Sarah Stern

Case background and investigation

Sarah Stern, 19, was last seen at her home in Neptune City, New Jersey, on December 2, 2016. According to ABC7 New York, her car was found hours later, unoccupied and with the keys in the ignition, on the Route 35 bridge between Neptune and Belmar. The location of the car at first raised the possibility that she had taken her own life, and her body was not found in the searches that followed.

According to reporting on the appellate record, a former classmate, Anthony Curry, went to police in January 2017 and said that Liam McAtasney had described a plan to rob and kill Stern around Thanksgiving, before she disappeared. Working with investigators, Curry met McAtasney in Bradley Beach on January 31, 2017, and the conversation was secretly recorded on video. ABC News reported that on the recording McAtasney said the killing had taken about half an hour. McAtasney and his roommate, Preston Taylor, were arrested the following day.

Prosecutors said McAtasney strangled Stern at her home in order to steal money she had found that had belonged to her late mother. According to ABC News, prosecutors alleged he expected to find between $50,000 and $100,000 but took roughly $10,000; other outlets put the amount at about $8,000. Taylor, who had been Stern's prom date, admitted that he helped McAtasney move her body and throw it from the bridge into the Shark River. He pleaded guilty to robbery, conspiracy, desecrating human remains, hindering apprehension and evidence tampering, and testified for the prosecution.

McAtasney was tried in Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold. In late February 2019 a jury found him guilty on all seven counts: first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery, conspiracy, desecrating human remains, hindering apprehension and tampering with physical evidence. On June 21, 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus ten years. One week later, on June 28, 2019, Taylor was sentenced to 18 years. NBC New York reported that Judge Richard English later declined to reduce Taylor's sentence; prosecutors had asked for 15 years, while Stern's father said he believed the term should have been longer.

The conviction has been tested on appeal twice. According to the Asbury Park Press reporting carried by Yahoo News, a New Jersey appellate panel upheld McAtasney's convictions and sentence in a ruling announced on October 27, 2023. On November 6, 2025, an appellate panel also upheld the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Stern's body has never been recovered, and the same reporting described the case as only the second murder prosecution in Monmouth County brought without a body.