During the next few months, jurors will have to determine whether a Jackson, Calif., paramedic murdered his wife, but without one key piece of evidence: the body.

Although the body of 45-year-old Jan Scharf was never found, prosecutors contend that her husband Glyn Scharf, 51, murdered her amid a bitter divorce. They believe they have enough evidence that she was murdered and that her husband was the perpetrator to put him in prison for life.

Testimony in Scharf's first-degree murder trial began this week in El Dorado Superior Court in Placerville, Calif.

Glyn Scharf was the last person to see his wife alive May 14, 2002, according to police reports. That night, Jan Scharf returned home from a 12-hour shift at the University of California at Davis Medical Center. Jan Scharf had sued for divorce in December 2001, but the couple shared their home in Cameron Park, Calif., as they waited for the divorce to be finalized, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Story continues

advertisement

A neighbor said she heard a woman's screams from the Scharf house that evening, a local TV station reported.

"No, no ... don't, don't," the woman said, according to the report. Shortly afterward, the neighbor said she heard a car speed away.

Glyn Scharf told police that his wife's bedroom door was closed and her Ford Explorer was missing the next morning, although it was her day off. Five days later, police found her abandoned car in Folsom outside a 24-hour gym, where she was a member, according to news reports.

After a year passed with no breaking clues, police charged Glyn Scharf with his wife's murder. With no body, there was no concrete evidence that Jan Scharf had died. But her cell phone and ATM card hadn't been used since her disappearance, said El Dorado County sheriff spokesman Kevin House, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Additionally, circumstantial evidence pointed to Glyn Scharf as the killer. On April 24, just weeks before her disappearance, Jan Scharf phoned police to report a missing gun from her home. On May 4, she called again, saying she felt nauseated at work and thought her husband had poisoned her coffee. A crime lab found digoxin, a drug for slowing an irregular heartbeat, in Jan Scharf's blood, House told the newspaper.

Jan Scharf's future plans also indicated she had no intentions of leaving. She applied for a promotion at her job of 15 years, was planning her daughter's wedding, and was going to vacation with friends on Memorial Day, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Meanwhile, Glyn Scharf had packed his wife's belongings, changed the locks and invited girlfriends to stay at the house just days following her disappearance, prosecutor Trish Kelliher said in a preliminary hearing. In addition, he did not tell anyone his wife was gone; Jan Scharf's mother reported her missing on May 18.

"Glyn Scharf didn't realize that his wife was missing," defense attorney Robert Banning said of his client's alleged suspicious behavior. "They weren't living in the same house. He told the deputy sheriffs that he was over at the house about once a week."

Furthermore, Banning says, a murder never occurred. "We're not presuming the wife is dead. The nuances in this case are speculation and guesswork," he told Courttv.com.

In fact, Glyn Scharf's former attorney, Paul Goyette, testified in a preliminary hearing that witnesses saw Jan Scharf after her alleged disappearance, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities found no evidence of foul play in Jan Scharf's car, Glyn's truck or their home.

"Anyone could be responsible for Jan Scharf's disappearance," Banning said. "She could be responsible for her own disappearance, theoretically."

Banning and Kelliher refused to elaborate on the pending case.

Although Banning said that bodyless murder cases were "vague" and "difficult" to try, they are not uncommon.

One of the first "no body" cases belonged to L. Ewing Scott, who was convicted in 1957 of his wealthy wife's murder. He took advantage of her finances, and there were rumors of physical abuse. Evelyn Scott disappeared when she decided to divorce her husband. Authorities found ashes of her false teeth in their home, and L. Ewing Scott was sentenced to life in prison.

In 1985, Gail Birenbaum, the wife of a plastic surgeon, went missing. When her husband Robert Bierenbaum, a licensed pilot, flew over the Atlantic Ocean the day after she disappeared, investigators speculated he had dropped her remains during the flight. That theory led to Robert Bierenbaum's 20-year jail sentence.

More recently, in 2000, mother-son crime team Sante and Kenneth Kimes were convicted of murdering Irene Silverman for her $7 million townhouse. Although Sante Kimes used the motto "No body, no crime," according to her son, she was sentenced to 120 years in prison for that case, while Kenneth received 125 years. The Manhattan socialite's body has never been found.