Dateline NBC - The Day Alissa Disappeared

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

When 17-year-old Alissa Turney is reported missing in Phoenix, it takes years before detectives treat her case as a homicide. A new investigation unearths dark family secrets, leading to a dramatic courtroom drama and an outcome no one saw coming. Andrea Canning reports.

Tonight, on Dateline. You're looking out at Alyssa going to prom. She looked really beautiful. Was that the last time you saw her? Yes, it was. When you told me she was missing, I was shocked. I was called by my father. She had run away.

I want to find out what happened to my kid. Sarah has become this big podcaster and advocate for her sister. This is insane. It should never happen to anyone. We found hundreds of VHS tapes and audio recordings. I made a fully stupid mistake and tried to talk to Alyssa. How often is he coming to her work and recording her? Comes on a regular basis. That's stalking. This whole other side is emerging of this family. Dark secrets now coming to light. I saw them digging, so I took my camera, my phone, and just started taking pictures. They were gasping out loud.

He had enough explosives to take out our whole neighborhood. After a teenager goes missing, a chilling discovery pulls a family apart and turns an investigation upside down. I'm Lester Holt. This is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with The Day Alyssa Disappeared. They're out there somewhere. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. People who vanish without a trace. Ten years ago, Dateline posed a question on Facebook.

Have you ever known someone who simply disappeared? The comments poured in. Hundreds of people told us about unsolved cases from their towns and cities. The response was so overwhelming, the very next day, Dateline launched an online series to help shine a light on the missing. And that's how we heard about tonight's story. A young woman named Sarah Turney sent Dateline a tweet about her sister Alyssa, who was 17 years old when she went missing back in 2001. Sarah told Dateline about her social media crusade to find out what happened.

Can we please just get justice for Alyssa now? It's a dark family drama with explosive allegations and a case with an ending that no one saw coming. In all my years at Dateline, this is the first time I'd ever seen this happen. It was a shock. It all started on May 17, 2001, in Paradise Valley, a desert oasis just outside of Phoenix.

Alyssa Turney's father, Mike, scrambled to get the kids out the door. Well, we got up, and I think we were running late. So I took Alyssa, and I always sat in the parking lot at Paradise Valley High School until she got in the building. It was the last day of school. There were parties to go to, friends to hang out with, friends like Chris Ridenour. She's a good soul. A good friend.

Yeah. Alyssa was a junior, but she was planning to go to the graduation ceremony that night to see Chris, a senior, walk the stage. End of high school, and Alyssa was really excited for you. Yeah, she wanted to come see me graduate. And that was the plan we made. Alyssa left school early that day. Her dad picked her up. Mike says they had important things to talk about, like what she'd be doing that summer. I wanted Alyssa to get a driver's license so she could help me out to a certain extent.

Mike was a widower raising Alyssa and her 12-year-old sister Sarah all by himself. As a retired army specialist and former deputy sheriff, he had a lot of rules in the house for Alyssa. He expected her to check in with him often and kept close tabs on where she went. What was going on with Alyssa that you felt you needed to be so on top of her as far as where she was going, what she was doing? She's very naive, very easily influenced, and could be talked into just about anything. He says they got lunch that day and then headed home. Then after that, a discussion started going bad because she wanted to go to a party.

Mike says their argument got heated and Alyssa stormed off to her bedroom. He left to run errands and later picked up her sister Sarah from a friend's house. And when they got home, Alyssa wasn't there. And she wasn't answering her cell phone. And then eventually it was by her room, we hear the buzzing. And Sarah and I went in together. So her phone's in her room. Affirm's in her room. Affirm's in her room.

And right there on her dresser, something else, a note. It said, Dad and Sarah, when you dropped me off at school today, I decided that I really am going to California. Sarah, you said you didn't want me around. Look, you got it. I'm gone. That's why I saved my money. Dad, I took $300 from you. How concerned are you that you found this note saying that she's gone? Does panic fit the description? So I immediately started calling, you know. Who are you calling? Anybody I can get a phone number from. Her yearbook, her address book. I was called the day of by my father

that she had gone missing. Growing up, Alyssa's older brother James had been like a second father to her. You thought that, yes, she's run away? Yeah, definitely. James no longer lived at home and didn't know where Alyssa was. But he did know she had an aunt in California,

and Alyssa kept in touch with her by phone. At that initial stage, that's what I thought. Maybe she had gone there. Had her aunt heard from her, from Melissa? Mike also checked in with his next-door neighbor, Judy Wacker. She told him not to worry. When she was a teenager, she'd run away too. She'll come back.

Just let her have some space, you know. She's a teenager. She'll come home. How was he handling it? He seemed really anxious. Chris noticed Alyssa didn't show up for graduation or the party after. At first, I thought her dad wouldn't let her leave or something like that, you know. But after the party, I get a phone call from Mike like, hey, have you seen Alyssa?

So this is strange. Yeah, this is weird, yeah. Alyssa's dad went to the police, of course, but he says they told him there wasn't much they could do. They assigned the case to a detective in the missing persons unit and added Alyssa's name to a long list of teenage runaways. I was trying to convince them

that Alyssa was an endangered runaway. You know, I'm worried about my child. We hear that all the time, Mr. Attorney. A week went by and nothing from Alyssa. No calls, no sightings. Until very early one morning, the home phone rang. Mike says it was hard to hear, but he was sure it was Alyssa. And Alyssa said some cuss words and stuff saying that, you know, leave me alone.

It sounded like she was talking away from the mouthpiece. You know, and then it just ended abruptly. Does she sound like she's okay? Does she sound like she's in danger? No, she sounded upset. Where was Alyssa Turney? A mystery that would stretch over decades was just getting started. 17-year-old Alyssa Turney had been gone for seven days

when her father told the Phoenix police about that brief phone call he got from her. He said he wasn't able to see the number, so he asked for their help tracing the call. But the police didn't share his sense of urgency. from her. He said he wasn't able to see the number, so he asked for their help tracing the call. But the police didn't share his sense of urgency. You wanted to find out where that call was made from? I wanted to find out where it was. Phoenix PD didn't help me at all. Police knew at 17, Alyssa was almost an adult. If anything, a call from her meant she was alive and well.

So I started calling Quest, all up through the power chain, all the way to Denver. The phone company? I wanted the phone number. Bag pleaded power chain, all the way to Denver. The phone company? I wanted the phone number. Bag pleaded. And did they help you? No. The phone company said it couldn't turn over the records without a subpoena, so Turney went to court to get one. Meanwhile, he continued to look for Alyssa everywhere.

He was driving out to places to canvass the area to see if she was around, handing out flyers, driving to California, talking to her friends. James says his dad became obsessed with finding Alyssa, who was the oldest girl in their blended family. Mike wasn't her biological father. He met and married Alyssa's mother Barbara when Alyssa was two years old. Barbara also had an eight-year-old son named John. You decided to adopt Alyssa and John, make it official. Why take that extra step and not just be stepdad anymore? Because I love Barbara. I mean, you know, it's a package. If you love somebody, you have to accept what they have with them.

Mike had three sons from a previous marriage, including James. James says his dad always had the video camera out. Here's Alyssa at the center with her large family. When she first came into the family, she was just this little box of energy. She zoomed everywhere. She was constantly on the go, always in between whatever us brothers were currently at that moment doing, always wanted to be a part of it. Sarah was born a few years later. Did you all click really well, given the fact that you're a blended family? Yeah, I would say pretty quickly. We were all pretty close with each other. And they stayed close when tragedy struck. Alyssa was in second grade when her mother

was diagnosed with cancer. Barbara died a year later. How did you help her get through it? Was there anything that you did for Alyssa or said to Alyssa that made it a little easier? Well, at that time, my father was kind of, I would say, really out of it. He seemed to be in shock. I was the person that she was kind of leaning back on. I remember at the funeral specifically, she understandably completely broke down. I remember taking her out and going into one of the church's classrooms in order to comfort her until she was able to return back to the funeral. By the time Alyssa was in high school, her older brothers was able to return back to the funeral. By the time Alyssa was in high school, her older brothers were grown and on their own.

It was just Mike and the two girls. She had a really bubbly, friendly personality. Her friend Chris lived down the street, and they worked together at a Jack in the Box near the high school. Would you hang out a lot when you weren't at work? We would go to school together, so I would walk by her house and, you know, get her and maybe hang out sometimes at her house, waiting for her to get ready. He remembers Alyssa and her father argued a lot. You know, he was always, always trying to demand what she was doing, you know, always trying to see her phone, you know, things like that.

Like heavy-handed parenting, like, you know, always trying to see her phone, you know, things like that, like heavy-handed parenting, like, you know, helicopter style. Mike said it was for her own good. He worried about her, especially after he believed Alyssa had been giving out their home phone number to guys she met while working the jack-in-the-box drive-thru. How did you find that out? The phone calls that came in. And you would ask them, how'd you get this number? Well, try to. Most of the time they just hung up. Molly Claycamp met Alyssa in seventh grade. Oh my God, she was so much fun. She says Alyssa was a bit of a rebel, but in a good way, independent, outspoken. She didn't care what anybody like thought. She just did her own thing.

I think that's what I really liked about her because I wasn't like that very much until I got older. What did you all do for fun? Listened to a lot of music. We talked a lot in class. Talked about boys a lot. She just made me smile all the time, made me laugh. Did you do homework together since you had so many of the same classes?

Yeah. Who was helping who? I would say she was probably helping me more. Yeah. After sophomore year, Alyssa transferred to a different high school and she and Molly lost touch. But Molly often thought about her friend. She still has these photos Alyssa gave her with notes written on the back. What would she say? She'd be like, hey, Molly, I'm glad, you know, you're my best friend. And she'd put like 2002, which is when we were supposed to graduate, 2002, rock, love, Alyssa. That summer Alyssa disappeared, no one knew if she would be back to start senior year, much less graduate. It's unsettling. You know, it's very sad, you know.

You're like, what happened? You know, you kind of think the worst, but you got to keep the hope alive. There was some good news. The court issued that subpoena, and Alyssa's dad got the phone records. What'd you find out? Where'd that call come from?

The area code suggested California, and they didn't give me the location, just gave me the number. And so I just kept calling it. And finally somebody answered. It was a convenience store clerk. The number Mike had been calling was from a payphone outside of a store in Riverside, California, not too far from LA. Mike grabbed Sarah and drove the 320 miles from Arizona to California and found the payphone. I went ahead and took pictures of the phone just to keep my memory straight. And then I started going to the various police departments, giving out flyers. But no one remembered seeing her.

Back home, Mike pushed to get Alyssa's case noticed. He worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And with their help, he was able to get Alyssa featured at a NASCAR event. Her face appeared on the hood of a race car. I did whatever I could, I even had a desperation to get and keep the attention of Alyssa. That included pressuring the police for updates and peppering them with suggestions, people they could talk to, but nothing came of it. As time started to move on and no sightings of Alyssa, are you starting to get concerned

that something bad has happened? Yeah, I love my sister, but I don't think she had the ability to completely wipe her life and disappear into nothing. That's hard to do. Holidays and birthdays passed. One year turned into two, then into many. I can't emphasize enough that she would have called somebody.

You know, that was so out of character for her to not call. Alyssa's missing persons file was passed from one detective to another. Small steps were taken, like collecting her dental records and DNA from the family. They never did any interviews. But soon, a new detective was on the Phoenix, many of them considered runaways. For years, the case of missing teenager Alyssa Turney sat gathering dust in the Phoenix Police Department. She remained listed as a missing person, but there wasn't an overt effort to track her down. That was about to change. Seven years after Alyssa vanished,

Detective Will Anderson joined the Phoenix PD's Missing Persons Unit. I was assigned a portion of the alphabet and started working. So this came about because of the alphabet? Yes. T. Fraterni quickly led him to Alyssa's case. And when he started reading the file, he felt an instant connection with her father, Mike.

Mike's the same age as my father. Mike served in the Army, just like my father. When Mike got out of the Army, he briefly worked at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. So did my father. Wow. Mike has three biological sons. I'm the oldest brother of three. This is unreal, the parallels.

It is. It is. And he's former law enforcement. So I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that we give them a resolution because they deserve that. Even if the resolution would be devastating, because the detective's instincts were telling him that Alyssa, who would have been 24 when he got the case, was not just hiding out somewhere. She's an adult. She can do anything she wants at that point. She's going to seek out her ID. She's going

to contact family and get a copy of her birth certificate. But that didn't happen. That did not happen. Which is a huge red flag. Absolutely. Something has interrupted that pattern of life. My name's Anderson. I'm a detective here. One of the first people Detective Anderson talked to was Alyssa's sister, Sarah. She was 19 now. When Alyssa disappeared, she was 12. Your sister's case is new to me. I'm reviewing it. I'm going to go over it. I want to give it the attention it deserves. Like her father had, Sarah described Alyssa as rebellious and naive. I've heard stories of like, hey, you know, get into our car, let's go to a party. And she's like, all right, let's go. And her friends will be like, no, Alyssa, we don't know these guys.

Like strangers rolling up to her. Yeah, exactly, like that stupid kind of stuff. She told the detective her sister had issues with their father's rules. She'd even talked about leaving home. All the time. All the time? Mm-hmm. Was that directed towards Dad?

Yeah, mostly when they would fight. What did they fight over? Her not being able to do stuff, like go out whenever she wanted or if she didn't check in or something like that. Do you think he's overly protective? Compare him to other parents of your friends. Other parents. With her, he was. He was very overprotective of her. That's his oldest daughter. Yeah, exactly. And she was the type, oh, I'll just get in your car, I don't know who you are.

The detective covered every topic he could think of, including any security precautions at the house. Any cameras, anything like that? We did, I'm not sure. We do have cameras now. I don't think we had them then. Didn't you have them then? Oh, no, no, no, we did have them then. That's right.

Security cameras were rare in 2001. She said her dad installed them after a theft at their house. The cameras, they would record the main door that you guys used coming in and out. Excellent. She said they also had a recorder to tape phone calls. The reason? In the past, her dad had worked as an electrician, but had a falling out with the electrical union.

He told Sarah he had enemies. I know he's really politically outspoken. He's really like a whistleblower, do-gooder. Some people would do things bad. He would tell. You're speaking like retaliation. Yeah, exactly. The detective wondered if there was security footage from the day Alyssa went missing.

A day he went over with Sarah in detail. I went to my room, you know, and I thought it was no big deal, whatever. She probably was somewhere, and I found a note. That note bothered the detective. In his experience, it's unusual for a runaway to leave one. On top of that, she didn't take her cell phone or the silver jewelry she always wore. She left a lot of it. I raided it, obviously, I was 13 and stuff. She didn't take much with her at all except for clothes and the one set of jewelry she was wearing. Just what she

had on and then she left. She only took her regular jeans and then a few t-shirts. Still, Sarah held out hope and encouraged her dad to do the same. For all I know, she's sitting on the beach and I'm drinking a pink water. And he's like, okay, well, that's how I'm going to think of it too now. You know, so. Detective Anderson thought all options were on the table. Either Alyssa ran away and something tragic happened, or maybe she hadn't left on her own after all.

Maybe someone close to her knew something they weren't telling. That would include Alyssa's many friends and her high school boyfriend, John Lackman. What study of a boyfriend was he? They were dating. It was probably her most serious relationship I ever saw. They were dating for a long time. So pretty much the entire junior year? I believe so. How about your dad? How did he feel about John?

He didn't like him because something happened. Her finger got slammed in a door and he thought... A car door? Yeah, a car door. Then he thought John did it on purpose, something like that. He didn't like the way John treated her either, the talking down to her and stuff like that. Slamming car doors? Talking down to her? The boyfriend went to the top of the list of people he wanted to interview, and there were others.

I want to get as many friends of hers, as many friends that your father talked to. From the beginning, Mike Turney had given police names of people he wanted investigated, and now detectives were finally tracking them down. Would one of them hold the key to what happened to Alyssa? Mike brings up an individual that he thinks might have actually killed Alyssa. Yes.

In the years after Alyssa's disappearance, her brother James had moved away from Phoenix, but carried with him a sense of loss and uncertainty that only grew with time. How are you feeling when you find out there are fresh eyes on this case, new detectives? I was ecstatic. I was incredibly happy. I had been constantly calling over and over with the previous detectives that were incredibly unresponsive, unhelpful, and basically not doing anything. Detective Anderson started knocking on doors, including Alyssa's old friend Molly's. It had been nine years since she last spoke to Alyssa,

and she was stunned to hear from the detectives that Alyssa was missing. I can't even imagine just the feeling that you would have in that moment. Yeah, it was like, what? I didn't even know how to say anything because I was like, it's been a long time. What did they say? They said that he had found my name in yearbooks and address books. They told her they were looking for anything with Alyssa's writing on it. Molly went in search of those class pictures, the ones with Alyssa's writing on the back. He took those and he said, I need to do, because she wrote a note and we need to analyze

her, you know, writing on the back and everything. Alyssa had left that note, but also her phone, clothes and money in the bank. $1,800. The detective turned his attention to the names her father had given police, names of people Mike thought might have helped her run away, or worse. That included her boyfriend, John. Were you concerned that John might be involved in her disappearance? Yes, and I tried to get that through to the Phoenix PD.

Mike had been suspicious of John because he and Alyssa had a nasty fight a few weeks before she disappeared. It was recorded on the tourney's home security cameras. What happens in the video? From what I could see, Alyssa throws the phone. He's upset. And then you can hear the squealing of the tires of john leary do you have your idea

now years later detective anderson and his partner asked john to come in for an interview i've talked to her family and but family knows one thing boyfriend probably knows more so i hope so and friends so um how did you guys meet i met met her at school. We had a class together. This is a paradise family. We were together for the whole year, pretty much. Nine months through that year. The detective wanted to know about that fight, of course. John said he was mad because he just found out Alyssa had cheated on him.

So no physical violence between you guys? No. In fact, after their fight, he says the two of them made up and went to prom. You guys had a good time at prom then? Probably. John said prom was one of his favorite memories with Alyssa, and after she disappeared, he was heartbroken. Were you worried about her?

Yeah, I was real worried about her. Detectives thought he was telling the truth, but just to be sure, they ran his vehicle to see if he'd left the state around the time Alyssa disappeared. There's no break in his life pattern that suggests he has any missing time where he'd have the opportunity to do anything with her. Anderson moved on from the boyfriend. There was another worker, co-worker of hers that you felt might have aided him from running away? He was her shift supervisor, Mike Stanley, and he'd given her a ride home.

He was the guy Alyssa had been with while dating John. Mike had video of that too, Alyssa and Mike Stanley kissing. At night, I always turned the recorder on to record the night while we were asleep. And it was unfortunate I caught the make-out on the tape. Detectives asked him to come in for an interview. Was there anything suspicious with him?

No, he voluntarily comes in. He's cooperative. Nothing as far as means, motive, and opportunity to suggest that he's responsible for this. Another dead end. But there were more names on Mike Turney's list. Mike brings up an individual that he thinks might have actually killed Alyssa.

Yes, Paul Abbott is the name he provides. This was a person who was doing wiring at the school. Alyssa's school. Abbott also frequented the Jack in the Box where she worked. Had they argued, or was there any reason? Was he obsessed with her? No. It's one of many people that Mike has offered as possible suspects in her disappearance.

All those leads, but none were panning out. Anderson wanted to go through the whole case with Alyssa's dad in a sit-down interview. To his surprise, Mike said no. He told the detective Sarah could speak for the family. I said, in all due respect to Sarah, she's 19 now, but her memories are that of a 12-year-old. Does he agree to come in? No. But Anderson wanted more than just a sit-down interview.

He wanted something he believed might be in the Turney house. In Michael Turney's own words, there's a video from the day she disappeared. This could be a gift falling in your lap in this investigation, this video. Absolutely. The Phoenix Police Department was investigating one lead after another in the Alyssa Turney cold case. And there in the file, detectives found another lead. Maybe, just maybe, this was it. A few years earlier, a convicted killer named Thomas Heimer had confessed to several murders, and he said one of his victims was Alyssa.

This person in prison at that time for a homicide. Heimer had written a letter to the FBI saying he'd met Alyssa in a drug dealer's van outside of a Phoenix bar. His letter described how he drove her to Georgia and killed her in a hotel room, dumping her body in a trash compactor. The FBI had looked into his story and dismissed it. Heimer never provided any details beyond what was available to the public. But years later, with still no sign of Alyssa, Anderson and his partner wanted to check him out. I spoke to Heimer. I arranged a conversation with him. Anderson's partner traveled to a Florida prison to interview Heimer in person.

He brought along a technician to give the convicted killer a polygraph. But that's not what the polygraph results showed. Right there in the room, the polygrapher determined Heimer was making it all up. It's quickly becoming apparent to you that he's not Alyssa's killer. So all the detective had was a pile of dead ends, most of them provided by Mike Turney. While Anderson had initially felt a connection with Alyssa's father, now all he felt was frustration, Mike was still refusing to come in for a formal interview. What's happening in this story is a big shift. This dad has gone from doing everything he could to find his daughter to now being uncooperative. The father has gone from following up on every lead, providing us information,

directing who we should speak to. But when you get that cop who wants to meet with you, wants your input and your information, I start getting objections. In the years since Alyssa disappeared, Mike's public campaign to find her had waned. He didn't have a job, collected disability for an injury he suffered working as an electrician, and Sarah told investigators he'd been treated for depression. She continued to be as helpful as she could. I stated I wanted more of Alyssa's artifacts.

Did you keep anything of hers? Yes, we've kept everything. Wonderful. Did she allow you to come into the home? Absolutely. Sarah arranged the date. I showed up with two other detectives and a truck anticipating a large volume of material

that I'd be able to take and review to try and figure out who Alyssa was. What did you get? I got her yearbook. That's it? That was it. So you have a truck sitting outside for a yearbook? For a yearbook.

Contrary to what Sarah told him, Mike said that's all they had left of Alyssa's things. Anderson was certain there had to be more in the house. That's because in the case file, there was this letter written by Mike years earlier to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. What I really key in on is a statement by Mike saying that he has internal and external security cameras at his home

and that he has an eight-hour video from May 17th of 2001, the day Alyssa ran away. The day she went missing. Yes. This is crucial, potentially. Yes. Did you ask him if you could see the video? Yes. He states he will look for it, but he's not sure if he kept it. The detective says Mike told him there hadn't been anything useful on the tape anyway. So Anderson asked him for something else. Remember that phone call Mike got from the payphone in California? Anderson knew he had a history of recording calls.

So the million-dollar question is, did he record the call that he said Alyssa made to the house? Does he have it? No. And there was more on the detective's radar. We've talked to so many people at this point that there are allegations floating around that have me frankly concerned. One allegation came from Alyssa's biological father, Steve Strom. Years earlier, he and Alyssa's mother had divorced. He hadn't seen Alyssa since she was a toddler. She was one of those kids that just go, go, go.

And she was really outgoing. Very sweet kid. When he heard she was missing, he contacted police. He expresses concerns. Are you sure that she's a runaway? He wanted investigators to know he didn't believe Alyssa left on her own. What did you think had happened? I think he did

something to her. I just felt it as a father. I could feel there was something not right there. He's talking about Mike Turney. The two men had a contentious history. They battled over custody and child support. He was just narcissistic. That's what he was. It's all about Michael and no one else in the world. Maybe Steve was biased, but he wasn't the only one pointing the finger at Mike. Alyssa's boyfriend John had a lot to say about Mike Turney. For one, he told investigators that the fight he had with Alyssa started because of something Mike said. Mike Turney stopped him, leans over and says, she's cheating on you.

Odd thing to say from a dad. John told police he was suspicious of Mike from the beginning. What did you think happened to her? I think her stupid stepdad did something ridiculously terrible. Anderson continued to push Mike for evidence, having no idea that what he would uncover next could blow up the whole investigation. He had enough explosives there to take out our whole neighborhood. Holy cow. Detective Anderson was done playing games. For months, he'd been asking Mike Turney for video of the day Alyssa vanished and audio of that call from California.

Mike Turney responded by handing over those two other tapes, Alyssa fighting with her boyfriend and Alyssa kissing that other guy in the living room, neither of which helped the investigation. I'm looking for that videotape. I'm looking for that audio tape. So authorities went to court and got two search warrants, one for the house where Alyssa grew up and another for the house Mike lived in now, right across the street. Is the entire house being turned upside down? Yes. Everything's being upside down? Yes.

Everything's being looked at? Yes. They didn't need to look hard to find out that Mike had guns. Lots of them. But investigators had come looking for tapes, and there were plenty of those too. We found hundreds of VHS tapes and hundreds of audio tape cassette recordings. Would the tapes they wanted be among them? It was too soon to know.

And their focus had shifted to something more imminent. A large stash of explosives, including homemade pipe bombs. These are somewhat competently created devices. This is a dangerous situation, potentially. This is a deadly situation. The big question, what was Mike Turney planning? They found the answer in a locked safe. Michael Turney had created and stamped sealed envelopes for NBC, for ABC, for local media.

It's being described as a manifesto. It was titled, Diary of a Madman Lost in an Obsession for Justice Enclosure. Remember Sarah had mentioned her dad's trouble with an electrical union? Said he was a kind of whistleblower who worried about retaliation? I know he's really politically outspoken. Some people would do things bad. He would tell.

Well, he'd done more than worry. He'd tell. Well, he'd done more than worry. He'd been obsessed. He believed that the union sabotaged his job in California and that they tried to kill him by knocking him off of a ladder. And it gets even worse than that. Mike's manifesto made an outrageous claim that the union had murdered Alyssa. She was abducted by union members that somehow recognized her, killed her, and left her body in Desert Center, California. He wrote in the manifesto's cover letter, I got to this point in my life that my death, vengeance, and mass murder was all I had left.

He'd even marked his calendar with a big X. That happened to be the next date for the local union's Christmas party. That's when they would have all their members, wives, children at the party. That holiday party was just a few days away. The detective believed that's the day Mike had chosen to carry out an attack. This search warrant that was not looking for this ended up potentially preventing a mass shooting. Absolutely prevented it.

Mike Turney was arrested. A detective called James with the news. Said that pipe bombs have been found in the house. We are evacuating that particular part until we get the bomb squad in and we're cordoning off the area. What's going through your mind? It was a surreal experience. All I kept thinking during that stuff was, oh my God, my sister was living there. And my family was visiting there.

It's like, this is crazy. Crazy. Surreal. But in a strange way, validating for James. You see, for years he'd been the odd man out in his family, ostracized, he says, for challenging his father. I was asking too many questions. About Alyssa? About Alyssa.

Yeah, I had started this even before Alyssa went missing. I kept asking questions about how well the girls were being taken care of. You know, why are their rooms dirty when I come over? Why is the house not clean? Just things along those nature. And after Alyssa vanished, while his dad appeared to be searching everywhere, he told James something downright bizarre. Well, he tells me that he has found the killers of my sister

and that he had killed the killers of my sister. Now, you have to also remember, my father has told me crazy things my entire life. So there was also a part of me that was like going, is this guy just rambly? Like, is he just telling me this to make me happy, telling me this to try to comfort me in some sort of bizarre way?

But it definitely raised red flags and it started to begin the checking in my mind doesn't make sense. You really started asking questions that you hadn't necessarily asked before. Yeah. And as I asked more questions, the answers became more, I would say, obscure, and it was more and more contradictions. Now, bomb squads were rolling into his old street. Neighbor Judy got a knock on her door. It was the biggest shock I ever got in my life. The police officer was like,

you're going to have to evacuate overnight, so you have 10 minutes. They stayed at the front of the door, waited for us to get all of our stuff. And this is right across the street? Right across the street. He had enough explosives there to take out our whole neighborhood. The next day, the neighbors were allowed back, but the drama wasn't over.

A new search was underway at Mike Turney's old house, the one he lived in at the time of Alyssa's disappearance. A bunch of police cars were there and I noticed that they had the canine. And I figured they were here to have cadaver dogs. To search for Alyssa's body, potentially? Because they came out here to the backyard and I watched them. I kind of got up on this and I just kind of looked over and I saw them digging there. So I just kind of took my camera, my phone and just started

taking some pictures. So you're playing citizen journalist. Citizen journalist. Taking these photos. Investigators were searching. Would they solve this mystery and finally find Alyssa. As the digging continued and the canines sniffed around Mike Turney's old house, neighbor Judy Wacker held her breath. My heart was going 50 miles an hour, you know, thinking, oh my God, you know. And then when I heard they didn't find anything, I was relieved.

But there was little relief for James. His father pleaded guilty to illegally possessing those pipe bombs and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. And with his dad behind bars, James thought back on all the strange things his father had said and done. One thing that really bothered him, he says his dad never told the family that he'd picked Alyssa up early from school that day she disappeared. To me, it kind of looks like if you take a person out of school early and you wanted to do something that may make them want to go away or go away, it's best to do it at a time when no one else is around to ask

questions. Detective Anderson was more than a little suspicious too. He hoped Mike Turney would finally talk to him from prison. Is he cooperative or does he shut down? He shuts down. We solicit him, can we talk about Alyssa? No, he will not talk to us. But Mike Turney wasn't going anywhere for now. There was plenty of time for police to sort through those piles of recordings.

Remember, detectives were looking for two things. The video from the day Alyssa went missing. And that phone call Mike said she made from California. Finding these two tapes that you need is like finding a needle. Two needles. Two needles in a stack of needles. Many of the audio recordings seemed mundane. Dinner's ready. I'm going to call you in ten minutes.

So you were used to the recorded phone calls though, right? Yeah, from a very young age, yeah. There were phone recordings of Sarah ordering pizza and calling to check movie showtimes. Here's Alyssa on the phone with her boyfriend John. Bye-bye. I love you. I love you. But then there was this recording, a phone call between Mike and one of his sons from before Alyssa's disappearance. Mike is talking about Alyssa.

Everything else is going to be f***ed over because of some stupid-ass f***ing bitch. I'm giving her basically an alternative. Cops, where she can bond back with me and the family and stop being such a f***ing bitch. These tapes are showing an unhealthy relationship with his daughter. There are definitely some issues in that home. There were hours and hours of family videos. Alyssa. Alyssa. But what to make of this? That's Alyssa at work. She seems annoyed her father is outside with his camera. And how often is he coming to her work and recording her? He comes on a regular basis.

Mr. Turney has stated that he would routinely show up an hour or two early to ensure that she did not leave the premise with anybody else. My gosh, it's like she's being stalked almost. It's, yeah, it's very much over the top. I remember her saying kind of something about that. And I was like, that's weird. And, you know, it was like, why would you do that? Detectives also combed through the video captured by Mike Turney's security cameras.

Years worth. A camera outside and a hidden camera inside. I saw it. It was up in the register vent. In the vent? Yeah. You could see it? Yeah.

Like a red light? Yeah, like a little bleeping red light. He's got was up in the register vent. In the vent? Yeah. You could see it? Yeah. Like a red light? Yeah. Like it was on? Like a little bleeping red light. He's got the camera in the vent. And then, of course, he's videotaping Alyssa on the job. He's, you know, all these things are happening. Yeah.

That, to my knowledge, never, ever occurred until Alyssa. And it seemed to be pretty specifically focused on her, specifically. It would take thousands of hours to go through all the tapes. Years, in fact. And after all that work, detectives never found the video of Alyssa from the day she disappeared. And there was no recording of that phone call either. I can tell you the family ordered a large cheese pizza, half pepperoni and half onion. I can tell you that Sarah was trying to find a good movie time for Princess

Diaries. All of those ridiculous calls are recorded. But no call from California. But no call from California. Despite the hundreds of tapes collected from the house, remember Turney had only volunteered two tapes to police. Alyssa with a guy in the living room and that fight with her boyfriend John. Now when you see this video and you know what you know, what are you thinking? It was theater.

I'm thinking Mr. Turney kept this video to give law enforcement something to look at. Something to possibly distract from Mike Turney himself? Yes. Detective Anderson was now convinced that Mike Turney was responsible for his daughter's disappearance. And the stories people were telling him about Mike were beyond disturbing. It just creeped me out. That's all I remember. It creeped me out. That's all I remember.

It creeped me out and it's forever ingrained in my brain. Phoenix police detectives learned a lot about Mike Turney and his relationship with Alyssa while he sat behind bars. Before his arrest, he told Detective Anderson Alyssa was impulsive, had bad judgment when it came to guys, and that she wasn't very bright. The stories that are told about Alyssa are not charming stories. Everything he says, everything he does is geared to make Alyssa look foolish, look sexual. But now he was hearing that's not how others saw her.

I don't know, she's always so cute and happy and I think people just liked her. She didn't go far. They heard plenty of ugly stories, but those were about Mike. Yeah, he was paranoid. When we finally get around to talking to all these people, they come forward with these horrible situations. One of those people was Alyssa's older cousin. He lived with attorneys for a short while as a young adult.

In a call with police, he described a VHS tape he found in the house one day. It showed a girl lying on what he believed was his Uncle Mike's couch. A newspaper covered her eyes. The her he was talking about was his cousin Alyssa. Police asked him to come in so they could talk in person. He brought his wife with him and described the video again. And this is being recorded by Mike? This appears to be a home video.

I can't tell you who took it. I've never seen the video. Investigators never found a video with that topless girl during the search of the attorney's house. Mike says that's because it doesn't exist. But Alyssa's cousin was convinced he saw something deeply disturbing. It just creeped me out. That's all I remember. It creeped me out and it's

forever ingrained in my brain. Alyssa's cousin was not the only person that described unsettling things. Others shared stories they said they'd heard from Alyssa directly. This story ranks up there with some of the worst stories you've heard. Alyssa's third grade teacher. Yes. The teacher met with detectives in a parking lot. There's one time, Alyssa was, she said to me, I'm going to text my dad. I'm like, what?

And I talked to her and I said, Alyssa, why are you saying yeah? Are you truly telling me this? Because if she told me, I would have called the CPS or whatever. And she said, no, I'm not. And this is a little girl, third grade Alyssa, walking around saying she'd had sex with her father. So she confronted Michael about that. Michael said, no, no, no, she's confused.

She thinks sex is when people kiss each other goodnight. I have a third grader, myself, and she knows what kissing is. Yes. Yeah. Alyssa had also told friends and family about something she said happened when she was a teenager. You said that he touched her? This high school friend recounted a story Alyssa told her about a drive into the desert with her dad. They were in his truck, and he let her drive. He made her really uncomfortable, and she got out and walked home.

Did she specify what he did that made her feel uncomfortable? It's hard. I've tried so hard to forget. I don't know, maybe he put his hand on her leg or got too close to her or something. What was her demeanor when she was telling you this? He touches her, he gropes her, he tries to do something to her. That particular story comes from three different sources. The same story? The same story. And did they all talk or know each other or was this all independent? All independent. Alyssa's boyfriend John was one of the three sources for that story.

I think the story was pulled over somewhere in an unoccupied area, something like a desert area, and tried fooling around with her, and she got aggressive, fighting about it. Did you ask these three, did you say, did she seem like she was trying to get back at her dad? Because she's just sick of him being so controlling. Absolutely. Absolutely. For all three of them. And they said, no, this was genuine. This was emotional. This was her in the moment, shaking and crying. She talked a lot about... In a call with police, another friend said Alyssa confided in her too.

There is one time that she did tell me about something that he did that was physical. She had told me about waking up to him one night, gagging her with a sock and trying to strangle her. When she came to and realized what was going on, he did stop. What he tried to explain to her afterward is that basically if she ever told anybody, nobody would ever believe her. He was always threatening her in that way, threatening her not to tell people things because, you know, he would be believed over her. The detectives couldn't verify the sexual abuse stories without Alyssa. But there was this. Alyssa talked to her aunt in California just weeks before she disappeared, and Mike knew it. After all, he recorded their calls.

Yes? Yes. You know what's the thing, Alyssa? If you ever want to come out and visit me, I'm right here. Okay. Okay. Okay? Uh-huh. So you have a 17-year-old girl.

Whatever issues are going on in that home, she's not willing to tolerate them anymore. And she's finally able to stand up and recognize that she has some resources. She could go to her maternal aunt. You believe Mike Turney is losing control at this point? Absolutely, and if he's not outright losing control, he's in fear that she is going to cause him harm. Giving him a possible motive. Yes. For wanting her gone.

Means, motive, and opportunity are entirely Mike's. That was the theory, but they needed more, something, or maybe some one to make the case. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. It just creeped me out. Investigators heard a slew of distressing stories about Mike Turney's relationship with Alyssa. Her brother James hadn't heard any sexual abuse allegations, but he did have a story of his own. Weeks before she disappeared, Alyssa told her brother she wanted to go live with him. Did she say why? She said that she couldn't take living with my father anymore, that she was afraid of him.

She at that time was weeping, very, very emotional. How worried were you about her when she's saying these things and crying? I was concerned, but at the same time, I had been told that she was a problem child, that she was causing all sorts of issues, she was into all sorts of trouble. James says their dad always made it seem like Alyssa was the problem. And for a long time, he'd believed him. He would badmouth her, saying she was dumb, naive, too sexual.

Yes. Why do all that? In order to control her. James spent years thinking about his upbringing and learning about domestic and child abuse. He believes his father used something called coercive control to dominate Alyssa and all of his kids. You make that person feel isolated and that basically you're the only one that can help them because they're too stupid to whatever to be part of any other group. Would you say you were under his spell back then?

Oh, when we were younger? Yeah, we were. I call us a cult. And everything that my father said was, you know, the word, the true word. And everyone else was an outside influence. You know, you didn't trust anyone else. What he said, you believed. James says as soon as he started to doubt the true word, he was basically kicked out of the family. After his dad's arrest, he tried to get his siblings to start asking questions too.

You had been trying to convince your siblings that, hey, something's not right here with dad, with Alyssa, with her disappearance? Yes, for years. The majority of my questioning had to be very, very cautious. I had been slowly just doing things like, doesn't this, you know, interaction here seem a little off? Why don't you question this too? Or do you not see this?

Raising doubts. Yeah, definitely. If I was to come out directly and say, I think dad did something, I would have been pushed back immediately. James says eventually, one by one, his brothers came around and started cooperating with investigators.

I told Alyssa. In fact, his brother, Rhett, was one of the many people to tell investigators about Alyssa's allegation of sexual abuse. But one tourney still wasn't convinced her father had harmed Alyssa. Sarah had long supported your dad. When did she start making that shift

to questioning him as well? I would say after his incarceration, yeah. I think she was internal to her own thoughts, and she was reviewing what she had experienced, what she had seen, what she had read. You had a delicate dance with Sarah because she'd supported her dad for so long. Yes. And now you're trying to show her, look, I don't think he's the father you think he is. Yes.

Anderson decided to let the evidence speak for itself. Over the course of several meetings and even more emails, he showed Sarah the case being built against her dad. Sharing a video with her, releasing a video to her, telling her, hey, explain this to me. Walk me through this. It was 2016, 15 years after Alyssa disappeared. Mike Turney was about to be released from prison after serving time for those weapons charges. Detective Anderson sat with a

prosecutor from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and walked him through the case. By then, Sarah had changed her mind. Now all of the Turney siblings believed their father was involved in Alyssa's disappearance. The prosecutor looked at what police had, and despite all the smoke, he saw no fire. He told the detective to keep digging. Mike Turney would not be charged in Alyssa's disappearance. It was incredibly frustrating. It made us so angry. And we had been told all along that he'll be charged when he comes out. We're going to charge him with this. Don't worry about it. And then not long after he was released, just nothing.

It was like, you've got to be kidding us. Why would you even tell us that it was going to happen? Why even give us that hope? But someone was coming for Mike Turney. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Sarah was now 30 years old, a college graduate living on her own. With her father out of prison, she was going to do everything she could to send him back. She's the ultimate creation of my father, and he did not expect that. She was able to turn it a full 180 and be the driving force,

something that none of us could have ever done. She started a podcast dedicated to her sister's case. You might have heard of my sister Alyssa's story before, but I promise that you've never heard it like this. And created a TikTok account. Can we please just get justice for Alyssa now? Please help me share this. This is insane. It should never happen to anyone. She raised money to put up this billboard in Phoenix to spotlight

the case. She would have done it for me. And reached out to national media, including Dateline. I did not expect to blow up on TikTok overnight, so thank you. It worked. Alyssa's story went viral and Sarah gained more than a million followers. It's like she single-handedly got millions of people interested in Alyssa's case and put this incredible pressure on police to get things done. Exactly. It took several years. then finally, it happened. In August of 2020, officers in tactical gear surrounded Mike Turney as he exited his vehicle with his hands in the air. Today, I am announcing the grand jury indictment for secondary murder of Michael Roy Turney.

There was a new district attorney, and her team had taken a second look at Alyssa's case. With largely the same evidence as before, she decided it was enough. To Alyssa's sister. She gave Sarah a shout out for keeping the case front and center. Your perseverance and commitment to finding justice for your sister, Alyssa, is a testament to the love of a sister. Sarah immediately shared the news on her TikTok account.

My father's been arrested for Alyssa's murder. And I just stopped crying and I'm trying not to cry again. It made me sleep better at night just knowing that he was there. And it made me think maybe there's a chance my sister will get justice. Maybe there's a chance. Mike Turney was behind bars once again. But would it be for good this time? They need to prove that he did something. And from our perspective, that evidence just was never there. public defender jamie jackson headed over to the maricopa county jail to meet his new client mike tourney what's your first impression you know from the very beginning he was adamant that he did not do this and after just a quick glance at the files, Jamie thought his client had a strong case.

For me, it was immediately, wow, there's very little physical evidence, obviously, in this case, or none. And it seemed that this all became kind of a character assassination. Deputy County Attorney Vince Imbordino disagreed. We were convinced that we had sufficient evidence to show that he murdered her, that he had a motive to kill her, and he had time to kill her. But the prosecutor had obstacles, big ones.

There was no body, no physical evidence of a murder. And while the alleged motive was compelling, it was possible a jury would never hear it. It was problematic in the sense that a lot of the information we had about Alyssa alleging abuse were statements that she had made to her friends and her family. Well, we couldn't get those in because it's hearsay. In a blow to the prosecution, the judge ruled that the sexual abuse claims could not be discussed in front of the jury. So frustrating for you that, you know, this is the crux of your possible motive here

and you can't deliver it to the jury. Very frustrating, but we have rules of evidence, as you know, and you just have to work around it. And those rules of evidence precluded something else. Like in most criminal cases, the prosecution wasn't allowed to talk about prior convictions. Mike Turney, of course, was a convicted felon. The pipe bomb case, which they couldn't say because they felt that might make him look like he was a criminal, but he was a criminal. On July 6, 2023, the prosecutor stood before a jury and laid out what was left of his case.

All the pieces of circumstantial evidence he believed added up to just one logical conclusion. Mike Turney was a vengeful father desperate to silence his daughter and the last person known to ever see her alive. He told the jury how Turney didn't have the security video from the day Alyssa disappeared or the recording of that call he said Alyssa made from California. Detective Anderson had a theory about that. We know a call was made because there's a record of it.

So who do you think made that call? My suggestion would be that it was Michael Turney. You think he drove all the way to California and made the call from the payphone and then drove home? He himself says he made several trips to California. He easily could have made that call. The prosecutor played calls they did have. Those recordings of Mike saying nasty things about Alyssa.

Because of some stupid-ass bitch. He showed video from the camera Mike hid inside the living room vent, the one the prosecutor said Mike used to spy on Alyssa. He suggested to the jury it all added up to Mike Turney's unnatural obsession with his daughter. This defendant attempted to basically control every part of her life, whether she was at home, whether she was at home, whether she was at school, whether she was at work. This is one of the several contracts.

He also showed the jury what he described as the contract, an unusual document that Mike Turney wrote up titled My Statement About Things In My Life At Home. Alyssa signed it. At the very top, number one said, my father, Mike Turney, has never physically or sexually abused me at any time. Prosecutors entered it into evidence as a way to let the jury at least hear something about the alleged sexual abuse.

We utilized the contract, avowing that he had never done any of these things to her. The sexual abuse. Right. And so the only argument we were trying to make was that whether it happened or not, he's concerned about it. And if he's losing control of her, then he's concerned that people are going to believe her and not him. I'm James Turney.

James took the stand, but he wasn't allowed to say much. That story about Alyssa crying, asking to go live with him because she was scared of their dad, that was ruled too prejudicial. What was that like getting up there on that witness stand with your dad right there? And your eyes are meeting. Yeah, it was uncomfortable. It took a while before I started to look at him, and then I started to look at him, and he never looked at me.

The prosecution hoped its star witness, the sister who fought so publicly to get justice for Alyssa, might be able to convince the jury of her dad's guilt. Sarah described the animosity between her father and sister. No, as far as I can remember, it was just always a bad relationship with Alyssa and my father,

which caused just a lot of stress and tension. What would they argue about? Everything. I mean, it was a lot of criticism of Alyssa. When the prosecutor asked Sarah about the note she and her dad found, she got choked up as she recited it from memory. They said, Dad and Sarah, when you dropped me off at school today, I decided I really am going to California. Dad, that's why I took $ it from memory. They said, Dad and Sarah, when you dropped me off at school today, I decided I really am going to California.

Dad, that's why I took $300 from you. Sarah, you always said you wanted me gone. Now you have it. Alyssa. The prosecutor didn't dispute that Alyssa wrote the note. So you believe that she did write it herself? A forensic handwriting analysis was done. It's clear that Alyssa wrote the note.

We don't know when. We don't know under what circumstances. But he felt certain Alyssa didn't write the note the day she disappeared. Sarah testified that things Alyssa wrote didn't line up with the events of the day. Like dad and Sarah when you dropped me off at school today. Had your father dropped you and Alyssa off at school together that day? No. And the part about Sarah not wanting Alyssa around?

She said that was about an old argument from long before Alyssa went missing. Sarah testified and would tell you that that's not what was going on at this time. So clearly, Alyssa wrote that note at some point in time, but not on May 17th. Have you on occasion asked your father what happened to Alyssa? Many times. One of those times was at a Starbucks after her father got out of prison.

Taking a page from him, Sarah recorded their conversation. Be there at the deathbed, Sarah, and I'll give you all the understandings you want to hear. Why don't you give them to me now? Because you've got them now. Then why are you making me this offer to go to your deathbed? I don't know, Sarah. What are you looking for? The prosecutor didn't play the tape in court, but asked Sarah to describe the conversation. He told me he'd tell me on his deathbed. And she told the jury about another conversation with her dad, a creepy story she

says happened about a month after Alyssa disappeared. She was 12 at the time. He wanted to swap bedrooms with her. My father moved me into the master bedroom. Did he tell you why he was going to have you stay in that bedroom? Yes. What was that? He didn't want to be accused of molesting me and having me walk around in the towel. So he wanted me to have my own bathroom.

Okay. It was another workaround, another way to raise the suggestion of sexual abuse. But the defense fired back, ready to poke holes in what they believed was a weak case, starting with Sarah's credibility. It's convenient, the things that you remember and don't. Objection? Argumentative? Sustained. Our argument, obviously, was she had got it through her mind at some point

that her dad was guilty and was adding facts. Did you ever speak with the police? The defense showed the jury how Sarah's story changed in big and small ways since the first time she spoke to police. Sarah repeatedly implied that, like her brother, she once believed whatever her dad said. That's what I was told. That's what I was told. In court, Mike Turney sat silently watching it all. Outside of court, he had plenty to say to us about the accusations against him. Human error. I forgot to turn the record on. The police find that very convenient. Of course they did.

You see how it sounds, though, right? Defense attorney Jamie Jackson and his co-counsel Olivia Hicks were feeling pretty confident. They told the jury the state's case was nothing but a character assassination. The state's entire case is based on circumstantial evidence, based on speculation, based on belief, with no actual facts. Still, they had concerns. What did you think was the most damning evidence or testimony against your client? I would say the negative phone call and the contracts.

The phone call where he calls her a bitch and an a-hole. Yeah. Yeah. Because it at least, I think, would put something in the juror's mind that, well, I would never, no matter what, say that about my daughter. And the contract that now you're putting sexual abuse in their minds, the juror's minds. So would Mike Turney take the stand? His lawyers say he was ready to tell jurors his side of the story. A story he told us, too. I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do.

Believe me, I thought about it. I really did. How did you feel when you had gone from the father who appeared to be doing everything you could to find Alyssa to suddenly now the police are looking at you, that you harmed your daughter? How did I feel? Well, first off, I knew from the beginning when they showed up at the door that they weren't looking for Alyssa, that they were focusing on me. He believes Detective Anderson never really investigated all those leads he'd passed along. Anderson had made up his mind from day one, and he focused completely on me. He completely denies that. He says that he had an open mind and wanted to find Alyssa.

He's a liar. They didn't follow through with anybody else. That was all a ruse. Well, they say, though, that you trying to find your daughter, doing all these various things to find Alyssa, that was the ruse. That you were not trying to find her because you knew that she was dead, because you had killed her. That's what the police say. That's a lie. I did not kill my daughter. That just never happened. Detective Anderson said that he wanted to talk to you, but you wouldn't talk to him in a formal setting. Why not? Because we couldn't agree on the fact that I wanted to take my video cameras, two of them, one on him, one on me. The only thing that was refused was the formal interview.

I talked to Anderson all the time, gave him anything he wanted. Days after Alyssa's disappearance, you say you got a call from her. Yes, I did. You're the dad who records every call. Did you record the call? No, because the recorder had to be set manually Okay, so when the tape ran out It flipped off and I hadn't started it that morning yet

So 30 years of calls and then you miss recording this call. Yeah, I've heard that one It's just one of those things that happens. You think I don't regret it? Did you make that call yourself? What the call that you say was from Alyssa? Did you make that call yourself? What? The call that you say was from Alyssa. Did you make that call to your house? No, I didn't make that phone call myself. That's a theory that the police have floated. No, they probably think that I was Jack the Ripper too, for all I know. I don't care what they think. What about videotapes? You videotape inside the house, outside the house every day. Did you have video of Alyssa

from the day she disappeared? From inside or outside the house? There never was a video of Alyssa that day. There wasn't a video turned on that morning because I forgot to. The police said that you told them there was a recording of the day that Alyssa disappeared, but that you felt

there wasn't anything worthwhile on it, so you didn't keep it? I told them at the beginning, you look at it, and then you can verify that there's nothing on it. So there was a recording of the day, or there wasn't? No, there was not. There was not. There was never a recording on the VCR from that day.

So why that day? Why not that day? When every other day? Human error. I forgot to turn the record on. The police find that very convenient. Of course they did. You see how it sounds though, right?

People will see it. You're not recording the day she calls. There's no video of the day she disappears when you have hundreds, thousands of videotapes and audiotapes. Luck of the circumstances. You're heard on a recording calling her an a-hole, a bitch. Why call her those names?

It's a very embarrassing thing, venting, because I found out that Alyssa was again lying to me. He says the man you hear on those tapes is a parent at the end of his rope, a father trying to protect a rebellious and impulsive teenager. One of the ways that you kept an eye on her was by videotaping her at her job. Videotaping at her job? Like from the parking lot. I mean what what dad does that it seems it seems a little much you want the explanation yes okay my children when they first had their first job it was a family tradition because i videotaped

all the time when alissa saw that her brothers her four had been videotaped, she asked me to do that. Wait, she asked you to videotape her? She wanted me to videotape her at her job. Why? What teenager wants their dad videotaping them at their job? I can barely get my daughter to take a photo. I don't know. Probably because I grew up with me taking videos all the time.

Why did you have contracts that you had Alyssa sign saying that you did not sexually abuse her? Well, I didn't, that's for sure. What I'm trying to understand is, how did it get to the point where you felt you needed to have a contract of Alyssa saying you did not sexually abuse her? I don't understand where that comes from. Alyssa started threatening me with CPS.

She wanted to be emancipated. And in Arizona, she couldn't do that. So she was trying to pressure me. You were concerned Alyssa was going to lie? Is that what you're saying? I know Alyssa lied, because I didn't do that. She told people that you did, that you took her out to the desert

and sexually abused her. I don't know what she told those people. What I do know is those are some of the people that I was keeping her away from or trying to. During our interview, Turney made repeated claims about people being out to get him. From the police...

They lied. ...to the union he plotted against. They were making threats against my family. But he did not want to talk about the crimes that had sent him to federal prison. You can understand now how someone with pipe bombs could be seen as very unstable. I don't want to get into the pipe bomb things. I have no memory of them. And I still don't.

Of the pipe bombs? That's right. No memory? No memory of it. How's that possible? Beats me. Oh, you think the pipe bombs were planted in your house? I'm not going to comment on that.

My name is Sarah Turney. Your daughter, Sarah, had supported you for years. And then all that changed. She believes that you killed Alyssa. It's upsetting to me because do you you understand the phrase, turning the family? It's a police technique. Anderson continued to perpetuate the lies, and he turned Sarah. Sarah seems like a very smart woman.

Yes, she is. That's the way I want her to be. But doesn't that speak a lot, though, about her making up her own mind about whether you were involved or not? She's read all the evidence. And that's what's strange, because by now she should have concluded that there was no evidence. But it broke my heart. And as for that remark he made to Sarah about giving her answers on his deathbed,

he says, listen to the whole tape. And he denied ostracizing his son James for any reason. He says it was James who turned on him. Did you kill Alyssa? I did not kill Alyssa. Do you know where Alyssa's body is? I have no idea where Alyssa is alive or dead. In the end, the man who had an answer for just about everything would not be taking the stand. That's because the defense had another plan.

This was the twist of all twists. I've never seen this before. Yeah. I was just in disbelief. I think I'm still processing it. We are back on the record in state versus attorney. How did you feel when you rested your case? I thought we had done a good job. I was confident that we had presented all the evidence that we had,

all the evidence that we needed to present, all the evidence that we were allowed to present. Alyssa's brother James sat through every day of testimony and did not agree. When they rested, I was horrified because I was like, so what did they actually say? Prosecutors said that it would all come together in closing arguments. But first, a courtroom formality.

The Rule 20 is done in every case. That is, once the state presents their evidence, we make an argument that there's not substantial evidence that this case can go forward. In other words, the defense asks the judge to throw out the case before it even gets to the jury. Defense lawyers try it all the time. Judges rarely go for it. And we were told by the lawyers, this is normal. They do this in every trial. Don't worry about it. But I was just shaking through it all when it started off. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to take up some legal issues. With the jury out of the courtroom, the defense argued for an immediate acquittal.

The state has not presented any evidence to prove that Mike acted intentionally or recklessly to cause a death in this case. There's no confession, no evidence of a plan, and no evidence of how a death occurred. The prosecution defended its case. We don't have to prove how he killed her. We don't have to prove whether he strangled her, whether he beat her. All we have to prove is that he killed her. And there is circumstantial evidence that he did. The judge weighed in with this. There is evidence in the case. I am not here to suggest that the state has put forth no evidence. There is evidence. The question then becomes, is it substantial that would warrant a conviction for second-degree murder?

The answer to that question? No. Evidence does not exist to warrant a conviction. It's ordered granting defendant's motion for a Rule 20 judgment of acquittal. An acquittal for Mike Turney. There was silence in the courtroom for 10 long seconds as the judge's decision sunk in. I was just in disbelief. I think I'm still processing it. Mike Turney was free to go. Mr. Turney, you're going to be signing

for a copy of your release. Take us to that moment for you. It felt like an out-of-body experience for me. So for me, when he said the words, everything just dropped. And I'm like, he did it again. I had been telling the prosecution from over and over again, remember, crazy, not stupid. My father will, anything he possibly can, he will use. And they were successful in fighting every piece of evidence, in my opinion, that they possibly could. We start this afternoon with breaking news about a murder trial people

around the country are watching. Alyssa's friend Molly had been watching the trial online. All of a sudden at the top of it, it said that he was, they're going to let him go. And I was like, what? Are you doing a double take? Yeah. And I was like, what? Are you doing a double take? Yeah. Am I reading this right? Yes. Is this the case that haunts you?

You know, sadly, this haunts me. It's been going on for 20 years of my life. I feel that I failed. The information is there. I believe in what I'm telling you. It's there. 75-year-old Mike Turney told us he's not giving up on his mission to find out what happened to Alyssa. I sure miss her. She gave me a reason to stay alive.

Sorry. And to anyone who says that these tears are not real. I don't care what people think. You think I'm an actor? No. This is real. James left Phoenix the moment the trial ended. He wanted to put as much space as possible between himself and his father, a man he believes is dangerous.

It made me feel very afraid for my person and my family. I'm still concerned. I will be concerned until my father is either rearrested for something or until he passes. His sister Sarah is not backing down. She's still podcasting from Phoenix,

still using her voice to highlight unsolved cases, including her sister's. I do plan to finish Alyssa's season and tell you how we got to this point because there is still so much to say. 22 years ago, 17-year-old Alyssa was checked out of school early and never seen by her loved ones again.

What happened next is still a mystery. Her case remains open at the Phoenix Police Department, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recently produced an updated age progression photo of Alyssa. She would turn 40 years old in April 2024. She was an incredible spirit. Her presence was just so strong that it's hard to believe that she's not here. Like I still feel like she has to be here. There's no way that kid who was so able to put her expression forward and her opinions and tell you exactly how she felt, how that's not still here. It hasn't diminished even after all these years. That's all for this edition of Dateline.

And check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again Thursday at 10, 9 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.