Page 11 - Those Cliffs News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

What stuck in his mind -- >> in every murder trial, time is an invisible but crucial player for both sides. >> 16 years. >> 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 ...

It was telling james linum something sinister had just happened. >> you didn't think this was a horrible accident. >> no. >> there wasn't any smoking gun really. just something dark linum thought he could read between the lines in the police notes he reviewed the day after jody's death. >> he did not react like somebody who had just lost his wife should have reacted. >> and so the detective moved his investigation 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 t...

>> the medical examiner was helpful to the defense in one critical way, though. she determined that jody had been drunk the night she fell off the cliffs. jody had a blood alcohol level of .12. that was over the legal limit. >> would be equivalent to approximately four average-sized drinks, wine or beer, something like that. a drunken slip-and-fall, argued the defense. to back that up, the lawyer had his own heavy hitter. famed forensic pathologist dr. cyril wecht. wecht posted a resume of star-studded investigations too, as high profile as the prosecution's dr. baden. only wecht had a totally...

>> 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...