Hello, everyone. This is David Muir, co-anchor of 2020. Over the next six weeks here, we're going to bring you a special limited run series called The Interrogation Tapes, produced by ABC News Studios in partnership with 2020. You'll hear some of the most compelling criminal cases in recent history through recordings made in the interrogation room, unveiling the tricks of the trade detectives use to find out what really happened. Here's episode one with friends like these. 911, where is the emergency?

It's not an emergency.

Actually, on the Belmore Bridge, there's a car that's abandoned. It's off to the side of the road. Is Sarah here by chance?

No.

The resident is Mike Stern. Hello. Anybody home? It wasn't home, and they said, We want to tell you something. You have no idea. It's a sense of hopelessness. Sarah's my only child, and you just wonder what happened to her. Our top story this half hour, the mystery of a missing 19-year-old from Monmouth County, Sarah Stern, was last seen late Friday night.

But searches for her have turned up empty. Now, her family and authorities hope a reward will help lead to clues.

Let's do this. Let's start the day on Friday. Okay. What time did you hook up with Sarah? I went over. She had asked me to help her go through her addict. That's when we found out, Steve, how much money she said it could be 20 grand to 100 grand.

I said, Did you hear about the girl that went missing? He was like, Yeah, I think I know. What happened?

She's always wanted to go to Canada. Has anybody told me that she jumped? If she did jump off the bridge. What are the odds that she's not coming all the way out of the ocean by any means?

This is very much a life-altering moment.

I've been honest with you about everything that happened.

You are feeling that pressure. The only way that we can help you is if you are cooperating with us.

If investigators are going to learn the truth, they're going to have to do it inside the interrogation room.

My name is Dr. Sujita Bhatt. I'm a research scientist at the Institute for Defense Analysis. Prior to this, I actually had spent many years with the FBI's High-Value DT&E Interrogation Group. We identified knowledge and practice gaps in interview and interrogation.

My name is Mark Fallon. Started as a Deputy US Marshal, then spent 27 years with NCIS I'm Brian Buckmire, ABC Legal Contributor and Trial Counsel at Hamilton Clarke LLP. A real interrogation in the real world should not be confrontational event.

You all right?

You're trying to develop relationship, and you're trying to elicit information.

Once you got that piece, the puzzle pieces all fit together.

Sergeant Heinz, Netting City. How are you? Hey, I need to get somebody about this car on the bridge that you guys found.

At the time, Sarah was home alone. Police contact Michael Stern. He's down Florida in Disney World with his partner.

The phone rang around three o'clock in the morning. I said, Do you know anything about a car, a gray holesmobile? And I said, Yeah, my daughter drives that car. We're getting no answer at the house. I have an open door at the house. I I need to go inside and make sure everything's kosher here. That's your safe plan.

The back door is open and the lights are on, and there is no sign of Sarah. Hello.

Somebody put the dog in a cage.

The only thing home is her dog buddy. She's been a doggy.Locked in his crate.He's been a good doggy.

A treat? Police called. They were checking the house. They said, not in the house. Nothing so far. Now we're wondering what's going on. We think that's the daughter's.

And he realizes that he needs to leave now back to his hometown.

Driving back, getting calls from family, looking for Sarah. That's how it started. Our top story this half hour, the mystery of a missing 19-year-old from Monmouth County, Sarah Stern was last seen late Friday night.

Neptune City police released a dash cam video of 19-year-old Sarah Stern's older model, Oldsmobile, found on the Belmar Bridge, where an anonymous call alerted police to the car.

When law enforcement comes across this 1994 Oldsmobile 88 that is abandoned on this bridge, they're thinking that this is a missing person's case. This case would rock any town. It's been especially impactful in a town like Neptune City because everyone is just so close with one another.

Neptune City, New Jersey, is small town USA as it gets. It's a tight knit community whose families have lived there for generations. This is one of the places that Bruce Springsteen sings about. It's beach culture. It's living by the water. And that very much is the identity of Neptune City. Often when When things like this happen, this young woman becomes everyone's daughter.

She was creative, was an artist.

She was a sweet girl based upon everything I've ever heard about her, people loved her.

She liked to make people laugh.

I've known Sara Stern my whole life. We were basically raised together as sisters. She loved to paint, she loved to draw. She loved watching YouTube, and she loved everything Disney.

She was just a pretty unique girl.

When you have a case like that, the first thing you go to are family, friends, and whomever has seen that person last.

Sarah was last in the company of her close friend, Liam McAkhtasny.

Liam. You're Liam? You got a second? Can I come in and talk to you real quick? Yeah, no problem, officer. Is Sarah here by chance? No. When was the last time he talked to her?

He was with her today.

Liam and Sarah had known each other since they were six years old. They were good friends. Sarah and Liam and Liam's roommate, Preston Taylor, who was Sarah's junior prom date, bonded over things like movies and video games. And so she got along with these 19-year-old boys.

Understanding her mental state, what she was talking about, where he might have wanted to go or do was important to get information. And Liam seemed to be the person to get it from.

I just know she's been trying to get away. You can tell me she's going to Canada.

Trying to get away, okay. Canada, she's been real depressed lately.

Within In a very short amount of time, they were already at Liam's house.

Liam, we've said it a couple of times. I'm going to throw it at you one more time, dude.

Asking him questions about where she is. The speed at which they did this was wonderful.

We just want to make sure she's okay.

Nobody's going to get in any trouble here.

In an attempt to get more information from Liam and Preston, law enforcement invites both of them into the interrogation room, not necessarily because they were suspects, but just that they needed more details to try to figure out where exactly Sarah was.

With an interview, what you're trying to do is obtain information. I usually use a timeline method.

Let's do this. Let's start the day on Friday. Okay. How did you hook up with Sarah? Sometimes between one and two o'clock. What things are you talking about? I saw things just been such a player. I remember what we were talking about. It's just a regular conversation. What is she talk to you about when I believe she had that day? What did she say? She just said she I just needed to get to Canada. I didn't think she would actually go through with them. But this whole Canada thing was just trying to escape the situation she was in, I guess.

Whatever her emotional state or its cause, Sarah having run away seemed unlikely from the beginning, even to Leo.

Do you think Sarah would have the means to leave? I don't think that her car took her. Her only means transportation.

The fact that her car was left on the bridge makes it inconceivable that she would have run away.

And then there was Sarah's dog.

After hearing from her friends and family how much she loved Buddy, it became obvious that Sarah would have never left without making sure he was taken care of.

If there are a lot of these inconsistencies with what the evidence is telling you versus what someone's saying, it really brings attention to the fact that, okay, there's something going on And then Liam and Preston would suggest the much darker possibility than running away.

I remember being with my girlfriend. She was completely obsessed with my girlfriend, and something happened with her dad, and my girlfriend had to leave. To go take care of her because she was saying, If you don't come here right now, I'm going to kill myself.

I don't know if you guys are hearing about her and your friend Maggie, but I mean, it's good friends growing up. I've done them in the past year, so I know she went towards Maggie or whatever. We made a shame out. She was like, what the fuck you mean? She was like, towards you, acting away. When you made her say that, she threatened suicide. Well, after when her mother passed, and like in the time that Maggie was gone away to college, I had come up in conversation a few times. What do you think she had? It's a joke.

Suicide was an option that we were exploring. But as we continued to investigate and talk to the people that were closest to Sarah, no one had provided us with any information that would indicate that Sarah was in any distress. Liam had planted the seed very early on that Sarah was interested in getting away from her father.

Over the past few months, she's been telling me how bad her relationship with her father is and how she just needs to get out of here.

This is where Liam begins to petal his story, which that Sarah was suicidal, that she was looking to get away, that she had a toxic relationship with her father, and that he was crazy.

But Sarah's other friends told a very different story.

Sarah and her dad were very close. They became even closer after her mother passed away. They had fights, but every daughter or son has fights with their parents. But they were very close, and they both loved each other.

While the conflicting stories about Sarah's relationship with her father concerning the police, they really proved nothing. And with no physical evidence and no body, law enforcement doesn't know if she died by suicide or if she ran off to Canada. But then Liam asked a question that raised an eyebrow.

If she did jump off the bridge, what are the odds that she's not coming all the way out of the ocean by Hey, Sergeant Heinz, Method City.

What do you guys have this thing listed as this car on a Bridge? Is it a missing person? That car has been out there two hours. This girl at 4:30 this afternoon, her mother died a couple of years ago. She's been very depressed. Her father's got a new relationship. She's not getting along with father. It's all kinds of emotional issues with her?

Suicide was still an option that we were exploring. But as we continued to investigate and talk to the people that were closest to Sarah, no one had provided us with any information that would indicate that Sarah was in any distress, that she was having any anxiety-related concerns.

So law enforcement uses security cameras throughout the neighborhood to try to lock into this timeline given to them by Liam and Preston to ensure the best possible outcome out of their interviews.

Investigators had to turn their attention to surveillance cameras from Sarah's neighbor's house that caught Sarah's car leaving at several points during the day on December second.

When did you last see Sarah? When I was leaving her house. Got to get over. What time before 4:45, eventually Friday. Where did you work? Running a tickets. What did he do there? He waited. What did you guys have going on? I think he had worked that night. I was just talking about what he wanted done.

Later in this interview, what he says is that he had a great night at work. That's inconsistent with Preston says.

If she had told me that she was going to jump off the bridge, there would have been no way that I could have gone to work that night. I went to work and I had one of the best moments of my life. What did he tell you about today? He been calling about work, about what did he say, very typical.

Preston said he came home in a very bad mood. That's the statement evidence inconsistencies that we look for, and that's what an investigator does is it gets to the bottom of it.

But then police notice a huge inconsistency in Liam's account of the time he spent with Sarah before she disappeared.

You haven't told us about the bank. How come you haven't told us about the bank?

Sarah had an account in a safety deposit box at Carnie Bank in Bradley Beach.

I came home the weekend of December second to go to a Christmas light show. I hadn't seen Sara in a couple of weeks. So I was in my room getting ready to go out, and I heard the kitchen door open, and I heard Sara's voice. And then Liam McAtasny walked in behind her. She was telling me that she had found money that she had in a safe.

And she decides to take it with her and put in the bank. She looked at this money as something that her mother left for her.

And she told me not to tell anyone, and I didn't. I just forgot about it until the next day when everyone found out she was missing.

Carly was surprised to hear that Liam knew about this sum of money. Carly was put off by this because she didn't really trust Liam to begin with. Investigators need to get into that safety deposit box. And when they eventually do, in it, they find...

$25,250 US Cash Currency. The first thing that went through my mind is that Sarah did not run away, because if she was going to leave, she certainly would have taken her money with her. And at that point, we had also located her Social Security card, her passport, as well as Canadian and US currency inside her bedroom.

When investigators find out about the sum of money, they start to think that this could be a possible motive, because it was the one thing that both Liam and Preston were leaving out of their stories.

The bank in and of itself became a big deal, especially when we took into account that Liam had failed to tell us that he had gone to the bank with Sarah.

The surveillance cameras from Sarah's neighbor's house see Sarah and Liam leave her house once to go to TACO Bell and come back. They see them leave a second time to go to the bank and come back.

How come you ever tell us about the bank? Well, I told him about the bank.

He was referring to Detective Mahoney, who was sitting next to me. Of course, asked Detective Mahoney if Liam had told him that he went to the bank with Sarah, and he didn't.

Information management is one of these approaches that a guilty suspect may use in an interview. In this case, Liam engaging in information management is when he talks about what he's done throughout the day, the day that he was with Sarah, but skips over the fact that they were at the bank.

Did she go to the bank? I was with her. Okay. That's the way back for a talk about. When she tell you she was left with the bank? Something to do with her money. I don't know. She had found money. She wanted to go. And she has a lot of box full money in there. I don't know. She was taking money out, putting money in there.

The detective tipped his hand early. He said, Tell me about the bank.

If they had not done that, what would you have suspected this interrogation would have looked like?

They would have led Liam down a road where he could have made more inconsistent statements, made himself look more guilty, implicating himself further. So it gave him an excuse to then come up with a story.

Despite Liam and Preston leaving out the fact that Liam had went to the bank with Sarah and that Sarah had a security box there, it still didn't rise to the level of suspicion of an actual crime, and it wasn't enough for law enforcement to move forward.

Because police don't have anything to charge Liam with, Sarah is still missing. It's weeks and weeks before police come in contact with the person who's going to break this case open.

What made me decide to do it? I went outside, smoked a cigarette, thought about it for a second, and was like, All right, let's do it.

It's not a cold case. It was still being actively investigated.

But then, investigators receive a potentially explosive lead.

Got a telephone call from Captain Thomas Cox of the Belmore Police Department. Captain Cox had informed me that he had received a call from a retired Bradley Beach police captain who reported that his friend's son had information to provide pretending to Sarah Stern's disappearance.

I heard about it either through social media or on the radio or something, that the girl went missing.

Anthony Curry is a filmmaker who went to high school with Liam and Sarah.

He used to tell me ideas all the time about films I should make. He told me about this idea he had to kill this girl. I thought he was going to strangle her and throw her over the bridge with his friend, Preston.

Anthony was home for the holidays when on Thanksgiving Day, he and Liam began to text about meeting up. When they get together, Thanksgiving night, Liam starts to tell Anthony about what Anthony thinks is another horror film plot.

Yeah, I was like, Yeah, he's a little nuts, but I don't know. I just thought it It was a movie.

Anthony didn't take him seriously until a week later when he saw that Sarah was missing. Anthony realizes that he has to come forward, and the first person he tells is his dad, Eddie, who has a connection in a local police Department and hooks Anthony up with someone who he can talk to about what he heard Liam say on Thanksgiving.

Anthony Curry broke this case wide open.

We wanted to corroborate the information that Anthony had provided to us, and the The best way to do that was to ask him if he'd be willing to participate in a consensual recording with Liam and confront him about the information that he reportedly had told him.

Investigators get Anthony Curry to ask Liam about the money. They even have Anthony make up this story that he needs a new camera and ask Liam for some of the money.

That's a story that has some legitimacy to it.

My camera broke, though. Your own personal kingdom? Yeah, I have no money to pay for I got to shoot on Thursday.

If you're going to put somebody in an interview situation, the way that they put Anthony in, you don't want to overprepare him. You want him to act as natural as possible. You don't want them to be overly talkative. You want to actually have the suspect be the one that provides most of the information. So it's an 80/20 thing. Let 80% of the information be coming from the suspect, 20% from you.

They initially tried it with the telephone call. It's the method that puts the informant in the least amount of jeopardy. They come up with a pretty good cover story. That he needed money for his camera.

You couldn't spot me some cash from that girl's money, right? How much do you need? I need two. I would pay you back after all these jobs work out.

Unfortunately, Liam didn't take the bait.

I don't think I could do that.

We need to talk about that, too.

Come see me in person, take me.

Do you have anything left from it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. We'll talk about it right now. All right. Yeah? Yeah.

That telephone call was very troubling because it was where Liam had began to make statements about Sarah's money that she had found, and had confirmed that he, in fact, had someone for money.

Liam says over Snapchat, he needed to meet with him in person to tell him why.

On Snapchat, that video or picture disappears in 24 hours. But if that person who receives it takes a screenshot to lock in what that looks like, the sender gets a notification of that. As a workaround, law enforcement goes to Anthony Curry and takes an actual picture of the phone with the messages that Liam had sent to Anthony so that Liam is none the wiser.

And then Anthony Curry meets with police officers, and they decide that they are going to use him in his sting operation. They outfit his car with audio and video and have him meet up with Liam to talk about what happened.

That's good, money. You don't have to worry about what you're doing.

That raises the stakes because now you're asking your informant who's under law enforcement control to have face-to-face in a context with someone that you believe is a murderer.

Yeah, I got the FBI on my ass, dude. What, are they questioning? Oh, yeah, a lot. About what? About killing Sarah. What'd you been up to? Hiding from the cops.

What happened?

Dude, you can't blame me for doing this, right? I got to see the up real quick, all right?

He was patting him down for a traditional microphone that would be taped to his body. The car was wired, but he wasn't wearing a wire on his body.

Yeah, I got the FBI on my ass, dude.

Put yourself in Anthony's shoes. He knows what Leon Jim has done. That in and of itself puts a lot of cognitive load and pressure and stress on Anthony as a person going in there to do the interview.

What happened?

I choked her out, dragged her into the back, put her in a bathroom, and then I had to go straight to work. So Preston came over, took the body, put it in the bushes. I got up on top of the bridge to throw her off. My plan was I was going to throw her off, run over, jump over the divider, and get in the Preston car.

And 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.

I see like, headlights coming. I try to get her over, and I can't. My leg up. The weight from her body made me fall, and my leg went up. So now I'm limping my leg, and there's three cars coming up. So I grabbed her body. Dude, I had superhuman of strength, and I threw it in the car, and I picked it up, and her feet were up here, and her foot, her head was down there, and three cars go by. And I'm losing my feet because that could have been a cop. And then-I mean, the police station is right there. Yeah. And then Preston comes over the bridge, goes around, makes a U-turn, comes up behind me. The two of us throw the body over, and then we were out. It's heartbreaking in a sense. Somebody who's your good friend, you don't think they would do something like that as an innocent person. So you just counted it out and then got away behind me I thought Anthony did a fantastic job.

He didn't ask any questions that would actually increase suspicion in Liam of Anthony.

You didn't hear about it? It was all over the news.

Even when Anthony talks about Sarah's death, and Liam says, Oh, didn't you hear about it on the news? And he says, Oh, yeah, I just didn't know that you went through with it.

Yeah.

And the worst part is...

He does the playing dumb in a way, but does it in a very successful way.

My biggest problem was the dog, and her dog Laid there and watched as I killed her. Didn't do anything.

If you listen to the story, it appears like this happened. You can hear the emotion in his voice. You can hear the pride in his voice about how he killed her.

I got it. It's good talking, man. Good. Don't talk. Take it easy, bro.

This is a slam dunk case for a prosecutor.

But I didn't really have to do much work. He wanted to tell me. I think he wanted to get it off his chest for some reason he trusted me.

That consensual recording, that was the first time that Preston Taylor was implicated in the crime. Liam had provided Anthony with specific information that Preston had assisted him in throwing Sarah over the bridge.

And after that, they went after Preston.

We made a decision to conduct surveillance, both on Preston and on Liam. He's 35125. We further made the decision that we were going to make an effort to locate Preston first and interview him as a result of Liam implicating him in disposing her remains with him.

They bring Preston in.

Sorry to keep you waiting, man. How are you doing? All right? Yes.

As a suspect.

We put him into an interview room. We mirandized him. He waved Miranda, agreed to speak to us. You're Preston, if you understand the right.

And he's asked one question.

We know what your involvement in it was. We want to know why Liam did what he did.

What did he do?

He killed Sarah. Okay? We know you know that.

Right?

You know that, correct? Yes, right. Okay. You're a 19-year-old kid. You have a whole life ahead of you. You got to lay it out for us as to why it happened and why he did what he did. Money. What was interesting about Preston's interview is that he just wanted confirmation that we knew that Liam had killed Sarah. What did he tell you he planned on doing?

Taking her out and letting him find somewhere to expose him body.

When you say taking her out, what do you mean?

Strang her out.

In my humble opinion, as a public defender of nine years, this is probably the quickest This confession that anyone has seen.

He probably made this calculated judgment of, Well, I'm just going to go with it and tell them everything I know at this point, just because I can't get in trouble for the murder because they know I didn't do it.

The majority of the interview with Preston was him not taking responsibility for the planning phase of the crime.

I got home just since he was getting ready to run out the door for work, and he was like, Dude, I did it. I need you to follow me later with your car. And I just didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do at that point.

Preston gives investigators a play-by-play of exactly what Liam did, how they moved the body, how they made multiple trips back to the house to get Sarah safe, to bring her out of her house, to put her in the bushes, to throw her over the fence, and throw her over the Route 35 Bridge.

He also agreed to take us back to Sarah's house and walk us through the home and the property, explaining what the two had done. We felt in this particular investigation that it would certainly be beneficial, especially considering the fact that the two of them had made multiple trips to Sarah's house during the course of their crime.

Sarah was slumped in this corner right here. She had been facing away, and I had my arms under her shoulders like this. Dried her over here and We sat her under the bushes right here. And then two of us hopped the fence right here again, and we made our way up to the house. Liam went inside the house to get the safe.

We wanted to bring pressed into the bridge so he can identify the exact location where they threw her over the bridge.

Liam was going to throw the body over himself, but he found that he wasn't strong enough. So Paul Sara up and over himself. Liam had her by the shoulders and hoisted her up onto the railing, and then I pushed her feet over so that she was going over the rest of the way. We heard a loud metallic bang, and that was all.

During the interview, Preston had told us that they had buried two safes, one in Sandy Hook and the other in the Shark River Park. The Shark River Park is a heavily wooded area, and it took a lot effort for Preston to be able to identify the location where the safe was buried.

And when they uncovered it, it was a Century safe with the combination 002 on it.

But that safe also has a key to it. And it wasn't in Sarah's car, home, or safety deposit box. So who has it? The next step for investigators, track down Liam.

Liam is arrested while we are in the Shark River Park with Preston. While we were in the park with him, detectives had stopped Liam's car and found a key.

To that century safe on his key ring with the combination 002 on it. And so police, they are now able to arrest Liam and charge him with Sara's murder.

So you know you're under arrest, right, Liam?

Yeah.

Okay. You'll be in charge of murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, desecration of human remains, conspiracy, and hindering apprehension.

Stand up, get your head off.

There you go.

The detention hearing for 19-year-old Liam McEcatazny went as Monmouth County prosecutors had hoped.

He will remain in custody as the murder case he faces moves forward.

Almost two years after his arrest, Liam's trial begins.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Stern will not be walking through those doors into this courtroom at any point. She will never send her father another text. She will never hug him or tell him she loves him. It's because this defendant murder her and set into action a course of events that assured her body would never be found.

We know this. He is the defendant, Fenn.

It's not a plan that he could do by himself, however. He needed and he found that help with Preston Taylor.

Preston's testimony was a key part of the prosecution's case. And as a result of that, the defense would have to try to destroy his credibility.

When you listen to Preston Taylor's testimony, you will find that he is not credible, that he does have a bias, that he does have an intent to receive. His testimony is untruthful, it's false, it's imagined, it's erroneously, and not credible. During that first interview, you never said anything about Liam saying that he was going to kill Sarah, correct? Correct.

Leading up to the time frame of December 2016, do you guys ever begin to talk about specific plans about this month?

Yes.

How did those conversations go?

They started off as plans to either regularize or answer to rob her personally. And over time, the conversations progressed to kill her.

Liam's family didn't believe the story that Preston was telling police from the beginning.

In every Bone of my body, I do not believe Liam is capable of killing Sarah Stern, who he loved and adored. I do not believe Liam is capable of killing anybody.

I always thought of him as a storyteller, and I didn't believe it. I didn't think that I Although none of it made sense to me.

The defense argued that these crimes didn't happen.

Eighteen years in prison. That's the sentence for an accomplice in the murder of Sarah Stern in New Jersey. Preston Taylor pleaded guilty to his role in the robbery and killing of the 19-year-old Stern in 2016.

Why would he do that if Sara was alive?

Michael Stern took the stand. This was the first time that Michael had the ability to come face to face with his daughter's murder.

Did she look much different in 2016?

I looked at him, and he just stared away.

A big part of the defense's case was that Sarah had a horrible relationship with her father, Michael. And when Michael took the stand, you realized that it was anything but that, that they had a normal father-daughter relationship, and that they loved each other so much, and that Sarah really treasured him, and Michael so treasured his only child.

But Anthony Curry's testimony and the undercover recording were the prosecution's most powerful weapons.

Did you have a conversation with him on that day regarding Sarah Stern? Yes. Can you tell me about it?

He told me he was going to meet up Sarah. She found this model, and they were going to count it together. He was going to show her how I'm going to bring her to the bridge, throw her off. Preston was going to drive the escape vehicle, and they were going to bury the money and leave the keys in the mission to make it for her to kill herself.

Even more damning than Anthony's testimony is that recording of Liam confessing to Anthony Curry in his car.

I pretty much hired her, and it took me half an hour to kill her. But then she was just lying there.

We talk about how it could take 30 minutes or approximately 30 minutes for Sarah Stern to, unfortunately, die.

Michael sat there with the rest of us and watched it as Liam described minute by minute what Sarah's last were like. It was nauseating for me to watch as a reporter, and I can't imagine what it was like for Michael Stern. Liam's family said that what Liam did with Anthony Curry on the night of January 31st in Anthony's car in Bradley Beach was an audition for a movie.

He would give you ideas for films. It's a tough thing to go through, but this ain't no movie. This is real life.

After a four-week trial, the case went to the jury for deliberations.

We have a note that says you have a verdict. Is that correct? That's it.

Did the defendant, Liam McAtaussi, commit the Homicidal Act, resulting in the death of Sarah Stern by his own conduct? Question number one. How do you find us to count one of the indictment as to whether the defendant, Liam McAtausny, on and rebelled December second, 2016, and on and about the borough of Nectar City, committed the crime murder by purposely or knowingly causing the death of Sarah Stern, or purposely or knowingly causing serious body injury to Sarah Stern, which resulted in the death.

Guilty. Guilty on all counts. Unanimous. Twelve jurors. Guilty. I don't know. Sociopath? Obviously. Evil? Definitely. Cruel, heartless. I don't think there's enough words to describe him. Evil human being.

When I found out that he was guilty, I was like, Okay, this is great. Justice is served. For those who knew Sarah and were close to her, the pain and the hurt all over is never going to be gone. You're always going to think of her every single day and miss her every single day.

It's my daughter. Smart kid, good kid, friendly, cared about people, never hurt anybody. She was just a wonderful child, becoming an adult and starting to live her own life.

I'm not sure I can explain the depths of depravity of this crime, where you had people who were allegedly friends who hung out together. Preston was the prom date. To show the callousness which this act occurred is just inconceivable to me.

All the information that Preston Taylor had provided to us, the information that Liam McAtasci had provided to Anthony Curry, all that information was corroborated by physical evidence.

The most significant development in this case by far was Anthony Curry coming forward. And then his courage, because it's absolute courage.

I'm going to tell you, you shouldn't stop it. I'm going to do it for money.

Part of why the science these interviewing and interrogation really hasn't broken through to mainstream knowledge is because it's really hard to make it sexy.

It's odd that you'd stop at that florist next to the bank twice in the same morning.

When we talk about accusatorial and we say that this is a course of our approach. We naturally think of an approach that we would see in Hollywood.

You've got 20 years staring you right in the face.

What do you want me to say that I did it? The banging the tables and all of that. And that is not the case in most interviews. And I think this case, the detectives do a really good job of showing you how the UKU to a dealer approach can still be report-based in a sentence.

A father came face to face with his daughter's killer in a New Jersey courtroom. Sarah Lee Stern is my daughter, my own Chuck. Since the day Sarah was missing, my wife didn't turn away. For two months, the idea of searching for Sarah was relentless heartbreak. Myself, along with friends, family members, neighbors, and hundreds of the community. The day the detectives informed me Sarah was murdered, it was overwhelming. Mr. Mcataz, may I just stand?

Liam was sentenced to life in prison without the ability of parole.

Is there anything you would you like to say before I send you?

Years after trial ended, there was an appeal that was very swiftly denied.

For Preston's plea agreement and for testifying against Liam, Preston took a plea deal to aiding and abetting the murder of Sarah Stern.

The court will accept the bet as plea of guilty to those charges, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, disturbing human remains, tampered, hindering.

He got 18 years in prison, being convicted of all seven charges.

For his role in Sarah's murder, despite having cooperated with the prosecution.

So Mr. Stern and all those who had the blessing of knowing Sarah, I'm sorry for your illness. Finally, we got justice for Sarah. It's been a tough two years. I love my daughter, and everybody else did, too. She was a good kid. She was a rising star. Their life ended way too soon.

They have a small memorial for her on that bridge. I always look at the memorial.

Whenever I do over the bridge and it's sunset and it looks really, really pretty, like just an orangey, peach glow. It's like, wow, she's like an angel.

I have to deal with never any closure because Sarah's body has never been recovered. The horrific act of what happened to Sarah's body has on me to this day. We're walking forever. I will never be able to hug Sarah and tell her I love her.

Sarah's body has still, to this day, never been found.

The Interrogation Tapes was produced by ABC News Studios in partnership with 2020. The series is streaming on Hulu. Next week, we'll be back with episode 2, The Click, about a quadruple homicide of four friends in Texas. Thanks for listening.