All language subtitles for Fatal.Fraud.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-CODSWALLOP_track3_[eng]

(Narrator)
Every fraud begins with a promise.

They had planned this
and plotted it and practised it

to how they were going to do it
and what they were going to do,

what they were going to say.

(Officer) Entrance need clear!

(Narrator) A quick fortune,
easy money, or a life torn apart.

When he saw Sarah and he heard
that she had received

this large inheritance,
he thought,

here's the solution
to all of my problems.

(Narrator)
But behind these illusions

lie calculated deceptions,
carefully hidden in plain sight.

Every word that came out
of his mouth

was to make the police
look somewhere else besides him.

From that point on,
we watched, and we were like,

lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

(Narrator) Sometimes these
criminals are backed into a corner

and feel their only way out
is to kill.

But for the inheritance, she would
probably not be the target

of this financial crime.

(Meghan Doyle) The 24 years that
I was a prosecutor, I have never,

ever experienced something
that was so cold-hearted

and made for a TV movie.

It was almost unbelievable.

(dramatic music)

(soft music)

(Narrator) In December 2016,
a promising young art student,

Sarah Stern,
went missing in the leafy burrow

of Neptune City, New Jersey.

(Michael Stern) I'm Michael Stern,
father of Sarah Stern.

I've lived in Neptune City
all my life.

It's a tight-knit community.

The population is just about
5,000, maybe a little bit less.

And everybody
kind of knows everybody.

The housing,
everything is close together.

(Narrator) Sarah Lee Stern arrived
in this world on March 24, 1997.

She was a much-wanted baby.

(Michael) We were very happy,
very proud parents.

Sarah was just special.

It was just the unconditional
love for another person.

And to me, it was just
kind of spectacular.

I mean, I loved
every minute of it.

She used to draw when
she was in grade school.

But it wasn't until
she got into high school

where she was doing art,
photography, and media

that she just, all of a sudden...

I would describe it
as a flower that was kind of...

the bud was just on the vine,

and then all of a sudden,
one day the sun came out,

and this bud opened up.

And it was Sarah being artistic.

And I can't tell you
how proud I was of her talent

and what she could do.

(suspenseful music)

(Narrator) On December 2, 2016,

while Michael Stern was away
on vacation,

Sarah's grandmother
had become concerned that

she couldn't get ahold of her.

And I'd talked to her
the day before,

and everything
was in good spirits.

Her grandmom talked
to Sarah every day,

and on that Friday, unfortunately,

she couldn't get
in touch with her.

So she sent me a message.

And I said, well, it's early.

I said, she may be...
she may be out, or...

I tried texting her
from 10:00 at night

until midnight and had...

wasn't getting any word from her.

Everything was going to voicemail.

And we just didn't know
what was going on.

(Dispatcher)
911. Where is the emergency?

(Caller) Actually,
I'm on the Belmar Bridge,

heading south in the middle
of the bridge.

There's a car that's abandoned.

(Dispatcher) The Belmar Bridge
being the 35 Bridge?

(Caller)
Yeah, the 35 Bridge.

(Meghan)
My name is Meghan Doyle.

I have been a lawyer for 25 years.

I was a Monmouth County prosecutor
for 24 of those years.

There was a call at night
that a car

was abandoned
on the Belmar Bridge,

and it appeared that
it was a possible suicide.

(Officer)
190, can you see if we have

any contact info for the owner?

(Narrator) The car was registered
to Sarah's grandmother,

who told them it was only used
by Sarah.

(siren wailing)

Police dispatched a unit to the
home Sarah shared with her father.

(Officer) Entrance, need clear!

Trying to locate
the registered owner.

There's nobody in the house
so far.

(Michael) And it was
maybe three hours later

I got a call
from the police department

that her car was found on the
bridge, and Sarah was missing.

We just packed up our bags
at 3:00 in the morning,

got in the car, and started
driving back to New Jersey.

It's a 15-hour trip.

In the meantime,
they had already started

search parties
and the water searches.

There were scuba divers in.

And nobody knew
what happened to Sarah.

We couldn't find her.

(Bryanna Fox) They searched
the river up and down,

trying to find a body which,
in the middle of winter,

should have been pretty easy
to identify through broken ice

and, you know, to see her body,
but they didn't.

I'm Dr Bryanna Fox.

I'm a psychological criminologist
at the University of South Florida

and a former FBI special agent.

When police are essentially rating

the missing person's
vulnerability,

they look at things like
age, mental capacity,

financial victimhood.

They look at if they
could be ransomed.

All of that leads to them
to think,

was this person just gone
unexpectedly for a little while,

are they somewhere else,
or are they in serious danger?

(Meghan)
Sarah's grandmother indicated

that the car was given to Sarah,

and Sarah was the only one
who drove it.

So Sarah would be the one
who had left it there.

(Officer) There's nobody
in the house so far.

(Narrator) The search
revealed the family dog

had been locked up in a cage.

But there was no other sign
that anyone was there.

(Meghan) The police
started talking to her friends.

Sarah had a very tight
little group of friends.

But I don't know if
you would say she had

a million friends all the time.

She was into what you
would call, like, Comic-Con

and things like that.

So she travelled a lot
up to Canada, to California,

doing those types of things.

(Michael) She had a lot of
friends, a lot of acquaintances.

And as she went through
grammar school and high school,

she developed a lot of different
friendships from different areas.

(Narrator) Liam McAtasney was
one of Sarah's friend group

from high school.

Michael said he and Sarah
had become closer recently.

(Meghan) Liam grew up in Neptune,
went to school with Sarah.

They had grown up together,
doing all kinds of things

at each other's houses,
knew each other's families.

(Michael)
She was a very warm person,

and if she liked you, she liked
you, and you were a friend.

If she didn't, she just didn't...

didn't have anything
to do with you.

She's just kind of happy-go-lucky,

and you know, she kind of
went along with the flow.

So everything was...
was good with her friends,

and she enjoyed being
around her friends.

(Narrator)
Liam was best friends

with Sarah's prom date,
Preston Taylor.

The three of them had become
very close for the last few months.

(Meghan) They were
typical 19-year-old kids.

Liam worked as a waiter
at a restaurant in Neptune.

And Preston worked with his dad,
I believe doing painting.

I think they were humble kids.

Most 19-year-olds, they're not
driving around in BMWs or Porsches

or anything crazy like that.

They were just trying
to find their way.

Liam was the last person
she was with.

The police went to his house.

He seemed to be
a very concerned friend.

(Officer) You have a second?

Can I come in and talk
to you real quick?

(Liam McAtasney)
Yeah, no problem, boss.

Is Sarah here by chance?
No.

When was the last time
you talked to her?

I was with her today.

(Narrator) As the sun came up, the
whole town was searching for Sarah.

(Meghan)
The next day, when I got to work

at the Monmouth County
Prosecutor's Office,

I was asked to do some
search warrants to start to see

if we could figure out a
paper trail or some type of trail

from a computer or something
as to where she possibly was.

(Narrator)
As with any missing person case,

investigators had to understand
who Sarah was.

Until Sarah's dad returned, their
best witnesses were her friends.

They then go to Liam
being, like, listen,

we don't know where she is...
if she went in the water,

if she left.

Liam said, I was with her all day.

(Officer) What's going on with her?

Like, how's she been
acting lately?

Um.

The same? Different?
No.

Liam, you've known her
since first grade, you said.

Yeah.

Has she been
different than normal lately?

Well...
And for how long?

In the past,
she has had a tendency

to have self-destructive,
suicidal behaviour.

Over the past few months,
she's been telling me...

excuse me...how bad her
relationship with her father is

and how she just needs
to get out of here.

Why was it bad?

What made it bad?
Fighting.

Arguing, fighting?
Arguing, fighting.

At that moment, we know that

she's not where
she's supposed to be.

She's not with Liam,
who she was with all day.

She's not at her house.

And they would be the only
two places she would be.

And she's not with her car.

(Narrator) The working theory
was that Sarah

may have jumped from the bridge.

Her father, Michael,
was still thousands of miles away

and growing increasingly worried.

(Meghan) You can see
the text messages going

from a daddy-daughter, like,
sweet moment,

and then the panic
starts to set in.

"Sarah, is everything OK?"

"Sarah, they found your car."

"Sarah, you're not answering."

And they escalate and escalate,

and the panic is so obvious.

(Narrator) By December 5th,
Michael Stern was still racing back

from a vacation in Disneyland,

unaware of what was happening
at home.

(Meghan) The first few days
of this, we did not have

a lot of contact
with Michael Stern.

It was with Liam
because Michael Stern

was driving back from Florida.

We were beginning to believe that
maybe she had a problem with dad.

(tense music)

(Narrator) While the authorities
waited for Michael to return,

the police, led by
Detective Brian Weisbrot,

continued to talk
to Sarah's closest friends,

including Liam
and his roommate Preston.

(Brian Weisbrot) Hey, Liam.
Thanks for coming in, man.

Yeah, no problem.

Do you have to work,
or you're off?

I'm off.

You're off for now?

I actually have to...

I'm supposed to
have school all day,

but I emailed all my professors,

and they said it's fine
if I don't come in this week.

OK.
Yeah.

Why aren't you going?

This whole thing is
still on, I don't know.

I'm not in the right frame of mind

to be taking finals this week.

Did you go
to school with Sarah as well?

Yeah, they were all
in a friend group.

That was essentially
who I started hanging out with

when I was high school.

Now, is she your age,

or is she older
or younger than you?

She's the same age.
Same age?

You guys were graduating together?

Five police officers
from the state police,

to divers, to us,

to the other detectives
that you met over the weekend

are trying to find Sarah.

And there's a lot
of resources involved here.

Now, remember, this is
supposed to be his best friend.

And Brian says, do you have
any questions for us?

Do you have any questions for us
regarding this investigation?

And Liam says, I only have one.

Yes.

If she...she did
jump off the bridge,

what are the odds that she's
not somewhere all the way out

in the ocean by now?

She would be super far out at sea.

And he does that with his hands.

I was like, that's your question?

You've been talking about
how abusive her father is,

and the only question
you have is that?

So Brian walks out,
and Brian says, he's lying.

Something else is going on.

(Narrator) When Michael Stern
finally arrived back

in Neptune City, he faced questions
about his relationship with Sarah.

(Meghan)
Well, when you met Michael,

he was not any of those things.

He was quiet, but he was
immediately heartbroken.

And he would call the detectives
every day to be, like,

I know my daughter
did not kill herself.

And the pain you would
hear in his voice,

the determination in finding her,
made it very clear that this was

not a man who abused his daughter.

(Bryanna) So when it appeared
that Sarah had

parked her car
at the top of this bridge

and had theoretically
committed suicide,

investigators are
looking into this.

But she had a dog that
she had just done surgery,

$2,000 worth of surgery on,
because she was so hopeful

that her dog was going to survive.

It shows that
she had much to live for.

(Meghan)
Michael Stern said right away,

Sarah never would have
left that dog in the cage.

Something is wrong.

(Michael) Sarah and Buddy...

there she is...
she was quite young there.

Buddy...Buddy lived to be
a little over 12 years old.

And he was pretty cool.

Sarah loved him.

(Meghan) I was, at that time,
assigned to Major Crimes.

So we started treating it
as an investigation

of a possible homicide.

(Narrator) In the town, everyone
was still searching for Sarah.

(Michael) When Sarah
went missing, we arranged,

a week later, a search party.

And that was done
through Sarah's cousin.

We got together.

We started doing...thousands
and thousands of flyers

were distributed
all over the state.

They went nationally.

One of her friends
in the social media,

within three days,
he had 300,000 hits,

you know, to help to find Sarah.

So that's the kind of people
that Sarah knew.

(Narrator) One thing that soon
became clear to prosecutor Meghan

and the police was that there was a
lot talk about Sarah's inheritance.

(Michael)
Well, Sarah's mum, you know,

she had cancer
for a little over five years.

It was bad at first,
and then she was in remission.

And when it came back,
it came back with a vengeance.

And it was only a matter of less
than a year that she passed away.

(Meghan) The family
had another home in Sea Girt,

which is another beach town
in Monmouth County.

Sarah was at that house.

And as she was
walking up the stairs,

there was a wall
that had the sheetrock

or plaster taken off of it,

and you could see the wooden
planks that were behind it.

When she looked,
there were boxes of money

that her mother had been
storing away for her.

She had told very, very
few people about it.

(Narrator) There was a rumour
that Sarah could have inherited

as much as $100,000.

(Bryanna) Sarah, being
the person that she was,

she didn't act like
she had this large inheritance.

She certainly didn't go around
telling people

the amount that she inherited.

So it was sort of word of mouth
through this small community

that Sarah had received
a large sum of money

when her mother had passed away
a few years earlier.

(Michael) Her mum saved money
over the years,

money from her aunts and uncles.

Not too many people
knew about it, including me.

Had I known about it, the money
would have been in the bank.

And I think,
when it was discovered,

someone told Sarah,
don't tell your dad,

because he'll try
to take it from you.

Yeah, that's pretty
far from the truth

because we already established
a life fund for Sarah.

Sarah, when she found the money,
she deposited some of it

into the bank and put most of it
in safe deposit boxes

so it would stay in cash
the way it was.

I think some of it was to hold on
to a little bit of her mother.

Because she had touched it,
her mother had hid it,

it was her mother's...

that that emotional part of it
was important to her.

When she told her friends,

she told three friends
that we know of.

I don't know
if she gave an amount.

She did at point say it was not
hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It was about, I think,
$38,000 and change,

maybe a little more,
maybe a little less.

But it was all cash.

But unfortunately,
this led to some untruths

about the amount of inheritance,
but that was actually unfounded.

(Narrator)
While Sarah was still missing,

Liam became the centre
of the police investigation.

(Michael) Sarah's relationship
with Liam McAtasney

went back years...not only going
to school together, high school,

but also in the community,
they were involved

in the volunteer fire department.

McAtasney was
in the same church as Sarah was.

And they made their
confirmation together.

And that was an important step
in her growing in her religion.

Although she wasn't
a highly religious person,

she did believe in God.

And for some reason,
that led to trust amongst people.

The police did keep going
to talk to him

because he was the last one
with Sarah.

And I believe they all thought
he was lying to us.

We thought that he knew where she
was and just wasn't telling us.

I've been friends with her
since first grade,

so we have a pretty
good friendship.

Liam McAtasney was facing
a lot of financial hardship.

He was making poor life decisions.

So he had a lot of struggles,

and when he saw Sarah
and he heard that she had received

this large inheritance,
he thought,

here's the solution
to all of my problems.

Liam McAtasney had wild dreams
about how this money

was going to come into his life.

And it was going to solve
all his problems...

things he was going to buy

and what he was going to
spend the money on.

(Narrator) The authorities
involved in the search for Sarah

suspected that Liam
and his best friend, Preston,

were not being straight with them.

Sarah's last movements
linked them with her.

(Meghan) Liam and her
ran a bunch of errands.

They went to Taco Bell.

They went to a neighbour's house
to drop off some holiday stuff.

They also went to the bank.

Neptune City, being such
a family-oriented town,

everybody at the bank
knew who Sarah was.

You see her walk into the bank
smiling, waving at people.

You could tell the greeting
was just so warm.

Liam stayed in the car.

When they got home,
she went upstairs

and put that money in a safe.

He had a girlfriend named Carly
who lived across the street,

that they were planning
on going to Canada,

but not in a point
where it sounded like

they were going that morning
or that week.

(Michael) She liked Canada.
She got a little Canada pin.

And I...I can't even tell you
what some of this stuff is.

"Set no path.
Never lose your way."

And then there...
"Don't forget to be awesome."

(Narrator)
Whenever Liam spoke to anyone,

he would talk about
Sarah's plans for Canada

and how she had family problems.

(Bryanna)
And they're interviewing him,

asking if he knew anything
about Sarah's disappearance,

and he proposes several ideas.

These are sort of
face-value theories

that are very easily disproven.

I mean, it shows that he didn't
really think this through.

Somebody who runs away
and goes to Canada doesn't...

have no cell phone usage,

have no financial transactions
whatsoever.

That would be very easy for police
to dispel almost immediately,

and yet he thinks this is
going to quell the police,

and then they'll just say,
oh, great.

(Meghan) His story
pretty much stayed the same.

And it was all a lie.

Every word that came
out of his mouth

was to make the police look
somewhere else besides him,

to look somewhere else
besides it being a murder.

Every single thing
he and Preston did

from that point on, we watched,

and we were like,
lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

(suspenseful music)

(Narrator)
While investigators were convinced

Liam wasn't being
straight with them,

there was no evidence
of wrongdoing.

They needed a break.

So the Thanksgiving before,

Liam had a friend who he spoke to

about a movie idea, Anthony Curry.

And he said, wouldn't it be
a cool murder movie

if somebody was killed,

we threw her
off the Belmar Bridge,

making it look like a suicide,
and then stole all her money?

Anthony didn't think
anything of it.

He didn't really
like the story, I guess.

And that was it.

I'm going to not call it
anything but luck.

Anthony Curry, seeing something
on Facebook about Sarah missing

and that her car was found
on the Belmar Bridge,

he called his father
and said Sarah's not missing.

She was murdered, and Liam did it.

They then called a friend
who was a detective

at the Monmouth County
Prosecutor's Office

who called us and said,

I think this missing girl
is not missing.

I think these kids murdered her.

(Narrator) The police
had long suspected

Liam had been lying to them,
but they couldn't prove anything

till his friend Anthony
agreed to help.

The police were already
interviewing Liam McAtasney

before this additional information
came forward.

So they already had reason
that they were talking to him.

Anthony heard about
this case and thought,

is it really possible
that he was involved?

And so it was Anthony
that went to the police

and told the story to them.

(Narrator) Anthony, an amateur
film-maker, agreed to meet Liam,

with the aim of getting him
to admit what he did

by secretly recording
their conversation.

(Meghan) When Anthony
agreed to wear the wire,

it's the first time in my career

I have ever seen a confession
that was not gotten by police.

It was just a friend talking
to a friend about what he did.

She had one safe,
and she took money out.

And she only had $10,000.

(Narrator)
Unaware he was being filmed,

Liam proceeded
to describe to Anthony

how he had planned to rob Sarah
of her money.

(Meghan)
When you heard his tone,

his tone was no different
than my tone is right now.

The parts of it that would make
the hair on the back of your neck

stand up was how he talked
about how he planned it,

how he would watch what Sarah did.

I pretty much hung her.

Like, I just...

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

(Meghan) At some point,
Liam decided

it was going to be a murder.

And him and Preston
had talked about it.

They had planned this
and plotted it and practised it

to how they were going to do it,
what they were going to do,

what they were going to say,

and how they're going to
lie about things,

and try to make it look like
Sarah committed suicide,

and she had a bad relationship
with me.

And that was the farthest
thing from the truth.

One day, Sarah was with Liam
the entire day.

He convinced her to go
to the bank.

When they were at the bank,
he texted Preston and said,

this is the day
it's going to happen.

And they went back
to Sarah's house.

And according to Liam,
he strangled her.

It took her
about 23 minutes to die

because he timed it on his phone.

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.

(Narrator) The police now
had a confession from Liam

that he had brutally killed Sarah.

However, they needed more proof.

So they questioned
Preston Taylor again.

We know what happened to Sarah.

Ever since she was
reported missing,

the Neptune City
Police Department,

the Belmar Police Department,

and the Monmouth County
Prosecutor's Office

has been working tirelessly
to find out what happened to her.

And we did. OK?

We know what your
involvement in it was.

All right?
We want to talk to you about that.

All right?

What we're most interested
in knowing, not necessarily

what happened,
because we already know that,

we want to know why it happened.

All right?

We want to know why
Liam did what he did.

What did he do?

He killed Sarah.

OK?

And we know you know that.

OK?

You know that, correct?
Yes, sir.

I think that the way Preston
was manipulated by Liam

was out of fear.

And at some point,
Preston realised,

if I don't go along with this,
I could be next.

Not that he ever said that,
that's just my perception,

based on the totality
of all the evidence we had.

Sarah just found a bunch of money.

And that was it.

And then it wasn't until
about a month or two later,

he said that he was
coming up with the idea.

OK, what did he...what did he
tell you he planned on doing?

Taking her out and then find
somewhere to dispose of the body.

OK, when you say taking her out,
what do you mean?

Strangling her.
OK.

Preston Taylor,
he actually participated

in the cover-up of the murder.

So he helped Liam
to dispose of Sarah's body.

This was after she was brutally
murdered, strangled, and very...

almost tortured, psychologically,
if not physically.

(Narrator) Following the
confession, both Liam and Preston

were arrested and charged
with Sarah's murder.

(Meghan) He was charged
in February of 2017

with murder, robbery, conspiracy,
desecration of human remains.

The sentence could be life
to 30 years

if it was determined he killed
Sarah with his own hands.

There's a bunch of stuff
to get, like...

if my office had suggested he
plead guilty to anything but life,

I might have quit.

I don't know if I would
have been able to do it.

That's how terrible
I thought the homicide was

and how manipulative
and horrible he was that

he would go out and do it again.

(Bryanna)
Police knew that Preston Taylor

was involved in this scheme
and the cover-up

of the murder with Liam McAtasney.

But essentially,
they do what they often do,

which is, of the two people
that were involved,

one of them can flip on the other.

And as they say,
there's no loyalty among thieves.

Literally,
that applies to this case

where the same betrayal that
Preston was willing to show

to his good friend Sarah Stern,
he was just as willing

to betray his other friend
Liam McAtasney

and turn on him
to try to save his own skin.

(Narrator) Police then took
Preston back to Sarah's house,

where he told them
the whole story first-hand.

Liam went to grab the safe
from Sarah's bedroom

and then we moved Sarah's body

from where it was hidden
in the bushes,

through the backyard
and over the fence into her car

parked on Midwood Street.

OK.

I was informed
beforehand that the back door

would be left unlocked.

And who told you that?
Liam.

OK.
And I entered.

When I entered,
this door was closed.

This one I couldn't get open,

but I was able
to push this one open,

enter, and Sarah was

slumped in this corner right here.

OK.

How was Sarah's body
positioned in this bathroom?

She was sitting like this,

tucked into the corner

and leaning over the toilet.

The doing and the undoing
of these two men

was all because of betrayal
of an innocent woman

and then each other.

(Officer) Did you help him
put Sarah in the car?

I helped him keep her in while he
got the door closed, yeah.

OK.

(Meghan) They then went
to the Belmar Bridge,

Preston following, waiting
at the foot of the bridge.

Liam drove with Sarah
in the passenger's seat,

like she was sleeping.

(Officer) What was the purpose
of travelling to the bridge?

To dispose of Sarah's body,

throwing it off the bridge
into the marina.

Liam had lifted Sarah's body
by the shoulders

and gotten her partially
up onto the kerb,

where I then grabbed her
by the legs.

Liam had her by the shoulders and
hoisted her up onto the railing.

And then I pushed her feet over
so that she was

going over the rest of the way.

And then they left
Sarah's car and left.

(Narrator)
Neptune City in New Jersey

was shocked by the arrest
of two local teens,

Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor,

for the murder of their friend
Sarah Stern.

(Meghan) I think, for Sarah,
they were genuinely her friends.

I think, for Liam,
he was friends because

he knew she was an easy target
because she was so trusting.

And for Preston, I think he
kind of was along for the ride.

After McAtasney
and Preston Taylor were arrested,

there was a lot of motions filed.

So basically for a year,
it seemed like every month or so,

there was a motion filed.

They had to set dates.

They had to have presentations and
going back and forth to the court.

(Meghan)
Was very obvious that

Preston was controlled by Liam.

Preston needed a place to live.

They lived in Liam's family's
back house.

I think Preston was
afraid not to help him

because I think he realised how
dangerous he could possibly be.

We met with him a number of times.

He definitely had
a lot of guilt about it,

which I...using a phrase
my grandmother used

would be crocodile tears because
you could have stopped it.

And you were either afraid to
or were so greedy

that you really thought
you were going to get $100,000.

(suspenseful music)

(Narrator) One of the major
problems with the investigation

was that Sarah's body
had not been found.

(Meghan) I think
what makes the case unique,

when you look at it initially,

people would say
there was no body.

She was never recovered.

It was determined that
she was dumped into the water,

and based on the waterway there,
its proximity to the ocean

and the tides, they believe that,
within the first 10 hours,

she would have been
out to sea by miles.

But I think what makes it unique,
especially for Monmouth County,

was the fact that this
was a premeditated murder

amongst friends.

It was not something that
was a crime of opportunity.

It was not a drug deal gone bad.

It was not a domestic
violence situation.

This was just a girl
who got targeted, in my opinion,

because Liam wanted to know what
it was like to kill somebody.

(Bryanna) Getting a murder
charge when there's no body

is difficult enough.

But the fact that
they were willing

to move forward with this case

when they didn't even offer
any location of the body

is really something
that's unusual.

For some offenders,
they really relish in the fact

that they keep some information
from authorities.

It allows them to feel like,
I'm better than you.

(Narrator) Liam McAtasney
and Preston Taylor

finally went to court, but they had
very different approaches.

(Meghan) Liam pled not guilty
to murder, robbery,

conspiracy to commit robbery,
desecration of human remains,

and I believe
conspiracy to commit murder.

And Preston pled guilty
to robbery, conspiracy,

and desecration of human remains.

The key pieces of evidence
in getting the conviction

were his statements
to Anthony Curry

and the detectives being able
to find all of the evidence

that corroborated that statement.

That...that was it.

(Narrator)
With Preston pleading guilty,

the prosecution took the decision

to use him to testify
against his friend.

We had a confession.
We had the video.

It was, how do we present it to
a jury where they understand it?

Because when you watch it
and you see it in real life,

like as it was happening,
Liam and Preston both appeared

to be worried about Sarah.

It's not till you know
they were lying

and that it was all premeditated

that you see
how calculated it was.

The only thing we needed to do
was get it in front of a jury

and know the rules
to get all the evidence in.

But they did a phenomenal job,
all of them.

(Narrator) In court,
Preston Taylor took the stand

and gave evidence
against his best friend.

Preston Taylor ultimately
did cooperate with police.

And in addition
to a full confession,

he led police to two safes
that had both the money

they had taken
from Sarah's safe deposit box,

but it also had her clothes in it.

(Meghan) He took those safes...
there were two of them...

took them and buried them
in Sandy Hook.

So I don't know if they ever had
planned to go back to get them.

(Bryanna)
So that conclusively linked

Preston and Liam to Sarah's death.

But I think this was done
not because he felt guilty

or any remorse about the crime.

I think it was just to try to get
a lighter sentence for himself

by turning in his friend.

(Narrator) Once the jury
had heard Preston's story,

Liam's horrifying confession
to Anthony was played in court.

(Meghan) Legally, playing it
in court was very difficult.

It was very difficult
for Anthony to watch.

It was difficult
for the victim's family to hear

because it was so calculated.

And you knew, at that point,
that this had been something

that was planned by a friend
for at least six months

before it happened.

The worst part of it
was going to court

and finally seeing the, uh...

videotape that was recorded by
the Monmouth County detectives

was the most gut-wrenching feeling
I've ever had in my life,

knowing what happened to Sarah.

And...and being described
by the person that

put her hands around her
and choked her to death,

it was just the most devastating...

I can't even explain
how numbing the feeling is...

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

Knowing that's what happened
to your only child

who had so much to live for

and was so into life herself,

and through greed and planning...

it was just a horrible thing
to go through it.

When Liam was
discussing the crime with Anthony,

he was discussing it
in vivid detail.

However, later in court,
he said it was just emphasising

and detailing more
about his movie plot,

and that he was just so into it,

and he was discussing
this film he was making.

So he was trying to convince
the jurors that, in fact,

he was not responsible.

He just so happened to have
this movie script that was

so eerily close to the way
Sarah had died.

(Meghan) It's very hard to
determine what Liam's motive was...

if it was to steal
a shoebox under her bed,

if it was to get more money.

He did take her
to the bank that day,

where she removed about $10,000.

That money was put
in a safe in her room.

It was not something that
was hard for them to take.

If you look at some of
the interviews that were done,

especially the initial interviews
with the police department

in Neptune City
and the detectives,

that his answers were...
were planned out and purposeful

to try to keep the pressure
off of him and any involvement.

In the past,
she has had a tendency

to have self-destructive
suicidal behaviour.

But as things develop
and you look back in retrospect,

there was a lot
of signs and signals

that he should have been
under more scrutiny

and probably should have been
questioned much more intensely...

What are the odds that
she's not somewhere

all the way out in the ocean
by now?

And possibly arrested prior
to the two months

that it took before
they actually arrested him.

(sombre music)

(Narrator) After all the evidence,
the jury considered their verdict

and came back
with a unanimous verdict.

No matter how well
we thought we prepared,

no matter what we thought
the evidence was,

you still never know
what people are going to do.

There's 12 jurors
who have to decide

what's going to happen
in a closed room.

So you don't know
what they're going to do.

So that was a great feeling.

But within seconds
of hearing guilty,

you heard her father
burst into tears.

(Bryanna) Well, this is
every parent's worst nightmare...

to have a child that
was so well raised,

had to deal
with so much difficulty

in their life and overcome it,

have something so tragic
occur to them unnecessarily,

especially by a friend,
someone that she trusted.

(Narrator) Preston was
sentenced to 18 years.

Liam was sentenced
to life without parole.

Both lost appeals.

When it first happened and people
were talking about him

getting life and how great
that is, and he'll never get out,

it's hard not to think, well,
there's a father who's

never going to get
to see his daughter,

a grandmother who passed away
before the verdict came back,

friends who are never going to
get to do the things

they wanted to do,
and a 19-year-old girl

who didn't get
to live out her dreams.

So I feel like,
when you look at it that way,

life in jail is, what is that?

Like, is it gratifying?

Not really.

(Michael) It's hard
to describe the feeling

I had for the people that helped
along the way, the...

both the prosecutors.

But Meghan was...I think, as a
woman and realising what happened

to Sarah and how it happened,
I think she...

she felt emotionally attached.

(Bryanna) But for the inheritance
that Sarah had received

from her mother, she would
probably not be the target

of this financial crime.

People that she trusted,

that she knew in this
small community growing up

ultimately turned against her

and used what they thought
was this big income

they were going to get
and use that

as the motivation to kill Sarah.

(Meghan) When you look at this case
and the huge community outreach

and the searches and Liam's
involvement in the searches,

in talking to news cameras
when these searches would happen,

and cooperating with the police,
saying this is where she is,

this is where she could be,
this is why she left,

it is infuriating because
you see how manipulative

and calculated he was.

(Michael)
Remember, Sarah...you know,

and I keep her in my heart,
but we have plenty of photographs.

And you know, the people
around us, the neighbours,

they understand, and people come
up to me that I don't really know.

And they may see me out
maybe shopping or at a food store.

They just come up to me,
and they know the story.

And we had a celebration of life
for Sarah,

which about 1,200 people attended,
maybe more.

We didn't...we lost count
after a while.

But it went on
for about nine hours, ten hours.

And it was just
a nice celebration.

Sarah Stern was really
an all-American girl.

She was about 19 years old
at the time of her demise.

She was well liked,
very sweet, loving.

She had some struggles
in her life.

Her mother had passed
from a long struggle of cancer.

This was a girl that really
was trying to overcome

all of the defeat that
she had felt in her life,

but she was a all-American story
and somebody

that we all were rooting for.

We did start a scholarship
after we found out

what happened with Sarah.

And we've been doing
an art scholarship,

basically art, media, photography
through Neptune High School.

We've done nine years so far.

The arts are important,
you know, in all parts of life.

And I think to honour Sarah with
the memorial is...is important.

(dramatic music)

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