Widmer Timeline
Aug. 11, 2008: Ryan Widmer calls 911 and reports his wife, Sarah Widmer, fell asleep and drowned.
Aug. 13, 2008: Ryan Widmer, 28, of Hamilton Twp. is charged with the murder of his wife.
Nov. 12, 2008: Nov. 17 trial date is rescheduled.
March 23: Widmer's trial begins in Warren County Common Pleas court.
April 2: After a two-week trial, jury finds Widmer guilty and he is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
April 9: Following a Pulse Journal interview with juror Ray Diss, defense attorney Charlie Rittgers files a motion for an aquittal or new trial. He maintains jurors improperly relied on information that was not in evidence.
April 10: Another juror, Jon Campbell, says several jurors improperly conducted experiments at home to see how long it took them to air-dry after bathing.
April 22: Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel's office files a response to the motion for a new trial.
July 22: Judge Neal Bronson grants Ryan Widmer a new trial, ruling that experimenting jurors violated Widmer's right to a fair trial. Bond for Widmer's release is set at $1 million.
July 24: Ryan Widmer is transported from the Warren Correctional Institution back to the Warren County Jail.
July 29: Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel files her appeal of Judge Neal Bronson’s order granting Ryan Widmer a new trial. The defense plans to file a response the week of August 17.
A year after the death of 24-year-old Sarah Widmer, answers to how she died Aug. 11, 2008 remain unresolved.
There seems no doubt she died in her Hamilton Twp. home. However, since that night her husband has been convicted and later granted a new trial. In the months in between, relatives who once supported Ryan Widmer have had a change of heart.
Ryan Widmer’s defense maintains the bruising on his wife’s body was consistent with the heroic efforts to try and revive her.
Medics tried — unsuccessfully — five times to intubate Sarah and performed chest compressions for 45 minutes. An IV tube was also inserted into the jugular vein, after failed attempts at getting a line in through her arms.
The prosecution believes Ryan Widmer savagely tried to drown his young wife, an Edgewood High School graduate.
Widmer turned himself in to Hamilton Twp. police two days after the drowning. Bond was originally set at $1 million but later lowered to $400,000. Widmer’s family were able to get him released on bond, but not in time to attend his wife’s memorial at St. Susanna Catholic Church in Mason. At that time, Sarah’s family supported Widmer.
Sarah’s brother Mike Steward pleaded with the magistrate in the case to set a low bond for his brother-in-law.
“My mother and I are both here in support of Ryan, and in our heart of hearts we don’t believe Ryan did this,” Steward said.
Once the trial started in March however, the Stewards were sitting on the prosecutor’s side of the courtroom. Ryan told dispatchers his wife often fell asleep in the tub and others testified Sarah was feeling unwell the day she died. Her mother Ruth Ann Steward tearfully painted a picture of a controlling husband — he would call while they were shopping and ask about charges Sarah had just charged to her credit card — and a perfectly healthy daughter.
Sarah’s mom and brother turned their heads when gruesome autopsy photos were displayed on a big screen during the trial. She flinched when prosecutors showed one of magazines on the dry tub area was a parenting magazine. The newlywed couple hadn’t started a family yet.
The Stewards were not present when the jury of six men and six women found Widmer not guilty of aggravated murder, but guilty of murder after almost 23 hours of deliberations in April. They have said they are grieving privately.
The case itself was strange to begin with. The narrow bathroom where Sarah died was virtually dry when first responders arrived on the scene. Her naked body was also dry, only her blond hair was damp. Neither the prosecutors nor the defense could really explain the phenomenon with the exception of one defense witness.
During cross examination, defense witness Dr. Michael Balko, a forensic pathologist from Fort Mitchell, Ky., said he performed his own unscientific experiment.
“I was curious about that myself. So I stood outside my shower this morning and didn’t dry off,” he said. “It took about seven minutes before I was substantially dry.”
First responders arrived about six minutes after Widmer dialed 911. This bit of testimony likely tipped off what turned out to be a new trial order by Warren County Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson. Several jurors admitted they conducted Balko-like experiments at home during deliberations.
An avalanche of post trial motions and filings, regarding alleged juror misconduct — because of the air drying — led Bronson to throw out the old trial and verdict. Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel has appealed the decision to the 12th District Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, Widmer has been moved back to the Warren County Jail from the Warren Correctional Institution, where he was serving a 15 years to life sentence.
Bronson set bond at $1 million, but Widmer’s mother Jill spent her life savings on the first trial. The “Free Ryan Widmer” Web site, which popped up shortly after the verdict, helped bring around $30,000, his mother said.
Today however, the focus on the Web site will be Sarah, according to the site’s creator, Mike Mayleben.
“Ryan wanted us to do something,” said the site’s creator, Mike Mayleben. “We’ll have a page of pictures of Sarah throughout her life and the eulogy Ryan wrote out, since he wasn’t able to be at the funeral and a kind of a guest book. For the whole 24-hour period the Free Ryan Widmer page will point to that page.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.
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