Like many of others during the wild ride that is 2020, I have found escape scrolling my For Your Page on TikTok. From hilarious jokes to cute animals to creepy ghost stories, I've been sucked in for hours. But nothing grabbed my attention like one particular video I came across on June 30. The video showed was a clip of a 90s era home video shot from the point of view of a child holding the camera with text overlay stating “LISTEN TO CHILDREN ABOUT ABUSE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.” By the end of the video, I was chilled. I needed to know more. Immediately, I shared the video to a Facebook group I help admin for true crime fans asking if anyone had heard of it (admittedly, I didn't click the profile that posted the video, though I knew it was posted by the child holding the camera in the clip). A few people commented that I should look into the case more, especially the podcast created by the TikTok user, Sarah Turney. From there, I went right to my Stitcher app, searched for the podcast, and hit play. Here we are now, a short ten days later and I've finished listening to every episode as of this moment. I'm left feeling like I must do something. But what could I possibly do? I already ordered my Justice for Alissa merch, but it hasn't quite felt like enough. Well, I'm a writer, and I can write. I can use what little audience I have to hopefully shed more light on a decades long case that I had never even heard of before ten days ago. If this gets people to listen to that podcast, or check out her TikTok, or to sign a petition, I'll accept it. All I know is that I can't do nothing, for reasons I don't think I can even explain beyond the fact that I got invested in those 24 podcast episodes. I'm not going to pretend that I could sit down and tell the story as detailed or as well as Sarah Turney herself has given on the podcast, so I'm going to preface this by saying you need to listen to Voices for Justice to get the full story. Before you read about the case, I want you to imagine you grew up with your dad and your sister. Your mom died when you were very young and your other siblings are far older than you. Life is pretty normal—you fight with your sister some, but ultimately, life is okay until your sister runs away one summer. Then one day, years later, the police sit you down and tell you they don't think your sister ran away. In fact, they believe she's been murdered and your father is the one who did it, after years of him sexually abusing her. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. This is the case of Alissa Turney, a Phoenix, Arizona teenager who went missing in 2001 and was reported as a runaway by her father. It is now believed by Sarah, her family, and many others including the Phoenix police department that Alissa never ran away and was likely murdered by her adopted father, Mike Turney. When looking more into her disappearance years after the fact, the police were able to get a search warrant for their home, where they then discovered 26 pipe bombs created by Mike, seemingly to be used in an act of domestic terrorism against an organization that he felt had been out to get him for decades. While in prison for the pipe bombs, the police encouraged Sarah that they were doing everything they could to charge him for the murder of Alissa after he was out so he couldn't combine his sentences for a lesser one. Since then, it seems as though the police department has dropped the ball. From switching the detectives who dedicated years of their lives searching for answers off of the case, to simply not returning phone calls and e-mails (and so much more in between), Sarah has been left running in circles trying to reach the conclusion that was promised to her. What it basically all boiled down to was they wanted to prosecute but simply couldn't with the circumstantial evidence they have. They suggested for Sarah to get media attention. So she did. Despite the number of petition signatures, media deals, social media followers, etc., this case has yet to see justice. The podcast ends on July 2 at the time of my writing this, with Sarah choosing to halt the detailed timeline for the time being in order to lower the risk of it potentially hurting the case while waiting for the prosecutors to hopefully accept the case and charge their father. She ended with a call to action for listeners to keep spreading Alissa's story. While I hope she's able to post an update sooner rather than later, and I look forward to the other content she wishes to produce on the show, I'm going to do my part and try to share Alissa's story. This blog post hardly does this story justice and is honestly too complicated and detailed to explain in the detail necessary to understand the case, but I'm not here to regurgitate every detail to you. I'm here to tell you to go listen to the Voices for Justice podcast. Check out the website, the merch store, the patreon, Sarah's TikTok. Do what you can to help support this case and find justice for Alissa. Photo from https://justiceforalissa.com/
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AuthorHello! I'm Lindsey. I'm a writer with a ton of random thoughts bouncing around in my head. So I share them here in hopes that they reach others with these thoughts. Archives
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