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Sarah Stern, a 19-year-old from Neptune City, New Jersey, is the subject of one of the most startling betrayal cases on Dateline. The entire community was shocked by the young woman's disappearance because, although it was first assumed that Sarah had gone off on her own, the truth was darker and more bitter.
Sarah was a creative, upbeat young woman with a promising future in the arts. She was more than just a missing person. Sarah was studying TV production at Brookdale Community College after graduating from high school.
Investigators initially thought she might have committed suicide when her car was discovered abandoned on the Route 35 bridge in Belmar, with the keys still in the ignition. However, there was no body, no note and soon there were too many questions.
Sarah's family kept searching for her, and her father even claimed that she couldn't sleep since the day his daughter was nowhere to be found. Michael Stern shared:
"Since the day my daughter went missing, I’ve had horrific dreams and nightmares."
The father continued:
I’ve been unable to get meaningful sleep since Sarah went missing. Many days I can’t function at all."
In a short time, the case changed from a suspected suicide to something more than anyone realized. Each week that passed without word on Sarah, the suspicion only grew. What was uncovered afterwards was even more horrifying: Sarah did not go missing voluntarily; she was murdered in cold blood by someone she trusted.
The case has also been featured in Dateline's "The Betrayal of Sarah Stern," and it is one of the most disturbing examples of how jealousy, greed and deceit can take innocent life. It's a horrifying tale of a young and ambitious woman meeting her untimely death.
Keep reading to explore the case in detail.
A trusted friend turned killer: Dateline uncovers what really happened to Sarah Stern
The Dateline episode revealed that Sarah had known Liam McAtasney for years, and he had a well-thought-out plan behind her disappearance. After learning that Sarah had received a small inheritance after her mother's death, McAtasney, the longtime friend, spent months plotting her murder.
He decided to kill her because he thought she had access to roughly $10,000. McAtasney finally implemented his strategy on December 2, 2016. In her own house, he strangled Sarah for almost half an hour while her dog looked on helplessly.
He then asked another close friend, Preston Taylor, who was Sarah's prom date, to assist him in getting rid of her body. They put her in a car that same evening and threw her body into the icy Shark River off the Route 35 bridge.
Police, divers, and volunteers searched the area extensively, but Sarah's body was never found. This made the case especially challenging to prosecute. However, the pieces came together in the end because of a recorded confession that McAtasney made to another friend, Anthony Curry.
Per the phone call recording, the killer told Curry:
"I picked her up, and had her just, like, dangling off the ground, and she just said my name and then that was it."
McAtasney detailed every aspect of the murder in the terrifying video, including how he planned the robbery, timed her death, and showed no remorse. The killer gave a chilling confession (Per Oxygen True Crime):
"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 half an hour after I hit start on the timer."
What is even more heartbreaking is that Sarah never really got the chance to use the money left by her deceased mother. The Dateline episode explains how cleverly Liam McAtasney manipulated Sarah into taking some money out, only to steal it from her and then end her life.
The trials and conviction of the culprits behind Sarah Stern's murder explored in Dateline
Early in 2017, Preston Taylor and Liam McAtasney were both taken into custody. In the end, Taylor reached an agreement with the prosecution and consented to testify against McAtasney, acknowledging that he assisted in the removal and disposal of Sarah's body and the concealment of her possessions.
Given that Sarah's remains were never located, this was essential to the prosecution's case. In February 2019, McAtasney's trial got underway. Jurors heard testimony from witnesses and watched the covert confession tape over several days, which showed how long McAtasney had been plotting the crime.
He was ultimately convicted of a number of offenses, including conspiracy, robbery, first-degree murder, and desecration of human remains. The Dateline episode explained that the killer received a life sentence without the chance of release.
As for Taylor, he received an 18-year sentence and will be eligible for parole after serving the majority of his term. While justice was served, Sarah's family was devastated by the case.
Michael Stern, her father, frequently talked about how deeply hurt he was that he would never be able to bury his daughter properly. The loss of Sarah's body left a wound that might never completely heal.
Even now, Sarah Stern's story, which also got covered on Dateline, serves as a devastating reminder that sometimes the people closest to us have the worst motives. A young life was taken, not by a stranger, but by someone who grinned in her face while secretly plotting her murder.
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