The Murder of Sarah Stern
The following chapter is from Exponential: 101 Short Stories, Essays, and Insights to Improve Communication Skills
I’m not a big fan of the news.
But the rare times they come in clutch is when they create those 20/20 documentaries.
I was recently watching the documentary on how Sarah Stern, a 19-year-old girl from New Jersey was killed.
It felt like a movie.
The initial disappearance happened around 2016.
The community that she disappeared from was a very tight-knit community.
Everyone knew each other.
Sarah was an artist who had dreams of being a YouTuber.
During the time, her mom died from cancer and left her a lot of money.
Around 100,000 dollars.
One day, she was telling her childhood friend, Liam McAtasney, about the money that her mom left her.
Liam and Sarah had been friends since they were 7 years old!
They all rode the same prom bus together.
Liam paid attention as Sarah talked about how much money her mom left her.
Sarah felt good that she could express this win to a childhood friend.
Little did she know…
Liam was planning to kill her and take her money.
Liam was roommates with another guy named Preston.
Preston was also in the same prom limo ride as Sarah.
They were all friends.
One day, Liam, Preston and this filmmaker were all chilling in a car.
The filmmaker needed ideas for a potential movie.
Liam had an idea.
‘What if there was a guy who killed his childhood best friend to steal her 100,000 dollars? After he killed her, he would throw her body off the bridge.’
The filmmaker liked the idea.
That’s all he thought it was…
A movie idea.
Little did he know, Liam was brainstorming out loud.
Liam eventually told his roommate, Preston, about the plan.
He said he needed Preston’s help with disposing the body after he killed her.
Preston agreed.
While watching the documentary, I looked at Preston’s mannerisms.
He looked like a follower, not a leader.
He worked with his dad as a general contractor’s assistant.
His main job was to fetch products for his dad.
I got the feeling that Preston needed to be told what to do.
Anything he was told to do in a confident voice, he would do.
The day of the murder arrived.
Sarah’s dad was on a work trip in Florida.
Liam and Sarah were hanging out.
As they were chilling like any other day….
Liam jumped on her.
He began choking her.
Liam set off a timer for how long it would take to kill her.
He was curious.
30 minutes to strangle Sarah to death.
The last word she said was, “Liam….”
After the death, he called Preston to help him dispose the body.
This guy was sick.
Rather than putting her in the trunk, he put her in the passenger seat to make it look like she was sleeping, so the security cameras wouldn’t sense anything peculiar.
They drove to Jersey bridge and tossed her into the water.
The 2 thought they were off scotch free.
The body was gone, they’d make it seem like she ran away, and now they had a lot of money!
But wait…
How much money did they really get??
After running through the logistics, they realized they didn’t have access to the 100,000 dollars.
They got around 7000 dollars.
Preston kept 2000 of those and Liam kept the rest.
After Sarah’s dad didn’t hear from his daughter, and noticed her phone was off, he alerted the authorities.
The search for Sarah was in progress.
The cops searched for days and weeks.
They got nothing.
They were going to rule off the entire thing as a disappearance.
The case was about to be closed, UNTIL….
The filmmaker came forward.
You remember the filmmaker who Liam was brainstorming with?
That’s the guy who told the cops that something seemed shady.
He told the cops about Liam’s sinister brainstorming session.
The cops convinced the filmmaker to put a camera in his car and get Liam to confess.
That’s exactly what the filmmaker did.
The entire confession is on YouTube.
Liam shares in depth how he killed his childhood best friend.
The murder of Sarah Stern is very sad, and it taught me a few lessons.
One thing was to rarely (if ever) tell people how much money you make.
It’s one thing if you have a salary.
But it’s a completely different ball game when you run a business or are awarded money by a deceased family member.
When you bring up how much money you make, rather than inspiring awe, you inspire greed & jealousy.
Another thing to be wary of is to monitor who you hang out with.
The Preston kid was not a good kid by any means.
However, I didn’t get the evil vibe from him like I did with Liam.
Preston was a follower.
And when you are a follower to a corrupt person, the corrupt person will make their bad behavior sound like the cool thing to do.
In Liam’s confession, he said:
‘You only live one life; don’t you want to make it fun?’
This dude was actually making his murder seem like the “cool” thing to do.
Another lesson is that shortcuts are not worth it.
Think about it.
These 2 goobers threw away their entire life for 2000 dollars and 5000 dollars.
You could make that in a few months working Uber!
Greed makes people short-sighted.
Often, shortcuts take longer than how long it would have taken you if you did it the right way.
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