CHILDHOOD friend killer Liam McAtasney revealed his murder on tape during a covert operation.
Made possible by the recordings, McAtasney was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 after a jury found him guilty of strangling 19-year-old Sarah Stern in December 2016.
After murdering Sarah, his high school classmate, McAtasney enlisted the help of his former roommate, Preston Taylor, to throw her body off a bridge in Belmar, New Jersey.
Sarah’s body has never been recovered, said authorities.
McAtasney’s friend, Anthony Curry, worked with police in a sting operation to get him to admit to the murder.
A haunting video, secretly recorded by police during the sting, showed McAtasney confessing to killing Sarah, admitting that it took him “half an hour to kill her.”
“It’s heartbreaking in a sense, you know, somebody who’s your good friend you don’t think they would do something like that,” Curry said to ABC 20/20.
According to McAtasney’s friend, the would-be killer had a fascination with murder and killing.
Curry, a filmmaker, said that McAtasney initially approached him with an idea for the plot of a horror film involving a woman, who is robbed, killed, and thrown from a bridge.
“I make movies, I’m a filmmaker,” said Curry. “He used to tell me ideas all the time of films I should make and all that stuff.”
“He told me of this idea he had to kill this girl.”
TIMELINE OF SARAH STERN'S MURDER AND JUSTICE
Liam McAtasney was not sentenced until 2019, three years after Sarah's death.
September 2016: McAtasney and co-conspirator Preston Taylor learn of an inheritance bequeathed to Sarah by her late mother
December 2, 2016: Sarah goes missing after spending the day with McAtasney
December 3, 2016: Sarah’s car is found abandoned with no trace of the missing girl
February 1, 2017: Law enforcement apprehended Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor in relation to Sarah’s missing person case
April 24, 2017: McAtasney is convicted of:
- First-degree murder
- First-degree robbery
- First-degree felony murder
- Second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery
- Second-degree disturbing or desecrating human remains
- Third-degree hindering
- Fourth-degree tampering with physical evidence
June 28, 2019: McAstney was sentenced to life in prison without parole and Taylor was sentenced to serve 18 years in jail
March 1, 2019: Friends Like These first airs
April 1, 2024: The Interrogation Tapes premiere episode airs, covering Sarah’s case
Recalling these chilling run-ins with McAtasney, Curry knew he had to step forward.
After the details of Sarah’s disappearance became public, Curry contacted police who worked with him to secretly record McAtasney.
‘THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A COLD CASE’
During his trial, prosecutors argued that McAtasney killed Sarah over thousands of dollars that belonged to her mother, who died of cancer in 2013.
They claimed that McAtasney planned the murder in order to gain access to the money from Sarah’s lockbox.
In the secret recording, McAtasney complained about not getting as much money as he wanted.
“The worst part of it is I thought I was walking out $50 grand to $100 grand in my pocket,” he said.
He added that Sarah had a safe where she kept her money that only had $10,000 inside.
Judge Richard English, who sentenced the then-21-year-old McAtasney to life plus 10 years for desecration of human remains, said Curry had been an integral part of the case.
“If not for Mr. Curry, this could have been a cold case,” he said in court, adding that McAtasney treated Sarah’s life “like a joke.”
Sarah’s father, Michael Stern told 20/20 he was grateful for Curry’s action in helping to solve his daughter’s murder.
“Had he not come forward, we probably never would have gotten an answer,” said Stern. “It was a tough decision for him. He didn’t have to come forward.”
However, Curry said he wanted to bring closure to Sarah’s family, even if it meant putting his own in danger.
“You never really know who anybody really is,” he explained.
A NEW DEEP DIVE SERIES
After a two-hour special event on Sarah’s murder called With Friends Like These ran on ABC on Friday, September 2, 2022, a new special will cover her murder in a different deep dive.
Her case is the first of six to be reviewed in a new 20/20 series named The Interrogation Tapes which premieres on April 1.
The series views how cases played out through the lens of the interrogations of suspects and witnesses throughout the case.
“A real interrogation in the real world should not be a confrontational event,” said Mark Fallon, a former NCIS special agent, explaining to ABC News.
“You’re trying to develop a relationship and you’re trying to listen for information.”
In Sarah’s murder, multiple people were interrogated, but McAtasney’s is the one to look out for.
During his interrogations, the killer painted Sarah first to be suicidal, which was in complete opposition to the rest of her friends’ accounts.
Being the last person to be seen with Sarah, he was asked to walk through that day with her, during which he committed various details including a key that linked Sarah and him to a safe deposit box with $25,000 inside.
The episode will also cover how Curry was prepared to elicit a confession from Mcatasney.
“You don’t want to over prepare him. You want him to act as natural as possible,” according to Sujeeta Bhatt, a research scientist at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
20/20 has also teased all new footage from interrogations and other parts of the investigation to be revealed during the premiere episode.
