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Or was there another way of looking at that couple perched high on those cliffs on a summer night? steven'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. >> the defense was ready to show how steven 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. th m...

>> guilty. later, jurors said what 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's my husband. >> it was another woman in stephen's life who swayed the jury. terry schofield recounting what stephen said to her weeks before jody's death, that his stress would soon be over. >> that was something that pushed me toward once we decided in the end. that statement. >> it was the light bulb. when she first said it, you couldn't help but think, hmm, that's interesting. >> to the...

>> 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. >> 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. >> dr. clayton was the bergen county medical examiner who first ruled the circumstances of jody's death could not be determined. now on second look she sa...

>> 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 steven 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. >> ...

Something sinister had just happened. so you didn't think this was a horrible accident? >> no. >> 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. >> he didn't react like somebody who had just lost his wife should have reacted. >> 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 ...