hear it. it s that silent in there and he s that nervous. the verdict. we the jury in this case find the defendant ryan widmer is guilty of murder. guilty. ryan dropped his head to the table. i was hysterical. he was crying. he was a mess. a bad, bad, bad dream. ryan composed himself enough to proclaim to the court his innocence. i did not do this, judge. i don t know why this has to keep going on. my life has been ruined. i love sarah. i would never have hurt her. never. outside the court, ryan s father gary slumped to the ground. the son he was recently reunited with after years apart taken from him again. it was a horrifying moment. it just totally caught up with me at that point, the total shock. i just went weak. ryan widmer for the second time was given the mandatory sentence, 15 years to life. as court officers handcuffed him and led him away, few people were aware of a young woman on his side of the benches, crying. this is also a sarah. sarah manhurst. she s another twist in the story that has had so many. do you love ryan widmer? i love him, yeah. sarah wore an engagement ring and is the mother of ryan s son, born in the summer after trial number two. what did you name the baby? his name is ryan. you see ryan s face in the baby s? yeah. sarah, a canadian via new york, like jennifer from iowa and melissa from seattle, also became aware of ryan after our first dateline program on the case aired back in 2009. i thought that he was railroaded. she sent an e-mail to ryan saying how sorry she felt with him. he sent one back. soon they were talking on the phone. she came to cincinnati to visit right and stayed at his mother s house. i thought it was a little awkward, because we had talked on the phone but hadn t met. he was telling me how much he loved sarah and could never love another woman as much as he loved her. i started crying because i felt so bad for him. sarah went back to new york and three weeks later returned to cincinnati as ryan s guest at his mother s thanksgiving dinner. that was the weekend they became intimate. the first time we were together i got pregnant. how did ryan take the news? shocked, obviously very bad timing. they kept the pregnancy a secret, as ryan s second trial would take place the following may. i decided, yeah, i was going to have the baby. and he was okay with that. but it was just difficult, because i m thinking, here i am pregnant, and you re facing another trial, and my child could potentially grow up without a father, which [ crying ] now he s in jail. with ryan sentenced to 15 years, sarah is raising their son. i m still in shock. i can t believe this happened to him. if in your own mind you couldn t get to beyond reasonable doubt, if there was a sliver of doubt that he had done this thing, would you have stayed? never. i would never have stayed with him. there s no way he could have done this, ever. but had he? in the course of three trials, played out before three jurors, ryan widmer s guilt or innocence has been passionately debated. he s now telling his story. widmer 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[woman 7] go to mypsaproof.com to see proof in action. there s no place likargh!e i m trying. yippiekiyay. mom. this is ryan widmer s story as he tells it. he remembers a loving relationship with his wife sarah that was right from the first date. we hit it off perfect. was there any friction? none whatsoever. everything was cool? perfect. he only had one worry about sarah. my biggest problem with her was her sleep. she would work a regular day and need to be going to bed early or taking a nap. something wasn t healthy about it. you re 24 years old. but he says they fell into their everyday lives, their jobs, walking the dog, building a deck on their house. all routine, he says, until that august night. sarah had come home from work, he says, with a headache. they had dinner, watched tv. she s what? laying on the couch. she says her neck is killing her, she s going to get in the bath and go to bed. ryan says he stayed downstairs and watched the game until he too was ready for bed. upsets to the master bedroom and back. tell me what you see, just like a videotape recording. i walk in the room. i walk over to the night stand. and i put some things down, turn on the tv. and then i walked in the bathroom. i saw sarah, i knew something wasn t right. she was just unconscious. how did you see her? her head was just underneath the water. i don t even remember. was she face down in the tub as you told 911? all i remember, yeah, just finding her. i mean, i knew it wasn t good. she was laying in the water. i don t know what else to say other than it wasn t right. the only thing i remember certain things because of what i heard on the 911 tape. it s such a shocking image, you would think you would remember. i wasn t thinking i would have to remember. head, nose, under the water? underwater, yes. what did you do next? i tried to get a reaction out of her, nothing. that s when he says he called 911. i think she s dead. when you chose that word, i think she fell asleep. when you chose that word, falling asleep it s not about choosing a word. it was her sleeping issue. they re saying, this guy is giving us too much information, he s downstairs what s going on, she s upstairs. i was watching the football game. i don t know what they wanted me to they will them. maybe just get an ambulance here quick. i don t know. i called and that s what i said. i don t know. prosecutors say the first arriving officer was at the house six minutes after the 911 call was answered and less than three minutes after ryan lifted sarah s body out of the tub. why is this woman s hair down and is her body dry, the observation of the responding officers. it doesn t make sense. i understand that. how do you explain it? i left the house and there was cops there by themselves and they came up with the story they came up with. you think they fabricated this? i know they did. you think they wanted to make a case here? i know they did. why would they arrest me the day after if they didn t want to make a case? why would they have it in for you? emts and police officers don t even work for the same agency. they clearly do when they get up to testify, they re coached what to say. what about the story of the woman who says ryan confessed to her that he killed sarah? listen to me, i did it. here s jennifer crew from iowa on the stand saying he called me one night, he was sloppy, and he confessed to me. right. jennifer, i did it. i m telling you i did it. mm-hmm. did that conversation happen? nope. it never happened. jennifer crew s story is made up? 100% made up. the same goes, right now told us, for sarah s mother s testimony about hearing hateful arguments between the couple. they would just call each other names. she s a liar. sarah s mom is making this stuff up? we were never mean to each other. never. a one-time mother-in-law from an earlier life who he says is embellishing the reality of his marriage. now ryan widmer has a baby with a new sarah. she s awesome, so loving, caring. there are similarities i see in sarah, my wife, as i say with sarah now. you guys kept it secret? oh, yeah. because i knew they would try to make it into something negative. in that court of public opinion, the women from far away places, iowa, seattle, new york, who became involved in his case, didn t go down well with everyone. a character issue. we talked to somebody who says you re abusing the free ryan widmer website as a dating service, just a way to meet women. i don t know who said that, but it s not true. but investigators wondered how good the marriage really was based on what they found on widmer s computer. did you have an unhealthy addiction to porn? no. but you looked at porn? yes. he says that certainly does not make him a murderer. did you kill your wife sarah? no, i did not. i couldn t hurt sarah either emotionally or physically. she didn t get in your face and say she s leaving you? no. didn t happen? didn t happen. you were downstairs watching the ball game and you found her in a bad situation? yes. you say you re wrongly convicted? i m 100% wrongly convicted. and the 30 jurors or more found you guilty after hearing the story? yes. they re not getting it? they re not getting it at all. but these jurors are confident they got it right. they say among other things it came down to what they saw as sarah s too-dry body, oddities in the 911 call, prints on the tub, and the unlikeliness of an out of the blue medical event striking sarah in the bath. i went into it believing he was innocent. but everything that was put together with the evidence came down with four or five facts that we could not deny. we believe he intentionally drowned her. and the guilt of ryan widmer will also never be doubted by the prosecutors. do you believe he actually did this thing? absolutely. he killed her. and he was the only one who could have done it. ryan widmer lost a federal appeal in february. i m not letting this stand. i m going to fight this until it s made right. the passage of time hasn t made the events inside the little house on crested owl court any clearer had. and time of course brings changes. she and ryan are no longer a couple. she says she still believes in his innocence. and more change. his mother jill passed away. nothing, it seems, stays quite the same except the central mystery itself. and that will likely be argued for years still to come.