Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: 19-year-old artistic beauty disappears after car found abandoned on bridge. What happened to Sarah Stern? (Part 3)

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

19-year-old Sarah Stern, a New Jersey woman disappears. Police find her abandoned car on a bridge with the keys inside. Did she jump off the bridge, committing suicide? Was she kidnapped? Today we delve into the investigation itself. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. The disappearance of a gorgeous teen girl, Sarah Stern. Her car found abandoned late at night on a remote bridge in New Jersey. With us, Sarah's dad, Michael Stern. Local reporter on the story from the get-go, Alex Napoliello. Lead detective on the case, Brian Weisbrot.

Also with us, renowned Hollywood psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany Marshall. Last week, we ended with police body cam footage as they searched the area and Sarah's home, looking desperately for clues. What they find is even more of a puzzle. When put together, could it lead to multiple possibilities? Did she jump from the side of that bridge? Did she run away? Or was there foul play? And if so, where's Sarah's body? As investigators go on to sift through the clues, the town gathers to search for Sarah, a popular, beautiful, happy-go-lucky member of their very tight-knit community. Let's pick up the story.

This is a small town. Word travels fast. The cops know, obviously, a lot of people in this small town. They have a car parked on a bridge, and they quickly find out it's normally driven by a 19-year-old by the name of Sarah Stern. Phone rang around three o'clock in the morning. He said, do you know anything about the car, you know, Greg Oldsmobile? And I said, yeah, my daughter drives that car. Nancy Grace, killers amongst us. A million things go through your mind.

You were in Florida. Yeah. You drove from Florida back to New Jersey. At 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, there's no traffic, so you can drive pretty quick. Sarah Stern was very well-known to the community due to the fact that her family was very well-known. Sarah was a kid that everybody knew. She was always around.

Kind of threw everybody off with that car just being left at the top of that bridge with absolutely no good rhyme or reason as to why. No one knew where Sarah was and they didn't know why they couldn't get in touch with her. She was attached to her phone, like most 19-year-olds are, and there would be no reason for why her phone was off and she wasn't taking calls, taking text messages on a Friday night. No answer on her phone. Police then immediately start investigating, and this becomes not just an abandoned car on a bridge, but a missing person. There's this 19-year-old girl who has gone off the grid and no one knows why.

Where is Sarah Stern, a gorgeous 19-year-old girl? Oh, if you could see her, you'd know what I mean. Beautiful, long, dark, silky hair, big, big brown eyes, a perfect smile. Everybody's sweetheart. She's an athlete. She's an artist. She's a photographer. She makes good grades. She's the apple of her dad's eye. She lived through the death of her mom who battled cancer just to stay here on earth with her. Sarah Stern goes missing. Her car found an obscure bridge early, early morning hours like 3 a.m. Why? Dad, Michael Stern, on a Florida vacation, just one week he's gone and he gets this call. Your daughter's car has been found abandoned.

He gets in the car at 3 a.m. and starts the drive back to the little shore town in New Jersey. You just heard our friend Amy Robach at 20-20 describing the call. Sarah's dad gets in the middle of the night. Well, once they determine that she is not in that car and there's no trace of her on the bridge, they go straight to her home. Listen. There's a teenager that's supposed to be driving. It's parked on top of that bridge.

We're getting no answer at the house. I have an open door at the house. I might go inside and make sure everything's kosher here. I want to make sure we don't have a jumper. It's down to yourself real well. Hello? Hello? Police go to her house. The back door is open and the lights are on and there is no sign of Sarah. Hello? That is actual body cam footage of cops entering Sarah's home.

Also, our friend Amy Robach. With me now, Sarah's father, Michael Stern, along with the crime and court reporter from NewJersey.com and Star-Ledger, Alex Napoliello, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst from L.A. You can find her at DrBethanymarshall.com. And Detective Brian Weisbrot from Mammoth County Prosecutor's Office. To Sarah's dad, Michael, I want to hear through your eyes a description of the home. Because I hear the cops rushing in and yes, cops sound rough and tumble like they're

ready to take you down and taser you at the first glance. And there's a reason for that. For all they know, Sarah is in the home being held by kidnappers that are armed. They never know what they're going to encounter when they go into a home like that. But when I think of cops breaking down the door of our home with the twins inside, it's a whole different can of worms. So tell me about your home, Michael. Tell me about where they thought Sarah may be. Well, that was the thing. They were looking for Sarah.

Nobody seemed to know where she was. So that was the biggest problem. Nobody knew, you know, whether she was with somebody or, you know, where she went or what happened or why the car was up on the bridge. There was no answers. two-story when you walk in the front door is it wooden is it a slate is it brick is it tabby what is it what did cops encounter when they went in is there a front porch is there a driveway tell me about it is it a condo is an apartment a single family house split level you walk in living room dining room kitchen tv, and bedrooms upstairs. That's basically it. Standard 1950s house. I've looked at video of inside your home, and everything is perfectly in order.

And I'm just imagining the cops going in there. Now, this is one thing that really stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The only thing home is her dog Buddy who she loved more than anything who normally has his run of the house and now when they went to go look for her he was locked in his crate. But the dog's in a cage, so... Somebody put the dog in a cage. Hello? Police department.

She had so much love in her heart for her friends and her family and her dog Buddy. She loved that dog more than anybody I've ever known to love an animal before. Well, I guess Neptune's gonna have to figure out what their mindset of this kid is. You don't see dog treats anywhere, do you? All right, right there. Huh? Maybe. I'm looking for the doggie. We got a good doggie. A little treat for the doggie. All right, let me call Neptune. I don't know what we found. Hey, we went through the whole house.

There is nobody home. Our friend Amy Robach at 20-20 joining me right now. Alex Napoliello joining us. Alex, describe the neighborhood for me. And I'll tell you why that one fact about Buddy is driving me crazy. We have a cat, a dog, and two guinea pigs. The guinea pigs stay in their luxury cage in my daughter and son's room. The dog, when he's in the house, is either with us or he's in a crate because he will TT. The cat has the run of the house except where the guineas are because she will eat them. So if someone came in our home and they found the cat and the dog in the crate, locked up, and us gone, and our car off parked somewhere else you'd know something was very

very wrong so let me just start with the home and the dog alex tell me about the home yeah the home is located in neptune city uh neptune city is a tight-knit community where everyone knows each other's names. It's nestled in between Belmar and Asbury Park. It's just a couple miles north. And most people, when they hear the name Asbury Park, they think Bruce Springsteen. So this is a place that people know, they're familiar with. You could drive, you know, five, ten minutes, and you'll drive through several different beach towns if you start from Belmar and head to Asbury,

and Neptune City is one of these towns. So Sarah's dog, Buddy, she loved Buddy. People who knew Sarah automatically knew that she would have Buddy by her side a lot. She used to take him for walks on the beach in Bradley. So the two were a familiar sight in town. You know, to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us, Dr. Bethany, this is always, I remember when I would walk into any crime scene, and there have been thousands of them now, and sometimes, and it's not always the case, as you can imagine, I walk into the scene,

and it strikes me how lovely the home is, and I don't mean expensive or a mansion. I mean, you smell good smells there, like something was just cooked and the beds are made and there are pictures of the family sitting out and you see evidence of a happy home where you feel like you could just walk in and sit down at the supper table and be welcomed. Yet, you know that something is wrong. And the dichotomy is something that was always very jarring to me on crime scenes. Well, when you say that something's wrong, I mean, what's wrong to me is that the dog is in the cage and a 19 year old is missing. And we all have that sixth sense. We have what I would say right brain thinking. Right brain thinking is when you use your gut, you use your instinct to survey a room. And it's the kind of thinking that's outside the world of symbolism, meaning speech. It's in the world of feelings.

It's in the world of emotions. And I can imagine, I'm not a detective, but a detective, and especially a father with the father's instinct, would walk into a room like that and know immediately that something is amiss. Joining me right now from Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, Detective Brian Weisbrot. Detective Weisbrot, thank you for being with us. You know, why is it, Detective, and I don't know if you've seen this over the years you've been a detective, and that's no easy position to obtain. Typically, you have to go through years and years of beating the streets as a beat cop, and then you move up, then you move up, and finally you hit the big time with Detective. It always seemed to me that it's just at the exact moment when you don't want something to happen, that's when it happens.

For instance, the dad, Michael Stern, who is with us right now, he finally takes a vacation. He's gone one week, and Sarah goes missing. Is it that way across the boards? It's always at a time, seemingly, when you feel helpless and there's nobody to give you any answers, and you're just out there trying to figure it out. Yeah, that's absolutely the case.

We certainly would have been in a different position had Mr. Stern been home, because he likely would have been in a different position had Mr. Stern been home because he likely would have been able to provide us with information as to where Sarah was earlier in the day, who she had plans to be with. We did have Sarah's friend across the street that had an opportunity to see her and some of the folks at the bank in the area that saw her. To Michael Stern, this is Sarah's dad, tell me about Buddy and why it was just so bizarre that Sarah would ever leave, because what struck me, and nobody had to tell me this, Michael,

I saw that there was a cookie jar, like a human cookie jar, a ceramic cookie jar. I have one, and it's a bewitched with bewitched on top and um she they look in the cookie jar the cops do on the body cam and they take out doggy gourmet doggy treats and they give it to buddy who's locked in a cage and it struck me she's got these gourmet doggy treats and a ceramic cookie jar for people and they're right there by the dog nobody would go to all that trouble to take care of a dog that well and leave it locked up tell me about buddy michael well buddy was the you know family pet he was uh 10 years old at the time but his american foxhound weighed about 100 pounds and sarah's best friend, and Sarah considered Buddy, you know, her brother.

And, you know, he just, you know, they loved each other, and, you know, Sarah just had a good time with Buddy, dressed him up for Halloween and take him for long walks, as was indicated earlier. And everybody kind of knew her, you know, from around town. She sometimes walked the dog, you know, for an hour, hour and a half, from Neptune City all the way down to the beach, which is, I guess, about a mile and a half,

and then walked along the beach. So a lot of people knew her. And she also worked as a gatekeeper in Bradley Beach, you know, for badge checking and you know that previous summer so a lot of people knew her from there too so yeah she was no longer wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute she worked with the public at the beach uh-oh right there okay I'm going to come back to to buddy the dog detective Weisbro there. You know, when you have a young woman that's working with the public, for instance, at a restaurant, at a coffee shop, in a mall, at a beach,

they come in contact with so many people. Detective, it's my experience, and I think generally, you start in a small nucleus, like you look at the family you look at the next door neighbor you look at the boyfriend the ex-boyfriend and you start moving out but when you have the victim the missing person in a milieu where there's thousands and thousands of people that she could come in contact that may have gotten a crush on her that may have been obsessed with her you got you're like looking for a needle in a haystack then, Detective. Yeah, absolutely. We didn't know what we were actually facing at the time that Sarah was reported missing.

We didn't know, you know, we didn't know if she had left voluntarily. We didn't know if there was any foul play involved. We were certainly searching for any small pieces of information that we could get to help lead us. Oh, man. Detective Weisbrot, you got your work cut out for you here. Because what Michael just told me changed the complexion of the investigation completely. I mean, Dr. Bethany Marshall, you don't have to be fantastically beautiful. You don't have to be special.

Unlike this girl who is special, who is beautiful for some nut to get a crush on you, to put it mildly, and follow you around. You may not even know they're there. I didn't realize she worked at the beach. She was probably wearing either a swimsuit or a pair of shorts or a lifeguard outfit, something like that. Working at the beach, this beautiful girl, seeing every single person that came in the gate. Oh no, no, no. That changes things, Bethany. Well, Nancy, absolutely, because if somebody saw her in public and started to stalk her, they are not necessarily going to have her email address or her phone or any kind of a device where you could track that person, so they could stalk her in secret. Stalking is one of the most serious disorders.

In my field, we consider it an incurable disorder. And when somebody, a stalker, develops a fixation on a young woman like Sarah Stern, the desire to stalk never goes away. It can go on for weeks, months, years, and to develop into such an extreme obsession that they want to completely control her. And you and I have talked about this many times, but the psychology of stalking is that the stalker feels that he has a unique and special relationship with the victim, even when there's no evidence to support that. And then he goes after the victim to punish her for perceived rejection so if she's out there in a swimsuit shorts as beautiful as she was and somebody was stalking her that really makes her a prime target and you know michael stern you know i have twins john david and lucy i don't want lucy to feel like she can't go to the beach and wear her swimsuit or her shorts when we're outside

and we say that as if somehow it's the girl's fault it's not the girl's fault and you know Sarah just seems like a happy-go-lucky person did you share the home with her that was you two live there correct correct when you heard cops had made it to the home and she wasn't there, what went through your mind? Well, you know, at the time we were driving, so we're in communication with the police department and the Neptune City and Belmar, trying to put things together to try to find out where Sarah was. Of course, early in the morning, not so easy to get information, but by 5 o'clock, you know, people were up and, you know, things were happening. And, you know, we just, you know, try to piece things together.

I'm trying to imagine that drive, Michael. Guys, with me, Sarah's dad, Michael Stern, her only parent since her mom passed away after a battle with cancer, a fierce battle with cancer. I'm trying to think about you in the car. It's 3 a.m. in the morning. It's dark, pitch dark outside. You don't say, well, she'll turn up. Call me in the morning. Oh, no, no, no, no. You get in the car and you put the pedal to the metal and start driving Florida to New Jersey. You say you're in constant contact with the police. They tell you the car's on the bridge. You know that's not right. So, Michael, when you get back home, you drive all night, you get there. What was your first thought? Do you remember walking into the home? Walked into the home and took a look around, looked up in Sarah's room,

and she hadn't even finished unpacking from the Florida trip the week before when she came back. One of her suitcases still had most of the stuff in it, and it was still on the floor in her bedroom. Next thing, we just took a look around outside and they went wait a minute so she had not even unpacked her bags what else did you notice if anything um well it just you know her room just seemed pretty normal a little messy you know typical of a teenage girl's room but other than that it it just didn't look like anything was really, you know, that anything had happened up in the room. It just looked kind of normal.

And, you know, the rest of the house, nothing seemed out of place. That was my next question. Did it look like it had been ransacked or untidy or anything broken? Nope. Not that, you know, not that I could see. And then I looked around the yard the backyard same thing in the uh um you know couldn't really see much it was uh i guess let's see it was about 7 30 at night when we got home saturday night and uh just briefly looked

around and that was uh that's about all we do. And you're still making phone calls and, you know, trying to put things together. Yeah. But in the house, there's no scuffs on the wall. Nothing's broken. Nothing's out of place. No rugs all bunched up like something had been dragged or a tussle had taken place. Nothing at all. Nope. Nothing at all. What did it feel like when you went in?

When I come home and the house is quiet, that is an eerie feeling to me. I don't know that I'm ever at the house without everybody else there. We travel as a pack. So when you walk in and nobody's there, how did that strike you? Well, the only one that was here was actually the dog Buddy, and he just seemed a little out of place. You know, somebody had come over and let him out, stuff like that. Neighbors, you know, took care of him, you know,

for the morning and the afternoon until we got back. So, you know, the dogs seem normal too, but, you know, they don't talk. And I just, you know, I don't know. Let me ask you this. Detective Brian Weisbrot joining me from Monmouth County. Was the door to the Stern home locked or unlocked uh the uh the front door was unlocked the officers were able to uh get into the home from the other front door is that normal michael that your front door would be unlocked um no not if nobody was home the door would normally be

locked huh and if sarah went out she would turn the lights out. She would only leave a light on in the living room, in the front entrance, or maybe the porch light. But she wouldn't leave any other lights on in the house, turn them off. That's interesting. Detective Weisbrot, were the lights on or off in the home? Primarily all the lights were on. So from looking at the home from the street, you would think there would be a house full of people inside. Okay, right there, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining from LA. We've discussed this over and over and over, particularly in the case of Adnan Syed. Routine evidence. If someone came to our place and the doors were not locked, you would know

something was very wrong. It's like pulling up to your home and you see the front door wide open. Okay, that's not right. You know immediately. I even have certain lights that I always leave on and certain lights that are always turned off. So for Michael to get home or the detectives to get there and the front door is unlocked and all the lights are on you know that's not the way sarah would leave it and i would have defense attorneys argue with me that means nothing it means something to me bethany are we really

creatures of habit nancy the reason it was unusual that the detectives showed up, the door was unlocked, the lights were on, everything was not in its normal, part of a normal routine is extremely important because patterns and rituals are very important to human beings. So in my private practice, I always know which patients are going to show up five minutes early or seven minutes late. Who's going to turn on my waiting room light? Who's going to forget to do it? Who's going to spill coffee on my sofa? They do the same thing week after week. When I come home at night, I know if my husband will be here or not. If he's here, I know what lights will be on. Our rituals are grounding to us. They make us feel secure. So we human beings do not change our rituals because we need them to feel regulated. It's not just that Sarah's trying to keep her dad happy by turning off the lights. That's not what it's about. It's that she needs it for a sense of safety and security in the world. So of course, it's unusual that everything is not in its normal

order. You know, I think I take it over the top, Bethany. I like to have everything, of course, with this many animals and my mother and my husband and the children. There's never anything really in place, but it makes me feel comforted to go about a routine. I do this and I do that and I do this and I do that. And Sarah always left the home a certain way. That was her routine. Was there any kind of a note or a message Sarahah had left you michael no no notes no messages nothing would that was that like her no she usually wouldn't leave any notes she would just

call or send a text that she was going out or you know she'd be back or where she was going but you know since i wasn't there it wasn't necessary for her to let me know she was going to be home because you know we figured she would you figured she was just doing her normal thing. Friday night, sometimes she'd go out with some of her friends and they'd go for appetizers or Applebee's or they might just go down and have pizza or meet someplace, you know, and just have something to eat. And then, you know, she wasn't a late-night person. Once in a while, maybe 1 o'clock in the morning, 12, 30, 1 o'clock. But normally by midnight she was back home. When did they tell you they have gone through the home, she's not there,

and Buddy's in the crate locked up uh that was sometime early morning and you know i i knew what you know the police officers that had gone to the home so you know they were asking me questions and they just you know when they started telling me things like buddy was in his uh you know in his cage which is know, he just wasn't in there very much in the last three or four years because he calmed down, you know, when he's puppy, he was, you know, very curious, ready to run out and take off. The dog could sprint, you know, probably a mile in a minute. But, you know, as he got older, he was more docile and just friendly and curious. And he wasn't't you just didn't put him in

the uh he just wouldn't be in the cage for any reason even yeah i had read or someone told me that buddy had the run of the house so for him to be in the crate was unusual when would he be in the crate when would she put him in the crate only if there was uh maybe a lot of people in the house or you know there was you know things going in if there was maybe a lot of people in the house or, you know, there was, you know, things going in and out, you know, a lot of movement. But in the last couple of years, very rarely. I mean, you know, he just didn't, you know, he didn't have the desire. He would go outside, he'd walk out in the front yard, walk around and then come back in. He wasn't, you know, he just wasn't in the sprint mode for the last few years and he just didn't need to be in the in the crate so if somebody came over that was you know maybe he was uh you know wanting to get

more friendly with and sniff around and you know kind of get some feedback from them you know we might put them in there just to keep them you know just from you know yeah we we hardly ever have ours in there and i'll tell you why we have it all set up uh with pillows and a blanket he likes his crate but he likes being out more so i understood that buddy had the run of the house and had only been the crate like you're telling me on very rare occasions so it wasn't like sarah to put him in there and leave him nope absolutely not she just wouldn't have done that do you remember that moment when you're in the car and the pitch black outside and they tell you we're at the house and she's not here what happened well it was you know

that's you just i don't know you just go through this uh you know, the thing in your mind, like, where is she and why isn't she home? And, you know, if something was wrong with the car, you know, did she not want to tell anybody? You know, did she run out of gas? Was she embarrassed? And, you know, was just hiding out for a while. We just didn't have a clue. So the first thing we did is just contacted some neighbors and family to see if anybody had heard from her. Cousins, you know, local cousins that are, you know, within a mile or two of the house. So, you know, they might have heard from her.

He might have been out with her. So we just, you know, at that point, we just didn't know. So Sarah Stern nowhere to be found. She's not in her car, abandoned on a remote bridge. She's not at home. Her dog locked in the crate. And now this rears its ugly head. Okay. She brought over today a bin. Can I bring my mother's stuff to your house? So she brought a bin of stuff of her mother's to your house? I said, yes, I'll put it in the cubby. And I tried texting her, and nothing.

We know that at some point, Sarah was taking personal belongings, putting them in bins and distributing them. And on that particular day, the day that Sarah went missing, Sarah went over to the Draper's house and left off some bins of some of her personal items. Is she depressed? I think she's depressed. the Draper's house and left off some bins of some of her personal items. Is she depressed? Is she not suicidal in any way, do you think? I don't know.

Taking her mother's belongings to neighbors that day, the day she goes missing? Joining me, crime and court reporter for NewJersey.com and Star-Ledger, Alex Napoliello. Alex, that is very odd to me. That is a big red flag. Why would Sarah be taking her mom's belongings in bins to neighbors? That's not good. That sounds more to me like she's planning to leave town. Just tell me what you know happened that day,

just before she goes missing. So on the day before Sarah's car was found missing, we know that Sarah was collecting belongings and dispersing them. And one of the places she took some of those belongings was to her neighbor's house, the Draper home. And Sarah had been close friends with Carly Draper and her mother, Robin Draper.

Robin was almost like a second mother to Sarah after Sarah's mom passed. So these are people she trusted. And so she's taking these belongings. She's with her friend, her best friend, Liam, Liam McIntosh, and he's helping her get rid of these belongings. She's with her friend, her best friend, Liam, Liam McIntosh, and he's helping her get rid of these belongings. It's strange that she's taking belongings and putting them elsewhere because we don't know why she's collecting these things. They have been at her house. So we don't know why she suddenly feels the need

to take these belongings and start dispersing them outside the home. Yeah. I mean, Alex, that's a huge red flag. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining me out of L.A., Bethany, I mean, not only is she dispersing items belonging to her mother. I mean, you know how I hold on to my dad's stuff. I wouldn't dare leave it anywhere else ever. And she's enlisted her best friend. She had two really good friends. I always call them the three musketeers, Liam and Preston and her.

And she has one of her best friends going with her. Why would someone, in your opinion, do that? Well, my professional opinion would not be that she's depressed because it takes an enormous amount of energy to gather up possessions and take them to somebody else's home. Okay, so that's not depression. It is something that we commonly see in people who are suicidal, that often they will take their most valuable possessions and give them away. How can you not link suicide with depression? She's not depressed, but she could be suicidal. Now you're talking a lot of psycho lingo to me that doesn't

make sense. To me, when you commit suicide, you are depressed. Actually, people are at the greatest risk for suicide as they're coming out of a depression, or if they have a burst of energy. If you're too depressed, you won't be able to kill yourself. But as you're coming out of a depression, then you will have the energy to do it. So, you know, 90% of people who successfully terminate their life either have a co-occurring substance abuse disorder, which obviously she did not have, or some kind of mental illness, commonly depression. But when you're at your lowest point of depression, you won't do it. It is as when you have some burst of energy, like you're on some kind of depression, you won't do it. It is as when you have some burst of energy,

like you're on some kind of drug, you're drinking, maybe you've been at a party, maybe something just piques your spirits just enough that you get the courage to do that which you've been thinking of all along. However, if she was suicidal, you would also see a withdrawal from friendships, a lack of interest in normal activities in her life, like a psychological social withdrawal. And I don't see that here, which makes it a very strange clinical picture. I want to go to Sarah's dad, Michael. Michael Stern joining us. Michael, she did not use drugs. She was not a drinker. To your knowledge, was she depressed? Why would she be putting her mom's belongings in bins and giving them to a neighbor and dragging her friend along with her? Well, that was a bit confusing because some of the stuff that was brought over, there was only two, basically two things that were brought over there one was a pin that had um you know like a small collection

of stuff that was actually from her great aunt a couple of her great aunts and papers and a few uh i don't know what you call them knickknacks and some paperwork and some stuff from her grandfather who had passed away on her mother's side. And then the other thing was a box that was actually from the, from Disney world, which was from the Hornet mansion. It was a tombstone that was in a box that was a plastic thing, but like a Halloween decoration. This one fact, Michael, has thrown the whole investigation on its ear. Joining me, Detective Brian Weisbrot from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.

Detective Brian Weisbrot, that, to me, I'm thinking, okay, did she jump? But there's no history of depression. She was very brave through her mom's passing and soldiered on and rebirthed herself through photography and art, made all these close friends. I don't see her as being depressed. She was very outgoing when she worked at the beach. So that leads me to she's leaving town. But now with this taking possessions to a neighbor for safekeeping, what went through your mind when you heard that, Detective? fact that her car sat on the bridge. We don't know where she is. You know, we had a lot of discussion about that. Is she, was she giving her belongings away because she didn't need them anymore or didn't want them anymore? We certainly didn't know why she was doing that at the time.

And that certainly was something that we had to work through. Take a listen to our friend Amy Robach. It definitely never made sense to me. She loved everyone, so for her to leave without a trace and not say goodbye to her friends and family, that's not Sarah. That wasn't Sarah. Her ability to disappear and move to Canada and create some fake identity was never really plausible. The suicide angle of it was a little bit more believable. Michael, what do you make of the theory that she had committed suicide because she was depressed?

Well, when I talked to her the night before, she wasn't depressed. And it was nothing out of the normal with Sarah. She just seemed like her regular self. And that was about it. No indication at all. And that's what her friends say. Dr. Bethany Marshall, are there always indicators of a potential suicide? Because people always go, we didn't see it coming. And I had a very dear friend commit suicide. And at the time I was like,

I can't believe he did this. I didn't see it coming. But in retrospect, when I look back, there were plenty of red flags. Because what you see is isolation and withdrawal, numbing, loss of pleasure and things that normally are normally pleasurable, disinterest in everyday activities, hopelessness, despair. In my experience, the people who really intend to prematurely end their lives do not tell other people about it. They keep it a secret and they always have a firm plan. Those who are just hopeless talk about it all the time. There's two kinds of suicidality. One is where the person thinks, boy, I would be better off if I were dead. And they have fantasies about it, but they would never do it. The second type is where the person really intends to end their life. And then they

really don't talk about it because they know that other people will interfere. But the thing about Sarah Stern, she was full of life, full of activities. She had interest in everything that was going on around her. People who are suicidal are withdrawn and disinterested. That's what we primarily see. Well, that would not be Sarah. blue and the theory that she left to go meet a friend a boyfriend in Canada to Detective Brian Weisbrock from Monmouth County that's a real that's a that's a real lead a solid lead because apparently you know she was so involved in the video world. And Canada was a big influence in those various online communities that she was a part of.

So I could absolutely see her connecting with somebody online, Detective. Yeah, Sarah had visited Canada just about a month and a half prior to her disappearance. We knew and understood Canada to be a place that Sarah was comfortable. We knew she had friends there that she met from the online community, and that that was a place where she aspired to ultimately move to. The one thing that we learned as the investigation progressed was that Sarah had a very solid understanding that she couldn't just pack up one day and move

to Canada. She had to have a plan. She had to have a job. She had to have a car. She had to have money. You know, she had to, you know, have the means to live and survive there on her own. So it was more of a short to a long-term goal. Oh, detective, detective, detective. Are you trying to apply common sense to a teen girl that thinks she's in love? Because that is just not going to work, okay? I've even learned that with Lucy, my daughter, the 11-year-old, and frankly, John David, too. Yeah, you'd think, you know, you need a car, you need a job,

you need a way to support yourself, you don't just take off for Canada. That's me and you talking. That's not an 18-year-old, a teen girl talking. So not only are police investigating the theory that Sarah was depressed, but now speculation mounts that she's taken off for Canada. Listen to Amy Robach. She seemed very happy, and she asked me to hang out that night. Carly Draper had an encounter with Liam and Sarah the day Sarah went missing. And she was telling me that she wanted to move to Canada. She hugged me, and I was like, love you.

She was like, love you too. And that was the last time I saw her. Michael Stern, have you ever heard was like, love you, too. And that was the last time I saw her. Michael Stern, had you ever heard anything about her friends in Canada? Yeah, they were basically the Internet, you know, the social media set. But there was a few friends up there that she knew. Some of the people she had met up there were actually from other areas that they met at the VidCon convention in Toronto. Oh, oh, oh, wait, wait, wait.

You know how things, when you go on a vacation and you meet somebody on vacation, you're away from the real world. Nobody's working at the donut shop or going to school or their job. And it just seems so wonderful. Okay, that throws another wrench into it. Joining me is Alex Napoliello. Alex, tell me about any connections between Sarah and Canada that you managed to unearth. Yeah, so after Sarah went missing, we spoke to a number of friends that she had met at these conventions,

these digital media conventions. One had told me that they were planning on having a vigil in Toronto in Canada for Sarah. And these people loved Sarah. They didn't have much interaction in person because they only had that short time at the convention to interact with her, but she kept in constant communication with these folks that she met via the internet and FaceTime chatting and internet texting and all that kind of online interactions. So she was very close to these people and they loved her. They had, when they heard the news that Sarah had gone missing, they were deeply upset. Many of them went to YouTube. Some people who had millions of followers went to YouTube to express how sad they were of the news of Sarah's disappearance.

So this was the community that, although was not close by geography, was very close with one another through the Internet communications that they had. What you do not want is your teen girl getting hooked up with somebody on the Internet, someone that would lure them from home, waiting until their dad's out of town for a week, and then suddenly, bam, she's gone. Amidst the Canada search, amidst theories of suicide and depression, the search intensifies right there at home. Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend.