When A Killer Doesn't Realize He's Being Recorded

my biggest problem was the dog and her dog laid there and watched as i killed her i needed to make it seem like we were better friends than we actually were so that they wouldn't question my behavior with her i go up open the door unhook her pull her out start dragging her just throw her over and then cars start coming up i see like headlights coming i try to get her over and i can't my leg up like the weight from her body like made me fall and my leg like clean up so now i'm limping my legs up and there's three cars coming up so i grab her body dude i have superhuman strength and i threw it in the car and picked it up and her feet were up here and her foot with her her head was down there and three cars go by and i'm losing my because that needs to be could have been a cop and um i mean the police station is like right there yeah yeah i don't feel any different don't think about it when a young man grew suspicious that his friend may be involved in a disturbing crime he secretly recorded him but he had no idea just how chilling the tapes he captured would turn out to be it's your life you might as well make it one where are you gonna listen foreign nineteen-year-old sarah stern a budding artist from neptune city new jersey went missing in december 2016. sarah was well known in the titanic community where she grew up her loved ones had been especially concerned about her after her mother carla stern died from cancer in 2013 despite this tragedy sarah still had a love for art and graphic design referring to herself as an artist and a reckless optimist in her twitter bio one of her sketches shows sigourney weaver from the movie alien sarah's real passion though was for youtube she didn't have a channel herself but was an avid fan of grace helbig hannah hart and mamrie heart known as the holy trinity as well as julian solomida and jenna marbles she would even travel long distances just to attend conferences with people who shared her interests and meet some of the youtubers she liked [Music] [Music] [Applause] in december 2016 sarah's father michael stern who she lived with was away in florida on vacation the two exchanged a few text messages back and forth and everything seemed normal on thursday december 1st sarah texted her father about when he was heading back home from his vacation and he told her he would be heading back by saturday morning just a few days away take a moment to note the way that sarah and her father talk to each other in these messages there will be some accusations made in the following interrogations about the nature of their relationship especially of late everything changed on the evening of december 2nd when sarah suddenly stopped responding to messages her last message was an upbeat response to some photos of disneyland her father sent saying wow the castle looked so pretty with the lights but after that she stopped replying her father continued texting her each message growing increasingly worried and frantic over the next few days sarah's father continued trying to contact her to no avail the last message he sent her just said hello on december 6th by then she'd been missing for four days her loved ones had become instantly worried and on friday december 2nd reported the fact that no one could get a hold of her to the police immediately officers were out looking for and what they found was chilling sarah's grandmother's car which she drove on a regular basis was found abandoned on a bridge on route 35 between neptune and belmar in the early morning of the third with no sign of sarah anywhere the dashcam footage shows the moment an officer finds her empty car on the bridge because it still wasn't clear what had happened to sarah the police continued their investigation heading to the home sarah shared with her father this body cam footage shows the officer searching for any clue as to where sarah may be the following police footage interrogations and crime scene photos have never been seen before i'm hoping we don't have a jumper here all right i'll let you know i'll get we're gonna go in now give it give me a couple minutes i'll give you a call back all right all right bye all right we're gonna go in there okay we're gonna make ourselves very well known by yelling and screaming we're gonna bang on walls i'm gonna watch out for whatever dog that might be and be prepared in case the dog comes here you know what kind of dog he has i have no idea should i get the snare be prepared for if if mike is home for him to be pissed well i don't think he's home there's a couple cars you know there's a there's a missing car at least there's two missing cars he may be out of state but who knows if we should bang on windows all around the house i didn't realize it was such a hole yeah there a gate we're out here well i had no idea he lived like this you got somebody in there okay just mount yourself real well that's in safe place hello hello neptune city voice hello neptune safe place hello let's check down here first dog's in the cage right back there hello it's the police department hello anybody home announce yourself please hello hello anybody home police department anybody here nothing so far hello police department that door's locked that's not good hello that's always locked that one locked door police department thirty-five five minutes okay i'm looking for the doggy little treat for the doggy i treat for the good doggy look at a good doggy retreat i'll stick it through the cage there you go i know you don't take food from strangers but no problem eating it well i think he was working on all that mom's not here her grandma's not here and dad's not here the police find no sign of sarah and notably they also don't find any clear evidence of a crime they end up down the street looking to speak to one of sarah's good friends and former high school classmate liam mkhitas name they head to liam's mother's house who also knows sarah well we're gonna have to worry about these dogs coming out do we all right there's liam hop is liam home oh he's staying over there no 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 family he's at 12 holly 11 home stream 11 hollywood might be over there yeah yeah yeah yeah of course can you call him if you don't mind the officer comes across another neighbor who also knew sarah yeah we're trying to find sarah well she's she's supposedly calling liam to see if sarah's over there the dog is in the cage of the house okay um she brought over today i've been can i bring my mother's stuff to your house your car you know a dog yeah i know okay so she brought a bin of stuff of her mother to your house taped over and it's in my kitchen i was out i said yes i'll put it in a cubby and i tried texting her and nothing i have brought her to the hospital that's my next question is she depressed does she you i think she's she not funny where do you think i don't know the stuff that she dropped off was it like personal stuff for her mother's like it would be her personal belongings all her memorabilia spin and taped off right we're going to uh continue this search then at liam's house he answers the door looking as though he just woke up liam you lamb you got a second can i come in and talk to you real quick yeah no problem officer is uh sarah here by chance no when was the last time you talked to her who's with her today what time uh before i went to work so it was earlier today yeah when was the last time you had any kind of contact at all with her um turn some light on if you don't mind i mean we went to get food today and you went to work over 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 any idea where she said all day what was her mindset last time you talked to her i just know she's been trying to get away you can tell me she's going to canada trying to get away okay canada she's been real depressed lately her dad is crazy okay and then she's dealing with the loss of her mother dad's in florida right now right your dad yeah he's coming back today i guess i don't know what time it is where's my grandma grandma's actually sick where's your grandma at right now she's not at the house staying with him with some family members are they gonna be able to get into the house because i know that they're right we can get into that there isn't a key we can get it okay the house was open earlier we were already in the house and i have a key to the house so okay all right keep looking for your phone to see if there's any messages or anything all right thank you and all the these things these things sitting around here let us know all right call us up yeah that's questionable behavior man if you can uh if you can maybe reach out some friends maybe hit our message on social media start reaching out to somebody see if anybody's talked to her or if they when they talk to her what her mindset was and all that right planning on getting a phone okay and uh yeah we spoke we supposed to do you hear anything call the neptune city or neptune township please let us know thank you after speaking with liam the other neighbor who followed them across the street continues talking to the officer and reveals that she was incredibly close to sarah she gives some background to their relationship as well as an idea of some of the things sarah had been dealing with without telling me she's going to count myself never yeah here's here's i'll bring you up to speed on what we have so far her car was found with nobody in it we're trying to find out why her car was where it was and make sure she's all right the car's registered a grandma who's 96 yeah initially we tried to make sure grandma was all right we know grandma's staying with a neighbor now and now we're trying to find out make sure sarah's all right i don't know when mike's coming home but it's a tough relationship between him and her right i have taken the kid to the emergency room um have you ever done anything crisis-wise or anything like did you take any kind of meds no does it take any kind of any uh prozac anything like that no no i've taken her to the dentist her wisdom teeth i've gotten her contacts um gynecologists i've taken to twice um when she was in the emergency room i thought it was her appendix so the doctor and he was in ac michael and i stayed with her like i have a girlfriend now or not yes he doesn't come it doesn't really matter but is that where you spend a lot of time with the girlfriends that why is it florida okay our main thing is trying to find sarah if you hear anything neptune city or neptune township we're both looking for in the days after her disappearance the police returned to speak with liam at his mom's house i'm gonna i gotta throw something in here okay you know what's going on here you know why we're standing here talking to you i yeah i have a pretty good idea no no no do you know why we're standing here talking to you do you have any idea where sarah is listen this is this is i'm going to throw this out to you bear with me john because uh sergeant isaacs wanted me to make sure we made something very clear here yeah 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 and exactly what it was that you had spoken to her about yesterday afternoon before you went your way and she went her way we need you need to open up and let this detective know everything man because there are people all over the place looking for this young lady yeah we're not we're not looking to bring it back a ton of resources out there and and people you know guys are in that the current of that water i'm a lifeguard i i mean it was warm during the summer but we had a similar situation to this with the scuba diver or something so you know over the summer yeah and i remember the manpower that was out searching for um so what are you saying essentially he's like like superman we're not looking to get you in trouble we're not even looking to get married we want to find the following footage has been analyzed by a qualified team including a licensed attorney and former criminal prosecutor and a licensed clinical psychologist liam is seemingly being cooperative and forthcoming he's wearing sunglasses which the officer should have asked him to remove it's much harder to read emotion and expressions with sunglasses on he's gesturing a lot while speaking and it looks almost deliberate or too excessive for the context i went to work got home from work got drunk with my buddy all right and then i had a knock on the door four o'clock this is so so yesterday yeah between one and two we went to taco bell [Music] let me answer did you have your phone on there liam sounds winded and nervous he's nodding excessively which is either a self-soothing technique or an attempt to try to appear more truthful or convincing in what he's saying in the past she has had a tendency to have self-destructive behavior i actually know that how long ago years ago nothing you when you're saying i was gonna get you in trouble but yeah you know do you know if she does she use alcohol does she use any kind of drugs and listen like it's not gonna get her in trouble it's not gonna get you in trouble we just kind of need to know what her maybe her mindset was well i've i've drank i've smoked with her in the past marijuana i'm sorry yeah i worked until 10 o'clock okay i was supposed to work until midnight but i got off at 10 o'clock um and you just came back here yeah i went back there yeah you need kind of beers or whatever yeah i don't care it's good for you i wish i was gonna have a cold beer the officer says you had some beers good for you i wish i was having beers while this exchange could build rapport that doesn't seem to be necessary as liam is freely chatting with them instead this comes off as unprofessional and inappropriate they may be trying to be relatable and non-threatening or they may view him as a kid whose good friend is missing and feel sorry for him however he's not been cleared as a potential suspect as they seem to still be at the beginning stages of this investigation the entire tone of this interaction is not ideal did she say anything to you about where she might where she was going to head off to if she i mean yesterday when you guys left each other yesterday how did that conversation end is what i'm trying to get at uh all right sarah talk to you later i gotta go to work or i mean really okay i'm heading to canada i mean did she give me any of that i know nightmare before elm street was on we were hanging out i said uh i gotta go to work i'll see you later i'm gonna be late i left the officer is a leading liam and feeding him answers he's also asking multiple questions before letting liam respond this makes the interview a little confusing and chaotic he's speaking over him and not really listening he seems rather inexperienced by the way he's conducting himself and the interview and you were in her car yeah my car was at her house though i drove to her house uh helped her move that stuff oh yeah you guys jumped in her car went to taco bell well reverse order drove there went to taco bell came back and then the moon was still in the moon okay i got you i'm sorry yeah yep um so she kind of just said i'll talk to you or just i'll give you call tomorrow yeah this is a perfect example of why officers should not ask leading questions liam is able to just respond with yeah instead of having to state what was said when he and sarah parted ways this is critical information that liam essentially got an out and answering as they did it for him liam sits on the porch with his roommate preston taylor who is also friends with sarah an unnamed friend and liam's mother the police have been looking into sarah's background and interests and one of the officers asks about the youtube channel she's been watching i just pulled it up i'm gonna be honest i just pulled it up on the car yeah and i'm watching this and i'm going okay there's one of two things going on with this woman first of all she's high yeah which is a really good possibility yeah and she's talking about making ugly christmas sweaters with with bells on it like that does that sound familiar is that the is that basically what sarah's following around uh helbig h-e-l-b-i-g you're saying right yeah they sit in front of a camera doing a little podcast type of thing of her talking about stupid that's exactly what they do okay so that was the right page the way the officer discusses the youtuber sarah follows is very unprofessional saying she looks possibly high and is doing stupid the lack of professionalism is glaring and he comes across as almost a friend not an officer interacting with potential suspects we've said it a couple times gonna throw it at you one more time dude yeah we just want to make sure she's okay nobody's gonna get in any trouble here we trust me it doesn't matter to us what you're doing behind the closed doors we just got to make sure that sarah's all right and if you've got any other information you got to throw it out at us so we can go a little further you know we're kind of throwing darts at the wall right now quite honestly both of us are putting their heads together throwing darts at the wall trying to figure out this statement makes him once again sound incompetent an officer should never show their hand to potential suspects unless they can use it to their advantage a statement like this doesn't seem to do anything but make them look like they're desperate and have little to go on whether true or not that should never be openly stated to anyone potentially involved if you come up with anything else yeah yeah mom's got detective's number you got to call us if there's any way that she contacts you in any way that you two may make contact yeah if you think about something that you guys talked about that might be important that you're not thinking about and you're telling us now you got to call us and let us know like i told you again there's resources and people out here right now risking themselves to find her yeah so i mean you want to do this job now you put yourself in our shoes and what us and all the everybody else is going through all right liam was then brought in to speak with police at the station to see if he could shed any light on what may have happened to sarah and believe me what he had to say was eye opening sarah and liam's friend preston taylor was brought in the next day for questioning as well liam and preston lived together in a cottage in neptune city preston took sarah to junior prom the year before they graduated from high school so he knows her well something that he doesn't let on to for quite some time please note that the people involved in this case have not been formally diagnosed with any mental illness and the psychological analysis is not based upon a formal assessment you know the detective from the county's gonna come in and uh talk to you you know you haven't met him yet so uh he's gonna talk to you and uh he'll go from there right okay although some dismiss body language analysis as pseudoscience it's used by the fbi and cia during interrogations when the cia is interrogating an individual they look for clusters of three or more indicators that occur in either quick succession or all at once these indicators can be signs of discomfort or uncertainty in what the individual is stating rather than indicators of deception it's extremely important to note that you cannot detect deception through body language analysis alone as soon as he enters the room liam appears tense he's sitting with his arms crossed and his posture is slouched slightly forward which could mean he's eager to get started with the interrogation however his arms being crossed and the frequent nodding of his head when responding makes him appear tense and uncomfortable with the situation this week okay liam continues nodding his head excessively while the interrogator is speaking this may be because he's trying to appear truthful convincing and engaged it may also just be a self-soothing behavior instead of a desperate attempt to be believed another indication of his desire to appear this way is that he shakes the hand of the investigator although a handshake is a typical appropriate greeting liam leaning forward and shaking the hand of the interrogators is another indication he's trying to come across as agreeable cooperative and submissive we just want to talk to you in greater detail about what information um you know about where she is okay um where uh who do you live with liam i live with my roommate uh preston preston taylor see friends with sarah also yeah yes yeah we all went to high school together okay yeah and now where are you working out uh brennan steakhouse nothing city i also work at uh tree willy christmas tree place anymore you are you go to brooklyn are you studying psychology how long have you known uh how long have you known sarah for the interview is begun with basic questions as the detectives are trying to get a background history on him and also a baseline to judge liam's demeanor tone patterns of speech and body language to have a point of reference when they get into topics he may be more apt to lie about the detectives also do this to develop a rapport with the suspect using casual conversation to create a non-threatening atmosphere additionally it becomes harder for people to suddenly stop talking once they've already started the detective is friendly and does a good job setting up a non-threatening atmosphere however the detective is taking notes during the interview which can create a sense of distance and less informality which is not ideal for an interrogation the conversation is being recorded so it isn't necessary the detective will also potentially miss a lot of nonverbal communication by writing instead of looking as the suspect answers them a person who knows their answers are being written down may also be more careful with their responses which is also less than ideal when trying to extract information [Music] ftoc yeah construction what kind of stuff you do general remodels the detectives use the same technique as with liam to get a read on preston's baseline behavior preston appears rather reserved and unemotional he's visibly uncomfortable being there and uh um yeah for you um all right who lives with you at 11 holly street preston has a notably monotone effect to his speech he seems rather unemotional and his tone rarely changes you will also notice preston repeatedly does what is called a mouth shrug after answering many of the detective's questions this often conveys the message of i don't really know or this has nothing to do with me it could also signify a feeling of disappointment with himself preston overall seems very flat and often mumbles when speaking uh so how long have you known him before his family was shortly after meeting me in my eligible class freshman year so i've known him since then i was pretty good friends yeah um you guys didn't know each other in those schools elementary school did you grow up in did not not my whole life but did you go to school with sarah as well yeah they were all in front group i was essentially you know i started out with high school hang out um and did you think did you socialize with sarah did you talk to her on a regular basis or about a regular basis oh yeah like when everyone off got together and talked to really talked her on the phone do you have a phone number like you have that type of relationship with her where like colorado but because we didn't really speak too much it's more just if you start out you guys mutual friends what's the extent of your relationship um i would say we're pretty close friends more more over the summer than during the winter but we've still been pretty blessed she actually uh i'm a lifeguard in bronze beach she was a bad chick so i saw her pretty much every day over the summer um was she ever your girlfriend no we um actually i reason to believe this could be a lesbian that's that's what i've always thought that right yeah never hooked up with her anything like that nothing like that do you know her ever to date anybody before no actually um it's actually it's weird she's just seems really like uh immature you know she's not interested in that kind of stuff he's more interested in playing video games or something like that i don't know i should talk about guys no she actually gets grossed out these are odd things to say about his missing friend because he doesn't sound like he's talking about his close friend if we look at the context of the situation liam is sitting in the police station getting interrogated after the disappearance of his friend sarah's missing and anyone close to her or anyone who even casually knows her should be very concerned about her well-being particularly if it's believed that she may have taken her own life given where her car was found um do you know um did sarah have a boyfriend i don't think she's ever been her boyfriend okay what makes you say that i've never called her ever have you ever had any conversations with her about like um or dating anybody um do you uh i know me was obviously friends with uh with sarah as well he's done her a long time right um how often do you see liam and sarah together the detective should try to ask more open-ended questions despite the fact that he's just gathering background information at this point he should still allow preston to talk as much as possible preston's body language with his hands on the table seems forthcoming his answers to questions appear honest at first though brief and he doesn't elaborate much but this may be because of his age and not because he's particularly nervous or trying to hide something how um how would you describe and stuff like all over the place sarah's uh friendship with me and how'd you spread them preston has been almost entirely motionless expressionless and just overall very flat in terms of his facial expressions throughout the interview his voice is very monotone and there are no inflections in his tone of voice most of her girlfriends have kind of left her over the years after everything that when she went through with her mom and she's continued to go through with her dad and it's just been kind of like always hanging out with her and if we were to bring up anything about she she's always grossed out when you say gross that will be like repulsed by god don't say that oh it's gross i didn't think about this in general and your conversations about this would be what context like just joking around you know make just comments or whatever um does she ever talk about liking guys or not that i know of girls no she has been known to obsess over girls in the past though one of my ex-girlfriends a few years ago she was completely obsessed with her right around the time her mom's had cancer and was dying um she just would always say stuff like maggie if you don't come here right now i'm gonna kill myself or why would liam mention these things about sarah could he be maybe trying to set up a sort of profile of sarah as being an outcast unstable or as being strange in order to support the idea that she took her own life so he won't be considered a suspect i mean you guys know about the drapers right robin draper you you spoken to her there have been multiple occasions where my ex-girlfriend maggie just had to go to the draper's house to help her with either her dad i i can't say for sure if her dad was gonna do something but there has been a few occasions where she said my dad's gonna hurt me or i'm going to hurt myself in the past and uh but i guess the point i'm trying to make is just she can obsess over girls and this this youtube thing that she has going she's obsessed with these youtubers and most of them are known lesbians so i don't know if they were role models i don't know i don't know if your family would have how her family would have taken him if she were to come out and say because she's always she's always been i don't know i called her a tomboy the other day i guess that would be a good way to describe her okay here the detectives do a good job of staying silent and letting liam talk he's offering a lot of information well beyond the question of her sexuality however when liam is done talking the detectives fail to follow up on the multiple allegations liam makes sarah's potential issue with her father and her threatening to take her life is potentially relevant and possibly related to her disappearance they should have gone back right then and dug into those things deeply before moving on to her work history um now does she does she work now no she's had multiple jobs in infant city that she's either been fired from her quit from i've never known her to be able to hold the job she gets let go yeah where she quits off i know bruno's let her go i'm not too sure i just wasn't good at her job you know liam continues to speak negatively about sarah stating that she has had several jobs that she's been fired from again trying to depict her as being unstable i think that his desire to reveal these details about her during the interrogation is very much a giveaway that he's purposely trying to steer investigators towards the theory that sarah took her own life anyone in his position who is concerned about his missing friend would at least talk about her with a little emotion with a little empathy liam doesn't sound like he's sharing information about his missing friend in order to help investigators find her instead he sounds like someone who is ratting out his friend the fact that he's sitting in an interrogation room probably knowing that there's a camera pointed at him and he's lying and trying to create a story about sarah being unstable is a very significant indication of his anti-social nature the typical person enters an interrogation room and feels intimidated especially if they're guilty but even if they're not guilty it takes a lot to sit there and lie to two law enforcement officials something that only a person with any social personality disorder apd can really accomplish what about school she hasn't been uh she went to brookdale last semester and she just didn't even time for classes uh i mean not last semester yeah last year she was a full year school and this year she hasn't even registered for classes you know why and i guess she's just been saying she needs to get away go to canada get away from her dad is she in canada i couldn't tell you i can honestly tell you that i i'm one of her closest friends and i have no idea why she wouldn't tell me anything before she left like the last time i said goodbye to her like the other day like see you later i gotta go to work nothing she didn't say anything many of her relatives had been over the house and uh i think her name was michelle or i don't know it started with an m but i just remember hearing sarah say uh this might be the last time i see you because i might be in canada by the next time liam is trying to set up alternative theories of sarah not being deceased he begins a theme of her possibly having planned to flee to canada or somewhere else to get away from her dad he's trying to portray sarah as having problems i.e unable to keep a job not registering for school again etc these things may be true but they are details the detective didn't ask about that he just freely offers up to give alternatives to her being killed this is to try to take the pressure off of him despite not realizing the detectives have already likely collected a lot of evidence that they haven't disclosed that may contradict his theory the detectives have also found her car in new jersey so the chances that she left the area are unlikely liam notably avoids eye contact with either detective he keeps his gaze down towards the table um what kind of car would you know uh you couldn't tell you the model but it's a beat up old grandma's car would you build that board yeah i was actually in a car on friday liam's excessive nodding slowed down after the questioning began maybe because liam felt more comfortable as the interrogation progressed however here the nodding started again particularly when the investigator started asking about sarah's car it's likely that liam starts to nod intensely and repeatedly when he becomes nervous or when the investigators are getting close to details that could incriminate him even though liam admits to being in her car on friday which is the day she went missing the detective never asks when why where they're going etc and moves on to another question anything related to the day she went missing could be important information and they don't ask about it who were cyrus friends over yourself pretty much just stole the napkin city kid went to winter wilson my brother uh bailey mcavoy robert saying mom i could give you all his friends i mean who was your best friend i would say i would say tomorrow yeah i mean when she talks to me but i know that she has a lot of internet friends and the fact that she doesn't i mean i don't know too much about it but the fact that she's inside most of her days just on the computer i think that she definitely could have a lot of close friends that i don't know about liam mentions that sarah is inside most of her days on her computer he mentioned the same thing earlier it's likely that he's trying to make her sound like a recluse to again support the emotional instability theory what do you guys talk about what do you guys do when you hang out video games just childhood friends we can talk about whatever do you know her family yeah i know something for family meet over her dad what's your relationship like when we're dead i can say nothing i can't say that anything's never gotten violent but i know that there's a lot of fighting all the time just conscious fighting between your father you know anything i was with her a week ago and she uh broke the key to her house and her dad called her she had her own speaker yelling at her she couldn't believe that she did it right and then she hangs up the phone and he calls her right back again and has the same exact conversation like they didn't do it they did that three or four times right in front of me and the dad just had no recollection that they had already had that argument before and i was just sitting there like sarah if he's calling you again he's calling you to argue with you i don't know like you don't have to let him do that to you you can just not answer the phone because there's nothing you can say that you haven't already said liam talks at length about the issues between sarah and her dad so it seems here like he might be trying to frame the story to make her dad sound guilty it's important to remember that liam is sitting in an interrogation room with two detectives and he's giving all this information with what seems to be a clear intention of trying to divert the detective's attention to sarah's emotional instability and now to her father being an unstable person the mere fact that he's doing this shows his anti-social nature what kind of things aside from that he said that she spoke to you about her dad i know that when her mom died she had money that was supposed to go to her and her dad took that from her it's kind of been the big thing over the years that she's always said the dad took money from her that took money from her none of liam's accusations about sarah's father have ever been corroborated or proven to be true she definitely had some trust issues because over the past few weeks she's been just packaging things up in containers and moving them to other people's houses i actually have some containers in my basement right now i know there's there were containers in the drapers and other containers in the reno's house money is always a potential motive in a crime and when mentioned should always be thoroughly questioned yet the detective moves on to question him about the containers and not the money uh how many how many containers did you move your house i believe there's three in my basement three or four volcanic containers they're just big big gray containers like bins yeah um and then there's one what are you looking at i haven't looked in them but i could tell you that one of them was just a plastic there was a clear one red top on it and the hole inside of it was just vhs tape i don't know why she would package up i mean the containers this big is full of vhs i don't know why anyone would need a vhs tape where are they why did she why did she give those to you because she didn't want her dad to have them did she tell you that yeah do you think her behavior was odd yeah i didn't think it at first but i he's always wanted to go to canada she's always been obsessed with canada and uh and just didn't think anything of it at first but why would she just go to cat that's done i don't know she has everything that she could need to go to canada doesn't have to go to school doesn't have a job i don't understand why she was gonna go she wouldn't have just gone the detective fails to dig into the theory that liam is posing he should have asked if he thinks that is where sarah is how she might have gotten there without her car etc to either take that theory off the table as a reasonable answer to where sarah is or to find out more to see if it's feasible asking suspects direct questions puts them on the spot and you can often tell a lot by their responses even if they're lying instead the detective just moves on to another topic i don't understand why did she ever tell you that her dad had never had any physical altercations no did you ever ask i have i've always told her if if her dad puts his hands on you you need to let me know and she would always say no it's always in the verbal arguments you had asked her you had been text messaging her and you had asked her um if he heard you yeah we'll be referring to when he said he heard you're done did you tell you if he hit her yeah because believe me i i've done nothing but just try to find out if there was any physical violence between her and her father i've always been trying to get that out of her and she's never told her she um didn't really like to entertain herself with like alcohol like drugs it was more art like drawing but did you ever see her get drunk yeah definitely what does she drink um not beer hard alcohol she said she drinks with the online community they're friends i i couldn't die i had no idea do you know how she ever done any other drugs other than marijuana not that i know are you no i want to be a police officer there's he went to canada for the the youtubers youtubers are having this thing where they get together and their fans come right ask them questions i guess and um she always made it seem like it was this big social thing with her um internet friends she was going to go up there and stay at one of their houses these people that she said that they could potentially be roommates if she were to move up to canada and when she got to canada her dad had to call her an uber no friends picked her up uber i guess so this is my mom's information i don't know how valid it is but i just wanted to let you know um and she stayed in a hotel that night and set up with friends so everything she could just based on that because i thought she had all these friends that she was going to spend time with the interrogation seems to be very disjointed liam is clearly willing to talk to them and yet almost 40 minutes in they have yet to really get into any questions regarding the day she went missing while it's important to get background information and build rapport you don't want to wait too long to get to the heart of the interrogation liam has once again steered the conversation back to sarah's desire to move to canada and her familiarity with the country this is highly suspect because it's quite off topic from the discussion of how much sarah likes to drink alcohol still the detective asks nothing about this a few weeks ago it's your grandmother's house that they live in they had a house in alabama that they were going to live in but it was so far stuff that they were forced to live in grandma's house one of the family members came over and trimmed the bush the walkway upstairs to make it easier for the grandma and um this is a direct quote the dad said i'll i'll crush their skulls in and burn their houses down if they do that again like he was literally threatening to kill them over a bush liam is being more obvious now in trying to incriminate sarah's father still the detective fails to ask liam if he thinks the father was involved in her disappearance asking him this even if the evidence does not in any way point to the father is useful to see if liam is trying to direct them towards the father when did you last please sarah when i was leaving our house to go to work what was that um sometime before 4 45 for what day friday liam frequently does something called the turtle effect this is a movement where someone crouches and pulls their shoulders up to their ears like a turtle going into its shell and is often accompanied by the person avoiding eye contact with whoever they're speaking to this movement is a way for liam to make himself appear small and is a sign that he's feeling uneasy or is losing confidence she also lost nasa on friday before 4 45 and why do you say before four four forty five please come back to me at work get to be at what did you work from the cast what time did you work at brenda's what time did i work yeah uh between 4 45 5 o'clock i got there and then i was off uh sometime around 10 o'clock you drove there yep did you need directly from sarah's house to work so you left some time around 4 45 in that area you don't have to change you go to work yeah where'd you change in my house we literally live a block away from each other so it was just real quick getting changed and going to work liam is finally asked when he last saw sarah generally this is a question that would be asked early on in an interrogation and it's unclear why the detective waited almost 40 minutes to ask him this william once again begins nodding excessively it's hard to say if this is an exact indication of lying but the nodding can at least be an indication that he's uncomfortable or nervous about responding to the question his response is inconsistent first saying he went directly to work and then that he'd actually stopped at his house to change his clothing directly from sarah's house yeah we literally live a block away from each other so it was just real quick getting changed and going to work normally a detective would ask him about this inconsistency in a story the detective is now getting a timeline of the day sarah went missing and get a picture of the events that day according to liam so you worked eight till five until around four home run okay um when you got home was at your house playing one generator so he was home when you got home from work i'm right yeah how long the time you got home from work how long did was um in the house on the first phone and getting dressed like maybe 30 seconds as i walked in he was like my phone she drives work or walks with he jumps notice the detective continues to lead preston instead of asking him open-ended questions this allows preston to give yes or no responses which are not nearly as useful the detective is now asking preston questions to see if his answers corroborate with the timeline liam gave them the day before this would have been a good time to press preston about liam being the last known person to be with sarah the detective doesn't even mention liam and sarah being together earlier what did you do [Applause] spend a lot of time at your parent's um house slept for about an hour and then wouldn't you have like a half empty coffee or something [Music] like a carbonated it seems rather unlikely that preston would drive back to his parents home an hour or more after being home to pick up an espresso drink he left there it seems like a lot of trouble to get a coffee drink he may have been saying this in case he was driving and needed to cover his tracks he may also have been going to his parents house to have someone provide an alibi about where he was since he was alone most of the night and no one could vouch for him really old-fashioned italian chicks like most like old-fashioned reasons excuse me i kind of want to let you know your parents just wanted to know that you're here if you need them but during the lobby i told you you're speaking with detectives and i just let them know that preston is just over the legal age of a juvenile so while he isn't given the right to have his parents present in the room they offer him the courtesy to consult with them at any time it's interesting that his parents don't advise preston to stop talking to the police or request he speak to an attorney this may be that they aren't concerned their son did anything wrong and don't feel it's necessary or they may worry as many people do that doing so will make him appear guilty this is a common misconception as having counsel whether you are innocent or not is always a good idea when you went to work what was what were you inside when i went to work yeah you'd love to go to work um when you left her house he was just hanging out maybe let's let's do this let's start start the day on friday okay what did you do when you woke up on friday but then what time um see somewhere around noon okay did some dishes cleaned up the house then i uh called her initially after she wanted to get some food she said she had to what time did you hook up with sir sometime between one and two o'clock um one two i went over i helped her did you go to eat not yet we did go to eat but we initially um wrapped up all her stuff put in the containers and then went across the street to the drapers put the stuff in their basement and sarah and i uh let's talk about let's talk about one neptune um oh do you remember the names of the streams yeah yeah the two were caught on cctv when they went through the taco bell drive-through in the window you can see sarah and liam talking with sarah in the driver's seat did you stay there the whole time here people back to house yeah we actually went up into her room like some baby games where did you eat the taco bell uh we need to taco bell in her kitchen at her table you went to her bedroom um i don't even know what to call them it's like a little box like a joystick on it maybe two buttons they're like arcade games she just plugged into her old tv we played those you're a bunch of different games she's a teenager yeah she has two actual two for the old video games and one for her cable i guess yeah that's all you did up there in her bedroom you stayed up there the whole time um he actually ends up in um liam begins frequently touching his face neck and face touching are typically pacifying and self-soothing gestures when liam touches his face he's likely experiencing an unpleasant emotion such as insecurity and is trying to comfort himself what kind of things are you talking about you know something's just been such a player liam is becoming noticeably more nervous and on edge his voice is a little shakier and his answers are more scattered than before the detective is now slightly more confrontational and liam takes longer to respond throughout the interview thus far he's been pretty quick thinking in the sense that he hasn't struggled to recall anything now all of a sudden when he's asked details like what he and sarah did when they were at her house eating taco bell and playing video games he struggles to report if they stayed only in sarah's room or if they went somewhere else liam suddenly can't recall information and says things are a blurb the long pause continues this is dramatically different than his previous answers where he seems to recall almost everything he was asked this also deviates from his baseline behavior despite liam's timeline of events for friday in a text to a friend liam says that he was sick with the flu and spent the last three days in bed yet he never mentions to the investigators that he'd been sick if it were true that he'd been in bed for three days one would think that liam would mention this to the police so why would he lie to his friend maybe because he was actually busy doing something a regular else i could have been about anything about wanting to leave uh she had that day what did you say she just said every dad was going home she had to get stuff out she just needs to get to canada you can make any promises here no definitely not but you wouldn't tell anybody anything no i had spoken about going to canada with her over the past few weeks but that was just kind of her emotional support i guess i didn't think she would actually go through with the whole canada thing was just trying to escape the situation she was in i guess notice liam is saying no while nodding yes incongruent words and body language are often a red flag that someone is being deceptive the second detective has not said almost anything during the interrogation he's likely there to just observe liam's body language and to pick up anything the other detective may have missed the detective sits in silence after liam is done responding to his question this is a common tactic to get someone to offer more details or to begin talking again unprompted people often feel awkward with prolonged silences and will start talking again to quell this awkward feeling this is exactly what happened here and liam offers up more details the detective will likely use this technique again as it's proven to be effective with this suspect what time did uh william get back [Music] um do you remember what you were doing when you [Music] um did he normally get home that time or and what makes you think between 11 and 12 or 12 and 1 or 10 and 11 like how do you know like between 11 and 12 he came home before midnight preston says liam got home around 11 or 12 which is later than the time liam gave at his interrogation where he said 10. sometime around 10 o'clock the detective's confrontation of preston is very passive asking him to try to explain the discrepancy would have put more pressure on preston at an interrogation police are allowed to discuss what other suspects have said to them and even lie about what was said or discussed the detective has a good opportunity to play the suspects against each other it's proven to be a very useful tactic to tell one suspect that the other blamed them for things to see if they then disclose information about the other so uh you guys go to bed and what happened well next time four in the morning are you doing and he tells you the police were there asking questions about sarah yeah and did you say like why are they coming here tell us about the conversation i looked at him and i was like what do you mean just like i don't know until now preston has shown very little emotion however at this point he hits his hand on the table slightly but enough that it makes a sound each time this is the first time he makes any sort of real gesture of any kind this also happens to be when he's answering questions about when the police arrived he says liam just came in his room woke him up and told him the cops were there asking questions about sarah this casual interaction between the boys doesn't seem feasible any normal person would find this rather disturbing and would lead to a lot of conversation perhaps phone calls to friends etc it's hard to believe that after the police come to your house about a girl you've known for many years you wouldn't ask more questions or be able to just roll over and go back to sleep with no concern or curiosity the detective doesn't confront preston about this preston acts out the expression he made when he was woken up by liam he makes arm and facial gesture showing how he was startled awake by liam when the police arrived for the first time there was some expression of emotion here and movement that we haven't seen before in preston during the interview it could be that preston is trying to sound more convincing here we must work when you're at home playing xbox or you thinking or whatever does liam come home at any point yeah because i was just like ran home i found this phone just traveling for it and then both times so he came back home twice the first phone how long they stay each time preston now changes his story saying that liam came home twice during his shift at the restaurant this is a pretty large detail to leave out and also seems rather unusual waiters are rarely able to walk out of a restaurant on a friday night during their shift once let alone twice yet the detective doesn't even ask preston why he didn't mention this earlier when you wake up on saturday morning start looking for you yeah it's around the house one more time walmart which whole park have you got it superwoman what time do you think you got there all right sometime away he drove when asked who drove there was an unusually long pause before preston answered this is unusual because firstly it shouldn't be too difficult for him to recall whether it was him or liam who drove secondly it's unusual because so far preston hasn't paused this long to answer questions when he finally answered that liam drove preston avoided eye contact and just looked downward towards his hands or the table a lot of people a lot of police officers from the state police the divers to us to the only detectives that you met over the weekend trying to find star and there's a lot of resources involved here i want you to make sure that i want to give you the opportunity yeah to be ahead of all this the detective purposely uses the word opportunity to indicate that it would benefit liam to tell them the truth or what he knows before they potentially find her body notice he starts this line of questioning by expressing how they have lots of divers and people looking for her to plant fear in liam's mind that she will likely be found this is an interrogation tactic commonly used by police the police want to convey a sense that they are giving the suspect an opportunity to talk and to help themselves before it's too late in truth confessing will only help the police and the prosecution if she told you something if she told you that she was going somewhere she told you that she was going to do something you need to tell us yeah okay thank you i understand that you're very close friends with her and she's invited to you a lot um none of that matters now okay because um all this what we're doing is only going to escalate at this point okay so i want you to think very hard okay about your conversation take as much time as you need um i want you to think about your conversation that you had with sarah on friday i want you to put yourself back in her house with her i want you to think about the things that she said to you okay one thing i i want to talk to you guys about was um if she she did jump off the bridge what are the odds that she's not somewhere all the way out in the ocean this is a notably strange question for liam to ask and is very revealing about his mindset asking about whether her body would be out in the ocean by now if she jumped off the bridge could be liam's way to feign concern that they won't find her and did she tell you about the rich no if she had told me that i thought that she was going to jump off a bridge there would have been no way that i could have gone to work that night i i went to work and i had one of the best times in my life i had a bunch of i made a bunch of money and all my tables were good i had a great time and definitely i would not have been able to do that if i knew something can you rock you just hang tight right here thanks i'm [Music] the detectives take a break at this point likely to strategize how to question him from here they may want to change tactics of questioning and be more confrontational with him they may also be leaving to come back with new evidence to present him with police also like to observe a suspect's behavior when left alone it's not uncommon for suspects to change their behavior or even talk to themselves if left alone for a little while despite being on camera suspects often show more of their true selves when left alone as they aren't aware they're being watched when the detective stepped out of the room liam appears to let out a sigh of relief liam sits with his head down and his arms crossed in a defensive posture he looks uncomfortable and nervous sitting there he puts his hands over his eyes rubbing his face these are all signs of distress liam appears to be briefly crying which seems a little out of place if he truly believes his friend has just left to go live in canada and isn't deceased as he keeps indicating it's not uncommon for some suspects to cry when they are left alone as the gravity of what is happening or what they did sometimes sets in when left alone with their thoughts as you're driving down uh what street not ollie street brandon bradley street yeah we're going down around this beach where we would have made a left and that's right go down the street and like wait that was like as we drove by okay and we turned after her and she turned off onto back he started to cry a little bit let's just talk to his mom um did he answer any questions didn't that say anything until we got back to the house i'm sure you got a million questions about what happened so i would imagine as any reasonable person frightened whatever you know family member you probably asked any questions right what kind of things [Music] it's unusual that when they found out sarah was missing neither preston nor liam asked any questions about what had happened the detective again lets this go without confrontation preston is being rather evasive and seems to be getting nervous this is a good time for the detective to start confronting him to be honest but he doesn't what did him tell you about his day that he spent here um she's missing what did you guys do where did you guys go would she say to you she was just like i don't really like so much she like seems to be like so he told me on saturday after his mom told you when you you got well he woke you up in the morning like 3 00 in the morning think about everything [Music] the detective is finally being confrontational with preston about his lack of curiosity about the police being at their home at 4 00 am it's very hard to believe that preston doesn't remember anything after midnight that night so liam wakes up on saturday he doesn't talk about sarah he doesn't the cops were just at the house a couple hours earlier asking questions about it he's not talking to you about him i asked him why they were there but i really don't remember the conversation so you're having a conversation with all these people about sarah who is the police for your house four o'clock in the morning she's missing you just find out that her car is found on the bridge and now liam is telling you that he was with her you don't remember anything that he said to you is that am i understanding that no recollection at all the detective continues with a confrontational tone by summarizing the answers preston is given the detective is showing that he doesn't find his version of events believable as well the second detective's body language leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed also helps to display that he isn't buying the story preston is telling this adds some non-verbal pressure to preston did he say that he was at her house did he say that they went to the movies did he say that they went to the beach what did he say they did everything okay how did you know they even see the weather nobody i don't think so so so his mom is crying out in the street and liam is now crying and nobody's asking him like so what'd you say there's no questions at all they said they went to lunch went out to breakfast went to the movies was a dollar involved was there any conversation about it at any point was there ever any conversation does anybody care about any like asking these questions like the name of the conversation what's been what's um [Music] notice that the list of topics preston shares are all the same ones that had been discussed during liam's interrogation this is a pretty good indication that the boys tried to make sure they were consistent in their stories before preston came in this seems especially likely since some of the topics seem rather trivial considering the circumstances but all these things are coming out about our relationship with their dad but still not coming out what liam and sarah did on the day that she disappeared he never volunteered any information he never said we went to the movies and we watched the movie or we watched right i went to our house and we gave lunch and watched tv that never came off the conversation good friend goes missing good friend good friends help find the person who's missing yeah you understand what i'm saying the detective is implying in various ways that their behavior or lack thereof is not typical of friends who think a good friend is missing he isn't explicitly saying that but the message is clear this makes preston think that he isn't coming off credibly and the detective hopes this will get him to crack he may have been more successful if he posed the question and stopped talking by continuing to speak it takes the pressure off of preston all right [Music] i haven't thought of anything but i must think about besides her wanting to go she didn't say she had some conspiracy she was going to run away you haven't told us about the bank yeah how come you ever told us about the bank though he didn't mention it before when he was telling the detectives the timeline of his day liam and sarah had gone to the kearney bank and were seen on cctv well i told him about the bank but did you go to the bank i was with her okay that's the way back from taco bell we're back [Music] yeah they've begun using the read technique of confronting the suspect with evidence related to the crime this will likely increase the suspect's stress level even more and they hope this may cause him to get tripped up or ideally confess this is also a rather large detail to leave out in his prior accounting of their activities that day why don't you stop with the bank would you tell you should be stopping something to do for money i don't know she had found money in that one house a few months ago and uh she has a lockbox full of money i don't know she was taking money out putting money in there the lock box goes anywhere in carney bank how do you know she's told me what did she tell you about that uh it's just that that's where her money is the detectives bring up the money sarah had as it establishes a possible motive for liam initially liam acts like he doesn't know much about the money but as he continues to speak he keeps revealing more and more details the detective never throws out the possibility or asks if maybe she was killed for the money to get a response from liam since money is such a common motive it's a logical question to ask and puts more pressure on liam and seeing how he responds would have been useful whose mind did she find she said that it must have belonged to her mother which she thought was her mom left it for her it is in the house so if her dad were to uh take her money she would still have money left for her by her mom how much money you couldn't tell she she never told me she said it could be she totally arranged she said it could be from 20 grand to 100 grand she wasn't sure she wasn't sure how much money she found yeah does that make sense to you but you wouldn't be sure how much money well she told me the condition of the money was pretty bad like it was all stuck together or it was all old bills did she give you any other money no i do know that robert santaman is another person that knows about the money besides me though because he had told me that uh he needed to get something done with his car and he was asking her for money but that's the only person i know that would have an idea of how much money it would be liam states that her friend robert also knew about the money this appears to be an attempt to establish him as another potential suspect what did she say about canada on friday i don't even remember if we discussed it everything's just like blending together at this point once again there are inconsistencies in liam's statements that weren't there previously he first stated they talked about sarah going to canada and then that they may have he has now twice relied on saying that everything is a blur which seems to be an attempt to explain away any mistakes he makes in his recollection do you remember talking to her do you remember her talking on the phone why you're at the house not that i know she had been just taking calls from multiple family members over the past few weeks everyone saying how worried they were about her so friday was the second somebody usually could have called her and had a conversation liam claims family members were calling her saying how worried they were about her but the detectives seemed to move past it without asking more questions this piece of information could have given them more insight into what was going on in sarah's life and her mindset just before she went missing have you cried about the first morning um what was told to you that made you become emotional well until the detectives everyone came around has anybody told me that she's jumped what do you think's happening okay why didn't you jump then taking care of grandma did that thing kick out he begins to cry when he responds and then seems to immediately stop as he continues to talk his breakdown seems insincere as it lasts only seconds this is also the first time preston has demonstrated any emotion at all even if it is insincere he may also be crying from stress or fear of being caught my mom just stopped all right sure if you want us to bring your mom back here you want to go out there i'm about there too yeah go out there preston requests to speak to his mom and to take a break the detectives returned to continue questioning preston about 35 minutes later mom and dad are still here for you yeah okay so you you wake up you said you woke up around one time on saturday uh not 10 o'clock so when you get up at 10 o'clock um do you remember coming out of your room yeah all right what are you doing here when they return the detectives immediately begin asking him questions again perhaps to try to unsettle him into revealing something what's the interface [Applause] at what point do you have a conversation with him about the police showing up at the house for three o'clock in the morning or everything preston takes a very long pause he knows he has already answered this question and may be trying to remember what he had said previously the detectives appear to be checking that preston's timeline of events matches liam's he continues taking long pauses before responding as though he's trying to watch what he says this is of course in stark contrast to preston's usual response style which was more immediate responses to questions with little to no pauses just asking questions about like where he was where he was yeah and i looked at him like obviously i was [Music] did he tell you specifically anything about sarah while you're in the house that night playing video games she comes home how many times for the first time at least one something is closed twice are you drinking it that way you smoking you're just by yourself how confident are you one time what makes you think 11 o'clock i'm not sure what is somewhere o'clock at that point have you had anything to drink have you think you smoked it definitely the detective continues to ask him questions preston has already answered and asks him to confirm his prior responses this technique can backfire if the suspect then replies i don't know or i'm not certain if they respond this way it adds uncertainty to the suspect's prior timeline that has been previously established and allows the suspect to show he isn't lying but just isn't sure it's better to have a suspect answer once and then lock them into that answer preston shows some transparency here when he takes out his phone in front of the detectives this shows his willingness to answer some of the questions it's interesting that the detectives don't ask permission to take preston's cell phone when there is likely useful evidence contained in it cell phones often provide a ton of important data for the police and the suspect's refusal to hand it over can be telling in and of itself how has the absolute last couple days talking no when preston was asked how liam's demeanor has been in the last couple of days preston responds by again using his hands but this time to show that liam was trying to be tough preston doesn't make facial expressions while speaking and his voice is monotone pretty much across the board so when he uses his hands it's possible that he's lying the random nature of his sudden use of hand gestures indicates that something is different about what he's saying at that moment he used the same awkward gestures when he banged his hand on the table earlier and when he impersonated himself being startled away did you communicate with sarah at any point after he left her house that day no i didn't have my phone i actually left work while i was at work to go to my house tear everything apart looking for my phone i didn't have my phone on me that night where was your phone i have no idea i still don't know you guys have it now right yeah yeah i don't know what happened with my phone that day but i just remember going to work realizing i didn't have it yeah my mom told me that they found the phone in the draper's driveway i i could have lost it when i was moving myself i didn't realize you lost your phone until you got to work yeah i i don't try not to use my phone as much as possible why i don't know distraction on different social medias and just calm text i don't really use it too often if you don't think you use your phone a lot no i mean i'd say probably like an average person nothing too crazy and um samsung galaxy you know what it's called now it's dead and stuff like that so liam immediately contradicts himself he has changed his answer to how often he uses his phone three times likely after the initial lie he realized that the detectives could easily obtain his phone records and see his usage did you try reaching sarah after um after he left her house no there's no way you could uh your house line my house yeah that's fine i live in a house with my roommate i have my cell phone he has his cell phone what about your mom's house it's right on state property right yeah um pretty much but no i didn't even i just went straight to work straight home the detective intentionally looks at his notepad and then asks liam a question he may or may not have been referring to notes but he wants liam to think he already has evidence to support the answer to the question he's posed this is another common technique police will use even referring to blank paper sometimes to give the impression they have evidence they don't in fact have this tactic works extremely well with many suspects she called her she called your your number on my house line a couple times my cell phone number was what was it why was she doing that why it would be during a time that you were there at the house while i was at the house or what time would that be in the afternoon or right around the time that you left go to work did you tell her that you lost your phone i didn't even know that i lost my phone or when you went to work no because there was no way i could have communicated with her you know her house number no no idea liam's statements aren't adding up the fact that sarah had been calling this phone at times he claims he was with her doesn't make sense and is very suspicious yet the detective doesn't ask him any more questions about it and never really presses liam on anything instead he moves past a lot of his statements that either don't make sense or contradict themselves the detective again sits in silence waiting for liam to fill the void liam's excessive nodding starts up again you have had situations where she's tried to hurt herself in the past that i actually didn't even remember it wasn't until maggie called me yesterday and reminded me how long ago was that three years ago any close friend of sarah would be genuinely concerned and distressed when recounting this story about how she tried to hurt herself instead liam is simply sitting there for over an hour spilling all of his close friends dirty laundry and implying that sarah might have taken her own life all the while not being a bit concerned about her people with antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder often engage in smear campaigns where they will speak very negatively and very convincingly about someone often spreading lies exaggerations of the truth or even just their own negative theories or suspicions about someone it's a method that the apd person uses to do damage control when they fear they will be exposed or when they are trying to get out of trouble they will do it to family friends their own partner or anyone who threatens to expose them you know turn box up all these personal belongings and you helped her carry these belongings to a neighbor's house and you accepted belongings did you set the bins on friday as well or this year how did they get to your house you dropped it off it was on friday that was three days ago we have this isn't the first time we've done something like that just hear me out it just it doesn't make sense that you would do all these things and you would go after lunch with her and on the way back for taco bell you would um have you can stop at the bank so she can take care of her money and then you ask no questions she doesn't you don't inquire about anything just share anything with you well i've known about it so i don't know what you could have told me she has an iron phone what watched a youtube video or something and then we were at our house we needed to talk about did you what did you do in the car did you have your phone in the car yeah at that point you had the phone in the car so you had already dropped the belongings off the brush i didn't even realize that i just had my phone on at that point yeah the detective now confronts liam but only slightly an accusation or confrontation of guilt will sometimes be enough to get someone to crack it can also get someone to clam up and stop talking but the detective should take that risk at this point in the interrogation because they haven't gotten very far with liam liam slips up and catches himself lying about having his phone the detective has made it clear he doesn't buy the story liam is telling him which likely is adding stress to liam if there was i was using my phone to entertain myself while she was in the bank so i did have my phone on me in her car the detective sits in silence again waiting for him to keep talking this technique has proven useful on liam so he deploys it repeatedly a lot of interrogation is trial and error as people can differ in terms of what gets them talking and what techniques work for them yeah it must have been 1 32 o'clock when i got to her house the detective begins pulling documents out of a file pocket that looks to contain phone records while he asks liam about the timing of his day and calls this is to try to make him feel like the detective already knows the answers to the questions he's asking liam has been caught in numerous lies surrounding his phone activity and a few other details but hasn't confessed to any involvement in sarah's disappearance yeah all right um i told the guy out there that my car is parked on me i don't know if they've been here for two hours yet um we stepped out of the room you're probably wondering where we were going um your dad is here right now um uh your dad came down um did you tell him that yes you came we told him that you were coming down here um so your mom contacted an attorney on your behalf and your dad contacted an attorney on your behalf so there's no no two attorneys that um are expressing an interest to represent you we're not going to talk to you any further today we do appreciate you coming down hang tight here i think your dad and maybe one of the attorneys i don't know would want to talk to you oh um so kind of just if you if you don't mind yeah um you don't have to but um we're done um you know talking to you at this point uh for today so we appreciate it okay all right thanks thank you the detectives were unsuccessful in obtaining a confession but they have caught liam in numerous inconsistencies and nailed down a timeline it appears they suspect liam knows more than he's letting on however they will now have to find other ways to get evidence since he'll likely not be giving any more statements to them based on his attorney's advice the detective may have been more successful in confronting liam with more direct accusations and questions surrounding sarah's actual disappearance and pressing him on the fact that they don't believe she left for canada they never mentioned the possibility of foul play at all which is a distinct possibility they should have asked more open-ended questions and then asked more follow-up questions on statements liam made no no any kind of relationship with the friendship do you have any kind of romantic religion no absolutely good thing so just gonna wait until you guys are all done the questions and everything um connecting to junior prom i was there just because you didn't have anybody the disaster i didn't have orange preston likely reveals this information unprompted because he knows the police will uncover it anyway it's strange that he waited to mention this until now especially since he was asked explicitly about his relationship with sarah and how well he knew her a friend trying to help would normally want to offer as much information and detail as possible to help with the investigation i don't know if you guys already know about her magic right who'd you hear that from like williams and josh the whole group she trains i don't know what it kind of was going on but like a little after when her mother passed and like in the time maggie was going away to college like they were like really good friends but herself she was dating liam like early on high school so like they're still good friends maggie sarah like everybody did anything to herself so maggie so we've reached out to imagine she's definitely preston also now offers information to corroborate liam's theory that sarah possibly took her own life this may be something he and liam discussed and he realized he'd forgotten to mention it earlier the detective intentionally sits in silence to see if preston will elaborate unprompted to keep speaking what else would be important for us liam talk to you about our conversation with him did you ask me questions about it other than whether it was all about how did he seem um um the interrogation ends without the detectives getting a confession but this wasn't the end of the story and what was about to be revealed was more horrifying than anyone could have ever imagined despite some of the suspicious answers that both liam and preston gave during their interrogations the police had no solid evidence to connect either of them to sarah's disappearance at this point it's still unclear what had even happened to sarah did she run away to canada did she take her own life by jumping off the bridge or had something far more sinister happened to her there was no sign of sarah no body and no one was admitting knowing anything the only thing that was clear was that something wasn't quite right with the stories liam and preston were telling sarah's disappearance remained a mystery for a few months and was investigated by authorities as a missing person's case that is until someone came forward with information that finally blew the case wide open what are they questioning oh yeah a lot about killing sarah they've been uh they were up my ass first it was just normal police they were on my ass and i had to go in and get interrogated by them multiple times but then it kept moving up levels and now it's a federal case they've got the fbi so you've been laying low i guess oh yeah and not even that's not even the worst part the worst part of it is i thought i was walking out 50 grand 100 grand in my pocket she had one safe and she took money out and she only had 10 grand and this money i don't know if it was burnt or something it's old money terrible quality i don't even know if i can put any of it in the bank right because it'll probably probably look sketchy right looks sketchy and it'll look like it's sarah's money especially if it's a federal investigation right if they're looking for the guy who has the old money right because it's probably like the the old dollar bills it's not like the news because the hundred dollar bills are changed now exactly no it's from the 80s dude it's old and then what she found in her house or something huh she found in her house yeah spent a lot of money and i didn't i didn't even get a quarter of it so you only got like 177 grams somewhere around there and you spent it all no i i didn't even try to do anything with it because it's in such a bad shape you can't even use it like i need to play low and then maybe like tape some up and see if i can put in the bank so do you have it hidden yeah where'd you hide it sammy hook first it was in my house for a long time but then i stopped trusting preston yeah what's the deal with preston was he no he's cool did he end up like helping you oh yeah sarah wasn't missing liam had murdered her one of liam's friends anthony curry had been interviewed by police that same december about sarah's disappearance a month later on january 24th anthony came to the police to tell them that he actually knew something about sarah's case he revealed that liam had told him on thanksgiving that he was planning to rob and kill sarah for the money her mother had left her and that she had just found he went on to claim that at first because anthony was a filmmaker he thought liam was pitching him an idea for a movie when he talked about killing sarah however he soon learned that wasn't the case at all and liam had actually killed her anthony told police that over the past month he'd grown terrified of liam and began to worry that liam was going to kill him or hurt his family presumably because of what he knew after revealing all of this to the police anthony was asked to secretly record his conversations with liam and he agreed a week later on the 31st anthony secretly videotaped liam we can imagine that he was probably more than just a little nervous as he drove over to meet up with liam who he would soon realize was a cold-blooded killer singing along with tunes to likely attempt to calm his nerves what's good money what's happening how are you doing you want a cigarette no i'm good i quit them i was smoking a lot of cigarettes while i was tripping yeah i tripped for like a whole like two months straight what were you doing hiding from the cops what's what happened dude you can't blame me for doing this right i gotta feel you up bro real quick all right no disrespect i'll show you no disrespect okay yeah i got the fbi on my ass dude i had planned sarah's situation for me to be interrogated by cops like that was whole part of my plan to make me look not guilty like did you even know you didn't hear about it it was all over the news right but i didn't know if you liked it yeah and the worst part is we threw off the bridge and the body never showed up it's probably frozen it's probably all the way out in the ocean and it's frozen so she's not coming up anytime soon everybody's probably at the bottom of the ocean or she got anybody shark or something yeah bro this is like a movie bro yeah and dude all right so i'm hanging out with her she has we we went to the bank she took some money out not all of her money we're counting out and then she goes to walk out the front door i choke her out drag her my biggest problem was the dog and her dog laid there and watched as i killed her didn't do anything her dog what kind of dog yeah what kind of dog is that it's like something was it a big it looks like a beagle but it's like the size of a great dane nobody was there grandma no nobody was there even her dad wasn't there he was in florida yeah you said that he was yeah so i have to leave i can drop my phone at sarah's house my phone was at sarah's house like wait you left your phone yeah i lost it i couldn't find it i had to go to work i had timed everything out so that what did you why did you take your phone you should have left it in your pocket dude what were you doing strangling someone i couldn't find it dude it ended up being out in the driveway oh we must have dropped that here i must have dropped when i was crawling to get in the car at one point while the boys are talking in anthony's car someone knocks on the window and asks for a ride which they refuse oh how do you roll this room again it's okay can you guys do a huge favor give me a ride like right down the road no i can't i got so much in my back i'm sorry i can't really yeah please no i'm sorry about that [Music] and it seems that anthony had good reason to worry that liam or even preston might do something to him or his family because of what he knew you are the only person on this planet that knows besides preston and preston doesn't know that you know and i think we should probably get backed up our house because i'm going to get head back to brooklyn words i got to work at 6am because preston doesn't like this idea he doesn't like that he didn't just come to the house and if he knows that you know i don't want him you know i don't want there to be a change not no rap bro yeah you don't have to question me i'm in brooklyn they the cops haven't questioned me i know you're not a rat but we gotta we gotta play it safe anyone no yeah i understand it could be anyone and i don't want precedent to think that he has to kill you and take you out because you are the only person that knows because i've tried to try to imply that you might know and he gets really upset so maybe don't tell him don't tell him don't tell him yeah but you're the only person besides preston that knows then i told you that in the beginning that's how i was gonna be i planned this thing out for like six months without anthony coming forward liam may have gotten away with it liam mkhitazny was arrested on february 2nd 2017. i'm sure as you can see liam was brought into an interrogation room in handcuffs his demeanor doesn't look like that of a person who killed his childhood friend in cold blood after sharing a meal together and planning the crime for half a year all for a small amount of cash he spends the next few hours sitting alone with his head bend occasionally shifting in a seat investigators suspected that preston taylor knew a lot more about what happened than he led on in his initial interview so he was also brought in for questioning while liam remains quiet preston on the other hand finally had a lot to say all right you can have a seat right over here [Music] [Applause] we'll be right with you okay man [Applause] while liam was handcuffed preston was not this could be an indication that the police want preston to feel like he isn't as guilty as liam that way they may be able to earn his trust and use it against liam after being left alone preston looks around the room and bites his nails he appears nervous and uncomfortable the detective instructs him where to sit and strategically places him furthest from the dorm the room is stark and has nothing on the walls or inside it besides some chairs and a table this is done intentionally to not distract the suspect and to make them feel on edge all right hey preston sorry to keep you waiting man how you doing all right yeah you remember me from uh december yeah my name is brian uh weisbrot i'm a detective with the prosecutor's office and i don't know if you ever met um detective michael breck from neptune city um he was not uh with us when we had spoken down in belmore but uh i i first just want to tell you thank you for cooperating coming down today to talk to us we appreciate it i know you had said you have a lot of questions um uh we we had spoken to you out in the car and transported you here i told you that we were not going to talk to you in the car um we wanted to do it in the setting talking in a car is not appropriate um so i will get to all your questions we're happy to answer anything that you have um we do want to talk to you um and uh before we do talk to you i do need to provide you with your miranda rights the two detectives are very friendly as they think preston is ready to confess fully they read him his miranda warnings and have him initial after each right to indicate that he understands them this is the best practice especially with a suspect who is either young uneducated or unfamiliar with the criminal justice system preston obviously you know why mike and i want to talk to you today um it's the same reason why um detective mahoney and i spoke to you back in december okay it's about sarah um we know what happened to sarah ever since she was reported missing the neptune city police department the del mar police department and the mama county prosecutor's office has been working tirelessly to find out what happened to her and we did okay um we know what your involvement in in it was all right we want to talk to you about that all right um what we're most interested in knowing not necessarily what happened because we already know that we want to know why it happened all right we want to know why liam did what he did [Music] he killed sarah okay and we know you know that right you know that correct yes okay that's what we want to talk to you about right i want you to know that um we understand that people put themselves in positions that looking back they regret we get it you're a 19 year old kid you have a whole life ahead of you right you gotta lay it out for us as to why it happened right and why he did what he did [Music] okay how much money are we talking about he said that she had anywhere from upwards of 50 to 100 150 thousand dollars left to her in cash from her mom okay where did she get the money from her mom when she passed away okay she found it's just a story she found a box in their old house in avalon that they keep just for storage that had a note you know a bunch of money and he wanted to try [Music] his hands on as much as possible okay the detective immediately begins the confrontation step of the read technique this step is when the interrogator informs the suspect of the evidence against them implying in a confident manner that they already know the suspect is involved in the crime the suspect's stress level increases and the interrogator may invade the suspect's personal space to increase the discomfort here the detective leans in towards preston as he speaks by minimizing the severity of the situation and downplaying the consequences of preston's involvement the detective hopes he will be more honest and forthcoming with them at some point either before sarah was killed or shortly after liam had been bragging to his friends about having a lot of money but later when one friend asked to borrow money from him to buy a camera liam said he didn't have any liam refused to tell the friend why he no longer had money unless they spoke in person but he added that he was running out of data on his phone and that he was unemployed we now know that liam had been expecting to steal a lot of money from sarah instead of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars liam only found around ten thousand dollars he once again ominously warns the friends that he can't explain what is going on over the phone did he tell you ahead of time that he was going to do this yeah right how how long do you think he had he planned to do this about a month which wasn't too serious at first do you remember the first time he told you that first time he told me about it him and [Music] then sean came into clancy's where i was working and he just said like no intentions at this time but sarah just found a bunch of money and that was it and then [Music] it wasn't until about a month or two later he said that he was coming up with the idea okay what did he what did he tell you he planned on doing taking her out from the front somewhere to the disposal okay when you say taking her out what do you mean strangling okay and then he was going to dispose of her body right did he tell you what he planned to do with her body no okay um how did you let's i want to bring you back to um the day that this happened all right do you remember what day of the week it was yeah all right it was a friday um do you remember that yeah okay do you remember what you did that day did you work go to school i went to work but uh remember where you worked um atlantic islands okay um doing a construction job yeah i was working on my dad we were taking another bathtub okay and doing the whole bathroom remodel okay and [Music] i got home just since he was getting ready to run out the door for work and he was like dude i did it i need you to follow me later with your car and i just didn't really know what to do go along with that at that point okay when he said that he did it did you know what that meant yeah what did you take that to me i turned to the street [Music] killed sarah okay um she said that her body was still at the house he needs to get rid of it tonight the detective is establishing premeditation there's no legal obligation for preston to report what liam was planning but helping him before or after the murder is a serious criminal offense despite being honest preston is using minimizing words to downplay the horrific nature of what liam did to sarah he speaks in a monotone and is emotionless even though sarah was his friend the detective is establishing a timeline now that he thinks preston will be more honest with them and now that they have a better idea as to what really occurred without realizing it preston implicates himself further by stating that liam simply said dude i did it showing preston was involved in the planning if he hadn't been he wouldn't have known what liam meant by this very vague statement i got home just since he was getting ready to run out the door for work and he was like dude i did it the detective catches this and has him confirmed he knew what it meant so that he can't deny being involved in the planning later i choked her out dragged her into the back put her in a bathroom and then i had to go straight to work so preston came over took the body put it in the bushes and then i was at work i had a full like night of work except i left work a couple times which looks sketchy i look for my phone though which is a reasonable like thing to do you gotta look me losing my phone was kind of a good thing because the cops are like oh he's hanging out with her he lost her phone his phone he's going back and forth between his house looking for it and then i get off work that night go straight over preston i go over to her house take her safe bring that over to my house before we do anything then we take [Applause] her body out of the bushes and drag it over to her back fence and i crawl get into her car and i back up she there's a security camera across the street right so i had the back i had to act like her i watched her every time she backed out she does the same thing so i backed out exactly like she did drove off now i put her in the passenger seat of her own car and then preston and i had these watch talkers to communicate with i just used them again so i was driving and i had her buckled in in the passenger right so she looks like she's just sleeping she's just sitting up and my my plan was for me i underestimated my own strength and how much a dead body would weigh because it's limp it's lint weight yeah i got up on top of the bridge to throw her off my my plan was i was gonna throw her off run over jump over the divider and get into preston's car and i go up open the door on her pull her out start dragging her to throw her over and then cars start coming up i see like headlights coming i try to get her over and i can't my leg up like the weight from her body like made me fall and my leg like we not so now i'm limping my legs stuff and there's three cars coming up so i'd grab her body dude i had superhuman strength and i threw it in the car and i picked it up and her feet were up here and her foot with her her head was down there and three cars go by and i'm losing my because that easily could have been a cop yeah and then i mean the police station is like right there yeah yeah and then preston comes over the bridge goes around makes a u-turn comes up behind me the two of us throw the body over and then we we're out oh so you needed help i needed help yeah i pretty much hung her like i just i picked her up and had her just like dangling off the ground and she just pissed herself and you lose control she said my name and then that was it and it took me a half an hour to kill her i thought i was going to be able to choke her out and have her out in like a couple minutes i choked her out and then she was just laying there having a seizure or something so then i just i had to i got a shirt and i just shoved it down her throat so she wouldn't throw up or anything and held my finger over her nose and set a timer that's the only time i had my phone and it took me like a half an hour after i hit start on the timer this this is the thing about like heists there's so much that you can't account for because you don't know yeah you don't know until it happens liam then went to work as though he hadn't just killed one of his closest friends he lightly continued on with his night as normal to have an alibi for at least part of the night and to appear like he wouldn't have had time to commit the crime and move her body preston is describing all of his actions as if liam made him comply there's no mention of liam threatening him or otherwise forcing him to assist in this crime and preston is looking more and more like an accomplice and co-conspirator um did he tell you where her body was there's those uh downstairs okay um and what did he ask you to do you asked me to help him get the her into the car and she drove her car up in france with her and i just came up behind him okay now prior to um you said you got home from work right around the time that he was he was going to going to work right yeah what time do you think that was about four o'clock okay and still do it okay did you go to did he have you go to her house and move her before he got home from work [Music] i see you're shaking your head what does that mean for this okay what did he have to admit mainly he wanted me to look for his phone because he dropped him he dropped his wife his phone his phone okay while he was there and then just so you went over there by yourself yeah okay and when you got to the house was there anybody home no all right so the her and grandma are stopping by later that's why i have to be okay how did you get into the house you left the back door a lot all right do you remember did you drive your car over or another car you drove my car all right where did you park it across the street from holly street there's a garage on the right and there's a little dead end street parked on the dead end and half defensively okay so you didn't pull up in front of your house okay were you by yourself or would agree with somebody else okay preston admitting he parked his car away from sarah's house shows that he knew he was going over there to do more than look for liam's phone and what he was planning to do was something he didn't want anyone to see so you accessed the property from the back okay and you went into the back door there was nobody else home all right and what did you see when you went into the house she i saw her body in the downstairs back uh bathroom okay and can you describe what you saw when you went into that area there just her body just lagged over the tongue was over the toilet yeah okay and what was she wearing uh jeans okay did you see anything unusual about her body did you see anything okay um did you see any blood did you see any bruising any marks or anything on her body she was starting to turn pale and like a whitish purple color but bruises right there okay um and usually you went into the back door did you the bathroom is right right pretty close to that back door just as you going right did you go anywhere else announced oh and upstairs to look for dance phone father where in the house did you go look worst one oh it's um do you did you leave sour in the bathroom or did you do something with her um pulled her out back okay so on the side all right so when how did you carry her did you throw it over your shoulder did you drag her put her up under insulators okay um and you took her out what door okay and when you came out of the back door did you go to the left we're going to go to the right okay so was that towards the driveway or away from the driveway okay for the first time preston seems upset however his reluctance to talk about this is to protect himself not because of what he did to sarah and how far when you came out the back door how far away like away from the door did you go about 15 20 feet coming to the bushes by the back vents okay is there is there a shed there yeah okay the casual way in which preston discusses sarah's dead body is disturbing his tone never changes and he seems completely unbothered it was dark out by the time i got over there got her unstoppable so i was just going down okay um were you able to see or did you need a flashlight or something like that because i don't see okay um so then you you leave um you go back through the backyard to where your car was parked yeah you got back in your car yeah i went back to house you go back to your house and you go back to your parents house that's my ass uh what happens okay um and when you got back there what did you do i sat on touch just wait okay wait for them preston admits that when he got back to the house liam wasn't there and he sat on the couch waiting for him this shows he had ample opportunity to go to the police or to discontinue his involvement but actively chose not to he came home [Music] twice during work the first time he was like did you do it where's my phone like freaking out just like no i did it everyone already phoned this and he just got mad and started back out the door okay and then he stopped back home another time so like ripped apart the house looking for his phone liam left work a few times that night and was caught on cctv as he snuck in and out of the back of the restaurant and then when he came home from work he told me okay follow me and we went over he grabbed the safe put it in my car and then he got sarah's body in the sarah's car took her car had me go meet him like intersect at the bridge okay and but i got up to the bridge she'd already put her over and okay um jumped in my car any jump in your car yeah preston now admits he had the safe they stole from sarah in his car liam obviously trusted him with the money and they are clearly acting in concert and preston not been a willing accomplice liam would have never let him hold the money which was the motive for the killing by saying that liam alone threw sarah over the bridge prior to him getting there preston is trying to make himself not criminally liable for helping liam dump the body the detective looks away and down at the table and puts his hand on his head his body language indicates he knows this part of what preston is saying is untrue when he finally got off to work around nine or whatever time it was and he came home you and him went back to sarah's house yeah right um how did you get to sarah's house that time i drove my car from the same way in the same place okay and did you park your car in front of sarah's house on um uh on her street or behind no departs on that dead ends behind the school property okay and you access your property from the backyard again okay um so you didn't pull up in front of her house parker driveway and walk in no why why didn't you do that just liam [Music] me that there was a camera on the neighbor's house across the street to the right okay knowing about the neighbor's camera shows that they must have been staking out the area around sarah's house and that this was well planned and you said that um when you went back to sarah's house um was sarah still in the bushes okay was there anybody in the house when you guys went back there okay um what is the first thing that you guys did when you got back to her house he went inside to look for his phone again okay and then he went upstairs to get the safe okay where was it safe [Music] did you go with him or not where were you i was outside there okay um where is the dog at this point so okay what does the safe look like because green metal kind of like a coleman camping style how big do you think that they opened up like a laptop okay and um did you need a key to get into it or was there a combination lock it had a key but we busted it up all right how did you bust it open so that my screwdriver at your house you're right sarah says what buried in the shark river park did you bury it or julian barry landon with the money well where's the mine ones and another save that he buried and hearts run apart like sandy hook yeah okay did you go with him to bury him would you be able to show us where that is you know exactly where it's at okay i didn't get a lot of money but i've had enough money to just be like living comfortably in my house tripping throwing parties all the time doing whatever i see your snapchat drinking stirring every dude be careful i don't drink too much no i don't i don't like i don't want you to hurt yourself i'm coming off a bender right now i was just up from everything all kinds of drugs became cocaine adderall whatever be careful shrooms acid you can't do that too much but i told you no it wasn't mine in a mush no it was just a experimental time i've never really done a lot of drugs so i just wanted to try it all out trip a little bit find myself we did it so just stay away from that yeah so no seriously because i don't want you to be stupid after all when you arrive there and you park behind them from sarah's car where was liam he was on the sidewalk [Music] facing the back of the car okay standing there sitting there what was he doing just standing there and then okay and when you pulled up with sarah's still in the car did liam need help did you have the help liam because i know he said that he couldn't drag her he needed help did you have to help him lift her over yeah he had her on the sidewalk and that was just awesome okay how would you mean he had around the sidewalk she was sitting there like half out of the car okay so he was having trouble it looked like right so you helped him lift her and throw her over the bridge okay um was that hard to do physically to get preston changes his story first he claimed liam threw sarah's body in alone but now he admits that he helped notice that preston reenacts a throwing motion with his arms he may not even be aware he did that as people are less likely to lie with their body than their words do you know about what time sarah went over the bridge we know what time we found our car yeah um what's that 10 30 11. okay you you're just kind of guessing based on obviously because it's almost 10 30 just off remembering okay like relative sure um now what did you guys do after that like that night what did you guys do did you guys party did you drink smoke yeah that's the house dragon sweats a little bit okay you crashed it safe and started counting money okay how much money was in the same ten thousand ten thousand yeah all right did you see the money can you describe it to us what does it look like it was a lot of really old people taught up money and you know why it was old and beat up just just sitting in that box and sarah's other house what what uh what were the denominations 2017 um now do you know um did liam tell you where the money can obviously it came sarah found it but did you know where sarah was keeping the money yeah he said the same deposit box okay and what do you tell you about that he said he had no clue how he's gonna get it but he would not really please now um the money there's ten thousand did did uh how much of that money did he give to you three grand okay have you spent the money do you still have it in the house that's about half of them on some really big summer lead um for us he took from me and put it i'm not saying um and so did you and liam went to uh to bury the money together did you would you use the did you use a shovel over you like how did you keep this hole and really doesn't deep at all we're just turning that ass and the safe is in there in the ground there [Music] do you have like a marker or something like how would you know where it's there's i don't know how to describe but there's like courtyards like in these huge mounds of dirt that are like have walls like retaining walls okay and in one of those it's just in the very corner it's like very different it's always very useful to get detailed information about things that only the perpetrator would know it's also very useful for trial to have the money as it was the motive for this crime and introducing the money they stole into evidence will help sway a jury you said there's another safe that's buried in shark river park what safe is that again that was the safe that we got from sarah and that just has a few loose articles of clothing that like they were all like spoiled from from their straggled them okay are they sarah's floating right when you say soil we mean [Music] you said that there was just dust and like lava okay did he tell you that sarah threw up on herself what did he tell you about that yeah i'd describe it too much but he said that like when he did it she just started vomiting and she was doing stuff okay did he change her clothing no i don't think so do you know then the clothing that would be in that safe do you know like it was just like a scarf okay let's show it was right okay the boy's actions of burying her soiled clothes show absolute callousness and also how gruesome the killing was tell us what he told you happened when he strangled her what was what was he doing there with her how did they get there what were they doing beforehand that sort of thing he told me that he was out of her house and i don't know what the scenario was but they were going to leave and she led the way and just grabbed her from behind okay then what did he do when he where she was okay before she went out the door what did he do grabbed her pulled her back and straddled him did he describe it to you did he like tell you what happened you know what part of his body he used to strangle her so that's he told me that and where did he put his hands [Music] um did he do anything else there did you tell you that you assaulted her in any way um liam and and um sarah were friends for a long time right yeah how how i mean how would you describe their relationship uh like really good childhood friends up until high school and then just kind of do this stuff okay um did he ever hook up with her go out with her or anything like that did he ever express an interest in doing that do you know if she liked him like wanted to go out with him or anything like that [Music] so i know you had said that he did this for the money did he think he was gonna get ten thousand dollars five thousand dollars how much money did he think he was gonna get from this all of it what he thought was all those what he described was anywhere from like fifty thousand five thousand dollars um what are the other reasons why he killed sarah a little money is there a thrill involved in it this is something he's always wanted to do [Music] well no no it's just it was for the money yeah okay what did he need the money for i don't know we're just starting to move out and he was getting tired of his job at brandon's so did he owe anybody money okay um was he was he having a problem like what do you have concerns about paying rent like was just like was he worried about money just trying to get a feel for what why not really because he had money in that bank at the time she's like the type of guy that's always down on them like money like doesn't have money borrowing money from people all the time right now so it's always got something on top of it the detective is asking these questions to show how senseless the killing was and that he didn't actually even need money did you know when you went off to work that day or the night before did you know that this was going to happen that he was going to do this did he had he been talking about it had he even the first time he said it was just like like we're with other people and it just seemed like a joke and then it mentioned it again and then it was just that day it's like hey i did it i need your help okay the detective is again trying to show premeditation so that first degree murder can be charged let me ask you this do you remember when when liam laid it out for you that this is what i'm going to do i'm going to go to the bank with sarah i'm going to go back to her house does that do you remember him saying that to you it wasn't until the day of just like yeah so the day that he did it yeah did he tell you beforehand or he told you after that he told me like while i was going on like while he was with sarah she oh she were talking to him i was at work and she had said usually sarah you think so this might be his chance okay did you ask him any questions about her no did you know what he was referring to yeah the detective has built a very strong case against preston by asking him specific questions concerning his knowledge of the crime notice the extensive pause preston takes before answering this question if you were it's okay [Music] the detective tells him if he supported liam's actions it's okay as he can see preston is having a hard time admitting he was okay with it preston just says it happened that's contradictory to all his previous statements that show this had been discussed and planned for months when liam came home from work that night how did he look to you was he he was sober right yeah was he up drunk high you know he was completely sober was that he was completely sober just really proud of him okay um so do you think during the day like he was sober when he did this and just went to work and came home and then that's when you guys started partying and hanging out your brothers smoke a little bit during the day but he seemed fine to you when yeah when he was coming home from work to check look for his phone he seemed okay to you yeah okay this line of questioning is meant to defend against any diminished capacity defense liam could possibly try to raise a trial there was a lot of search efforts that were made to find sarah um one there was the community came together and put together a big work organized search did you participate in that okay did liam participate in that okay um and what's the reason why what did liam tell you about why you guys did that and so just look good to anyone who's got their eyes on liam said that to you yeah did you agree with him yeah okay um and what did you guys do we went to the search party when it started and we got split off into a group we started walking down the beach the detective is getting preston to admit to a lot of compelling evidence and their state of mind during and after the crime this will be very useful for the jury to hear it shows they had no remorse for what they did after the fact and were able to put on an act in front of their family has liam ever done this to anybody else no um is he upset about what happened what's his overall aspect about what he did anything with him okay um is he sad is he depressed is he getting counseling therapy they just quit his job afterwards and it's just been hanging out whole body okay um how do you feel about everything that happened to sarah [Music] you upset about it yeah do you think about it [Music] because it's been weighing on you yeah i know this isn't easy for you right now what do you think about [Music] i think about what it means for me if i knew anyway didn't come back to us did you think it was going to liam did a pretty good job of convincing me that she'd covered everything up [Music] has he spoken to you about it i i don't think obviously you guys talk about it every day but does he tell you that he's upset about it does he tell you that he regrets it does he say anything like that yeah saying things have you noticed the change in his demeanor or his attitude i mean it's where is he just going along with his life like normal what's going on with the light bulb but it's definitely just got like i don't know more you know working ego yeah it's really well noticed okay the detective is trying to see if preston has the capacity to show any emotion or remorse for what he and liam did he has shown almost no affect whatsoever during this interrogation preston only discusses his concern about getting caught and is solely focused on how this crime could possibly impact him he doesn't even mention sarah or family preston displays the traits of a narcissist and possibly a sociopath having more of an ego since the murder but otherwise acting normally indicates that liam is likely a psychopath and definitely a narcissist liam being arrogant about this crime is a sure sign of a serious personality defect i've done acid once and i had a bad yeah don't don't i'm like oh man i did acid and the cops came and took preston to interrogate him oh so you weren't asking i was on acid and first of all i come out of the shower preston's mom's on the couch talking to him they're all like secretive and i just go in my room i'm freaking out like what the is she doing over here she leaves next thing i know the entire belmar police force is at my door taking preston away like i thought they were arresting him they were gonna get he was gonna tell them everything right you didn't say he didn't say anything you know i was losing my sh when i was tripping i'm like that's not a good that's an example you gotta stay away from that yeah where was liam's phone he said he lost his phone where was that phone he said about triathlon did he find it or somebody found it he said he found him on travel um now did he when did when do you know when no mahoney said he found it in the driveway it was the next morning okay and we'd say mahoney the detective from del mar yeah um hang tight here we're just going to take a quick break make sure we don't have any other questions for you okay you want a water [Music] [Applause] [Music] preston puts his head in his hands and leans down on his knees which shows a sign of resignation and exhaustion suspects will often cry or show emotion once left alone in the interrogation room preston still shows almost no emotion and appears pensive and almost looks bored preston begins drumming his hands on the back of the chair [Music] this may be a sign of stress and self-soothing but comes across as very strange after he just confessed to conspiring to rob and kill his friend and helping to dispose of her body he begins to loudly bang out a song with his hands on the chair legs for the next few minutes it's rather eerie to watch i just have a couple more questions for you and we'll be all finished up okay um just brought some [Applause] some maps in here where where looking at this aerial photograph can you circle the area for a circle around the area where the bushes are that you drag sarah to okay um and can you just bring sarah next there [Music] okay and that's where that's that's where you you moved her to she [Music] you just put your signature on the back of that for me please and i'll just put today's date on there as well the detectives returned with maps and photographs to solidify the statements he gave this is the final stage of the read technique having the suspect point to maps or sketches of the scene and returning the suspect back to the scene or reenact the crime are commonly used at this confession stage it's vitally important to back up the truthfulness of the confession with independent corroborating evidence such as disclosing key facts of the crime which would only be known to the perpetrator and investigators or turning over critically implicating evidence well we're hoping that you're going to be able to take us to show us these locations would you be agreeable to that if we put you in a car would you take us take us just to these spots so we're not having to go out and look yeah all right um and obviously this what we're doing here preston is obviously we want to be able to give the family some closure um sarah's family is devastated by her loss obviously um you know i'm sure you can understand that yeah so everything and anything that we can do for them is is important how are you communicating um with liam were you guys communicating on the phone are you guys communicating by like radio or portable radios what were you guys using you to our contacts what's that you bought walkie talkies okay and what do those lucky companies look like uh okay where are they yes one of them was still in my car okay so one's in your car yeah and where's the one that he has and then somewhere in the house okay do you know what brand they are oh and where do you buy them well uh okay did he buy them specifically for this oh someone said okay did he tell you that he's saying i bought these walkie-talkies so we can talk when we when i do this or no he came into walkie-talkie like when we were going over the branches yeah i don't know not using phones [Music] okay so did he give you the walkie-talkie before you left sarah's house yeah okay um and did you guys use them yeah okay what kind of things were you guys communicating about they just said i'm coming up on the bridge and i said okay i'm coming up behind you and it's like all right hurry up because i'm not because i can't get this over myself and i pulled up this is another compelling piece of evidence that goes towards premeditation and the depth of planning that went into this crime the detective confirms that liam bought these specifically for this crime this also indicates that liam may have intentionally left his phone or was planning to leave it at home so his whereabouts aren't trackable when you spoke to liam and liam told you that he was with sarah and that today may be the day that he was going to do it however he explained expressed that to you um how did he tell that to you did he tell that to you on the phone your text message is on snapchat on snapchat yeah okay [Music] okay now does liam communicate on snapchat a lot [Music] not as much as just regular contacts all right what's his snapchat name um leon contestants something okay does he have one encounter he's getting more than one account that he says this is relevant as snapchat messages disappear after a brief amount of time the detective asks if liam normally uses snapchat to communicate to try to show that he purposely used it in this instance because it would disappear quickly and isn't stored like a message i know reading miranda writes everything that'll mean i'm under arrest once um so there's no your situation right now is there's no there's no complaints filed against you right now um after we're done talking to you um basically what happens is we make it we'll have to consult with our supervisors and we'll have to come to a decision from a legal perspective an assistant prosecutor would make a decision as to what charges would be filed against you okay um you've been today um we appreciate that preston i know this wasn't easy for you to do um i think you i think you understand that um what you did today was um a very positive thing um not only for yourself because you've been carrying this burden and you've been walking around every day since this happened with this weight on your shoulders um i look at you today and i remember seeing you on december 7th when i spoke to you you look like a different person i would imagine you have some relief i can't imagine what it must feel like every single day waking up in the morning um especially knowing that you have a sister um looking at yourself in the mirror every day i'm sure was not an easy thing for you to do am i right yeah um i can tell you um i think you did the right thing here um i feel like you wanted to do the right thing in december when we spoke to you i remember looking at you i remember how upset you were that night [Music] right um i i think they're you're a young guy man you're 19 years old i think you have you have many years ahead and you have a long life value and i think um i think by doing this you're able to put yourself in a position where you can you'll be able to move on i hope you feel that way um we appreciate it as i said to you earlier that your cooperation and um you know from like when we saw you the first earlier today until we brought you down here um you've been nothing but respectful and cooperative and we appreciate that it was the same thing when we spoke to you out um out in del mar [Music] all right the detective knows he has enough to arrest preston at this point but wants him to cooperate and take them to the crime scene so he makes it seem like this decision has not been made yet the reality is that his arrest is not a question of if but when the detective is trying to elicit emotion from preston by mentioning his sister and how much of a burden this must have been for him to carry around preston has given them a solid case but he may be needed to prove the case against liam his cooperation could benefit him if he will testify for the state if the state needs an accomplice to convict the main actor they will often give them a lighter sentence in exchange for their testimony in court would you be able to bring us to where sarah's body is present i don't know where her body is but you're in the safes yeah yeah and you already explained to us where you she was thrown over the bridge yeah all right we appreciate that um let me just go uh get our cars ready we'll uh we'll take a ride okay all right thank you very much i appreciate it [Applause] [Music] when the detectives leave preston finally shows some emotion and cries momentarily this appears to be out of stress and because he knows he will likely be arrested since he already asked about that preston never says anything about regretting what he did or express any kind of remorse it's disturbing that he could do this to a childhood friend and a person he took to prom over some money he had ample opportunity to report liam as well as the opportunity to discontinue his involvement preston made decision after decision to continue with the crime liam is the mastermind behind this but preston was intricately involved it seems unlikely preston would have done something like this without liam whereas liam seems like he would have done this no matter who was or wasn't involved following the interrogation the detectives take preston to exactly where he and liam threw sarah's body off the bridge and into the river note the eerie and emotionless way preston reenacts how he helped liam lift her body and throw it even miming the motion with his hands my name is detective brian weisbrot with the mama county prosecutor's office i'm currently located in my county issued vehicle parked behind the neptune city police department uh present in the car is detective nicholas catalona the mama county prosecutor's office forensic and technical services bureau along with preston taylor and preston taylor's attorney john perrone uh what was the purpose of traveling to the bridge to dispose of sarah's body throwing it off of the bridge into the marina and what was your route of travel from sarah's house to the route 35 bridge i made the right off of midwood street onto steiner straight to the intersection on 35 and made a left and continued straight to the belmont bridge okay and um are you aware if liam traveled to the route 35 bridge on the same route that you took no he took another roundabout way to avoid being seen on any storefront cameras along 35. okay preston we are currently approaching the base of the route 35 bridge on the neptune south township side can you please uh identify the location where liam had parked sarah stern's vehicle on december 2nd 2016. [Music] yeah right over here now i'm pulling my vehicle off to the shoulder of the roadway liam had lifted sarah's body by the shoulders and gotten her partially up onto the curb where i then grabbed her by the legs he hold on what is this okay you can continue what we're saying liam had her liam had her by the shoulders and hoisted her up onto the railing and then i pushed her feet over so she was going over the rest of the way are you confident that her body went over the bridge prior to getting to this equipment yes you remember seeing this equipment yes okay specifically that like cone-shaped radar piece right there about a week and a half later the police then take preston to sarah's house to do a walk-through so that he could show them what he did the first time he arrived at her house to move her body and look for liam's phone uh we're along the back fence and i had parked my car just right over here and topped the fence right here okay i was informed beforehand that the back door would be left unlocked and who told you that william okay and i answered when i answered when you entered were the lights on in the house were they off the lights back here were off but the kitchen and the living room lights were on okay and this door was closed this one i couldn't get open but i was able to push this one open enter and [Music] sarah was slumped in this corner right here okay um and again behind this door preston you said no there's these two bifold doors here the door to the left was in what position it was closed okay and did you try to open it i tried to was only able to get it about that far and realized that she was behind the door okay and how about the right door were you able to open that fully yes okay and uh where how was sarah's body positioned in this bathroom she was sitting like this tucked into the corner and leaning over the toilet okay and her feet were where sticking out into the room my first reaction i left her and i went to go throughout the house and look for the miami's phone okay if you can take us to where you are you walk through here up these these stairs correct okay i continued this way the dog was in its canal as it is right now where was the dog's kennel at the time right there and at first i just looked in this general vicinity i looked under the couch what are you looking for when you're in here liam's phone okay uh when you were in this room did you take note of anything that i was out of the ordinary or in disarray no okay i mean there were boxes like this not these same ones but okay there's similar clutter okay and then from there i looked up here open the closet to see if it had slipped under the door closed it and i continued upstairs and into sarah's room where i searched just on the floor and on top of everything here on the bed and amongst all the clutter on this half of the room and i didn't see the phone anywhere so i went back down to where sarah was okay um prior to coming here did liam or anyone else tell you where you would find sarah liam told me that she would be downstairs by the back okay and did he specifically say where downstairs by the back he didn't but okay i didn't take much looking to find her okay and then once i got back down here i picked her up under the shoulders and hoisted her up and i dragged her backwards out this door she was been facing away and i had my arms under her shoulders like this okay i'll show her feet dragging on the ground yeah okay and then i carried her over here dragged her over here and kind of sat under the bushes right here these are the bushes that you place sarah in okay how did you position her when you brought her out here she was just laying on your side like this which direction was her face facing outward okay and with her feet down here and her head up here okay so her head was up here and and her face was facing detective catalonia yeah okay and then from there i jumped the fence where i had entered okay if you could take us back to that area jumps back over the fence i got in my car turned around and went out that way immediately after preston then did a second walk through to reenact what happened when he and liam returned together after liam finished work i waited right here where i can see the car plus what's going on with the lights in the house and what was the purpose of you being here the second time just to keep watch and make sure everything went smooth okay and now why did liam come back here with you what was your purpose in being here to move sarah's body too okay um you're during your second trip did you go inside of sarah's house no and um did liam go inside the house liam went inside the house to get the safe and he went out front and got in sarah's car okay and did liam tell you he was gonna get the safe yeah okay did he tell you where he he uh he was going to get the safe where it was located no okay um so liam went inside the house did he get the safe yes okay what door did he go inside the house and he entered through this back door okay and did you see him come out of the house with the safe yeah okay what door did he come out of with the safe the front door okay and what did he do with the safe when he came out of the house he came out the back door not the front door okay and he gave me the safe okay and i put the safe back over by where we jumped the fence okay so you walk the safe back over there yes and we came over here to where sarah was left right under these bushes here we pulled her out and he picked her up to start dragging her i grabbed her legs and got her over to the fence okay so you have you're carrying sarah by her legs or her legs dragging on the ground or are they up in the air i was like holding them up in there and what part of sarah's body was liam holder her torso okay and [Applause] she carried her over to this fence near the safe was hoisted her up and over through the safe over the two of us jumped over and i got in my vehicle and liam got in sarah's vehicle okay and um when you say you hoisted sarah over can you just explain how you did that and what what happened when you hoisted her over this fence liam jumped over the fence first i lifted her up he grabbed her by the torso from the other side of the fence and pulled her over as i lifted her legs up so did you help him put sarah in the car i helped him keep her and while i got the door closed yeah okay um and how was she positioned in the car sitting upright okay um did she have a seat belt on no okay um if somebody were driving down the road and looking into that car what would they what would they see they would have seen liam driving a car and sarah assuming that she was asleep asleep in the passenger seat okay sarah's body has never been found see your life you might as well make it one what are you gonna live some boring ass life i don't feel any different than i don't think about it you always think you're going to try these new things and you're going to change it didn't change it just doesn't do anything like tonight we were going to potentially kill a bunch of people and get a bunch of drugs and money and nothing it's weird bro it's good seeing you brother when i come back down let's do something it's listen look at me be safe all right yeah don't do anything stupid listen i'm not gonna let preston do anything them i did something really dumb and i planned it out for half a year i i have patience i got it just talking anymore good talk take it easy bro safe travel you got everything yeah all right peace out thought i had everything oh there there you go all right all right bro [Music] liam mkhitazi was charged with first-degree murder first-degree felony murder first-degree robbery second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery second-degree disturbing or desecrating human remains and second-degree hindering apprehension liam's attorney tried to have the secret recording where he confesses excluded from evidence at the trial they argued that the friend who made the recording was acting as an agent of the police and if you'll remember liam was represented by an attorney at the time so therefore he should not have been questioned about sarah the video was still shown in court preston took a plea bargain and agreed to testify against liam he said that liam claims sarah had the type of money somebody would kill for and that he originally planned to get her drunk and take the money during his own trial preston apologized for his part in sarah's death though he addressed his statement to mr stern and all those who had the blessing of knowing sarah sarah's father didn't want to hear anything preston had to say as he spoke michael walked out of the courtroom with his girlfriend christine eckert preston also apologized to sarah and called her a very beautiful young woman who didn't in any way deserve the end you met her father only returned once preston was done talking in 2019 preston taylor was sentenced to 18 years in prison he must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence about 15 years before he can be considered for parole also in 2019 then 21 year old liam mkhitazini was convicted of sarah's first degree murder conspiracy tampering with evidence and sentenced to life in prison without parole he also received an additional 10-year sentence for the desecration of human remains that will run consecutively to his life sentence he will never get out of prison

Channel: EXPLORE WITH US

Views: 12,608,059

Keywords: documentary, true crime documentary, psychology, law

Id: VIJScR3B2ws

Length: 187min 11sec (11231 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2022