Transcript of Bridge of Lies: The Abandoned Car

This is Deborah Roberts. You're about to hear the first episode of the latest true crime original podcast from 20/20 and ABC Audio, a shocking 7-part series called Bridge of Lies. It's a heart-pounding story about the mysterious disappearance of Sarah Stern, a 19-year-old from New Jersey who had dreams of becoming an artist. When she disappeared, the only clue authorities discovered was her car. Parked on a bridge overnight. Friends offered theories that she may have jumped or fled to Canada, but troubling statements moved investigators to consider the possibility of foul play. Finally, a sting operation reveals a shocking betrayal. You're gonna have to hear it to believe. We'll be sharing the whole chilling story on the 2020 podcast feed over the next 7 weeks, starting right now with episode 1. But if you are anxious to get started, you can find early episodes by following Bridge of Lies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now. Now, here's episode 1 of Bridge of Lies.

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Okay, not an emergency. Um, actually, on the Belmar Bridge, in the middle of the bridge, there's a car that's abandoned.

So what kind of car is it?

Uh, kind of looks like an old beat-up light Tan-colored, like, sedan.

The caller thinks it looks like a car someone in their 70s or 80s would drive.

And was there anybody inside the vehicle? I looked now.

Okay.

Unless they were sleeping, I couldn't see them by their head being up. Nobody looked like they were in it.

All right.

Okay.

Police head to the bridge and find a silver 1994 Oldsmobile 88. It's rusty, and some of the paint is flaking off. Inside, the leather seats are wrinkled and worn, with big gashes that reveal yellow stuffing. But the strange thing is, it doesn't seem like the car broke down or got in an accident. It's unlocked. The keys are in the center console, and the caller was right— nobody is inside. There's also no ID, no money, and no clothing. The trunk has some Disney memorabilia and artwork in it, but otherwise it's just an empty old car left on a bridge in the middle of the night. The bridge runs between Neptune City and Belmar across the Shark River, which flows out to the Atlantic Ocean. On this cold December night, the river has a strong current. Some of the officers walk down to the Belmar Marina to see if there are any clues by the water. But it's so dark, they can hardly see anything. As the waters of the Shark River rush into the ocean, the officers begin an investigation that will rock this sleepy shore town, an investigation that will make people question who they can really trust and what those closest to them are capable of.

From ABC Audio and 20/20, I'm Juju Chang. And this is Bridge of Lies. Episode 1: The Abandoned Car.

Neptune City Police!

Hello?

Hello? Neptune City Police!

Hello?

Police run the plates and figure out that the abandoned Oldsmobile is registered to a woman in her 90s. Her name, Lillian Stern. She lives about 10 minutes away from the bridge in Neptune City. Officers head to Lillian's house, but they're actually looking for her granddaughter, Sarah Stern, who they've learned by now typically drives the Oldsmobile and lives with her father and her grandmother. Police shine their flashlights as they check the perimeter of the Sterns' house. And then they prepare to enter. From body camera footage, we can see it's very dark outside. There are just a few glimmers of distant light coming from porches throughout the neighborhood. The street's quiet and residential. It has sidewalks and modest homes with short driveways and fenced-in yards. The Stearns' house is white with black window shutters. Sarah and her father both grew up in this house, where police are now knocking, but no one answers.

We're getting no answer at the house. I might, uh, go inside and make sure everything is kosher here. I want to make sure we don't have a jumper.

A jumper? It's an early theory, perhaps the most obvious, for why the car might have been left on the bridge in the middle of the night. Maybe the driver parked, then climbed over the edge. Before walking into the house, officers worry someone might be home.

I'm pretty sure we're going to run into Mike in there.

Mike, Michael Stern, that's Sarah's dad.

Be prepared for if, if Mike is home, yeah, for him to be pissed. He may be out of state, but who knows.

The front door is unlocked. And they head inside.

We're gonna make ourselves very well known by yelling and screaming. We'll bang on walls.

The home is mostly dark, but there's a small lamp and overhead light on in the living room.

Hello, it's the police department. Hello, anybody home? Announce yourself, please. Hello? I guess the grandmother's not here.

A big dog is locked in a crate. It's Buddy. Sarah's 10-year-old foxhound. He's brown and white with floppy ears and big brown eyes.

Somebody put the dog in a cage. Hello, police department. Hello, buddy. Good doggy.

The officers shine their flashlights into every corner of the house, putting a quick spotlight on family photos, Christmas decorations and poinsettias, and even more Disney memorabilia. Including Goofy and Mickey figurines. They check the living room, the bathroom, and a few rooms that look like they're being used for storage, full of tubs and boxes.

Wow, this house is jam-packed. You talk about a fire hazard.

Then they make their way to Sarah's room. She's recently graduated from high school, but it still looks and feels like a childhood bedroom. Her door is covered with mini license plates that say Sarah, a sign that says Sarah Street, and a sticker that reads, "Caution, Sarah's room." There are lots of mementos on the walls and a Canadian flag hanging from the ceiling. But the two officers are struck by what they don't find anywhere in the house— clues to Sarah's whereabouts.

Didn't find any suicide notes either.

On their way out, the officers go through the kitchen. There's a clock on the wall and boxes of crackers stacked up on the fridge. An officer opens up a cookie jar to get a dog treat for Buddy. Oh, treat for the doggy. A treat for the good doggy. Besides Buddy, the house is empty.

We went through the entire house, backyard, everything. There's absolutely nobody home.

They leave with the same question they started with. Where is Sarah Stern?

Well, I guess Neptune's gonna have to, uh, figure out what their mindset of this kid is.

Neptune's gonna have to figure out what the mindset of this kid is. So while these officers were going through the Sterns' house, other investigators were tracking down Sarah's dad, Michael. Turns out he wasn't home because he was on vacation. In Orlando, Florida, with his girlfriend.

And phone rang around 3 o'clock in the morning. Mammoth County Sheriff's Department, do you know anything about a car, you know, gray Oldsmobile? And I said, yeah, my daughter drives that car. Then they hung up.

Michael called back but got an answering machine. He wanted to know what was going on. Why were police asking about Sara's car in the middle of the night? So he reached out to his nephew, who was a first responder in Neptune.

And I asked him, I said, "Find out if anything's going on with the car, whether it was an accident." Didn't know. Maybe the car is, you know, stuck someplace or parked someplace where it shouldn't be. No parking zone or, you know, tow-away zone. I didn't know. And he called back a few minutes later and said, "Yeah, they found the car up on the bridge in Belmar." Naturally, Sarah's dad started calling and texting her, but she didn't respond. I hadn't heard from her. I mean, her text messages on the iPhones are coming back green. So no answer on her phone.

The police pinged Sarah's phone to try and locate it, but nothing came back. All they could see is that earlier in the night, her phone was in Neptune City. And another town nearby. The last time Michael Stern says he spoke to his daughter, just a day earlier, she'd seemed completely normal. He says he told her about his trip to Disney World, which they both loved.

Sent her a couple pictures of the castle and lit up for Christmas at Cinderella's Castle, and just happened to be that afternoon there was a rainbow. Over the Magic Kingdom. I sent her a picture of that too, and she just said it was great.

Michael wasn't sure what to think or how afraid to be until the police called him back after their search of the house.

Not in the house. So now we're kind of wondering what's going on. Yeah, I was thinking something happened. So a million things go through your mind.

He quickly packed up his things and began the long drive from Florida back to his New Jersey home.

At 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning, there's no traffic, so you can drive pretty quick. But talking constantly to the police, they would call, I would call them, and getting calls from family. And we're still looking for Sarah.

As he drove down the empty highway in the dark, his mind was racing. What could have happened to his only child? Where could she be?

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Sarah Stern's hometown, Neptune City, New Jersey, is pretty small. Population: Less than 5,000. Neptune City is a short drive from legendary Jersey Shore landmarks, like Belmar's E Street, which Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band is named after, and Asbury Park, where the Boss's career first took off, with hits like "Blinded by the Light." Blinded by the light.

Oh, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Blinded by the light. A lot of people associate the Jersey Shore with the big parties and the drama in the MTV reality show Jersey Shore, but the area also has quiet, wealthy neighborhoods with mansions on the water. And then there are the laid-back, working-class towns of mostly year-round residents like Neptune City. In town, there are a few bars and coffee shops, a handful of Italian restaurants and pizzerias, but other than that, a lot of quiet streets lined with houses.

Neptune City, New Jersey is as small-town USA as it gets. It's a small, tight-knit community of people whose families have lived there for generations.

Jessica Easthope covered Sara's disappearance for FIOS One News, a local news channel at the time.

It's a middle and working-class community. It's not the fancy Jersey Shore that you're gonna get in Springsteen's hometown. Spring Lake. It's more run-of-the-mill sleepy town.

But on December 3rd, 2016, it was not a run-of-the-mill sleepy town. As police worked through the night, word was spreading that a car had been abandoned on a bridge and its 19-year-old driver was nowhere to be found.

Often when things like this happen, This young woman becomes everyone's daughter. She was missing. Nobody knew where she was. It was a 19-year-old girl who would have normally been attached to her phone, and she was off the grid.

Sarah and her family were well known in Neptune City. For decades, her parents had a bookstore in town called Books Unlimited. And for a time, her mom Carla was president of the parent-teacher organization. Sara spent her whole life in the same neighborhood, the same house. Without any siblings, she really grew up with the kids who lived around her. Her neighbor, Carly Draper, said the two were raised like sisters. They always dropped by each other's houses and played together all the time.

My parents had bought a little outdoor, like, table and umbrella that were for kids. And two little lawn chairs. And we would sit out there all the time in the summer when we were little and just have, like, little pizza rolls and, like, iced tea. And my parents got, um, flamingo sprinklers from Costco. Whenever their arms would go, the water would shoot out, and we'd just play back there all day long, sitting on the chairs and playing the sprinklers.

As Sara got older, she built a community online, too. Like so many teenagers in the 2010s, she expressed herself through her Tumblr account. She shared art, comics, and posts about how great dogs are. She posted about funny, quirky TV shows like Broad City and Bob's Burgers. She shared memes of the comedian Kate McKinnon and things like, "As a 19-year-old, I oddly love Target as if I were a suburban mom of 4." She was also really into YouTube channels and personalities, just as the platform was starting to take off for content creators. Sarah became friends with other superfans around the world, and they recorded their Google Hangouts for a YouTube channel called Sprinkled Nonsense. They weren't really talking to an audience. They were just chatting with each other and putting it out there.

Hey, Sarah.

When did you appear?

How did eating go? What did you eat?

Oh, Jesus. I had pork chops and yogurt. What? Not together as a dessert. Sarah was known for her quirky sense of humor. In a high school yearbook photo, she made a mustache out of her long, straight, dark brown hair, and a few girls next to her joined in. Sarah has brown eyes, and when she smiles, she has big dimples. Belinda Sousa, Sarah's friend and softball teammate, said she had a gift for making people laugh. Sometimes, like, when you're with her, you just forget about everything around you, and it's just—

it's you and her and whatever funny, crazy story she's telling, and you're just joking.

Sarah was also known throughout Neptune City for her artwork. In high school, she got really into drawing portraits and doing illustrations. She joined her high school's art club and won the most artistic superlative her senior year. She even painted an illustration on the windows of a local restaurant.

She did a nice snowman. Holding an ice cream cone.

Her dad said making art might have been a way to cope with grief. Sarah's mom passed away from cancer when Sarah was a sophomore. Her family and friends said she went through ups and downs and struggled emotionally. But Michael said one of her favorite sayings during high school was "reckless optimist." She tried to put that on her, uh, cap when—

during the graduation ceremony. And one of the teachers or advisors saying that you have to take that stuff off. Well, she peeled a couple letters off and put them back on when she was waiting to go get her diploma.

She graduated in 2015, and the summer after graduation, Sarah worked as a badge checker at Bradley Beach, a classic job for a Jersey Shore teenager. She took some classes at a community college, worked odd jobs, and was figuring out what to do next. She ultimately wanted to pursue a career in art. When Sara's car was found on the bridge, she was at the very beginning of her adult life. She was seeking her place in the world, eager to explore, travel, and pursue her passions. Standing outside Sarah's house in the pitch dark, police know Michael Stern is on his way back from Florida, and they've learned that Lillian Stern, Sarah's 96-year-old grandma, is staying at a neighbor's house recovering from a medical procedure. But they are no closer to finding Sarah until they get some new information. Sarah spent the afternoon with a friend. So officers leave the Sterns' house to knock on another door in the middle of the night, hoping for some clues about where Sarah could be.

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Terms apply. Police head to another quiet residential street in Neptune City. Just a few blocks from Sarah's house. They knock on the door, and dogs start barking. The officers wait a couple of minutes and then see someone coming down the stairs. As the door creaks open, they cut right to the chase. Is Liam home?

Liam's such a good boy.

Is Liam home? Liam McAtasney is the friend officers are looking for. His mom, Megan, is at the door. She's in pajamas and a robe, and she's groggy from being woken up in the middle of the night. She tells officers that Liam doesn't live in her house anymore. He's a block away in a small 2-bedroom house the Makatasnes also own.

Now, we're looking for a friend of his that's possibly a missing person, and she supposedly hangs out with him. Is he Sarah Stern?

Does he hang out with her? Yes, Sarah's a very good friend.

Can you call Liam?

Of course.

If you don't mind. While police wait for Liam's mom to call him, another woman walks up to them in the dark. Robin Draper lives across the street from Sarah. Her daughter Carly is one of Sarah's close friends, the one who was like a sister to Sarah growing up. Robin has talked to Sarah's dad, Michael, and managed to track down police in the middle of the night to share some information. She says the last time she interacted with Sarah, The day she went missing, Sarah dropped off a bin of her mother's things at Robin's house. Okay. She brought over today a bin. Can I bring my mother's stuff to your house? So she brought a bin of stuff of her mother's to your house, taped over, and it's in my kitchen. I was out. I said yes. I'll put it in the cubby. This seems to catch the officer's attention. Robin says it's a big bin taped shut, and she doesn't know exactly what's in it. And, um, I tried texting her and nothing. The two are close. Robin says Sarah wouldn't leave without telling her. She took care of Sarah sometimes when her mom was sick.

And since her mother passed away, Robin says she's taken Sarah to doctor's appointments, the dentist, the gynecologist, even the ER when it seemed like she had appendicitis. As officers speak with Robin, Liam's mom Megan comes out of the house and says Liam must be sleeping. He's not answering her phone calls.

We're gonna go, uh, knock, see if we can wake them up over there.

The officer turns back to Robin Draper and asks if she told Michael Stern about the bins Sarah brought over. She says no. While they speak with Robin, officers are still considering the possibility that Sarah jumped off the bridge. They're trying to understand her mindset.

Is she depressed?

Is she—

you— I think she's depressed.

Is she not suicidal in any way, do you think?

I don't know.

All right. We're going to, uh, continue this search then. Liam's on the other block.

We're going to go over there now. The officers get in the car and move on to their next stop, Liam McAtasney's house.

Connie from 3558, I'll be out at 11 Holly.

It's related to this call. Around 4 AM, police knock on Liam's door.

Liam, you're Liam? You got a second? Can I come in Can I talk to you real quick? Yeah, no problem, officer. Is, uh, Sarah here by chance?

No. The officers step into the house. It's dark inside. There are no lights on.

When was the last time you talked to her?

I was with her today.

What time?

Uh, before I went to work. So it was earlier today?

Yeah. The officer turns on a light and he can see Liam more clearly. He's wearing a gray t-shirt and shorts. He's tall, 6'2". With blue eyes and wavy blond hair that's messy. On police body camera footage, it seems like he's just woken up.

When was the last time you had any kind of contact at all with her? We went to get food today.

Liam and Sarah have known each other since the first grade. They grew up with a tight circle of friends. In middle school, their group even had a name, The Squad. As they got older and graduated from high school, Liam and Sarah still hung out hung out pretty regularly.

You went to work at what time?

Uh, 4:30.

Okay, so you haven't talked to her since 4:30? You have a cell phone you can reach out to her on? I actually haven't been able to find my cell phone.

Liam says he's been looking for his phone but can't find it.

Keep looking for your cell phone, man, because, uh, we're trying to find Sarah. What's her— what was her mindset last time you talked to her? I just know she's been trying to get away.

Been telling me she's going to Canada. This is the first time officers are hearing that Sarah may have run away.

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

Her dad is crazy. It's also the first time they're hearing that Sarah may have had a strained relationship with her dad. The officers only talked to Liam for a few minutes. He says he doesn't know where she is. He says he hasn't heard from her. There's not much more to talk about. As the officers head out, they try to press upon him just how serious this all is.

Maybe reach out to some friends, maybe hit her message on social media. I definitely will. Start reaching out to somebody, see if anybody's talked to her or when they talked to her, what her mindset was and all that, all right? Planning on getting a phone as soon as I leave.

Okay.

And, uh, yeah, we spoke to your mom before. You hear anything? Anything called Neptune City or Neptune Township Police Department, let us know.

Thank you. When the officers get back in the car, one of them sums up everything they've learned during their middle-of-the-night search for Sarah. It's a muddled picture of Sarah's life and mental state, shaped by their interviews with Robin Draper and Liam McAtasney.

She's not getting along with father. It's all kinds of emotional issues with her. We got depression, we got all kinds of stuff dealing with here, and, uh, We got a car on top of a bridge.

Officers don't know what to make of the case.

Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide?

At this point, nobody knows. By daybreak, the search for Sarah will accelerate with divers and rescue boats on the frigid Shark River.

And I remember walking into my rain boots, and it was low tide, and I was like in the muck and thinking to myself, like, we're never going to find anything because she's in Canada.

And police will look more closely at Sarah's inner circle, examining friendships, lies, and perhaps even betrayal.

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.

How did Sarah simply vanish into the night? If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, substance use, or any other mental health crisis, please call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You'll reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org. Bridge of Lies is a production of ABC Audio and 20/20, hosted by me, Juju Chang, produced by Camille Peterson and Sabrina Fang. Fact-checking and production help from Audrey Mostek and Annalisa Linder. Tracy Samuelson is our story editor. Our supervising producer is Sasha Azlanian. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Katie Dendoss, Janice Johnston, Joseph Diaz, and Michelle Margulis. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Eamon McNiff is our executive producer. I'm RJ Decker, a private investigator uncovering the Sunshine State's darkest secrets.

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