The Betrayal of Sarah Stern

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Tonight on Dateline.

I heard my mom crying. She said

that they found Sarah's car on the bridge.

Nobody could find her, and her phone was

off. You have to start working

worst-case scenarios. Did she jump off the bridge? I was just short and hysterical.
This was a huge search. Hundreds of people came.
A lot of people. We had state police, we had the sheriff's department, we had divers.
This is things you see on TV, not things that happen to you. I looked at her right in the face, just like I'm looking at you right now.

That girl's alive.

Sarah's whole deal was my thing.

He explained that he had studied her movements.

The plan was to take her money.

A case that would tear a tight-knit town apart.

Evil. Pure evil.

The hurt's never gonna be over.

I'm Lester Holtolt and this is Dateline.

Here's Keith Morrison with The Betrayal of Sarah Stern.

There was something wrong on the bridge. It was 2.45 a.m., December 3, 2016.
An old town on the Jersey Shore called Neptune City. It was bitter cold.
Dark. It was an Uber driver who saw the car just sitting there, halfway across the bridge.
911, where is the emergency? Actually on the Belmar Bridge, right after heading south in the middle of the bridge,

there's a car that's abandoned.

It's off to the side of the road.

So what kind of car is it?

It kind of looks like an old beat-up, light tan-colored, like, sedan.

They set a squad car out for a look.

The cop got close. It was unlocked.
Keys in the ignition. No sign of the driver.
Two, three feet away was a railing, and beyond it a straight drop to the night black current surging out to sea. What happened here? They ran the place, discovered the car was registered to a 96-year-old lifelong local resident named Lillian Stern.
But she hadn't used her car that day. She'd loaned it to her 19-year-old granddaughter.
Her name? Sarah. Sarah Stern.
A thousand miles south at Disney World, her dad Mike was on vacation with his girlfriend, Christine. He was awakened by his phone.
Three o'clock in the morning, and they just asked, does Sarah drive the Oldsmobile? And I said, yeah. Call ended.
Just like that? Yeah. After the call dropped, Mike called back and got a recording at the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.
So, panic beginning to stir, he phoned a nephew who happened to be a Neptune first responder. He called back about 10 minutes later and said, yeah, they found Sarah's car up on the bridge.
She wasn't in it. And then the terror set in.
Mike and Christine jumped in their car and began the 16-hour drive home. I can't imagine what that drive back was like.
There was a lot of crying and just thinking and talking. Well, you don't know.
No. We were getting calls in from the police department asking questions, and, well, I said, I don't know.

While Christine drove, Mike frantically texted.

Sarah, what's going on?

Why is your phone off?

Call me when you get this message.

Things happen faster in a small town than the big city.

The police department, hello?

Anybody home?

Announce yourself, please.

Officers checked the stern home. We got're checking the house.
It was empty, except for Sarah's beloved dog, Buddy, in his crate. Michael called me that night, 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning, to tell me that the car was on the bridge.
My thoughts were not good. Robin Draper, an old friend of the Sternss, lived across the street.
Officers walked over and asked her about Sarah. What mindset was she in today when she drove? Did anybody in your family talk to her this morning? She texted me, she said, can I bring some stuff over for my mother's? I said, sure.
Is she depressed? Is she... I think she's depressed.
Is she not suicidal in any way, do you think? I don't know. Robin told the officers Sarah had come by the house earlier in the day with her friend Liam McItasney.
They'd left a container of Sarah's things with her daughter, Carly. So the officers drove over to Liam's place to see if he could help.
Here, Liam. You got a second? Can I come in and talk to you real quick?

Yeah, no problem, boss.

Is Sarah here by chance?

No.

When was the last time you talked to her?

I was with her today.

What time?

Before I went to work.

Turn some light on if you don't mind.

I mean, we went to get food today.

Liam said he hadn't seen Sarah since late afternoon. As soon as you hear anything, call the Neptune City or Neptune Town.
Just please, if you want to let us know. Thank you.
Mike Stern had notified his extended family, including Sarah's cousins, Lindsay and Lauren Barr. What was it like to hear that for the two of you? Instant panic.
Yeah. Yeah, I tried, um,

I tried calling her phone, sending her texts, didn't answer, which was automatically weird because she was glued to her phone. I left the house in my pajamas, got in my car and raced down to the, where they said they found her car to see if we could find anything, see anything.
Just hours later, they were gathered with most of the family at Mike and Sarah's house. Family was there, his sisters, Sarah's cousins.

There was about 30 to 40 people.

All kind of frantic.

All kind of like, what's going on?

Sarah's friends and family began to imagine all too many things.

Including Robin Draper's daughter, Carly, a lifelong friend of Sarah's.

I heard my mom on the phone crying downstairs, and she said that they found Sarah's car on the bridge. You know the bridge? I went down there after it.
That morning? Did your mind go at all to the idea that she may have jumped off the bridge? It was one of the thoughts in my head. I was like, did she jump off the bridge? I didn't know.
Meanwhile, Sarah's father, on his agonizing drive north, worried that Sarah might have done something terribly, fatally rash. Because you just don't know.
Because the keys were in the car, the car was operational, and Sarah was missing. And it was like two, three feet from that parapet over the water.
So Mike imagined awful things on his 16-hour drive home. But surely, neither his imagination nor any other could stoop so deep as what you're about to see.
A case that started on a bridge with a car and ended inside another. Tell dark possibilities lie in the human heart, primed both for loyalty and betrayal? When we come back, where was Sarah? Maybe there was a simple explanation.
Everyone knew she wanted to move up north.

She said she wants to go to Canada. But if she'd done that,

wouldn't she have told someone? It's a very tightly knit community.

Well, police officers on the Route 35 bridge were trying to make sense of what happened

in the early dark of December 3rd.

Sarah's dad, Mike, and his girlfriend, Christine,

were frantically driving up Highway 95 from Florida,

their minds whirling among dreadful possibilities.

We didn't know what was going on at that point, so it was a kind of a panic. But to the experts in Neptune, the possibilities were limited.
The facts that we had at the time that we could go on was that there was either a possible suicide, that she had jumped off the bridge, or that she just left her car abandoned. That's the facts that we had.
It was hardly surprising that in the little town of Neptune City, the public safety director, Ed Kirschenbaum, knew Sarah. I knew Sarah.
She worked at a popular restaurant in Neptune City with my daughter. You know her well enough to know whether or not she would be a suicide risk or...
You know, all I know of Sarah when I saw her at work, a very nice person. But jumped from a bridge into the Shark River, why would she? She'd been happy on the brink of new possibilities.
And Nuttoon City on the Jersey Shore had always been her safe place. Good place to grow up? Yeah.
Yeah. I'm happy that I grew up here.
Here they say the sand gets in your shoes. People tend to stay.
Families count back generations. Friendships last whole lifetimes.
Everybody knows each other in Neptune. It's a very tightly knit community.
And if you don't know that person, someone you know is going to know that person. And the block where Carly, her brother Sam, and Sarah grew up was even tighter.
A kind of kid heaven. That's Sarah with the dark bangs.
Our age gap between like all the kids was probably like six years at the most. And we'd all just play together after school.
We're the neighborhood gang. We've known Sarah our whole life.
And she was like my older sister. Like we were like sisters.
She's basically family. And like, if I wanted to play catch or something, I could always just ask Sarah.
That Sarah was always there, that she was there at all, was kind of amazing. A gift.
Sarah? She was a miracle child. The only child of Mike Stern and his wife, Carla.
She didn't think she could have children. And finally, Sarah came along.

I mean, I fell in love with this kid.

Robin, Carly and Sam's mom, was there from the beginning.

Carla and I raised our kids together.

It was amazing.

Did they hang out at your place a lot?

They did.

We had a pool, sometimes 10, 12 kids, just splashing around for hours and hours. It was a good time.
Until it wasn't. In 2013, when Sarah was just 15 years old, her mom, Carla, died after a long struggle with cancer.
What was it like when her mother died? Sarah was at our house that night, and all I remember is just Sarah just hearing her sobbing downstairs. I didn't know what to do.
Did you know what had happened? Yeah. Yeah.
Just hard, and it was sad. But Sarah managed.
Instead of turning into her grief, she reached out, got even closer to a grandmother, and her dog Buddy became her constant companion. She loved Buddy so much.
She really did. She grew closer, too, to classmates at Neptune High School.
Her friend Liam, his twin Seamus, Preston Taylor. Preston took her to the junior prom.
Just friends. She also made a different kind of friend.
One you wouldn't necessarily expect. After Carla's death, Mike found Christine and fell in love.
Sarah could see Christine was good for her dad. And maybe her, too.
I know how Sarah felt.

I had gone through the same thing she did.

Yeah.

You know, my mom passed away when I was young,

and it wasn't easy at first.

No.

And maybe that's why Sarah so embraced

what became a genuine passion.

I think making art made her mentally escape from that

and be creative and can create

any kind of happiness she wanted to. There was a whole other world for her.
Yeah. Where Sarah picked up her talent, we still don't know.
Like it was a natural thing for her. It seemed natural.
What she turned out was. It's pretty good stuff.
Yeah, some really, really neat stuff. She just started drawing in any medium.

Beautiful images, magical even.

She started going to conventions to meet online stars and artists. Got to meet YouTube stars like Jenna Marbles.
Thank you so much. There was a VidCon convention up in Toronto and she fell in love with the the city.
And she said, well, she wants to go to Canada. When she was ready, Mike told her.
Yes, but soon, she said. And then it was that Friday, December 2nd, when Sarah dropped by the Draper's house.
I heard her walk inside, and she was, like, calling my mom's name. But I was the only one home.
And she said that she texted my mom and that she was leaving a box here. And my mom said it was OK.
Sarah was talking about her dad, how she had like lost respect for him. Did that seem strange to you? Not really, because I knew that they like, you know, argued.
But I argue with my parents all the time. Yeah.
So it wasn't... So there wasn't anything unusual.
No. As Carly told her, Sarah left that bin, and then she was gone.
Running errands, she said, in her grandmother's old car. The very car that Uber driver spotted after midnight, abandoned halfway across the Route 35 bridge.
And was there anybody inside the vehicle? I looked now. The news spread through the early morning.
First responders descended on the bridge and the Shark River beneath it. There was a depressing logic to the scene that greeted them.
It wouldn't be the first time some desperate soul had taken a final leap. But this was bright, happy Sarah Stern.

So it couldn't be that, could it?

Coming up, the eerie last images of Sarah

just before she disappeared.

Could you tell what her demeanor was?

Did she seem frightened or anything like that?

When Dateline continues. Just hours after Sarah Stern's car was found abandoned on the Route 35 bridge, the rising sun revealed dozens of first responders searching for her,

many braving the frigid waters of the Shark River.

We had called the state police. We had the sheriff's department there.

We had divers enter the water, a vessel with side sonar,

plus an aviation unit from the state police. We got called out at around 5 a.m.
that morning to do a search for someone

who they believed went off the bridge.

We had no idea who it was.

The general conception was that someone had jumped. Fran Hines is an EMS and rescue director.
We were in it a couple of hours and somebody walked up to me and they said, you know who we're looking for, right? And I go, no, who we're looking for? And he said, Sarah Stern, which just put a lump in my throat. Understandable that, because...
Sarah lived two houses away from her, the whole family. Her father, Michael, was a good friend of mine.
And then all I could think about was, you know, how's he going to feel now? While the water search was underway, cops in town were talking to anyone who might know anything. Is that basically what Sarah's following around? They encountered a few of Sarah's friends.
Preston, Sean, and Liam clustered on a porch. We just want to make sure she's okay.
Body cams picked up their questions. Did Sarah just take off? Were her pals covering for her? Nobody's going to get in any trouble here.
Trust me. We just got to make sure that Sarah's all right.
And if you've got any other information, you got to throw it out at us so we can go a little further, you know. Sarah's friend, Liam, confirmed for police what Robin and Carly Draper had said, that Sarah had left a bin of her things in the Draper house, and then he said he and Sarah went to lunch together.
Meanwhile, back at the inlet, the search of the frigid Shark River was turning up nothing. As the winter sun said, it became too cold and dangerous to continue operations, and the search was called off for the day.
I didn't want to go home, you know. I didn't want to drive past Mike's house and not have some kind of closure for him.
But Mike and Christine were still making their way home from Florida. We left on 3.30 in the morning.
We got home at 7 Saturday night. Christine and Mike arrived to a packed house.
We just all started putting ideas and things that could have happened. How was he doing at that point? I think he was in shock.
Yeah. Mike headed for the bridge.
When did you first find here? I didn't know.

Yeah.

All unknown.

By the time we were back, the dive crews and everybody had already left.

So it was night.

It didn't do much at night.

By the next morning, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office was running the missing persons investigation.

Brian Weisbrot was the lead detective. We had spoken with neighbors, friends of Sarah's, family members, family friends.
There's a house across the street from Sarah's house that had a video surveillance camera facing Sarah's home. Did you see anything on those videos? We did.
We were able to see her vehicle leave multiple times throughout the day. From those surveillance videos and their interviews, investigators started piecing together Sarah's day.
She had carried a bin in a box across the street to her neighbor's house. That was Carly and Robin Draper's house.
After that, Sarah and her friend Liam went to lunch at Taco Bell. The restaurant's security cameras had her there at 2.18 p.m.
Later, she stopped by a bank in Bradley Beach. Security cameras indicated that was a little before 3 p.m.
And the branch manager, an old friend of the Stern family, remembered her wavy hello. Did you tell looking at the video what her demeanor was? Did she seem frightened or anything like that?

No, she didn't.

She appeared happy.

She smiled.

She communicated with the staff there who she had known for many years.

But after that friendly wave, Sarah seemed to have dropped off the planet.

The contents of that mysterious bin Sarah left at the Drapers didn't help investigators at all.

It was all just miscellaneous things. There was Halloween decorations.
There were some coins from her grandparents. Like what you'd put in the bottom drawer of a bureau with personal stuff that you don't know what else to do with.
Right. Day after day of searching the Shark River and its shoreline proved fruitless.
The local Crime Stoppers posted a $5,000 reward. We had prepared some flyers seeking information in an effort to locate Sarah's whereabouts.
Volunteers are helping police today search for a beloved missing Neptune City teenager. It all yielded nothing.
So a week after Sarah was last seen, her family organized a search, and hundreds of people showed up.

They walked the beaches and the streets and the parks of Neptune and Belmar and Ocean Grove.

Mike Stern was steady, almost stoic, when he talked to Fios One News.

We're just hoping to search any possible area with more people than just, you know, the local authorities, because we just, you know, it's a big area.

This was a huge search. Hundreds of people came.
A lot of people, yeah. People didn't even know.
Out of town, up north. It was people from, I think, as far out as Pennsylvania.
Many of Sarah's friends joined the search. An old classmate, Sean.
I met her back in high school and it just, it was just shocking. I just hope we could find her.
Her friend, Liam. She's pretty strong, so hopefully we're going to find something today.
The search for 19-year-old Sarah became one of the biggest in the history of the Jersey Shore. But if Sarah ended up in the Shark River, these locals knew the likely, grim outcome.
Once that tide starts ripping out, it moves quickly. Right up the inlet, correct.
The massive search turned up no sign of Sarah, and weeks went by. So, was she swept out to sea? Or, as many around town began to think, she must be alive and well, and unaware people were looking for her.
Maybe she was just living her life somewhere else. Coming up, the secret in Sarah's safety deposit box.
$25,250 cash. $25,000 a kid who had that kind of money.
It's a lot of money. Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast.
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Cancel any time through Apple under profile settings. Detectives working the Sarah Stern missing person case in Neptune City had nothing but theories in December of 2016.
Some suspected she simply walked away from that old car to start a new life. But there was other, more sinister speculation, too.
We still had no clear indication as to what happened to Sarah. So, theories.
Maybe she ran away. Maybe she was the victim of some sort of crime.
And maybe she threw herself off the bridge. But those who knew Sarah best, like Carly and Sam Draper, weren't buying the suicide theory.
She couldn't have jumped off the bridge like that. She asked me to hang out that night.
Their minds kept going back to the last time Carly saw Sarah, the afternoon of December 2nd, just before she vanished, when she'd stopped by their house and dropped off those things. I looked in the box, and it was just, like, coins and different little trinkets.
Sarah explained she was just cleaning house. But Carly could tell Sarah had something else to say.
She seemed really happy when she came over. Like really happy.
Like she'd made a decision happy. Yeah.
A big one. Sarah said she had decided to leave town, leave Neptune behind, strike out for Canada to start her life as an artist.
It wasn't until that day she told me she was going to move there. Like this was some sort of sudden change in her decision making.
I wouldn't call it sudden because she talked about how much she liked Canada before, but she didn't say she was moving that day. She just said she was moving to Canada and that she found money.
Wait, money? What money? From what she told Carly, it appeared Sarah had not only a reason to leave, but the means. I didn't know anything about it until December 2nd, 2016.
That very day. That very day.
That last day. She said that she had found a safe in the house they had in Avon, and she told me not to tell anyone.
Sarah told Carly she'd found thousands of dollars that had been hidden in an old house her dad owned in a neighboring town. A secret.
But of course, Carly had to tell the detectives, and they were very interested. So then what did you do, go talk to the banker? We did.
She had multiple accounts at the bank, including a safety deposit box. And on the day of her disappearance, she had actually accessed that safety deposit box.
Maybe she is planning to take off and run away and take some money with her. Absolutely.
They got a search warrant for Sarah's safety deposit box. At which point we had learned what was actually inside.
Which was what? $25,250 U.S. cash currency.
That was still in there when you got there? Correct. The money was in very poor condition.
The money was very brittle. And when you would handle the bills, a lot of times they would just deteriorate in your hand.
$25,000, a kid who had that kind of money? It's a lot of money. Where did this money come from? Sarah's mother had saved this money for Sarah.
Bit by bit squirreled it away, is it? Perhaps. And that Sarah was at the house looking through some of their belongings and had come across this money.
But all of this, a possible decision about leaving quite soon for Canada, the found money? All of this was news to Mike Stern.

Did you know about that at all? No. But as he thought about it, said Mike, it started to make sense.
That his late wife would have gradually hidden cash away in his other house, which

one day her daughter could inherit. A gift of sorts.
My wife, you know, she was, uh,

she was a saver. She would have stuffed it in some secret spot.
Yeah. Yeah.
I,

I think that's a saver. She would have stuffed it in some secret spot.
Yeah. I wish I had known.
Anyway, he said Sarah must have discovered the money a few months before she vanished. It surprises me that that all happened in secret and she started looking.
Then it became Sarah's secret. Yeah.
But the money was still in the bank. Would she leave without it? After we found that money in her safety deposit box, that told us that she likely did not leave.
Because she wouldn't leave that there. Correct.
We had also located her U.S. passport, her social security card, and U.S.
and Canadian currency inside her bedroom. All those factors put together, Sarah Stern did not leave.
Gold comfort to Sarah's father, because that left something much worse. Mr.
Stern was down at those docks every day, walking the docks, walking the shoreline, just wouldn't give up hope.

You'd see him out there? I did. I did.
What did you think? My heart broke for him. For a father to not know the whereabouts of his daughter, it was devastating.
And Mike Stern had no inkling of the sea change about to occur in the search for his missing daughter. Coming up, a phone call from another state transforms the case.

It shifted from a missing person investigation into a homicide.

When Dateline continues. It was a frigid two months on the Jersey Shore.
Organized searches for Sarah Stern dwindled as the temperature dropped, and gradually the story faded from the news cycle. A 19-year-old aspiring artist who vanished into thin air,

and the authorities were baffled.

Did you get to the point where you thought this was just going nowhere?

We were at a standstill. We were at a dead end.

With no activity on her social media, or her phone, or her bank accounts,

and no credible sighting of any sort,

the chance that Sarah simply ran away seemed vanishingly slim. The one thing that we knew, and that was that she likely didn't leave.
So something bad happened to that girl. As we progressed, we began thinking that that was a possibility, absolutely.
Mike and Christine kept looking for any scrap of a clue, handing out Sarah's photo to captains heading out to sea. Was there a moment when you knew you'd lost her, that she was gone? No, I never wanted to think that.
No, who would, right? Carly was still searching, too, wanting to believe Sarah had just started over in another place. She messaged Sarah every night on Instagram.
I would just say random things like, if you're alive, create a fake Disney account because she loved Disney World and everything Disney. I was like, create a fake Disney account and follow me on it and I'll know you're okay.
You're just desperate to know. Yeah.
What did you get back? Nothing. It had been two months, and then...
Then a young man in Brooklyn, New York, called his dad, back in Neptune City, said he was desperate for some parental advice. His name was Anthony Curry.
He was 19 years old, a high school classmate of Sarah's, who'd moved to New York to fulfill a lifelong ambition to make movies. But that night, he was very troubled.
And when his dad, Eddie, heard why, he called Detective Mike Bonanno. I know the family very well.
I've known Anthony since he was young. And Eddie was concerned that he had some information on this, what may have happened to Sarah.
I was shocked. Detectives met with Anthony and his dad.
The young man told them about a spooky conversation with a mutual friend of his and Sarah's. It took place on Thanksgiving evening, he said, eight days before Sarah vanished.
The friend told Anthony a horrifying tale. About a plan that he had to rob Sarah of her money

and to kill her, strangle her, and throw her over the bridge.

How did Anthony take this?

As a real thing or what?

No, he dismissed it.

He thought it was...

Like this kid was just pitching him a movie idea.

Yeah, he completely dismissed it.

Anthony had been making movies since middle school, quite a few of them horror films. So this wasn't as far-fetched as it sounds.
Anthony drove home to Brooklyn that Thanksgiving night, didn't give his pal's gory movie pitch another thought. Until...
He learned from the social media about what happened to Sarah. And when Anthony Curry saw on social media that, exactly like in his pal's movie pitch, Sarah's car was

on the Route 35 bridge, he got a bad feeling, which turned to alarm when his friend reached out to him a few days later. That message that was sent via Snapchat said, I have the police spoken to you.
And Anthony responded that they had not. It was from that moment that Anthony Curry believed that he may have had something to do with Sarah's disappearance.
All those little clues that didn't fit together. Sarah's last conversation with Carly, the mysterious old cash, Sarah leaving her stuff at the Drapers, were reconsidered in the light of Anthony Curry's story.
Though Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Grimiccioni still had questions about Anthony. Based on the story that he told us, the question arose, how come you didn't do anything about this before Sarah went missing when you heard about it? We have experienced investigators that were on this case that interviewed him, and in doing so, his credibility and veracity is being tested thoroughly.
And he passed the test. The prosecutor and detectives decided Anthony was credible and his story was real.
Without Anthony, we're not sitting here talking to you today. And from that moment, everything was different.
It shifted from a missing person investigation into a homicide.

Except the Major K-Squad really had nothing but suspicions.

And what we had decided was that we were going to ask Anthony

if he'd be willing to essentially work with us.

What did he say?

He agreed.

So the detectives enlisted Anthony in their plan.

He would be their bait in an elaborate and dangerous trap. But what might they capture? Oh my, they had no idea.
That's not even the worst part. Coming up, what they were about to witness would stun these seasoned detectives.

It was chilling. We couldn't believe what we were hearing.

The revelation that would devastate Sarah's dad.

It literally sucked the life out of me. It's unfathomable.
He had been directing and acting in horror movies for years. Now, Anthony Curry must have felt like he was living one.
The approximate time is 6.20 p.m. I placed an electronic recording device on Anthony Curry.
Anthony had been cast as the lead actor in An Elaborate Sting, a dangerous ruse crafted to get a mutual friend of his and Sarah Stearns to implicate himself in her disappearance. The detective scripted a phone call designed to get Anthony's friend talking.
The teenage filmmaker would pretend he needed money to replace a broken camera. If his buddy had gone through with his plan to rob Sarah, he should be flushed.
Police recorded the call. My f***ing camera broke, dog.
What did that happen? I f***ing dropped it on the chute. It f***ing fell into a bucket of blood.
Damn it. Yeah, dude.
I have, like, no f***ing cash to pay for anything. You couldn't, like, spot me some cash from that girl's money, right? Uh, maybe.
The friend wouldn't say much more. He seemed cautious.
I don't really want to talk about it. I'm not here right now.
I know what you mean. But Anthony did get the guy to agree to meet in person.
Maybe he'd open up then.

I'll see you side of it.

Aye.

The location?

This parking area aside the boardwalk in Bradley Beach.

Desolate in the dead of winter.

Investigators wired up Anthony's car.

We do set up the car for audio and video.

Was there a little camera in there? There was a camera in there.

But if their suspect was a killer, what might he do to Anthony if he suspected a trap? So they knew this was dangerous. They tailed Anthony's car.
We had surveillance units on either side. We were monitoring everything live.
It was just before midnight when Anthony drove towards the meet point. You can see his hands on the steering wheel.
So Anthony was listening to his music to relax him and he was game ready. He wasn't playing.
Anthony parked and minutes later their suspect climbed into the car. What's up everybody? How you doing? You want a cigarette? No, I'm good.
I quit that shit. It was Liam McAtasney, Sarah's friend.
The guy who'd spent the day with her a few hours before she vanished. What were you doing? Sitting around.
And what Liam did next horrified the listening detective. He reached over and searched Anthony for a wire.
Dude, you can't blame me for doing this, right? I got to feel you up real quick, all right? You're good. No disrespect.
And he starts patting him down, and we're listening to that in the car. And things became very, very real at that moment.
And then just as suddenly, the tension broke.

Liam stopped searching,

explained the cops had been on his tail.

About what?

About killing Sarah.

Anthony sat back and listened to Liam.

The officers hung on every word.

And not even, that's not even the worst part. It was chilling.

I mean, we looked at each other,

we couldn't believe what we were hearing.

It's a good thing. hung on every word.
And not even, that's not even the worst part. It was chilling.

I mean, we looked at each other,

we couldn't believe what we were hearing.

It nauseated me.

And then the cops heard something else.

Liam wasn't in this alone.

He had an accomplice.

The two of us.

They talked for 20 minutes before Liam slipped out into the night.

It's good talking to you, bro.

Good talking. Take it easy, bro.

The detectives, monitoring the appalling conversation in the car,

had heard what they needed.

They kept Liam under surveillance while warrants were drawn up.

And based on what he'd said to Anthony Curry in that car...

You in here, bud?

They arrested Liam McAtasney.

Liam, who'd seemed so helpful when he told police he'd been with Sarah that last day.

We went to get food today.

Liam, who'd voluntarily gone downtown to tell detectives about his great friend Sarah.

What did she do during the day?

She draws, she watches YouTube videos, she walks her dog.

Liam, who'd joined the search for her, who'd gone on TV to praise her. She's pretty strong, so hopefully we're going to find something today.
Turn around and face the wall. There were different cameras on him this day.
You're being charged with murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, desecration of human remains. The other arrest was every bit as stunning.
I'll be right with you, okay, man? It was Liam's alleged accomplice, 19-year-old Preston Taylor. And if he looks familiar, well, that's because you probably recognize him from Sarah's junior prom photo.
Preston was her date. Who were these young men accused of these horrific crimes? Preston and Liam, how close were they? They were close, friends.
They had known each other for several years. They had just recently moved into a house together.
Investigators had two most unlikely murder suspects. Liam McItasney was a college sophomore studying psychology.
He'd worked with Sarah Summers on the beach, but he'd known her had been her friend since first grade. He had no criminal record.
And Preston Taylor, also a college student, economics and political science, a friend of Sarah's since high school. He worked part-time around his class schedule.
With their suspects in custody, what Ed Kirshenbaum and the detectives had to do now was very, very difficult. It was at that time that myself, Detective Weisbach, Detective Volbert, Detective Mahoney, met with Mike Stern at his house, and we had to inform him that we now had information of what had happened to Sarah.
And there's no easy way to do that. No.
But he listened. This man now sentenced to permanent sorrow as they told him that Sarah, his only child, had died at the hands of two of her friends.

I didn't know what to say.

I just remember just staring at the table

and not knowing what to think.

Mike Stern was heartsick.

These were kids you'd driven around,

you know, they'd carpool.

Carpool, church, fire department,

events, you know, things at the school.

Suddenly they weren't innocent anymore.

It literally sucked the life out of me.

Just in disbelief.

It's unfathomable.

And there was just no indication anywhere, anytime,

that this was lurking in there somewhere.

Nope. That's what kind of hurts the most.

That that evil can be in there.

Evil?

Oh, yes.

And Mike Stern was only beginning to comprehend

the enormity of the change of events

that culminated on that bridge

over the Shark River.

Coming up,

after two arrests,

an entire town reeling.

We were struggling with why.

But the shocks will keep coming, including more from that stomach-turning tape.

It's disgusting. Disgusting.

And an eyewitness who says he saw Sarah after she disappeared.

I caught her eye and she caught my eye.

That girl's alive.

When Dateline continues.

February 2017. The two arrests and the mysterious disappearance of Sarah Stern were big news from the Jersey Shore to New York City.
Stunning developments in the search for a missing 19-year-old

Thank you. The two arrests and the mysterious disappearance of Sarah Stern were big news from the Jersey Shore to New York City.

Stunning developments in the search for a missing 19-year-old girl the charges two teens now face.

Mike Stern was in the county courthouse

when they brought in the teens accused of killing his Sarah.

Both pleaded not guilty to murder and six other charges.

Stern's family being escorted out of the courthouse asking for privacy less than 24 hours after finding out she was dead. Sarah's family and her friends appeared composed in public, but were in a private hell.
They couldn't believe these two could have done this. Neither of them had a criminal record.
Preston Taylor, Sarah's junior prom date, was a quiet 19-year-old. His roommate and co-defendant Liam McItasney was also 19, a tall towhead with an identical twin brother.
He was easily recognizable around town. Lots of Neptune City residents knew him from his job as a waiter at a local steakhouse.
Mike Stern had watched both defendants grow up. You must have thought an awful lot about those boys and what they were like when they were in your house, when they hung around with Sarah.
They had birthday parties and pool parties, and they seemed like they were normal kids. Mike, of course, but also the others who had known Leah most of his young life were having a very hard time.

How to understand.

We were struggling with why.

If he was such a friend all these years,

there has to be something evil about him that we're missing here.

Like, you don't just have no criminal record and go to murder.

Carly and Sam thought they knew Liam and Preston. But did they really? What did you think when those two guys were arrested? I couldn't believe it.
I was mad. I was angry, honestly.
I pulled up to my house, and I went inside, and my dad was just home. I said, is it true? And he said yes, and I couldn't even, for days, I couldn't even look over at Sarah's house.
Did you go to school with Sarah? Yeah, they were all in the same friend group. That was essentially who I started hanging out with when I went to high school.
Remember, detectives had been talking to Preston and Liam since the first days of their missing persons investigation. Even invited them down to the station.
But not as suspects. Nice to meet you.
William had been with Sarah the day she was last seen, and in fact, one of Sarah's cousins had found Liam's phone in Sarah's driveway the morning after she went missing, but it didn't signify much. They were often together, and Liam didn't try to hide it, and he'd been happy to let them search his phone.
So cooperative. But now detectives decided Liam's statements deserved another look.

When did you last see Sarah?

When I was leaving her house.

It was benign.

So you went back and looked at this thing again?

Absolutely.

Began to see it in a different light?

Absolutely.

Hindsight's very powerful.

And in hindsight, detectives thought Liam's words seemed carefully, deviously crafted to support the idea that Sarah had run away. What's your relationship like when we've had? Not good.
When you say not good, what do you mean? I know that there's a lot of fighting all the time. She just needs to get to Canada.
And then there was something Liam asked that they just couldn't get out of their heads now. If she did jump off the bridge, what are the odds that she's not somewhere all the way out in the ocean by now? But even though they saw Liam and Preston in a new light now, building a murder case was complicated by the fact that Sarah's body had simply vanished.
If young Sarah did indeed end up in the Shark River, it looked less likely by the day she would ever be found. And without a body or a funeral, it all felt somehow unfinished to those who loved Sarah, to so many people in Neptune City so profoundly disturbed and betrayed and saddened by her loss.
So, we decided to do a celebration of life. And did they ever.
In the summer of 2017, seven months or so after Sarah vanished, they dressed up the Neptune City Community Center. Two, three main rooms filled from floor to ceiling, wall to wall of all Sarah's art.
I think they said there was over a thousand visitors. It was as if the whole town skipped the beach that brilliant Saturday, set aside the frustrating wait for the trial to begin, at least for one afternoon.
I recall first meeting Sarah in kindergarten. To hear Sarah eulogize.
Because she just loved them so, so much. By her friends and family.
Sarah, I will miss you every day, and I'll always carry you in my heart and teachers she just was of kind and caring like her mother she had a smile and an awesome humor and a quick wit like her father she was just a beautiful combination of both of her parents I've never met someone who marches to the beat of their own drum so beautifully and is willing to pick up people along the way to join her. I was overwhelmed.
It was kind of a tearful moment, very touching. She touched a lot of people.
God bless everybody. God bless Sarah.
Bittersweet, exhausting, but hardly preparation for what was coming when Liam and Preston had their day in court. Coming up, at trial, Preston takes the stand.
Revealing dark details from a night of horror.

That cannot be easy to listen to.

It's kind of like a mistake through your heart.

The irony was lost on no one in Neptune City, a place where people like to say everybody knows everybody. Now, too, they thought they knew.
Liam McItasney and Preston Taylor were being held in county jail, accused of killing their friend Sarah Stern. But what really happened? All rise.
In January 2019, two years after Sarah vanished, Mike Katasny, now 21 years old, went on trial for murder. Monmouth County assistant prosecutors Megan Doyle and Chris Decker felt they had a strong case, but not a perfect one.
We didn't have a body. So for all of the evidence you have, you don't know what a jury is going to do with that.
The prosecutors expected the defense would try to hit that point hard. What if he says during his summation, ladies and gentlemen, they're Sarah Stern, and we just could envision 14 people in the box looking at the door? Well, there's reasonable doubt.
We didn't have a body. We weren't going to have a body.
So it was just something that we had to try to take advantage of. Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Stern will not be walking through those doors into this courtroom at any point, because this defendant murdered her.
The prosecution alleged Liam and Preston threw Sarah's body into the river. Early on, remember, people thought maybe Sarah took her own life.
But no, the prosecution painted a picture of a happy young woman, excited about her future, as did Sarah's dad, Mike. Were you worried about your daughter? No.
Was she depressed? No. Did you think your daughter jumped? No.
Mike's sister, Linda, Sarah's aunt, described a loving relationship between father and daughter. She absolutely loved her.
Were you aware of whether or not her father loved her? He absolutely loved her. So what exactly did happen? The shocking answer came from the unlikeliest imaginable source, Sarah's prom date, Preston Taylor.
Charged in connection with Sarah's murder two years earlier, Preston now took the stand for the prosecution. The state had given him a deal.
They dropped the felony murder charge, and in exchange, Preston pleaded guilty to six other charges and agreed to testify against his good friend, Liam. County Prosecutor Gromiccioni.
Sometimes you've got to get dirty. Sometimes you've got to get in the mud.
And you've got to deal with bad people who played a major role in committing a crime in order to be able to prove that crime against others. Do you know what that cooperation agreement really requires you to do? Complete honesty.
Complete honesty? Is that what you said? Of course. Does that include today? Absolutely.
And now, in exchange for a reduced sentence, he was about to tell the world what he and Liam did to Sarah Stern. Preston delivered his horrifying story in a cool, steady voice.
Did you know her? I did. Were you friends with her? Yeah, we were friends throughout high school.
Okay. It started months before she went missing, he said, after Sarah told Liam about what she found in the family's second home.
It was a shoebox full of money. Did you ask any questions about that money when you first learned about it?

I asked how much it was and I was told that it was in the range of about $100,000. Preston testified that Liam said $100,000 was the kind of money somebody would kill for.
It started off as plans to either burglarize her house or to rob her personally. And over time, the conversations progressed to killing her in order to obtain that money.
The crime, he said, was planned in intricate detail. To avoid using cell phones, Preston and Liam bought walkie-talkies.
Preston testified that two originally planned to kill Sarah in November.

But while Liam was at her house about to murder her,

he learned her money wasn't there.

It was in that safety deposit box at the bank,

the one that detectives later discovered had $25,000 in it.

Did you discuss ways around that problem?

Yeah.

Liam had conversations with Sarah. She had been to Canada several times.
She had been talking about taking trips out there again. Liam saw that as an opportunity to convince her to take the money out of the bank.
And so on December 2nd, with Mike and Christine on vacation in Florida, Sarah did go to the bank to get some of that money.

While she was there, Preston testified he got a message from Liam.

It was with Sarah, but they were at the bank, and this is a chance.

He knew exactly what that meant.

He had somehow convinced her to take the money out of the city, the deposit box, and the plan would move over that.

Okay. Did you say anything back? So do I until I got dark out.
Preston was strangely emotionless on the stand as he described the murder of his friend. It happened late that afternoon, he said.
Liam strangled Sarah. Prosecutors showed this surveillance video of Liam leaving the house with a backpack, which they said contained some of Sarah's money.
And another video of him arriving

at work at that steakhouse not long afterward. But Liam didn't stay long.
A few minutes later,

he left. Preston told the jurors he was waiting for Liam at the house they shared.

Liam comes to the door and he's frantic. He said that he killed Sarah, that he lost his phone, and ultimately told me he needed me to go over to Sarah's house to look for his phone and to move Sarah's life.
Meanwhile, he said, Liam went right back to work as if it was any other day. Well, he, Preston, headed over to Sarah's house, climbed the fence in the backyard, went in the back door.
He looked for Liam's phone, but couldn't find it. Prosecutors played a tape of Preston walking detectives through the murder scene, recounting how he moved Sarah's body.
I opened the door on the right and found Sarah there laying in that passage. What did you do? I picked her up by the shoulders and dragged her out back.
Took her to the bushes along the side fence, pulled her in there and covered her up in some leaves and some sticks. Late that night, Preston told the jury, he and Liam propped up Sarah's body in the passenger seat of her own car, and Liam drove that car to the Route 35 bridge, and Preston followed in another car, and they heaved her body over the railing, and they left her car there with the key in the ignition, and then drove home.
What did you do when you got to Holly Street? Get there, we both light up a cigarette,

and we start down home.

Sarah's money.

The total wasn't $100,000, not $50,000.

No, the haul for ending Sarah's young life

was less than $10,000.

Of course, after they arrested Preston,

the detectives asked what happened to it. Did you tell them where the money was? Yeah, I told them that it was buried.
Preston testified that he and Liam buried the money they stole from Sarah in two small safes, one in the woods in a nearby park, the other 20 miles away, on a long-abandoned Army base. Is there anything in that safe.
It was a chilling tale. Mike and Christine sat in court and heard every word.
That cannot be easy to listen to. No.
It's kind of like driving a stake through your heart. It hurt very deeply.
My daughter, my only child, she was my world. And things were not going to get any easier for Mike, because the defense was about to present an eyewitness with a remarkable claim.
There was a girl walking down the street. That not a word

of Preston's story could have been true. Coming up, did someone see Sarah the day after she

disappeared? I looked at her right in the face, just like I'm looking at you right now.

That girl's a lot. Testimony that could turn the case upside down when Dateline continues.
A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning.
Since our Dateline story aired, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission. I had no other option.
I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends, and investigators on our bonus series, After the Verdict.
Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage. It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going.
To listen to After the verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at DatelinePremium.com. Every morning brings a fresh, new energy.
And no matter what the day holds, we come to The Today Show for all of it. We get the best start to the day because we start it together.
Watch The Today Show weekdays at 7 a.m. on NBC.
Tuesday morning on The Today Show. An incredible concert from the one and only Kelly Clarkson.
The City Concert Series kicks off with superstar Kelly Clarkson bringing her powerhouse voice to our iconic stage, performing her new music and some of your favorites to start your morning.

Catch me live on the closet.

Feel the beat and share the moment.

Kelly Clarkson performs live on the City Concert Series on Today, Tuesday morning on NBC. Preston Taylor and Leah McAtasney were certainly an unlikely pair of murder suspects.
Clean cut, soft spoken, never once in trouble. But now Preston had taken a deal and Liam was on trial for killing one of his very best friends for money.
I developed a relationship with him over the last six or seven months or so. This is Liam's defense attorney, Carlos Diascobo.
Was he terrified going into this trial? Yes. What 20-year-old wouldn't be? Especially scared, said the attorney, because Liam was innocent.
He didn't do the awful thing he'd been accused of. Once all the evidence is in, there will be no other verdict than a not guilty verdict.
Not guilty, the defense argued, because the evidence would show Sarah might have run away from an unhappy home or even taken her own life. To support that, the defense presented a different and disturbing take on Sarah's relationship with her dad.
Far from happy, the defense called it volatile, father and daughter fighting constantly, and the defense suggested it had a profound impact on Sarah. Liam said as much the first time he spoke to police the night Sarah disappeared.
What was her mindset last time you talked to her? I just know she's been trying to get away. You can tell me she's going to Canada.
Trying to get away, okay. Canada, has she been real depressed lately? Her dad is crazy.
On cross-examination, Sarah's aunt Linda, who became Sarah's confidant after her mom died, acknowledged there was some father-daughter friction. How would you describe Sarah's relationship with her father in 2016? I would say it was a little rocky.
She was packing up her things while her father was away to get them ready to go. That's correct.
Because she didn't want her father to know that she was happy. That's correct.
If the defense attorney could convince jurors that Sarah had a secret, urgent plan to get away from her father and move to Canada, then he was on his way to creating reasonable doubt. But how would he deal with the powerful testimony of Preston Taylor? The answer was simple and emphatic.
Preston is a liar. His testimony is untruthful, it's false, it's imagined, it's erroneous, and not credible.
And just how would the defense attorney back up that claim? Preston made it easy for him. You don't always tell the truth, is that correct?

I have them the best.

Hoping for leniency after he was arrested,

Preston told police an elaborate and disturbing story about one of his own relatives.

You made an accusation against somebody

that said that you were sexually assaulted by that person.

Right.

And all those details that you gave, they were all false. They were all lies.
Correct. Correct.
Preston had lied to the police about someone close to him committing a serious crime. For Dias Cobo, it was a gift to attack Preston's credibility.
We're talking about somebody who has admitted to making up stories, making false accusations against innocent people. Defense attorney Diascovo told jurors Preston's story about Liam was a lie too.
A lie that could save him from spending the rest of his life in prison. He figures, point the finger at someone else, let's see if I can turn the attention away from what I did, what I'm responsible for.

Is he responsible for Sarah's death?

He may be.

That's one of the many questions that arise from this case.

More questions than answers.

The defense didn't just challenge the state's witnesses.

Diaz Cobo also presented an eyewitness with an astonishing story. Craig Kevin Hetzel Sr.
And he wanted to tell the jury all about it. On that cold December morning in 2016, Craig Hetzel was doing what he always did.
At 5 a.m. he drove his son to work, same route, same time, every day.
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 5 o'clock in the morning. I remembered the things that she had on.
She had this leather bomber jacket and, like, a fluffy collar, and she had high-he high heel shoes on and I looked at her right in the face just like I'm looking at you right now. I caught her eye and she caught my eye and all of a sudden she turned away, turned her head down.
Hetzel, a construction contractor who'd lived in Neptune for 35 years, kept driving. And then...
We're going over top of the Shark River Bridge on Route 35, and there's a car on the side of the road. And I said, that's a bad place to get stuck.
A few days later, Hetzel said, he was at a 7-Eleven and made a startling connection. He saw a poster for a missing woman.
It was her, the same woman he had seen walking down the street, Sarah Stern. This is the picture that you saw? That's it.
Is this the individual that you saw on December 3rd in the morning at approximately 5 o'clock in the morning? I would have identified that person as that person, yes.

Tetzel told us that seeing Sarah's picture in court during his testimony gave him a chill.

It was eerie.

When they put that picture up, I said, that's it, and I couldn't look at it anymore.

It was her.

He was absolutely certain that who he saw,

sometime a little after 5 o'clock in the morning,

hours and hours and hours after the state alleged Sarah Stern was murdered,

Thank you. that who he saw sometime a little after 5 o'clock in the morning, hours and hours and hours after the state alleged Sarah Stern was murdered, that he saw an individual, and that individual is Sarah Stern.
And he was just as certain that the car on the bridge was Sarah's. It stood out because it was so old and beat up.
But police testified the car was towed off that bridge two hours before Hetzel was there. I saw that car at 5 15 in the morning.
There is no doubt about it. I spoke to my son about it the other day.
He was in the car with me. He said absolutely that car was there.
They said they towed that car away. They did not tow that car.
But they have a record of towing the car. They better go back and check that record and talk to somebody else because that car was there.
I think that girl's alive. That's what I think.
Alive somewhere. Somewhere.
But she hasn't used a credit card, you know? When a person stops using a cell phone, stops using a credit card, stops doing anything that would connect them with this earth, can they be around anywhere? What will we say in a few years down the road

when she turns up?

And you think she will?

I think she will.

That would mean the whole case falls apart?

The whole murder case, yeah.

Diazcobo had poked holes in the prosecution's story,

but for the whole case to fall apart,

he'd have to explain away evidence so disturbing.

It shocked even the most veteran courtroom observers.

I know you're not a rat, but we gotta play it safe.

Coming up, jurors see the harrowing hidden camera video of Liam.

Blood-chilling revelations in his own ice-cold words.

I picked her up and she just said my name and then that was it. Liam McAtasney sat Ramrod straight in the courtroom, still silent, as the detectives and the prosecutors and his own roommate accused him of murdering his friend, Sarah Stern.

Sat there while his attorney heaped scorn on the story told by his friend-turned-prosecution witness, Preston Taylor.

Preston Taylor is making this up. He is lying.

But how would the defense explain him? The prosecution's star witness wasn't Preston Taylor, the flipped accomplice, but Anthony Curry, who was about to premiere the biggest film of his short career. Anthony took the stand, nerves all but bursting through his skin.

Do you want to be here today?

No.

Shifting around in his seat, he told the court about the outrageous story Liam McItasney told him on Thanksgiving night.

He told me he was going to meet up with Sarah.

She found his money, and they were going to count it together.

He was going to choke her, choke her out, bring her to the bridge, throw her off, and make it look like she killed herself. He said it would be a great idea for a movie.
Did you think he was serious at that time? No. But the young filmmaker explained to the jury, when he learned Sarah was missing, he and his dad went to the police.
In his cross-exam, defense attorney Diaz Cobo attacked Anthony Curry's testimony. All Curry's squirming wasn't nerves.
No, he was lying. Your testimony today, sir, is that Liam told you prior to December 2nd that he was planning on taking money from Sarah? Yes.
Was anybody with you and my client when he allegedly told you this? No. So that the only person that would have heard it would have been you, correct? Yes.
You never recorded that conversation, correct, Mr. Curry? No.

He has a motive to lie. He just made national headlines as the horror film maker that's part of this murder case.
But turning on his best friend for the sake of some good publicity from the national media, what kind of sense does that make? Crazier things have happened. But as damning as Anthony Curry's testimony on the stand might sound, it was all only prelude to the prosecution's most devastating witness of all, Liam McAtasney himself.
I planned this thing out for like six months. A hushed courtroom heard the recording of Liam talking to Anthony in the car parked by the beach.

I choke her out, drag her.

The word disturbing doesn't begin to describe it.

So you just counted it out and then behind her just whatever looking?

Mm-hmm.

She like screaming and sh**.

Here in Anthony's car, Liam told the whole sickening story of what he did to Sarah on December 2nd.

They were alone in her house that afternoon when Liam crept up from behind, then grabbed her.

I pretty much hung her.

Like, I just, I picked her up and had her just like dangling off the ground.

And she just said my name and then that was it. And it took me a half an hour to kill her.
I thought I was going to be able to choke her out and have her out in like a couple minutes. That's the only time I had my phone.
And it took me like a half an hour after I hit start. Only time.
You heard that right. Liam used his phone to time how long it took for Sarah to die.
She was helpless. Not even her faithful buddy intervened.
Her dog laid there and watched as I killed her. Didn't do anything.
Her dog. What kind of dog? Yeah, what kind of dog is that? And then the grim aftermath.
Liam told how Preston hid Sarah's body in the yard and how they later went back for it. Then we take her body out of the bushes and drag it over to her back fence, and I crawl, get into her car, and I back up.
There's a security camera across the street. So I had to act like her.
I watched her every time she backed out. She does the same thing.
So I backed out exactly like she did and drove off. Did you put her in the truck? No, I put her in the passenger seat of her own car.
Liam said he drove Sarah's car to the middle of the bridge. Preston would follow to pick up Liam once he pushed Sarah's body off, communicating with those walkie-talkies.
But as carefully as he'd planned, he hadn't factored in one thing. Coming up, Liam's sinister strategy for throwing off police.
That was the whole part of my plan to make me look not guilty.

And then, maybe the darkest moment of all, Liam hinting at an unthinkable motive.

What, are you going to live some foreign-ass life?

When Dateline continues. A hushed courtroom in Monmouth County, New Jersey sat slack-jawed, stunned by the video

prosecutors were playing for the jury. Liam McItasney, unaware he was being recorded,

described in horrific detail exactly how he killed Sarah Stern.

Now he turned to how he disposed of her body.

With Sarah's body belted in the passenger seat

of her grandmother's Polsmobile,

he drove to the crest of the Route 35 bridge

over the Shark River

and encountered a problem.

I underestimated my own strength

and how much a dead body would weigh because... It's a lit weight.
Yeah. I got up on top of the bridge to throw her off, and I go up, open the door, unhook her, pull her out, start dragging her to throw her over, and then cars start coming up.
I see, like, headlights coming. I try to get her over, and I can't.
It was just after midnight, but there was still traffic on the bridge. And Liam was outside Sarah's car, struggling with her body.
He began to panic. And three cars go by.
And I'm f***ing losing my s***, that easily could have been a cop. And then...

I mean, the police station is like right there. Yeah, yeah.
And then Preston comes over the bridge, goes around, makes a U-turn, comes up behind me. The two of us throw the body over, and then we're out.
Oh, so you needed help? I needed help, yeah. As he told Anthony the story,

Liam reveled in his belief that Sarah's body,

dumped off the bridge, was forever lost.

The body never showed up.

It's probably frozen.

It's probably all the way out in the ocean.

Bro, this is like a f***ing movie, bro.

Yeah.

Still don't know where your phone is.

But, just as in many crime movies,

he made critical mistakes.

I f***ing dropped my phone at Sarah's house.

Thank you. Still don't know where your phone is.
But, just as in many crime movies, he made critical mistakes. I f***ing dropped my phone at Sarah's house.
You should have left it in your f***ing pocket. Dude.
What were you doing? Strangling someone. I couldn't find it, dude.
Still, he bragged to his friend about how cunning he was. He not only planned and carried out Sarah's murder, he also cast himself as a helpful witness in the investigation.
I had planned Sarah's situation for me to be interrogated by cops. Like, that was the whole part of my plan to make me look not guilty.
The point of that whole deadly scheme, he said, was about that money he'd taken from Sarah's house. But there was no jackpot payout.
The worst part of it is, I thought I was walking out 50 grand, 100 grand in my pocket. And I didn't, I didn't even get a quarter of it.
So you only got like, what, 70 grand, I think? Somewhere around there. For all his scheming, over six months,

he only got enough money to buy a little fun and some weed.

I didn't get a lot of money, but I had enough money

to just be, like, living comfortably in my house,

throwing parties all the time.

Liam had revealed so much, maybe too much, and suddenly he seemed worried. Could he trust Anthony to keep quiet? I know you're not a rat, but we gotta play it safe.
Or else he seemed to threaten his friend. I don't want Preston to think that he has to kill you and take you out because you are the only person that knows.
Because I've tried to imply that you might know, and he gets really upset. Maybe don't tell him.
Don't tell him. Don't tell him.
Yeah. But you're the only person besides the person that knows.
And then Liam got reflective. He seemed to suggest to Anthony it wasn't all about the money, that he wanted to get something more out of murdering Sarah.
And after, it seemed... disappointed.
I don't feel any different, and I don't think about it. You always think you're going to try these new things and you're going to change.
But it didn't change. It just doesn't do anything.
It's weird. It's a f***ing movie, man.
It's your life. You might as well make it one.
What, are you going to live some foreign-ass life? The story was beyond chilling, the details appalling,

and Liam had delivered it without a hint of remorse.

When it was over, people watching in the crowded courtroom were silent, stunned.

Sarah's cousins, Lauren and Lindsay.

That was the worst thing I ever saw in my whole entire life,

just listening to him, nonchalantly. Like it's no big deal.
It's somebody's life. It was sick.
It was just sick. It took a while for Carly and Sam to process what they'd heard from the boy they knew as Sarah's good friend.
It was disgusting. How can you take someone's life for their money and then not be happy with the money that you killed them for? He also wasn't happy that he didn't feel more, that he felt the same after as he did before.
It really ticked me when he said, sometimes you try new things and expect to feel something.

And he said you didn't feel anything.

But he said to try new things, just killing someone, trying new things.

Sarah's father had kept his steady composure throughout the trial.

But hearing that tape, he broke into quiet sobs.

I was there the day when they played that tape. And I kept thinking, what is this like for that poor man? You hadn't heard that before.
No. I knew some of the content, but had never heard it from his mouth.
I couldn't believe it. Evil, pure evil.
A detailed, cold-blooded confession. All on video.
What might seem like an open and shut case. But surprises were in store before the jury rendered its verdict.
Coming up, the defense calls the tape pure fiction. This is not the first time that Liam makes up crazy stories.

He wants to be in movies.

He's Leonardo DiCaprio to Anthony Curry's Martin Scorsese.

And then the verdict and its emotional fallout.

That hurt. It's never going to be over.
What was there to say after hearing Liam McItasney confess to murdering his friend Sarah? And it took me a half an hour to kill her. A lot, as it turned out.
Liam's attorney took it head-on, said what the jury heard was all made-up fantasy, a kind of audition. Liam pitching a horror movie plot to his filmmaking friend, Anthony.
There was no evidence to support what he said on that tape. As chilling and as horrifying as it is.
So what was he trying to do? I mean, impress his friend or come on.

For what reason?

What did he want out of it?

If you recall Anthony Curry's testimony,

he told you that this is not the first time

that Liam makes up crazy stories,

that he does it all the time.

He did make up things to you when he spoke to you, correct?

Sure.

He does it to impress him. He wants to be in Anthony Curry's world.
He wants to be in his movies. His Leonardo DiCaprio to Anthony Curry's Martin Scorsese.
In his closing argument, Liam's attorney said Preston was making up stories too, all in his effort to cut his plea deal. Blossie said the biggest problem with the prosecution's case was simple.
The defense's eyewitness proved it. Ladies and gentlemen, there's no body.
Why? Craig Hetzel tells you that she was still alive. Prosecutor Chris Decker wasn't having any of it.
We talk about Mr. Hetzel.
You see Sarah wearing heels and a fur collar. That's not Sarah Stern.
No, said the prosecutor Ugg Boots and Timberlands. That was Sarah Stern.
And the eyewitness was wrong about the car, too. That car was not there.
It just wasn't there. He's wrong.
I don't know if he's lying or he's just wrong. I don't know.
It doesn't matter. He did not see her.
After a five-week trial, prosecutor Decker has the last word. Sarah Stern is dead.
This is not a movie. It's not a story.
This defendant didn't frame himself for murder. He committed murder.
There is no doubt that this man killed Sour Starr. He told you.
The jury took its time, asked to see a lot of those tapes again, asked to hear back some of the testimony. And then, finally, word reached the judge, a verdict.
Court reconvened as Liam sat there, motionless, stone-faced as ever. How do you find us to count one of the indictment as to whether the defendant, Liam McIntazzy,

committed the crime of murder

by purposely or knowingly causing the death

of Sarah Stern?

Guilty.

Guilty of murder.

And all six other counts.

For Michael Stern,

who had lost so much, endured so much,

even had to watch

Liam try to tarnish his relationship with Sarah, the daughter he cherished. At least this part was over.
I waited for that. 27 months.
It must be a complicated feeling. None of it makes any sense.
But when it comes to Sarah, it's important that justice be served.

Four months later, justice was served. Liam McItasney faced the judge again, his reality inescapable.
I do think this was a heinous murder. I think it was done in a depraved manner.
He was sentenced to life without parole. Soon after, Preston Taylor was handed 18 years in prison for his role.
Defense attorney John Perrone negotiated the plea agreement. How can he live with the fact that this girl he liked and was a friend of for years, who he took to the prom, for heaven's sake, he could participate? Nobody could live without that fact.
And he can't. He's going to relive his part for the rest of his life.
What was this case all about? When you see the totality of it. I think the money was an excuse and that he just wanted to kill somebody.
To me, what the case was about, first and foremost,

was just the way that he used Sarah.

The consequences of Sarah's death will be with a lot of people for a very long time.

Grief still very raw.

No matter how many times something's, like, funny

or, like, you have a good day, and then...

Sorry.

You come home and just see your house and you just think about it. Losing a close friend when you're young, you don't ever get over that.
And the trial may be over, but the hurt's never going to be over. Sarah Stern's life was taken from her at just 19.
But she lived long enough to know the artistic life she wanted to pursue. How would you like Sarah to be remembered? How will you remember her? As a brilliant artist.
She just loved art and her

art teachers loved her. Yeah.
Are there times, particular times when she comes into your mind?

Every day. Comes to visit you? Every day.

We talk. I say hello.
Make sure she's doing okay. She is.
Her spirit will live forever. Yep.
Beautiful, beautiful kid. Yep.
My Sarah. That's all for this edition of Dateline.

We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central.

And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

I'm Lester Holt.

For all of us at NBC News, good night.