Alissa Turney was born in 1984. She would be around forty-one years old today if anyone could locate her whereabouts. She disappeared in 2001 and has been mysteriously out of touch for twenty-four years. In this world of surveillance, where an ID is required to do any business transaction — debit cards, credit cards, bank accounts — for Alissa Turney not to surface somewhere seems unlikely if she is alive. How could Alissa Turney function without her birth certificate, her other legal documents, and anything else identifying her? Foul play must be somewhere involved.
Alissa Turney Had A Troubled Childhood
At least that is the most common and popular narrative, one which led to her stepfather, Michael Turney, being charged with her murder. Her sister Sarah has been broadcasting a podcast, Voices For Justice, that has resulted in Michael Turney standing trial for the murder of his stepdaughter, Alissa Turney. Although the trial resulted in an acquittal, the community largely regards it as a miscarriage of justice.
Michael Turney was charged solely with second-degree murder, and this is significant. The prosecution’s case appeared to be more than charged with allegations of sexual abuse towards his daughter. They seemingly painted a picture where Michael Turney allegedly stalked, recorded, and possibly sexually abused his daughter Alissa, leading to the presumption of some kind of passion crime in which he killed her rather than let her leave him.
If prosecutors believed Michael Turney sexually assaulted his daughter, Alissa, why did they not charge him with this? Why did they only charge him with murder, and in the second degree as opposed to premeditated, first-degree murder?
The defense responded by showing there was no concrete evidence that Alissa had been murdered, that it could not be proven she was dead, and there was no evidence Michael Turney committed a crime that no one could prove happened, so he was justly acquitted of these charges.
The Shocking ABC Interview
ABC interviewed Turney in jail, and the things he revealed in this 63-page interview turn all the public assumptions of the case on end. Turney did this lengthy interview in a desire to keep his daughter’s cold case alive and let the world know his version of events. Here are the key salient points from that interview:
- Shortly before Alissa disappeared, Turney related, a man had tried to break into their home.
- It has been cited as evidence against him that Turney did not have the eight hours of recordings for that day, and this means he withheld or destroyed evidence. Turney states that the supposedly missing eight hours were because he used only one eight-hour VHS tape for his homemade security system. He flipped and re-recorded over it daily when it got full. In other words, he would not in any case have more than the most recent recordings on any given day.
- Turney states that Alissa’s bedroom was unusually messy, and things had been thrown about. It raised red flags for him since she was normally neat.
- The note he described finding, purportedly from Alissa Turney, according to him, contained a very telling detail that Alissa blamed her sister Sarah for why she had to run away. This is so normal sibling rivalry, and it is a detail that Sarah, who has done all these sincere things to uncover the truth about Alissa, would likely not recall years later.
- Turney related receiving a phone call from Alissa about a week after her disappearance. It was apparently from a pay phone in the area she was most likely to run to. She had somehow gotten to California without her property or touching her money. She was not alone! Turney states that his daughter’s voice sounded scrambled, that she appeared to pull the phone away from her mouth, use curse words, and tell someone to leave her alone. After this, the line went dead.
- Turney then discussed dialing *69 on the call to see who the caller was. This is a very obscure commentary about the phone system back then, ONLY someone who actively used it would remember. He furthermore sued Qwest for the phone records, and they were the provider in that area at that time.
- Turney states he spent $20,000, wore out several vehicles, and practiced other behavior, expressing I will leave no stone unturned until I find out who killed my daughter.
- Alissa could not withdraw her money without her father being notified, according to him. So any possible kidnapper would not, of course, want her to have money, especially when withdrawing it immediately would notify her father. A theoretical kidnapper likely also would not allow any more than a few clothes, and not a phone. Struggling with an intruder possibly explains the unusual mess Tourney describes finding in Alissa’s bedroom.
- Turney stated he was, in fact, a Federal government whistleblower in connection with his work at Palo Alto Nuclear Plant, and had been targeted by the Electrical Workers’ Union in connection with this. Although he had a high performance rating from the Department of Energy, he continued to relate, they managed to get him fired a mere three weeks before his wife died.
- A man contacted Turney, he said, and in 2003 informed him Alissa was dead and where her body was approximately located.
- Phoenix PD and other government agencies allegedly stonewalled, obfuscated, and outright lied about what was going on, Turney relates at various points throughout this interview.
- Turney, who has a military and police background, stated he taped everything because of the ongoing battles with the union and government agencies over his whistleblowing activities.
- He characterized, to the interviewer, that the explosives they found were his intention to commit suicide, not blow up the union building on the Palo Verde site. He says that space is unable to be affected by pipe bombs. He corrected the misperception about his “manifesto,” saying it was his book in progress about all these experiences.
- Tellingly, according to material released in the interview, before all the newer revisionist accounts of Turney as a father, his son James said his dad was a Superman, an amazing father the neighborhood kids enjoyed and looked up to. James had this to say at the time all these events took place, only later revising his opinion to harmonize with Sarah’s conclusions in her podcast.
Innocent Presumed Guilty
Michael Turney, having spent countless hours, dollars, and vehicles to try to unearth the truth about Alissa Turney, still lives under a cloud of presumed guilt. He has sued Phoenix PD for $300,000 for various types of mistreatment suffered during his imprisonment.
When asked by ABC what he is sorry about, he states he is sorry he “ever agreed to testify,” referring to the whistleblower case, and how it endangered him and his family. He recommends not getting into dangerous political cases if you have children who may be harmed by them.
At the end of the day, how does anyone know who is telling the truth about what happened to Alissa Turney? The court in Phoenix, Arizona, amidst a sea of controversy and a presumption that Turney was an abusive father, charged him solely with second-degree murder, ignoring all the abuse he was accused of committing. He was then fully acquitted of all charges.
Turney referred to his law enforcement background when he stated that if he had killed Alissa, his best bet to clear himself would be to do nothing, to let the case die. Instead, he spent hours, money, and vehicles, and in the end, hoped his planned death by suicide would help people find out what happened to Alissa Turney.
Only people who care passionately about some cause actually do all that. Turney invested countless hours towards finding what happened to his daughter, to finding the explanation for Alissa Turney’s disappearance, the entire world now desperately wants to know. That seems suspiciously like the actions of a loving father, and not a man who murdered his daughter.
