Page 31 - Stephen S News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: it was the worst night of his life. now stephen scharf, in the early morning hours of september 21, 1992, had to tell his 10-year-old son jonathan his mother was dead. >> i said, come on, jonathan. we need to take a walk. i told him and he immediately burst into tears and i cried like a baby. i wasn't ashamed. >> reporter: he remembers his distraught son's reaction, but little else from those dark hours. were you sleeping? were you eating? >> drinking. >> reporter: you were drinking. >> i'd lost my wife. my son lost his mom. >> reporter: there was plenty of sympathy among family a...

Should have been right down where i got off the ropes. that's where she should have been. >> reporter: someone else was scratching his head about that night for different reasons. it had to do with stephen's behavior while the search was under way. officer sery was surprised stephen was willing to leave the lookout as rescuers were still looking for jody. did he give any indication, i don't want to leave, my wife could be alive down there? >> not at all. >> reporter: sery said he couldn't believe how willingly scharf got into the car. >> if it was my wife, girlfriend, whoever they would have h...

>> reporter: that didn't happen in the case of jody scharf. her body landed 50 feet out from the top of the cliff and 30 feet to the north. >> she had to have been propelled from that point. >> reporter: jody had to have been thrown or pushed to her death, he said. and likely from another spot entirely on the cliffs. he wasn't the only expert who saw it that way. >> of the head and chest injuries are not consistent with someone that tumbles down the cliff face. >> reporter: dr. clayton was the bergen county medical examiner who first ruled the circumstances of jody's death could not be determi...

Told her something different, something vital. if jody had tumbled innocently down the palisades she would have had broken bones everywhere. she did not. injuries on the back of her body. circumstances of jody's death could not be determined. now on second look she says the victim's wous or lack of them told her something different, something vital. if jody had tumbled innocently down the palisades she would have had broken bones everywhere. she did not. >> there were no visible injuries on the back of her body. >> reporter: why would stephen have killed his wife?

From one piece on the way steven recounted the awful moment when his wife disappeared. >> we were walking vmgt she said go back to the car and she slipped. i didn't see her anymore. >> the rescuer had made it to the base of the cliff, mor than a hundred feet from t to which. he expected to find a woued woman there but he didn't.