Book Review: Submerged: Ryan Widmer, his drowned bride, and the justice system

Did Sarah Widmer die tragically young in a bathtub because of a medical malady, or was she killed by her husband of only four-ish months, Ryan Widmer? Spoiler: Legally, Ryan Widmer was convicted of killing his wife and has been serving his time in prison for it, with his first availability at parole coming up in 2025. But Janice Hisle, a former Cincinnati Enquirer journalist, makes a compelling argument that maybe Ryan didn’t do it and was wrongfully convicted in her 2018 book in time for the 10-year anniversary of Sarah’s death, Submerged: Ryan Widmer, his drowned bridge, and the justice system. Hisle as the author of the book is of note for for two reasons in addition to Hisle her writing for the local newspaper and covering the case in real time: a.) I interned at the Enquirer and am familiar with the colleagues she mentions; and b.) most significantly, in the time since the case occurred, Hisle left journalism because of the threat of buy-outs and layoffs. What a sad reflection on the state of journalism.

The Widmer case is a local one for me, out of Warren County, Ohio, which is mostly known for Kings Island, an amusement park, and being one of the suburbs of Cincinnati. Warren County rarely sees murders. However, on August 11, 2008, Ryan, then 27, called 9-1-1 to report that his wife, Sarah, then 24, “fell asleep in the tub.” That phone call, perhaps more than anything else in the case, is what set in motion Ryan’s own “submersion” into the criminal justice system and being found culpable for the death of his wife.

A few things of note stemming from the call:

• Ryan said he found her face-down even though he later said he actually found her face-up and misspoke in the heat of the moment. Obviously, finding her face-down seems more nefarious than face-up.
• He found Sarah’s head by the spigot, which to be fair, is opposite of where you might expect someone who is taking a bath to be found.
• There is much debate about what he did during the 9-1-1 call itself:
  • Did he already pull her out of the tub, and by that, did he pull her all the way out, as a coroner’s investigator thought, or that he merely pulled her head above water and then drained the tub?
  • Because of the latter, is that why Sarah wasn’t more wet?
  • How much time actually elapsed before the 9-1-1 call?
  • Did Ryan truly give her CPR? Some think he was pretending on the 9-1-1 call.
  • And when the responding officer came to the house, did he encourage Ryan to move Sarah’s body further out into the bedroom so medics could perform life-saving measures, as Ryan claimed, or not, as the responding officer later claimed?

All of these are important and pivotal questions to the case. Almost from the outset it seems, Lieutenant Jeff Braley with the Hamilton Township Police Department figured Ryan killed Sarah because of two factors: Ryan and Sarah were home together alone, and Sarah died, and a seemingly healthy 24-year-old doesn’t drop dead in the bathtub; ergo, Ryan killed her. I’m skeptical of police as a baseline. I’m even more skeptical of police investigating a homicide. And I’m especially on high alert when inexperienced homicide detectives, like Braley, investigate potential homicides. In other words, I didn’t trust Braley’s investigative prowess when it came to the Widmer case, and that’s before learning about the botched raid (it occurred prior to the Widmer case) he was sued over and him likely fabricating his credentials.

Additionally, I’m skeptical of county coroners, not just because of a similar lack of experience in investigating homicides and forming theories about manners of death in potential homicides and because there’s not much oversight of their competencies, but also because of their close relationship with prosecutors and police, including it seemed like, between Braley and then-Warren County Coroner Dr. Russell Uptegrove.

Braley’s steadfast tunnel vision on Ryan and whether he influenced him or not, Uptegrove determining the manner of death in Sarah’s case to be homicide, were the catalyst for charging Ryan with aggravated murder and murder. Aggravated murder was especially odd because that would involve premeditation, which no evidence indicated. In fact, while prosecutors don’t need to prove or establish a motive, juries like it, so prosecutors usually try to, and it helps shape their “theory of the crime.” Yet, in the Widmer case, there was no clear motive established about why Ryan would kill his new bride. They tried to hint at a few things, most notably when Sarah’s mother, Ruth Ann, took the stand in the third trial (spoiler alert!) and said Ryan was “hateful” to Sarah. Or that Ryan controlled her spending and monitored her credit cards, even though she made more money than him, which Ryan claimed was a one-time joking thing.

Something of note that would be discussed throughout the Widmer case was Sarah’s health. Ryan, friends of Sarah’s, and her own family, said she suffered migraines and rather abnormal sleepiness to the point of falling asleep at odd times and settings, like a Cincinnati Bengals game. Hisle talks about whether she had a form of narcolepsy called cataplexy, or Long QT-7, a heart disorder. She also had a heart murmur as an infant. If she had a condition like one of those conditions, maybe that caused her sudden, but untraceable death (well, untraceable to some extent, but arguably, the coroner should have tested the brain, as the defense argued). Ryan convinced Sarah to see a doctor about her abnormal sleepiness, but Hisle says the doctor “brushed it aside.” I’m going to return to that point later.

Right before Ryan was charged with the crime, he was going to talk to Braley. Fortunately, one item I was pleasantly surprised by was Ryan’s family and friends encouraging him to get a lawyer to protect himself. He obtained local defense attorney Charles Rittgers. Good, always get a lawyer. The police are not your friends. Unfortunately, Rittgers couldn’t stop what was coming. One aspect that didn’t help the defense’s case was that the judge in the case wouldn’t allow any castigation of Braley, his personnel records, or his competency in the case. That is rather odd, in my estimation, because it would speak to the quality of the investigation!

Times have certainly changed, though. While 2008-2009 doesn’t feel that long ago, consider that when Ryan appeared in court after being charged wearing a suicide vest — which Hisle makes a compelling argument police and prosecutors did that to prejudice Ryan — his arm tattoos were showing, which earned him the negative moniker, “Scary Ryan.” Scary tattoos! If that happened in 2023, aside from truly obnoxious or odious tattoos, nobody cares about tattoos anymore. However, something much more persistent and pernicious is the way the public, and juries, view 9-1-1 calls. We project what we want to project on 9-1-1 calls based on preconceived notions about the guilt or innocence of the person. If they seem calm, but you think they’re guilty, then they’re a cold-hearted killer. If they’re calm, but you think they’re innocent, then they’re rightly experiencing shock at the abrupt tragedy that has befallen them. So it goes. And the same applies, again, to the appearance of the accused. As Rittgers pointed out to Ryan, he was basically in a damned-if-you-damned-if-you-don’t situation when it came to sitting in the courtroom: the public and the jury were going to overanalyze anything he does or doesn’t do, which isn’t evidence or fair, but is what happens. Likewise, even though we have a constitutional right to not testify as a defendant (the Fifth Amendment), the public and the jury often see that as a sign of guilt. Basically, if you’ve been charged with a crime, the public and the jury presume you must have done something to be charged. It’s circular reasoning.

The first trial and jury found Ryan guilty of murder (but not aggravated murder), but shortly thereafter, the judge tossed out the conviction because members of the jury were testing to see how quickly they dried after stepping out of the shower and that “experiment” influenced the vote for guilty. Much of the impression of the case hinged on whether people thought Sarah, Ryan, and the scene were too dry to make sense if it was a drowning, whereas if it was a murder, then everyone and everything being dry makes more sense. Also, like I mentioned, jurors place a lot of emphasis on appearance; one of the jurors after the conviction said — and it was the first thing they said — Ryan was “expressionless” during the trial. Of course, that shouldn’t matter, and yet. The first trial also involved the testimony of criminalist William Hillard with the Cincinnati Police, who testified to fingertip streaks on the bathtub — and it should be noted the prosecution literally brought in the bathtub at question — which to me was all junk science. But it didn’t matter. It was all about painting the picture of Sarah fighting for her life in the tub, clawing at the sides, while Ryan drowned her.

Of course, prosecutors went for round two with a second trial and that jury couldn’t come to a decision. It was a hung jury. By trial three, prosecutors introduced a mystery witness, who was later named as Jennifer Jean Crew. She watched the NBC’s Dateline episode about the Widmer case, contacted Ryan, and they formed a relationship, so much so that she claims Ryan drunkenly called her and confessed to killing Sarah. That’s tantamount to jailhouse snitch BS as far as I’m concerned. In other words, not believable. That said, I am curious about Jennifer and Ryan’s relationship and I didn’t come away from Hisle’s book fully understanding it. Finally, as previously mentioned, Ruth Ann changed her testimony compared to the first two trials to testify Ryan was “hateful” to Sarah, which her changing testimony doesn’t matter because nobody in the jury was going to overly scrutinize the mother of the deceased.

Just before we learn the fate of Ryan with the third jury in the third trial, Hisle gives us a big reveal that is something rather … bewildering. Ryan apparently struck up a relationship with a different woman who he came into contact due to the national publicity surrounding the case, a woman named Sarah. Yes, Sarah. Bigger news yet: they had a baby boy together. How do you have a baby boy while facing a murder charge?! I digress …

Ryan was found guilty by the third jury. One of the jurors went on local talk radio to explain his decision-making thereafter, and well, if what he said makes you feel confident the jury deliberated with seriousness and the evidence in mind and came to the correct and just decision, I’m not sure what to tell you.

As I always say when it comes to the criminal justice system, any amount of interaction with it is life-altering and the ripple effects are enormous for not just the person ensnared, but their family, the dead person’s family, and arguably, as the subheading of the book indicates, the entire community with respect to their lessening faith in the criminal justice system. In the Widmer case, Hisle runs through the “curse” attached to the case — those ripple effects — but most notable is Ryan’s divorced parents, Jill and Gary. The latter of whom is an estranged father to Ryan up until he’s charged with murder. Good on him for coming back into the picture with support, I guess. Both parents were entering retirement financially comfortable until the overwhelming expenses of a defense and bonding Ryan came into play. Additionally, brought upon by the stress of Ryan’s situation, Jill drank herself to death and Ryan’s twin brother had to find her like that. It’s sad. (One weird wrinkle in the case is Jill drunkenly telling people Ryan killed Sarah.)

So, what do I think happened to Sarah Widmer? I think she likely had an undiagnosed condition, which led to her death in the bathtub. Ryan Widmer had nothing to do with it. He’s clumsy with his words, as Hisle convincingly argues, but that doesn’t make him a killer. There’s not enough evidence to support Ryan killing Sarah, even if you feel like he did. There were no defensive wounds on Sarah, nor markings on Ryan to indicate she fought back, and the injuries to her body seemed consistent with life-saving measures by medics and doctors. But most significant was the anecdotal evidence of her sleepiness and migraines. Finally, I said I would return to her doctor visit and how he brushed it off. That seems apiece with what happens to women when they visit the doctor: they’re not taken seriously, and as a result, perhaps Sarah didn’t take her medical condition seriously. Unfortunately, it killed her.

With all of that said, I do have one lingering question not answered by Hisle’s book. I need a definitive timeline and explanation of what happened on August 11, 2008, in the Widmer home. Ryan claimed he was watching the Bengals game downstairs and drinking beer. At some point, he heard a noise upstairs, but figured Sarah dropped something. For some reason I don’t recall being stated, Ryan then went upstairs and turned on the TV. He then, for some reason not stated, went into the bathroom and found Sarah in the condition she was in. Why? How much time likely elapsed between something happening and him noticing? And I do have to say, it is rather odd that your first reaction is to pull her head above the water and then drain the tub, as Ryan did, rather than pulling her fully from the tub. However, I’m also judging from afar rather than in the heat of the moment. And I still don’t think he did it.

Hisle teases us at the end of the book in the Epilogue that she was in contact with an “unnamed witness.” This person “witnessed some things the night Sarah died.” What? How? What could that possibly be? Hisle doesn’t answer. In fact, Hisle says the witness told her something that “shocked her,” but she won’t divulge what that was!

If you’re into true crime and getting into the nitty-gritty about these cases, then I’d recommend Hisle’s book. It has the depth you’d expect from a seasoned journalist like her, and she makes a compelling argument that Ryan was wrongfully convicted for killing his wife. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around that first night in prison knowing you’ve just been convicted to potentially life in prison for something you didn’t do. But it happens in the United States, and it may have happened to Ryan.