Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Day Alissa Disappeared

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Josh Mankiewicz talks with Andrea about her latest episode, “The Day Alissa Disappeared” which looks at the case of Alissa Turney, the Arizona teen who vanished from her Paradise Valley home in May 2001. Andrea tells Josh about the dramatic moment, more than 20 years later, that left a courtroom stunned. The two share what they’ve learned over the years from talking with the families of the missing.

Hi, everybody. We are Talking Dateline. I'm Josh Mahankiewicz, and I'm here with... Andrea Canning, your best friend. Yes. And colleague. So great to see you. You too. And we are talking about Andrea's episode called The Day Alyssa Disappeared. Now, if you haven't seen this yet on television, first of all, shame on you. Second of all, if you haven't seen this yet on television, first of all,

shame on you. Second of all, if you haven't heard it, uh, in podcast form, it is the episode right below this one, uh, in the list of podcasts that you just chose from. So go there, listen to it, or watch it on television, uh, and then come back here. Okay. I really loved this episode and there were so many great things about it. And I guess my first question is, how did this get into a courtroom? Where's the evidence? Where's the blood? Where's her body? They can't even prove she's dead. Yeah. I mean, Josh, we know there are definitely cases where there's no body and the prosecution is able to get a conviction. But there's usually a lot more evidence pointing to the killer. You know, in this case, the alleged killer, Mike Turney, he's not even alleged anymore.

He's been acquitted. So this was an extremely rare case where the whole thing's tossed in the middle of the trial, which was a first for me. I don't think I have ever covered a case where there is a directed verdict of acquittal at the end of the prosecution's case and the defense doesn't even have to put on any witnesses. You know, there's silence in the courtroom. Right. Everyone, no one can believe it. Everyone, it was apparently, you know, it was like silence for like 10 seconds or something where everyone was just, what just happened? Like, did we hear right? You know, and it was all over. And the family, you know, they said that the prosecution kept telling them, just wait until

closing arguments, wait until closing arguments. And that never came. So the family was extremely upset. They finally thought that this was their shot and it just all fell apart. At one point in your story, you talk about how prosecutors said to the cops, you don't have it. We need you to go get more. What happened between that and when they decided to file? What new evidence came up? There wasn't any new evidence. It was a new prosecutor. And Sarah Turney, Alyssa's sister, the one who kept pushing and pushing and pushing to get eyes on the case, she wouldn't let go to her credit. And the new prosecutor, the new DA thanked her in the press conference when she announced that she was going after Mike Turney.

But no, there was no. No, there was no there was no big development. No, no, has a tremendous, overwhelmingly good record in Super Bowls and particularly in playoff games. He's a championship level coach. Prosecutors across the country tend to have a better record than Bill Belichick when they go into court on homicide cases. I mean, it is so rare for prosecutors to get creamed like this. It is rare. But they felt like, for whatever reason, it's now or never.

And they decided to take that Hail Mary. And the pass was not complete. If you want to talk football, one of our producers, Brittany, spoke to one of the jurors who said this juror did not believe Mike Turney, but also felt that there was not enough evidence, but would have liked to have heard closing arguments, would have liked to have possibly deliberated, but never got that chance because he was acquitted. And this is a case now of double jeopardy where they can't go after him again for murder. No. Ever. So that's it. So let's just say hypothetically that they find Alyssa's body today and her father's DNA is on the knife that is still stuck in her.

He might be able to be charged with other things, but trying him for homicide again is not going to happen. No. What I do know is that the case is open. Officially open. One of the things I thought that your story really sort of played up is that you have the families of the missing out there. They are looking at all kinds of different outcomes. Maybe the missing person will be

found alive. That's best case scenario, unlikely, but that's the best case scenario. Another is that you find them and they're dead and you can have a service and a gravesite and you can put someone on trial and maybe that person will be convicted. Maybe they won't be. In this case, you don't have Alyssa. You don't know what happened to her. And that's sort of the end. I mean, it is in many ways one of the least satisfying outcomes that the family of a missing person can have. And after all the effort Sarah put into shining a light on her sister's case,

she devoted herself years and years to finding out what happened to Alyssa, seeing her father be charged with murder. I mean, that was what she was working toward. Years ago, we put a question up on Facebook, on social media saying, did you ever know anybody who vanished? And we got this flood of people saying, yes, I do. I have personal knowledge of someone. And one of them was this case. One of them was Sarah.

Yeah, Sarah Turney reached out to Dateline and told us about her missing sister. And we did a spotlight on her sister's case. You know, we showed pictures and we told our viewers about Alyssa Turney because of Sarah. This is when Sarah was really getting her efforts going to have people know about her sister's case. You know, I realize a lot has transpired, but, you know, we still want to shine a light on Alyssa Turney's case, even all these years later, because as we said, it is open. We're definitely going to always keep talking about it.

We have the Missing in America series digitally on our website, in which we've featured hundreds of cases. And we have the podcast series that you and I have both done, series digitally on our website in which we feature, we've featured hundreds of cases. And we have the podcast series that you and I have both done talking about specific missing cases, because that's a, it's a public service. I mean, that's sort of the truest part of public service journalism, I think, is to explore the case of somebody who is missing and whose family is desperate for answers. You know, it's crazy how people just vanish vanish and it's sad. And when you think about all these family members that just don't have those answers, they just have no clue where their loved one is. And I'll just bring up a case that even came from this story. Our producer, Brittany Morris,

was booking a venue for us to do interviews. And the woman at the venue in Arizona said, my friend, Sarah Martin, went missing in Milwaukee in 2001, the same year that Alyssa went missing. This was a 24-year-old. And Brittany said, you know what? We'll profile her for you. You know, all these years later, Sarah would be 46 years old now.

And I just was doing some research on her before the podcast. And she is 5'3", 110 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes. If you have any information about Sarah Martin, call the Milwaukee Police Department, 414-935-7405, 414-935-7405. And if you need to reach out to Dateline, there's a lot of ways to do it. You can do it on social media, on Twitter or X, and we're on Facebook, and I know we're on Instagram. And you can also email dateline.contactus at NBCUNI.com. Any one of those will reach us. And we're always interested in missing persons cases. So, of course, please reach out to us.

We're always combing through the messages and the social media posts looking for stories or any way that we can help. We read them all. We do. And we appreciate them. Let me ask you one thing that I noticed in the story. Why didn't you interview Sarah? She was not in your story, except there were some clips of her from her TikTok and her podcast. We did request interviews with her multiple times. She is focusing, it appears, on her TikTok, on her social media efforts, her podcast. And so she declined to do the interview. And we tried to highlight what an incredible job Sarah has done in getting her sister's story out there.

I mean, for me, I know she didn't do the interview with us and that's okay because she's been through hell and that's her choice. And I would never blame someone for not wanting to do an interview. Instead, I'm just in awe of her and all of her efforts and that she's devoted her life to this. And it's really, really impressive that she would fight that hard for her sibling. So, you know, I always say in these stories, there's always times where people just don't want to do an interview. And instead of getting upset, I don't get upset. I think about what they've been through. And I think, you know what,

this is a story to me. I care, but it's a story. That's their life. This is what they have to live with every single day. And I don't know what that's like. I think that that's true life this is what they have to live with every single day and i don't know what that's like uh i i think that that's true and i agree with you i mean this is this is it's it's our story but it's their life uh let's talk about mike tourney here because at first he's the father that we've seen before on dateline the one whose daughter is missing. And in his opinion, police are not taking it seriously enough. I have to say, if he were in fact guilty, he went a long way down the road of suggesting that he wasn't. I mean, he played the I want justice for my daughter and you law enforcement are not paying enough attention. He played that card a lot of times. I mean, he agitated for a very long time. He's the guy, he sued to get the phone records, right?

Yeah, he sued the phone company. Generally, when we have somebody who is guilty, but is pretending not to be guilty, like, you know, they're not participating in the searches. They seem uninvolved. They're not talking to law enforcement. They've clvolved. They're not talking to law enforcement. They've clammed up. They've hired an attorney, a bunch of things. Yeah, I mean, by all appearances, he did everything that you would hope a dad would do if their child was missing.

Contacting police as congressmen, suing the phone company, working with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, driving out to California, you know, to see if she had gone to be with her aunt, driving out to California to track down that phone number. And he's not under suspicion by law enforcement during the vast majority of the time that he's doing that. You know, this is someone that police and prosecutors say killed his daughter, but for years he's trying to find her. So it was a very strange dichotomy of things happening in this case. You know, lots of dads are strict. Lots of single parent dads are strict. And so when you first see that in your story, I think like, well, you know, okay.

That's, you know, he used to be in law enforcement. He's, he knows what bad things can happen. Um, I sort of understand that. And then there's this progression that you guys document, which I think is great because like, you know, him recording her at work is like, when you first sort of get the impression as a viewer, like, wow, this is not normal. Setting up a video camera inside your house to secretly surveil your own family. I mean, come on.

Did everybody who came in that house know they were being recorded? I'm guessing they probably did not. No, because Mike Turney put the camera in the vent. You know, the one in the living room camera was hidden in the vent. So no, people did not know. And he also recorded all of their phone calls as well you know so it was it was a little strange you know that to have cameras like that i mean you're a parent multiple times um i don't if i i don't see you doing any of that. And I know that. If I found out. Yeah. And you've got how many kids? Six.

I mean, your kids are not in the workforce yet, as far as I know. Yeah. Almost. They're getting there. But I don't think that when they are, you're going to show up at their workplace videotaping them. Yeah. So that's a hard no for me. If I caught my husband doing that, which he would never, we'd have some issues. And it wasn't just the recording, which was so, to me personally as a parent, and I don't even think you have to be a parent to find that odd. also strange were all these contracts, you know, that he had between him and Alyssa. It's like,

it's one thing to give your child a contract. I will never drink and drive, you know, or things that we've heard parents do with their kids. When I was five years old, which was right around when Lincoln was assassinated, I think, my dad said to me that if I got to be 25 without smoking, he would give me $1,000. Now, this- Did you get a contract? We didn't write it down, but it was a verbal contract, but it was a deal. And when I got to be 25, I had not smoked. I still haven't.

And he gave me $1,000. I love that contract. He made the same deal with my brother. And those are healthy parent-child contracts. Yes. You know, that really can just make your child a better person. Right. Or healthier person or however you want to look at it.

But having your child sign contracts saying that you never sexually assaulted her, it's just- That was weird. It's bizarre. And he said it was preemptive because he thought she was going to go in and make these accusations. So he figured he'd get ahead of it. I find it all strange. It's all super strange. The sense that you get is that living in that house was an ordeal.

It sounds awful. And if I can only imagine how my teenagers would react if that was going on in this house, it would be, it's horrible. That's the kind of thing that makes kids want to run away. It is. Yeah. And she told her brother, James, she said to him, you know, in the weeks before, she said, can I come live with you? You know, she wanted to, according to James, she wanted to leave. And I'm not surprised. I mean, she wrote that note, clearly, at some point. I mean, when I saw that note, when you see that note, it's pretty obvious. That looks like the handwriting of a teenage girl. I mean, I saw that.

I'm like, okay. They believe it's her note. Yeah, but they don't believe she wrote it that day. Okay, but I mean, it's impossible to believe that he wrote that note because it would be too good a forgery. But also just as hard as to believe he saved that thinking, oh yeah, this is gonna be great

for when I kill her because then I'm gonna leave this behind. I mean, that's a reach too. This is going to be great for when I kill her because then I'm going to leave this behind. I mean, that's a reach too. So many questions in this case. So this story was unusual in a couple of ways. One, we talked about the directed verdict of acquittal, but the other was, you know, you didn't have the person who sort of brought the story in the door,

which usually is the main character in a Dateline story. In this case, it would have been the sister. But you did have the defendant. Now, generally, you know, regular Dateline viewers know those people usually don't talk. I mean, we get the defendant in a minority of the stories, and usually they can't talk because they're in custody, or they won't talk because the trial hasn't happened yet. And generally, people's attorneys tell them not to talk, even if they want to. But in this case, you got it. Tell me how that worked. Yeah, we requested the interview and

he said, yes. I mean, he, he sat there, you know, for quite a long time answering every single question. He wanted to do the interview. And there were no ground rules. He didn't say, I'm not going to talk about this. Because I thought you did a great job of really pressing him on the things that he would have faced if there were cross-examination. I mean, he didn't testify. He didn't have to. But he was never questioned by prosecutors. but you like totally took on the role of the prosecutor in that interview. Did you talk to prosecutors at all before you interviewed him?

I did. My dream job in another life would have been as a prosecutor. I always sit there in court and I'm so jealous. I'm like, oh, I would love to be a prosecutor up there asking hard questions. But I did not ask the prosecutor, you know, what he would have asked him. I just kind of knew what I wanted to ask him.

All the things that I'd learned, you know, in the previous months, I finally, because he was one of the last interviews. Which is what you want. You want to be able to ask him the stuff at the end. Yeah. Did his attorney, did Mike's attorney weigh in on the question of whether or not it was a good idea for him to do the interview with you? Well, Jamie Jackson was there and Olivia Hicks, his defense attorneys, they were in the other room watching. They had a monitor and they didn't interrupt. They let it go from beginning to end. And they're not signaling him or passing him notes during the interview.

Nothing like that. Nope. They just let him do his thing. And I mean, I would say he mostly kept his cool. You know, he didn't, he doesn't come across as some type of weirdo in the interview. No, he doesn't. When you hear these things about him, right? You think this is going to be some complete whack job,

but in the interview, at least, he does not come across that way. He's very persuasive in the interview. He comes across like normal dad. Exactly. And it's interesting because I brought up to the detective and Alyssa's brother, I said, he came across very calm and collected and they saw that as that I'm just another person that he's trying to manipulate. He's trying to convince me that he is the normal dad, that he did everything he could, that he didn't do this.

I mean, you go in there, I know, with your eyes open. I mean, this is a guy who's either telling the truth or who has had a lot of experience telling a very good lie. So you're watching for that. Right. One of the things, one of the reasons James did the interview, Alyssa's brother, was he really wanted to talk about coercive control. And he feels that his family, his siblings were almost under Mike Turney's spell, if you will, that he was controlling

them about what they should do, what they should believe. He's in charge. What he says is the gospel. Mike Turney is king in that house. And he didn't have any boundaries. Like, he didn't seem to want to let anybody live their own life, which again, is not a crime, but it's going to make the other people in your home very unhappy. And that's some of what James, at least, believes as far as Sarah goes that, you know, because Sarah was initially supporting her dad and then made that transition, you know, into not supporting him and not believing him. And it was James feels that she finally got away from that course of control. She got out from under his spell and was able to think for herself. And this is from talking to James, of course, because we did not talk to Sarah about that.

But this is what James believes. The problem is, I mean, if you're looking at this from the outside, which I am, all of that makes it much easier to understand why somebody in that house would either make up an allegation against him to get away from him or to get him away. I mean, I'd want to get out of there. I'd want to run away. You certainly could make that argument. There's a couple of great twists in here. First of all, there's the guy that confesses to killing her. The criminal who confesses.

The serial killer. Yeah. The self-proclaimed serial killer. Right. It turns out they didn't believe him. And then the other is, you know, the bombs, the guns, the possible mass casualty event that Mike Turney's planning. I mean, to quote my favorite Dayline correspondent, holy cow. I loved it when you said that. So, I mean...

Yeah, that was a lot. Can you imagine being the neighbors? You find out what your neighbor's up to, and then we're in the backyard with the one Judy, the neighbor, and she took us back to that time where she's looking over the fence, and they're searching for a list in the backyard. And the other thing that was really interesting was we talked about the defense attorneys. Jamie Jackson, Mike's defense attorney has a really interesting story himself. He's a Canadian who was a hockey player and he was on a bus that crashed and he lost his arm. And he ended up, you know, obviously switching gears, became a lawyer and found himself at the Vegas shooting. At the Bellagio a couple of years ago? Yeah, the mass shooting. Right.

Jamie was there. And as the story goes from Jamie, he ended up saving a woman's life. He saw a woman who was bleeding to death, and he found a belt and with his one arm in his mouth, essentially, created a tourniquet for her, got her to an off-duty police officer, who then managed to get her to the hospital and saved her life. Wow. And he's a very good defense attorney. And also, remember, he's a public defender. Well, I mean, they are overworked and underpaid and they have too many and they don't have the resources that they often need. Yes. Exactly what I was just going to say.

In this case, I was just so impressed. And I don't know if you find this as well. A lot of times public defenders won't talk to us. But Jamie and Olivia did the interview and I thought they were obviously just so effective. For a public defender to get a directed verdict of acquittal in a homicide case is a home run. I guarantee you they're still talking about Jamie at the courthouse down there. Absolutely. He's a talented attorney. And Olivia. Let me ask you finally sort of about Sarah and about James, because even though there's been a verdict, for them, this case isn't over.

It's not, and Sarah continues her efforts when it comes to Alyssa, keeping the word out there, keeping attention on the case. Sarah's now also helping other families any way she can with her podcast and her social media efforts. James feels very vulnerable with his father now free, which is really sad. He's concerned about his father. He's concerned about his safety. He is really struggling with this outcome. He doesn't live in Phoenix anymore. I don't want to say where he lives, but he's moved away and sort of severed all contact. He wants nothing to do with his father. That's the very sad fallout of stories like this. Yeah, but you know what I told him? I said, I'm so impressed with how you turned out.

With everything he had been through, he seems so well-adjusted. He does. And he talks so much about his daughter and how much he loves his daughter, his partner. And I was just so impressed with how he spoke so eloquently about everything and everything he'd been through and what he's learned from it. So that's one thing to feel good about in this otherwise extremely sad story in which there's not a lot to feel good about.

So he's come out on the other side quite well, I would have to say, from talking to him, which made me really happy. The episode is called The Day Alyssa Disappeared. And Andrea Canning, thank you so much for coming here and talking Dateline. Thank you. Always a pleasure. See you on television. See you on television. Thank you.