Bianca Harkless
Editor-In-Chief
On May 17th, 2001, Alissa Turney was 17-years-old and had just finished her junior year at Paradise Valley High School when she went missing. 19 years later, Michael Turney, her step father and the person who had sole custody of her, is charged in second degree murder following her disapperance.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s office announced the arrest and charges, but County Attorney, Allister Adel, declined to provide details about the case or any new information that may have led to his arrest after all these years. Sara Turney, Alissa’s younger sister and the creator of the Voices For Justice podcast, has been pushing for their father to be arrested in connection to Alissa’s disappearance.
Before Sara dedicated her time to helping get justice for Alissa, she did the same thing with her father. At that point, she only saw a nice, happy side of him. She only saw love and affection from him. On her website, justiceforalissa.com, in a blog post she would say that she was a “happy and an obvious child.” The rest of the family would agree that, yes, he did love Sara but it was a different story when it came down to what he thought about Alissa.
Alissa and Sara were raised in a blended family, which you can learn about in an episode of the podcast named “The Brady Bunch.” Alissa’s mother remarried when she was 3 years old, then her step-father adopted her. Sadly, later her mother died of cancer leaving him to care for all six children.
Early on, it is said that Alissa had told people that her stepfather had tried sexualy abusing her, but when Micheal denied the allegation, nothing came of it. A member of the Turney family goes as far as to say he saw pornographic videos of Alissa with another female but opted to not get Child Protective Services, CPS, involved. Other family members witnessed emotional abuse, and highly speculated physical abuse too.
As the girls got older, Alissa and Micheal began to fight more and more. Sara recalls time that they would scream and yell at each other for hours, slamming doors and all. It can be said that Micheal was significantly more strict towards Alissa, giving her more rules and actually enforcing the ones he had set up for her, unlike Sara who had rules, yet never really followed them nor got in trouble for ignoring them. Having a four year age gap and the clear difference in their parent’s thoughts about them, drove a wedge between the girls. Young Sara thought that Alissa was just being dramatic and that her issues did not involve her.
The police reports say that Alissa and her father got into an argument at lunch when he pulled her out of school early. While he was making phone calls, she reportedly packed a bag and fled to California to stay with her aunt for the summer. For the first night that she was gone, no one looked for her because her father did not report her as missing. The next day, when she still did not show up, he then called the police but assured them that she had just ran away from home. Due to the fact that she was a ‘runaway’ she did not get an amber alert put out for her, nor did she get search parties out looking for her.
A few days after she went missing, someone called the Turney's home phone, which Micheal claimed to be Alissa. After he threatened to sue the phone company they found out the call came from a pay phone in Riverside California, but nothing came after this.
In 2006, a convict named Thomas Hymer claimed he had murdered Alissa in the Turner, though points of his story did not match up. Through a series of investigations, in 2008, they found out that he was indeed lying about killing Alissa, although this was not a total waste. Police confirmed that Micheal was recording inside of the home after investigation of the area. Soon after, the police asked to see the tapes from the day Alissa went missing. After a long back and forth between him and the police, he decided just to get rid of the tapes. He also got rid of the car that Alissa was last in before the police could search it, he was also never interviewed by the police.
When the police came to his home in order to search it, they found 19 guns, 26 pipe bombs, and a series of documents. One of the documents was a plan to attack the workers union he had issues with (and was only weeks away from doing it) and another was a written contract with Alissa stating that he had never sexually abused her. After the raid he is arrested for the weapons but nothing in connection to his step-daughter’s disappearance and that was the last thing that happened until now.
Now, Alissa has a chance for justice thanks to her sister’s efforts. Micheal Turney has been charged with second degree-murder in connection to Alissa’s case and many people are waiting to see how this plays out.
If you want more information on Alissa’s case, you can listen to the Voices For Justice podcast and go to the websites justiceforalissa.com and voicesforjustice.com. Sarah said, “Never give up hope that you can get justice. It took almost 20 years but we did it.” and I think we can all find some happiness in that.
Image Credit: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash
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