Alissa Turney case detail – Michael Turney case

An Arizona man accused of killing his 17-year-old stepdaughter, Alissa Turney, is free after a judge acquitted him of all charges for lack of evidence in the case. Michael Turney, 75, breathed a sigh of relief as shocked family members awaiting justice broke down in tears as judgment was delivered in a Maricopa County courtroom Monday morning after just a week of testimony.

Turney was tried on second-degree murder charges in the alleged death of his stepdaughter, who disappeared in May 2001 after she reportedly left a note that she was running away to California. Alissa has never been found. Prosecutors argued that Turney and Alissa have a turbulent relationship and that he had hundreds of surveillance tapes of her in an attempt to control her life. But the defense backed down, saying there is no evidence that she is dead.

After the prosecution upheld their case, the judge granted the defense’s motion to dismiss the murder charges against Turney, citing Rule 20, which allows the court to issue an acquittal if “there is no substantial evidence to support a conviction.” . Alissa’s half-sister and Turney’s own daughter, Sarah Turney, who was a key witness in the trial and whose social media campaign for justice helped get him arrested in 2020, left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.

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Michael Turney case detail

Earlier Monday, the defense had asked the judge to issue an acquittal based on what they called a lack of evidence, claiming there was insufficient evidence that Alissa ran away or evidence that she even is dead. Alissa was last seen in May 2001 at her Phoenix home on the last day of her junior year at Paradise Valley High School.

She had told her boyfriend at school that her stepfather was picking her up for lunch. Michael Turney reported her missing but told authorities he left a note saying she was running away to California. In 2008, investigators re-interviewed witnesses and ended up issuing search warrants at Turney’s home. The search led to the discovery of more than two dozen unregistered pipe bombs belonging to Turney. He served time for those crimes and was released in 2017.

Alissa’s sister, Sarah, who has tried to keep attention on the case through social media and her ‘Voices for Justice’ podcast, testified against her own father last week, telling the court how he allegedly she brainwashed her into thinking that Alissa was a rebellious teenager. she that she ran away to California. But over the years, Sarah said she became suspicious of her own father, and as her interpretations of what happened that day changed every time, it led her to seek her own answers. .

When she met with her father in 2017 and pressed him for an explanation, he didn’t. “He told me he would tell me on her deathbed,” Sarah recalled, adding that she would confess to everything if the state agreed to give her a lethal injection within 10 days. She also spoke in court about the troubled relationship between Turney and Alissa.

Last week, audio of a phone call between Turney and Michael Seth was played for the jury where Turney is heard calling her an asshole and a bitch. When police executed search warrants at the home in 2008, they found videotapes dating to the 1980s, including surveillance footage of the home, but found no video of the day she disappeared.

In opening statements last week, the prosecution revealed how Turney had been filming Alissa at her home and how he had hundreds of surveillance videos of her. Turney also tapped Alissa’s phone and allegedly forced her to sign a contract stating that he never sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.

The jury later heard from John Turney, Alissa’s half-brother, and James Turney, Alissa’s stepbrother. But a judge ruled that the jury could not hear James’ testimony that Alissa confided in him about an alleged incident in which Turney put his hand on her leg, allegedly tried something on her, causing her to snap out of her. running screaming. The defense has argued that there is no DNA or blood evidence to show that Turney killed Alissa. They also noted that without a body, there is no definitive proof that Alissa is not still alive.

In 2019, she started her own podcast, ‘Voices for Justice,’ detailing her family history, the events leading up to Alissa’s disappearance, and a timeline of what happened in the years since. In May 2020, she began making TikTok videos focused on the case. “Believe it or not, it has become an important outlet for Alissa’s story,” she told NBC.Read More……..