WATCH A PREVIEW
You can view a short preview of the Dateline TV special on Ryan Widmer at msnbc.com.
LEBANON — For the first time, Ryan Widmer is expected to tell his side of the story about how his wife drowned in their bathtub almost three years ago.
The “Dateline NBC” program about the bathtub murder case is set to air at 9 p.m. today on WLWT Channel 5 in Cincinnati and WDTN Channel 2 in Dayton.
The network returned to Warren County recently to interview Widmer at the Warren Correctional Institution. “Dateline” is the only media outlet to which Widmer has agreed to talk.
When asked during the interview if he killed his wife, Widmer replied, “No, I did not, I couldn’t hurt Sarah emotionally, much less physically.”
Widmer, 30, is serving 15 years to life in prison for drowning his wife, Sarah, an Edgewood High School grad, in the bathtub of their Hamilton Twp. home in August 2008.
A preview of the two-hour program shows the report also will feature an interview with Widmer’s girlfriend Sarah Manherz, who is the mother of his baby boy, born the summer after his second trial.
“There is no way he could have done this, ever,” Manherz says on the clip.
“Dateline” previously aired “The Mystery in the Master Bedroom” in 2009, after the guilty verdict reached in the first trial was tossed because of juror misconduct.
Scores of people reached out to Widmer after that show, including two women who became witnesses in the third trial earlier this year. The Dateline preview shows snippets of Jennifer Crew’s testimony, the Iowa woman who testified Widmer called her drunk one night and confessed to killing his wife.
The other woman, Melissa Waller of Washington state, told the jury she talked to Widmer just minutes before Crew and said he was neither inebriated nor upset.
“Dateline” officials would not discuss the show.
The attorneys involved, including Warren County assistant prosecutors John Arnold and Travis Vieux and defense attorneys Jay Clark and Lindsey Gutierrez were interviewed.
Clark would not say why Widmer is speaking out for the first time, but added he did not think “Dateline” paid for the interview.
“During all my dealings with them throughout the case, they were adamant they don’t pay for interviews,” Clark said. “I can’t tell you they did or didn’t pay for it, but if I had to bet my right arm, I’d bet they didn’t pay for it.”
Lt. Jeff Braley, the lead detective in the case, was asked for an interview again, but he declined.
“It was a choice that I discussed with my acting Chief Scott Carlton and for officer safety reasons we both agreed I wouldn’t do the interview this time,” he said.
It’s not clear who from the Widmer family will be on the program, but his father, Gary, said in a statement that the family is holding up as well as can be expected.
“The public may be tired of hearing about the case, but with the shoddy investigation and a jury system that flat out doesn’t work, awareness should remain high so that better laws may be implemented and accountability held for the mistakes made that led to an innocent man having his freedom taken and his life destroyed,” he said.
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