My dad spied on my sister & molested her before she vanished at 17…I believe he murdered her despite killer’s confession

SARAH Turney was just 19 when she walked into a Phoenix, Arizona police station to be given an update about her sister Alissa, who had vanished from the family home seven years before.

What she didn’t expect to hear was that her own father, Michael, was now the number one suspect in the case – and that a search warrant was being executed on their house at that very moment.

Instagram/saraheTurneyAlissa Turney vanished from her house aged 17 – never to be seen again[/caption]

Instagram/saraheTurneySarah has spoken out about her fight for justice in a new documentary set to air on Sky Crime this Sunday[/caption]

Even more horrifyingly, friends of her missing sister then spoke out about how her controlling father, who watched her with cameras 24/7, had allegedly molested Alissa.

But had Michael Turney gone so far as to kill her – and fake her disappearance?

After a false confession from an already-jailed serial killer sparked a fresh police investigation, Alissa now believed her father was responsible – and set out to find justice.

This harrowing story will be told in the new Sky Crime documentary Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney, set to air on Sunday 9th March at 9pm.

This tragic tale could not be further away from the happy family they once were.

Ex-cop-turned-electrician Michael and mum Barbara brought together their kids from previous marriage, before having Sarah together.

“Step or half wasn’t a word we were allowed to use. We grew up considering each other brothers and sisters,” Sarah recalls.

“We were all one big family together.”

But when Sarah was just three years old, tragedy stuck.

Her mum passed away from lung cancer – leaving Michael on his own to raise all six children.

Soon, the older ones had left and it was just Sarah, Alissa, and their father – with Alissa left to cook, clean and be the mother Sarah needed.

Then, on May 17, 2001, everything changed.

Teenage ‘runaway’

“It was a great day for me. I remember getting on the bus, going to the waterpark. And then after school, my father picks me up. He says your sister’s not answering her cell phone,” Sarah said.

“We get home and I go right to her bedroom. I was sure she’d be there – but she wasn’t.”

On her desk was her cellphone, with a note tucked inside which read: “Dad and Sarah, when you dropped me off at school today I decided I really am going to California. Sarah, you didn’t want me around, look, you got it, I’m gone. Dad, that’s why I saved my money, I took three hundred dollars from you – Alissa.”

Despite efforts to contact friends, the 17-year-old was nowhere to be found – until Michael claimed he received a 5am phone call from her a week later, cursing him and telling him to leave her alone.

Police traced the call to Riverside, California, where they headed with stacks of missing person posters. Yet despite their efforts, they never heard from her again.

The police also didn’t take it seriously – treating this as another classic story of a teenage runaway.

Instagram/saraheTurneySarah was just three years old when her mother died, forcing her older sister to step into the role[/caption]

“I was trying to block it out. I went from this kid who was extremely scared of drugs and alcohol, and overnight I started experimenting.

“All the things I was told Alissa was horrible for, the drinking and drugs, my dad would supply me with,” said Sarah.

While Michael was lenient with Sarah, he was accused of being controlling of his step-daughter, Alissa, when she was growing up and doing the same things.

“For the most part, we hung out at my house because she wanted to get away from her home as much as she could,” recalls Charity, a teenage friend of Alissa.

“Every time that he would drop her at my house, Michael would make a point to speak to my parents about what she was and wasn’t allowed to do.”

Sarah adds: “I was told that Alissa was constantly out of control.”

Michael started watching her every move – even installing a hidden video camera in a vent in her bedroom, and videoing her through the window while she was at work.

Even their home phone line was hooked up to a cassette player to record every incoming and outgoing call.

I hope that Alissa actually ran away – but a bigger part of me believed that was impossible, because I knew she would have never left Sarah alone in that house

Charity, Alissa’s friend

“Alissa would always tell me how uncomfortable it made her – him watching her every move,” said her friend, Charity.

“I hope that Alissa actually ran away. But a bigger part of me believed that was impossible – because I knew she would have never left Sarah alone in that house.”

Shock confession

The case went cold for years, until in 2006 a shocking confession seemed to turn everything on its head.

Thomas Hymer, a self-proclaimed serial killer, was in a Florida prison serving life for another murder when he handed a guard a picture of Alissa torn from a newspaper with the words: “I killed her. And I’m going to make you famous.”

Phoenix police were quick to fly in and interview Hymer but it soon became clear that things weren’t adding up.

Hymer claimed that Alissa was a heroin addict, which she wasn’t, and upon further examination admitted that he might have been mistaken.

They hadn’t solved the case – but it was enough to put Alissa back in the spotlight.

Instagram/saraheTurneyDespite extensive searching, no leads on Alissa’s whereabouts have been found[/caption]

A new detective was in charge, William Andersen, and he was keen to get to the bottom of what had happened.

“Honestly, I was having trouble with a teenage girl cutting all ties with everybody she’s ever known,” he said.

“That just doesn’t happen. That could suggest something nefarious could have happened to her.”

Michael declined a formal interview with the police but claimed that her boyfriend, John Laakman, was violent towards her.

He showed police a videotape taken just one day before she disappeared, showing the couple in a heated argument before Alissa throws her phone at the wall and John drives off.

But when Detective Andersen interviewed John, it emerged that Michael had told him Alissa was cheating, which prompted their videotaped confrontation.

For Andersen, what at first looked like evidence of a violent boyfriend now appeared to be evidence of a staged scene – set up by Michael.

Yet what Andersen was told next took things to an even darker place.

Alissa’s disappearance – timeline

May 17, 2001: Alissa Turney, 17, disappears on the last day of school. Her stepfather Michael Turney claims he picked her up from school at lunch when she had an argument and she ran off.
May 24, 2001: Turney claims Alissa phones him from a California number, swearing before hanging up.
2006: Serial killer Thomas Albert Hymer tells a prison guard he killed Alissa. But Phoenix Police find no link between him and Alissa, and Hymer later admits he may have confused her with a different victim.
2008: The case is reopened. Turney claims Alissa was murdered by two “assassins” from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and that she was buried in Desert Center, California.
December 2008: Detectives tell Sarah her father is the main suspect in Alissa’s disappearance. Authorities raid Turney’s home and find more than two dozen improvised explosive devices, 19 firearms, two homemade silencers, and a van full of gasoline. A manifesto detailing Turney’s plans for a rampage against the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers building in Phoenix is also found. Turney is arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
2017: Turney is released from prison, after serving nine years.
August 2020: Turney is arrested again in Mesa, Arizona, and indicted and charged by a Maricopa County grand jury on second-degree murder charges.
July 2023: All charges against Turney are dismissed.

John said Alissa had claimed Michael had molested her – the documentary revealing that this story was then backed up by Rhett Turney, one of Alissa’s step-brothers, and her friend Jessica Lang.

They alleged that one evening, Michael had taken Alissa out for a drive and tried to sexually assault her, leaving Alissa in tears, before making her leave the car and walk home – though Michael denies this ever happened.

Another one of Alissa’s friends, Charity recalled a time Alissa said she woke up to find herself tied and gagged, with Michael on top of her and suffocating her – before threatening her to tell no one.

Prime suspect

Andersen knew there was extensive surveillance around the house, and taped phone calls, but Michael never handed over the evidence from the day of her disappearance that could explain where she went.

He asked for the tape of their call that supposedly happened a week after she went missing – but again to no avail.

“Again, I ask Mike, I want to hear a recording of that phone call. But he doesn’t have it. Michael’s behaviour towards me had become progressively worse. And I need those tapes,” Andersen tells the documentary.

By December 11, 2008, Michael was the prime suspect in this case. They executed a search warrant – but what they found is far beyond anything they imagined.

“I recall walking into the front hallway area, and seeing firearms lined up. Just a massive amount of weapons. It was an epic mess. There were just piles of things everywhere,” recalls Dr Erin Nelson, the lead forensic scientist on the case.

Other findings reveal Michael’s twisted sexual desires.

“We came across video tapes which show Michael having sex with a particular woman. We also found polaroids. The woman is bound and blindfolded,” said Dt. Andersen.

“Then when you add to that what Alissa’s friends say she experienced, it becomes much more disturbing.”

Digging deeper, they suddenly realised they were in immense danger.

Bags around the house were filled with pipe bombs, while Michael’s van had been turned into one giant bomb – complete with propane, bleach and nails.

Inside his safe, they found a manifesto – titled “Diary of a Madman” – explaining Michael’s plans to attack his former electrician’s union, over the belief they were trying to kill him, although Michael denied he ever intended to carry out this plan.

It also detailed a bizarre theory about what happened to Alissa.

“Michael says Alissa was abducted by the union and murdered, and that her body was dumped in California. But none of these things make sense,” explained Dt. Andersen.

When the trial started, I was getting more and more nervous – but I was hopeful that we would finally get justice for Alissa

Sarah Turney

He was arrested and jailed for possession of the explosives, and released in 2017 – but police were no closer to solving Alissa’s case. The missing tapes were nowhere to be found.

Frustrated, Sarah began digging herself – flat out asking her father when he was released if he’d killed Alissa.

In response, he said that if she wanted to know the truth, he should come and visit her on his deathbed.

She also found a map with a location in California marked – but the police told her they couldn’t do anything without a body.

By now, however, Sarah was convinced her father was responsible.

It wasn’t until August 2020 that Sarah heard the news that the police had taken him in to custody.

“It’s absolutely horrible to hear that your father’s been arrested for your sister’s murder. But at the same time, all this hard work, giving up so much of my life for this fight, it was the right thing to do,” Sarah told the documentary.

Murderous defence

By July 2023, Michael Turney, now 75, was on trial for Alissa’s murder.

“When the trial started, I was getting more and more nervous,” Sarah said.

“But I was hopeful that we would finally get justice for Alissa.”

Yet the prosecution was instantly met with problems when it was ruled that none of the testimonies about Michael’s sexual abuse of his step-daughter could be included.

Michael’s defence was strong – after all, there was no evidence of a murder weapon, a body, nor any witnesses.

Maricopa County Attorney’s OfficeMichael was aquitted in the trial[/caption]

HandoutSarah was unable to talk about the sexual abuse her sister had allegedly endured in the trial[/caption]

“The defence tried to create a story of her being some crazy teen, who must’ve gotten herself into some big trouble and that’s the cause of all this,” said Charity.

Sarah also began to feel frustrated.

“Everything the defence presented in terms of my thoughts and feelings, came from an interview with police when I was 19 years old. That interview is based off memories I had when I was 12. So that was all used against me,” Sarah told the documentary.

“They knew exactly what they were doing. That is the handbook on how to victim blame a child who was abused. As the trial went on, I got more and more nervous.”

Suddenly, everything fell apart.

Based on a rare technicality, the judge determined that not enough evidence had been brought forward for the case to go to jury – and Michael was acquitted.

“I was in shock – it was heartbreaking. What happened in that trial is not the truth of what happened to Alissa,” claimed Sarah.

“I feel like the trial was just part of the pattern. Alissa’s been failed by almost every adult in her life – her schools, the Phoenix police department, the county attorney’s office. Everyone failed Alissa.

I put myself through all of this for Alissa. Her story deserves to be told. And he needed to be confronted because no one else had ever done it

Sarah Turney

“The acquittal has given him power to say look, I’m innocent, when that’s not what the acquittal means. It means the state did not present their case,” she told the documentary.

Months after Michael’s trial, Sarah met with her father for the first time in years to confront him with what she believes happened.

“Will I get that confession on your deathbed?” she asks him.

“The story you have heard is never going to change, even when I’m dying. Because I did not molest, and I did not kill your sister,” he says.

“Why are you doing this Sarah? To make money off your dead sister, if she’s dead?”

But in her reply, Sarah left him without any doubt over her feelings towards him.

Phoenix Police DepartmentMichael continues to deny that he ever molested Alissa[/caption]

Instagram/saraheTurneyDespite the setback of the trial, Sarah is determined to continue the fight for Alissa[/caption]

HandoutTo this day, Alissa’s remains have never been found[/caption]

“I feel nothing for you. I will leave this conversation and never think of you again. My children will not know who you are,” she said.

Sarah remains determined to uncover what she thinks is the truth – and has now built up a strong online following to ensure Alissa’s story is never forgotten.

“I put myself through all of this for Alissa. Her story deserves to be told. And he needed to be confronted because no one else had ever done it,” she said.

“I don’t need a judge or a jury to tell what we all know happened. And although I don’t have a legal sense of justice right now, I’m at peace with what I’ve done for Alissa.

“You may not always get the results you want, but at least you have peace knowing you’ve done everything you can.”

Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney, set to air on Sunday 9th March at 9pm

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