A New Jersey jury convicted a man guilty on all counts Tuesday for the murder of a former high school classmate and the subsequent dumping of her body from a bridge.
In 2016, a Neptune City jury found that 21-year-old Liam McAtasney strangled 19-year-old Sarah Stern in her house and dumped her body in the Shark River near Belmar.
McAtasney was found guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery, second-degree conspiracy, second-degree disturbing or desecrating human remains third-degree obstructing apprehension, and fourth-degree tampering with physical evidence. There will be no parole for the rest of his life.
“The most important thing is to get justice for Sarah,” her father, Michael Stern, said through tears during a press conference. “She was a great kid, and it never should have ended like this.”
He recounted how he sat through the trial and saw McAtasney show absolutely no emotion-
“To think that somebody that pretended to be her friend did that to her without any remorse was painful, sad and beyond anything I’ve experienced before in my life,” he said. “It was sickening.”
The defense said there was no hard proof of the allegations against McAtasney, and McAtasney himself told the judge last week that he would not testify in his own defense.
A horrifying and horrific confession, reportedly taped by one of McAtasney’s acquaintances, was played for the jury.
An amateur videographer named Anthony Curry contacted police around a month after the murder, in January 2017. According to his testimony, McAtasney approached him the year before Thanksgiving with his plot to murder Stern and steal the inheritance she had received from her mother.
After Curry reported Stern missing to the police, they instructed him to meet with McAtasney in person. McAtasney allegedly acknowledged to choking Stern for half an hour, stealing her safe, and tossing her body down the bridge in graphic detail on a hidden camera recording set up in Curry’s car.
Following his guilty plea, Taylor testified against McAtasney.
McAtasney claimed in his confession that Stern had a seizure and passed away after half an hour. Too upsetting for print, most of the information. Stern’s father sat in the courtroom, surrounded by family members who comforted him as he shook and sobbed as the video confession was aired.
The prosecution claims that McAtasney murdered Stern for the $8,000 she had in her possession. Assistant Prosecutor Meghan Doyle had earlier told the jury that he mistook a smaller sum of money for a $100,000 payout.
Stern was last seen on the evening of December 2, 2016, at her residence. Her unlocked car was discovered some hours later on the Route 35 Bridge across the Shark River Inlet with the keys still inside. No one has ever located her remains.
Taylor, who had previously dated Stern to prom and was now McAtasney’s roommate, is suspected by authorities of helping McAtasney dispose of the body. He claimed that McAtasney had told him that they planned to get Stern intoxicated in order to steal the inheritance left to her by her mother, who had passed away when they were all in high school.
