Page 24 - Stephen S News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> did you throw her off the -- >> no, i did not. i did not. i didn't hurt jody. i didn't push her. i didn't cause her to get hurt. i didn't kill my wife. >> we talked to stephen at the bergen county jail where he would held for more than two years after his arrest in 2008. he and his wife, tina, say they've paid a high price for something he didn't do. >> we visit through a piece of plate glass. our daughter is 2 and a half and has still 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 ...

The beach over that labor day weekend. >> he was under a lot of stress, and the stress would be resolved by the end of september. >> two weeks later, jody scharf was dead. terry now sees that cryptic statement in a dreadful light. >> i was like, oh, no, the end of september. and then the light bulb went off immediately. >> it also went off for mary anne hillferdi. in perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecution's case, she told the jury that when she heard her friend was gone she immediately remembered something jody said weeks earlier. >> she said that, during this conversation i ha...

>> sometimes it hurts a case. memories fade. evidence is lost. witnesses die. but time can also put evidence in a new light. such was the case in the trial of stephen scharf, accused of killing his wife nearly two decades ago. >> there is no statute of limitations on murder. >> the prosecutor promised the evidence would tell a story as simple as it was brutal. a husband, determined to avoid a costly divorce, lured his wife to the edge of a cliff and forced her off it. >> if he has lied, he is guilty. >> the state marshalled some familiar facts to tell its story. starting with the crime scene. ...

Or, was there another way of looking at that couple perched high on those cliffs on a summer night? stephen's new wife says the prosecution has it all wrong. >> my husband is not capable. that is not the man he is. my husband is sweet, kind, loving. considerate. >> the defense was ready to show how stephen scharf, far from villain, was the real victim in this story. coming up -- >> they destroyed the crime scene area. >> new questions about the evidence. and was there another reason why a son might implicate his dad? >> who does the money go to? >> it goes to me. >> when "dateline" continues...

No tissue. >> then, the husband himself. cool and collected in the back of a police car. >> i didn't see any emotion from him at all, sir. >> who later confessed, the prosecutor said, to killing his wife. >> and then i said. it was an accident? and he said, no. >> but those facts were not where the case ended. the prosecutor argued that they simply 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. >> dr. michael bodden, the famous forensic pathologist, told jurors the cr...