Page 30 - Stephen S News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: there wasn't any smoking gun really. just something dark he thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jody's death. >> e he didn't react like somebody who had just lost his wife should have reacted. >> reporter: so the detective moved from the physical evidence to the less tangible clues. he quickly learned from jody's friends that this was a couple not in love, but in crisis. the subject wasn't wine and roses on those cliffs. it was divorce. >> she was going to go through with it, yes. absolutely. >> reporter: jody's long-time friend to...

>> 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 ...

Ledge or any part of the cliff. >> nothing. no blood, no hair, clothing, fibers, skin. >> reporter: by that point, officer walter sery had arrived at the lookout. since there was nothing the husband could do to help in the rescue, sery was told to get him out of the way and drove him back down to police headquarters. on the way, stephen recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. >> we were walking and she said for me to go back to the car and get the blanket. she slipped and i didn't e see her anymore. >> reporter: as sery and the man arrived at the station, the rescuer made it to t...

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 ...

Stephen's new wife says the prosecution has it all wrong. >> my husband is not capable. that's not the man he is. my husband is sweet, kind, loving, considerate. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. if you spit blood when you brush or floss you may have gum problems, and...