Speaker 1: Seven weeks of searching for a missing New Jersey teenager
Speaker 1: turned up nothing.
Speaker 2: Sarah was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: Nineteen year old Sarah Stern was last seen emptying out
Speaker 1: her bank account.
Speaker 3: She took out seven thousand dollars. What would a nineteen
Speaker 3: year old be doing with this money?
Speaker 1: No one knew what to believe, especially when one of
Speaker 1: her former high school classmates came forward with an unimaginable story.
Speaker 4: I did something really dumb when I planned it out
Speaker 4: for half a year.
Speaker 5: It was a chilling account with no remorse, no emotion.
Speaker 4: Beat, throw off the bridge, and the body never showed up.
Speaker 1: Today, we're in Neptune City, New Jersey, for the conclusion
Speaker 1: of BFFs the Sarah Stern Story. My name is Sloane
Speaker 1: Glass and this is American Homicide. A warning that this
Speaker 1: episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1: Neptune is the Roman god of the sea. It's where
Speaker 1: Neptune City, New Jersey, got its name.
Speaker 2: Nephton City is a small town about five thousand people.
Speaker 1: Michael Stern lived there with his family.
Speaker 2: It's just a stone's throw from Asbury Park and Belmar,
Speaker 2: which is about halfway between Atlantic City, New Jersey and
Speaker 2: New York City.
Speaker 1: Neptune City is a short distance from the one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty miles of ocean front property in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: They're just beach after beach and small towns that were
Speaker 2: set up hundreds of years ago, and they each have
Speaker 2: their own little unique personalities.
Speaker 1: The area is a place popular with tourists during the
Speaker 1: warmer months.
Speaker 2: Basically all the short towns kind of share the same
Speaker 2: common theme, which is the beach and some of the
Speaker 2: nightlife and restaurants and John bon Jovi used to hang
Speaker 2: around the beaches here.
Speaker 1: Michael raised his daughter Sarah Neptune City.
Speaker 2: She loved the beach and she loved being down by
Speaker 2: the beach.
Speaker 1: Yes, being outdoors, especially in the summer, was something Sarah
Speaker 1: loved about the area.
Speaker 2: We had a swimming pool and a trampoline in the backyard,
Speaker 2: so it was always a magnet for the kids to
Speaker 2: come over and just hang out, and they would be
Speaker 2: there from the morning until night. The kids liked their
Speaker 2: the older kids, younger kids so and she got along
Speaker 2: with everybody.
Speaker 1: As Sarah grew up, she got involved in photography and
Speaker 1: the arts, but she also had no problem getting her
Speaker 1: hands dirty.
Speaker 2: I'm in construction and sometimes I would just need an
Speaker 2: extra hand for a short period of time, and she
Speaker 2: would always be there. She liked to get her work
Speaker 2: boots on and her jeans and a flannel shirt and
Speaker 2: come out with me and you know, work a little
Speaker 2: get a little dirty, and so that was kind of
Speaker 2: a fun thing with her too.
Speaker 1: According to Michael, the two were on one another, especially
Speaker 1: after Sarah's mother passed away from cancer.
Speaker 2: She struggled at times. It's a tough, very tough thing
Speaker 2: to deal with that, you know, just one day they're gone.
Speaker 1: And in early December twenty sixteen, Michael was the one struggling.
Speaker 1: After Sarah mysteriously disappeared.
Speaker 2: They found Sarah's car up on the bridge.
Speaker 1: At the time, there were different theories as to what happened.
Speaker 1: One was Sarah was in a very bad place mentally
Speaker 1: and took her own life. The other was she quietly
Speaker 1: left town to start a new life.
Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time looking everywhere, especially around
Speaker 2: the Marina area and all through the inlets every day,
Speaker 2: hoping that something would turn up and we'd find a
Speaker 2: piece of something that belonged to Sarah, or God forbid,
Speaker 2: that her body would show up, but we just we
Speaker 2: didn't know.
Speaker 1: Now, keep in mind these searches were happening right away
Speaker 1: round Christmas in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Holidays came and went, and we still didn't have any answers,
Speaker 2: and it was it was a tough time for everybody.
Speaker 1: Then the investigation took a turn. In January twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Anthony Curry, a friend of Sarah's from high school, met
Speaker 1: with detectives. He agreed to let them wire his car
Speaker 1: for audio and video and secretly recorded a chilling story
Speaker 1: from one of Sarah's very best friends and confidants, Leah Mcatassney.
Speaker 4: I pretty much hung her. I just I picked her
Speaker 4: up and had her just like dangling off the ground,
Speaker 4: and she just pitched herself. And then that was it.
Speaker 1: You just heard Liam, Sarah's friend since the first grade,
Speaker 1: talking about how he strangled and then threw Sarah's dead
Speaker 1: body into Shark River.
Speaker 4: That's not even the worst part. The worst part it
Speaker 4: is I thought I was walking out fifty grand, one
Speaker 4: hundred grand in my pocket. She only had angrit.
Speaker 1: Edward Kershenbaum worked for the Neptune City PD.
Speaker 5: Liam mcintazzie was the mastermind of this entire crime.
Speaker 1: Police were tipped off by Liam's friend, Anthony Curry. Anthony
Speaker 1: was an aspiring movie producer who dreamed of making horror films.
Speaker 1: A few weeks earlier, Liam shared his idea for a
Speaker 1: movie with Anthony, and it had chilling details that mirrored
Speaker 1: what police thought might have happened to Sarah Stern.
Speaker 5: He was one of the only few people that knew
Speaker 5: what happened to Sarah and wanted to talk to law
Speaker 5: enforcement to let them know exactly what he knew.
Speaker 1: In their secretly recorded conversation, Liam admitted to purposefully feeding
Speaker 1: false leads to detectives.
Speaker 4: Like that was the whole part of my plant, would
Speaker 4: make me look not guilty.
Speaker 5: He tried to portray himself as a concerned friend and
Speaker 5: continue to try to paint a picture of deception that
Speaker 5: it was more or less a suicide or a poor
Speaker 5: relationship with her father that led her to possibly jump
Speaker 5: off the bridge that night, all along hiding the fact
Speaker 5: that he was one that was responsible for her murder.
Speaker 1: And in these recordings, Liam said he didn't act alone.
Speaker 1: He recruited his roommate Preston Taylor to help dispose of
Speaker 1: Sarah's body.
Speaker 5: Preston Taylor was involved early on in the planning of
Speaker 5: what was going to happen to Sarah Stern.
Speaker 1: And get this, Preston didn't just know Sarah. He was
Speaker 1: actually her date to the junior prom.
Speaker 5: Preston Taylor was the one person that could have saved
Speaker 5: Sarah Stern's life, but he chose not to be chose
Speaker 5: to follow Liam mcintazzie.
Speaker 1: So if this is actually true, and this is a
Speaker 1: real confession, then it's just really hard to wrap my
Speaker 1: head around what these so called friends of Sarah's were thinking.
Speaker 5: That's what's so baffling. There's no indication of any type
Speaker 5: of problem other than pure greed and evil.
Speaker 1: Sarah had inherited money from her mother for months. Liam
Speaker 1: had his eyes on this money. The afternoon she withdrew
Speaker 1: fund from her bank, Liam went into action.
Speaker 5: Liam mctasti called Preston Taylor when they were at the bank.
Speaker 5: Liam mctas told press Taylor that this was the day
Speaker 5: it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: On February first, twenty seventeen, detectives pulled Preston in for questioning,
Speaker 1: we know.
Speaker 3: What happened to Sarah, we know what your involvement and
Speaker 3: it was right.
Speaker 2: We want to know why it happened.
Speaker 3: We want to know why Liam did what he did.
Speaker 6: I got home justice.
Speaker 1: I know it's really hard to hear Preston in this
Speaker 1: interrogation audio, but let me tell you, Preston full it
Speaker 1: like a chair, like within a minute.
Speaker 5: He participated, not the actual murder, but the steps taken
Speaker 5: to cover up the murder.
Speaker 1: Preston said Liam believed Sarah had upwards of one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and killed her for that money, a portion
Speaker 1: of which Preston was supposed to get for helping to
Speaker 1: move Sarah's body.
Speaker 5: Preston Taylor goes over, takes Sarah's body and puts it
Speaker 5: over by a hedgerow, covers it with leaves. Once Liam
Speaker 5: mcintoze gets off the work, they pulled down the street
Speaker 5: behind Sarah's yard. They take Sarah, they throw her over
Speaker 5: the fence. They put her in the past your seat
Speaker 5: of her car.
Speaker 1: See. I keep going back to this idea that this
Speaker 1: is their friend and they're treating her body like it's
Speaker 1: a thing. They buckled Sarah into the passenger seat of
Speaker 1: her car, and then Liam drove sitting next to the
Speaker 1: dead body while Preston followed in another car.
Speaker 5: The immactas he would study Sarah the way she would
Speaker 5: back out of her driveway in her car, so his
Speaker 5: plan was to pull out the same way after he
Speaker 5: murders her.
Speaker 1: A neighbor surveillance camera caught the car pulling out, but
Speaker 1: it was too dark for detectives to see anyone in
Speaker 1: the grainy footage, so they didn't know who was driving. However,
Speaker 1: the time stamp matched up with Preston's story.
Speaker 5: She was thrown into the Shark River on an outgoing tide,
Speaker 5: and they then left and continued on with their lives.
Speaker 1: Preston cooperated with detectives and led them on a play
Speaker 1: by play reenactment of the crime, including where he and
Speaker 1: Liam buried two safes filled with nearly ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: In It was just a pure active betrayal. Nobody saw
Speaker 5: a coming. Liam mcintazzie wasn't on the police department's radar at.
Speaker 1: All, yet here they were Sarah's one time prom date,
Speaker 1: along with her best friend who she met in Sunday School.
Speaker 1: Both arrested for her murder.
Speaker 5: Preston Taylor was charged with desecration of human remains and
Speaker 5: hindering apprehension, and Liam was charged with murder, felony, murder, robbery,
Speaker 5: hindering apprehension, a secretion of human remains.
Speaker 1: The emotional roller coaster was about to take another dive
Speaker 1: as detectives had to share the news with Sarah's father, Michael.
Speaker 5: How do you tell a father who has hoped his
Speaker 5: daughter's going to come home that she's not coming home,
Speaker 5: that she has been murdered and in fact murdered by
Speaker 5: her friends.
Speaker 1: Whenever you have a missing person's case, there is always
Speaker 1: hope that the person you're searching for will come home.
Speaker 1: That hope extends from the family, to the reporters covering
Speaker 1: the story, and law enforcement trying to find them. When
Speaker 1: that hope extinguishes, there is nothing harder.
Speaker 2: I sat down at the kitchen table and he told me,
Speaker 2: and I just, I don't know. I was just a
Speaker 2: kind of shock after that. I just I just remember
Speaker 2: staring at the table and in disbelief that you know,
Speaker 2: they knew what happened. They had the confession. Worst day
Speaker 2: of my life. It hurts. She was such a good person.
Speaker 2: Just finding out that whatever friends killed her, It's this
Speaker 2: horrible thing.
Speaker 1: After the arrest of Leah Mcatasney and Preston Taylor for
Speaker 1: the murder of their longtime friend, Sarah Stern. Law enforcement
Speaker 1: held a press conference.
Speaker 7: Our efforts to recover Sayarah's remains do continue.
Speaker 1: That's right. Even with the two behind bars, the police
Speaker 1: continued to search for Sarah's body.
Speaker 7: We're not going to give up that search, and that's
Speaker 7: one of the most important things we hope we can
Speaker 7: do is bring some closure by recovering Sarah. For mister
Speaker 7: Stern and knows it loved her still.
Speaker 1: Sarah's Bonnie never turned up, which wasn't good for prosecutor's arguments.
Speaker 5: The lack of a body is always a hurdle with
Speaker 5: any type of homicide investigation.
Speaker 1: Edward Kershembam worked for the Neptune City Police Department and
Speaker 1: he knew without a body it would be tough to
Speaker 1: secure convictions.
Speaker 5: So prosecuted officer felt it necessary to offer a deal
Speaker 5: with President Taylor for his cooperation a trial.
Speaker 1: Part of Preston's plea deal, he pled guilty to a
Speaker 1: series of charges and in exchange, agreed to testify against Liam.
Speaker 5: He was crucial because he was there.
Speaker 1: When Liam went on trial in twenty nineteen. It was
Speaker 1: the county's first attempt to convict someone of murder without
Speaker 1: a victim's body since nineteen seventy five, and to prove
Speaker 1: their case, prosecutors relied heavily on that testimony, pressed it
Speaker 1: was going to give against Liam.
Speaker 3: Said that he killed Sarah and ultimatetal me he needed
Speaker 3: me to go over to Sarah's house to no Sarah's body.
Speaker 1: That's Preston Taylor. He testified that Liam Mcatazzne believed Sarah
Speaker 1: had upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, an amount he
Speaker 1: said somebody would kill for.
Speaker 2: It started off as plan instead Fergizer house or to Robert.
Speaker 6: Personally, and.
Speaker 3: Over time the conversations progressed to to killing her.
Speaker 1: Now Liam's defense attorney was listening to this, but they
Speaker 1: were about to take a different route, and suggested that
Speaker 1: Sarah Stearn was still alive.
Speaker 8: She wanted to go to California with Canada.
Speaker 7: If any word for.
Speaker 5: Here, Lilliam's defense was nobody found a body. Sarah was
Speaker 5: not murdered.
Speaker 1: In addition, Liam's lawyer tried to suppress the recorded conversation
Speaker 1: between Liam and Anthony Curry, where he confessed to the murder,
Speaker 1: but he was unsuccessful. Then he pivoted and explained to
Speaker 1: the jury that the tape was nothing more than a
Speaker 1: movie audition.
Speaker 9: It was fantasy that it was an audition.
Speaker 2: Leah mcpatney made it up for Anthony Curry, the horror
Speaker 2: film director.
Speaker 9: What well, I think Anthony Curry gave me.
Speaker 8: The answers to what may this is like a movie?
Speaker 1: If you remember, Anthony Curry kept repeating, man, this is
Speaker 1: like a movie throughout that talk with Liam, and Liam's
Speaker 1: attorney said Liam had simply made up the story about
Speaker 1: strangling a friend to impress Anthony, and that Anthony had
Speaker 1: pointed the finger at Liam in an attempt to further
Speaker 1: his career.
Speaker 5: The heart film got who says, by the way they're recording.
Speaker 2: You should move out to la with me, and you
Speaker 2: should be Leonard of DiCaprio to my market Scorsedes.
Speaker 1: So imagine your jur hearing this tape of Liam for
Speaker 1: the first time. What do you think he was acting?
Speaker 4: I pretty much hung her like I just I picked
Speaker 4: her up and had her just like dangling off the ground,
Speaker 4: and she just pissed herself and it just did my
Speaker 4: name and then that was it. I thought I was
Speaker 4: going to be able to choke her out and have
Speaker 4: her out in like a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: Journalist Tom Davis was in the courtroom throughout the trial
Speaker 1: and struggled to make sense of what he heard.
Speaker 10: For somebody to almost walk into a car and right
Speaker 10: after hello, just basically start talking about what he did
Speaker 10: and how he murdered her, and then you do just
Speaker 10: almost like wondered, if is he still acting here?
Speaker 6: What was he doing here?
Speaker 1: He and the others who listened were surprised by how
Speaker 1: nonchalant Liam sounded.
Speaker 6: There was so monotone about it.
Speaker 10: I expected, actually somebody to be much more anxious. I
Speaker 10: expected to be somebody to even show some remorse, because
Speaker 10: I believe that's how humans react.
Speaker 1: So if indeed Liam was auditioning for a role in
Speaker 1: a movie, then what happened to Sarah Stern? Well? The
Speaker 1: defense claimed she left town. They even called a witness
Speaker 1: who claimed he saw her the morning after she went missing.
Speaker 2: There was a girl.
Speaker 5: Walking down the street, and I said to my son,
Speaker 5: I said, that is.
Speaker 7: An awfully good looking girl to be walking on the
Speaker 7: street at five.
Speaker 9: O'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: This witness testified that he saw someone who looked just
Speaker 1: like Sarah Stern two and a half half hours after
Speaker 1: police discovered her abandoned car on the bridge, or about
Speaker 1: five hours after. Preston Taylor said he helped Liam mcintasmy
Speaker 1: throw Sarah's body into the river.
Speaker 2: I got a good look right in her face, stared
Speaker 2: right into her eyes away and look kind of you
Speaker 2: right out, and she turned her head and duck down
Speaker 2: an alleyway, And well.
Speaker 6: I thought she was well dressed.
Speaker 5: That's why I said.
Speaker 2: It was just so unusual to see.
Speaker 6: Somebody well dressed in that.
Speaker 2: Early in the morning.
Speaker 7: And just before the top of the bridge it was
Speaker 7: a car broken down on the side.
Speaker 2: Of the road.
Speaker 1: It was the same bridge where Sarah Stearn's car was found.
Speaker 1: But there was a problem. According to the police, Sarah's
Speaker 1: car had already been towed away by then.
Speaker 10: His testimony didn't seem the jive with the timeline and everything.
Speaker 6: It just felt like that there was this nola that
Speaker 6: Liam was going to get out of this.
Speaker 1: And then Liam and his defense caught a huge break.
Speaker 6: One of the jurors that actually.
Speaker 10: Posted something on Facebook that was a bit of a
Speaker 10: wise ass thing to say about the trial.
Speaker 1: The judge learned that jur Number thirteen posted a comment
Speaker 1: to Facebook in response to an article about the trial.
Speaker 1: She wrote, quote sitting on the jury laughing my ass off. Well,
Speaker 1: the judge was furious and stopped the trial.
Speaker 10: And actually there was some fear of the time, you know,
Speaker 10: that maybe the sexual whole thing could be retried or
Speaker 10: something even declared miss trial.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Liam's attorney asked the judge to do,
Speaker 1: call a miss trial, something Sarah's father, Michael Stern, could
Speaker 1: not fathom.
Speaker 10: Father was very upset about it, and he was talking
Speaker 10: about how he just didn't want to have to go
Speaker 10: through this again.
Speaker 1: Jur Number thirteen explained to the judge that she couldn't
Speaker 1: have posted the comment to Facebook because it happened while
Speaker 1: the court was still in session. She blamed her fifteen
Speaker 1: year old sister, who she said, logged into her account
Speaker 1: and posted the comment. The judge then stopped the trial
Speaker 1: while he decided how to proceed.
Speaker 6: So it was really everything was really kind of inn
Speaker 6: a limbo, you know.
Speaker 1: Leah Mcatazzney's murder trial came to a screeching halt when
Speaker 1: one of the jurors allegedly posted about the case to Facebook.
Speaker 1: After considering a mistrial, the judge opted to simply dismiss
Speaker 1: the jur and then allowed the trial.
Speaker 2: To go on.
Speaker 3: It was a fairly long trial. Sometimes it felt daunting
Speaker 3: and exhausting hearing these horrible details of what had happened
Speaker 3: to Sarah.
Speaker 1: Journalist Alex Napoliello was in the courtroom.
Speaker 3: On one side of the room, you had Liam's family,
Speaker 3: and on the other side of the room you had
Speaker 3: Sarah's family. And this is a family that knew each other,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, they're on opposite ends of
Speaker 3: each other, and there's a lot of animosity towards you
Speaker 3: each other. So there was a lot of tension in
Speaker 3: the courtroom.
Speaker 1: That tension only intensified after prosecutors played that tape confession
Speaker 1: of Liam mcintasney.
Speaker 3: To see Liam mctasney talk about what he did to
Speaker 3: his friend in such detail and to talk about it
Speaker 3: so casually, I had never seen anything like that as
Speaker 3: a reporter covering crime for many years.
Speaker 1: But the defense called the tape nothing more than an
Speaker 1: audition by Liam mcintasney.
Speaker 3: You could hear a pin drop in that courtroom while
Speaker 3: that tape was playing.
Speaker 1: In fact, that was the only time the jury heard
Speaker 1: from Liam because he did not take the witness stand. Instead,
Speaker 1: his lawyer told the jurors that without a body, there's
Speaker 1: reason to believe that Sarah Stern was still alive.
Speaker 7: That in and of itself is enough to create the
Speaker 7: reasonable doubt that quits my mind.
Speaker 1: But prosecutors fought back and said Liam Mcatazsney was not
Speaker 1: an act He was a murderer.
Speaker 9: This is not a movie, it's not a story. This
Speaker 9: defendant didn't frame himself for mert, he committed Merton.
Speaker 2: The fact that her body wasn't recovered is not reasonable
Speaker 2: that Sarah Stern is dead.
Speaker 1: The case went to the jury and very quickly they
Speaker 1: asked to see the video of Liam Mcatasney confessing to
Speaker 1: Anthony Curry. Meanwhile, Liam's mother went on ABC's twenty twenty
Speaker 1: to defend her son. In every bone in my body,
Speaker 1: I did not belave Liam is capable of killing Sarah Stern,
Speaker 1: who he loved and adored.
Speaker 5: I do not believe Liam is capable of killing anybody.
Speaker 1: Liam's mother also addressed the fact that Sarah Stern has
Speaker 1: never been found. He says seriously affected our entire family,
Speaker 1: and poor Mike Stern doesn't know where his daughter is.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody is affected by this.
Speaker 6: This is a horrible, horrible, horrible situation.
Speaker 1: Liam's mother may have thought her son was innocent, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it would come down to what the jury thought.
Speaker 1: And with no body and Sarah's mysterious behavior leading up
Speaker 1: to her abandoned car being found, it was anyone's guess.
Speaker 1: And then after just one day of deliberations, the jury
Speaker 1: returned with a verdict.
Speaker 3: How do you find a count.
Speaker 8: One of the indictment as toward than the defendant Liam
Speaker 8: mcintasne committed the crime of murder by purposely or knowingly
Speaker 8: causing the death of Sarah's Starn, or purposely of knowingly
Speaker 8: causing serious quantity injury to Sarah Starm which resulted in
Speaker 8: the death guilty.
Speaker 1: They found Liam Mcatazsne guilty of six felonies, including first
Speaker 1: degree murder. Leah Mcatazsney was sentenced to life in prison
Speaker 1: without parole. Journalist Alex And was in the courtroom.
Speaker 3: I remember almost falling off my chair. Her two closest friends,
Speaker 3: one being her junior prom date, are charged with her death.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was speechless.
Speaker 1: Leam Mcatasne was also speechless. He didn't react to his
Speaker 1: conviction and continued to stare straight ahead, while Sarah's father
Speaker 1: lowered his head and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine what Michael has gone through over these years.
Speaker 3: I mean from the moment his daughter was reported missing
Speaker 3: till Liam was convicted. That was years, and just my
Speaker 3: heart goes out to him that he had to suffer
Speaker 3: because of this.
Speaker 1: At a press conference after the trial, Michael Stern unloaded
Speaker 1: on Sarah's former best friend.
Speaker 2: Makes me sick, absolutely sick that somebody would do something
Speaker 2: like that, and you heard the test money that it
Speaker 2: was all a setup. He was never Sayerah's friend, and
Speaker 2: apparently you know, his evil thoughts and his motives are
Speaker 2: just beyond anything, any realm of anything that I could
Speaker 2: imagine being so evil.
Speaker 3: There were no reports that Liam and Sarah were at
Speaker 3: odds with each other, that there was any stripe between them.
Speaker 3: They were close and they remained close up until the
Speaker 3: day she disappeared.
Speaker 1: And he was grateful the case was blown open thanks
Speaker 1: to nineteen year old Anthony curry.
Speaker 2: On behalf of our family to the Curry family. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate what they did. It took a lot of
Speaker 2: courage for him to come forward. I know it was
Speaker 2: hard for him, but he knew he had to do it.
Speaker 3: Anthony Curry was a game changer for this investigation. Without
Speaker 3: Anthony Curry, police don't have the investigation and the case
Speaker 3: that they had.
Speaker 1: Anthony Curry graduated from aspiring movie producer to actual movie producer.
Speaker 1: His first film premiered in twenty twenty two. The movie
Speaker 1: was about the violent street kids he grew up with
Speaker 1: and was in the works years before Sarah Stern's murder.
Speaker 1: With Leah Mcatasney and Preston Taylor in prison, the community
Speaker 1: tried to move forward, but it hasn't been easy.
Speaker 6: It's a tragedy.
Speaker 5: What happened to Michael Stone's family should happen to no one.
Speaker 1: Edward Kirshenbaum worked with the Neptune City Police Department.
Speaker 5: True justice would be having his daughter back. That would
Speaker 5: be true justice, but that'll never happen. Sarah's still not
Speaker 5: coming home, so that's that's a sad part of this
Speaker 5: all scenario.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Michael Stern lost his wife to cancer,
Speaker 1: and three years later, he lost his only child to
Speaker 1: murder by her friend, Liam mcintasne.
Speaker 5: How do you wrap your mind around so so called friends,
Speaker 5: child of friends, that they're the ones responsible for the
Speaker 5: murder of your daughter. How do you I don't know
Speaker 5: if you ever wrap your.
Speaker 6: Head around that.
Speaker 5: Michael is a unique nanny carries us with them every
Speaker 5: single minute, hour, day, week, month and year. It's just
Speaker 5: something that never goes away.
Speaker 1: Despite countless searches, Sarah Stearn's body has still never turned up.
Speaker 1: It's something that continues to keep her father up at night.
Speaker 2: I don't sleep very well. I have nightmares, which is
Speaker 2: a horrible thing, waking up at two o'clock in the
Speaker 2: morning and thinking that Sarah's still alive and she's calling
Speaker 2: for me. I just can't get over that. It becomes
Speaker 2: harder as every day and month goes by, and every
Speaker 2: year goes by, doesn't get any easier. I can't. I
Speaker 2: just can't get over the loss of my beautiful daughter.
Speaker 1: The only thing that comforts Michael is the scholarship fund
Speaker 1: he set up in Sarah's name at her high school
Speaker 1: and the college she attended.
Speaker 2: So we want to keep Sarah's name out there as
Speaker 2: an artist. Now. My mission for Sarah is to promote
Speaker 2: the arts fine arts media for other students who wish
Speaker 2: to pursue that career, seeing it blossom, and Sarah, I'd
Speaker 2: like to see it blossom with other people that may
Speaker 2: be able to use the scholarship to continue their careers.
Speaker 2: I love my daughter, I miss her, and I just
Speaker 2: hope she's a piece somewhere in heaven.
Speaker 1: Preston Taylor, who was Sarah's date to the Junior prom
Speaker 1: was also charged in connection with Sarah's death. As part
Speaker 1: of his plea deal with investigators, Preston was eighteen years
Speaker 1: in prison. He will be eligible for parole in twenty
Speaker 1: thirty two, when he is thirty five years old. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Preston's roommate Liam Mcatasne continues to maintain his innocence.
Speaker 10: There's such a big part of this case that I
Speaker 10: feel like is unsolved.
Speaker 1: Journalist Tom Davis remains completely baffled by Liam's motive.
Speaker 10: Why would anybody ever go through that effort and to
Speaker 10: kill somebody for what period to be about seven thousand dollars,
Speaker 10: and in the fact that the person's not even a
Speaker 10: stranger as a friend of theirs, they're best friends, you know,
Speaker 10: that they were like their own little clique. You would
Speaker 10: think that maybe something would have stopped him before he
Speaker 10: even got to the house, that maybe something inside him
Speaker 10: would have actually some sort of moral compass would have
Speaker 10: just stopped this.
Speaker 1: You know, in cases like this, we always want more
Speaker 1: answers in the hope they'll help us understand why these
Speaker 1: things happen. But we'll never know.
Speaker 10: We need to actually go back at this and actually
Speaker 10: find out what happened there, what drove them, what was
Speaker 10: there something that happened to them when they were smaller,
Speaker 10: when they were kids, when they were teenagers. I mean,
Speaker 10: we saw this happen with Timothy mccvey when he bombed
Speaker 10: Oklahoma City. It was another thing where there was a
Speaker 10: history there where we didn't actually fully expect it to
Speaker 10: be what it was. When he eventually got to jail
Speaker 10: and he got the prison, he then eventually gave up
Speaker 10: what his motives were.
Speaker 6: We need that moment, you know, to find out what happened.
Speaker 1: You know, next time on American homicide, when a married
Speaker 1: man leaves his wife or another woman and then vanishes,
Speaker 1: police have to figure out if it's infidelity or something
Speaker 1: much darker, I'm slung Glass, That's next time on American Homicide.
Speaker 1: You can contact the American Homicide team bye emailing us
Speaker 1: at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American
Speaker 1: Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted
Speaker 1: and written by me Sloane Glass and is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also written
Speaker 1: and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by Ben
Speaker 1: Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Speaker 1: Our Ihearty is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing
Speaker 1: and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Dave Seya, and Britt Robashow.
Speaker 1: Additional editing support from Nico Ruka Tanner Robbins and Patrick Walsh.
Speaker 1: American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Bains of
Speaker 1: Neiser Music Library, provided by My Music. Follow American Homicide
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