S1: E13 – BFFs: The Disappearance of Sarah Stern, Part 2

Seven weeks of searching for a missing New Jersey teenager turned up nothing.

Sarah was nowhere to be found.

Nineteen year old Sarah Stern was last seen emptying out her bank account.

She took out seven thousand dollars. What would a nineteen year old be doing with this money?

No one knew what to believe, especially when one of her former high school classmates came forward with an unimaginable story.

I did something really dumb when I planned it out for half a year.

It was a chilling account with no remorse, no emotion.

Beat, throw off the bridge, and the body never showed up.

Today, we're in Neptune City, New Jersey, for the conclusion of BFFs the Sarah Stern Story. My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide. A warning that this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening. Neptune is the Roman god of the sea. It's where Neptune City, New Jersey, got its name.

Nephton City is a small town about five thousand people.

Michael Stern lived there with his family.

It's just a stone's throw from Asbury Park and Belmar, which is about halfway between Atlantic City, New Jersey and New York City.

Neptune City is a short distance from the one hundred and forty miles of ocean front property in New Jersey.

They're just beach after beach and small towns that were set up hundreds of years ago, and they each have their own little unique personalities.

The area is a place popular with tourists during the warmer months.

Basically all the short towns kind of share the same common theme, which is the beach and some of the nightlife and restaurants and John bon Jovi used to hang around the beaches here.

Michael raised his daughter Sarah Neptune City.

She loved the beach and she loved being down by the beach.

Yes, being outdoors, especially in the summer, was something Sarah loved about the area.

We had a swimming pool and a trampoline in the backyard, so it was always a magnet for the kids to come over and just hang out, and they would be there from the morning until night. The kids liked their the older kids, younger kids so and she got along with everybody.

As Sarah grew up, she got involved in photography and the arts, but she also had no problem getting her hands dirty.

I'm in construction and sometimes I would just need an extra hand for a short period of time, and she would always be there. She liked to get her work boots on and her jeans and a flannel shirt and come out with me and you know, work a little get a little dirty, and so that was kind of a fun thing with her too.

According to Michael, the two were on one another, especially after Sarah's mother passed away from cancer.

She struggled at times. It's a tough, very tough thing to deal with that, you know, just one day they're gone.

And in early December twenty sixteen, Michael was the one struggling. After Sarah mysteriously disappeared.

They found Sarah's car up on the bridge.

At the time, there were different theories as to what happened. One was Sarah was in a very bad place mentally and took her own life. The other was she quietly left town to start a new life.

We spent a lot of time looking everywhere, especially around the Marina area and all through the inlets every day, hoping that something would turn up and we'd find a piece of something that belonged to Sarah, or God forbid, that her body would show up, but we just we didn't know.

Now, keep in mind these searches were happening right away round Christmas in twenty sixteen.

Holidays came and went, and we still didn't have any answers, and it was it was a tough time for everybody.

Then the investigation took a turn. In January twenty seventeen, Anthony Curry, a friend of Sarah's from high school, met with detectives. He agreed to let them wire his car for audio and video and secretly recorded a chilling story from one of Sarah's very best friends and confidants, Leah Mcatassney.

I pretty much hung her. I just I picked her up and had her just like dangling off the ground, and she just pitched herself. And then that was it.

You just heard Liam, Sarah's friend since the first grade, talking about how he strangled and then threw Sarah's dead body into Shark River.

That's not even the worst part. The worst part it is I thought I was walking out fifty grand, one hundred grand in my pocket. She only had angrit.

Edward Kershenbaum worked for the Neptune City PD.

Liam mcintazzie was the mastermind of this entire crime.

Police were tipped off by Liam's friend, Anthony Curry. Anthony was an aspiring movie producer who dreamed of making horror films. A few weeks earlier, Liam shared his idea for a movie with Anthony, and it had chilling details that mirrored what police thought might have happened to Sarah Stern.

He was one of the only few people that knew what happened to Sarah and wanted to talk to law enforcement to let them know exactly what he knew.

In their secretly recorded conversation, Liam admitted to purposefully feeding false leads to detectives.

Like that was the whole part of my plant, would make me look not guilty.

He tried to portray himself as a concerned friend and continue to try to paint a picture of deception that it was more or less a suicide or a poor relationship with her father that led her to possibly jump off the bridge that night, all along hiding the fact that he was one that was responsible for her murder.

And in these recordings, Liam said he didn't act alone. He recruited his roommate Preston Taylor to help dispose of Sarah's body.

Preston Taylor was involved early on in the planning of what was going to happen to Sarah Stern.

And get this, Preston didn't just know Sarah. He was actually her date to the junior prom.

Preston Taylor was the one person that could have saved Sarah Stern's life, but he chose not to be chose to follow Liam mcintazzie.

So if this is actually true, and this is a real confession, then it's just really hard to wrap my head around what these so called friends of Sarah's were thinking.

That's what's so baffling. There's no indication of any type of problem other than pure greed and evil.

Sarah had inherited money from her mother for months. Liam had his eyes on this money. The afternoon she withdrew fund from her bank, Liam went into action.

Liam mctasti called Preston Taylor when they were at the bank. Liam mctas told press Taylor that this was the day it was going to happen.

On February first, twenty seventeen, detectives pulled Preston in for questioning, we know.

What happened to Sarah, we know what your involvement and it was right.

We want to know why it happened.

We want to know why Liam did what he did.

I got home justice.

I know it's really hard to hear Preston in this interrogation audio, but let me tell you, Preston full it like a chair, like within a minute.

He participated, not the actual murder, but the steps taken to cover up the murder.

Preston said Liam believed Sarah had upwards of one hundred thousand dollars and killed her for that money, a portion of which Preston was supposed to get for helping to move Sarah's body.

Preston Taylor goes over, takes Sarah's body and puts it over by a hedgerow, covers it with leaves. Once Liam mcintoze gets off the work, they pulled down the street behind Sarah's yard. They take Sarah, they throw her over the fence. They put her in the past your seat of her car.

See. I keep going back to this idea that this is their friend and they're treating her body like it's a thing. They buckled Sarah into the passenger seat of her car, and then Liam drove sitting next to the dead body while Preston followed in another car.

The immactas he would study Sarah the way she would back out of her driveway in her car, so his plan was to pull out the same way after he murders her.

A neighbor surveillance camera caught the car pulling out, but it was too dark for detectives to see anyone in the grainy footage, so they didn't know who was driving. However, the time stamp matched up with Preston's story.

She was thrown into the Shark River on an outgoing tide, and they then left and continued on with their lives.

Preston cooperated with detectives and led them on a play by play reenactment of the crime, including where he and Liam buried two safes filled with nearly ten thousand dollars.

In It was just a pure active betrayal. Nobody saw a coming. Liam mcintazzie wasn't on the police department's radar at.

All, yet here they were Sarah's one time prom date, along with her best friend who she met in Sunday School. Both arrested for her murder.

Preston Taylor was charged with desecration of human remains and hindering apprehension, and Liam was charged with murder, felony, murder, robbery, hindering apprehension, a secretion of human remains.

The emotional roller coaster was about to take another dive as detectives had to share the news with Sarah's father, Michael.

How do you tell a father who has hoped his daughter's going to come home that she's not coming home, that she has been murdered and in fact murdered by her friends.

Whenever you have a missing person's case, there is always hope that the person you're searching for will come home. That hope extends from the family, to the reporters covering the story, and law enforcement trying to find them. When that hope extinguishes, there is nothing harder.

I sat down at the kitchen table and he told me, and I just, I don't know. I was just a kind of shock after that. I just I just remember staring at the table and in disbelief that you know, they knew what happened. They had the confession. Worst day of my life. It hurts. She was such a good person. Just finding out that whatever friends killed her, It's this horrible thing.

After the arrest of Leah Mcatasney and Preston Taylor for the murder of their longtime friend, Sarah Stern. Law enforcement held a press conference.

Our efforts to recover Sayarah's remains do continue.

That's right. Even with the two behind bars, the police continued to search for Sarah's body.

We're not going to give up that search, and that's one of the most important things we hope we can do is bring some closure by recovering Sarah. For mister Stern and knows it loved her still.

Sarah's Bonnie never turned up, which wasn't good for prosecutor's arguments.

The lack of a body is always a hurdle with any type of homicide investigation.

Edward Kershembam worked for the Neptune City Police Department and he knew without a body it would be tough to secure convictions.

So prosecuted officer felt it necessary to offer a deal with President Taylor for his cooperation a trial.

Part of Preston's plea deal, he pled guilty to a series of charges and in exchange, agreed to testify against Liam.

He was crucial because he was there.

When Liam went on trial in twenty nineteen. It was the county's first attempt to convict someone of murder without a victim's body since nineteen seventy five, and to prove their case, prosecutors relied heavily on that testimony, pressed it was going to give against Liam.

Said that he killed Sarah and ultimatetal me he needed me to go over to Sarah's house to no Sarah's body.

That's Preston Taylor. He testified that Liam Mcatazzne believed Sarah had upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, an amount he said somebody would kill for.

It started off as plan instead Fergizer house or to Robert.

Personally, and.

Over time the conversations progressed to to killing her.

Now Liam's defense attorney was listening to this, but they were about to take a different route, and suggested that Sarah Stearn was still alive.

She wanted to go to California with Canada.

If any word for.

Here, Lilliam's defense was nobody found a body. Sarah was not murdered.

In addition, Liam's lawyer tried to suppress the recorded conversation between Liam and Anthony Curry, where he confessed to the murder, but he was unsuccessful. Then he pivoted and explained to the jury that the tape was nothing more than a movie audition.

It was fantasy that it was an audition.

Leah mcpatney made it up for Anthony Curry, the horror film director.

What well, I think Anthony Curry gave me.

The answers to what may this is like a movie?

If you remember, Anthony Curry kept repeating, man, this is like a movie throughout that talk with Liam, and Liam's attorney said Liam had simply made up the story about strangling a friend to impress Anthony, and that Anthony had pointed the finger at Liam in an attempt to further his career.

The heart film got who says, by the way they're recording.

You should move out to la with me, and you should be Leonard of DiCaprio to my market Scorsedes.

So imagine your jur hearing this tape of Liam for the first time. What do you think he was acting?

I pretty much hung her like I just I picked her up and had her just like dangling off the ground, and she just pissed herself and it just did my name and then that was it. I thought I was going to be able to choke her out and have her out in like a couple of minutes.

Journalist Tom Davis was in the courtroom throughout the trial and struggled to make sense of what he heard.

For somebody to almost walk into a car and right after hello, just basically start talking about what he did and how he murdered her, and then you do just almost like wondered, if is he still acting here?

What was he doing here?

He and the others who listened were surprised by how nonchalant Liam sounded.

There was so monotone about it.

I expected, actually somebody to be much more anxious. I expected to be somebody to even show some remorse, because I believe that's how humans react.

So if indeed Liam was auditioning for a role in a movie, then what happened to Sarah Stern? Well? The defense claimed she left town. They even called a witness who claimed he saw her the morning after she went missing.

There was a girl.

Walking down the street, and I said to my son, I said, that is.

An awfully good looking girl to be walking on the street at five.

O'clock in the morning.

This witness testified that he saw someone who looked just like Sarah Stern two and a half half hours after police discovered her abandoned car on the bridge, or about five hours after. Preston Taylor said he helped Liam mcintasmy throw Sarah's body into the river.

I got a good look right in her face, stared right into her eyes away and look kind of you right out, and she turned her head and duck down an alleyway, And well.

I thought she was well dressed.

That's why I said.

It was just so unusual to see.

Somebody well dressed in that.

Early in the morning.

And just before the top of the bridge it was a car broken down on the side.

Of the road.

It was the same bridge where Sarah Stearn's car was found. But there was a problem. According to the police, Sarah's car had already been towed away by then.

His testimony didn't seem the jive with the timeline and everything.

It just felt like that there was this nola that Liam was going to get out of this.

And then Liam and his defense caught a huge break.

One of the jurors that actually.

Posted something on Facebook that was a bit of a wise ass thing to say about the trial.

The judge learned that jur Number thirteen posted a comment to Facebook in response to an article about the trial. She wrote, quote sitting on the jury laughing my ass off. Well, the judge was furious and stopped the trial.

And actually there was some fear of the time, you know, that maybe the sexual whole thing could be retried or something even declared miss trial.

And that's exactly what Liam's attorney asked the judge to do, call a miss trial, something Sarah's father, Michael Stern, could not fathom.

Father was very upset about it, and he was talking about how he just didn't want to have to go through this again.

Jur Number thirteen explained to the judge that she couldn't have posted the comment to Facebook because it happened while the court was still in session. She blamed her fifteen year old sister, who she said, logged into her account and posted the comment. The judge then stopped the trial while he decided how to proceed.

So it was really everything was really kind of inn a limbo, you know.

Leah Mcatazzney's murder trial came to a screeching halt when one of the jurors allegedly posted about the case to Facebook. After considering a mistrial, the judge opted to simply dismiss the jur and then allowed the trial.

To go on.

It was a fairly long trial. Sometimes it felt daunting and exhausting hearing these horrible details of what had happened to Sarah.

Journalist Alex Napoliello was in the courtroom.

On one side of the room, you had Liam's family, and on the other side of the room you had Sarah's family. And this is a family that knew each other, and all of a sudden, they're on opposite ends of each other, and there's a lot of animosity towards you each other. So there was a lot of tension in the courtroom.

That tension only intensified after prosecutors played that tape confession of Liam mcintasney.

To see Liam mctasney talk about what he did to his friend in such detail and to talk about it so casually, I had never seen anything like that as a reporter covering crime for many years.

But the defense called the tape nothing more than an audition by Liam mcintasney.

You could hear a pin drop in that courtroom while that tape was playing.

In fact, that was the only time the jury heard from Liam because he did not take the witness stand. Instead, his lawyer told the jurors that without a body, there's reason to believe that Sarah Stern was still alive.

That in and of itself is enough to create the reasonable doubt that quits my mind.

But prosecutors fought back and said Liam Mcatazsney was not an act He was a murderer.

This is not a movie, it's not a story. This defendant didn't frame himself for mert, he committed Merton.

The fact that her body wasn't recovered is not reasonable that Sarah Stern is dead.

The case went to the jury and very quickly they asked to see the video of Liam Mcatasney confessing to Anthony Curry. Meanwhile, Liam's mother went on ABC's twenty twenty to defend her son. In every bone in my body, I did not belave Liam is capable of killing Sarah Stern, who he loved and adored.

I do not believe Liam is capable of killing anybody.

Liam's mother also addressed the fact that Sarah Stern has never been found. He says seriously affected our entire family, and poor Mike Stern doesn't know where his daughter is. I mean, everybody is affected by this.

This is a horrible, horrible, horrible situation.

Liam's mother may have thought her son was innocent, but ultimately it would come down to what the jury thought. And with no body and Sarah's mysterious behavior leading up to her abandoned car being found, it was anyone's guess. And then after just one day of deliberations, the jury returned with a verdict.

How do you find a count.

One of the indictment as toward than the defendant Liam mcintasne committed the crime of murder by purposely or knowingly causing the death of Sarah's Starn, or purposely of knowingly causing serious quantity injury to Sarah Starm which resulted in the death guilty.

They found Liam Mcatazsne guilty of six felonies, including first degree murder. Leah Mcatazsney was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Journalist Alex And was in the courtroom.

I remember almost falling off my chair. Her two closest friends, one being her junior prom date, are charged with her death. I mean, I was speechless.

Leam Mcatasne was also speechless. He didn't react to his conviction and continued to stare straight ahead, while Sarah's father lowered his head and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I can't imagine what Michael has gone through over these years. I mean from the moment his daughter was reported missing till Liam was convicted. That was years, and just my heart goes out to him that he had to suffer because of this.

At a press conference after the trial, Michael Stern unloaded on Sarah's former best friend.

Makes me sick, absolutely sick that somebody would do something like that, and you heard the test money that it was all a setup. He was never Sayerah's friend, and apparently you know, his evil thoughts and his motives are just beyond anything, any realm of anything that I could imagine being so evil.

There were no reports that Liam and Sarah were at odds with each other, that there was any stripe between them. They were close and they remained close up until the day she disappeared.

And he was grateful the case was blown open thanks to nineteen year old Anthony curry.

On behalf of our family to the Curry family. I really appreciate what they did. It took a lot of courage for him to come forward. I know it was hard for him, but he knew he had to do it.

Anthony Curry was a game changer for this investigation. Without Anthony Curry, police don't have the investigation and the case that they had.

Anthony Curry graduated from aspiring movie producer to actual movie producer. His first film premiered in twenty twenty two. The movie was about the violent street kids he grew up with and was in the works years before Sarah Stern's murder. With Leah Mcatasney and Preston Taylor in prison, the community tried to move forward, but it hasn't been easy.

It's a tragedy.

What happened to Michael Stone's family should happen to no one.

Edward Kirshenbaum worked with the Neptune City Police Department.

True justice would be having his daughter back. That would be true justice, but that'll never happen. Sarah's still not coming home, so that's that's a sad part of this all scenario.

In twenty thirteen, Michael Stern lost his wife to cancer, and three years later, he lost his only child to murder by her friend, Liam mcintasne.

How do you wrap your mind around so so called friends, child of friends, that they're the ones responsible for the murder of your daughter. How do you I don't know if you ever wrap your.

Head around that.

Michael is a unique nanny carries us with them every single minute, hour, day, week, month and year. It's just something that never goes away.

Despite countless searches, Sarah Stearn's body has still never turned up. It's something that continues to keep her father up at night.

I don't sleep very well. I have nightmares, which is a horrible thing, waking up at two o'clock in the morning and thinking that Sarah's still alive and she's calling for me. I just can't get over that. It becomes harder as every day and month goes by, and every year goes by, doesn't get any easier. I can't. I just can't get over the loss of my beautiful daughter.

The only thing that comforts Michael is the scholarship fund he set up in Sarah's name at her high school and the college she attended.

So we want to keep Sarah's name out there as an artist. Now. My mission for Sarah is to promote the arts fine arts media for other students who wish to pursue that career, seeing it blossom, and Sarah, I'd like to see it blossom with other people that may be able to use the scholarship to continue their careers. I love my daughter, I miss her, and I just hope she's a piece somewhere in heaven.

Preston Taylor, who was Sarah's date to the Junior prom was also charged in connection with Sarah's death. As part of his plea deal with investigators, Preston was eighteen years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in twenty thirty two, when he is thirty five years old. Meanwhile, Preston's roommate Liam Mcatasne continues to maintain his innocence.

There's such a big part of this case that I feel like is unsolved.

Journalist Tom Davis remains completely baffled by Liam's motive.

Why would anybody ever go through that effort and to kill somebody for what period to be about seven thousand dollars, and in the fact that the person's not even a stranger as a friend of theirs, they're best friends, you know, that they were like their own little clique. You would think that maybe something would have stopped him before he even got to the house, that maybe something inside him would have actually some sort of moral compass would have just stopped this.

You know, in cases like this, we always want more answers in the hope they'll help us understand why these things happen. But we'll never know.

We need to actually go back at this and actually find out what happened there, what drove them, what was there something that happened to them when they were smaller, when they were kids, when they were teenagers. I mean, we saw this happen with Timothy mccvey when he bombed Oklahoma City. It was another thing where there was a history there where we didn't actually fully expect it to

We need that moment, you know, to find out what happened.

You know, next time on American homicide, when a married man leaves his wife or another woman and then vanishes, police have to figure out if it's infidelity or something much darker, I'm slung Glass, That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team bye emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American