Chapter 1: What happened during the early morning search for Sarah Stern?
This is Debra Roberts here with another weekly episode of our latest true crime series from 2020 and ABC Audio, Bridge of Lies. Remember, you can get new episodes early by following Bridge of Lies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now. Now, here's the next episode of Bridge of Lies. At 4.50 a.m. on December 3rd, 2016, Frannie Hines got a call.
It was the Belmar police. They were requesting our water rescue team and our water assets to search for someone who possibly had gone off the Highway 35 bridge. Franny ran the Belmar First Aid Squad. By daybreak, he and his crew scrambled boats and divers to search the water under the bridge where Sarah Stern's Oldsmobile had been found the night before.
Other members of his team began to search along the shore. So by the time the sun came up, we had a full search of all this area here, basically under the bridge and under all the docks. And on the outside, we searched all the way out to the Ocean Avenue Bridge as well. So it was a pretty big operation. Franny spoke to ABC News to give us a sense of the operation.
He took our team out on a small motorboat marked Rescue in big yellow letters above the windshield. It was quiet on the river. Many of the fishing boats were still parked in their docks. See that yellow sign? That's where we think she went over. Up on the top. From the water, Franny pointed up to a yellow hazard sign right in the middle of the bridge before guiding the boat underneath.
So we searched all the way out to the ocean inlet and all the way into the back bay here. We searched all of it. The river here runs about 11 miles long. Some areas can be as deep as 18 feet. In the summer, the Shark River is a popular spot for fishing boats and kayakers.
It runs through residential neighborhoods in Belmar and Neptune City before it spills out into the Atlantic Ocean, less than a mile away. But on that day, it was too cold for fun on the water. I think the water temperature was some 38 degrees, something like that. The boats and divers looked under docks and around old pilings in the river, pieces of old concrete from a previous bridge.
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Chapter 2: What theories do Sarah's friends have about her disappearance?
Around 8 o'clock that morning, they ended up calling in more reinforcements to help. And we also called in the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office dive team, who brought some more expertise to the search. At the start of the search, Franny had no idea who he was looking for. All he was told was that there might be someone in the water. But then he learned the missing person's name.
It kind of set a tingle down my spine because Sarah was our neighbor for her entire life. Franny and Sarah's father, Michael, were friends. They'd lived across the street from each other for 25 years. Sarah even walked her dog, Buddy, past Franny's house every day. I've been on a lot of searches for a lot of people, but this is the first time we were searching for somebody that we knew.
Franny thought that a jump or fall off the Belmar Bridge was survivable. He actually used to jump off a similar, smaller bridge as a kid for fun. But staying alive in water that cold is another thing altogether. We're pretty sure that after a little while, an hour, if someone's in the water, that we're probably not going to find them alive.
If there was a chance Sarah was alive, he wanted to make sure he was there. I wanted to find her, and I wanted to make sure that... I wanted to be there because it was very personal to me, for sure. As night turned to day, police started to form theories about what could have happened to Sarah Stern. Narratives that start to form the basis of a full-on investigation.
Did Sarah park her car on the Belmar Bridge and jump? Did she abandon her car and life in Neptune for parts unknown? Or were officers being steered away from a darker truth? From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Juju Chang, and this is Bridge of Lies. Episode 2, The Search.
Around 10 a.m., officers were at Liam McIntasney's mom's house looking for him, just hours after they first visited him that same morning. On the police body camera footage, we can see it was a bright, sunny day. Liam had switched out his gray pajamas for blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and dark sunglasses. Liam's roommate and cousin were with him.
They sit staggered on different steps of the front porch. Liam's mom's dog looked through the screen door.
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Chapter 3: Did Sarah show signs of wanting to escape her current life?
What was she wearing the last time you saw her? I know when I got to her house at 1 or 2 o'clock, she was just wearing a red t-shirt and black running shorts or something. Police were trying to piece together what Sarah did the day she went missing and what her mindset could have been. The officers were stern. They wanted to make sure Liam got the severity of the situation.
A 19-year-old girl was missing. No one had heard from her since the day before. And Liam might be the only one who could help. I said to you before, we have a lot of resources out there, and we need to find her and make sure she's safe and okay. And this is why I'm really hammering this home to you, Liam. You're young. I want to make sure you get how important this is.
This young girl is off the grid all of a sudden, and nobody knows why. And you were basically the last person that had any contact with her. I completely understand that. So we're trying to get a little time frame, more of a time frame. Liam assured officers that he understood. His friend was missing, and he wanted to be helpful. So Liam walked them through what he had done the day before.
Between one and two, we went to Taco Bell. I went to the neighbor's house at one point. For the most part, Liam repeated what he told officers when they first visited his house earlier that morning. Normal teenage stuff. He drove to Sarah's house to hang out. They went to Taco Bell for lunch. Then he helped her drop off a box of Sarah's stuff at her neighbor's house.
He said she'd been trying to move some things out of her house over the past week or so. He even had some of her stuff at his house. And I actually have a few of these in my basement right now. Of hers? Of hers, yeah, if you guys want to go through those. She's just been trying to get stuff out of the house away from her dad over the past week or whatever.
You seem to have a pretty good relationship. What's the... What's her reasoning for wanting to get the stuff out of her father's place? I know she definitely has a lot of trust issues with her dad, so I've just been trying to help her out with that. I've been friends with her since first grade, so we have a pretty good friendship.
Liam said they had the kind of relationship where Sarah felt she could confide in him. And she told him that things between her and her father had been tense. 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. Why was it bad? What made it bad? Fighting. Arguing, fighting? Arguing, fighting constantly. Okay.
Liam said that Sarah and her father would fight over trivial things that he watched them argue over the phone a few weeks ago. Going back and forth over replacing a broken key in the house. Just arguing for the sake of arguing. Because the other day when the key broke, he called her four times and they had the same exact conversation, same argument like they never had it over and over again.
This was what Liam told the officers. According to investigators, Michael, Sarah's dad, told them he and Sarah actually had a pretty normal father-daughter relationship. Yes, they'd argue and wouldn't always agree, but it didn't affect how much love they had for each other. But at least according to Liam, Sarah was desperate to get away because of her dad.
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Chapter 4: What evidence did police find regarding Sarah's last known whereabouts?
YouTube was the platform where artists, comedians, makeup gurus, vloggers, essentially anyone could become an internet celebrity and gain a following. And people would go to fan conventions to meet their favorite creators and connect with other fans. At this point, YouTube was over a decade old, but police told Liam that they just didn't get it. I don't know how many.
I'm not, I'm not quick on this. It's doing big. Yeah. So you've seen YouTube, what are they, people that like to post stuff on YouTube? Yeah, just people, they have a channel and they post videos. Liam, the thing on YouTube conventions or whatever, you don't have any idea what they are?
Officers were curious about the friends Sarah made through her online community and the YouTube personalities she followed, trying to determine if her life online could have influenced her decision to leave. I think they're just panels where they sit down and ask. I don't know too much about it. They could be shows. I'm not really good on the musicals. YouTube things are all new to me.
Liam said he didn't know much about that part of her life, just that Sarah went to these conventions often, and YouTube comedian Grace Helbig was her idol. Police stepped away to watch a few of Helbig's videos and came back skeptical. I mean, I just pulled it up. I'm going to be honest with you. I just pulled it up on the car. Yeah.
And she's talking about making ugly Christmas sweaters with bells on it and shit like that. Does that sound familiar? Is that basically what Sarah's following around? They sit in front of a camera doing a little podcast type of thing of her talking about stupid shit? That's exactly what they do.
Officers were pretty dismissive about what they saw, but they were wondering if it could be a clue to Sarah's whereabouts. That's going to help us try and figure out where the hell she's at. Yeah, I'm interested in it big time. They saw it as teenage nonsense. Even Liam admitted it's weird. But they decided the videos could be important to understanding Sarah's motivations.
It could help explain why she would have run away and where she might be. But Liam also presented the police with a second theory about what could have happened to Sarah. Has she been different than normal lately? And for how long? In the past, she has... had a tendency to have self-destructive suicidal behavior. In later interviews with police, Sarah's friends and family said she seemed fine.
They said they'd never heard her talk about attempting suicide or hurting herself. According to authorities, her dad told investigators that she's never been diagnosed with any mental health issues. But Liam told police that Sarah expressed suicidal thoughts when they were in high school. He talked about a time when Sarah became very dependent on one of his ex-girlfriends.
The two were close friends. But when Sarah was having a crisis, he told police she'd demand Liam's ex come over and made comments that she'd kill herself if she didn't. This was all happening around the time of her mother's death, a few years earlier. So police were hearing that Sarah had a history of suicidal thoughts.
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Chapter 5: How did Sarah's relationship with her father impact her state of mind?
The resources that are out there right now looking for her, the amount of manpower. We have people swimming in the Shark River in this cold weather, cold water, everything else. We have boats, we have helicopters. Dude, if you know anything about where this girl is or have had any contact with her, you need to let us know.
Liam assured them that he'll reach out if he heard anything about Sarah's whereabouts. And the officers left with two possible theories to consider. Theory number one, Sarah ran away to Canada. Liam told police that Sarah and her father had a difficult relationship. And as detectives talked to more of Sarah's friends and family, they learned that she and Michael didn't always get along.
According to Liam, Sarah couldn't trust him, so she was trying to get away. It could explain why she'd been giving away boxes of her belongings. And maybe she did get away. Maybe she did go to Canada to start a new life away from her father, to join the community of friends she already had there. But the police were not ruling out theory number two. Perhaps Sarah died by suicide.
Because Liam also suggested that Sarah had struggled with feelings of depression in the past. Did those feelings come back? Did it get to the point where Sarah felt like jumping off that bridge last night was her only option? It's a dark theory the police were considering, but with so little to go on, it was all within the realm of possibility.
Back at the Shark River, Franny and his team were still looking for Sarah. Boats were scanning the shore. Divers were looking underwater. We looked on that premise a little bit, but we did search both sides of the bridge and under all the docks and all the boats that are over here behind us. But after eight hours of searching, their efforts turned up nothing.
We searched until probably about three o'clock in the afternoon until we decided to call it. They'd have to pick up their search the next day. But police decided they needed to start looking for answers elsewhere. This show is sponsored by Quince. A thoughtfully built wardrobe is all about pieces that mix well and last. That's where Quince shines.
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Chapter 6: What role did social media and online communities play in Sarah's life?
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Watch the new Hulu original series, Love Overboard, March 26. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Police knew one of the best ways to figure out what happened on the Belmar Bridge that night was to look for security cameras and found a few right by the bridge.
It's a very important law enforcement tool and it's one of the first things as investigators that we seek to find. Detective Brian Weisbrot of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office got assigned to the investigation a couple days after Sarah went missing. But Weisbrot quickly struck out. The cameras by the bridge weren't working. Turns out they hadn't worked in years. No easy answers there.
So investigators started knocking on doors. They went to restaurants and other businesses in the surrounding area to see if their cameras captured Sarah's car. But none of the footage they collected gave officers a clear enough picture of the highway going towards the bridge. So they turned to Sarah's neighborhood.
Not only do we do neighborhood canvases in an effort to speak with and identify people who may have information to provide pertaining to an incident, we also do canvases for video surveillance recordings. More and more people have cameras on their homes, which certainly assists law enforcement in investigating in crime.
Michael Stern, Sarah's dad, had also been doing his own canvassing, his own desperate search. Michael Stern was out in the community. He was going into businesses. He was talking to anybody that he could talk to in an effort to find her. He discovered that his neighbor across the street had a security camera that would have caught Sarah coming and going from the house.
Detective Weisbrot reviewed hours of footage. The camera showed a wide view of the Stern Street. He saw cars passing by and people walking their dogs. In the upper right-hand corner, in the distance, he saw Sarah's house. There were tall hedges obscuring part of the home. For most of the day, Sarah went missing. The house was quiet. But there were these brief moments of activity.
In the early afternoon, Weisbrot saw Sarah and Liam leave the house around the time Liam said they went to Taco Bell. Sarah's car pulled out of the driveway again that afternoon and then came back. The last time the video showed her car backing out of the driveway was around midnight. At this point, the footage was dark and grainy. You can't see who's inside the vehicle.
All you can really see was the shape of the car and its lights. We see Sarah's car backing out of the driveway and traveling south away from the home. and away from the video surveillance camera. The fact that that car traveled south piqued our interest because all other times, Sarah's car and Liam's car had traveled north and drove directly past the camera. Was that a coincidence?
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Chapter 7: What new information emerged about the money Sarah found?
Rescue teams were still searching the river, and the operation had only gotten bigger. The New Jersey State Police and the Coast Guard were now involved. Investigators were also talking to more of Sarah's friends, including Liam's roommate. Ultimately, we wanted to speak with Preston Taylor, who was Liam McIntasney's roommate at the time. Preston Taylor and Liam were close friends and roommates.
They'd moved in together a few weeks before Sarah went missing. Preston was out on the front lawn with Liam when police came to talk to him the day after Sarah's car was found. Preston's tall, kind of lanky with shaggy brown hair and a five o'clock shadow. Preston and Liam met in algebra class during their freshman year at Neptune High School, and they've been good friends ever since.
Remember how Sarah won the yearbook superlative for most artistic? Well, Liam and Preston won the superlative for best friends. Reporter Jessica Easthope said Preston and Sarah ran in the same friend circles. They were good friends. Sarah and Liam and Liam's roommate, Preston Taylor, bonded over things like movies and video games and comic books.
Sarah really wasn't too much of a girly girl, and so she got along with these other 19-year-old boys because they had common interests. Sarah and Preston even went to the junior prom together, just as friends. There was never anything romantic between the two.
On the evening of December 6th, three days after police first came by, they visited Liam in Preston's house again, this time to see Preston. They asked if he'd be willing to answer some questions. Preston said yes and was driven to the Belmar Police Department to talk to Detective Weisbrot. Yeah, so we, as you know, we have the job to find out what happened to Sarah. Right.
Preston sat across from detectives at a long wooden table in a conference room. The royal blue seats stood out against the powder blue walls. To Preston's left were shelves stacked with papers and binders. And high on one of the walls, there was a camera pointing down at them, recording the conversation. T-O-N? Correct. And what's your last name, Preston?
Detective Weisbrot started the interview by asking Preston a couple background questions. Preston said he worked in construction with his dad. Like Liam, he was taking classes at a nearby community college. Detective Weisbrot asked Preston about Liam. Sarah, this is a friendship with Liam. How would you describe that? They're good friends, like, obviously.
The detectives asked Preston what he did on Friday, the day Sarah went missing. He said he was at a job site in a different town that day, about 30 minutes away. What time did he get home? Was Liam there? What did Preston do after he left? I took a nap. I got up. Detectives ran through a long list of very detailed questions, and Preston answered every single one.
Police even asked about what kind of coffee he drank and how it was packaged. Is it a can or a bottle? A bottle. Throughout it all, Preston made eye contact with investigators, and his hands were calmly folded on the table. He told investigators that Liam came back from work around 11 p.m.
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Chapter 8: What are the possible explanations for Sarah's actions before she went missing?
Okay, why do you think she jumped? Just from the stories that I've heard about what goes on with her and her dad. That was... Sarah's being put in charge of the house, taking care of her grandma. Like Liam, Preston told police that Sarah had struggled with her mental health, especially after her mom passed a few years ago, that she'd threatened to kill herself.
He described a tense relationship with her dad, And he said that in recent weeks, Sarah had been packing her belongings and moving them out of the house. In fact, Preston told police the last time he saw Sarah was a little over a week ago, when she was moving some of her stuff into their basement.
According to authorities, Michael told police that after he got home from his Florida vacation, he learned that Sarah had moved some things to a neighbor's house. He thought it was unusual. In his interview with detectives, Preston says he didn't know why Sarah was giving away boxes of her things. He didn't know what happened to Sarah. And he believed Liam when he said he had no idea either.
The interview lasted roughly two hours. Police said Preston's account seemed consistent with the timeline Liam gave them. But everyone was still desperately wondering, what happened to Sarah? The search grew, but police were still unsure if they were looking for a runaway or a body. This is the show everyone is watching. Every moment. Every game. Every drop of sweat. All for this.
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I can work with them. This should be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again streaming March 24th only on Disney+. 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. Sarah's disappearance became a huge local news story on the Jersey Shore.
About a week since she'd gone missing, police still hadn't released any significant updates. And the Stern family wasn't any closer to finding out where Sarah might be or what could have happened to her. So they decided to organize a community search. Sarah's dad, Michael, made the rounds on local media outlets to get the word out about the search.
He told NJ.com that his family was desperate to bring Sarah home. Everybody that talked to her in the days leading up to that, she seemed just fine. And I just don't understand why we haven't heard from her. The search started early Saturday morning. Over 250 people showed up. Volunteers were given hot coffee and water to fight the frigid 30-degree temperatures.
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