Page 16 - Stephen S News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> she was going to go through with it, yes. absolutely. >> reporter: jody's long-time friend told detectives that jody had been determined to take her 10-year-old son jonathan and leave her husband. she was convinced stephen had been cheating on her. >> she couldn't prove anything, but women called the house. sometimes they'd call and hang up on her. >> reporter: in fact, linum learned jody had served her husband divorce papers on september 8, 1992. less than two weeks later, she was dead at the base of the palisades. the timing made him more eager to talk to the widower scharf. there was a s...

Have paid a high price for something he didn't do. >> our daughter is two and a half and has never been held by her father because we don't have contact visits. >> it's not just a tragedy for jody. it's a tragedy for john. it's a tragedy for my wife. for my daughter. and for myself. >> reporter: still, he decided not to take the stand in his own defense. but told "dateline" that what he first said years ago about his wife's death was the truth. >> i wish it didn't happen. wish we had gone to the comedy club. but i -- i'm innocent. >> reporter: had the jury gotten that same message when they wa...

Detectives, including linum but they had spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting the feeling that a reinterview would have done anything. >> reporter: the detectives still believed they could find solid evidence to implicate stephen, but they didn't. >> we took it as far as we could go. the cause of death was listed as undetermined. so officially it wasn't a homicide. >> reporter: in time, the detectives moved on to other cases. stephen moved on, too. 14 years after his wife's death he remarried. tina said he's been a loving, ideal husband. >> it was like we were two puzzle pieces ...

>> reporter: yet, was stephen violent enough to kill his wife? an unlikely but powerful witness was about to testify against stephen scharf. >> i'm here for my mother. >> reporter: his own son took the stand against him. now a businessman, jonathan scharf painted his father as an angry, violent man who terrorized his mother. >> did you see that abuse? >> i did. >> reporter: jonathan scharf said he realized his father had likely killed his mother only after that arrest in 2008. this videotaped interview shows him recalling the dark past for the first time to police. >> she got coffee thrown at ...

>> i didn't see any emotion from him at all, sir. >> reporter: who later confessed, the prosecutor said, to killing his wife. >> then i said, it was an accident? he said, no. >> reporter: but those facts were not where the case ended. the prosecutor argued that they set the stage for the real case -- a story told by the victim's friends, family and most importantly, by a star witness. >> my opinion is that the manner of death is homicide. >> reporter: dr. michael bodden, the forensic pathologist, told jurors the crime scene speak of a murder, not an accident. >> if a person falls accidentally,...