Alissa Turney: What occurred to her, and has she been discovered?

‘Dateline NBC,’ the longest-running primetime sequence in NBC’s historical past, is now in its thirty third season. Anchored by Lester Holt and that includes correspondents Blayne Alexander, Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison, and Dennis Murphy, the present returned Friday evening with one other haunting case: the 2001 disappearance of 17-year-old Alissa Turney.
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Who’s Alissa Turney?
Alissa Turney was simply 17 years outdated when she vanished from Phoenix, Arizona, in her junior 12 months in highschool. It was 17 Could 2001, and nobody knew it will be the final time they’d ever see her.
For years, Alissa was labelled a runaway. A word left behind in her room recommended she’d headed to California to stay together with her aunt. However that rationalization didn’t sit proper together with her family members for lengthy. Alissa had left behind every little thing: her cellphone, make-up, automotive, and practically $1,800 in her checking account. Her aunt additionally stated she by no means arrived.
“I wasn’t frightened,” Alissa’s youthful sister Sarah instructed Folks Journal in 2020. “I used to be underneath the impression she was going to be again. I don’t assume her being gone endlessly was something that ever crossed my thoughts.”
Born on 3 April 1984, Alissa grew up in Phoenix in a blended household. After her mom died of most cancers, her stepfather, Michael Turney, turned her sole guardian. Whereas he formally adopted Alissa, she typically confided in pals that he was controlling, a lot in order that he put in surveillance cameras round their dwelling.
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What occurred to Alissa Turney?
The final individual to see Alissa was Michael. He later instructed police that they’d lunch that day and acquired into an argument earlier than he dropped her off at dwelling. Just a few hours later, he reported her lacking, claiming she had run away.
Surprisingly, police didn’t instantly search the home or query Michael. Later, he instructed authorities he acquired a name from Alissa on a payphone in California, however nothing ever got here of that lead. Years glided by with none developments.
“No person appeared for her,” Sarah later stated in a TikTok video. “Not anyone in my household. The police didn’t do something regardless of her being reported lacking. Nothing actually occurred till 2006.”
That 12 months, the case was reopened, and Michael Turney turned the first suspect. In 2020, after tireless advocacy from Sarah, who turned to social media to demand justice, Michael was arrested. However the case fell aside in courtroom, and in 2023, a choose acquitted him of all expenses resulting from an absence of proof.
“I don’t know the place Alissa is, alive or lifeless,” Michael instructed NBC’s Dateline.
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Has Alissa Turney been discovered?
Until at this time, Alissa’s physique has by no means been discovered. The case stays open, and Sarah continues her seek for solutions.
“In my coronary heart, I really feel sure that Alissa is gone,” Sarah instructed The New York Instances in 2020. “It took me a really, very very long time to come back to that conclusion, and there was a lot guilt there once I did.”