Widmer jury holds 3rd day of deliberations

LEBANON - Friday is expected to be a long day of waiting to hear if the jury in the Ryan Widmer "Bathtub Murder" retrial has reached a verdict in the controversial case.

After spending four and a half hours deliberating Wednesday, jurors spent eight hours on Thursday. Jurors broke off their discussions around 6:30 p.m. They began deliberations at the Warren County Common Pleas Courthouse just before 9 a.m.  Friday.

The biggest headline from the trial this week is that Ryan Widmer himself did not testify after some indications that he might take the witness stand.

Widmer also did not testify in the first trial last year. The guilty verdict that the first jury reached was thrown out because of juror misconduct as some jurors admitted to staging experiments about skin drying times and discussing the results during deliberations.

Widmer, 29, is charged in the drowning death of his newlywed wife, Sarah, 24, in their Hamilton Township home on Aug. 11, 2008.

The defense rested its case Wednesday morning. No rebuttal witnesses were called.

You could see the stress Widmer is under on his face. He rubbed his eyes and wiped his hand down his face as the closing arguments wrapped up and the jury got its instructions. If found guilty, he faces 15 years to life in prison.

Sarah Widmer's mother arrived in the courtroom in time for closing arguments. The only other day she attended the trial was the day she testified last week.

Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel also watched part of the arguments from a glassed-in media room connected to the courtroom.

As both sides summed up their side of the case the defense called Sarah's murder a "crime that never happened."

Defense testimony revealed emergency workers made mistakes in Sarah's medical paperwork and investigators didn't keep the crime scene sealed.

"This case, ladies and gentleman, is the state of Ohio versus Ryan Widmer. It is not the state of Ohio versus the first responders, the police, the medical officers or the medical doctors or the people in the ER," Assistant Prosecutor John Arnold said during closing arguments. "Because if you focus on trying the people who were trying to bring Sarah back to life, you will forget about the person who was charged with taking her life, Ryan Widmer," said Arnold.

Assistant Prosecutor Travis Vieux told jurors Sarah may have never been in the bathtub where Ryan says he found her dead.

Prosecutors focused on talking about their witnesses during closing arguments who described Sarah's death as a homicide.

The prosecution also told the jury that Widmer cleaned up the crime scene and that's why there was no water around the bathroom when paramedics arrived after he called 911.

Prosecution witnesses testified the scene was dry when emergency workers arrived minutes after Ryan called 911 and that bruising on Sarah's neck indicates a struggle.

"What's the first thing that he tells them? My wife fell asleep in the bathtub. I think she's dead. He doesn't say, my wife is unresponsive, I think my wife has drowned. He doesn't say I think she may have fallen and hit her head. He says my wife fell asleep in the bathtub. He's beginning with his alibi. He's beginning with his defense," said Vieux.

Assistant prosecutors told the jurors to accept the reasonable and reject the unreasonable. They say it is unreasonable to believe Ryan's story. They say Ryan cleaned up the crime scene or items in the bathroom would have been knocked over and wet.

The defense told the jury the prosecution version of what happened has holes in it.

Ryan Widmer's attorneys reminded jurors of their expert testimony that indicated Sarah's injuries were not from murder, but from life-saving efforts. They also testified that there was no struggle between the newlywed couple.

Widmer's attorneys said there were no signs of a struggle and the lack of water was also evidence Widmer didn't hurt his wife. One of their experts testified that water splashed in the bathroom would have been a sign of a struggle.

The defense suggested the bruising was caused by resuscitation efforts and that Sarah may have drowned after a seizure or sudden heart problem that went undetected in the autopsy.

One of Widmer's attorneys, Hal Arenstein, argued that by saying, "All he knows is that his wife has a reputation for falling asleep everywhere she goes. So, that's the logical assumption he made. He's not a doctor. He works for the Warren County Visitors Bureau."

Ryan was convicted in April 2009 but Judge Neal Bronson threw out the verdict when jurors in the initial trial admitted they had staged home experiments related to the case and discussed what they found during jury deliberations.

In many ways this trial is playing out exactly like the last one.

This time, prosecution's witnesses testified almost exactly like before. What's different for these jurors is they heard more from Sarah's mother. Ruth Ann Steward testified that the couple often argued.

She didn't go into that much detail last time.

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