During a taped interview with a Monmouth County Prosecutor's office detective, Liam McAtasney asks "if she did jump off the bridge, what are the odds that she's not somewhere all the way out in the ocean by now." Thomas P. Costello


FREEHOLD - Prospective jurors will be asked if the absence of a body would affect their ability to render an impartial verdict in the Sarah Stern murder case.

That was one of the questions discussed in court Tuesday morning as jury selection for the trial of Liam McAtasney was about to get underway. 

More: Sarah Stern murder: A dad's sleepless nights as trial is set to start

McAtasney, 21, of Neptune City, is accused of strangling his former high school classmate during a robbery and, with the help of his roommate, throwing her body off the Route 35 bridge in Belmar.

Stern, 19, of Neptune City, was last seen alive on Dec. 2, 2016. Her body has never surfaced.

McAtasney's attorney, Carlos Diaz-Cobo, said the absence of a body has the ability to create reasonable doubt about the state's proofs in the minds of jurors. He objected to the question being asked of potential jurors.

More: Trial in Sarah Stern murder set for January

"To ask this question at the outset signals to the jury that it's okay to find somebody guilty, despite the absence of a body," Diaz-Cobo said. 

After Diaz-Cobo and prosecutors wrangled about the language of the question to be posed to jurors, English ruled that it would, indeed, be asked. He boiled it down to this: "Would the fact that a body was not found affect your ability to return a fair and impartial verdict in this case? Why or why not?"

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Other questions potential jurors will be asked are: what famous person they would like to have dinner with; and, if they watch true-crime television shows, whether they think investigations in real life are handled the way they are on the shows.

But first, they will be asked if they can sit for an eight-week trial and whether have any prior knowledge about the high-profile case. Those who do will be asked if their familiarity with it will affect their ability to render a fair and impartial verdict.

English said there is a pool of 275 jurors that would be brought to court Tuesday afternoon, from which attorneys will begin picking 16 who ultimately will sit for McAtasney's trial. Of those, four will serve as alternate jurors.

Jury selection is anticipated to take two weeks. English said he expects the next few days will be spent weeding out potential jurors who cannot sit for a lengthy trial.

In a victory for the defense, English ruled that the lead detective on the case, Brian Weisbrot of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, will not be allowed to sit at the prosecution table for the duration of the trial. Meghan Doyle, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, argued in favor of having Weisbrot at the table with her and Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Decker because of the complexity of the case.

More: Sarah Stern murder: 'What are the odds she's not somewhere out in the ocean by now?'

English rejected Doyle's argument. He said the McAtasney case is nowhere near as complicated as the "Operation Dead End" gang trial held in Monmouth County in 2017, during which the lead detective was allowed to sit at the counsel table with prosecutors. The Dead End case involved a 219-count indictment against 52 defendants, as well as 29,000 communications that were intercepted from the gang members, English said.

Siding with Diaz-Cobo, English said if Weisbrot were to sit at the counsel table with two attorneys during the trial, that could unfairly validate his testimony in the minds of jurors. The judge ordered that Weisbrot and all other potential witnesses with the exception of Stern's father and McAtasney's mother not be allowed to be in the courtroom for the trial when they are not testifying. 

Stern's car was found abandoned, with the keys still in it, on a shoulder atop the Route 35 bridge in Belmar in the early hours of Dec. 3, 2016.

Preston Taylor, 21, of Neptune, who had taken Stern to the junior prom and was McAtasney's roommate at the time, has admitted helping McAtasney throw Stern's body into the Shark River Inlet while trying to make it look like she committed suicide.

Taylor, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, desecration of human remains, conspiracy to desecrate human remains and hindering apprehension, said he helped McAtasney get rid of Stern's body for  of the body for a $3,000 cut of the $10,000 McAtasney allegedly stole from the victim.

Under terms of his plea bargain, Taylor is facing 20 years in prison and is required to testify against McAtasney.


Kathleen Hopkins: 732-643-4202; 

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