Sarah Stern Murder: Suspect Caught on Video Bragging He Killed While Dog Watched
‘My biggest problem was the dog,’ Liam Atasney says on the secretly recorded video.
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A New Jersey man on trial for the murder of his childhood friend, allegedly strangled for a $4,000 inheritance, was secretly taped talking in excruciating detail about how he timed the killing and felt like he had “superhuman” powers.
The video was played Thursday for the jury that will decide Liam McAtasney’s fate. It was made on Jan. 31, 2017, by a friend of McAtasney at the request of police investigating the disappearance of Sarah Stern, according to the Asbury Park Press.
The friend, Anthony Curry, told police that McAtasney confided that he planned to kill her so he could steal her money but didn’t think he was serious until Stern went missing.
Warning: This video contains violent and disturbing language.
In the video, which can be viewed in its entirety here, McAtasney said he planned the crime months in advance, studied Stern to learn her patterns, and “timed everything out” to see how long it would take.
He walked Curry through what happened.
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“She goes to walk out the front door. I choke her out, drag her. My biggest problem was the dog. Her dog laid there and watched as I killed her,” he said in the video.
He said it took a half-hour to choke the life out of her. Working with an alleged accomplice, McAtasney said, he disguised Stern's body as a passenger in her own car and drove her to a local bridge. He bragged of having “superhuman strength’ when he tossed the body in the water.
“We threw her off the bridge and her body never showed up,” he said.
The only wrinkle, he said, was that Stern’s safe didn’t contain as much money as he thought it would.
“The worst part, I thought I was walking out with fifty-grand, a hundred-grand in my pocket. … She only had 10 grand.”
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