Morbid - What Happened To Alissa Turney?

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

17 year old Alissa Turney officially went missing May 17, 2001. Initially, she was labeled a runaway, but as evidence piled in to the contrary, the investigation seemed to point to foul play. Did her overbearing stepfather Michael Turney have something to do with Alissa's sudden disappearance? As the last person to see Alissa that day, he holds more answers than he is willing to give. Almost two decades later, the case remains unsolved and Alissa has never been found. Thanks to our sponsors! Daily Harvest Go to Dailyharvest.com and enter promo code MORBID to get $25 off your first box! Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is a mini morbid. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid. Mini Morbid. It's an Ash-centric mini-morbid. But it's kind of an Elena-centric mini-morbid because this shit is six pages long. Ash went scuba diving, guys. I went scuba diving and I came back to the surface and I'm like, hi. She doesn't even have the bends. I don't. did it. I did it. She did the damn thing. I did just fall over your laundry detergent, though, so maybe I do have the bends. That's okay. That's just a Sunday. Yeah, that's fine. I'm very proud of you. Oh, my God. I'm very excited. Say one more time. I'm so proud of you. Thanks. This is so exciting, because this is a really good case, guys. It is. It is. A lot of people have actually requested this one,

so I'm glad we're doing it. Doing the damn thing. We are doing the damn thing. But we have a little bit to talk about before we tell you what the case is. So what do we want to talk about first? Something really exciting that's happening this year. Live shows? A few really exciting things. Okay. So January 2020, we're going to be at the Gramercy Theater in New York City, New York. NYC. NYC. Baby. I'm like so excited. My fancy pants are hanging in my closet. Got to find a fancy shirt to go with them. It's going to be lit. The pants are so fancy. Guys. It's unbelievable. The pants are the force and they're all with you. They really are a force to be reckoned with. They are. They are. We're going to be in Nashville back-to-back shows. That's going to be insane. In the same night. I'm a little nervous for that. Yeah, that's going to be intense. Wait, should I like outfit change? Ooh. Are you going to outfit change? Probably not. I take myself way too seriously. I'm definitely not going to outfit change. Well, we probably won't have time to have a change. No, we won't.

I'm going to dream about it. You can dream about it for sure. I want to have an event. in my life where I need to outlet change. Well, anyways, enough about me. Also, in May, it's CrimeCon. Yes, CrimeCon is right before Nashville. Yeah, CrimeCon is going to be so much fun. And we want to see all of your beautiful faces there on Podcast Row. Actually, somebody involved in the case that I'm going to be talking about tonight is also going to be at CrimeCon. I'm so excited to meet her. I can't fucking wait. It's going to be amazing. There's going to be so many cool people at CrimeCon. There are guys. We can't wait to see them all. So many. Billy Jensen is going to be there, I think. Oh my gosh. Or at least I hope. I don't know. I don't have that confirmed. We're not friends yet.

Yet. Are you going to lose your noodle if he's there? I'll lose my damn noodle. I would lose my noodle. I will be noodle-less. I'll be gluten-free if he is there. Oh, don't go that far. No, no, no, no, sweetie. No, no. Why don't you head on over to murder apparel on their Instagram, click the little link in their bio so that you can wear a shirt to our show. Do it, guys. We love seeing murder apparel shirts on people when they come to our shows. It's the best. And if you use Code Morbibald. you can get 20% off. And murder apparel gave us some goodies for our trivia games for our live shows.

Because you know we love the good trivia game. We love a good trivia game. So if you come into our shows, be on the lookout. Yeah, you got to get a prize if you win the trivia games. You got to bone up on your serial killer knowledge. Yeah, you better do some studying. Do it. What else?

You could go to our fucking merch store too. Yeah, because we're going to be adding some new things. We've been listening to everybody's suggestions, what you guys want. and we got some stuff in the works. We're talking to some people. We're talking to some people about some things. So just hang tight. We're going to be on it.

And on that same note, we just, because we've been listening to everybody's suggestions, people have been sending us the sweetest emails, the nicest reviews. Everybody's been, like, giving us some really kind words. Because we had a day last week where we got kind of bombarded by some nastiness. It felt like the whole world was just kind of like shitting upon us all at once. And you guys just like came together and we're so sweet to us on the Facebook page, on Twitter, on Instagram, emails. All over the damn place. And we just want to thank you because you guys, you awesome people, are the ones that we are doing this for.

And you have been here since the beginning. And even if you're just joining, welcome. We love you. We love you with our whole ass morbid hearts. And the trolls and the nasty negative buttheads that decide to spew their nastiness for no good reason at perfect strangers. We don't do it for you. No, I don't do shit for you. So you can see yourself right out.

You can suck an egg. Yep. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'll hit you with the door. Don't worry. No. But we just wanted to thank everybody. That's been so awesome.

Because we want you to know that we focus way more on the positive awesome people than the negative trolls. Sometimes we just got to out them. That's all. We just got to be out and the fools. been great and I promise I know that it's Naperville and DuPage now. Dear God. Dear God above, if you exist, please.

We love you so much. Everyone who told us that it's Naperville and DuPage, 99.999% of the people who corrected us on that were so sweet. So sweet. And they were hilarious. Usually people were like, you guys made me laugh by saying it wrong. Like, people were really sweet about it. We did get a couple of super nasty ones. Somebody called us ill-bred.

Ill-bred and like uneducated, which, okay. It's like, I mean, I did drop out of college, but whatever. But I didn't. You don't have to be mean about it. Well, and it's just those are the ones that we're like, all right. You don't have to do that. So, you know, we know it's Naperville and DuPage. So, but we appreciate it.

So thanks for everybody letting us know. But we know now, I promise. If you don't know, now you know. Yeah, if we didn't know, we now know. So thank you so much. Hopefully Naperville and DuPage will stay in 2019. For the love. For the love.

Because it's the Roar and 20s. And this is our first case of the Roaring 20s. Oh. And it's Ash Centric. So what case will we cover in, sister? Today I'm going to be covering the case of Alyssa Turney. Ooh, this is such a crazy case. I know it really is.

So Alyssa Turney was born April 3rd, 1994. Her mother was Barbara Lee Farner, and her father's name was Stephen Strom. So Barbara had an older son named John, who she had when she was younger. I think she was like 19 when she had John. But things didn't work out with his dad. So when she met Steve, it seemed like love. Aw. But after Alyssa was born, the couple started to have issues in their marriage, unfortunately.

Uh-oh. Yeah. Around the same time that they started to have, like these marital issues, Barbara meets a man named Mike Turney. I know that name. Oh, God. So Mike describes their meeting as this, like, crazy act of heroism where Barbara and Alyssa are hiding in the park after having had a fight with Steve.

Like, they're hiding from Steve, supposedly. Which is their, like, biological father, right? This is Alyssa's biological father and Barbara's husband at the time. Oh, okay. But other family members remember their meeting way differently. They just, like, met by happenstance. And then Mike started sending Barbara flowers every single day. That seems like a lot.

Yeah. Well, they started an affair. And when Stephen and Mike, sorry, when Stephen and Barbara got divorced, she married Mike, like, almost the next day. You know, love is love, I suppose. Yeah. So Alyssa was three years old when Barbara and Mike got married. Mike had three sons from a previous marriage.

So together, they kind of became this, like, Brady Bunch blended family. I was just going to say. And a lot of people say that. Like, compare that. Yeah. It's in like every documentary or everything you could possibly hear about this. Because that's a lot of kids. That's almost three and three and three. And two. So five. So yeah. Yeah. Close. A year or so after, and actually perfect timing, a year or so after marrying, Barbara and Mike had a daughter together named Sarah. Officially the Brady Bunch. Six kids. So like I said, everything was pretty picture perfect at first, but then eventually they ran into their own marriage issues.

Mike started becoming a lot more controlling. Barbara knew that he had been recording in and outgoing phone calls from the house. What the fuck? Yeah. Because I was just going to say, tail is old as time, like, starts being super controlling. Yep. But that's, like, real. That's like, that's where you're starting.

Yeah, I was just going to say, that's when you level up. That's not where you start. Right. Well, that's where Mike started. Jesus, Mike. And Barbara would try to meet her friends for coffee if she really needed to talk about something. Like, she'd be like, why don't we go get coffee? Since this line is a recorded line.

Yeah. So it became clear to her friends that she also might have been being physically abused at home because one time she said the holes in the walls weren't always from the boys. Oh, that makes me sad. It's really sad. And that's a lot of kids in the house with, whenever abuse is happening, period. Yeah. It's awful.

But like when kids are in the house seeing this, it's like, oh, God. It's just not a good environment. Yeah. Well, and the CPS became involved on multiple occasions. And for anybody who doesn't know, CPS just stands for child protective services. Once they came when a very young Sarah somehow got out of the house and was hit by a car. And then they had to come another time when Alyssa somehow got into her father's medication and had to be taken to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. Oh, my God.

None of this should be happening to young children. No. Jesus. Things really just started to be like unraveling at the seams and quickly. When Alyssa was seven, she had to be taken to the doctors and it became evident that she may have been experiencing sexual abuse. Oh my God. That makes my stomach turn. Yeah, there was like tissues that I don't know exactly how.

all of that works, but it became evident in her vaginal tissue. It's usually like damaged tissues, yeah, exactly. Inflamed or damaged. That makes my, it literally makes my stomach sick. Seven years old. Oh, baby. Baby. Baby. Yeah, it's a baby. That is a baby. Yeah. So at that point, Barbara was ready to get out of this. Like, there was so much fucking going on in that house. She had her hands full with six kids. She was babysitting other kids to make ends meet. She wanted out of this. She started saving money of her own and she started planning a new life with her. children away from Mike because I think she was scared of him. Good for her. Unfortunately, that never happened because Barbara got diagnosed with lung and bone cancer and aggressive

cancer at that. Man. While Barbara was going through radiation, Mike moved the family to a place called Redding in California. And he told everyone he was doing this because there was better doctors out there. But friends and family argue that, no, there were actually better doctors where they were in Phoenix. Yeah. I mean, that would make sense. I would think. So, well, and also, even just like in such a scary time in Barbara's life, why would you move her away from all her friends and family? Well, that's the thing. It's like that that's a very intense time. As like, as we know, we have, like, a mother who's going through, like, cancer treatments. And that's a really intense time. And you need to be surrounded by people you love. Yeah. You need to be as comfortable as possible surrounded by people. You don't need to be moving to be moving to another place in the midst of that. And moving in general is like, how do you even move when you have fucking cancer? Moving when you are perfectly healthy is the most stress. It's one of the most stressful events. It literally is. And then add on cancer to that. And six children. Yeah. No. That's crazy. Well, a lot of people felt like Mike was isolating Barbara to like just like a control thing. Like you only have me and these kids. Like that's all you have. Yep. Once you take away everything around the person, you can go, you don't have anything else. I'm all you got. Right. No. So toward the end of Barbara's life,

people remember Mike belittling her and being pretty unsympathetic in general because he was upset that she was going to leave him with all these kids. Like it was her fucking choice or something. And can you imagine you are struggling at the end of your life with cancer? And the person that's supposed to love you and take care of you is making you feel bad for having cancer. Like, wow. Already a shit stay. Wow. That just like hurts my heart for her. Me too. And it's just so sad. It's awful. That's such a, that must be like such a time where you feel so alone. anyways. And then to have like somebody there like trying to help you. I'm sure is like all you need. But you've already feel alone. And then to have somebody there that doesn't want to help you,

it's like, oh my God. That just must be the pits of despair. Honestly. And then it's like all these kids are going through losing their mother in this horrific way because cancer fucking sucks. It's awful. And they're losing their mother in this horrific way. And now they're having to this guy who doesn't give a shit. And it's only. concerned with what he's going to have to deal with after she's dead. Exactly. Like, what? Yeah. He allegedly started looking for another woman to remarry and help with the children. He started talking about Barbara's sister, Lynette. Oh, yeah. Focusing in on her as if he actually, or excuse me, as he had actually with some of

his previous sister-in-laws. Like, yo, this is not like a line of succession, bro. No. One doesn't just move into the spot after one leaves. Well, Lynette was married. Yeah. So that wasn't going to work anyways. But he had a history of doing this. Actually, if you listen to Sarah Turney, she has a podcast that I'll talk about more toward the end. But she goes into depth with like all the different various family members and everything.

I didn't want to go too crazy into it because it's her family and it's her story to tell. Yeah. I kind of just wanted to tell like the surface of it all. Good call for sure. Yeah. And you guys should follow her on Twitter because she is constantly getting her sister's case out there. I actually just retweeted something of hers on my personal. Twitter. Yeah, so go follow her guys. Definitely. I'll pull up her Twitter handle at the end of this.

So it came out later while Sarah was digging through evidence that her father actually had sexually assaulted Lynette. Oh, my God. It was never reported because during such a crazy time, Lynette probably didn't want to cause upset in the family or anything like that, but it allegedly did happen. So he sexually assaulted the sister-in-law? Oh, my God. Yeah. And again, you can hear more about that on Sarah's podcast. Her podcast is amazing. Jesus. It also came out that Mike quit his job toward the end of Barbara's battle with cancer, knowing full well that he would lose all of his benefits, including health insurance. I really don't know, like, you're not a human being. You're a monster. You're a legitimate monster.

So, unfortunately, Barbara passed away on February 28, 1993, and Mike Turney requested that no autopsy be performed, which is just a little strange in my opinion. Yeah, totally normal. Absolutely. And again, if you want to hear more about that whole beginning setup story, you really do have to go listen to Sarah's podcast. She fills in a lot of the blanks and a lot of questions that you're going to have. Her podcast is called Voices for Justice. Oh, yeah, I have heard of that. I've been meaning to listen to that. It's really good. I'm glad I have that to listen to you right after this. I know. So now I'm going to skip forward a little bit and tell you about May 27, 2001. Alyssa was 17 and Sarah was 12. It was the last day for school, last day of school for kids in Arizona.

But Alyssa got picked up from school early and unfortunately disappeared later that day. And still to this day has never been seen or heard from again. Like I said, her sister Sarah is now a huge advocate for Alyssa. She hosts the podcast Voices for Justice, like I said before. If you want like a wildly informative deep dive and firsthand accounts like phone calls, Mike Turney is even on the podcast. be a phone call. You need to go listen to it. But here's the rest of the story from like my understanding of what everything that I've listened

to. So Alyssa was picked up early from school in Arizona on May 27, 2001 by her stepfather, Mike. Alyssa and Sarah were the only two kids left in the house. And Mike was apparently crazy strict with Alyssa, like claiming that she needed to be more protected and looked after because she had learning disabilities, which was not true. He even went as far as to sue the school and set up an IEP for her because he wanted her to join the classes for kids with learning disabilities. What the hell is the end game here? But the teachers were like, she was like an average student.

Like there was no indication that she had any learning disability whatsoever. So it's like, why? Why? Right. The school informed him that if Alyssa did join these specific classes, that she would have to ride the bus with the children who also had learning disabilities, meaning she wouldn't be able to be on the bus with all her friends from her other classes. where she was doing just fine. Well, and that's the thing. And it's like, there's just no reason for this.

Like, if she had learning disability, sure. Right. Then, yeah, like, let's give the extra attention. But if she doesn't, like, why? And the school was like, no, she doesn't. And they're like, we kind of do this whole thing where we're a school. This is kind of our job. We kind of know about this.

It's like our forte. It's kind of like our thing. I mean, to me, it seems like he got some weird enjoyment out of making it seem like Alyssa wasn't as smart as her other siblings. Yeah, kind of like just making it so that she had negative attention. on her. Right. Well, and again, it's some kind of isolation. Like, you're taking her away from her friends. You're putting her in these classes where she doesn't need to be. Oh, that's a good point. That really is another abusive form of isolation. Absolutely. And it's just like fucked up.

Yeah. According to Sarah, Alyssa's sister, Mike made these big charts that were rules for Alyssa that he hung up in the house to, quote, remind Alyssa since he said she had issues with her memory. Okay. This shit is weird. It's so weird. It's like so uncomfortable. Because even if like you have multiple. children and one or two of them like needs more attention you make it so all of them you blend it yeah like you don't make it so obvious that one of them needs this special attention or needs to be told because they're not as you know on the ball as the other one right like it just seems like even if this was the case which it's obviously not right that would be the complete wrong way to go about this 100 because you're making her feel like an outsider

again isolation well and that's exactly what I said I was like to me it sounds like he just wanted to isolate her from her family too. Yeah. And what better way to do that? And bring down her self-esteem. Oh, yeah. 100%. There's like videos of, and he claims that no one was allowed to use the word stupid or idiot

or anything like that. And then there's fucking home videos of him going, oh, this is a stupid moron. And she turns around in the video and calls him a pervert. Good for her. Which is very, very interesting. You don't just call your father figure a pervert. No, not at all. no good reason. No, something was going on. He also surveilled Alyssa during basically every moment

of her life, especially when she became a teenager. Ew. Mike made it seem like Alyssa was like this crazy wild child who did drugs, skipped class, stayed out late. But her sister Sarah said that she was pretty typical for a teen. Like she tried smoking weed and maybe drank here and there, but it was just experimenting. She was 17 years old. Which of us didn't try some alcohol at that point, you know? She wasn't Jasmine Richardson. No. She wasn't like blowing lines and fucking hanging out at the strip club. Like she was just living her 17 year old life. Yeah. It's exactly what I was doing at 17. Mike didn't feel the same. He had video cameras set up and vents around the house to keep tabs on her. No. Wrong. No. Yeah. I mean, my kids are going to have like GPS trackers on them, but I'm not going to survey them.

No. I'm not going to watch them like doing it. He had a system that recorded all the phone calls, like I said, that went in the home or out, like, ingoing or outgoing phone calls. It surveyed everything. That's insane. And he even went as far as to follow her to her job at the jack in the box and tape her there. What would be the purpose of that? I like to make sure that she was there. But it's like, why are you, like, you can go and make sure she's there. You don't have to videotape it. It's one thing to be like, I don't know if she's going to her job. Like, whatever, kids do stupid shit. And you want to make sure she's going to her job every day and you follow and be like, okay, she got there. she's in there. Why the fuck are you videotaping? She's already there. She's there. She's there.

That's it. And there's video of it online and it's like chilling as fuck. She was like, like, she'll be doing something and she'll see him, I think. And she goes like away, like out of camera frame. Which is crazy because that makes it seem like that was so normalized to her, that behavior. Like, he just films me. Oh, well, if you go. This is what happens. If you, if you, if you watch the video, it's fucking terrifying because at the end, she comes out of the jack in the box and she's like, dad like you got me in trouble and he's like what do you mean and her manager was like your dad can't do that like she was like you know like i told him like you're just excited because it's my first job like okay let me drive like this was so fucking normal to her super casual like yeah i just told him that you were filming me

for this reason right we all know what it's like no no no normal at all fucked up no horrible that you had to grow up that way like it's so sad you know it kind of these kids these poor kids it's awful It kind of reminds me of the Susan Powell case with the videotaping. Yeah. I was actually thinking about that. Yeah. It's weird. So back to the last day of school.

Mike picks up Sarah from Paradise Valley High School early, but never told anybody that he planned to pick her up early. He later says that he picked up Alyssa early per her request because she was planning to break up with her boyfriend that day and was avoiding him in the meantime. That wasn't true because she had plans later that. that day to go to a party and her boyfriend was going to be there. So it's like, no. And when she was leaving school, she ducked her head into his classroom and was like, oh, I'm leaving early, like, see you later. Yeah. So that doesn't make any sense. They were fine. Yeah, she wasn't, she was clearly not

trying to avoid him. No. And anyone who knew them said it's just not true. She and her boyfriend were doing completely fine. So Mike says that he took Alyssa to lunch and that they got into an argument about her wanting more leniency with the rules. And this is so gross. He said something along the lines of, you have to live by daddy's rules or daddy will be a nervous wreck. Ew, ew, ew, gross, gross. It just doesn't sound right. I hate it in that context. I hate it. According to Mike, Alyssa didn't like this answer. And when they got home, she stormed into her room and he left to pick up his other daughter, Sarah. Now, Sarah, who reminds you, was 12 years old. She went to like a water for the last day of school.

And she was supposed to be picked up by her dad. Okay. Like, I don't know if she was supposed to be picked up at the water park or school, but he was supposed to be there at a certain time to pick her up. Doesn't show. That's fucked. Doesn't show up to pick her out. Are you kidding me?

So she's, like, hella confused when he didn't... In 12. When he didn't show up to pick her up, but she was in seventh grade. So she went to hang out with her friends and smoke cigarettes because that's what you do when your parents forget about you. Yeah. Trust me. I'm an expert.

She remembers being. really nervous when she did get into his car when he finally did fucking pick her up because she was nervous that he was going to smell cigarettes on her. And it was like a number one rule in their house that like no smoking was allowed, like because their mom had died of cancer. But he was too preoccupied. He had he didn't notice at all. He was telling her about him and Alyssa's fight and how he was worried because she wasn't picking up the phone. He had Sarah call Alyssa multiple times, but Alyssa never answered. So when they get back home, Sarah runs to Alyssa's finds it a fucking mess, which was completely unlike Alyssa.

Like, she was very neat. I don't know if it was like the rules, but like she was very neat and tidy. Her backpack was open. Everything that was previously inside the backpack was strewn about on the floor. And a note was left for them 100% in Alyssa's very distinct handwriting. Ooh. The note said, wasn't dated, by the way. The note is not dated.

Okay. But it does say, 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, Alyssa. But that was not dated. Not dated, which I think is important. Yeah. I'll get to that later. Yeah, because I have a thought. I have a theory. So they call her- I have a theory. Who watched Buffy once again. Oh, shit. I was just, I was just singing along. It could be bunnies. It's not bunnies. It's not bunnies.

So they call herself again and they realize that it's sitting on her dresser. So wherever she ran off to, she didn't bring her cell phone. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Or her makeup or her hairbrush or her fucking school shit. She left with nothing. So literally everything was left. Everything was left. Like toothbrush all that.

Everything. She didn't have anything on her. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah. No toothbrush, no hairbrush, no nothing. Also, she had a bank account set up. And in the bank account was $1,800. which personally in my mind that's like a lot of money for a 17 year old to stay up.

I was just going to say like good for her saving that much money. She didn't take a penny of it. Yeah. And it was remained untouched until I think Mike touched it at some point. But it was remained untouched from like any outside source. Okay. That's usually a bad sign. Yeah.

And while we're on that point, why would she have taken $300 from Mike if she had $1,800 of her own? Exactly. Right. So Mike calls that just to set up why? that bank account isn't being touched. Right. Just putting it out there. Yep, exactly. So Mike called the police and he told them about Alyssa while he was being calm, cool, and collected. He didn't make it seem like a big deal, just that she had run away, left a note, and was probably going to head to California to stay with her aunt, which had originally been her plan for the summer. She was

supposed to go out and stay with her maternal aunt, but then I don't know if Mike said like she couldn't or if they were still working on that, but... Something fell through. Yes. So, No formal search party went looking for Alyssa that night. No Amber Alert was put out. She just vanished and law enforcement seemed to accept the fact that she was a runaway. That always makes me insane. Like she's a 17-year-old girl. And no matter what, so what if you're wrong and she did run away?

Expend all the resources. Well, and find her and have her tell you that herself. Exactly. I would rather them overreact than underreact. And when they underreact, it goes up my ass sideways. Because it's like she's a 17-year-old. Sure, she could be a runaway. But overreact.

Expend all the resources. Because you know what? It's like, well, okay, we spent all that money in that time and here she is. Right. It's better than being like, well, she's probably fine and then having somebody murder her. Exactly. Oh, it drives me nuts. So back to the note.

If she, it makes a lot of people wonder if there was no date on it. If she wrote it at a different time and then never acted on leaving. That's what I wonder. And maybe Mike found it and saved it and used it. his advantage, or maybe someone made her write that note, like, in the midst of whatever was happening on. Yeah, I could believe both of those things. The first one makes me feel like she, because with all the shit going on in that house,

I could see her suddenly being like, you know what, today's the day I'm leaving. Yep, 100%. And writing that, never giving it. And then Mike finds it because he's in all her shit anyways. And then just holding on to it thinking this is a perfect, perfect little alibi. Yep. Because he's a douchebag. So about a week after Alyssa, quote, ran away.

Mike called the police and said that he had received a phone call from Alyssa. He said the phone call was scrambled and that when he said, is this you, Alyssa? She replied with a few cuss words, said, leave me alone and then hung up the phone. Convenient. Why would she even bother calling if that's all she was going to say? And it's like if this all went down the way he's saying it did, that they just had a disagreement over, you know, like the rules being slacked a little. is this really how it's going to go down?

She's going to call you from a scrambled random phone and be like, you know, F-nish, burr-ber, like, beep, beep, leave me alone. Like, no. It doesn't make any sense. It's not a proportionate response. No. Well, according to him, he told the police what happened, and he asked them if they could trace the call and they were like, nope, sorry, can't help you.

Oh, good. He says the police were no help at all to him and that he had to take Alyssa's case on himself to hopefully figure out what had happened to her. interesting side note Mike himself had been a police deputy in the 70s I am shocked shocked I tell you well and so you would think that the police would be eager to help him like a fellow policeman one of their own of course right but apparently they weren't also keep in mind maybe Mike just knew all the right things to say to make it seem to the police like this was just a runaway case that's all it was somebody who is a former law enforcement

officer would know these things. Yep. But then he knew that to everybody else, he had to make it look like he was this grieving father and he was so upset and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Of course. And that's what Sarah believed. She said whenever he spoke to the police, it was brief and he really harped on the runaway thing. But then when he talked to family members or friends, he played the card of the grieving father and said he thought something awful happened to Alyssa. And how convenient of a former police officer knowing that by using that the old, the police are no help, they're not doing anything, thing, people are going to go, oh, of course. Exactly.

People are going to believe that because he knows, as a former police officer himself, he's probably dealt with it with people underestimating what you do. So it's just the way it goes. Very convenient. Yep. He has all the fucking ins and outs. He does. So back to that phone call that happened a week after Alyssa vanished.

Yes, I'm interested. Mike actually ends up, he's been in like a crazy amount of lawsuits. and this is just another one. He ends up suing the phone company to figure out where the call had been made from. And interestingly enough, it did turn out that the call really did come from a pay phone in Riverside County, California. Okay. So that is weird. That's very weird.

Nothing really ever comes of that. Oh. It's just like a weird kind of thing that happened. And that's odd. You think that would be like really harped on? Mm-hmm. So Mike says that after that, he went out there and he, handed out flyers of Alyssa, asked if anybody knew anything, but no one in California or Arizona

had any answers for him. Okay. So the case really was at a dead end from basically when it fucking started until 2006. Okay. And finally, 2006, the attorney family thought that they were going to get some answers. Oh, shit, what happened? A man already serving a life sentence in prison for murder confessed to killing Alyssa. Oh, Jesus. So this man's name was Thomas Hyen. Um, his nickname was apparently psycho. Oh, that's very casual. Awesome. He was arrested in Georgia for the murder of Sandra Lee Goodman, who was 30 years old.

Her body had been found, unfortunately, under a bed at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. Oh, boy. I feel like that's very familiar. I may know that case. You might, yeah. She had been stabbed in the neck and strangled. Boy. And when they're, psycho.

Yeah, psycho as fuck. When they arrested Thomas Heimer, uh, who was 26 at the time of this murder. he was driving her car, the victim's car. So that's just the little sign of into that. Dumb criminal of this injury. Yeah, he doesn't seem very smart. Yeah. So after being sentenced to a life, uh, sorry, after being sentenced to life in prison,

Heimer confessed to killing 21 women. Oh my God. He also, this isn't funny, but it's fucked up. He once confessed to killing J.C. Dugard, who was alive and it's like, uh, sir. wrong wrong I go but obviously that was untrue yes that is very untrue all right so we can't really take everything that psycho says to be true as bible here so when he confesses to killing alissa detectives say what exactly happened that night and also they show um hymer a lineup of women where he does successfully point out alissa's picture so he claimed that he and alissa met and that they'd had sex in some hotel

and that she had, quote, unusual sexual traits. She was a heroin addict. He said she was a heroin addict. And after he murdered her, he disposed of her body in a way that ensured that she would never be found. He dismembered her in a bathtub and dumped her body in some, like, recycle place. Holy shit. Yeah. He also claimed that he stole jewelry off of her and gifted it to some of his ex-girlfriends.

So the detectives start talking to people to confirm that there was, and they, sorry. detectives start talking to people and they confirm that there was absolutely no way Alyssa was a heroin addict. Yeah. First of all, she's under surveillance 24 fucking seven. Absolutely. Her dad would 100% know if she was on heroin. Yep. There was no marks on her arms.

She had plenty of friends. Like, everyone was like, that's ridiculous. Yeah. There's no way. Yeah. I feel like somebody in your life would know. Yeah. That's not.

They spoke to her boyfriend and he was like, nope, she has no unusual sexual traits. Um, that's not true. And then they speak to how. Heimer's ex-girlfriends, and none of them remember receiving any kind of jewelry from him. All right. So this guy is like a Henry Lee Lucas, honest tool, kind of bullshitter that just decides to make shit up. Yeah, 100%.

Because, you know, prison's boring, I guess. Yeah. Fuck those guys. So detectives decide to give Heimer a polygraph, which he fails. And when detective zero in on him, he changes his story and he's like, you know what? Maybe it wasn't Alyssa that I killed after all. That probably wasn't it. And police think that he must have, like, seen her picture in the newspaper before.

before all of this and that's why he was able to identify her. That makes sense. I was wondering if that was a possibility. The only good thing about this is that it kind of sheds a little bit more light on this case and it kind of gets things going again. Yeah, that's true. It brought it back into the headlands. Five years of nothing and then this happens.

So detectives start talking more and more to Alyssa's friends and family. And while talking to them, they find a little more out about Mike and Alyssa's dynamic. And they find out about the surveillance in the home, the monitored phone calls, etc. And then Mike actually sends them videos he had of Alyssa making out with her boyfriend on the couch. I hate that so much. Like, why do you have those videos? That's such a private thing. That is creepy as fuck.

And why are you, it's just so weird. So you're literally just voyeuristically watching her make out with her boyfriend. Right. And in my opinion, he probably gave them to the police to be like, look at her boyfriend. Like maybe that's where answers lie. Look, she is a boyfriend. Right. that. And as a former law enforcement officer, he knows that's one of the first places you look.

Mm-hmm. As the boyfriend. When the police asked him about the surveillance from the day that Alyssa went missing, guess what Mike said? Don't have that? He reviewed it already himself and there was nothing suspicious on the tape. So he was not going to give it to them. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. Totally. That's fine. We trust you. No big deal. Absolutely. It's totally fine. Wow. Essentially, everyone in the attorney family was telling everything they knew to the police. And they were trying to, their heart is to get Alyssa found except for Mike. He, like, wouldn't fucking say anything. He's just shutting shit down. Yep. Even Alyssa's friends and boyfriend, John Lackman, were being cooperative.

During an interview with the boyfriend, John Lackman, the police find out that maybe there was some kind of sexual abuse going on in the home. John tells them that Alyssa once told him about a time when she was younger where Mike picked her up early from school. Oh, I'm already upset about this. drove out to some unoccupied area and tried to, quote, fool around with her. Oh, my God. But she got aggressive with him and somehow got out of it.

Good for her. He also tells police that Mike had once taken him aside to tell him that Alyssa was cheating on him. Whoa, that's some jealous shit. Yep. And that was one of the only significant fights that he and Alyssa had ever been in. Oh, my God. Why would your fucking dad pull your significant other aside to tell you that, like, oh, my daughter is cheating on you. you. Like even if that was the truth, what the hell? Right. Like your dad isn't supposed to be the one

doing that? No, exactly not. What? But one, he was probably jealous. Oh, 100%. Two, wanted to cause some kind of tension to break them up. Yep. Three, isolating her more. Yep. That is 100% what it was. He's a fucking terrifying individual. Holy shit. So with all this information, the police tried to start kind of talking more and more to Mike, but it's clear that he has some kind of paranoia when it comes to speaking to police. He'll communicate. Yeah, it's so weird. He'll communicate like here and there via email. Because that's controlled. Yep, but it's nearly impossible to get anything out of him face to face. Yeah, that's not shocking at all. Something he does tell them strikes them as odd. In the 80s, he tells them that he worked in a union as an electrician. And during this time working here,

he filed some kind of complaint about like unsafe or unfit working conditions and he eventually leaves. But like throughout his whole life, he's always talked about this union and acted like they had some kind of vendetta against him. So he says maybe this union has something to do with Alyssa's disappearance. And at that point, it becomes clear to police that they're dealing with some kind of like personality disorder or like emotional disorder. Yeah. And just the fact that the fact that Mike surveilled every last space of his home inside, outside phone, fucking everywhere was had surveillance. It's so weird. and just the fact that he had to know where Alyssa was at every waking moment.

Yeah. It tells them like this whole different story. Because that's like that's way beyond like even helicopter parenting. You know what I mean? Like it's one thing you of course want to know where your kid is. Using surveillance on them at all times. And hide it in the vents is real beyond, real beyond. And it paints a totally different picture than the one that Mike wanted to portray of himself.

He wanted to be like, I'm this single father. I'm a widower. Yeah. I'm so sad, like blah, blah, blah. But that wasn't what it was. No. And I mean, your kids do come into this world with a right to privacy. Yeah, you do.

It's like, of course you want to know what your kids are doing. Right. I'm going to want to know what my kids are doing at all times. But they do have a reasonable right to privacy in this world. And at some point, you need to give them some kind of relay or else they're going to, it's going to rub up in your face. Or it's, you know, you're going to see stuff you don't want to see. Right. It's like, you don't want to watch them making out with their boyfriend.

No, what part of you wants to fucking see that? He just kind of trust that they're being smart, you know? Right. You've got to teach them things and then let them loose and hope that you did the right thing. Right. Exactly. Well, Mike wasn't interested in that part. No, apparently not. So the police actually reached out at one point to a forensic psychologist. And that psychologist agreed that Mike absolutely had some kind of personality disorder or emotional disorder. Yeah, it seems it. In 2008, police get a search warrant for the tourney home, hoping they can get some kind of audio or video footage that will finally. get them answers, but they had no fucking idea what they were going to find. Oh my God. They did know that Mike had a lot of firearms, like he was into firearms. So they did bring a SWAT team. Thank God. Oh, geez. So their plan was to detain him, get what they needed to get out of the home,

like documents, footage, whatever, maybe some handwriting samples and DNA from Mike. Simple. Yeah. Nope. No. They go out to the attorney home. Mike is walking to the mail. box, they detain him, and on his person, find two pistols, seven magazines, and a knife. Isn't that what you take to the mailbox every day? Literally just on his person. Like, that's... Well, you never know what you'll encounter on your way to the eighth of the mailbox. Like, that is paranoia to the nth degree. You are getting your mail. I walk around with mace on my keys and I thought that was pretty intense. Half the time I forget to put my fucking keys in between my fingers in a parking garage like Mike that's a lot is going on so they go inside to see what's inside and I bet they

wish they hadn't because it is insane in the house there's like shit strewn everywhere it's like a fucking mess and they find 19 guns two silencers 26 pipe bombs oh and a manifesto entitled the diary of a madman martyr yeah I'd say something's going on on here. Yep. Seems dark. So if that wasn't enough, they also found strange documents that were signed by Alyssa, stating that Mike had never physically or sexually assaulted her. Oh, yeah. Nope. Like, this is real bad. He had written up all these, and apparently this was something that he did. Like, he wrote up things and made people sign them. And he wrote up this document stating that he

had never physically or sexually abused Alyssa and her initials are next to it. Like, he made her fucking sign it. I am willing to bet that was signed under duress. Oh, 100%. I'm willing to put a lot of money on that. A hundred percent. Yeah. And it's like, oh, that's horrifying. Can you imagine this? Why would you ever, ever feel the need to write that? If you didn't do anything, why the hell would you ever need your kid to sign something saying you didn't do anything? You wouldn't at all. This would never even enter your realm of being. And that's like another example. There's another example of him doing something like that where it's like, you don't need to do that if you didn't do anything. He also had at one point, I didn't write this whole thing down. I'm just kind of talking from what I remember. He had called CPS and warned them that like Alyssa was going to file some kind of complaint. Oh, that's bad. If she did that like it wasn't true. Yeah. See, anytime that shit is going on, it's like that needs to be looked into, man. Way. It's just so weird. You just think of like this, this environment, man, these poor kids. I can't imagine. They also in Mike's bedroom find a shit ton of bondage porn videos. And I think one of the scariest

discoveries that they find is a snuff video, which had been edited to loop over one specific scene like four times. In the scene, a woman is bound, gagged, and killed on camera. Oh my, like a legit snuff film? A legit snuff film. And like it is, he edited it so that it's looped. That very scene is looped four times. So he would just watch it over and over. Okay, guys, I mean, like, other than the pure fact that you're watching someone to get, like, to get off being murdered, Like that's what you're doing. It's like everyone has fetishes and we would never fetish shame because like you do you as long as you're not hurting. Live your best life.

As long as you're in a consensual situation where nobody is. Murder is not consensual. But getting off to murder, like actual murder watching somebody being murdered and getting off to it. You have to watch it over and over again. You're fucked in the head. You need to talk to somebody. If that shit is your shit, you need to talk to somebody. Please.

Because that's, you're going to end up hurting somebody. Yeah, that's a sign. When you get, because think about it, it's like, 10. Buddy, all these sexual sadists, they got off on watching somebody dying or dead. It's not okay. The fact that that even exists and the world makes my heart hurt. That's scary. So other than the fact that that's just in and of itself, because again, bondage and all that, that's totally fun. Like, we're not saying that's weird at all. No. You do you. That's fine. As long as nobody's getting murdered in your porn, live your life. Snuff films, totally different situation. Not okay. That's

fucked. Fucked up. Yeah. I stand by that. I will never. I will never move from the podium of snuff films are not okay. I'm willing to say that. Everything else, as long as nobody's getting murdered or like hurt in your, whatever you're watching to serve your duties, live your life. It's all consensual and all that fun stuff. So if that wasn't enough in and of itself that there was that video there. Oh my God, I didn't know this.

Alyssa had told her friends that she one time woke up, tied to a chair, gagged, and that Mike was on top of her. I, my heart just stopped. Yep. That's horrific. And then, if that's not enough. Oh, my God, this poor child. There's also a story where Mike's nephew, David, had been staying with the family between

1998 and 1999. And he was staying with them. So we got home from work one night and popped in a video to the, what's it called a VHS player? Yes. I had to ask, Annie. I was like, what is that called? And that's what she said. And I was like, no, that doesn't sound right.

There's the generational difference right there. I'm like, what's that thing that played videos? I feel like an idiot. So he pops it into the VHS. It's labeled Dr. Doolittle. Oh, no. And it wasn't Dr. Doolittle?

Nope. Oh. He was horrified to see what he was pretty sure was Alyssa, lying on the couch with nothing but shorts on and her face covered with a newspaper. And then another clip. I hate this so much. Another clip directly after that of another woman in the same position with her face covered and Mike sitting in the room.

Just sitting in the room? Just sitting in the room. That's not Dr. Doolittle. Uh, David Pell. back to shit up that night and left. Good. He was like, fuck that. Goodbye. Because you know what? I would do the

exact same thing. And then I would call the fucking police. Well, I think he tried to and I think, I don't know what he tried to do. But he told people. Get out of there. And Mike was like, no, he's a drunk. He's like, don't believe him. Oh, yeah. Of course. There's no doubt that Mike was going to go to that union hall

and commit some kind of terrifying act of domestic terrorism. It seems so. Yep. But was his motive actually because of Alyssa? Or is Is he just a straight-up psychopath? I would make a guess, but I'm going to let you talk. So, and then does he actually believe that this union hall has something to do with Alyssa's disappearance?

Why is he just coming out with this seven years after she's gone missing? Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. If you really thought that they had something to do with her disappearance, you would have said that seven years ago. Absolutely. And done anything in your power to get your supposed daughter home. Immediately you would have said that. So according to him, according to Mike, there were no.

bombs in his home, only fireworks and things to make a loud noise for when he blew his own head off. No, I don't think so. Let me make myself a victim now. I was planning on just killing myself. He says the police planted all the bombs in his home to frame him. He also apparently at one point said that he was going to the union hall to kill himself, not to harm anyone else. And the reason he was going to do this was to bring attention to Alyssa's case. I feel like there's better ways to do that.

Yeah, like, okay, buddy. That's not what you were going to do. I don't know. I feel like you, that whole martyr thing is definitely fitting very well for him. Yeah. One thing that like really sent chills down my spine is there's this part in 2020 documentary where Mike is being confronted about all the allegations of sexual abuse. For one thing, he looks to the side a lot when people, when he's asked a question.

That's very telling. And like, yes, I understand like people react differently in situations. But if you're looking to the sides and like kind of, you have like this smirk on your face, you're a fucking liar. And also, you're not giving people any reason to believe you when you're acting shifty. But he says, there's only two people that confirm whether I did or didn't. One person is me and the other is Alyssa. Alyssa isn't here and I'm sitting here.

And all I can say until hell freezes over is I didn't do a damn thing to my daughter. To me, the way he words it is like, I'm here to tell you and Alyssa can't because I fucking took care of that. Yeah. I made it so she can't be here to tell you. And it's just the way that he says it. It's like, no. He's like, I'm here. Alyssa's not.

And technically, Alyssa is not his biological daughter, correct? No, he's not. So that was a very convenient way of wording it. Yeah. Not I didn't do a damn thing to Alyssa. I didn't do a damn thing to my daughter. And it's like, mm. And it's like, maybe that's true.

Right. Maybe he didn't do a damn thing to his daughter, but he didn't say, yeah. So in his mind, he might be telling the truth there. Right. So he was sentenced to 10 years in 2010, but only served seven years of that sentence. And that was for like the pipe bomb shit and everything. He still has never been tried in the case of Alyssa Turney's disappearance. But he does remain the main suspect or a person of interest.

I know they're different. Yeah. The police are interested in him. Yeah. Police want to talk to him. Yeah. Alyssa hasn't been heard from since she disappeared and no one has ever seen her again. In 2003, a hiker did find bones.

while hiking in a desert in California. Strangely enough, this specific area mentioned in Mike's manifesto and Sarah had found a map in the home with the coordinates of this exact area where the bones were found. Dude, I mean, they were tested, but they were unable to be identified. Oh. Mike's daughter, Sarah, at first believed that her father had nothing to do with Alyssa's disappearance, but after hearing all the evidence against her father, she changed her mind and now she spends her time dedicated to Alyssa's case. It has become her full-time job. Good for her.

She was told by police that all she can do at this time is spread the word and get more people aware of this and hopefully they'll be able to do something someday. Wow. So like I mentioned before, I listened to Sarah's podcast, Voices for Justice, which you have to listen to. Yeah. Everybody, please go listen to that. I just followed it on Twitter on my personal. I did too. Me too. We actually already followed it on the morbid. Yeah, I saw that, but I wanted to follow it on my personal. Yeah, it's amazing. Um, I also watched the 2020 special. I listened to another podcast called Voice of the Victim podcast. Oh, that's a great one. And I watched two YouTube videos, which were George's midweek mystery episode and Kendall Ray's Where Is video on Alyssa Marie Turney. Nice. So,

those are my sources. You like demolished that. Oh my God, thanks. I tried. I was riveted. I was just like so interested in that it's so funny. I was on the Discover page of Instagram. one night because I like flick through and um I thought that I was on my personal account and I was like looking for makeup videos and shit but actually I was on our account and I saw this tweet and it was one of Sarah's tweets and it got me interested and then I started looking at her Instagram and I went down this fucking rabbit hole oh yeah I was like I have to cover this case because this case really is and her uh Sarah tourney's Twitter is Sarah it's at S-A-R-A-H-E-T-U-R-N-E-Y so her name and it's Sarah with an H. E. Ternie. Go follow her because she constantly updates this case.

Constantly. Because we follow her on morbid and I always see it. So yeah, go follow her. I'm wondering if they ever got a forensic anthropologist to look at those bones. I don't know exactly what, because it's just mentioned briefly on the 2020 episode. And I'm actually still listening to Sarah's podcast. I haven't been able to finish it. But there are some wild things in this case. There's a, I don't know, it's a phone call, but Sarah mentions that she spoke to her dad and that he told her if she wants to hear if he's responsible or not to be there when he dies. Like be next to my death. Oh, I saw that. And you'll get your answer. Or you'll get your answer. That to me. That's a fucking confession.

What innocent person says that? Be at my deathbed and I'll let you know. What innocent person says, be at my deathbed and you'll get your answer. No, an innocent person is going to go, that is the answer. And then there was another instance where he said he would tell them. them the whole story if law enforcement agreed to give him lethal injection within 10 days. So you're not giving the full story. You just admitted you haven't given the full story. Right, exactly. What the fuck. And why do you need to be killed after you give the whole fucking story? Oh, because you did it and you don't want to rot in jail. This is horrific. It's horrible. And it must feel so incredibly helpless. Yeah, I can imagine. Like Sarah and her family and friends.

Like, they must just be sitting there just wanting to scream. Well, they know. Because they know. And it's like, what can you do? your own free. Huh. And there's a bunch of other shit that's in this case. You have to have to have to go listen to Sarah's podcast. Yeah. Everybody go listen to that because the more people who find out about this case,

hopefully that can be done about it. And hopefully law enforcement will take it even more seriously. Yeah, yeah. I mean, oh, that's infuriating. There's also, I know she's trying to raise money for billboards right now. It's on her Twitter. So if you are able to, please go donate to that. She's not asking for a lot of money, whatever you can donate.

No, we're totally going to donate to that. We're absolutely going to donate to it. We'll do it right after we stop recording. Yeah. Because this is a case that has answers and if law enforcement is able to reopen it or, I mean, I believe it's an open case, but just give it more attention and more people asking about it. I mean, look what people did for Rodney Reed. Exactly. Like, just being able to allocate more resources to it and everything like money is going to help that.

So money, attention, anything we can do. Yeah, I want to do everything. Holy shit. That was the case of the disappearance of Alyssa Marie Turney. Unbelievable, ash. Thanks. You did great. You scoobed on that one, man.

I tried to scuba. You really scoved. It was fun. I don't want to say fun. It was so fun looking at this horrible show, but it was like, there's more, there's more. Going down rabbit holes is fun. It's like you just keep branching off into different things. But yeah, that's a crazy case.

So everybody go follow the Twitter, listen to the podcast. Yes. All that good stuff. And we can link some of it on our, Instagram and Twitter and all that will plug Sarah's social media. Yeah, for sure. So head over to our Instagram and our Twitter and all that good stuff. You'll see all the pictures that we can put of the case and all the good stuff. But yeah.

So in the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram at. Morbid Podcast. Hit us up on Twitter. A morbid podcast. Send us a Gmail. Morbid podcast at gmail.com. Join the Facebook group. Morbid, colon, a true crime podcast.

Check out our personal website that Elena designed. me morbidpodcast.com and by the way we have a sale on merch right now. I put it on our social media. It's 20% off using code 2020. So go on there and do it. Happy New Year. John did it. He's fancy. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it. Weird. I don't really want to do one for this case. It doesn't feel appropriate. Yeah, no. Just not so weird that you do really bad shit. Don't do that. It's not so weird that you're a jerkhole. Yeah. Don't do that. Bye.