The Mystery in the Master Bedroom

www.FreeRyanWidmer.com

The voiceover at the beginning of Sept 18 shows was creepy and totally unnecessary. Use the regular correspondents' voices, please!

Please get rid of that voice at the beginning of the program. Sounds as if we're getting ready to watch an SNL skit. Go back to the hosts doing the overview of the stories to come. Please.

The voice over at the beginning and during the Sept 18 Dateline show was creepy and unnecessary. Use the regular correspondents' voices - PLEASE!

What is up with that creepy voice doing the overview at the beginning of Dateline. I almost thought it was SNL getting ready to do some kind of skit. Go back to having the hosts do the intro and nix that creepy voice!!

oh my god that creepy voice is horrible. what are you thinking nbc? lose the creepy voice/

I'm curious if the coroner/m.e. was ever asked what he would have thought about the injury to the back of her head was if she had been brought in as a jane doe? As we saw (and were told repeatedly by experts) at the time of the death of Natasha Richardson some head injuries take time to manifest their true severity. She had been to the dentist that day complaining of feeling ill, what does a concussion/head injury in that area manifest as? I don't know where she worked, but could she have bumped her head on a file cabinet drawer or the like? You know what it's like, you bend over to pick something up and straighten quickly--even if you know it's there you can forget in an instant if you're thinking of something else. Could she have backed into something? These are all things that happen everyday and people brush them off--laugh and say 'oops-what a klutz!' If she was such an organized person, would she have said to herself--I'll deal with this later? I know I've done that kind of thing. Now say she decides to take her bath, I know I've sat on the edge of the tub with or without a robe on and waited for the tub to fill, what if the assumed pre-existing head injury kicks in and she slumps headfirst into the water-but her body slides/spralls outside the tub? Look wet head-dry body, no one forcing her head under. Imagine her husband walking in on her--the tub's not full yet, he doesn't know what she's doing, there may be urine on the floor, he realizes she's dead and also that she's in a position that says someone held her under-maybe he sees the bruise?-so he panics. Says the first thing that comes to mind--none of us know what we would do in that senario. There are some people that tell a lie simply because the truth is unbelievable. What if he thought she had committed suicide and he wanted to hide that to protect her? He could have cleaned up urine, or wiped the foaming etc. off her face or the tub, and nothing may have been disturbed around the tub. I personally think Mama needs to hire a new lawyer--reasonable doubt is all it takes.

Haven't even seen the end of the show; but important, look it up...severe CATAPLEXY; often associated with severe NARCOLEPSY. My Mom has both! CATAPLEXY renders an individual completely unable to move. She will be aware of everything and everyone around her, but cannot speak, cannot lift her head, cannot move her body in any manner at all. These 'episodes' can last anywhere from 2-5 minutes; certainly enough for someone that has this to drown! The following minutes are followed with lethargy and slowly returning to be able to move and speak. In hindsight, we realize that my Mom had this her entire adult life, but went undiagnosed until her 60's. Where are the medical experts???

I dont know about anybody else but after i get out the tub i let my body air dry for the most part and it drys really fast however my hair does stay wet...so i think the police need to do some more investigating before they jump to conclusions there is another person's life on the line for god sake...i mean come on now I DONT THINK HE DID IT

The "sleep expert" is far from an expert. I have a friend who fell asleep while swimming in his pool.. If it wasn't for some friends pulling him out of the pool he would have drowned. The cops are always too aggressive and think they know it all. DNA testing has proven them to be wrong too many times!

I grew up in this area. One reason I moved away was because of having to deal with the "good ol' boy' mentality of the community. I worked with the closed minded politicians, law enforcement, the courts and yes, even the residents. These people can't see past their noses. The world is much bigger than Mason, Oh. I'm sure the jury in this case consisted of the rednecks that this county is known to produce and reproduce. Too bad Ryan had to go to court in this county. How embarrassing to live there.

What a sad story. There is no way that Ryan should be convicted. Where is the concrete evidence that he killed his wife? You cannot convict someone on speculation. What is really injustice is several years ago, my neighbor was "supposedly" teaching his wife gun safety and "accidently" shot his wife in the neck killing her. He was never charged for killing her! It was only the two of them in the house! Now I know him personally, and was not surprised that he would have killed her. But to never be investigated and get off, is insane. The whole time I watched this episode tonight, all I could do was shake my head for the justice system. It just doesn't make sense.

I feel bad for both families but especially for Ryan who lost his wife and now is tormented by the court system. How pathetic!!! Ryan, keep your head up. I pray you can get the grieving time you deserve.

I'm curious if the coroner/m.e. was ever asked what he would have made of the injury to the back of her head if he hadn't known the supposed drowning story(and was there water in her lungs?) As we all learned this year with Natasha Richarson, head injuries can manifest their severity over time. Anyone involved in sports knows that, as well as parents who've had to monitor children overnight. An upset stomach is also a sign of it. Had she hit her head on a file cabinet at work? What if she pushed back in a rolling office chair right into an open file cabinet? If she was as focused and organised and busy as everyone claims--would she have brushed it off, as so many do, to deal with later? Would it have even felt that bad? Now imagine later in the day, drawing a tub, sitting on the edge of a large, built-in soaking tub with or without a robe on. The head injury kicks in, she becomes unconscious, falls toward the tub with her body spralling over the side onto the floor. Look-hair getting wet-body dry, no hand holding her head under. Then the husband comes in, panics, gets her out of the tub, starts draining it, can't imagine what happened, maybe she even committed suicide? But he realizes one thing- no one will believe he found his wife with her head in the tub like that. Some people in that kind of stressful situation can only think of telling some kind of composit of the truth. None of us know how we would react. So he tells the story of finding her asleep/dead in the tub and after evidence shows that scenario to be flawed, he is afraid to tell the truth because it is so strange-and he will have proven that he lied, so he must've done it. As for the bruising occurring from the rescue efforts-dead bodies don't bruise-there is no blood flow to support it, or at least that's my understanding. There were no weapons found that could have been the cause of the injury, what was the pathology of the lysol wipe?, and Ryan had no bruising on him so he could not have used even his bare hand to smash the back of her neck in. In reading the transcript it was not clear if the prosecution had said difinatively what the cause of death was. If he had moved her body from the edge of the tub-nothing would have been disturbed, he could've used the wipe to clean urine off the floor. She could've used it to get hair, dust, whatever out of the tub before filling (I do). So, no water, no towels, no mess, he's had time to think so, no panic--and if he thought she did kill herself, he's protecting her private pain. I think Mama'd better hire a new lawyer for round two--all it takes is reasonable doubt and the first lawyer didn't do it with a lot more info than I had.

What a sad story- I hope both families find peace.

I go straight from my shower or bathtub over to the sink, the water closet or back into the bedroom. I get water everywhere. Sometimes, when I give the kids a bath in my bathtub, I will lift the child from the tub, take and stand the child on the toilet lid or on my bed, water is left everywhere, and THESE ARE SMALL KIDS.

This man did not kill his wife. The evidence against him doesn't add up and there was no motive. Sometimes people just die. He already lost the love of his life, he does not need to lose his freedom too. Justice did not prevail for him. Police tend to go on witch hunts when they get a lead. This seems like the case to me. The jurors are obviously idiots.

The defense needs to bring in an expert or two on Narcolepsy - just read the symptoms off the internet - "may be associated with sudden loss of muscle tone, similar to seizures, temporary inability to use muscles (sleep paralysis). Comes on with situations of little movement. Complications: injuries and accidents if attacks occur during activities, sudden loss of of voluntary muscle tone, hallucinations, brief episodes of total paralysis at beginning and end of sleep." Go for the narcolepsy defense - the family was obviously not aware of the seriousness of the condition - and it appears that the defense was not either!!! Good luck to the husband!

Not bad, Dateline, but I wish more had been included to show how poorly the justice system served Mr. Widmer. For example: the juror who following the verdict, publicly announced he had made his decision that Ryan was guilty before the defense ever presented its case; the Warren County prosecutor who, following the verdict, released so-called "evidence" that the judge had ruled inadmissible, thus potentially tainting the results of a second trial; this same prosecutor's track record in seeking publicity for political gain and having a different sense of justice when it comes to laws broken in her own family; that the 911 operator who said Ryan was "too calm" had to tell him to calm down so he could understand him; that Detective Braley was heard at the trial saying they needed to get everyone together to assure they were "on the same page;"that the jury didn't find "reasonable doubt" regardless of the fact that even the prosecution's witnesses said it was possible Sarah suffered from an undiagnosed medical ailment that could have caused her death. The list could go on. Ryan Widmer is an innocent man who has not only lost his wife, but also had his financial health ruined as well as his reputation. Check out freeryanwidmer.com. And no - I did not know the Widmers prior to this case.

I agree, I don't believe that Ryan Widmers' Lawyer did a good job defendingRyan. He wasn't convincing enough to create reasonable doubt to the jury.

There was so much enficents put on the fact THERE WAS NOOOOO MOTIVE...

Wasn't anyone listening. If I had the money, I would help get the best attorney there is to help this young man, Ryan and his family and friends don't deserve any of this bad experience

Defense needs a couple of experts on narcolepsy. It can cause loss of muscle tone, seizures, inability to use muscles, etc. Look it up - perfect defense. I don't think hubby is guilty - uncontrolled narcolepsy could have caused the death. Draining water before he got to her could have accounted for the dry body and damp hair.

What was obvious to me about Sarah's death was totally unseen by the prosecution. The bruises on her neck and the head could have been injuries acquired by Ryan holding her head in the toilet and drowning her. The rim of the toilet seat would have made marks like that which were shown on Dateline. That also explains why her hair was wet but not her body and why there was no signs of struggle by water being splashed all over the bathroom. It would be contained by the toilet. I would like to contact Lt. Braley about this possibility.

This is really troubling me. Something very similar happened to a friend of mine. She was found dead, alone at home with bruising on her head and neck. The police immediately thought it was a homicide. It was on the front page on the newspaper the next day that she was murdered in her home. After an autopsy, they found that she had suffered a stroke. The bruising was from bleeding in her brain. I think they should exhume the body and do another autopsy. I think she suffered a stroke. She even had some of the symptoms leading up to a stroke, i.e. headache and stomachache.

What happened to not convicting someone without concrete evidence? I cannot believe that Ryan was convicted for murder. This is so sad and another case of injustice. My neighbor was teaching his wife gun safety, "supposedly", and "accidently" shot her in the neck. It was only him and her there in the house. He was never charged for her murder! He was never charged for anything! It never went to court, just ruled accidental death. Now how can he get off when he had the gun in his hand, pulled the trigger and killed her and it was accidental?? The courts are pathetic!

I feel bad for Ryan who lost his wife by a true accident. He doesn't deserve to be in jail nor even charged for her death. Let him grieve for his wife!!

Hair wet, body dry? That's the evidence?

I know several women, including myself, that wash hair in the bath water and rinse it with clean water. Most of the time, I lean over the garden tub (shaped much like the one on dateline tonight) and rinse my hair with clean water while the the bath water drains. This could explain why Ryan says,"The water is just draining out" and why her body was dry while her hair was still damp.

I have antibacterial wipes in both bathrooms and kitchen. This is not unusual. This was a neat and well oraganized young woman, she probably wiped out the tub before and/or after each use.

As for the soaps, shower gels, shampoos not being knocked over..I am confident that if my husband found me in the state Ryan found his wife, he would be able to lift me up and over out tub. I'm also confident he would try not to cause further injury by hitting my head or body on the faucet or tub.

I could not believe the verdict in this case. The jurors that did "home experiments"...INEXCUSABLE. No one has any idea what she was doing in the bathroom that night. Maybe she was doing something as simple as rinsing her hair, raised up too quickly, hit her head.

I hope Ryan gets a more responsible jury this time. There's no jury of peers that will judge a husband more than a woman's closest friends, her friends are supporting Ryan.

I totally believe in his innocence. Maybe they should of had Dr. G do the post mortem. With the medical examiner not even knowing her history. What the heck is that? I work in an ER. Working on someone for 45 minutes could very well have caused the bruising. As well. If there were some kind of violent struggle in the bathroom, there would have been a mess. I think the detective needs to go back the CJ school.