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Updated 21 minutes ago:Stolen cash found buried inside remote mortar on Sandy Hook
FREEHOLD - Investigators had to scale the top of a mortar battery near the end of Sandy Hook and then climb down treacherous terrain to the area where they located a safe containing Sarah Stern's stolen money, a detective told a jury today as the trial of Stern's accused killer continued.
Detective Nicholas Cattelona of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office testified that Preston Taylor, the roommate of Liam McAtasney, led investigators on Feb. 1, 2017, to a remote area of Sandy Hook where he said he had buried the safe.
It was located in mortar battery No. 329, one of a series of four batteries in that area of the beachfront national park that once protected shipping routes into New York City, Cattelona said.
Cattelona described getting to the location where the safe was buried.
"We were escorted up a steep incline of the battery,'' he said.
Detectives "walked across a ridge that separates the four batteries from the top,'' he said.
"From there, Mr. Taylor directed us to the area where he buried the safe,'' Cattelona said.
"We had to climb down some stairs,'' he said. "There were areas where the stairs were absent, so we just had to make our way down as best we could. ...Some of it was concrete. Some of it was moss and overgrowth.''
Taylor stayed on top as the detectives descended into the battery, but he directed them to a landmark near where the safe was buried - a concrete wall with moss on it, the detective said. Nearby, the detectives located the safe, he said.
"It wasn't buried deep at all,'' Cattelona said, although he said the area where it was located was out of the way.
Sarah Stern murder: Stolen cash found buried inside remote mortar on Sandy Hook
Prosecutors allege that McAtasney, 21, of Neptune City strangled Stern, his childhood friend, during a robbery on Dec. 2, 2016 in which he stole money she had recently found in a family home in Avon.
They allege that McAtasney and Taylor then removed the 19-year-old woman's body from her Neptune City home and threw it off the Route 35 bridge from Belmar to Neptune, leaving her car atop the span to make it look like she committed suicide.
Cattelona testified that a key found in a car that was being driven by McAtasney following his arrest in February 2017 opened the safe found buried at Sandy Hook.
Inside the safe was $9,390 in old bills, Cattelona said.
“Of the bills found in the safe at Sandy Hook, Cattelona said, ‘Some of them were stuck together, falling apart, they were all older currency, not widely circulated any more.’
Detective Sgt. Ryan Muller, also of the prosecutor's office, testified that Taylor the same day also led investigators to the spot where a second safe was buried at Shark River Park in Wall.
Taylor previously testified that cash from that safe, which had been removed from Stern's home, was transferred to the other safe that was buried at Sandy Hook.
Muller said the burial site was some 20 minutes into the Shark River Park, and 10 minutes into the woods off of the park's Hidden Creek Trail, over two manmade bridges and down a decline leading to a creek, nearby a tee-pee made of twigs where minors sometimes hang out.
There, by a tree that had fallen over the creek, was the spot that Taylor pointed them to, where they found the other safe buried, Muller testified.
Muller said he was able to dig out the safe with gloved hands because it wasn't buried that deeply.
Cattelona testified that safe contained some white index cards, similar to cards that were used to separate bills in Stern's safe deposit box, and a hair that turned out to be that of an animal.”
I’m wondering if this is the safe they found pieces of Sarah’s clothes in.