Sarah Stern, 19, disappeared in early December 2016 from Neptune City, New Jersey. Her 1994 Oldsmobile was found abandoned with the keys in the ignition on the Route 35 bridge between Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea, which initially prompted investigators to consider suicide. Friends and family said personal items that she would have taken if she had run away, including her passport and money, were left at home.

Investigators later treated the case as a homicide. Evidence presented in the investigation and later legal proceedings placed two childhood friends, Liam McAtasney and Preston Taylor, at the center of the crime. According to a recorded confession by McAtasney and Taylor’s statements, McAtasney strangled Stern at her home on December 2, 2016; Taylor helped hide her body temporarily and then, the two placed her body in her car and threw it into the Shark River to stage a suicide. The robbery they sought reportedly produced far less money than expected.

McAtasney was convicted at trial; Taylor pleaded guilty to robbery and desecration of human remains and agreed to testify. Stern’s body has not been recovered, and her family has not had a burial. Does anyone have information about Sarah’s last known movements or the Route 35 bridge on that December day?