They were once one big, happy group. Now two teens are accused of killing another.

July 10, 2024

Sarah Stern knew Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor for some time.

The trio reportedly was part of a group of friends in their New Jersey community, the Asbury Park Press reported.

Stern, 19, went missing in early December. She was never found.

Now, about two months after she was last seen, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced that authorities had charged two men in the missing woman’s death. The two, they wrote in a Facebook post, were Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor.

“It’s a feeling of hurt,” Stern’s father, Michael Stern, told the Asbury Park Press. “Emptiness. Just like being knocked over and then kicked. It takes your breath away. It’s a horrible feeling. Indescribable. Pain. Suffering.”

Stern was last seen Dec. 2 at her New Jersey home. An investigation began after her silver Oldsmobile was found on the shoulder of a bridge, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. A passer-by had contacted police about the abandoned car, which was found with the keys inside, the office’s Facebook post notes.

Crews searched the Shark River for signs of Stern’s body. The U.S. Coast Guard assisted in the effort, as did authorities from the New Jersey State Police, according to the Facebook post. Volunteers reportedly turned out to look for Stern, too.

Earlier this month, though, the prosecutor’s office announced that Taylor and McAtasney, both 19, had been charged in Stern’s killing.

McAtasney faces several charges, including first-degree murder. Taylor was charged with second-degree desecration of human remains, second-degree conspiracy (to desecrate human remains) and second-degree hindering apprehension.

“Detectives determined that McAtasney was responsible for killing Stern and stealing property from her on Dec. 2, 2016,” a Facebook post on the arrest notes. “The investigation also revealed that Taylor provided assistance to McAtasney in moving and ultimately disposing of Stern’s body in order to avoid detection.”

“It’s just unbelievable,” Stern’s father told the Asbury Park Press. “Unfathomable. Deplorable. Disgusting.”

Michael Stern told the Press that the three had known each other since their middle school days. He remembered driving McAtasney to school as part of a parent carpool. Taylor, the Press reported, took Stern to junior prom.

“One big, happy group,” Michael Stern told the newspaper. “At that time. Don’t know what happened. Something. I guess people change. … Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.”

McAtasney and Taylor were among the volunteers who helped search for Sarah Stern, according to the Press, which reviewed a sign-up sheet provided by Michael Stern.

A classmate who spoke with the newspaper also remembered Stern, Taylor and McAtasney as being close pals.

“If you had a model of a best friend group, then that was them,” Leanna Ross, 19, said of the three. “So I think that’s why the whole community’s confused. Especially like people in our class, who are all confused because they were like, that friend group was literally inseparable.”

McAtasney and Taylor made court appearances earlier this month, at which an assistant prosecutor reportedly alleged that McAtasney had strangled Stern, whose body was then thrown off the bridge. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, who wasn’t in court that day, told the newspaper that officials think Stern’s body, which wasn’t located, was swept out to sea.

The newspaper reported:

Gramiccioni described Stern and the two defendants as acquaintances, and McAtasney and Taylor as friends.

“We know they had a preexisting relationship with Sarah Stern, growing up in the same area,” the prosecutor said.

“We hope, for everybody’s sake, that the girl’s still alive someplace,” McAtasney’s attorney, Chuck Moriarty, told The Washington Post in a phone interview Monday. “We don’t know much more than that. He’s indicated to me that he had nothing to do with anything. She was a friend of his. We’re just waiting to see what happens.”

These kids heard their parents fighting. The next day, they told teachers their mom was dead.

She locked her son in a filthy bathroom for years, police say. Now she says jail is ‘torture.’

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