FREEHOLD, N.J. — A lawyer for a man accused of strangling a friend during a robbery and throwing her body off a New Jersey bridge said Wednesday that his client made up stories about planning to rob and kill the victim as part of a horror film an acquaintance was making.
Liam McAtasney’s attorney, Charles Moriarty, made the claim during a hearing where he unsuccessfully sought to have a judge dismiss a murder indictment against McAtasney.
Moriarty told state Superior Court Judge Richard English that the acquaintance told detectives that McAtasney was “always making things up to be more interesting.”
In this image taken from video early Dec. 3, 2016, from a police dashboard camera released by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, a Neptune Township police officer examines Sarah Stern’s vehicle that was found on the Route 35 Bridge in Belmar, N.J. Liam McAtasney, accused of robbing and killing his friend Sarah Stern, was caught on videotape, saying he strangled the woman with such force that he lifted her off the ground and watched for 30 minutes as she died in her home, prosecutors told a judge, Tuesday., Feb. 14, 2017. (Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office/The Asbury Park Press via AP)
Police say the acquaintance secretly record McAtasney confessing to the crime. Moriarty is seeking to have that recording excluded from evidence at McAtasney’s upcoming trial
Monmouth County prosecutors say the 20-year-old Neptune City man killed 19-year-old Sarah Stern on Dec. 2, 2016, during a robbery that netted $10,000.
McAtasney’s friend, Preston Taylor, has said he helped him dump the body.
Preston Taylor listens as his defense attorney addresses the court during his detention hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017 in Freehold, N.J. Taylor faces charges of second degree Desecration of Human Remains. (Peter Ackerman/The Asbury Park Press via AP, Pool)
Stern’s body has never been found.
