#529 - Murder Audition - Neptune City, New Jersey
02:46:56 Share

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of my favorite things in the world, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. Oh, I give that app a workout. Let me tell you something. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. You can listen to anything. There's so many genres on there. There's more to imagine when you listen. And let me tell you something that makes my imagination soar in a terrible way. I've been listening to Secrets in the Cellar. Oh, boy.

Which is by John Glatt, and it's about Joseph Fritzl and locking his daughter in the basement for decades. And it is... You want to talk about imagination of who's the devil in a human skin? That's the guy. So check that out, or a whole bunch of them. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases.

Audible's the best. Let's be honest here. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show.

Hey, Small Town Murder listeners, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite gripping investigations ad-free. Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free true crime. That's amazon.com slash ad-free true crime to catch up on the latest episodes without the ad.

What time is it?

It's harvest time. Join Sarah Jessica Parker in the ultimate challenge of Solitaire Grand Harvest. Experience the thrill of strategic play as you navigate through exciting levels and reap the rewards of your skills. Are you prepared to crack the cards and harvest your way to victory? Okay, now let's crack the cards. Enjoy a head start with 10,000 free coins. Download Solitaire Grand Harvest now and harvest the rewards. It's free, available for download on Google Play and the App Store.

This week, in Neptune City, New Jersey, an abandoned car on a bridge leads everyone to think a young woman jumped into the river, but a cell phone and an elaborate video sting unravel a cold-blooded plot. Welcome to Small Town Murder. ♪♪♪

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wisserman.

Thank you for joining us today, everybody, on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder. We have a very wild story and someone with a very punchable face. Oh, we love that. We love when someone's got a real punchable face. And this guy did it this week. Oh, boy, is it punchable. Big, ugly dummy. You just see a picture of him. You don't even have to know what he did. You just see a picture of him and go, oh, man, I want to punch that kid so bad.

I'm going to punch that guy. And yeah, so we'll get into all that before we do very quickly. Shut up and give me murder.com. Head there for your tickets for live shows. Get them all for the rest of the year. They're selling out fast. So get them, especially get your tickets for Halloween. Our,

virtual live show. Here we go. Can't wait. Just like a regular live show, except you don't have to go anywhere. You're in your living room. We will bring the show to you. We're going to dress up in costumes and we're going to have a ball and it's available for two weeks after the date we do it too. So you can watch it a hundred times. You can wait a couple days to watch it if you want to wait for the weekend. Do it again. Do whatever the hell you want. We'll shove it up your ass for all we care. Do what you got to do. Shut up and give me murder.com. Then you certainly

Maybe you've listened to all of the crime and sports and all the small town murder and all your stupid opinions, all the shows that we do, and you want more, we got it for you with Patreon. Oh, baby, we got you covered. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody, $5 a month or above, you get a huge back catalog with hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before. New ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder, and you get it all, baby. You get it.

That's right. This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, not really sports, but it could be considered a sport. We're going to talk about hot air ballooning disasters.

Oh, my God. I fucking hate those. I do, too. They're the scariest thing in the world. So anybody that goes up in them and crashes, I'm like, what'd you expect? It's a wicker basket attached to a balloon with fire in it. You stupid idiot. Why are you surprised? Logically, this doesn't seem like it should work. So, yeah, let's do that. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about a documentary that came out, I believe, in 2011. And we've talked about it a ton. And I want to do it for a bonus. There's something wrong with Aunt Diane, it's called.

It's really an amazing thing. Fascinating documentary, and we'll get all into the case and what happened to this lady's show. A whole car full of people were killed. And another one almost. Everybody in the other car. Holy shit. It's like a dozen people almost were killed. It was crazy. A tragic thing. We'll talk about what the hell happened because it's weird stuff. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. Jimmy, I'll mispronounce your name. Don't you worry about that.

That said, disclaimer time. Here we go. This is a comedy show, everybody. It is. We're comedians, so there's going to be jokes here. We can't help that. There will be jokes. There's nothing made up in the stories for comedic value or anything like that. The stories are crazy enough on their own. We don't have to make anything up, so that's not like that. You might say, what are you, making jokes about murder? What the hell's wrong with you two? Not really. No, see, you've got to do it tastefully. That's all it is here. Sure. What we do is we never make fun of the victim. Mm-hmm.

Or the victim's family. Why, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags. It's pretty easy if you look at it like that. So that said, you know, you're going to hear a crazy-ass story. Absolutely. And it's going to be fun. If you think that true crime and comedy should never, ever go together, maybe we're not for you. I don't know. I don't know.

We can't help it. That's what we're doing. So if you don't like it, if we're making hamburgers and you don't eat beef, I don't know. Then we're probably not going to. Our craws may not pass. Our paths may not cross. Our craws may not pass, I just said. Wow. Fun. That said, for the rest of you. God, I'm an idiot. I think it's time, everybody. Yeah. To sit back. Let's all clear the lungs and let's all shout. Shut up.

and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Yeah. Let's go on a trip, shall we? All right. Cross my path and hope to die. Let's do it. We're going to a good place for it is Neptune City, New Jersey. Hey.

All right. Neptune City. City. Is it on the beach? Yeah, there's beach to it. Okay. Neptune was a god of the ocean, wasn't he? Yeah, that's a Neptune. Yeah, because we were talking about that with the Seattle Theater, remember? Just the other day. Yeah, right, right. Like the site, right. Neptune City, New Jersey. Neptune City sounds like a cartoon city with like- Yeah.

Futurama or something. We're going to Neptune City. It's like capital of Neptune. This is in east central New Jersey, which, I mean, it's kind of over by the ocean there and kind of in the middle. It's about 50 minutes to Trenton, which is the capital of New Jersey. Right.

It is about an hour, 20 minutes to Manhattan to go to New York City. Okay. So it's commutable. And about a half hour, give or take, to Long Branch, New Jersey, which was our last episode in New Jersey, episode 468. That was Date Night Death, which was a twisted-ass Express episode where the guy killed his wife and he had a thing with his girlfriend and he took his wife out to dinner. On Date Night. Yeah, it was wild. He was a cop. That was crazy shit. Good, good.

Way to pull that one. This is in Monmouth County, New Jersey. All right. Area code 732. And the motto here is the real New Jersey. Oh, really? The real New Jersey. There's a fake one? Well, it is the real New Jersey if you go by their second motto, their other alternate motto, then you know it is definitely the real New Jersey. This motto, the other one, quote, where a stranger might punch your wife in the face. That's New Jersey. You never know.

History. How loud she is. Depends on what bar you're in. Who knows? Yeah. History. This place was incorporated in 1881. Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit about a pajama factory and you're going to go, what the fuck are you talking about that for? And there's a reason. Don't worry. We'll get there. Steiner and Sons Sons Pajama Factory was the first factory built in Neptune City in 1891.

Okay. Long pajamas. This is old school pajamas. This is like they made the dress that everybody wore. Yeah, right. The nightgown. The men too. Yeah, there was a universal they called it. That's what it was. Bob Cratchit. We'll get to it, yeah. This Emanuel Steiner was a silk dealer in Austria when he came to New York City in the late 1860s. Started making pajamas and nightgowns in New York after that. God, imagine garment district in the 1800s.

Yeah. And people just burning to death left and right probably. That was horrible conditions. The flagship product was the Universal nightshirt, which was that night. And it became enormously popular because everyone wore it. Within a couple of years, they built another factory three blocks north of them. So they did all this. Now, their slogan, their first ad campaign slogan was, we put the world to sleep.

Which I think that's the Humane Society slogan also. An Ambien. An Ambien. The first ever murder in Neptune City occurred around this. This is why I told you about it. It occurred in 1929 as part of a payroll robbery of this company. A guy named George Danielson, who was a 65-year-old courier from First National Bank, was shot point blank.

at the employee entrance on 4th Avenue. So he came out with it. Inside job. No, he came outside with it. Somebody blasted him in the face and stole his shit. Man. The bandits got caught. They got away with $7,280 in payroll. In 1920? 1929. Equivalent to $134,018.41 today. So that's a good haul for one robbery. They were later caught and tried and convicted, though, so it didn't really work out that well for them. There is one motel

in Neptune City. Isn't that right? It's the Charlene Motel. So there you go. Famous people from here. Jack Nicholson was born here. Oh, okay. This is the birthplace of Jack Nicholson. Was he raised in Jersey? I don't know if he was raised there. Probably not. This isn't an episode about Jack Nicholson, so I didn't go into it that much. But he was born here.

But I did go into the pajama company, so I guess I could have fucking done that and it would have been out of the stretch of imagination. Reviews here. Here's four stars. Neptune is a quite calming.

I think quiet is what they're going for. Quiet, calming, yet inviting neighborhood to live in. The schools are quite good with teachers who obviously care about their students. The amenities available to students at the schools is even better. The high school is decked out with a swimming pool that is not exclusive just to students in the high school. If you are child, if you are child is interested. Think if your child is what they're going for.

is interested in the health field. An allied school is located within the town that the students have access to attending. Wow. Okay. Here is three stars. This person's spelling is a problem. They spell the word. This is the second one. They say the word community twice, and this is how they spell it. C-U-M-M-U-N-I-T-Y. My community. That is horrible.

My community is a great community, despite a few problems. Yeah, there's jizz everywhere. Good Lord. There's lotion bottles everywhere. Dildos rolling around the street. The people are friendly and welcome with open arms. We are big on sporting events and always have a good time. What's Jersey? There will be beer. It's a community. It's a community. You know it's going to be a good time.

The beach is also a plus. It has great nightlife, which you didn't need to say because it's a community. Exactly. Three stars. This would be an awesome place to live if it were even close to being affordable.

Let's buy the ocean. Yeah, I mean, everything near water. It's expensive. For some reason, the property tax rates are way above what it costs to live in other towns, even towns that are close by. That's because this high school has a fucking pool and stuff. That's why. Not everybody can use it. They're talking about great schools and all that. They're like, I don't know why I have to pay more taxes. Weird.

You can find an affordable small home here, but then are hit with a 10K annual tax bill. You can do better to find a nice home in a different municipality where you actually get something for what you pay for. Yes, inland away from the ocean. Right.

If taxes weren't high near the ocean, everybody would live on the ocean. That's the problem. And if it's only $10,000 a year to live near the ocean? Yeah, that's not bad. It's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what kind of property that's for, but who knows. Population 4,637, so not a big town at all. There is more males than females here, which is appropriate if you've ever been to the Jersey Shore. It's just a lot of guys. If you've ever been to Jersey...

A lot of dudes with like Italian flag or shamrock tattoos, one or the other. They got them both. You never know.

Median age here is about 39.9, which is near the national average. 18 to 20 is pretty high. It's almost 10%, so there's a lot of younger people here. It's only 33% married population here. Usually it's 50-50, which is interesting. There are more people that have children and are single, though. Let's see here. The unemployment rate here is 6.8%, which is well above the national average at this point. But, I mean, if there's a beach nearby...

Maybe I'll just go sit on that for a while, use the pool, use the fucking pool, and then go to the beach. The median household income here is $64,940 a year, which is below the national average. And this place, it's not that outrageously expensive. It's not considered like a real highbrow area or anything like that. Cost of living here, $100,000 is regular. Here it's $129,000.

Yeah, it's not that bad. It's a little bit high. The housing is the thing that's a little high. That's a 120 out of over the average. Median home cost here is $355,900. That's not so bad. Which isn't so terrible to live. It's expensive. Yeah, it's expensive. But to live near the beach, we've seen much worse. Way better. Way worse, yeah. So if we've convinced you, damn it. Mm-hmm.

You're going to load up. You're going to get all your suntan lotion and get your shamrock tattoo and get ready. We have for you the Neptune City, New Jersey Real Estate Report. ♪ music playing ♪

Two-bedroom rental here is well above the national average. It's $1,640 for a two-bedroom rental, which I guess makes sense because it's probably a lot of beach condos type of deal. Yeah, and if I'm renting near the beach, I expect it to be pretty high. Yeah, you know, that's how it's going to be. Here is a one-bedroom, one-bath, 550-square-foot trailer.

This is nothing. It's very tiny. From the outside, it looks nice. It doesn't look like a dingy, shitty trailer. It looks decent. And inside, it's done as nice as it could be done. Sure. It's got nice flooring and nice everything like that, but it's 550 square feet, so it's a camper, basically. Yeah, what is that? 10 by 55? Yeah. That's...

It's a camper you just put in place. But not terrible. $110,000 for that. Okay. Not the worst. I think that is with land. I believe that one. Yeah, I think it's on a little land. It's not in a park. Here's a three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,462 square foot. It's a three-bedroom, one-bath,

The outside looks worse than the inside. The inside is not too bad. Seems like it's been redone recently. Kitchens, bathrooms, things like that. Not the worst place I've ever seen. $549,000 for that though. Oh my god.

That's the problem there. There's a shed out back. It's got a nice little yard. You know, you get some of that. Here is a weird part of this house. I got to show you this picture. Why would you even show this picture in the real estate listing? It's a little. Is that a rare couch? Nope. It's a couch that is placed just three feet away from a wall. So. Yeah. And what I mean is you're just you'd be staring at a wall if you sat on that couch. There'd be no reason to sit on that couch at all. Yeah.

None. Storage. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. We need you to know exactly how small this room is. It's very, very small. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath. This thing, it's a nice house, this house. Nice front porch. It's got a little fireplace. Not a ton of yard space, but good square footage over 2,000. And it is near the beach, actually. Okay. Walking distance. $725,000 for that. Oh, shit. Which, yeah, you're going to live near the beach. You're going to pay.

You're going to pay. That's how it works. That's how it goes. Yeah, I want that. I'd rather have the one in Connecticut a few weeks ago. Not near the beach, but the most coolest fucking house ever. I'll take that. Things to do in this place. Okay. Okay. Here we go, because there's plenty of it. Oh, sure. We got the Neptune City Food Truck Festival. I love when they do that. Let's just...

That just means that if you go near that parking lot, you're going to get high from diesel fumes. That's all that means. Yeah. There's a lot of people idling for hours. And the shits. Yep. Mayor Rachel McGreevey and the Neptune City Council invite the community to the third annual Neptune City Food Truck Festival featuring food, number one, obviously, live music that's so good that we're not going to tell you any of the bands. Keep that under your hat.

Beer and wine, games, a light show, local artists, and if you want something that makes no sense and completely incongruous to what we're doing, a petting zoo. We'll put that in there too. Why not? Fuck it. Bring some goats around my fucking cheese fries. You're going to get sick anyway from the food. So pet a goat and get their diseases in there too and who gives a shit. It's all fine. The food truck lineup. They have a food truck lineup but not a band lineup.

Don't tell me the music. Tell me the food. Good thing is a lot of these food trucks sound like band names, so that's kind of fun. So we're going to pretend they're bands and just say what they are. Shore Good Eats, S-H-O-R-E, obviously. So Shore Good Eats. Play some beach music. Five Sisters Food Company, which sounds like a folk band from the 60s.

five sisters food company and they say are we gonna feed the world it's like an all-female doo-wop group yeah maybe things outside the hamburger stand this is a fun one i really want to see their set the taco holics let's see their set yeah they sound like sound like fucking fun man it's yeah definitely oh no it's all guys yeah it's all guys

And then the Cone Zone, which again, hot man. Could be either one. They also have the 1830s All Hallows' Eve Trick or Treating Celebration. Cool. Yeah, step back in time and celebrate Halloween with our villagers as they would have in the 19th century.

Which would be yelling religious slogans at you and fucking accusing women of witchcraft. That would be, I guess, how they would celebrate it then. I don't know. I'm not positive. Dragging women through the woods and wrapping weird ribbons around a tree in a ceremonial way. Really weird. Learn about Halloween's long, rich history and the origin of the traditions we know today. Spooky storytelling.

Glitter litter tattoos. Glittery tattoos. A fire juggler and a sword swallower. Now, I hope he's a real sword, we're hoping. Looking for any place to make a dick joke. Chainsaw wood carver. Oh, cool. That's kind of neat. I like watching a guy do that in real time. How the fuck do you do that?

Every time I've ever seen somebody carve with a chainsaw, they just make a bear. Well, it's probably the easiest. When you see people do like ice sculptures, that's even weirder. Holy shit, that's wild. Music, they don't tell you what, but there'll be music. Fortune telling, craft making, a carved pumpkin contest, and then blacksmithing, tinsmithing, and woodworking demonstrations. Wow.

Because all the kids, what they want to do on Halloween is tinsmithing. That's usually what they're into. Like, Dad, come on, take me out tinsmithing. I remember my kids asking me all the time. Come on. Halloween, you know, that means horseshoe making. That's it. No, kids, you got to wait until dark to go tinsmithing. I'm sorry. Then there's the Asbury Fest, which is near here. The Asbury Fest is back and better than ever.

Is this in Asbury Park? Is that what that is? Yeah, because this borders Asbury Park. Got it. So it's like eight minutes away, so they're kind of the same thing. What's the perfect recipe for a cool weekend in the hottest town at the Jersey Shore? What? The hottest town. Start with some of the best festival food around, add a dash of music and a pinch of surprises, and you have Asbury Fest, a three-day culinary event you don't want to miss. That is tasty. Oh, baby. Let's go.

Let's find out the bands. At least they're telling us who's here. Friday's music at 6 o'clock, we got Chris Brown. So, ladies, mind your P's and Q's. No loud Jersey screaming because he's got his fist cocked and he's ready. We know this guy is not a nice guy. I don't know if it's him or somebody else. Probably not.

Then, he's not even headlining if it's him. He's doing the sixth slot. It's still light out for Christ's sake. Has he knocked himself back that far by punching women? I hope so. I mean, he was a... He punched a lot of women. If there's any justice in the world. Yes, I mean, we're still letting this guy headline? What the fuck? Sure thing. Sure. Like the shore. Saturday night, we got Kate and the Melonheads.

The Wag will be there. The Unknowns, which really all these bands could go by that if they want to. They're doing fantastic. We wouldn't know. Mrs. G or Ms. G and Da Guys. Sure. Junction 13. And then finally headlining on Saturday night, Almost U2 is the name of the band. Almost. Almost.

We're pretentious twats, but our music isn't very good. We don't have a where the streets have no name. That's what we're missing. In a perfect world, Chris Brown is doing 20 minutes in front of all of this. That's it. Doing all that shit.

Yeah, and then fucking almost you two won't even talk to him. Sunday, we got Run for Cover, the Tangled Souls, and then we end it all with Jimmy Shoes with a Z and the Magoos with a Z.

So that's nice. I really hope that's the real Chris Brown mixed up in that fucking mess. Because amazing. If he has to open, I mean, that's Jimmy's shoes. That's worse than, well, I mean, that's a step below ludicrous in the County fairs. He does. Yeah. Cause every single week in all the small town murder groups, someone's posting about where ludicrous is this weekend. He's at a County fair every weekend. He is making all summer's book. It's wild shit.

That said, crime rate

Property crime here is about a third high above the national average, which is normal for a beach town because you've got a lot of tourists, you've got a lot of drunken 2 a.m. activities and things like that. But violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is about 20% below the national average. So apparently people are chilling out that much, so that's good. Chris Brown does have to come through town once a year. Well, yeah, he's going to hit somebody, you figure.

So let's talk about a murder. Here we go here. Let's talk about a just a fucked up murder. And I had seen a lot of this on YouTube, including these interrogations of these people. And there's a video that I had seen like two years ago.

So this is all when I was reading it, I'm like, why is this? Did we do this story before? Like, why does this sound so familiar? And then I saw the kid's face and I went, oh, you, you cocksucker. I remember you. You punchable asshole. So let's start out December 3rd, 2016. So very recently. Oh, my. You sure you want to do this? Very recently. No, let's stop now. Never mind. Yeah.

December 3rd, 2016. This is what we got. So this is what you got. Okay. It's very recent. 2.46 a.m. Okay. So a Neptune City Township Police, they discover a 1994 Oldsmobile 88.

Okay, the car. Wow, that... In 2016. Man, I forgot about those. Still running. Yeah. Yeah. Good for them. And unsurprisingly belongs to like an 87-year-old lady, which is exactly who you'd imagine drives this fucking thing. Driving an 88? Yeah. She owns it, but she's not the one who drives it. Okay. We'll talk about that. It's found abandoned atop the Belmar Bridge over the Snake River with the keys inside.

Oh, OK. So car sitting there, side of the road, keys inside. What the fuck? It finally quit. So they're wondering, did it break down? It's a 22 year old car, but it seems it's operationally functional. It works. Really? Yeah. So they're like, OK, fires right up when you start turn the key. Doesn't make any sense. So there's dashboard footage of the officer finding the car and there's, you know, an Uber driver, I think, called it in.

He was driving by and he called it into the cops or some abandoned car on the side. He's bored. Well, cars on bridges generally raise a red flag. Well, yeah, because they're not supposed to. Yeah, you get off the bridge.

So this is Officer Shane Leeming. He arrived on the Route 35 bridge in Belmar following the report. And the car was registered to a Lillian Stern, who's an elderly woman. But they found out very quickly that this car was never driven by Lillian Stern. It was driven primarily by her granddaughter, Sarah Stern. That's nice. Okay, yeah. She lets her granddaughter drive it. I don't know if she's still up to driving or what, Lillian. Right.

So they tow the car away and they check the area around and under the bridge because when they find a car on a bridge with the keys still in it, they think someone got out and jumped off the fucking bridge because that happens. If you watch The Sopranos, it's exactly what that dirty cop did. Pulled on the side of the road, jumped off the bridge. So no, they couldn't find anything down there. They looked below the bridge all around. There's no body. There's no personal effects. There isn't like a chapstick floating or nothing like that. Just-

The dad from Home Alone, right? Nothing there. Wasn't that the dirty cop? Yes, it was, actually. It was? How about that? Dad from Home Alone. Lost Kevin and then jumped off a bridge. And then he had the worst... In The Sopranos, there's one episode where he's got his shirt off, and I'm like, I've never seen a man with a worse body than him. It's just the weirdest...

I was looking at it like it was like a scientific curiosity. Like, what the fuck is going on with this guy? Wasn't he in like a tank top and boxers? Or did he have just his boxers on? He had a shirt. He had a towel on. No, he was in the shower when the cops raided, remember? That's right. He was in the shower. I was like, God, man. Golly. Shower with a shirt on, please. Mr. McAllister. Fucking A, man. No wonder why you forgot Kevin. No wonder why Kevin didn't want to be seen in public with you. Horrific body.

So they look around. They find nothing. They contact Sarah's cell phone carrier to ping her phone in order to locate it. And the last time they find where it hit a tower was 7.49 p.m. the night before. Okay. So almost seven hours ago was the last time the phone –

Nearby the bridge? No, near her house. Oh. Not near the bridge. That's the last time they got a cell phone ding there. So that's not great. So I said Snake River before, by the way. It's the Shark River. I apologize. Wrong. Wrong. I got Oregon Trail in my head. Yeah. I got Oregon Trail in my head, crossing the Snake River.

Wrong animal that I'm terrified of. Yeah. I'm not terrified of sharks at all because I don't go in the ocean, so they'll never get me. But they are the reason that I don't go in the ocean. I don't go in the ocean because the ocean is terrifying and it will swallow you up whole. So that's why I don't go in the ocean. And sharks have a 0% chance of eating me if I don't. So it works out. I'm not afraid of them at all. I'm terrified of them. Zero. It's awesome. I'm as afraid of sharks as I am of Dracula. Like, it's the same thing to me. What? What?

same thing zero fear but what exists james doesn't matter neither that's what's great in my house neither it's awesome not a lot of documentary proof of dragon no but there's none of sharks outside of water either so they're equally threatening to me in your house in my house and not in the water um

So they're looking for anything and they find nothing. They bring dive rescue teams in even to see if maybe this girl is in trouble holding on to a fucking tree branch somewhere in the river trying not to float downstream or something. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about SimpliSafe.com.

Oh, SimpliSafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com. That's right. And maybe you felt this. You ever felt a sense of unease when you leave your home? Wondering if everything's going to be okay if you're away. Maybe you'll be out of town for a while. Did I close the garage? Yeah, we have. I do it when we go out of town. Every day. But it wasn't until I had my house broken into and a man destroyed my plumbing that I was able to get out of town.

that I realized security is needed here. Need a security system. Paramount. And SimpliSafe, thankfully, is there to help, and they are amazing. We did, and I'm a research guy, you know that, so I did all the research, and SimpliSafe is the best, and we've loved, both of us, having SimpliSafe protect our homes and our studios for years. We've had it for years now. It's been like six years we've had SimpliSafe, and the security and the service are...

They're great. They're better than you could ever expect for, honestly. Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system plus free indoor security camera when you sign up for Fast Protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash small. That's simplisafe.com slash small. S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com slash small. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Now back to the show. ♪

This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's the season of fear. Maybe you have some fears. Maybe you're not Halloween-based. Maybe you're not scared of Dracula. You're scared of real-life things like us. Like, we're both terrified of flying, and we have to fly all the time. So things like that can help with therapy. Honestly, you need it. You're going to hold yourself back with that stuff. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

We recommend it. It's entirely online. It's designed to be, and it is, very convenient, flexible, and especially, this is the important part, suited to your schedule. It's great. You just fill out a brief questionnaire. Couldn't be any easier. They match you up with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time. No additional charge. No.

They want you to get help. That's what's the important part here. So you should do it. Overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash SmallTownMurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, BetterH-E-L-P dot com slash SmallTownMurder. Now back to the show.

So let's look into this. It's Sarah Stern. She's 19 at the time. The cars register to her grandmother, who's 96 years old. So that's why she doesn't drive. Thank fuck. Thankfully, Sarah's driving this car and not her. Her dad's name is Michael Stern, and her mother has been dead for about three, four years. Her mom died as a teenager, which is brutal, brutal, brutal for anybody, really. I mean, honestly, but a teenager, that's that's tough.

Now, Sarah is really, really into YouTube personalities and that sort of thing. That's what she's into, which she reminds me a lot of like my kids are into that shit too. So yeah, she's very much, she likes, she has an online presence as well. She,

She goes to all the YouTube conventions to meet the YouTubers she likes and stuff like that. Her profile picture on Facebook is with a girl named Grace Helbig, who is a YouTuber. I don't know, some YouTube person who she loves. No idea. If I was 12, I would know exactly who she is, but I'm sure I don't. So that's her profile picture. So to her, that's a very important person. It's a celebrity to her.

Yeah, Sarah's very much into artwork. She puts it on her Twitter account all the time. Her own? Yeah, on her Twitter account she puts up her artwork and she draws YouTubers a lot.

Which is a good way to get noticed because if the YouTuber will repost your stuff, then people will notice you. So it's a smart way to do it. It's terrific. Sure. So she posted photos of her meeting the people she liked and all that kind of thing and photos of her dog buddy, of course, too. Of course. Who she loves as well.

Now, they go to Sarah's house here because obviously they think, well, maybe she thought maybe the car wasn't working at that second and she got a ride home and maybe she's sitting in a living room watching TV, not worried about sharks at all right now. Yeah, we don't know. She might be thinking that the tow truck driver took her car away when he did not. Exactly. Who the hell knows? So they go to her house. No one responds to the knock.

So they find this is a Sergeant Bradley Hindes because they're looking for a possible missing person that's in trouble. They're trying to get in this house. This isn't a matter of it's not a crime scene or it's not like a suspect's house. It's a missing girl. So they look all around and find a key under the doormat and say, nice job. Let's do it. So they open the house and they go in. And he said he was in the house for less than five minutes.

And although he wasn't looking for anything of like any crime scene type things, he said he never saw any blood, vomit, anything like that anywhere. No bodily functions or fluids in obvious sight around the house. This house, by the way, is very cluttered.

Really? Yeah, on YouTube there's walkthroughs of the body cams of it. It's a very cluttered house, like pack rat style clutter. It's a lot going on in this house. Would you say hoarder or just a lot of shit? They have two houses, her and her dad. So there's two houses. And this house is kind of their storage house. And I think a lot of this is a lot of the mom stuff is in here, the mom that died. Oh, yeah.

Because they talk about Sarah was going to go through it and try to get rid of stuff that she wasn't going to keep and things like that. So I think that's why it's such a packed up house, this house. So yeah, they look around. They don't see anything. It's like she's just vanished into thin air. There's her car. She's not in the river. Where the hell is she?

So the next day, they get the prosecutor's office and the New Jersey State Police. They join in the search effort. The Belmar Water Rescue Team gets help from the Coast Guard, the Monmouth County Sheriff's Dive Team, and the Shore Water Emergency Responders. So everybody they have that fucking – all the best swimmers in New Jersey are here looking for her, basically. She's not found on the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, 7th, the 8th.

The 9th? No, Sarah. Yeah, we go all the way to the 10th. And now it's the community starting to get involved because at first it was like 19-year-old girl. She probably took off and maybe that sort of thing. But then people start organizing searches for her, like organized searches. Community people are doing this. So they get people that she knows, strangers, everybody. There's hundreds of people looking for her. They search –

The woods, the beaches, they're combing the whole area. All the while people are swimming and looking. Yeah, people are swimming and looking too. There's divers going into the river looking and everything like that. The problem is this river goes right to the ocean.

It's right there. So that's the issue that they're worried about is if she jumped in, she might have been taken out to sea, which. Yeah, we don't know how long that car has been sitting up there. No idea. Well, we do because some they got witnesses saying they passed by at a certain time and it wasn't there. And then the Uber driver went by and it was there. So we get like within an hour of, you know, when it happened. So.

So a couple of the people who are on the search team are her friends because they enlist a lot of her friends to do this. And she has a very close, tight-knit group of people that are like her group. Yeah.

Remember in high school, that was so important. She's got her clique and everybody is very, very close. One of the guys is Liam McAtasney is his name. M-C-A-T-A-S-N-E-Y. McAtasney, they calls it. We're going to call him Liam because that's a ridiculous last name to pronounce. So,

And that's coming from a Petrogallo. So listen, bro, you're it's not, you know, you could have skipped the two pronounced part. Yeah, it's a ridiculous last name. He also as if he couldn't get more Irish than being Liam McAtansney. He's got a twin brother named Seamus as well. Get the fuck. I wish I could fucking make that up. That is his God's honest truth. Seamus and Liam Seamus and Liam.

They're walking around the beach with shamrock tattoos for sure. Yeah, and orange, white, and green stripes on their ankles. Like that old Family Guy episode where Chris goes up to Peter and he goes, I think I'm going to get a shamrock tattoo. It's time. Like...

Eventually, you know what was going to happen. It's one of those. It's time. Or a fucking Notre Dame tattoo. It's one of those, yeah. With a little goddamn angry leprechaun. So now Liam had first met Sarah during Sunday school classes when they were about six years old. Yeah. So he's known her since then, and they started becoming good friends in about middle school.

They started hanging out and there's another guy named Preston Taylor who is in this group as well who has known her for years as well and is part of her hangout group. So they knew each other so well like their parents would take turns doing the carpool and it was like Liam and his

his twin and Preston and Sarah would be taken to school together. So three dudes and a chick, three dudes and a chick. There's a couple of chicks on also in the mix here. Uh, Michael Stern, Sarah's father recalled driving Liam and Seamus to school every couple of weeks when it was his carpool day. So Preston Taylor, Preston, I feel like is closer to Sarah than Liam. If there is a closer in this tight knit group, because Taylor was Sarah's, uh, Preston Taylor, Sarah's junior prom date. Even, uh,

But they kind of all went as friends in a group where they just kind of paired off as boy, girl, and then you're my quote date. But there wasn't like a romantic attachment to it. It was just we're going as a friend group. And then they went in a group with Liam and other friends that had dates and the same thing here. They also both the twins, both the Liam twins and Sarah Stern all volunteered at the Bradley Beach Fire Company as well.

Volunteer firefighters. Yeah, they do volunteer firefighter shit. So they all graduated in 2015 from Neptune High School. And there you go. And now Preston Taylor went on to attend two years at Stockton University.

a year and a half or so. And he's, he's back here now. So, uh, I don't know where that is. That's not good. Yeah. Who the fuck these colleges, who knows? It could have been somewhere. It could be in Southern Jersey or Delaware or some shit. No idea. Uh,

So this group, though, they're all best friends are extremely tight. So obviously, Liam and Preston are going to jump in on the search for, you know, their friend is missing. Who wouldn't search for your friend? That's crazy. So they said the one Saturday in December, they were searching for more than 11 hours. It's 35 degrees outside. It's cold. Everybody's going all over the Jersey Shore hoping to find her. There's a lot of strangers even in this group, just people who want to help out, which is

Happens a lot. It's common to have people, strangers come and you would hope that if your child was missing. Oh, I want this community. Yeah. People would come and help. So I feel like you have to just karmically you have to do that if it's a thing. I want people standing around like at a Taylor Swift concert hoping that there's extra tickets. You know what I mean? Yeah. Is there a scalper? Can I help too? Exchanging bracelets with each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So they do that. Now, Michael Stern is like kind of leading this. The police are, but he's leaning, leading it. Now he's very panicked. His wife died. Sarah's mom died a few years ago and now this is his only child. So he is like, yeah. And mom is incredibly old. He's losing everything. That's what I mean. This, this guy has to feel horrible and terrified right now. I don't, I feel horrible for this guy. He's, and through this whole thing, he is so just,

please help me with my, he just wants to find his daughter. I feel terrible for him. So, um, but everybody's there. There's a videotape where they can't tell which of, whether it's Liam or Seamus, because they look alike. They're that close. They're both like chubby faced blonde kids. Yeah. That's what they look like. Irish kids. Irish. Well, they're not redheads. They're blonde. So it's one or the other. It's really dark hair. They go, one of them goes on camera. Uh,

And talks about the search for Sarah and says she's pretty strong, so hopefully we're going to find something today. Like, she's pretty strong, so hopefully she can swim against river and ocean currents, I guess is what they're getting at. Or she wouldn't give up the fight of wherever she is. Yeah, I suppose. But it's also been, like, you know, eight days here. Six days? A while, yeah. That's a while. So they...

They obviously have a missing persons investigation into this, and they find out that they go to Sarah's house, and some relatives inform this investigator a cell phone had been found in the driveway. That is not Sarah's cell phone. Oh, okay.

So in Sarah's driveway is a cell phone that is not hers or anybody else in the family. That's something for sure. Yeah. So now the police are talking to all of her friends, everybody close to her in case she ran away to maybe –

I know maybe she doesn't want anybody to know where she is, but look, her dad's really, you know, we got to find out where she is. And she doesn't have to come back. She's an adult, but we just need to know. She's allowed to be wherever she's at. Just tell dad. Her dad hasn't slept in two weeks, so if we could maybe tell dad. Poor guy's losing his mind. First people they go to are Liam and Preston. That's a big one. So this is Rainer is his name. He's this investigator with the prosecutor's office, Detective Wayne Rainer.

He says he went to Liam's parents' house where he spoke with Liam and his mother. Now, he said that Liam didn't seem surprised that the detective wanted to speak with him, which I saw the video. He comes outside and talks to him and he's real, just as the detective describes him, calm, quiet, very passive demeanor.

He's just like, yeah, I'm sure you would come to me because I'm her friend. I know her, yeah. So this is in the presence of Liam's mother, even though he's an adult. Liam says that he was upset with what was going on. He's afraid for Sarah. At first he just thought she might have taken off, but he's starting to get scared now something happened to her. He said that he knows that Sarah had found money in the house. She had found money, cash, and a note.

And she believes this money was left for her by her mother for her specifically in cash. It's like they're talking about like $100,000 cash in the house somewhere. It's a lot of money in cash to be keeping in your house. So now they – Rainer has a little surprise for Liam. He goes, you got your phone on you? Liam says, no, I actually can't find my phone. He goes, well, is this your phone?

I found it. Because I got it. And he went, oh, wow. He goes, that is my phone. Yeah. The detective says, do you mind if I look through it? And Liam says, sure, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Do whatever you want. Gives him the code for it and everything. And so he looks through his recent calls and found that he had called Sarah on December 2nd, which is they found the car at 2.46 a.m. on the 3rd. So that's the last day she was around. He had called her at 12.57 p.m.

So this is, you know, 12 hours before this. Lunchtime, which is exactly what he had told the detective, too. They said, when he said, well, I called her about one o'clock and then they look on his phone. Twelve fifty seven. He called her. So that's matching up with a story. So that's good, obviously, for him. So there were also calls to and from Preston Taylor, including two missed calls from Taylor to Liam at five oh six and five oh nine p.m. on December 2nd. This is while Liam was at work.

And also a call from an unidentified number to him at 451. So they ask about they find another call from Preston Taylor at 1152 p.m. And Liam said that because Liam had told the cops they were together at that point. They said, where were you that night? And he said, I was with Preston. And they go, well, why did you call him at 1152 p.m. then if you were with him?

And he said, oh, Preston couldn't find his phone, so I called it to make it ring. I call this phone, yeah. I do that all the time. With me and Sarah, it's like three times a week where I go, you call my phone, please. I have no idea where it is. I have two kids, man. I'm calling those phones constantly looking for them. That's what it is. So that makes sense. The cop says, listen, I can't tell you how imperative it is that if you know anything about where she could be,

Please tell us, because there are people literally diving in a river with currents, putting their own bodies in danger here to find her. So we don't want more tragedy happening.

ready to what we got so please and the river's freezing too this is not a pleasant thing it's fucking december in new jersey it's not fun yeah so they said please the you're the last person known to be with her on the afternoon of december 2nd so should she say anything to you about where she might be going or what she could have been doing or was she depressed or whatever the fuck so he said liam says i just know she's been trying to get away

He said in the past, this is a quote, in the past, she's had a tendency to have self-destructive suicidal behavior. So they said several years ago she had threatened suicide, quote, over something her dad did. He doesn't remember the details, but he said she threatened suicide. And he also says, quote, over the last few months, she's been telling me how bad the relationship with her father is and how she just needs to get out of here.

So Liam goes on to say that Sarah was obsessed with people who made YouTube videos. He's obsessed with YouTubers. That's her main interest. And that's what she cultivated a lot of friendships over the Internet through these people. So maybe you should look through a computer and find because that opens up the world to literally anybody on Earth. Who knows? Who knows? So they said she told him Sarah had told Liam that some of the people she hung out with online lived in Canada.

And she was talking about how she could possibly go to Canada to get out of here and be roommates with her friends she met online. Sure. I got places to stay. I can go. He said that Liam told detectives that Sarah was so obsessed with going to Canada to get away from her father. That's what she kept talking about. He said that Sarah constantly argued with her father and she didn't trust her father because allegedly, according to Liam...

Her father had taken money left to her by her dead mother and lost it in a series of bad investments, which happens. So in the weeks leading up to the disappearance, she was packing up her mother's belongings and bins and taking them to store in the houses of friends and relatives. So her father wouldn't have them. That's what Liam said.

For some reason. I don't know what reason she didn't want her father to have her mom's books or something. Who knows? And Liam also told them Sarah had found somewhere between $20,000 and $100,000 in cash in a lockbox in her house that she believed her mother had intended to leave her when she died a few years earlier. So she's like, oh, this is mine.

So Liam asked this, quote, if she did jump off the bridge, what are the odds she's not somewhere out in the ocean by now? Which is a really weird question to ask. I mean, I guess curiosity.

Would she be out there? So that's asking a detective that. So they said, tell us about your day with her. And he said, okay, on December 2nd, we went to Taco Bell in Neptune on that day. And then I went with her to the Kearney Bank or Kearney Bank.

And he said, I waited outside in the car, but she went in the bank. So I don't know exactly what she was doing. He said then they returned to Sarah's house and played video games until he had to go to work at Brennan's Steakhouse in Neptune City. Which, if that still exists, we should do it for your stupid opinions. Fuck yes. So but before they went to Taco Bell, Liam said he helped Stern box up some of her mother's belongings and take them to a neighbor's house.

He said that she said that her dad was coming home and she had to get the stuff out and she had to get to Canada. Liam said, I had spoken about going to Canada with her over the past few weeks, but that was just for emotional support. I didn't think she'd go through with it.

So she told him that night she was going to Canada. That's what he's saying. He said that I don't understand why he said I've known her since the first grade. I don't know why she wouldn't say goodbye before she left. She knew she was going to leave that night. I saw her that day. She could have said, hey, take it off. See you later. But he said, quote, she's always been obsessed with Canada. Huge Canada file. Huge maple file this guy is. He's hugely into it. Every fact I ever learned about Canada was an accident.

That's how Americans learn about Canada by accident. Canadians probably learn about the states in school because it's like what they do will surely affect us a lot. Whereas we're like nothing they do affects us at all. We don't care.

When you see a news report about something in Canada, they go, get this. It happened in Canada. Weird. So much so that when we've been threatened by people in Canada that would usually be dangerous people, we're like, they're Canadian. I'm not afraid. Never mind. Don't care because we have been threatened.

So they go down to the police station with Liam later on to get like a, you know, a full formal interview on tape with him about this whole thing. And he in this, he said he lives with Preston Taylor. That's a roommate of his is his buddy Preston. He works at a restaurant, Brennan's Steakhouse. And this is he's in his second year of community college.

He said they were pretty close friends, he and Sarah. They spoke at least once a week and texted often. So he said he believed also during the sit-down interview that Sarah could be a, quote, secret lesbian as well. And she was obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, Liam's ex-girlfriend, and several YouTubers who are, as he put it, quote, known lesbians. Known. Which sounds like in the 50s. He's a known communist. Yeah.

We got lesbians and communists, everybody. I've known her since first grade. I believe she's a deeply closeted lesbian. Deeply closeted. So he volunteered that years earlier, Sarah told his ex-girlfriend, Liam's ex-girlfriend, that she was going to kill herself.

So he said she has been suicidal in the past. He also said there were a few occasions where his ex-girlfriend went to a neighbor's house to help Sarah, who said her father was going to hurt her. So he said between the father and, you know, she's got suicidal thoughts. Maybe she went to Canada. Oh, there's a lot that could be going on here. Jesus.

So he also told the detective that Sarah had lost or been fired from several jobs and had not been going to school. Just she's been having a tough time in general. Here's all the reasons she might want to jump off a bridge. Or run away to Canada, which, I mean, it's hard. If you're a girl and your mom dies at 16, that's just rough. There's just a lot. Yeah, that's, oh, God. Girls, they change so much. It's tough.

12 and 18 and 16 is right in the midst of it. It's so confusing of a time to lose your mom at the same time. A boy, it's hard on them too, but their dicks are so hard they barely notice it when they're 16. They're so fucking horny and angry. They're like, you know, it's just another thing to be angry about. That's all it is. They're either crying or jerking off anyway. Or both. Oh, God. Great tits, but Jesus Christ.

Stroking it. So, yeah, she'd been fired from several jobs. And according to Liam, Sarah had been saying she needs to get away and go to Canada and get away from her dad. He didn't know if she was in Canada at the time because she hadn't said anything about leaving when they last spoke. But he did hear her say something to a relative such as, quote, this might be the last time I see you because I might be in Canada by the next time. He said that Sarah's relationship with her father was, quote, not good.

He said there's a lot of fighting all the time, but never any physical contact, just fighting and yelling and that sort of thing. He described a recent fight Sarah and her father had over the phone. They had it on the phone, not about a phone, about a broken house key and that her father was screaming, shouting and really angry at Sarah. He also said Sarah was supposed to get money from her mother, but her father took the money from her and there was trust issues because of that.

So he said that's why Sarah was packing up her belongings into containers and moving them to other people's houses while her father was away. Liam said that he had several of Sarah's bins in his basement and had helped her move other containers to neighbors' houses. He said, I have no idea what's in the bins. She just said, can you store these here? He said that Sarah's father was very nice in public, but Sarah would say disparaging things about him in private.

He repeated again that he last saw Sarah when he left her house at 545 p.m. on December 2nd to go to work. He did not talk to Sarah after that because he lost his phone at some point that day and left work a couple times to go home and search for it. OK, he said he could have lost the phone while he was with Sarah after he learned the phone was found in the driveway. So he goes, oh, that makes sense because I left there. So.

Which is all fine. That all makes sense. He said that that day he just called her at 1257, asked her if she wanted to get some food, and they went to Taco Bell, the bank, and then played video games. At some point, Sarah said, quote, her dad was coming home. She had to get the stuff out. She needed to get to Canada.

He said she talked about it for weeks and he thought she wouldn't go through with it. According to the detective, Liam asked, one thing I want to talk to you guys about was, um, and then she asked the same question. If she did jump off the bridge, what are the odds that she's not somewhere all the way out in the ocean by now? That's how he put it. They were like, I don't know. I'm not a current ocean currents expert. I'm not Scott Peterson. I didn't look up all the currents and tides today, so I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah.

So he said that Sarah didn't tell him that she was going to jump and that he would not have gone to work that night if she said that. She said, I'm going to go jump off the bridge. He said, I would have called in for that. That's a call-in-able thing, you know? Sure, sure. He also said that he understands the importance of telling law enforcement everything, and that's why he told them about the suicide threat that Sarah made to his ex-girlfriend a couple years ago and that Sarah had once cut her wrist with a knife when they were all 16 years old. So he's painting this picture of Sarah

A girl in some turmoil, maybe a little bit unstable due to probably exterior factors or mom dying, this, that, whatever. So that's what they're kind of painting. She's partially suicidal. She needs to get away from her father.

that's kind of the deal. So the detective asked Liam why he didn't tell them he'd gone to the bank with Sarah the first time they talked because he waited a little while to say it. It came out later. And he said, well, I told him about the bank gesturing at the other detective.

And he said, yeah, we stopped at the bank on the way home. And he said, I stayed in the car, so I don't know. He said that it had something to do with her money that she found in the house a few months before, but he didn't know exactly what she was doing. He didn't know if she was taking money out or putting money in. He had no idea. Sarah had told him about finding the money that must have belonged to her mother and that it could be from $20,000 to $100,000. Wow.

She wasn't sure how much money it was because all the bills were in bad condition and all stuck together. Mother didn't store them properly. That's the thing about money people don't understand. Money deteriorates. Does it? Have to store it properly or it fucking falls apart. There's so many times people are looking, they look for like buried treasures and shit, but if it's not like in an air sealed bag and all that shit, it's going to disintegrate when you touch it. Wow. It's going to fall apart. Yeah.

So what do you do if you find it? Do you take it right to the bank? They won't take it if it falls apart like that. Really? Yeah, it's got to be in at least half decent condition. It can't be in pieces. They have to be able to count it physically and hold it. If it's too brittle, then they can't do it. How long money's been in my possession? Yeah, exactly. Goes quick. I need it right fucking now. Right this goddamn minute. So he claimed he never saw the money, and he said she never gave any of it to me, so I don't fucking know. That's just what she told me.

So now when asked why four calls were made from Sarah's landline to his cell phone that day, he said, I don't know. No idea. The four calls were made just prior to him clocking into work at 5.01 p.m. And before. So, yeah. So he stated that he did not know that he lost his phone till after he got to work and he went to pull it out and couldn't find it.

So they look into Liam a little bit further because they're like, well, if he spent that much time with her, let's check this out. So they look at surveillance video from his workplace and it shows him arriving at work at 5 p.m., like he said, leaving the restaurant twice before leaving for the night at 10 p.m.

So he's got a five-hour shift, and he left and went somewhere else twice during a five-hour shift. I'd be furious if I'm the fucking boss. Weird. So they also saw a video of Liam and Sarah at the Taco Bell drive-thru.

So we got that. That's all truthful. We know that's right. They got receipts and everything. They also retrieved video footage from an external camera located on a residence across the street from Sarah's house. Okay. Yeah. That's how that Robert Tellis guy got busted was the, the in Vegas was the camera directly across the street, watching him park his car and run over there. It's hilarious to watch.

So in the late afternoon, Liam left in the black vehicle that was parked in the driveway. Approximately 20 minutes later, a vehicle approached the property from the rear, and then a person was seen in the backyard walking toward the back of the property. That's what they see on the footage. Sarah's car is still seen in her driveway at midnight, and a light from a vehicle driving by the rear yard was seen.

Now, the light inside Sarah's house, all the lights were on inside her house. They said minutes later, the interior light of Sarah's car went on and the car was seen leaving her house.

Around then. So a minute later, headlights could be seen in the rear of the residence as well. So like another car pulled out with it. So they're like, okay, maybe she went with that person. Maybe that she dropped her car off and that's possible. So Sarah's aunt and grandmother arrived at the house an hour later and remain there for 10 minutes. This is in the evening or that's one of the morning.

So police searched the interior and exterior of the home, but found nothing related to her disappearance. Her passport, her social security card, her U.S. and Canadian currency all found in her bedroom.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about our friends at Quince. Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com. Absolutely. We're excited. New season coming up. We're going to have fall and winter and trade in these short sleeves. Yeah. Pop on some nice sweater. Get you some flannel. Yeah. That's right. Get me some cashmere maybe. Maybe I'll step it up and upgrade. Maybe a nice leather jacket. Something like that. But I'm going to get it from Quince. That I do know. Because Quince offers...

Yeah.

I'm looking in the leather jacket range now. Get some warm stuff. Get some fall stuff. And I'm going to be on Quince and I'm going to hit it up. And I'll tell you that right now. And you can do it too. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash smalltownmurder. Now back to the show.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about SimpliSafe. Oh, SimpliSafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com. That's right. And maybe you felt this. You ever felt a sense of unease when you leave your home? Wondering if everything's going to be okay if you're away. Maybe you'll be out of town for a while. Did I close the garage? Yeah, we have. I do it when we go out of town. Every day. But it wasn't until I had my house broken into and a man destroyed my plumbing that

That I realized security is needed here. Need a security system. Paramount. And SimpliSafe, thankfully, is there to help. And they are amazing. We did. And I'm a research guy. You know that. So I did all the research. And SimpliSafe is the best. And we've loved, both of us, having SimpliSafe protect our homes and our studios for years. We've had it for years now. It's been like six years we've had SimpliSafe. And the security and the service is amazing.

They're great. They're better than you could ever expect for, honestly. Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system plus free indoor security camera when you sign up for Fast Protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash small. That's simplisafe.com slash small. S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com slash small. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Now back to the show.

Worried about letting someone else pick out the perfect avocado for your perfect impress-them-on-the-third-date guacamole? Well, good thing Instacart shoppers are as picky as you are. They find ripe avocados like it's their guac on the line. They are milk expiration date detectives. They bag eggs like the 12 precious pieces of cargo they are. So let Instacart shoppers overthink your groceries so that you can overthink guacamole.

You'd bring your passport and your ID if you're going to Canada, usually. And at least Canada money. At least if you got some, might as well. They found a key in the center console of Sarah's car that opened her safe deposit box.

Inside it, they said they found a, quote, significant amount of cash that was old and most of it was dry rot stuck together falling apart. It was very brittle. They said very brittle. So that's brutal. You're like, oh, God. She got money from mom. I would have been like steaming it to try to get life back in. I do.

Put it in a bag and steam it. I put it in a tobacco humidor trying to just get any moisture back in this shit. Let's revitalize it. Take it to a vaginational or whatever. Whatever. Yeah. By the way, they offered that to our dog. What? They offered vaginoplasty to our dog. Vagination? Yeah. I swear to God.

They said she had, we took her to the vet. She kept getting infections and they go, yeah. Does she drop down real close to the grass when she pees? We're like, yeah, right on. She goes, yeah, she's got a flappy vulva. We're like, is that a medical term? Flappy vulva. Yeah. And they offered to trim it up and we're like, we are not getting the dog vagina surgery. It is not happening. No cosmetic vagina surgery for my dog. No, I'll cut the grass shorter. That's fine.

Fuck out of here. Look how ugly my dick is. You think I'm going to make her vagina pretty? You think I'm going to fix that? No.

What a ugly thing. The cash totaled $25,250 in the safe deposit box. How much? $25,250. Wow. And there's more cash at the house, they think. So they searched Liam's car, and they recovered two Century safe keys. Century is the brand. A cell phone and a brown leather wallet.

The keys opened a safe that they will talk about later on. And so the police also retrieve some other stuff from inside the car, several index cards that matched some found in Sarah's safe deposit box used to separate the deteriorated cash. It's like, why do you have the same index cards she had and stuff like that?

So they don't really trust Liam all that much. I mean, they think he might be on the level, but maybe not. He's certainly a terrible employee. Oh, I would say. Christ, five-hour shift, he's gone twice. How do you explain that? Someone's covering his tables twice. That's wild. That's amazing. So then the police get a call from a guy named Anthony Curry.

And Anthony Curry is a friend of Liam's. They met in high school. They became close friends. They bonded over music, movies, and The Sopranos.

They were both very into The Sopranos, which I think everybody in New Jersey was into The Sopranos. In 2016? Oh, but he met him when it was probably off the air. He met him, yeah. No, it was probably off the air by then, but they were into it. And it's Jersey, I'm telling you. And he's too young to have gotten it when it was on the air anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was 2007. These people were fucking, you know. Five years old. Yeah, they were like seven years old.

So they talked about that all the time. Anthony Curry said he practically lived at Liam's house and that they hung out often, meaning in high school. That's what happened. Now they talk about Thanksgiving 2016. This is a week before Sarah disappeared.

Curry, who is a is a wants to be a horror film director. That's his thing. He's trying to make movies. So he makes like little just little like home horror movies. And his goal is to be a filmmaker and, you know, make bigger horror movies. So we've all done that. So Curry had told Liam about an idea for a movie while they were hanging out at Liam's home.

And Anthony says this. I'm a filmmaker. He used to tell me ideas all the time about films I should make and all that stuff. And he told me about this idea he had to kill this girl, that he was going to strangle her and throw her over the bridge with his friend. And that's a way to – yeah, that would be a horror movie, which doesn't sound like a real good plot. Yeah.

It's like a weird plot to a horror movie. Is there a ghost at the bottom? There's a girl that's murdered and then she gets tossed off a bridge. Okay.

Does a demon catch her? I'm listening. As she's falling and then possess her body and she seeks revenge? No. No, no, that's it. Horrifying, right? Terrifying, right? So Curry said he didn't think his friend was talking about anything real. He said because he talked to him all the time about ideas. Hey, dude, I got this idea. You should do this. And he'd tell him like some outlandish murder plot and all this shit. So Curry said, I was like, yeah, he's a little nuts, but I don't know. I just thought it was a movie. He would tell me ideas like that all the time.

Then Curry said he learned about Sarah Stern's disappearance on social media, but didn't think anything of it until he said that Liam began contacting him almost daily wanting to meet with him. He's like, why do you want to meet with me all of a sudden? Like we don't hang out that much. So in January 2017, Curry got uncomfortable after Liam keeps contacting him too. And he goes to the police and tells them about that conversation he had on Thanksgiving. Oh,

It was not for nothing, but Liam told me this on Thanksgiving. This is a week before it happened. This guy had a crazy idea that happens to be far too close to what's going on right now. Absolutely. So they said, well, that's interesting. But they said, so he keeps talking to you and he wants to meet with you. And Curry's like, yeah. He goes, would you be willing to do us a little favor?

Which you be willing to meet with him and we will set up cameras in your car and see if you can get him to confess to killing Sarah.

Would you do that? You want me to sit down with a maybe murderer? Yeah. Who might be cameras? He might just be coming to try to kill me because I know some stuff, too. Who knows? I don't know. He knows he told me this. Yeah, he knows what's up. So police set up audio and video recording devices in Anthony Curry's car and they met in Bradley Beach, New Jersey.

And Curry said beforehand about the cops, he said, they told me you got to act sort of like Donnie Brasco, who if you don't know who that is, that's a.

Joe Pistone was an undercover agent who infiltrated the mafia under the codename Donnie Brosco, and then Johnny Depp played him in a fucking movie. But if you're 20, you don't know that. You don't know that. You have no idea about any of that. You've got to act like somebody you've never heard of. Yeah, well, he knows because he's into mob movies. Right. He's a filmmaker. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, he's seen it. So, yeah, they know, so he knows what's up. And the detectives, that's just their reference, I'm sure. Yeah.

Because that movie came out like 97 or some shit. Yeah, it's been a while. These kids were alive. No, fuck no. So they said, you got to ask him questions. You got to lead him into this. Now, he's in a lot easier place because he's not a cop. So he's not bound by any of these police rules. This is just a sting like they do with fucking drugs or prostitution or anything.

So, in the video, you can see Liam giving Curry a pat down to see if he's wearing a wire. Oh my God. He literally pats him down. I mean, they do a full... He thinks he's fucking Tony Soprano at this point. Holy... He's patting him down to see if he's wearing a wire, but he doesn't check anything else in the car. He just...

Anthony down. Yeah. Um, sees he's not wearing a wire and just immediately starts talking. Now, what Anthony Curry said? He wanted to tell me, I think he wanted to get it off his chest. For some reason, he trusted me. He said, I didn't give him any reason to trust me. He just was like, he thought I was his like confidant. He said he was happy to see me. He said, it's like seeing an old friend, but he was different. I don't know.

He said it was like somebody I never met before. It was almost like meeting a brand new person. It was weird, strange, which a lot of that is from you because you are doing a sting operation. So you feel different. Like all people are always like, oh, I think they know they know that I'm telling like, no, no, you're different. That's why you think that because you're different. So that's why you think everybody else is different.

And you've got suspicion that you don't want to be found out. This is weird to you. You're walking in a dark basement, so you're going to see shadows and you're going to do it. That's what it is. It's the same thing completely. So he said, someone I never met before. It was like meeting a brand new person. He told me I was the only person in this world that knew what he's about to tell him besides Preston Taylor. He said that it was urgent. I've got to tell you something.

And they said they had up and up until this, they had communicated through Snapchat because the messages disappear. So here's the sting. Now, in the presence of police, Curry sent a Snapchat to Liam saying, yo, what's good? He then told Liam he was going to come to New Jersey because he found someone who would sell him a camera for a thousand dollars and he wanted to meet up to meet up to borrow money from Liam. Hey, can I borrow money from you?

Okay, now Liam responded on Snapchat, I'm trying to link, but I don't have the money to lend you a G. I only had seven to begin with, and that was months ago. So Curry responded, you said you had bread. What the fuck happened? I got to shoot this shit, meaning I got to shoot this movie. I need this camera. You told me you had thousands of dollars. Yeah.

Okay. So Liam. Are these both white kids? Fuck yeah. Everybody involved here is as white as can be. These are the whitest people. Preston and Liam. And yeah, they're all white. That's my ass.

All white. Totally. I really like this. Trying to link, G. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Calm down, dude. I can't lend you a G. So Liam told Curry that he needed to tell him what happened in person and that he, quote, had like five Gs left and was currently unemployed. So he lost his job or quit or whatever. Liam also said, quote, we're not at the stage in our lives where we're lending each other money yet. I can't afford it.

Like, in other words, we're too young to be lending out money. So Liam suggested Curry ask his parents for the money and said his cash was low quality. He said they won't take it. That's all I can say. So Curry, if he didn't know anything about it, would be like, cash is low quality? What the fuck does that mean? If someone told you that, you would have no idea what it meant, right? What is it, Canadian money? I was going to say, is it pesos? What are we...

What are we talking about here? So, yeah, it's very strange. So Liam repeated that his situation was serious and he couldn't say anything on the phone, but they talked that night. Okay. So, okay. January 31st, 2017. The detective is present, by the way, in the background, you know, somewhere far away listening. Sure, sure.

In the call, this is in a phone call, Curry told him that his camera was broken and they keep talking about that. And Liam said, I wish I could fucking help you out, dude. And he said, you couldn't spot me. Now Liam or Anthony says, you couldn't like spot me some cash from like that girl's money, right? And he said, maybe how much you need. Okay. So Curry says, I need like two.

And then he says, I mean, I will pay you back after all these jobs work out like the money would still be like coming back to me. So and then Liam said, I don't think I could do that. We need to talk about that, too. Curry said, all right. Liam said, come see me in person sometime. And Curry said, how much like do you have anything left from it or no?

And Liam said, yeah, I don't know. I don't really want to talk about it right now. Because this is before the video and the pat down. So he's scared. Yeah, this is making me real uncomfortable. Yeah, so Curry said, yeah, trying to pay that fucking rent, yo. That fucking rent is killing me. Straight tops, James. Oh, they are. Trying to pay that rent, yo. Preston and Liam.

Play that fucking rent, yo. And fucking is F-U-C-K-E-N. Fucking. Yeah. Like a turducken. Like a tur-fucking. So Liam said, all right, you're fucking telling me, dude. You're fucking telling me, dude, I need a job. And then he said, yeah, let's just say I'm not as good off as I thought I was going to be. And then they agreed to get together.

So they're going to meet by the spot in Bradley near Avon. The spot, which in hood parlance would mean like where some shit sold, and their parlance means where we would go and eat McDonald's by the beach because we're fucking white kids. So before meeting, Curry met with the detectives for installation of the devices, and they do all this type of shit. Now, after...

After Liam got into Curry's car, Curry asked him what he'd been doing, and he responded, hiding from the cops. What? When Curry asked what happened, then Liam said, dude, you can't blame me for doing this, all right? I got to feel you up, bro, real quick, all right? And that's when he patted him down. Can't blame me for doing this, bro. We've watched The Sopranos. We know it's up. Yeah. Then Liam told Curry that he had, quote, the FBI on his ass.

Oh, the FBI's on my ass. Got the FBI on my shit. And they were questioning him a lot. All over him. When Curry said, what are they questioning you about? This happened. Okay. Liam said, about killing Sarah. They've been there. They were up my ass. First, it was just normal police. They were on my ass. And I had to go in and get interrogated by them multiple times. But then it kept moving up levels. And now it's a federal case. It got the FBI involved.

So Curry said, so you've been laying low, I guess. Liam said, oh yeah. And not even, that's not even the worst part. The worst part of it is I thought I was walking out with 50, a hundred grand in my pocket. She had one safe and she took money out and she only had 10 grand. And this money, I don't know if it was burnt or something. It's fucking old money, terrible quality. I don't even know if I can put it in the fucking bank.

Oh, boy. So and then Curry said, right, because it will probably look sketchy. Right. And Liam said, look sketchy and it'll look like Sarah's money, especially the federal investigation. Wow. So then Liam told tells Curry how Sarah found the money in her house and it was from the 80s and that Liam tells him that he didn't even get a quarter of it. Liam said he hadn't spent any of the money because it was in such bad shape and he needed to lay low and maybe like tape some shit up and see if he could put it in the bank.

So he didn't even get a quarter of the money and the money's rotten and it's rotten money. Oh, no. Yeah. He said he had the money hidden in his house for a while, but then he hid it in Sandy Hook because he stopped trusting Preston. This is like ninety three hundred dollars we're talking about. And it's going to be in it's going to be in a safe that is buried near Sandy Hook. He's burying safes.

Like a pirate. Right. He's burying money in safes that are, that's bad money. Yes. That's buried bad. Buried badly. It's going to make it worse. Yes. In a moist area by the beach. Oh. He said he had the money hidden in his house, but then he did that. He said that Curry then asked him what was the deal with Preston and whether he ended up helping him or not. Yeah. Quote, unquote. Yeah.

He, Liam responded, oh yeah, he's cool. He said, Sarah's whole deal was my thing, but I had planned Sarah's situation for me to be interrogated by cops. Like that was the whole part of my plan was to make me look not guilty.

Oh, boy. So the cops are rock hard dicks right now while they're listening to this, I'm sure. Rock hard. Rubbing each other and giving each other release because the pressure is so much. Saturday night at Diddy's house over here. It's getting wild. So shit's about to go off. The baby grease is getting worked out. Oh, it's coming. So Curry says, like, what did you end up doing?

And Liam says, you didn't hear about it? It was all over the news. Curry says, right, but I didn't know if you heard it from anybody or whatever. Liam says, yeah. And the worst part is we threw her off the bridge and the body never showed up. So Curry says it's probably frozen. And Liam says it's probably all the way out in the ocean. And then Liam says, or Curry says, so like what happened? How did this lead to this? Yeah.

And he says this, Liam does, quote, 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 carrying it out. And then she goes to walk out the front door of the house we're talking about. They went to the bank and then they were, she was taking some money out of her safe. Yeah, he's a bad storyteller. He's a terrible storyteller. And everything's like, you know what I mean? Like, bro, like he's such a, he has the most pomp.

punchable face and then his personality is like twice as punchable. You just want to beat the shit out of this kid the instant he comes on camera. The instant he comes on. No matter what, even if he was a victim, you'd go, I want to punch that kid. It's just like... It's such like a reaction that comes from your soul of like, oh, I want to hit that kid. So he said, we're carrying it out and then she goes to walk out the front door. I choke her out.

drag her my biggest problem was the dog and her dog dog laid there why and watched as i killed her he also said that he lost his phone at sarah's house but had to go to work because he had timed everything out just right when curry asked why he took his phone out of his pocket what he was doing he said uh strangling someone he's like i was strangling someone i had to put my phone down

He said his phone was later found in the driveway and that he must have dropped it when he was crawling to get into the car so no one would see him. Oh, wow. He crawled. Yeah, to get later on. He did this, as we'll talk about, to get into her car. That's why they say you just see from the camera, you just see her dome light come on and the car pulls away.

Oh, wow. You don't see anybody walk up to it and go get in it because he crawled around and got in it. So that's crazy. This motherfucker is diabolical. He is. That's frightening. He's a terrifying young man. Careful in case there's a camera in case there's a camera. He's thinking about. I didn't know there was a camera across the street. There's no way to know. That's so he knew he had to be. So he said, but I choke her out, dragged her into the back, put her in the bedroom, and then I had to go straight to work.

So Taylor, meaning Preston, came over, took the body, put it in the bushes, and then I was at work.

I had a full like night of work, except I left work a couple of times, which looks sketchy looking for my phone though. So, you know, it's okay. He said, which is kind of like it, like me losing my phone is kind of like a good thing because the cops are like, Oh, he's hanging out with her. He lost his phone. He's going back and forth between his house looking for it. And then I get off work that night, go straight over, uh, Preston and I go over to her house, take her safe, bring that over to my house before we do anything. Uh,

He walked by his phone and didn't even know it. Nope. He was in the driveway. He couldn't see it because it was dark. But yeah, they took the safe. They left Sarah's body in her house and took the safe to Liam's house. Unbelievable. He said, when 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 backed up. She had, there is security cameras across the street. So he knew about it. Wow. He said, so I had to back up.

I had to act like her, is what he said. I watched her every time she backed out. She does the same thing. So I backed out exactly like she did and drove off. Think about that. He said, I want to make sure it looks like her backing out in the camera. I got to do mannerisms that she does behind the wheel. Behind the wheel. That is...

No other word but diabolical for this shit. That's extra evil. Extra evil. So Curry said, you didn't put her in the trunk? And he said, no, put her in the passenger seat of her own car. Fucking burnied her, dude. What in the hell? Absolutely weekend that burnied her. He said, and then Preston and I had these walkie talkies to communicate with, you know, so it wouldn't show up on shit. Yeah.

We just used them again. So I was driving, and I had her buckled in the passenger seat. And then he just drove with a corpse in the passenger seat. Oh, my God.

So they drive to the bridge. This is horrifying. This is a sick child. Where the fuck did he come from? Ireland. I don't know. An Irish family. Seamus, if you have half of it, you have the exact same DNA, Seamus. Poor Seamus looks just like him, too. He's got the same punchable face. So, I mean, this guy. You'd think you'd just see Seamus and go, I know you're not the guy, but I really got to hit you. I don't know what it is. Come here. You deserve it.

So then, he continues, I got up on top of the bridge to throw her off. My problem was I was going to throw her off, run over, jump over the divider, and get into Taylor's car. Because Preston followed him. And I go up, open the door, unhook her, pull her out, start dragging her to throw her over, and then cars start coming up. It's a public road and all. Traffic.

I see like headlights coming. I'm trying to get her over and I can't. So this fucking dildo. He overestimated his own strength. That's the thing. At least on the Sopranos when they throw somebody off of somewhere, they knew they could throw him. They'd get enough oomph to throw him. Leverage and everything. This is a dipshit who thought about everything except dead weight.

He didn't think about how dead weight is. Thought about everything except biceps and lower back. He's like, oh, shit, I knew I shouldn't have missed leg day. Damn it. This is why you do it. This is why you go. And imagine your heart pounding as you're trying to throw a corpse over a bridge while headlights come. And realizing you're a weak pussy. You can't do it. It's not working. That realization had to be horrible. Yeah.

He said, fuck. He said, fucked my leg up like the weight from her body like made me fall. He just collapsed and she fell on his leg. Imagine if he just broke his leg and that's how they found him in the street. Like with like a compound fracture bleeding as a bone sticks out of his leg with a corpse laying across. That would have been amazing. I wish I wish that body cam footage would have been fucking phenomenal. What are you doing? I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happening.

She fell on me and died. I forgot I can't lift, sir. Oh, man. I don't even lift, bro. So he said, and my leg like went up. So now I'm my leg. I'm limping and my legs fucked and there's cars coming up, three cars coming up. So I grabbed her body. Dude, I had superhuman strength and I threw it in the car. He didn't throw it over. He tossed it back in the car.

It took superhuman strength to get her in a seat. That's raw. He said, and I fucking picked it up and her feet were up here and her foot and her foot, her head was down there and three cops go by or three cars go by. And I'm fucking losing my shit because that could have easily been a cop. And the cop would have pulled over and said, need any assistance? No. No.

God, no, I don't want to. No, I'm good. He said, and then Taylor comes over the bridge, goes around and makes a U-turn and comes up behind me. The two of us throw her body over. Wow. You got help. And we're out. He said, they say he asked more about.

The fucking he asked more about the actual murder part. Yeah. And man, he fucking Preston talks about how Sarah said his name while he was doing this. He said it took me about a half hour to kill her. This monster, this little punchable fuckwad.

In a half hour of your friend struggling and calling your name, you still think this is a good idea. You're heartless. Heartless. Heartless. And it took you 30 minutes to kill a girl, and you thought that you had the strength to throw her over a bridge? Yeah. It's hard to choke somebody. Yeah. It's so hard.

It's one thing to come up and you want to kill somebody, you go pull a bull in their head real quick. That takes a second. Nothing. It's nothing. But to choke somebody for a half hour, you've got to be fucking evil. People have shot people not in the right head space. And it's like, oh my God, what the fuck did I do? And it's over already. But 30 minutes is so much time to cool down. It's not even funny. So much time to stop. Wow. So Curry said choked her out for 30 minutes.

And he said, I choked her out and then she was just laying there having a seizure or something. So then I just, I had the, I got a shirt and I just shoved it down her throat so she wouldn't throw up or anything and held my finger over her nose and set a timer.

What? That's the only time that I had my phone. He set a fucking timer on his phone to see how long it would take. He said, and it took me like a half hour after I hit the start on the timer. This is the thing about heists. There's so much that you can't account for. It's not a heist. You killed your friend. A heist would be a casino where they could shoot back. You killed a 19-year-old YouTuber fan. That's crazy. You're a scumbag.

Wow. He then said he'd been interrogated by police over and over again in the last month, and he planned all the phone calls because he needed to make it seem like they were better friends than they actually were at the time. Liam then said other than Preston, Curry was the only person on this planet that knew what they did and that Preston was unaware that I'm telling you this. So Curry said, well, I'm no fucking rat. No.

I can't get enough. And he said, the cops never even questioned me, so don't sweat it. He then replied that, Liam replied that he had to play it safe and that he didn't want Preston to think that he has to kill Anthony Curry and take Curry out because Curry's the only person that knows. So he's like, listen, I don't want Preston to come kill you. I'm not afraid of being murdered by Preston, by the way, at all. I'm like, tell Preston to bring it on. I will fucking...

Cave his skull in. I'll give you my address, Preston. Preston, come on by. And I'll tell you when to sleep. No problem whatsoever.

So he said that Curry suggested not telling Preston that he knew it was a don't tell him. I told you told me that's crazy. Liam said that he planned this thing out for like six months. He said this. This was the plot. Six months. He planned this for golly. He should have worked harder. He should have figured out if the money was actually spendable and worth it first. That should have been part of your plot. The actual thing that you want to get out of it. Are you going to get it for this horse shit?

Liam, yes, six months. And Curry replied, quote, like a fucking movie, bro. Curry told Liam to be careful. And Liam responded that, quote, that's all over now. Oh, good. We're good. No need to be careful. It's all done. Video is about a half hour long.

And yeah, he said he used his stopwatch on his cell phone to time the killing and took him a half hour. He said, wow, this is fucking cold blooded and cruel, man. This is what he told Curry. She just pissed herself and said my name. And then that was it. And it took me a half 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.

And then he was mad about the money, too. And they also, Curry said, well, you know, are you, like, fucking, are you okay about doing this? Is this fucking up your psyche? And he said, I don't feel any different. I don't think about it, is what Liam said. Oh, my God. So just to let you know that he is a horrible, terrible person with no remorse. So anything that happens to him could happen.

It's fine. I couldn't give a fuck. So Liam and Preston are arrested the next day, obviously, after that. Liam is charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery, disturbing human remains, conspiring with another to disturb human remains, and hindering prosecution. Pretty good. Those are all good, but to prove that, though...

You're going to need a body to prove the remains part, right? Nobody, no crime. That's what they're hoping for. They're hoping it's nobody, no crime. That's a problem. That's a big fucking problem. We'll talk all about that. Don't you worry. Preston is going to be charged with disturbing human remains, conspiring to disturb human remains, and hindering prosecution, but not murder, because based on the video, she was already dead when Preston showed up. Now, reactions to them getting arrested...

As you can imagine, people are like, what the fuck? They were all friends. People were really freaked out. Michael Stern, Sarah's dad, especially. If I was there, I want to punch Liam. I can't imagine the fucking beating this guy wants to put on Liam. You sat in the backseat of my Explorer. Wow. Motherfucker. Little fucking shit bag of my Dodge Caravan. Yeah. Fucking douche. Man.

So you sat in my Astro van and now you act like it's nothing, huh? My Pontiac Aztec was good enough for you then, wasn't it? I took your jokes about the Aerostar. I know what you're being said. I got it. I got it. You didn't have to get your friends doing it, too.

So Sarah's dad, Michael, said it's just unbelievable, unfathomable, deplorable, disgusting. That's all I could get out. I'm surprised he didn't go. I want to strangle the life from his fucking blonde fucking head.

He said, I still can't believe that the boy he saw grow up with his daughter is now the guy who did it, according to the cops. He said, also, Taylor, who took Sarah to the prom, is charged. He doesn't know what to do. He said, quote, it's just strange. I can't believe the deceit and lies. He said, they were one big happy group. At that time, don't know what happened. Something, I guess people change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Yeah. A classmate of theirs said, if you had a model of a best friend group, that was them talking about Liam Preston and Sarah. She said, so I think that's why the whole community is confused, especially like people in our class who are all confused because they were like that friend group was literally inseparable. A lot of likes and literally is in there. She talks to a teenage girl. That's real annoying. Yeah.

Actually. Yeah, that's a lot. So this woman, this young lady, also recalled being involved with a trip in a television media club at school doing the morning announcements together. And Sarah worked the camera and sometimes joined them in skits as well. And she said they were just inseparable.

She was in class. This young lady was in class at college in Pennsylvania when she saw the newspaper report on online about the arrests. And she said, I couldn't believe it. She said, I don't know why it happened. She said, all of them are so nice. Nice to each other. Funny. Nice to me. Nice to other people. This wasn't like a group of assholes that were a ticking time bomb. These were like nice kids that were fine.

So they get them in there. Liam is still stonewalling. He said, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I didn't do shit. I want a lawyer. I don't know shit.

Preston, on the other hand, is like, let me tell you everything. I didn't do it. I'm not cold enough to choke a lady for choke a young woman for 30 minutes. So he said, listen, Liam enlisted me to get the body. He said, first, I hid the body outside a bush in a bush outside of her home. Jesus. And then went with him to the bridge. He said that he was first approached about this plot in August or September.

So it was a long time. This was at Clancy's Bar in Neptune. They were all hanging out. And after learning that Sarah had come into a large sum of cash from an inheritance, Liam started cooking this shit up. He said Liam learned of the recent inheritance and Liam commented that that amount of money was, quote, worth killing someone for. Are you fucking kidding me? Not your friends. The fuck is wrong with you?

It's one thing. I know some scumbags who robbed a bank. Let's fucking off them and whatever. But this is I know a chick who got money from her dead mother. Let's kill her and take it. What kind of a monster are you? A hundred grand. It's at best. I mean, that's not that is not even life setting money. Like you are going to you're in.

You asshole. Why would you do that? It's not like they're going to run away to a non-extraditable country with that. No, I'm a grand. You're fucked.

So at first, Preston said they discussed a burglary at first. Okay. So maybe we can do this like a burglary style and maybe steal the money while wearing disguises and just get the money, you know, like a normal person would do. You know, like somebody that's not a fucking murderer. Like a civilized person. Yeah.

So Preston said the amount was even less than they thought there was going to be. There was a little more than $7,000 in a backpack that Liam had taken and a little more than $2,000 in a safe. It was about $9,300 altogether they got out of this. They killed this young girl for $9,300 that wasn't even spendable. Unspendable cash. That is fucking insane. Wow. And Preston was supposed to get 30% of this. That was the deal. That's what Liam told him.

70-30 split. All right, sure. And at first he tells them he didn't get any money, but it turns out he did. He got his cut. Preston did get his cut. So he said that there was an earlier unsuccessful attempt by Liam to get the money where Liam brought over a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade to her house one night and planned to get her drunk.

How drunk are you going to get her on a six pack of Mike's Hard? Honestly. Is she shotgunning all of those? Yeah. Is she drinking them all? Plus, if you brought over a sixer and was like, no, you drink all of them, I'd be like, what? Why? You drink some, too. What are we doing here? What the fuck's happening? Well, that's suspicious as fuck. What did you put in these? It's weird. These are all antifreeze, aren't they? This isn't good. That color, that's a little funny, I guess.

So he said he planned to get her drunk, then contact Preston by walkie-talkie. This is when they bought the walkie-talkies they use later on. They bought them from Walmart. Was going to do that, tell Preston to come grab the cash. But the plan went awry when Liam learned that Stern had put the money in a safe deposit box in the bank. He's like, fuck, well, that's not going to work. Well, she was on her fifth mics. Yeah. He's like, these are really good. They're so lemony. They're good. I'm going to take a nap now.

He's tearing her house apart. She was on her fifth mics talking fine and said she has like a diabetic fit. She's like, good thing you brought these because I got to work in the morning and won't have a hangover if I drink these fucking pussy things.

So he said that he had to think of a way to get her to take money out of the bank. So he said that Sarah was wanting to be an artist and she had taken trips to Canada several times and had been to California at least once, Preston said, and Liam knew that. So Liam, being Sarah's friend since childhood, knew this and was trying to convince her to take the money out of the bank for a trip or to move away. Why don't you take a bunch of money out and go somewhere? Why don't you take a bunch of money out and then I can steal it? Why don't you do that?

Preston said at one point they asked me if I wanted to go on a trip or possibly move with them to one of these locations. He said that and then Preston said he didn't want to participate in that conversation. It was like out of it. Preston said I felt weird. This is a girl he talked about robbing and killing. She was in our house. The whole thing was awkward. Is there an understatement of the year? The award for understatement of the year goes to Preston for the word use of the word awkward in that sentence.

Fucking sentence. Yeah. Uncomfortable. Fucked up. Come on. Fucked up. Disturbing. Dig deeper, man. Wow. Awkward. It's a little awkward. So Preston said he and Liam took a trial run at the Route 35 bridge where they later dumped the body. They did a fucking dry run like bank robbers. Get out of here. Wow.

Wow. And they also tested the walkie talkies they would use to communicate with each other to make sure they worked. Another pair they purchased didn't have far enough a range. They needed a better range this time. Yeah. The toy aisle is a bad place to find. If they've got Elsa on them, don't use those. More for the hunting supplies than me. Get in the outdoors area. Get the cobras or the midlands. Don't get the SpongeBob one. I don't think that one's going to work as well.

Makes your voice sound like SpongeBob, too. That's not fair. I want the beast. You take Belle. Preston, I killed a girl. She's dead. We tried to use walkie-talkies, but the string wasn't long enough between the baked beans cans. It was bad. So he said they did that. Taylor said he came up with a few ideas to kill her and dispose of the body to get the money.

As the plan progressed, it was decided that Liam would strangle Taylor or strangle Stern. And he said any type of weapon would be too messy, would have left behind a bunch of evidence. So Liam thought about this all the way through. They talked about the possibility of burning her at a campsite.

Dude, that's worse. Yeah. Or just leaving her body inside of her house as well. Maybe we'll just leave it there. Make it look like a home invasion or something. He said, ultimately, we decided the best way to go about it was to make it look like a suicide. Dipshits. So Taylor Preston said on December 2nd, he went to work with his father, got a Snapchat message from Liam saying that he was with Sarah and they were at the bank. And this is his chance.

Taylor understood this to mean that Leah had convinced Sarah to take money out of the safe deposit box and that the plan would move forward that night. So Liam asked Taylor when he would be home from work. He said roughly four or five, and he told Liam to wait until it got dark out.

So he's involved in this, too. Preston's just he's not just as much of a conspiracy. Yeah, he might not. I don't think he'd have the heart to strangle her for a half hour, but he has the heart to know what's happening. Yeah. Wow. You keep that statement in mind, by the way. Oh, hold that statement for later, because someone else is going to say the exact same. Get out of here. It's amazing. So out of my head. It's wild.

At a time when Preston does not want to hear that. We'll put it that way. So, yeah, he said he was working and this was his chance to get the hands on the money and he knew it was up. He said, so the cops asked Taylor, he essentially told you what he was going to do that day. And he said, yeah. And the cops said, and you essentially just said, don't do it during the daylight. Yeah.

And Taylor said, yeah. You set the time, dude. Oh, man. So he said that Liam came over to the house they were sharing in Neptune City and told him that he had strangled her and hid her body in a downstairs bathroom.

So Liam later came home and told Taylor he had killed Stern that that's that time. And he said that Liam was frantic, not so much because Stern was dead, but because he couldn't find his phone and thought it must be at her house. She's like, fuck, what's the one piece of evidence that can better than DNA? Because he's been in her house. They're friends. What's the only piece of evidence that could incontrovertibly link him to this crime scene? Your goddamn phone. One thing you don't drop is your phone.

That is just as or more incriminating than your jizz, man. It is more. Because your jizz you can have an excuse for. You can go, yeah, we fucked. Yeah, you can say it was there a long time ago. Yeah, or she got it on that day. But if your phone was missing from this time because you were using it so they know the exact time it was gone from, we were just watching an episode of Monk the other day where a guy did the same thing. He had two phones that looked alike. One was the victim's.

And he took the wrong one and left his phone with the victim.

And it rang and he picked it up and the guy on the other end was like, you know, Bobby? And he's like, no, who the fuck is this? And then he looked and he's like, oh, fuck, this isn't my phone. So he had to go back and try to get it. It didn't work out. He got convicted too. So anyway, he said that that all happened. He was frantic. Liam, who went to work at Brennan's after killing, instructed Preston to go to Sarah's house and go look for my phone. Also, take her body out of the bathroom and put it in her trunk, please. Yeah.

Yeah. Of her car. Where did he say this? On Snapchat? No, he went home and said this. Okay. This was one of his breaks from work where he went home. So he told him, Liam tells Preston to climb a fence leading into the backyard and use the back door because of the neighbor's surveillance cameras out front. They'll see you coming. So they made sure to communicate when they weren't together by Snapchat and walkie-talkie so their communications couldn't be tracked. Right.

Preston said that Sarah's body was exactly where Liam said it would be, in a back bathroom slumped over a toilet. Jesus. You piece of shit, Liam. He said, I picked her up by the shoulders and dragged her out back. He said, even though that Liam had given him keys to Sarah's car, he said he was unable to unlock the trunk.

To get her body in there. I think he didn't try and he didn't want to drag a body into the driveway to do this. So I think he just did the easy thing, which was to drag her into her backyard where no one would see and leave her by the bushes. So that's what I think, because I don't know if there's footage of him trying to open the trunk, too. So he said that he covered her up with, quote, a bunch of leaves and sticks that were lying around.

Good Lord. Disrespectful man. So he's pressed and said he went back home, waited for Liam to get home from work. When Liam got home, Taylor told him I moved Sarah's body out, but I couldn't find your phone. Basically, I did nothing. You asked. I put the body in the backyard and I don't have your phone. So like the worst stay at home husband. Yeah. I,

He's Christopher Moltisanti. He's going to fuck something up, you know what I mean, for a Sopranos reference. He's going to mess something up. Well, I went over there, but, you know, it didn't work out. Tone, I'm sorry. It didn't work out, you know, exactly like I thought it would. You're doing that shit again, aren't you, Chrissy, aren't you? You're doing that shit again. Nah, Tone. Nah, nah. I told you I stopped that. I told you. I've been going to meetings, Tone. Yeah.

Got a sponsor and everything. I fucking find out, Chrissy. I find out. I got a sponsor. Tom, what are you talking about? I fucking find out you're lying to me. You fucking son of a... So he said that when he told him that, Liam, quote, got mad, stormed back out of the house and went back to work. Yeah. You fucking useless asshole.

God damn it. So Liam came back a second time looking for his phone. Then he went back to work. Then they stayed home for a while after he was off of work before returning to Sarah's house because they wanted traffic to die down. They want anybody to see him out while they were waiting at home. Liam discussed in detail how he killed her as well to Preston. He said all the while she said his name a couple of times is what Preston tells the cops. So Liam said he left the house with a backpack full of money and

When they returned to Stern's house later on, Liam went upstairs, retrieved the safe from her bedroom. Then they went into the yard and pulled her out of the bushes. Taylor said he lifted her up and passed her over the back fence to Liam. That would have been difficult.

Then helped Liam place her in her own car, quote, in the passenger seat, sitting up to make it look like she was sleeping. They drove to the bridge. Taylor said, I followed in my car. They parked on opposite sides, waited for traffic to subside. He said at that point, Liam started to pull him out of the car, but he tripped on a curb and asked for my help.

He said he was on a Liam was unable to lift her body over the rail. He said then he said, so I helped him. Quote, he picks her up by the shoulders. I pick her up by the legs and we throw her over the bridge or off the bridge. Then he says they heard a metal bang like she hit something down below. He said then they ran to the car and left. They got into Taylor's car, went home. They cracked open the safe with a hammer and screwdriver and counted the money inside, which was a little more than two thousand dollars.

So the cops at the cop asked Preston what his reaction was when he saw the money. And Preston said it looked like it had been all chewed up by mice. He said, I thought it was completely useless. He said, but I did spend some of mine on some weed. I gave it the weed guy took it. I mean, they'll take it. There's one person on the planet that'll take anything. I mean, yeah, drug dealers will take it. They'll figure it out.

So then they put the money in a blue drawstring bag and put it in the attic under the insulation of their house. So they hid it in their own house. Credit Karma makes building your credit straightforward and stress-free with help from our credit builder. Sign up today at creditkarma.com and start enhancing your financial health.

Credit Karma, your partner in building a brighter financial future. Credit Builder Plan is serviced by Credit Karma Credit Builder and requires a line of credit and savings account provided by Cross River Bank member FDIC. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families.

With Greenlight, you can send instant money transfers, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on your kids' spending with real-time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Get your first month free at greenlight.com slash wondery. That's greenlight.com slash wondery. The safe also contain a red envelope with a safe deposit box

key and two coins that Taylor put in his pocket while Liam was out of the room. So he fucking, he's stealing from his partner. Preston later told police about these three items and police found them inside the heat vent in his bedroom.

So Preston hit it there. The morning after they disposed of her body, police came to their house and questioned Liam about the disappearance, Preston said. And Liam told the police that he didn't say that it was because of either of you, basically. So Liam told Preston to tell the cops that Sarah had a falling out with her father. She's quite possibly a closet lesbian.

And to, quote, make her look unstable, make it look like she committed suicide.

So then they're going to besmirch her name. Um, not that it's not that it's bad to be depressed, but they're going to say like, Oh, you know, whatever the fuck, there's things that aren't true. Just that's all it is. So besmirch the relationship she has with her father. Like it's his fault that she's running away. Yeah. Even if there's problems between them, which is understandable teenagers and parents, especially if one parent's dead, I could see it. Um,

Taylor said, if I was thrown into questioning, I was to tell detectives that there was a falling out with someone and that she had made a previous suicide attempt. So when the detective originally questioned Preston about what he thought happened to Sarah, he said, quote, I think she jumped. Really? Must have jumped. But then she, yeah, but Taylor conceded that the rumors that she was unstable, suicidal, and going to Canada were untrue. He said that in this interview, though. He goes, none of that was true. She wasn't going to Canada. She wasn't doing any of that shit.

He said, yeah, they put the money in the safe in the attic of their home, later transferred it to another safe, which they buried at Sandy Hook. They buried the original safe in Shark River Park.

They buried two safes. The discovery of the unattended car obviously led the whole this kick this whole thing. And from the beginning, a few days after this, that's when Preston learned from social media. There was a planned search for Sarah and told Liam that it would, quote, look good if they went and did this to make it look like they were concerned about finding her.

And, you know, inserting yourself into the investigation, which is also what they look for in a murder. All the things they think will make them look innocent also make them look guilty. They don't realize that. So Liam and another friend joined the search and talked to a news reporter on camera. So it was Liam and not Seamus, according to Preston.

After time went by and neither Preston or Liam were contacted by police, they were convinced they got away with it. We did it. We did it. Free as fucking free as can be. Clearing fucking free. The perfect crime. The perfect crime. It's like an Agatha Christie book. It's fucking perfect.

They eventually buried all the safes. Taylor said that he used some of the money, about $1,500, to buy weed and then buried what was left. Preston thought the money was completely useless because it looked old and beat up like it had been chewed by mice and some of it looked like it had been through a fire. As the investigation continued, the police gathered more information and they decided to surveil Liam's home and bring Taylor in for questioning. They arrested Taylor first.

He basically waived his Miranda rights and fucking admitted everything immediately. Spilling it. Well, they told him, listen, we got Liam on tape saying that not only did he do it, that you were fucking there. So at this point, it's first degree murder for you. So which one? And we're going to confront him with this tape. Now it's a race to who cooperates. Which one do you want to do it first? And he also said that he's sure that Sarah's dead, which unless she became the Little Mermaid while she flew through the air, I would say she's probably passed on. What a dick.

So, yeah, there's a lot of reactions to this because before this, they honestly didn't know or the family didn't know if she just took off. Some money was taken and she disappeared so she could go anywhere. They don't know. Maybe she's 19. She's 19. It's not like she's not allowed to go where she wants. So, yeah. So now they know she's dead. And now it's now this would be the crushing blow because as a parent, you would be holding out.

You'd hold out hope against hope. You know what I mean? Like once you find out about this, now you're, you're just fucking, it's terrible. Um, uh, her family went on the internet to post messages expressing their

you know, talking about her and grief for her death. After the news broke, a YouTube celebrity who was, she was a big fan of, uh, tweeted condolences to the, to the family, Jenna marbles. I've heard of that. I don't know what she does, but I've heard of her. So I've heard she's very nice. Yeah. I think she quit. I think she's done. Probably. I think she is. Is it a quit or that's about enough of watching you? Yeah.

fucking open things. I don't know. Is it a child? I don't know. She was a late teen, early 20s when she quit as far as I can remember. She's probably a fucking, she probably got $30 million in the bank. I think she does. I think she was the most popular YouTuber. She's doing fucking,

She's going to live the rest of her life however she wants. Good for you, Jenna Marbles. She got the money these guys thought they were going to get. Oh, man. She got the money these guys needed to disappear because she has disappeared. She's living my dream life, Jimmy. Yeah. And surprise, surprise, Jenna Marbles is probably not her real name. No, I would say not. She did it perfect. She disappeared. Yeah, exactly. She's like fucking Kaiser Sose. Yeah.

Like a ghost. Yeah. Old Debbie Martin's out there living a dream. Wow. No one even knows. No one recognizes her anymore. Yeah, fuck no. Son of a bitch. Neptune City Mayor Robert J. Brown at the time posted on the city's Facebook page, today our hearts are heavy. Our community is shaken. It's important to grieve and talk to your friends and neighbors. Please keep the Stern family in your hearts and prayers. Please respect their time to grieve. I want to thank all law enforcement agencies, first responders, and volunteers that helped and called to

Indeed. Calm down, Mayor. It's about a girl. Talk about her. The whole city. Jesus Christ. Let's give everyone credit for this girl dying tragically. What the fuck?

So, Stern's father, Michael, said he's grateful for the support of the community and also of the news coverage of his daughter that's kept people looking for her, too. He said, Yeah.

He says he wants to still committed to finding her, even though, you know, she's dead. He doesn't care. He said that's the most important thing. We have to find out where she is and hopefully with enough enough help and resources, we'll be able to find Sarah, bring her home and let her rest in peace. But this whole ordeal behind us and try to go on as a family. That's the best I can hope for.

I feel for this guy, man. I feel for this fucking guy. It's been how long, though? I mean... Yeah, it's in the water. Who knows? You don't want what's left, man. I feel really... I feel for this guy. That's horrific. You really do. So there's a hearing, and Liam and Taylor were charged with the murder after... They talk about after Curry came forward with his...

with his whole... Oh, what a hero. He's a fucking hero. That kid has balls, man. No kidding. You don't know. Liam could have gotten in the car and stabbed him in the fucking face. He could have just been like, I know you know too much because I talked to you already. I'm here to kill you. Who knows? So they said they tried to use... They're talking about somebody saw two people. Somebody said two people had reported their defenses. She's alive still. That's Liam's defense. Yeah.

Is that right? Is she still alive? And his lawyer tried to use this effort because he said she's never been found despite extensive efforts. And he says two people reported seeing her alive after her murder. Oh, which there has never been a dead person who there hasn't been a fucking million sightings of. It's just the way it works. Right.

Because people's memories are the worst thing they have. Memories are terrible. So when you see people, you might have seen that person, but not on the day you thought you saw, no matter how sure you are. I saw Lacey Peterson walking the dog. Not that day, probably. I saw a post of Tupac in a nightclub last week. I did, too. I was like, there he is.

I knew it. I mean, fucking Elvis for 40 years, everybody. Forever. Forever. It's like people still do it. It's like he'd be dead by now no matter what. For sure. No matter how healthy he was. Dead as a fucking doornail.

So, yeah, so people had seen him now or seen her. Allegedly, the assistant prosecutor said that the accounts were investigated and not deemed to be credible. People made mistakes. The defense attorney also faced reporters outside the courtroom and left open the open the possibility that Sarah is still alive and that Liam and his alleged accomplice accomplice made up the story that the prosecutors are using against them in court.

Why would they fucking make that up? I want to be charged with murder, even though no one's dead. That sounds great.

I want to tell people I did something and that I am flush with cash so that people bother me for money. I would never. Weird. And then this lawyer and I mean, this is this is why people hate defense attorneys. I don't because I know you need to have them. Otherwise imperative of the Constitution. The government could do anything they want to you or the police could do anything they want to you. But when someone's like this, you go, OK, this is an act. This is too much.

He said, I hope for the other family that their child is alive. Motherfucker, you know, you know for a fact she's not alive. To say that into a camera, you deserve a kick right in the fucking dick for that, man. That is awful. So he said that Liam's recorded statement is practically identical to what Preston Taylor told police yesterday.

Not to say, and that rather than lead to the conclusion that because it's true and they both actually did those things, he said, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the way you look at it. He said, you look at it because they're so similar. That means it was scripted. You're right. It's all fake. It's been rehearsed, man. Yep. He said both boys seem to be talking about something that didn't happen. They're talking about something that was scripted. It's obvious, clearly. Yeah.

Wow. He said that they go, OK, what about the videotaped conversation? Yeah. And Anthony Curry's car that lasted over 20 minutes where he detailed everything that happened. You know what the lawyer's response is? Great actor. Quote, talk is cheap. Is it money for nothing? Murder. Murder. Murder confessions aren't cheap, though. That's the thing. They're used pretty well.

He then described it as, and this is even fucking more amazing. Yeah. Locker room talk. Sir. Locker room talk. Locker room talk is check out that chick's tits. They're awesome. That's locker room talk. I killed her and strangled my friend and threw her off a bridge. It's not locker room talk. No. I'll bet there's not a locker room on this country. Fuck. Maybe in prison. In Sing Sing. Do they have a locker room? Yeah.

The only place where this is considered locker room talk. Pelican Bay. It's fucking, Jesus Christ. Wow. Are you kidding me? It's fucking fulsome. So talk is cheap. Wow. Locker room talk. And he said, it's a little more serious, but locker room talk. I mean, he said that and then had to wear with all the realize what the fuck he just said. Obviously, I'm a fucking moron. But, you know.

Then he said, you just watch it. You can watch it. It's obviously bullshit. He said, they're talking like they're talking about going out to dinner. He goes, it's obviously bullshit. You wouldn't talk about killing your friend like that. Not saying, which is an easy response is your client is that much of a cold-blooded scumbag that he could do that. That's bad. That's bad. That's some Ted Bundy shit, dude. That's not cool. You're not doing any favors for your client, man. No.

Ted Bundy talking about himself in the third person wasn't as proud of the things he fucking did as this guy. I mean, this is this is terrible. Then he said, Liam has indicated to me whatever was said, he had nothing to do with this. He wouldn't hurt anyone and didn't hurt her. That's what he told me, no matter even though he admitted it.

And then the lawyer went on to say, listen, neighbors reported that Sarah Stern appeared suicidal on the day that they think she was murdered. She was depressed and giving away the belongings of her deceased mother. She wasn't giving it away. She was having people store it places. It wasn't giving shit away. She wasn't giving all her possessions away. But this guy's twisting it. Then the lawyer said, we're a long way from trial. All I can tell you is my client had nothing to do with it.

Oh, boy. Wow. Now, the prosecutor said that Liam has lied to police about his involvement in the murder, took part in searching for her to cover up what he did. The prosecutor said Liam even exaggerated his friendship with Stern to take the focus off the investigation off of him. Yeah.

He said that Stern's father, Michael, didn't attend this hearing, but he sent a text to the Asbury Park Press saying, I don't feel like I can talk about this right now. I'm sorry. He's such a nice man. He even apologizes to the press that I don't want to give you a statement right now. I don't want to talk. What a decent person, though, to say that. Not like, get the fuck off. Fuck you. I'll talk to you when I'm ready. Suck a dick. He's like, I'm so sorry. Yeah.

Wow. He said, honestly, I don't know how they are. This is Charles Stone, who's a friend of the Stern family, said, honestly, I don't know how they deal with it. Michael Stern has been able to withstand it. How he's doing it, I don't know.

He's got to stay strong while it's going on and then he can break up, break down later. That's what people do sometimes. So February 3rd, 2017, after all the arrests and all the admitals and now they they know from Preston firsthand, I threw her off there. They reconstitute the search helicopters, boats, you name it, all along the coastline here up and down and family members and all that kind of shit. They set up a small shrine atop the bridge as

as well for her. February 6th, 2017, the authorities announced they found the two safes, thanks to Preston. Oh. They dug those fuckers up here, but they said the New Jersey State Police Marine Unit continues to search for Sarah. February 7th, 2017, a judge orders Taylor and Liam both held without bail pending trial. Oh, boy. No bail for either of them here, which, yeah, I would say so. Yeah.

They got all the reason in the world to run. They, Taylor's attorney vows to appeal that decision though. You should let my boy out. He's saying, so appeal a lot, please. February 23rd, 2017 is when it's released publicly that the reason they arrested Liam is because they have a full videotape confession of him telling his friend all about it. So that made the people, because at first everybody was so confused. Like it can't be him. It can't be him. Right.

Right. So they had to release, oh, it's him. Trust us. He said it. Wait till you see this shit on YouTube someday. It's going to be great. It's the whole videos on YouTube. It's you want to fucking murder this kid where he sits. I don't know how that Anthony Curry kept it together and didn't start beating the shit out of him in the front seat because-

He probably was like, yeah, the cops will watch. They'll see me do it. Who cares? Any jury would let you off for that, I think. You think so? If you were helping the cops and this guy's telling you how he tortured this girl and all that, and you were just like, if you had a wire on, you took it off and strangled him with it, I think they would applaud you by the end of it. Also, this is a guy that gave me a script, I mean an idea for a script, and then did it. He wanted me to make this movie so he could tell all his friends I did that.

Wow. And then Anthony's like, well, I can't use that as an idea now, stupid. Yeah, you're done ruining this. So April 21st, they resume searching again. They took time off because it was because of the cold and the water being cold. Then they go back to it in April. So it's been so many months in there. April 24th, 2017, Preston is going to plead guilty. Really? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. He appears in court before the judge and admits to taking part in the robbery. He said he got $3,000 out of the $9,000-plus for helping Liam throw her body off a bridge. He pleads guilty to robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, disturbing or desecrating human remains, conspiracy to desecrate human remains, tampering with physical evidence, and hindering his own apprehension and that of Liam's.

His plea bargain requires his cooperation and testimony in Liam's trial as well. The prosecutor said if Taylor does not fully cooperate, the state will take back its plea bargain and prosecute him for felony murder.

Your testimony better be real fucking convincing, Chief, is what he's saying. Also, whatever time you get is going to be the hardest time you've ever done. We're going to put you somewhere bad, and your name is Preston. You're a snitch named Preston. A snitch named Preston? Oh, my God. Jesus. Jesus.

We're going to use your asshole like a peephole. Prosecutors are like, I want to rape you. I'm not into that at all, but I just want to because I feel like that's what these guys are thinking. Please don't isolate that. I'm going to be able to look in your asshole and see through your eyes. I'm going to use you like a kaleidoscope. And see tomorrow.

Jesus Christ, man. I will use you like a fucking telescope. Like one of those, one of those like sailor telescope things. A little, they pull out. What the fuck are those things? Looking glass. I'm going to put, I'm going to put Disney character slides in your face and rack your ear and see a different slide.

Oh, God. So Decker, I know he said that would be 30 years to life in prison. Yeah. Don't fuck around. It's over for him. He said that he will recommend Taylor receive a 20-year prison term if he cooperates. So 30 to life or 20 and out. The Superior Court judge who accepted the plea told Preston that without the agreement, he would be facing 51 and a half years in state prison. My God.

Taylor answered questions posed to him by his attorney, John Peroni, admitting taking part in the robbery plot all the time, knowing that Liam planned to kill Stern. And he talked about the money he got. Stern's father, Michael, is there watching, shaking his head, wanting to murder these fucking twats. Yeah. So they said Michael bowed his head and was crying while Preston was talking about it. And Michael says this to dad. This is this is.

This is it right here. He said, you heard what they said. It was all about money. He said in a few thousand dollars, he said, picture somebody you love or care about either a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a mother, father, and think about them being killed over a few thousand dollars.

Not an accident. This is how you're going to hide robbery by killing somebody. A few thousand dollars. They said he kept after that. He just kept repeating a few thousand dollars until his voice got low and started trailing off. Like he went into like a trance. A thousand dollars. He was just like, I can't believe it as anybody would be.

They said, how did it feel watching Preston confess to the crimes and fill in more details that you didn't know about yet? And he said, it makes me sick. I was having a tough time in the courtroom hearing that stuff out of the person that did it. On the bright note, he said that an art guild in Shrewsbury is preparing a show featuring Sarah's artwork.

from movie props to pencil sketches, all the stuff she did. She was featured at a guild in her senior year in high school for a mixed media piece and participated for a few years in the Teen Arts Festival at the Brookdale Community College in Middletown. Stern said he would also like to organize a scholarship for Sarah for students of the arts. So he says that the remains haven't been found, so he hasn't been able to have a funeral, but he does want to hold a memorial to celebrate her life. Sure.

He says it kind of becomes a melancholy thing where you're glad for the memories but sad for the loss. I know nothing that we say or do can ever bring Sarah back. You know, we try to keep her spirit alive. Preston's attorney said he's going to argue for the minimum of 10 years.

Is that right? He said, which he'd have to serve 85% of before being considered for parole. Eight and a half is nice. Eight and a half is not bad for what he did. The lawyer said, if everything goes right, there's a possibility of him getting out in eight and a half years. When asked why his client pleaded guilty, the lawyer said he wanted to do the right thing from the beginning. This is something he wanted to get off his chest. This is a person who was raised by good, wholesome people.

He said Taylor was just caught up with it when they said, how do you get into the crime? And his attorney then compared Liam to Charles Manson, saying he's charismatic and he can get you to do things. The only thing he can get me to do is punch him in the face. That's the only thing Liam could do. They are seeking life without parole for Liam. Good. Which is about right. 2018, he is offered a plea bargain. Really? Yeah.

For life without parole. Let's just save the state the trial, they said. He said, I don't think so. Think I'm going to roll the dice on that. Spend the money. Yeah. It's hard to offer a deal when you're not offering anything. Okay, here it is. We are going to offer you not to waste time. What do you think? Not to waste time in the time of these attorneys, you know. He said no.

For Liam, their whole thing is that part of it is no body, no crime. That's it. Yeah. Of course. This is only the second time in Monmouth County's history that a murder prosecution went forward without a body. Second time in history here. The first was 1975, so it had been fucking 40 years since they did this. Oh, my. When serial killer Robert Zerinsky was convicted of the murder of a 17-year-old named Rosemary Caladrello of Atlantic Highlands.

So that's a serial killer. So they already had him on plenty others, probably. Yeah. The defense attorney for Liam said that's a huge issue that's going to play out through the course of the trial. I think the fact that there is nobody creates a reasonable doubt in and of itself that the state cannot overcome. Nobody, no crime. Yeah.

And Bob Marley sings. He said, we are ready to proceed to trial, and we're confident that at the end of this long and arduous time in his life, he will be found not guilty and go home to his family. Wow. You guys, is that just delusional? I mean...

He wrote that, said it, and then was like, I can't believe they're making me do this. Fuck, man. He's like, this job is crazy, isn't it? I got to do this shit. So also on the state's witness list is a guy named, as a detective, Brian Weissbrot. He's the guy who got the confession, was there for the confession from Preston. I guess he's been on the case since forever. Yeah.

He's going to be a witness and also prosecutors want him to be able to sit with them at the prosecution table to assist them for the duration of the trial. Is that right? Normally, if you're going to be a witness, you can come back after they say we're definitely done with you. Then you can come back and watch the trial. But you can't watch shit beforehand because then you can tailor your testimony. So that's very weird. I don't think you need to do that. That's just giving appeal bait for shit. Right.

Liam's lawyer called the request absurd and said in court papers that Weisbrot's presence at the prosecution table during the trial could intimidate other witnesses and allow him to tailor his own testimony to the state's benefit, which is exactly why they want him there. And at the same time, why he shouldn't be there. So Michael Stern, they talked to him, the trial's coming up, what do you think? And he said, it's a couple of years now, because we're talking about

2019 is the trial. So he said, and it's a long wait and I'm praying everything goes well, but you never know. He said he's been having, he's had nightmares and many sleepless nights as the trial approaches. He said, hopefully this thing will go quickly and it will be over and we'll get some justice. Yeah. He said, there are a lot of unknowns and it gives you the feeling, a feeling of uneasiness about what's going to happen with the final verdict would be, I'm pretty confident it will be guilty, but it remains to be seen.

So, in the opening here, the defense in this trial, the opening remarks to the jury, Liam's defense attorney here tells the jurors that they will hear from a witness who will testify that on the day of Sarah's disappearance, he saw a person on that bridge and that he saw Sarah Stern walking away from the vehicle all by herself, under her own power. Wow. Not even like with two guys under the arms like Bernie. Like, actually...

And this person that's going to say this is not Liam nor Preston? It's not Liam nor Preston. Strange, right? Or Preston's mom or anything. Wait till you hear about Preston's mom. She's a huge idiot. Sure.

Huge idiot. Fuck this whole family. As after an objection from prosecutors and a sidebar outside of the jury's earshot is normally you don't really want to object too much on opening statements. But if it's something that, you know, cannot be proven and they're saying it, you'll object to it because you can't be doing that. So make a decision. Yeah. So at that point, the judge told the panel to disregard that statement.

And the attorney walked it back and said he saw someone who appeared to be Sarah Stern. There you go. There you go. That's legal language. Lawyer guy. I'm sure they taught you that in school. So they said in the authority said we've investigated any reporting reported sightings of Sarah and none of it has worked out. So he also warns the jury that Preston Taylor is not to be believed.

No. His testimony is untruthful. It's false. It's imagined, erroneous and not credible. Those are all very, very bad words. You didn't even have to add not credible after you said untruthful, false, imagined and erroneous. I think that all implies not credible. So the prosecution opening here.

Jesus Christ, they're coming in like, I mean, we got a lot. This is an easy case. He said, Sarah Stern's not alive. She's dead. We haven't found the body, but we know what happened to her. We have an accomplice that's going to tell what happened to her. We have Liam's own words telling us what happened to her, and we can't find her. So we're pretty sure she's gone. She says, Sarah Stern will not be walking through those doors into this courtroom at any point. There's not going to be that...

That's not going to be the big surprise. Here she is. Yeah. She said it is. It's because the defendant murdered her and set into action a course of events to make sure her body would never be found. At the end of this case, you'll be left with no doubt. Sarah is dead because he murdered her. Perfect. They talk about they try to say that Liam made up the stories about robbing and killing her. That's all bullshit. Yeah.

She says, this is wild, man. The attorney says that Liam's always making things up to be more interesting. Is he? Is that interesting? I don't know. I'm going to kill my friend? Is that really interesting? Desperate to be interesting, are you?

Yeah. He said that statement was made to an individual that he admired, somebody that was or at least has engaged in the business of filmmaking. More specifically, this particular individual engaged in horror filmmaking. And so that's something that appeals to Liam.

He wanted to be a part of that filmmaking process and be in this individual's world. And so he tends to make things up in order to make himself be tougher than he is or different than he actually is. And I think that's something that is a characteristic of Liam. Sure. You wouldn't believe the shit that I've said to Robert England. Oh, forget about it. He uses it all. Finger knives? My idea. Yeah.

He then says there's no evidence, physical evidence, that there was any vomit, urine, blood found in that house. And so that lack of evidence tells me that the false statement or false confession that he gave Anthony Curry is absolutely false. It's a false three times the same sentence. So, yeah, this is about him telling him about all that thing. So they said then the defense attorney said he was making up stories for films.

He was always making things up. That's what they said. So testimony from a defense witness says he saw Sarah duck into an alley and

In Bradley Beach at 5 a.m. on December 3rd. This would be two months later, right? A month later? No, no. It's two hours and 15 minutes after her. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. After her car was found. She's ducking into alleys in a beach community? At 5 a.m. Okay. And this is 12 hours after she'd been killed. Right. The witnesses, Craig Hetzel Sr. of Neptune, also said he saw an abandoned car at the top of the bridge minutes later. Okay. Yeah.

minutes later. I don't know how that would happen because they would have been towed by then. Right. And you would have seen a shitload of cops around midnight. Yeah. 5 a.m. Yeah. 246. The cop showed up. So prosecutors rebutted that with testimony that the car had been towed from the bridge two hours earlier. And with a recording of a phone conversation, Hetzel had with a private investigator in which he saw said he saw Stern on Friday, December 2nd, not Saturday, December 3rd. See what I mean? Okay.

One day of your memory, you can't say three months ago I know it was that day. Unless it was like your kid's birthday or some – my wedding anniversary. I know this happened because I couldn't go out to dinner. Unless it's something like that, you have no – none of us do. Me, you, anyone listening, you have no fucking idea when anything happened. We think we do, but that's our brains fooling us into thinking we're smarter than we are. Sure, sure. We're just – we're sacks of meat and we're not that bright. Yeah.

So the jury here, Curry then testifies that.

And he says he began to think of the idea as a movie plot. But when he asked when Liam asked me if the cops questioned me about him regarding the disappearance, that's when he said he took a picture of that Snapchat message to protect himself. Took a screenshot or a picture with another phone or something. Yeah, had to. Yeah. Well, he said he didn't feel like his life was in danger. He thought his family's safety could be and he needed like a insurance policy. Yeah, sure.

So, yeah, they the detective Weisbrot testified that Anthony's father revealed to a retired law enforcement officer that his son had information about Stern's disappearance. And that's how he got talking to the cops. It was a friend of his was a retired cop. And they said that Anthony wanted to participate. He was terrified of Liam. He felt if he didn't participate in this, Liam would kill him or hurt his family.

So they said he even so much demonstrated. Oh, they talk about the video and say he even so much as demonstrated how he lifted her up off the ground, then left her on the floor and watched her die for 30 minutes. He knew exactly how long it was because he chose to time that. Jesus Christ. So Preston testifies.

He says that Liam had told him it's the type of money somebody would kill for. Told me all about the cash. Said she had a shoebox full of cash. I asked how much it was. He said it was in the range of $100,000, which is, even Sarah said somewhere between $20,000 and $100,000. And he said, it's $100,000. Who's going with the most?

Wow. He said that's when the idea to rob her came about. He said, yeah, that was the this was that night at the tavern when he said about it's the type of money that somebody would kill for. It wasn't just the two of them. There was multiple people around. And he said that. And he said everybody else just was silent and just kind of was like, OK, so grab another one of these.

And I used the pisser real quick here. So then they started talking about it privately, about robbing her and all that. And he said over time the conversations progressed to killing her. Wow. Otherwise they would be caught. They said there was no way to do it and not get caught unless they killed her. Jeez.

It would be easier to rob someone and get away with it than kill them and get away with it. Right. Because if you rob someone, if after a while they don't find who did it, it just goes away. Murder. They'll look forever. They'll keep looking forever and ever and ever. 30 years from now. When I was robbed at gunpoint, I was 17. They never found that guy. Those guys. No.

And they robbed seven other restaurants. Give a fuck. Unless they shot people. Nobody cares. Yeah, if they'd have shot me, they'd have found that motherfucker. Probably not in Phoenix. Phoenix has like the most unsolved homicides of any major city in the United States. It's crazy. They don't do shit there. They don't care. Oh, and they're 50th in education, too. Doing great, Arizona. Dumb people in...

Most unsolved murders and fucking least education. Un-fucking-believable. That just came out that they're 50th now. They have ignorant people trying to...

Looking up at Arkansas with wide-eyed admiration in the education department is fucking sad. And Mississippi, name them. They're the bottom four. Arizona, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi. It's whenever they make their thing. So the closings here. The defense attorney, this is Carlos Diaz-Cobo.

Just give you a name of how dumb this idiot is. He told jurors in his closing argument that there was reasonable doubt that the victim was even dead. Her body's never been found. He said he just changed the lyrics quote without a body. There is no murder. No crime. Just say it. Say nobody. No crime. Motherfucker. You know you want to. He

He's like, is it too catchy? Well, they'll make T-shirts, won't they? They'll make T-shirts. Yeah, they're going to make T-shirts. People are going to go to small-town murder shows and sing along to Bob Marley before the show. We can't have that. It's just four words, and it means so much. It means a lot. So the defense also called Liam's statements in the video made-up story intended to pitch a film idea to the acquaintance.

So the whole video that I read you, that was a pitch. Only he didn't say it was a pitch. And when I, we've pitched things before. We pitch things all the time. Whenever I do, I always pat down the person that we're talking to just to make sure. Dare steal this idea. Hey, listen, Hulu guy, get over here. Let me check and see what's under your shirt. We've done it before. You know it. In case you're taking this to a production company, you motherfucker. And by the way, we've met with every single thing there is. Streaming service, they all...

They all get patted down. They all get patted down. Everybody. And it never works out. So I think we did the right thing.

So they said it was a fantasy. It was an audition. Now it's an audition. Now it's a formal process. And he wants to be a part of it. Now he's an actor in addition to a writer. So the prosecutor here, Christopher Decker, began his closing argument by saying, Sarah Stern is not in Canada. Sarah Stern did not kill herself. That is ridiculous. Unfortunately, Sarah Stern is not with us anymore.

He cited the recorded conversation. He said, not having a body is not reasonable doubt when you have the two involved saying, we killed her, we threw her off a bridge, and we took her money. That defeats the... If they had never said a word, then you'd go, well, fuck, we don't know. I bet then the jury's got a lot to think about. But when you have a video watching this guy...

He's not lying. You watch him. He's telling the truth. He's bragging about it. It's crazy. So he said he describes the old money. How would he know what Sarah Stern's money looked like? Yeah. He said the keys to the safe were found on him when he was arrested. He was carrying the keys to her safe. What the fuck do you want? How else did he get that? Dog watched him. Yeah. Awful piece of shit. This guy is.

So it goes to the jury here. It's a seven-woman, five-man jury. They deliberate several hours over two days. I don't know. They could have ended the session at 4 o'clock, and then they deliberated until 6 and came back the next day. Don't know. He is found, though, guilty of murder, felony murder. Mm-hmm.

Robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, desecration of human remains, tampering with evidence and hindering his own prosecution or his own apprehension. Michael Stern, he's got a girlfriend now, a lady named Christine. Good for him. He hugged his girlfriend and they all cried and everything like that. Michael said the most important thing is to get justice for Sarah. She was a great kid. It never should have ended like this.

this she is up in heaven she's an angel and she was just a beautiful person never had a mean bone in her body and that's what it seems like from everybody she's a sweet she reminds me of my daughter a lot a sweet kid likes art into youtubers likes like artsy stuff and all that kind of thing wouldn't hurt a fucking fly ever she drives an ad man she's trying so hard kind okay yeah nice person uh he then says my daughter my only daughter my only child it was sickening

He said it's gut-wrenching and it's hurtful to think that somebody who would appear to be a friend did that to her. It was a setup. He was never Sarah's friend. I mean, he might have been in seventh grade, but now he's different. I don't think he was even that. I don't think he was. Yeah, I think he's a piece of shit. I don't think Liam's capable of having friends. Yeah, I think he's spoiled. I think he was a... I feel like Seamus should have just absorbed him a long time ago. Yeah, maybe that would have been better. We don't know about Seamus. He could be a dick too, but we don't know. Maybe he's not.

So then the rebut here from Carlos Diaz-Cobo, the defense attorney, he said that his client was visibly – he said that his client was upset about the verdict. He said, but there was no tears coming out of his eyes.

He said, Sure. Give it a shot. Yeah. Yeah.

But he said observing the jury react to it in court was very difficult for both of them because they were – when you watch this video, it's disturbing. It's really fucking disturbing. And he said that Liam laughed through all of it. In the video, he was laughing too. He was like, yeah, man, you know, like I did that. Dude, how cold-blooded it is, you got to watch it. It's horrible. He says it does make you angry that there's no remorse.

And again, the defense attorney dismissed the video as a attempt to pitch a movie. And the jury doesn't know what they're talking about, obviously. So they hold a big memorial for her on the Route 35 bridge is where they do it. Yep. They did it on the day that would have been her 22nd birthday.

So they had flowers and, you know, all that stuff, her portrait out there. And, yeah, that's terrible. So Michael said, I miss Sarah, but this is a nice tribute to her. She should have been here with us. We do have justice for Sarah. That's a good thing, a very good thing. So at least he's getting some solace from that, at least. Some people don't get any solace from that. Yeah. Well, if you never even got to have your kid's body back, you need something to be closed. There's no funeral. Yeah.

Yeah, no funeral. Like fucking Moe sticking his head in the oven. So sentencing comes around and Michael Stern gets to talk now on the stand. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. And this is, I mean, for a juror, you're going to want to kill people after this guy talks. This guy said, Michael Stern said, I've never felt such overwhelming pain in my heart and my soul. My spirit was broken. I will never be able to hug Sarah and tell her I love her. The pain and loss of my only child grows worse with time. And...

So the judge said he was so careful about Liam. He really believed he was smarter than anyone in law enforcement. Yeah, he's us. Yeah. He said, every time you think you're the smartest, there's somebody smarter than you. He said, one thing that Liam wasn't counting on was Mr. Taylor folding faster probably than anyone we've ever seen. Folded faster than anyone. They got him in there to like, so let's talk to you. He's like, I'll tell you everything.

They didn't even have to threaten him. So he said, they all knew each other. That's what really makes this a heinous event. These are two people, Liam and Sarah, who knew each other since, I think, grammar school. Any murder is a serious thing and a sad thing. The way this happened in this small community of people who knew each other, that's what makes it more so. You, sir, may fuck off life without parole. Hey, now.

Eat dicks, Liam. Goodbye. A lot of people will be finding your face punchable over the next fucking 60 years, I hope. Fuckable and...

Everything else. They're going to ruin you. Yep. And they had to sentence him to that because they found him, the murder was committed during a robbery. So automatic life without chief. He's going to have so many tattoos. Oh, my God. So many SS fucking lightning bolts. It's not even funny. He's got it. He's got no choice. Which replaced the, because of life without parole, when they, Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007. So that became the automatic for that.

So in addition to the life term, the judge imposed a consecutive 10-year term on him for disposing of the body, which he said devastated the Stern family. He said if he had the opportunity to bury his daughter properly and to do that in a private place where he could mourn privately, that would have been a lot different than being on the Route 35B bridge in Belmar where there's a shadow box and flowers. Golly. He nailed it, though. He nailed it on the fucking head.

The prosecutor said outside the court he'll go down in history as one of Monmouth County's most heinous killers. He's one of small town murders. Most heinous. It's a bad kid. It's normally not just that. There's obviously more graphic, worse torture, shit like that. But those are people like mentally ill. I think a lot of that has to do with it. This is an evil motherfucker who just thought he could get away with it. Didn't care. He's a shit.

The other prosecutor said the video spoke to Liam's character. She said he laughed when he said to Anthony Curry, you think killing someone's going to make you feel different and it doesn't. He said he was treating it like a joke and it's not. So now Preston gets sentenced. So before he sentenced his attorney, asked the judge to impose a 10 year prison term. This is the minimum he can he can do.

They said that you would have never convicted Liam without our cooperation, which isn't true. Probably we had a tape at his confession. They said his cooperation included going with the detectives to Stern's house to show them how he'd move the body outside to some bushes so they can check all the stories and to the spot on the bridge where they disposed of her. He said his lawyer said he has had an attitude or he has an attitude where he's showing extreme remorse and he's trying to make his life a model of atonement.

Yeah. The prosecutor said he chose to cooperate. He did cooperate, but he knows what he did. He knows he's going to have to live with it. It's about the desecration. It's about the friendship that existed. It's about the facade, the charade that went on, the level of that charade, this facade that was created to make Sarah think these were her friends was cruel and heinous. Truly.

The prosecutor asked the judge to impose no less than a 15-year term, saying that although he did cooperate with authorities, he could have maybe stopped the murder and didn't. They said, but for Preston Taylor, Sarah Stern would still be here. There's no excuse for his conduct. So they asked for 10, the defense. Prosecutor asked for 15. Keep that in mind. And keep in mind what you said earlier. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Michael Stern gets on the stand and said what Taylor did was wrong and pure evil. He said, please give him the 20 year term. He said without the benefit of a plea bargain, he was looking at more than 50 years in prison. So give him the 20. He said he took Sarah's lifeless body and moved it not once, but twice, not once, but twice, but three times and dumped it in the shark river. No words can be said to anybody who does anything like this to somebody's child. Preston says,

Oh my God.

Then he looked at Mr. Stern and said, Mr. Stern and all those who've had the blessing of knowing Sarah and apologized not only to the family, to Sarah herself, and said she was a very beautiful young woman who didn't deserve in any way the end that she met. Or he said that you met, like he was talking to her. The judge, on the other hand. Dude, that was bad. That wasn't a good statement. It wasn't good. Well, he said he was sorry and he tried to talk to the family. Yeah, but that's not good.

You are supposed to do that. You're supposed to show, look, he did everything he was supposed to say. You think so? I know, so it's exactly what the judge wants you to say. That's exactly what... I should have known? Well, you obviously didn't because you didn't. So you can't say anything except I should have done better and I would again and I feel terrible about it. Mr. Stern, I'll look you right in the eye and tell you what a piece of shit I am. It's about remorse is what he's going for. That's all. That's all it is. All right.

He said that the judge said that plotting to rob a friend that you've known since freshman year of high school and took to the prom doesn't even make sense to me, he said. Right. Doesn't make sense. And that's the thing. No matter how remorseful you are, it doesn't really matter at this point. It's not going to change those facts that the judge is about to rattle off. No. He said, Mr. Taylor, it's clear, did not commit the murder here. He did everything but put his hands around her neck, though. So.

Sir. Exactly what you said. Got him. Boom. Nailed it. May as well have.

He said that the judge noted, however, that the $3,000 he received for his part in this doesn't really go to the robbery itself. It goes to what he was, basically. I guess you could use the word hired to do. Help cover up the body. Take the body from the bathroom to the bushes outside the home, to the backyard, and into the car. That when Liam was not strong enough to take, unfortunately, Sarah's body out of the car. He's a little bitch-ass. He called him a weak bitch. A weak-ass bitch. Yeah.

Preston Taylor came around the bridge, as I said last week, then helped him and unfortunately threw her deceased body over the bridge into the Shark River. So he was really aiding in the cover up and then perpetuating the misleading of the police and statements participating in the community search. You know, again, floating out there, the idea that this was suicide to throw the police off the trail. You, sir, may fuck off 18 years in prison.

of which he must serve 85% of. Is that 15 years at least? In the ballpark. It's 15-ish, yeah. So he's going to be 15-ish. Ooh.

Liam's mom's a dipshit, and she's outside the court here. We've got to talk about this. Oh, man. Did she get robbed of a child, too? She said she doesn't believe for a second that her little Liam could have hurt anyone. Hold on. This is not Preston's mom. This is Liam's mom. No, no, no, no. Liam's mom. Oh, my God. Megan McAdam nasty or whatever the fuck you say. McNasty. McNasty. Megan McNasty.

She says, I do not believe this or that. In every bone of my body, I do not believe that Liam is capable of killing Sarah Stern, who he loved and adored.

She said there was an instant connection between them. They had a nickname for their group called The Squad, and The Squad would always come up with weekend plans. And then the moms would try to figure out how we were going to get The Squad to all their weekend plans, whether it was Six Flags or the movies or whatever adventure they decided they were doing that weekend. Wow, they had a much more fun teenage life than I did. Oh, shit. I just walked around. Just wandered. Maybe that's why we didn't murder anybody. Maybe. Anyway.

Anything half decent happened. We were so excited about it for three months. We couldn't have murdered anybody. Also, we knew the value of a dollar. These kids don't know how much things cost. So he thinks that 100 grand is enough. Fucking ridiculous. So she says, the police asked me if Sarah's at my home when they came to their house and I tell them no. And they said they can't find Sarah. And I tell them not a problem. I'll call her. She'll answer for me.

So she said the call went to Sarah's voicemail. Then the police asked if Liam was home and she said that she told them that he lived at a different address and she went back to bed thinking that Stern might be asleep at Liam's apartment.

She said the next morning she learned of the abandoned car on the bridge and believed that she jumped off the bridge. The mom said, I just started screaming and the police were asking me if I had seen Liam. And then I broke down again because I thought Liam was missing, too. And they assured me that they had seen Liam in the middle of the night when I had directed them to go to Liam's house. So he didn't jump off with her holding hands or anything. Yeah.

So she said they eventually ran into Liam and Taylor while driving and told her son police believe Stern may have jumped from the bridge and that they wanted to speak to him again. And she said, we both just started crying. They said, well, how'd you feel about when he was charged with murder? And she said, devastated disbelief. She said, I grew up at the beach. And when somebody goes in the water, they wash up somewhere. Not always.

Not always. And that's when and when Sarah had not washed up onto any of our shores, it gave us hope that Sarah had maybe run away. And so in my head, I was thinking all Sarah needed was to get away for some reason. And she felt she couldn't tell any of us.

She said that her daughter, she had told her daughter, Liam's sister, also that she wanted to get out of New Jersey. She said she'd expressed that to my daughter that she wanted to move to either Canada or California. Very similar. And Liam told, you know, freezing, beach, same thing. Sea places. Yeah.

Yeah. And Liam told me that something she was going to be doing in the future. The possibility my son had any involvement didn't make any sense to me. We were thinking my son was set up because this was not anything anybody would have expected from Liam. Nothing made sense at that point in time. Nothing makes sense at this point in time. I mean, everybody's affected by this. This is a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. And we still can't find Sarah. We don't know where Sarah is. And we just stopped looking.

She said, I know where my son is. He's in jail. Michael Stern doesn't know where his daughter is. It's very hard.

So they ask Anthony Curry, hey, what happened with that, you know, with this shit? And he said, Sarah Stern's father, Michael Stern, does not get to know what happens to his daughter without Anthony Curry. Oh, that's the assistant prosecutor. I firmly believe that he, Curry, is extremely modest about it and uncomfortable with that role. But to me, he'll always be the hero and the reason we were able to bring this to court.

Curry said to 2020, quote, I didn't do it for fame and notoriety. I was just doing it to bring closure to a family. Doesn't see himself as a hero. Also, you can see my new. Also, yeah. Also, check out YouTube. He wishes. I got a horror con in Fargo, North Dakota. Some southern New Jersey beach town or something.

So the assistant county prosecutor said, I think we can both agree that Anthony Curry, if he had a choice, would have wanted nothing to do with the situation. But Curry said, if someone's capable of doing that, he could try to hurt my family or someone I knew. Kids wacko. You don't believe somebody would do something like that. Kids wacko. So it's heartbreaking in a sense. Somebody who's got your who's your good friend, you don't think they would do something like that.

It was an innocent person. That wasn't no movie audition. That's real life. Trust me. I worked in film for years. I know the difference between reality and fiction. That's reality. That's real life. No matter how sick you think it is or whatever, that's real life.

Liam's going to appeal and they're going to tell him to get fucked. Preston's going to appeal. He's going to get, there's like seven counts. One of them, they agree with him on, but it doesn't change shit. He's fucked too. They can both kiss my dick. And that everybody is Neptune city, New Jersey and two huge assholes. And like I said, you can go online, go to YouTube and see all the fucking Liam shit. You can see it all, man. How we talk to the cops, how we talk to Curry. It's disturbing as shit.

If you enjoy that show, tell the world about it. Tell everyone you know. And, of course, get on whatever app you're on and give us five stars. Say something nice about the show. It really does help the show. So thank you for doing that to everybody that does that. And to the people who won't do it, no thank you. No thanks to you. I thought I was going to say something mean. Jimmy thought I was going to get raw on these people.

No, thank you. Any nice words. How about that? No, you don't. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is the website. Get all your tickets for live shows, live shows through the rest of the year. Get them right now, especially October 31st. Halloween, baby. Virtual live show. You can be anywhere in the world because we'll be broadcasting directly to you. You can watch it then or anytime in the next two weeks after that if you purchase it. You can watch it 20 times. You can...

pass out drunk in the middle of it, pick it up later, do anything you want and come see us there. That is shutupandgivememurder.com. Follow us on social media. We're at Small Town Murder on Instagram, Small Town Pod on Facebook, Murder Small on Twitter. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all the bonus materials.

Patreon, by the way, is P-A-T-R-E-O-N because someone's like, I don't know how to spell Patreon. There it is. For that, anybody $5 a month or above, you get a whole big back catalog, tons of shit, more than you could ever hope for, hundreds of episodes you haven't heard, and new ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder. You get it all, baby.

This week for Crime and Sports, we're going to talk about hot air balloon disasters, which you don't have to be a sports fan for that. I'll tell you that much. Then small town murder, something Jimmy and I have discussed so many times in the past. It's nuts. I still can't get over it.

We're so tripped out by it, so we want to put it out to everybody out there and have you guys talking about it. Maybe someone can explain shit to us. There's something wrong with Aunt Diane. It's a documentary. It's still on HBO Max. You can get it on there, I believe. I think Netflix might have it, too. I'm not sure, but I think it was an HBO original documentary. Yeah, I've seen it so many times.

If it's still on Max, if it was ever on HBO. I try so hard still to find, what is it? There's one thing I'm missing somewhere. I know, right? That's what it is. You're just like, what the fuck? It's the biggest mystery in the world. So we'll talk about that. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you get a shout out. When does that happen? Right fucking now. Jimmy, tell me the names of the people who would never ever cold-bloodedly murder us and then say they were auditioning for a movie. Jimmy, hit me with them right now.

The source of the data producers are Peter Musachuk, Sean Hackett, Dustin Hackett, Dustin and Sean Hackett. Both of you. Oh. Hackett. We got all the Hackett boys covered. Amy Conley. Yeah. Oh, and the 988 hotline. If you or anybody you know are struggling...

Please call the 988 hotline. That way you don't have to have a 1-800 number for the suicide hotline anymore. Now it's the 988. Just utilize it if you're struggling. Yeah, you should. Jordan Bennett and the Redfern family in Mansfield Woodhouse. That's in fucking England or somewhere. Oh, it doesn't sound American. In the UK somewhere. No, it's not. Sounds fancy. Mansfield Woodhouse. That feels like a fucking...

A campus. Yeah, it does. A college. A tea-soaked campus. Zechariah Ward, thank you all so much for what you do. Thank you. Fantastic. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Tiffany Gonzalez. Happy birthday, Tiffany. Janice Hill. Happy birthday. Terry Fares. Jess with no last name. Elizabeth with no last name. Logan Austin. Amber Serpe. Jacqueline E.

Alexandra Shea, Brownie29, Kimberly Kaiser, KJ, the letters K and J, Regina Kuzmanich, Mary McIntosh, Oliesa Luzina,

Elizabeth Richmond. Roger with no last name. Sanja Serwin. Maddox Vaughn, 820. Angela Hanan. Melissa Allen. That might be the one in San Diego. May not be. It could be two. If you're in San Diego, big ups to you. Melissa, thank you. Callie Cadell. Peak Seeker. Caitlin and Valet Valley. The pissed off Pole Cock. Wow. Is it Pole Cock? Is that something?

Is that a country? Maybe he's a Polish man who's pissed off. Very. About his cock. Alyssa with no last name. Dana? Dana Wilson. Winslow. Lynn Saban. Williams, Winslow, Wilson. It's all the same shit. We don't know. Austin Jones. Michelle Sikonolfi. Sikonolfi. Sikonolfi. I knew a kid named Sikonolfi. Did you? Yeah, it's in New York. You grew up with a lot of them. There's also Michelle. She's terrific. A few Sikonolfis. Yeah, she was one of my best friends in elementary school.

Jimmy with no last name. Britt Williams. Jimmy spelled like Hendrix. Lexi Levine. Justin with no last name. Keisha Brown. Ray Mosher. Yep. Mosler. Mosler. Junebug. Austin Rivera. Nick Anderson. Oh, Junebug.

Probably not Nick Anderson, the one from the Magic, but it's definitely Uncle Junebug. Hey, it's okay that you missed those foul shots that time. You were a good player. You were. Drill threes, man. Yeah. Kimberly Alexander, Casey Bowman, Jenny Lee, Sam Olamidingdong, Danny with no last name, Luke Allen, Robin Church, Trinity, Jan Peter, Tim with no last name, Nicole Gordano, Aaron with no last name, Betsy with no last name, Darcy Morgan, Dungberry, Lipschitz. Yep, that's true. Chris Fowler.

Franklin, Megan Allen, Dylan Alec, Malicent Woodland.

Aaron Schaus, Landon Fairman, Zoe Wenzel, Tiffany Oliver, Sierra Garrett, Heidi Northrup, Superman. There's a space, so it's not Superman. Superman. Oh, that's not the Superman? That's a disappointment. I thought the Superman was hitting us up. Damn it. Suzanne Baker, Jamie with no last name, Rhiannon McLeod, McLeod maybe, Emile Lillac, and

Maddie R. Lisa would know last name. Delaney would know last name. Heather Bean. Awesome Mama 77. Chris, Chrissy Menke. Uh, Kathleen Bruschi. Grace Adams. Whitney Futrell. James, uh, Jasmine Ut. Uh, Chavez. Chavez Sailor. Uh,

Mary Close, David Pearson, Nicole with no last name, Tiffany Briggs, Michelle with no last name, Khalees, Amber, and Marissa, Patrick Wilson, Jordan Herringer, Dominic with no last name, Dolores Turnbow. She's terrific. And

Ann Gall, Shane Loss, John Oyer, or maybe or, like Michael Oyer. It's spelled like that. O-Y-E-R. Yeah, yeah. Ice Pick, 420. Tony Fox, James Little, Barlow 66, Mar Marlemke, Jess Dezimo, Dezimo, Dezemio. All right. Deanna Tibolo, Tibble, Tibadoo, Tibble, Tibble.

I don't know. Tybo L. Tybo L. Corey Thompson. Joe Heroonymous. What is this? Hero Nemus. Hieronymus? Hieronymus. Hieronymus.

Cheyenne with no last name. Lova Riel. Chase with no last name. Tabby Schmidt. Casey Fitzpatrick. Mrs. McDonald. Dave, I need tickets for Tarrytown. Gansey Graziano. They're out there. Why don't you check the internet, Daddy-O? Benjamin Carlin. Connor O'Brien.

You betcha. Yenna hard.

Maria O., Whitney Hand, Samantha Strosner, Jen R., Michaela Bone, Kimberly Clear, Jason Weiss, Kathy Colucci, Nicholas Johnston, David Markham,

Timothy Costa, Costa perhaps. Ace with no last name. Todd Hartman, Heather Jensen. Johnson, Benjamin Johnson. Caleb Ebersole. Johnson. Johnson. It's with an E. Johnson. Johnson with an E, like Peterson with an E. Yeah, I guess it's still an M. Wilson with an E. That's weird. I've never seen that one. Big Tra- I haven't either. I just made it up. Big Daddy Trav.

Oh, Travis Jarrell from Sugarbutt. Anthony Martucci, Suzanne Estre, Shepard, Cece, Like the Pizza, Bailey Gasper, Nikki Lasnier, Michelle Perry, Lucy Rodriguez, Daniel David Upadel, Upadel, Upadel, Upadel, Upadel, what? Junior, Daniel. Wow. Someone else says that name. And all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so fucking much for all that you do for us. Stunning support every week.

It's amazing. We appreciate the hell out of you. Whether you're doing Patreon, coming to live shows, just thank you for everything that you do. Even just listening, telling your friends. Thank you the shit out of all of you people. Especially Patreon, though, and those people are the best. So thank you for doing that. If you want to follow us on social media, very easy. Go to shutupandgivememurder.com. We're in there somewhere. Drop down menu. Do that. Keep doing that. Keep coming back. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

If you like Small Town Murder, you can listen early and ad-free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

What happens when a hacker uncovers hundreds of murder plots targeting people all over the world? Each of them posted on a Hitman for Hire site on the dark web, with their photos, habits and intimate details all used against them. What happens when they learn that the threat is coming from the person closest to them? Or what is the psychological profile of a father who would murder his own son and wife all to hide a drug addiction and years of embezzlement?

How do we understand the actions of the most complex and twisted minds? From cases of serial killers, relationships turned dark, to manipulative scammers preying on the insecurities of regular people. Wondry's Exhibit C is your partner in crime. Listen to the best of true crime by following Exhibit C on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to hit true crime shows like Kill List and Killer Psyche early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry+.