Latest / Crime and Horror / The Case of Alissa Turney (2021 NEW Update) - Coffeehouse Crime
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: A seventeen year old girl goes missing in Phoenix, Arizona.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Police had told that she'd run away, but there's still
- 0:08Speaker 1: no sign of her. Nineteen years later, what happened to
- 0:11Speaker 1: Alyssa Attorney? My name's Adrian, and today were looking at
- 0:14Speaker 1: the case of Alyssa Attorney. This is a tough one,
- 0:18Speaker 1: so grab a coffee and relax. Let's investigate. Alissa was
- 0:35Speaker 1: born in nineteen eighty four. In nineteen eighty seven, her mother,
- 0:40Speaker 1: Barbara Stram, married Mike Attorney, who would become Alissa's stepfather,
- 0:44Speaker 1: along with three of her biological brothers. Alissa's mother and
- 0:47Speaker 1: stepfather would soon have one child together afterwards, Sarah Attorney.
- 0:54Speaker 1: To great tragedy, Sarah's mother, Barbara, was diagnosed with cancer
- 0:58Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three. She unfortunately died a year later.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Tourney's sons, who were all grown up at this point,
- 1:05Speaker 1: had moved out of the house, so it was left
- 1:07Speaker 1: to Mike Turney to look after and help raise Sarah
- 1:11Speaker 1: Attorney and Lissa Attorney. Melissa was a normal teenager. She
- 1:16Speaker 1: was young, and she was signed to grow into herself
- 1:19Speaker 1: and her own independence. She was doing fine at school,
- 1:21Speaker 1: had a part time job, had a boyfriend. She was funny,
- 1:24Speaker 1: and she had a positive nature.
- 1:25Speaker 2: People liked her.
- 1:28Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, Alissa was seventeen, and on
- 1:31Speaker 1: May seventeen, two thousand and one, on her last day
- 1:34Speaker 1: of her junior year at Paradise Valley High School, she
- 1:37Speaker 1: went missing. Her stepfather, Michael Turney, said that he picked
- 1:42Speaker 1: her up around noon and they went out together for lunch.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Evidently they'd got into an argument over lunch, mostly about
- 1:47Speaker 1: Sarah's independence and how she wanted to do her own thing,
- 1:50Speaker 1: and after this they went home. When they returned home,
- 1:53Speaker 1: she stomped off into her bedroom. She was in a
- 1:55Speaker 1: bad mood. Michael then says he left the house around
- 1:58Speaker 1: at one o'clock and he went out to run a few.
- 2:00Speaker 2: Errands before picking Sarah up from school.
- 2:02Speaker 1: He tried to call Lissa, but there was no answer,
- 2:05Speaker 1: and when he returned home around about five o'clock, Alissa
- 2:08Speaker 1: was gone. Apparently she left a note behind and it
- 2:12Speaker 1: said Dad, and Sarah, when you drop me off at
- 2:14Speaker 1: school today, I decided I really am going to California, Sarah.
- 2:19Speaker 1: He said, you really wanted me gone. Now you have it, Dad.
- 2:24Speaker 1: I took three hundred dollars from you. That's why I
- 2:26Speaker 1: saved my money Elisa. Mike says that she called him
- 2:30Speaker 1: a week later from a payphone in California. The conversation
- 2:34Speaker 1: was abrupt and it quickly ended after Alyssa' swore at
- 2:37Speaker 1: Mike on the phone. This would be the last apparent
- 2:40Speaker 1: contact from Alissa ever, so this is where things start
- 2:58Speaker 1: to get a little.
- 3:00Speaker 2: Odd.
- 3:01Speaker 1: In the initial days of Melissa's disappearance, her stepfather, Mike
- 3:05Speaker 1: downplayed the incident the police. He called the police at
- 3:09Speaker 1: around about eleven PM, and he reported that she had
- 3:12Speaker 1: run away to California. Since Mike claimed that it was
- 3:16Speaker 1: a runaway and not an abduction, no investigation was conducted. Contrarily,
- 3:22Speaker 1: he tried to cause as much panic and urgency inside.
- 3:25Speaker 2: The family's four walls. He was, quite frankly a mess.
- 3:29Speaker 1: Mike began to tell family and friends of Melissa that
- 3:31Speaker 1: he thought something bad had happened to her.
- 3:34Speaker 2: He told them that he.
- 3:35Speaker 1: Thought someone may have been following her on the day
- 3:37Speaker 1: that she had been missing, and even worse, could have
- 3:40Speaker 1: caused harm to her. And since the police weren't doing anything,
- 3:43Speaker 1: he needed to do it himself. So he made a
- 3:45Speaker 1: few trips to California to search for Lissa and hand
- 3:48Speaker 1: out missing flies. So fast forward to two thousand and eight.
- 3:54Speaker 1: This is seven years after Alyssa had disappeared. She had
- 3:58Speaker 1: not contacted a single one of her friend or any
- 4:00Speaker 1: of her family, that included her aunt, who she was
- 4:03Speaker 1: apparently running away to.
- 4:05Speaker 2: She also had a bank account under her name.
- 4:07Speaker 1: The bank account had eighteen hundred dollars in there to
- 4:10Speaker 1: begin with, and that was never touched. Her social Security
- 4:14Speaker 1: number was never used, meaning she had never got a
- 4:17Speaker 1: job in the seven years that she disappeared, and her
- 4:20Speaker 1: school records remained untouched. It became clear to the police
- 4:24Speaker 1: over time that they were not dealing with a runaway
- 4:27Speaker 1: case anymore. Something had happened to Elissa and they wanted
- 4:30Speaker 1: to know what. Backtracking on her events, the police discovered
- 4:35Speaker 1: that Lisa had not been in school for the entire
- 4:37Speaker 1: day on the day that she went missing. They learned
- 4:40Speaker 1: that Michael had picked her up for lunch, and her
- 4:42Speaker 1: boyfriend back in two thousand and one had confirmed this
- 4:45Speaker 1: to the police.
- 4:47Speaker 2: Her boyfriend also told.
- 4:48Speaker 1: The police that she'd said to him that she would
- 4:50Speaker 1: see him later on at the after school party. Meanwhile,
- 4:54Speaker 1: Alissa's sister Sarah. She was also starting to question history.
- 4:58Speaker 1: She found from police reports that Mike had stated to
- 5:01Speaker 1: the police that he picked up Sarah from school and
- 5:04Speaker 1: when the two of them had returned, Elissa was gone.
- 5:07Speaker 1: But that didn't happen. What Sarah claims that actually happened
- 5:10Speaker 1: is that her father, Mike, had failed to show up
- 5:13Speaker 1: at the end of Sarah's school day. She ended up
- 5:15Speaker 1: walking to a friend's house, where he then finally picked
- 5:18Speaker 1: her up after five pm. At this point, Mike had
- 5:23Speaker 1: informed Sarah that Elissa was missing, and when they got
- 5:26Speaker 1: home they found the note. So Sarah and the police
- 5:29Speaker 1: they both decided to do.
- 5:31Speaker 2: A little more digging.
- 5:32Speaker 1: They learned that Michael was actually a very controlling and
- 5:35Speaker 1: paranoid man. He had recorders implanted into the family's landline phone.
- 5:39Speaker 1: He placed cameras on the outside of the property. He
- 5:42Speaker 1: even had a camera inside the vent looking into the
- 5:45Speaker 1: living room over the sofa. We know this because we'll
- 5:50Speaker 1: find out later on that Michael actually had recorded videos
- 5:54Speaker 1: of Melissa on the sofa with her boyfriend.
- 5:57Speaker 2: So when the.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Police asked for the recorders in the video of the
- 6:00Speaker 1: day that Alissa had gone missing, Mike had told them
- 6:04Speaker 1: that there was no useful information on those recorders on
- 6:07Speaker 1: the day. All this suspicious and strange activity actually encouraged
- 6:11Speaker 1: the police to conduct search warrants on Mike's house, and
- 6:14Speaker 1: this is where things start to get really bizarre. In
- 6:26Speaker 1: December two thousand and eight, federal agents were deployed to
- 6:29Speaker 1: raid Mike's house. They were hoping to find recordings of
- 6:36Speaker 1: these failing systems that Mike had implemented into his property
- 6:40Speaker 1: on the day that Alissa had gone missing, in case
- 6:42Speaker 1: these files may potentially hold clues as to her whereabouts.
- 6:45Speaker 1: So they waited for Mike to leave his front door,
- 6:47Speaker 1: and approximately eight thirty in the morning, as Mike went
- 6:50Speaker 1: down to grab his newspaper at the end of his driveway, they.
- 6:53Speaker 2: Seized Mike in his pajamas. They found they.
- 6:57Speaker 1: Had two pistols, a knife, and some pistol magazines attached
- 7:02Speaker 1: to his body just to collect the newspaper. Things got
- 7:06Speaker 1: even worse inside the property. The federal agents found twenty
- 7:10Speaker 1: six homemade pipe bombs, three firebombs, dozens of handguns, several rifles,
- 7:16Speaker 1: weapon attachments, and a ballistic vest. His truck was rigged
- 7:20Speaker 1: with explosive canisters, and they found a ninety six page
- 7:24Speaker 1: testimonial written by Mike describing how the Electrical Workers' Union
- 7:28Speaker 1: was responsible for the disappearance of Alissa So a bit
- 7:31Speaker 1: of backstory. In the nineteen eighties, Tourney had worked as
- 7:35Speaker 1: an electrician. During his time that he'd complained about the
- 7:38Speaker 1: working conditions and also of a colleagues and people had
- 7:42Speaker 1: enough they fired him. It eventually led to him losing
- 7:45Speaker 1: his job. You could say he was a little short fused.
- 7:50Speaker 1: He had recently told the police that the unit had
- 7:52Speaker 1: a grudge against him and they were to blame for
- 7:54Speaker 1: the disappearance of Alyssa. He claimed that they kidnapped and
- 7:57Speaker 1: killed her to punish him. In the writings found by
- 8:00Speaker 1: the federal agents, Tourney indicated that he wanted to Evangelista's
- 8:03Speaker 1: death by attacking the union. You see, Toorney had an
- 8:07Speaker 1: operational plan. He wanted to do this by driving an
- 8:10Speaker 1: explosives laden truck into the union hall and then shoot
- 8:14Speaker 1: any survivors that ran out from where the truck had exploded.
- 8:18Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this just sounds so bizarre. The authorities also
- 8:21Speaker 1: believed that the attack on the union hall was imminent.
- 8:24Speaker 1: In fact, they served the search warrant on December eleventh,
- 8:27Speaker 1: and the next meeting for that Union Hall was on
- 8:29Speaker 1: December fifteenth, only four days later. Police also found more
- 8:33Speaker 1: homemade tape Sir Melissa, along with contracts that Mike Tourney
- 8:36Speaker 1: had forced Elica to sign. One of these contracts was
- 8:39Speaker 1: dated roughly a year before Elissa's disappearance. It had contracted
- 8:42Speaker 1: to make her promise that she would never report that
- 8:44Speaker 1: Mike Tourney had abused her. In twenty ten, Michael Tourney
- 8:47Speaker 1: was sentenced to ten years in prison for possessing a
- 8:51Speaker 1: large case of fully functional bonds. He only got ten
- 8:56Speaker 1: years for that. In his early interview to date, Attorney
- 9:00Speaker 1: told ABC News he believes that the police framed him
- 9:03Speaker 1: by planting the bombs there. He did, however, admit to
- 9:07Speaker 1: the planning of taking his own life to bring attention
- 9:10Speaker 1: to the Alyssa case. Now I already shared that by
- 9:18Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, Sarah had already started to doubt
- 9:21Speaker 1: her father Mike, on the disappearance of Melissa. This speculation
- 9:25Speaker 1: grew over time, and there's so many reasons why Sarah
- 9:30Speaker 1: would eventually come to the conclusion that the disappearance of
- 9:33Speaker 1: Elyssa was solely on her father, Mike so Sarah actually
- 9:36Speaker 1: became the driver in building a case against Mike. She
- 9:39Speaker 1: even built the website Justice Forelyissa dot com. On her website,
- 9:45Speaker 1: she created a blog, and this blog shared the five
- 9:48Speaker 1: main reasons why she thinks that Mike was involved in
- 9:51Speaker 1: the disappearance of Melissa.
- 9:52Speaker 2: The number one thing that she brought up was the abuse.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Detectives had already asked friends and family about any suspected
- 9:59Speaker 1: abuse that may have happened to Elissa during her time
- 10:02Speaker 1: in Phoenix, Arizona. Surprisingly, over twenty statements were made to
- 10:07Speaker 1: the police claiming some form of physical or sexual abuse
- 10:11Speaker 1: from her stepfather, Mike. There were also letters written by
- 10:14Speaker 1: Lissa describing the abuse. Her boyfriend also recalled one time
- 10:18Speaker 1: that Eliza had told him that her stepfather, Mike, had
- 10:21Speaker 1: driven her out somewhere deserted and started physically abusing her.
- 10:26Speaker 1: On Sarah's blog, Sarah wrote the following. The relationship our
- 10:31Speaker 1: father had with Alyssa is commonly described by those who
- 10:34Speaker 1: knew her as one closer to abusive boyfriend rather than
- 10:37Speaker 1: a fatherly figure who was extremely possessive, often sitting in
- 10:41Speaker 1: the parking lot of Elissa's part time job to ensure
- 10:43Speaker 1: she was where she was supposed to be. He constantly
- 10:47Speaker 1: warned her friends and their parents of how she was
- 10:49Speaker 1: gullible and unable to take care of herself. He also
- 10:53Speaker 1: required Alyssa to sign behavioral contracts that included a clause
- 10:56Speaker 1: stating that he had never sexually or physically abused her.
- 11:00Speaker 1: My father did not display this behavior of any of
- 11:02Speaker 1: his other five children. This abuse and the fear of
- 11:05Speaker 1: it becoming public knowledge, is what I believe to be
- 11:07Speaker 1: his strongest motive to murder a Lissa. Old video for
- 11:10Speaker 1: just shows Mike's strange behavior with a Lissa. He would
- 11:12Speaker 1: often record her in places like the swimming pool, yeah
- 11:24Speaker 1: you pictures.
- 11:32Speaker 2: All while at work.
- 11:43Speaker 1: This was likely a tactic to intimidate his own step daughter.
- 11:46Speaker 1: The next key reason she talked about was means an opportunity.
- 11:50Speaker 1: You see, we already know that Mike had lied to
- 11:52Speaker 1: the police about the day that Alissa went missing. He
- 11:55Speaker 1: claims he picked her up from school and this gave
- 11:58Speaker 1: him an alibi from about three third pm onwards.
- 12:01Speaker 2: But Sarah remembers the day differently.
- 12:03Speaker 1: He never picked her up, or at least not until
- 12:05Speaker 1: after five pm, from a friend's house. This means that
- 12:08Speaker 1: if he did in fact murder Elissa, then he had
- 12:11Speaker 1: a time span to murder her and dispose of the
- 12:13Speaker 1: body from around about eleven am all the way through
- 12:16Speaker 1: to five pm. One Woodness had also reported to the
- 12:20Speaker 1: police that shortly before Elissa's disappearance that Mike had brought
- 12:24Speaker 1: a large amount of LIE. For those that don't know
- 12:27Speaker 1: what LIE is, it's a metal hydroxide which speeds up
- 12:30Speaker 1: the decomposition of a human body.
- 12:32Speaker 2: Lie is also used to make soap.
- 12:34Speaker 1: Mike acknowledged the purchase, but he refused to explain to
- 12:37Speaker 1: the police what he needed it for. Mike also has
- 12:41Speaker 1: great knowledge of the desert area around Arizona. His familiarity
- 12:45Speaker 1: with the complete vastness of that area, along with the
- 12:48Speaker 1: convenient purchase of LIE, leaves us with a pretty obvious strategy.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Mike also owned two trucks, both of them identical, one
- 12:56Speaker 1: of which he always hid from his friends and family.
- 13:00Speaker 1: Now very conveniently, both were sold shortly after the disappearance
- 13:04Speaker 1: of Alissa. Another strong indicator talked about Mike's deceits and
- 13:07Speaker 1: lying we already know about some of his manipulative behavior.
- 13:11Speaker 1: First the apparent runaway note. Second, Mike's sense of urgency
- 13:15Speaker 1: to family and friends. As a former law enforcement officer,
- 13:19Speaker 1: it's very reasonable to think you would know how to
- 13:21Speaker 1: report a person missing without causing much concern to the police.
- 13:25Speaker 2: He also never told.
- 13:26Speaker 1: His famiy of friends that he took us out early
- 13:28Speaker 1: that day that came out later on, many years later. Instead,
- 13:32Speaker 1: he told them that she'd run away with a biker.
- 13:35Speaker 1: He even told one of his older sons that Alyssa
- 13:37Speaker 1: was killed by an assassin hired by the electrical Union.
- 13:41Speaker 2: He also refused to.
- 13:42Speaker 1: Give his yna to the police, and to this day
- 13:44Speaker 1: still refuses to take an interview with the police. So
- 13:47Speaker 1: the last bit of damning evidence that Sarah talks about
- 13:50Speaker 1: is about a recording that she planted during a conversation
- 13:53Speaker 1: between her and her father, Mike in October twenty seventeen,
- 13:57Speaker 1: shortly after Mike was released from jail. Mike Vage confesses
- 14:00Speaker 1: to Sarah on Alyssa's disappearance.
- 14:03Speaker 3: So Mina, Alyssa's father has been the only person of
- 14:06Speaker 3: interest in Alyssa's case for almost ten years, yet the
- 14:10Speaker 3: police have never interviewed him. So I did it myself,
- 14:13Speaker 3: and here's what he had to say When I asked
- 14:15Speaker 3: him what happened to Alissa?
- 14:17Speaker 2: Reather the death bed, sir, and I'll give you all
- 14:20Speaker 2: if you here? Why there's you go?
- 14:25Speaker 3: Now? Then? Why are you making a mapper to go
- 14:33Speaker 3: to your death?
- 14:37Speaker 2: What are you looking for?
- 14:41Speaker 1: This was apparently still not enough for the Arizona PD,
- 14:45Speaker 1: so in twenty eighteen, Sarah decided to ramp up her
- 14:48Speaker 1: vocalization strategy with media. She's been campaigning on Facebook and
- 14:54Speaker 1: Twitter and TikTok and talking in various podcasts raising awareness
- 14:58Speaker 1: of the disappearance of my sister Alyssa dismounted pressure on
- 15:01Speaker 1: the Arizona PD to investigate deeper into the case Melissa,
- 15:04Speaker 1: and actually helped bring out evidence in twenty nineteen.
- 15:07Speaker 2: We don't quite know what details emerged, but it worked.
- 15:11Speaker 4: And now to Tonight's other big story, A twenty year
- 15:14Speaker 4: old cold case finally ends with an arrest. Michael Turney
- 15:18Speaker 4: is now facing murder charges in the case of his
- 15:21Speaker 4: missing daughter, Alisa.
- 15:22Speaker 5: Alisa's sister never gave up trying to find justice for
- 15:26Speaker 5: her sister, most recently using social media to keep her
- 15:30Speaker 5: story in the spotlight. Kim Charles William Pitt shows us
- 15:33Speaker 5: what finally led to the arrests.
- 15:36Speaker 1: On Thursday, the twentieth of August twenty twenty, just four
- 15:39Speaker 1: months after Sarah Salad using TikTok as a platform, Country
- 15:42Speaker 1: attorney Alistair Adele announced at a press conference that a
- 15:45Speaker 1: grand jury concluded and charged Michael Turney with second degree
- 15:50Speaker 1: murder over Alyssa's death.
- 15:52Speaker 2: He was arrested that day.
- 15:54Speaker 1: Mike Tourney has had his initial court appearance where he
- 15:56Speaker 1: still maintains his innocence. So what do I think happened
- 16:08Speaker 1: to Alyssatorney? Alissa was a very young girl when she
- 16:11Speaker 1: lost her mother through coincidence. More than anything, this left
- 16:14Speaker 1: her at the care of her stepfather.
- 16:16Speaker 2: Mike Turney. Mike should have been her father as she
- 16:19Speaker 2: grew up.
- 16:20Speaker 1: However, in Alissa's younger, more vulnerable, and more impressional years
- 16:24Speaker 1: as a child, Mike started taking advantage of Elissa. Through
- 16:28Speaker 1: reports of friends and family, it's likely that Mike abused
- 16:31Speaker 1: Elyssa as she grew up. Alissa was seventeen when she
- 16:35Speaker 1: went missing. She was starting to become independent and she
- 16:38Speaker 1: started forming her own and dependent opinions on life and
- 16:41Speaker 1: herself and others. We know that Elisa and Mike started
- 16:45Speaker 1: to argue more during her final year or two of
- 16:48Speaker 1: being around. It's likely that Lisa started to challenge Mike's
- 16:52Speaker 1: actions and behaviors with her. It's only amount of time
- 16:56Speaker 1: until she would start speaking out against Mike to other
- 16:58Speaker 1: people and Mike newvis Fearing for his own innocence and freedom,
- 17:03Speaker 1: Mike knew he had to do something, so it's most
- 17:06Speaker 1: likely that in order to silence Melissa, Michael Tourney most
- 17:09Speaker 1: likely murdered his own step daughter. He took advantage of
- 17:13Speaker 1: the final school day to reduce consequential student interaction with Alyssa.
- 17:18Speaker 1: He did this by taking us out early for lunch.
- 17:21Speaker 1: When he and Lissa got home, he probably forced Alyssa
- 17:24Speaker 1: to write a runaway letter. He then took her to
- 17:27Speaker 1: the desert and killed her. Knowing the desert canvas well,
- 17:32Speaker 1: he knew a very good place to hide the body
- 17:34Speaker 1: and using a lie on the body to speed up
- 17:35Speaker 1: the process.
- 17:36Speaker 2: Being a previous member of law.
- 17:37Speaker 1: Enforcement, he knew exactly how to avoid getting caught.
- 17:41Speaker 2: He used a story of picking up Sarah as an.
- 17:43Speaker 1: Alibi for himself and to conceal the timeframe of opportunity
- 17:48Speaker 1: for when he killed Lissa in that day. He then
- 17:50Speaker 1: downplayed the police by leading them to believe that she
- 17:53Speaker 1: had actually run away, and Mike then lied to his
- 17:55Speaker 1: family and friends to create panic and confusion. Getting a
- 17:59Speaker 1: phone call from Melissa a week later in California was
- 18:01Speaker 1: a total lie. His actions in minimizing alert to the
- 18:04Speaker 1: police and consistently downplaying her disappearance meant that no investigation
- 18:09Speaker 1: had happened in the first seven years. This meant that
- 18:11Speaker 1: all cameras and phone recordings and school reports were gone
- 18:15Speaker 1: by the time that investigations had started happening seven years later.
- 18:19Speaker 1: Mike Tourney was abusive, paranoid, heartless, and opportunistic. His manipulative
- 18:24Speaker 1: behavior helped him get away with all of that. I mean,
- 18:27Speaker 1: Alyss Attorney was just starting her life.
- 18:29Speaker 2: Really.
- 18:29Speaker 1: She was smart, funny, strong and caring. She loved her
- 18:33Speaker 1: sister a lot. But she lied on Mike to be
- 18:36Speaker 1: her parent. He took advantage of that, took advantage of her,
- 18:40Speaker 1: and took her life away from her, all for the
- 18:43Speaker 1: benefit of his own. It's incredible how long it took
- 18:46Speaker 1: to charge Mike Turney. This case was pretty obvious to
- 18:50Speaker 1: me from the very beginning, and who knows what would
- 18:52Speaker 1: have happened if it wasn't for the perseverance and tenacity
- 18:55Speaker 1: of her younger sister, Sarah mean trouble. Hi there, and
- 19:13Speaker 1: thank you so much for watching another video of mine.
- 19:16Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this case and would like to.
- 19:18Speaker 1: See the same kind of thing again, please consider subscribing
- 19:21Speaker 1: or leaving alike on the video.
- 19:23Speaker 2: What do you think happened to Alys's attorney? Do you
- 19:26Speaker 2: think that she was murdered?
- 19:28Speaker 1: Do you think Mike murdered her or do you think
- 19:31Speaker 1: someone else was to play in this Please let me
- 19:33Speaker 1: know what you think below. I'd love to hear other
- 19:35Speaker 1: people's thoughts and I'll see in the next video.
- 19:39Speaker 2: Take care of each other.