Murder on the Jersey Shore: How a Best Friend's Betrayal Unmasked a Killer | The Case of Sarah Stern | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Ghien and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. I'm telling you a bedtime story. Except, these stories are all real. We're talking Brazen Heist, Devastating Cons, Serial Murders and Cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Ghien every Monday. I don't want him to think that he has to kill you and take you out because you are the only person that knows. I know you're not a rat, but we gotta play it safe. This is Liam McAthasney. Sitting next to him is Anthony Curry, his best friend. On January 31, 2017, the two friends meet up for what appears to be a casual conversation, but in reality, Anthony has been growing suspicious that Liam is hiding the most disturbing secret. Two months before this footage was recorded, 19-year-old Sarah Stern disappeared without a trace. Her car was found abandoned on a bridge and police found no sign of foul play, but Anthony is convinced Liam had something to do with it, and the only way to prove it is to make him talk. With Anthony asking more and more questions, Liam is starting to get suspicious. I come out of the shower. Next thing I know, the entire Belmore police force is at my door taking a press and away. You are the only person on this planet that knows besides pressing, so you're not as a **** at, though. As Liam doesn't know, is that minutes earlier, someone else was in the car. This is Detective Davis that are acts of today's date January 31, 2017. I play to my phone and supporting device on Anthony Curry if we state your name and date of our Anthony Curry 527. If Liam has a gun, the police won't be able to protect Anthony, but he's willing to risk his life to expose the truth about what happened to Sarah Stern so that it never happens again. The problem is, Liam decides to check Anthony for a recording device. Three months earlier, November 24, 2016, 19 year old Anthony Curry is driving from Brooklyn to Neptune City, New Jersey, for Thanksgiving. He left over a year ago to pursue his filmmaking career in New York, but he never misses an opportunity to come back and see his friends and family on holidays. After an almost three hour drive, he notices he received a bunch of text messages from his best friend, fellow film buff Liam McAthasney. Anthony Curry is a aspiring film director and he went to high school with Liam and Sarah. After dinner with his dad, Anthony heads to Liam's place. Back when he lived in Neptune, the two often shared movie ideas and this night is no different. But instead of the usual trope slasher or godfather knockoff, Liam pitches him a grounded crime story about a group of friends betraying one another. Liam's pitch sounds like this. Imagine a group of friends who have known each other since childhood, as they become adults. Everything changes when one of them, the only girl, finds a huge stash of money in an abandoned house, in dire need of cash for one reason or another. One of the girl's friends tries to rob her, but ends up killing her instead. Unsure of what to do, the perpetrator loops in the others and together they get rid of the body by throwing her off a bridge. Nine days later, December 3, 2016, Anthony had already returned to Brooklyn a week earlier, without giving much thought to Liam's strange movie pitch. But back in Neptune, events disturbingly similar to Liam's story are beginning to unfold. Late that night, single-father Michael Stern receives an alarming phone call from the police. The police are asking because, less than an hour earlier, someone had reported seeing a gray old's mobile abandoned on the Belmar Bridge. Earlier that week, Michael left New Jersey for a trip to Florida with his girlfriend, leaving Sarah home in Neptune. His daughter is 19 years old, and fiercely independent. He assumes that, whatever happened, she would have been more than able to take care of herself, but when the police informed him that her keys were left in the car, doubt starts to creep in. Calling every friend and family member he can think of, Michael quickly realizes that no one has been in contact with his daughter in the last six hours. Michael gives the police the go-ahead to investigate his house, as he rushes to get into his car with his girlfriend, a missing girl who disappeared on a bridge. That sounds a lot like the story Liam pitched to Anthony just a week ago, but Miles away in New York he's completely unaware of what's unfolding in Neptune City. Sarah's neighbors said she saw her earlier that day with her friend Liam, moving some of her late mother's things, Carla had passed away from cancer a few years earlier, and the family still hadn't gone through most of what she left behind. Her passing had been particularly difficult for Sarah, who was just a teenager at the time. 19-year-old Liam McAthasney is one of Sarah's closest friends. He's in his second year of college and pursuing a career in law enforcement. Friends describe him as social, funny, and obsessed with movies, especially horror and crime dramas, following the neighbor's directions the police quickly arrive at his mother's doorstep. As this is happening, the police keep in touch with Michael, the news that his daughter had spent the day with her good friend reassures the panicked father. When police arrive at Liam's doorstep, they find the 19-year-old alone, he claims to have no idea what happened to his friend, but he's quick to suggest Sarah was struggling. Sarah here by chance, when was the last time you talked to her? I just know she's been trying to get away, and tell me she's known to Canada, her dad is crazy. This is police body care. McAthasney recorded just hours after 19-year-old Sarah's-sterns car was found sitting empty on the bell-mar bridge. Police never found her body, so first thing tomorrow they'll be searching these waters as a desperate father waits in agony. Within the statements from Liam and the neighbor, the police's leading theory is that there's no foul play involved in Sarah's disappearance, although she remains officially missing. Investigators focus their efforts on the shark river, looking for her body. The issue is that the river's tidal waters push everything out towards the ocean. After the police led search is declared a failure, the community rallies around Michael. "It's been a full week since 19-year-old Sarah Stern of Neptune was last seen and now her family and friends are organizing a search party." Sarah's father, Michael Stern, has told media outlets that he hopes around 200 people will volunteer and he hopes that the search tomorrow will bring some answers as to where Sarah is. Nearly 300 volunteers gathered to come through 6,400 acres of coastline, the largest search for a missing person in Jersey Shore history. "We're just hoping to search any possible area with more people than just the local authorities because it's a big area." Among the volunteers are many of Sarah's friends and neighbors, including Liam McAtasney, whom the police interviewed a week prior and Preston Taylor, Sarah's prom date, "It's pretty strong, so hopefully we're going to find something today." "The matter back in high school and it's just shocking." "I hope we could find her." Over the next month, as the winter cold sweeps over the Jersey Shore, all search efforts die down, but this doesn't stop Sarah's father. "Mr. Stern was down at those docks every day, walking the docks, walking the shoreline, just wouldn't give up hope. My heart broke for him." Neptune Police Director Ed Kirshenbaum drives past him on his way to work every day, powerless. "I knew Sarah she worked as a popular restaurant in Neptune City with my daughter, for her father to not know the whereabouts of his daughter was devastating." Although the search has failed to find Sarah, investigators won't give up on her case, and the more they learn about the 19-year-old, the less they believe that she had disappeared, willingly. One family insists that Sarah would never have abandoned her dog, and police find both her passport and Canadian money still sitting untouched in her room, contradicting Liam's claims that she may have left the country. Detectives also find little evidence that Sarah had any serious issues with her father. In fact, she had texted him right before disappearing. By now, investigators are increasingly leaning toward the possibility of foul play, but they are already one month into the case and still have no suspects. While all of this is happening, Anthony Curry has been going on with his life in New York City, completely unaware of what is going on in Neptune. That's until he sees a post about Sarah's disappearance on social media mentioning that her car was found on a bridge. It's been a while, but Anthony remembers Liam's movie pitch with its oddly similar plot, and just as he begins connecting the dots, Liam suddenly resurfaces. Anthony isn't sure whether he's just being paranoid, or if Liam might truly be involved in Sarah's disappearance. In any case, it's a lot of pressure for the 19-year-old, so he seeks out the help of his father, Anthony Curry, who still lives in Neptune and is much closer to the case than he is. Eddie doesn't hesitate, and immediately puts his son in contact with Detective Michael Banana. One of the cases leading investigators and a personal friend of the Curry's. The problem is that Anthony has no real evidence. Some investigators even wonder if he's making the whole thing up. And following a polygraph test, the police are convinced, and to top it all off, Anthony receives a strange message while still at the station. Liam is now calling him multiple times a day, every day, and Anthony doesn't have to push too hard for him to start divulging, compromising information. This changes things drastically for the 19-year-old informant. Eventually, Liam reveals that he recently came into a large amount of cash from a girl he knew. He refuses to explain how he got it, but for Anthony and investigators, that alone is alarming enough. Police begin working with Anthony on a plan to get Liam talking. The first step is arranging a meeting between the two. We were going to ask Anthony if he'd be willing to allow long-forcing to monitor and record his communication with Liam. The initial text messages and snapchats were relatively benign. Anthony, ultimately on the telephone, asks him if he can borrow money. The camera broke though, dropped it on the shoot, fell into a bucket of blood. You couldn't spot me some cash from that girl's money, right? I didn't need two. I'll pay you back after all these jobs work out. Do you have anything left from it or not? This is Detective Davis, the director of the Momma County Cross Gears. Today's date is January 31, 2017. The approximate time is 10.26 pm. I pay to my point of supporting device on Anthony Curry. We state your name and date of birth. Anthony Curry 5.297. Anthony drives away from the station for testing purposes. Detectives ask him to crank up the radio and sing out loud as they adjust their receiver. It's a surreal situation for the young filmmaker. He believes his friend may have killed someone and in just a few minutes, he'll be sitting alone in a car with him. Still, Anthony feels he has no choice. If Liam really was involved in Sarah's disappearance, this might be the only chance investigators have to prove it. Anthony heads toward Ocean Avenue, and parks beside the boardwalk overlooking Bradley Beach. It's freezing outside, and Liam could arrive at any moment. Assuming that the crime might have followed Liam's movie pitch, investigators suspect money might have been the motive behind Sarah's disappearance. Following their instructions, Anthony brings up his broken camera story again, hoping Liam might say something incriminating. But instead, the suspect begins casually complaining about the money he got from the robbery. The worst part of it is, I thought I was walking out 50 grand, 100 grand in my pocket. Anthony has to be careful with the questions he asks. He wants Liam to open up, but pushing too hard could raise suspicion. So he tries to steer the conversation back toward the source of the money Liam mentioned, but almost immediately, the discussion takes a disturbing turn. Justin Taylor is Liam's roommate, and also a good friend of Anthony's, realizing Liam is unexpectedly willing to talk about him, Anthony carefully shifts the conversation toward Preston, and again, Liam begins revealing far more than expected. It's already been a few minutes since Liam entered the vehicle, and with Anthony asking more and more questions, Liam is starting to get suspicious. As the conversation continues, Liam becomes increasingly paranoid. He repeatedly warns Anthony that Preston already wants him dead and insists that they all need to meet before things spiral further out of control, refusing to go back to their house. Anthony tries to stay calm until Liam suddenly asks him to prove he's not wearing a wire. Just across the parking lot, the detectives are on edge. From their position, they can't see what Liam is doing inside the car. Anthony doesn't realize it yet, but nearly everything Liam is describing matches the investigation detectives have spent the last two months piecing together for starters months earlier Sarah had begun sorting through the belongings left behind by her late mother and discovered a hidden stash of cash. "We were told from a couple people about the money that Sarah found in her parents' second house. Sarah's mom had passed several years prior. I had been saving this money, and Sarah had found it. We were told her mother left there for her to find." But what the Sterb's investigators even more is how differently him sounds. Her weeks, detectives have been interacting with the seemingly polite, cooperative 19-year-old, who presented himself as one of Sarah's closest friends. "I've been friends with her since first grade, so we have a pretty good friendship." "Did you help her carry herself?" "Yeah. What was it that you carried over her?" "We had one big, gray container." "Okay. What's her reasoning for wanting to get the stuff out of her father's place?" "I know she definitely has a lot of trust issues with her dad." Sarah had never told her father about the money she found to investigators that had always seemed strange, but, according to Liam, Sarah believed Michael had previously taken money that was meant for her following her mother's death, leading police to initially trust Liam's insight. "I know that when her mom died at money, that was supposed to go to her, and her dad took that from her." Furthermore, investigators also reconstruct Sarah's final day, security footage and witness statements confirmed that Liam spent most of the day with her. Together, they moved boxes out of the stern residents, visited neighbors, and later stopped at the bank, where Sarah accessed her safety deposit box. "She seemed very happy, and she asked me to hang out that night, and she was telling me that she wanted to move to Canada. She hugged me. I was like, "Levy, um, she's like, "Levy, too," and that was the last time I seen it." She went to the corny bank, we have video from the corny bank, we have her signing in, and opening up an accessing her safety deposit box. The video also shows Sarah leaving the bank. The final footage had been recorded late that night by a neighbor security camera, over looking the stern residents. Two hours later, Sarah's abandoned car would be discovered on the bridge. "We suspected that it was Sarah, although we couldn't see her. It was dark, or it was limited lighting." It takes the police and the prosecution two years to build their case against Liam. Nobody knows what happened to Anthony's car on the night of January 31, 2017, except the police and the county's prosecutor, hence the following question, "Why didn't you just arrest Liam McAtasney right after that video recording? And the truth is, like, legally, you cannot just charge someone over their own admissions. You have to have corroborating evidence. We don't have anything like clothing, forensic evidence. We don't have Sarah's body. And the reason that's important is because when you prosecute a murder crime, you have to prove that someone was actually killed. And when you don't have the body, it's difficult to do that." But prosecutor Gramecioni has remained busy over the last two years. Even though he failed to get through to Liam, his team did eventually persuade Preston Taylor, the roommate Liam claimed wanted Anthony dead, to cooperate with the prosecution. Not only does Preston agree to testify against Liam, but he also helps police by re-enacting the entirety of the events. This should have been a major asset for the prosecution, except that the defense had planned for this to happen. "You don't always have to chew, it's not correct. I have a little dust." Following his testimony, defense lawyer Carlos Diaz-Cobo completely stripped Preston of any credibility by exposing to the jury how he lied and fabricated disturbing fake allegations against his own relatives in an attempt to reduce the charges imposed against him. "You made an accusation against somebody, except if you were sexually assaulted by their person. Right. And all those details that you gave, they were all false. They were all lies. Right. Right. We're talking about somebody who has admitted to making up stories, making false accusations against innocent people. He figures, point the finger at someone else, let's see if I can turn the attention away from what I did and what I'm responsible for." The prosecution gets off to a rough start. Next, they call a series of character witnesses, Sarah's neighbors, friends, and family members. One by one, they push back against Liam's version of events. Yes, Sarah was still grieving her mother, and yes, she had talked about moving to Canada someday, but that didn't mean she would abandon her dog, leave without her passport, or disappear without saying goodbye to her father. Next, prosecutors call Michael Stern to the stand, where he shares the final text messages he exchanged with his daughter while he was on vacation in Florida. "Hey, Dad. Good afternoon. What day are you coming back from Florida? And there's a waving hand. Some glasses on a smiley face, a pong tree, and a little, a little red card. I sent her a picture of a rainbow that had just appeared right around that time." "You sent her a second picture?" "It's a picture of the castle and the magic thing that you're at night." "What does she say?" "Well, with an explanation point, the castle looks so pretty with the lights and is a star and a shooting star emoji after that." "Is that the last time you got her high contact with your daughter?" "Yes." But Michael's emotional testimony does little to shake the defense. If anything, Attorney Carlos Diaz-Cobo seems more confident than ever. It's been 44 years since the last murder trial without a body to end in a conviction in Monmouth County, and according to the defense, this case won't be any different. They argue that the prosecution has no forensic evidence, no eyewitnesses, and no proof that Sarah is even dead, and with the shark-river leading directly into the Atlantic, experts agree her body will never be recovered. Based on the water level and the tides of that evening, I made an estimate as to how quickly she would have floated out. She would have been about seven miles offshore in 24 hours. But two weeks into the trial, just when the prosecution seems to be done for, they call one final witness to the stand. "Anthony Curry, you are our wife." "Do you know who Lee and Mack is at these?" "Yes." "Well, you guys, friends?" "Yes." "Do you remember an event that happened that you decided you don't want to be friends with them anymore?" "Yes." "Okay." "No. I'm going to ask you this. Do you want to be here today?" "No." "Why are you here?" "Do you know anything?" "You see him fidgeting, you see him crying." He had not seen his video since that day. State would like her to play court-exit it too. "You can't blame me for doing this, right? I got a few of you up for a play, all right? No disrespect. I'll show you. No disrespect, okay?" "I'm not noble." "Ratin." Lee and Mack's, "Anthony down. Looking for the old school wire that's along your chest and that's not how we do things anymore." And after that, we couldn't believe what we were here. "You don't have to question me. I mean Brooklyn, the cops haven't questioned me." "I know you're not a rap, but I did something really dumb. I planned it out for half a year. Like, did you know she just don't know how I'm sorry?" "You didn't hear that?" "It was all over the new." "Right, but I didn't know if you went through." "Yeah." "And the worst part is we threw off the bridge and the body never showed up. That's probably all the way out of no ocean." With his suspicions about Anthony finally put to rest, Lee and begins describing what happened to Sarah in extraordinary detail. "All right, so I'm hanging out with her. She has, we went to the bank, she took some money out, not all of her money. We're counting out and then 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 of minutes. My biggest problem was the dog, and her dog laid there and watched as I killed her. Didn't do anything. "She is." The confession is shocking, but in the video, Anthony remains calm. He proceeds with the script he prepared with the police. After the opening, he was supposed to ask about possible witnesses. "Nobody was there. No, nobody was there. Even her dad wasn't there. He was in Florida. So I have to leave, I can drop my phone at Sarah's house. My phone was at Sarah's house. I had timed everything out. "You should have left it in your pocket. What were you doing?" Strangling someone. Then Anthony doesn't even have to ask anymore. Liam starts telling him everything. "Preston, I go over to her house, take her safe, bring that over to my house before we do anything. 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'm back up. There's a security camera across the street. So I had the back, I had the act like her. I watched her every time she backed out, she goes the same thing. So I backed out exactly like she did, and drove along. "Put her in the trunk?" "No, I put her in the passenger seat of her own car." According to Liam, the plan had been carefully thought out, but when it came time to dispose of Sarah's body, things almost fell apart. "I go up, open the door, on hooker, pull her out, start dragging her to throw her over, and then cars start coming up. I see headlights coming. I try to get her over and I can't pull my leg up, so I grab her body." Dude, I had superhuman strength, and I threw it in the car, and I picked it up, and her feet were up here, and her head was down there, and three cars go by. And I'm losing my shit." Anthony takes the opportunity to ask the one question investigators still need answered. What role did Preston play? "When Preston comes over the bridge, goes around making a uterine, comes up behind me. The two of us start the body over, and then we're out. Oh, so you need help? I need help. Yeah." As the conversation winds down, Liam begins reflecting on what happened, what he says next, is perhaps the most disturbing thing he reveals all night. "You always think you're going to try these little things, and you're going to change. But it didn't change. It just doesn't do anything. It's just crazy. I don't feel any different, and I don't think about it." It's a good movie, my man. "See your life, you might as well make it all, before you're going to live some poor and ass life." The things he said, the things he did were absolutely disgusting and horrifying. How any human being could do that to another person is just. it's just unfathomable. It's evil, pure evil. Following Anthony's testimony, the defense falls apart. What the defense put on was just, it just seemed like nonsense. Let me make a story up today and present this and try to make it look like my client's innocent. He was doing an audition. He was making things up, trying to impress that horror film director. I think that Anthony Curry is pointing a finger at my client and trying to make stories up so that he can better his career because it's not that great. "That was a movie audition. That's real life. Trust me. I worked in film for years. I know the difference between reality and fiction and that's reality." Anthony had nothing to gain by turning Liam in. If anything, coming forward only put him in danger, but he did it anyway for Sarah, for her grieving father and because he knew someone had to. "The most significant development in this case by far was Anthony Curry coming forward. And then his courage because it's absolute courage." "There's a tough decision for him. He didn't have to come forward, changed his life too, and he not come forward. We probably never would have got any answer." Unsurprisingly, following Anthony's testimony, the trial ends with the guilty verdict, but while justice has finally been served, the events surrounding Sarah's murder continue to shape the lives of those closest to the case. In the end, Anthony decides to stay in New Jersey. He releases his first film, Trap, about the violent use he grew up with in 2022, and his next film is currently in production. "Just a few doors down from the movie theater, we happen to stumble upon an actual movie set for an independent film being shot here in New Jersey." "A lot of people don't know. You know, the first movie studio was in New Jersey, so I feel like we're kind of bringing Hollywood back." Along with a possible 2026 release date of the indie film into the black New Jerseyans have a lot more to look forward to. Together with Sarah's friends and community members, Michael pays tribute to his daughter by organizing public events and fundraisers in her name. "One of the things that the community does is hold an annual art festival in Sarah's memory, with proceeds going to pay for scholarships to art students." "It's good to see everyone coming out and everyone kind of healing, kind of through art." "Art was at the core of Sarah's being. She wanted to go to Canada to study and become an artist herself, but now that she's gone, Michael wants to keep her passion alive by helping young artists pursue their dreams in her stead." "Sara's life was worth something, and I think that if she can be an inspiration to somebody else, I think that would be a good thing for her and me." "I think she would be proud, and I think she would be really happy to see that we're all still making art, because you know, that's what she'd love to do." To the public, Sarah became the face of a tragedy that brought the entire community together, but Michael remembers her for who she truly was. "It's my daughter, smart kid, good kid, friendly, cared about people, never heard anybody. She's just a wonderful, wonderful child. You know, becoming an adult and starting to do live her own life." Her life may have been cut short, but her legacy lives on. "We do have justice for Sarah. That's a good thing." "I miss Sarah, but this is a nice trip you took."