Page 27 - Stephen S News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Was very afraid of it. >> 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...

Up on her. >> reporter: in fact, lynam learned jody had served her husband divorce papers on september 8th, 1992. less than two weeks later, she was dead at the base of the palisades. the timing made them even more eager to talk to the widower scharf. >> there was a sit-down with mr. scharf. he's consented to talk. >> yes. >> reporter: two days after his wife's death steven scharf was answering detective's question, yes, he told them he and his wife were talking divorce as they had sometimes done during their tempestuous marriage and it was true there were other women. >> he said they had an o...

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. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: the state marshaled familiar facts to tell its story starting with the crime scene where the prosecutor s...

>> he was under a lot of stress and the stress would be resolved by the end of september. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: it also went off for marian in perhaps the most chilling testimony of the prosecution's case, she told the jury when she heard her friend was gone she immediately remember something jody said just weeks earlier. >> she said that during this conversation that i have with him if anything happens to...

Police car. >> i didn't see any emotion from him at all, sir. >> reporter: who later confessed the prosecutor said to killing his wife. >> and then i said, it was an accident? and he said, no. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: dr. michael baden, the famous forensic pathologist told jurors the crime scene spoke of a murder, not an accident. >> if a...