A New Jersey man was found guilty of killing his childhood friend and trying to stage her death as a suicide.
Liam McAtasney, 21, of Neptune City, was found guilty on Feb. 26 of all counts, including murder, robbery, and tampering with evidence.
After the verdict was read, family members of the victim, Sarah Stern, hugged each other and cried, reported the NJ Advance Media. Detectives shook hands and hugged.
McAtasney looked straight ahead as the verdict was read but shed no tears.
A father’s relief as jury convicts Liam McAtasney on all 7 counts for the robbery/murder of daughter Sarah Stern in the 8th week of trial @NBCNewYork pic.twitter.com/sYeIATBn2W
— Brian Thompson (@brian4NY) February 26, 2019
“The most important thing is to get justice for Sarah,” her father, Michael Stern, told reporters outside the courthouse. “She was a great kid. It never should have ended like this. I want to thank everybody.”
The trial started on Jan. 23 when the key witness for the prosecution, Preston Taylor, testified that he removed Stern’s body from her house after McAtasney strangled her on Dec. 2, 2016, and helped McAtasney toss her body off a bridge and stage her car to make it look like she had killed herself by jumping off of the bridge.
Stern’s body had never been found.
A second key witness, Anthony Curry, a former friend of McAtasney, took the stand and described how McAtasney confessed to him that he murdered Stern.
McAtasney told his friend that he set a timer on his phone before killing Stern but that he lost the phone at her house. “I had timed everything out,” he said.
McAtasney said he killed his old friend to get some money she had but after killing her, found the money was too old to use.
“He told me he was going to meet up with Sarah, she had found this money,” Curry testified Thursday, reported the Advance Media. “They were going to count it together. He was going to choke her, choke her out. Bring her to the bridge, throw her off and Preston was going to drive the escape vehicle. And they were going to bury the money, and leave the keys in the ignition and make it look like she killed herself.”
‘You going to live some boring a** life?’ Jury watches chilling video of alleged killer talking about strangling Sarah Stern https://t.co/U08bfDLxWA pic.twitter.com/GLnJWsaC6A
— NJ.com (@njdotcom) February 7, 2019
Police officials instructed Curry to meet with Stern and record the conversation, hoping for an admission of guilt. Curry, a filmmaker, called his friend and asked for a loan to buy a new camera, claiming he’d dropped his camera in a bucket of blood on a movie set.
McAtasney will be sentenced on May 24, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said.