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Marital spat. the prosecutor paints a picture of someone who frankly is furious about this divorce. >> no one person ever indicated that my client was furious over this divorce. they had talked about divorce for years. maybe she was saying one thing and not following through. >> reporter: though it is true steven did not want a divorce. he says he wanted to give the marriage another chance. as for that former girlfriend? she recounted steven's mysterious statement just before jody's death. >> give me to the end of september and everything will be okay. the stress will be -- a lot of the stress...

The officer says he began talking to steven about what had happened to jody when steven interrupted him. >> he looks at me and he goes, you don't believe me. >> reporter: then the officer says he said something that almost knocked him off his feet. >> i said, i believe an accident occurred. i said, was it an accident? and he put his head down and he said, no. >> reporter: he believed that was a stunning confession. he ran to tell the other detectives, including lynum. but they had spent hours grilling the man. >> we weren't getting that feeling. >> reporter: the detectives still believed they ...

Welcome back to "dateline extra." we continue now with over the edge. >> steven is not guilty! >> reporter: 18 years after the death of his first wife, more than a decade after the investigation first stalled, steven was being called a killer. but his defense attorney argued there was no new evidence in this case, no new eyewitnesses. only new opinions. >> i'm talking about the same old facts and circumstances. >> reporter: he said the state was hoping to win a murder conviction by painting his client as a terrible husband. that it couldn't prove he was a killer in 1992, and it couldn't prove ...

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 longtime friend marion told detectives that skro that jody had been determined to take her son and leave her husband. she was convinced steven had been cheating on her. >> she couldn't prove anything. but women called the house. sometimes they would call and hang up on her. >> reporter: in fact, they learned jody served divorce papers on september 8, 1992. less than two weeks later, she was dead. the timing made him more eager. >> reporter: two days af...

United them was the testimony of jody's friend telling them that jody was terrified of her husband. >> that possibly she was telling everyone if something happens to me, it was my husband. >> and it was another woman in steven's life who swayed the jury. terry scofield recounting what he said weeks earlier, that his stress would soon be over. >> that was what pushed me at the end. >> it was the lightbulb. >> it was her husband that slipped with that statement. they believed it wasn't a fall from the cliffs, they believed it was an execution. stephen scharf was sentence today life in prison. he...