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A video confession from SICK revealed the details of Sarah Stern’s murder by her childhood friend, who revealed that he timed the horrific act.
Liam McAtasney was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 after a jury found him guilty of strangling 19-year-old Sarah in December 2016.
Sarah Stern, 19, was killed in December 2016 by her childhood friend Liam McAtasney, who threw her body off a bridge.
Prosecutors argued that McAtasney planned to kill Sarah to get the money he received from her after her mother’s death.
Murder
A break in the case was made after McAtasney’s friend, Anthony Curry, worked with the police to obtain a recording of McAtasney confessing to the crime.
After murdering his high school classmate Sarah, McAtasney enlisted the help of her former roommate, Preston Taylor, to dump her body off a bridge in Belmar, New Jersey.
Sarah’s body has never been recovered, authorities said.
A disturbing video, secretly recorded by police, showed McAtasney confessing to killing Sarah and admitting that it took him “half an hour to kill her”.
McAtasney’s friend, Anthony Curry, worked with police in a sting operation to get him to admit to the murder.
“It’s heartbreaking in a way, you know, someone who is your good friend you don’t think would do something like that,” Curry told ABC 20/20.
Curry, a filmmaker, said McAtasney initially approached him with a plot idea for a horror movie involving a woman, who is robbed, killed and thrown off a bridge.
“I make movies, I’m a filmmaker,” Curry said. “He used to give me ideas all the time about what movies I should do and all that.”
Curry added: “He told me the idea that he had to kill this girl.”
After the details of Sarah’s disappearance became public, Curry contacted the police who worked with him to secretly record McAtasney.
McAtasney killed Sarah for thousands of dollars
During his trial, prosecutors argued that McAtasney killed Sarah for thousands of dollars belonging to her mother, who died of cancer in 2013.
They claimed that McAtasney planned the murder to gain access to money from Sarah’s safe.
On the secret recording, McAtasney complained about not getting as much money as he wanted.
“The worst part is that I thought he was paying $50,000 to $100,000 out of my pocket,” he said.
He added that Sarah had a safe where she kept her money that she only had $10,000 in.
Judge Richard English, who sentenced McAtasney, then 21, to life in prison plus 10 years for desecration of human remains, said Curry had been an integral part of the case.
“If it wasn’t for Mr. Curry, this could have been a cold case,” he said in court, adding that McAtasney treated Sarah’s life “as a joke.”
Sarah’s father, Michael Stern, told 20/20 that he was grateful for Curry’s action in helping to solve his daughter’s murder.
“If he hadn’t come forward, we probably never would have gotten a response,” Stern said. “It was a difficult decision for him. He didn’t have to show up.”
However, Curry said he wanted to close her relationship with Sarah’s family, even if it meant putting his own in jeopardy.
