The Day Alissa Disappeared
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tonight on date line you're looking .

out at lisa going to prom. SHE looked really beautiful. Was that the last time you saw her? Yes, IT was when he told me he was missing. I was shocked.

I was called by my father. He had run away.

I want to find out what happened to my kid.

Sarah has become this big podcasting and advocate for her sister.

This is insane. IT should never happen to anyone.

We found hundreds of the tapes and audio recordings fully super.

They can try to take to listen. How often is he coming to her work? And recording her .

comes on a regular basis.

That's stocking this whole other side is emerging of this family.

Dark secrets now coming to light.

I saw them diggings. I took my camera, oh my god, and just started taking pictures.

They were gasping out.

He had enough explosives to take out our whole neighborhood.

After a teenager goes missing, a chilling discovery pulls a family apart and turns an investigation upside down. Unless to hold. This is deadline.

Here's Andrew a canning with the day elissa .

disappeared. They're out there somewhere, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, people who vanish without a trace. Ten years ago, date line posed a question on facebook.

Have you ever known someone who simply disappeared? The comments poured in. Hundreds of people told us about unsolved cases from their towns and cities.

The response was so overwhelming. The very next day, date line launched an online series to help shine a light on the missing. And that's how we heard about tonight's story. A Young woman named Sarah torney sent deadline a tweet about her sister, a lisa, who was seventeen years old when he went missing back in two thousand. One, Sarah told date line about her social media crude to find out what happened.

Can we please just get justice for a listen now?

It's a dark family drama with explosive allegations and a case with an ending that no one saw coming in all my years at date line. This is the first time i'd ever seen this happen.

IT was a shock .

IT all started on may seventeenth, two thousand, one in paradise valley, a desert asis just outside of finex. Elisa turney is father. Mike scrambled to get the kids out the door.

All we got up, and I think we were running late. So I took a list, and I always sit in the parking lot of really high school till SHE got in the building.

IT was the last day of school. There were parties to go to friends, to hang out with friends like Chris ride hour. She's a good soul, a good friend.

yeah. A lisa was a junior, but he was planning to go to the graduation ceremony that night to see Chris a senior walk the stage. Lisa was really excited.

IT for you. Yes, he wanted to come see me graduate. That was the planet we made a .

lisa left school early that day. Her dad picked her up. Mike says they had important things to talk about, like what sh'd be doing that summer .

wanted delisa to get a driver's license so he could help me out to a certain extent.

Mike was a widow, raising a lisa under twelve year old sister sera, all by himself as a retired army specialist and former deputy sherif. He had a lot of rules in the house for a lisa. He expected her to check in with him often and kept close tabs on where he went, what was going on with a lisa that you felt you needed to be. So on top of her, as far as where he was going, what he was doing.

she's very nave, very easily influenced, and could be talked and digest about anything.

He says they ve got launched that day and then headed home.

Then after that, I discussed and started going bad because he wanted to go to a party.

Mike says their argument got heated, and elisa stormed off to her bedroom. He left to run errands and later picked up her sister Sarah from a friend's house. And when they got home, a lisa wasn't there and he wasn't answering her cell phone.

And then eventually was by her room. We hear the buzzy and Sarah, I went in together.

so her phones in her room.

a firms in her her room.

and right there on her dresser, something else, a note, IT said, dad and sera, when you drop me off at school today, I decided that I really am going to california. Sarah, you said you didn't want me around. Look, you ve got IT.

I'm gone. That's why I saved my money. Dad, I took three hundred dollars from you. How concerned to you that you found this note saying that she's gone?

This panic fit the description so immediate started calling, you know.

who are you .

calling anybody? I can get a phone number from her, your book, her address book.

I was called the day of by my father that he had gone missing.

Growing up, allee's older brother James had been like a second father to her. You thought that? Yes, SHE, she's run away.

definitely.

James no longer lived at home and didn't know where a lisa was, but he did know he had an ant in california. And delicia kept in touch with her by phone .

at that an initial say, just what I thought maybe he had gone her.

had her, and heard from her from elisa. Michael checked in with his next door neighbor, judy wacker. SHE told him not to worry when he was a teenager.

SHE would run away too. So come back, just let her have some space. You know, she's a teenager.

You come home. How was he handling? And he seemed really anxious. Chris noticed delicia didn't show up for graduation or the party after.

at first, I thought her dad would let her leave or something like that, you know. But after the party, I got a phone call from mike. I, hey.

have you seen elisa? So is .

strange.

A, this is dad went to the police, of course, but he says they told him there wasn't much they could do. They assign the case to a detective in the missing person's unit and added, a, this is name to a long list of teenage run. I was trying .

to convince them that a listen was an endanged right away. You worried about my child. And we hear is that all the time. mr. Tourney.

a week went by and nothing from a lisa. No calls, no sightings, until very early one morning, the home phone rang. Mike says IT was hard to hear, but he was sure IT was a lisa .

and elisa was, said, some cusworth and stop saying that, you know, leave me alone. That sound like he was talking away from the mouth. Peace, I think IT just brocoli .

does he sound like she's okay? Does he sound like .

that he sounded upset?

Where was a lisa? Torney, a mystery that would stretch over decades was just getting started.

Seventeen year old allissa tourney had been gone for seven days when her father told the phoenix police about that brief one call he got from her. He said he wasn't able to see the number, so we asked for their help tracing the call, but the police didn't share his sense of urgency. You wanted to find .

out where that I want to find. A finish feed didn't help me at all.

Police knew at seventeen, a lisa was almost an adult. If anything I call from her men, SHE was alive and well.

So I started calling quest all up to the power chain all way to denvers the phone of one of the follow number bag played today.

Help you? No, the phone company said IT couldn't turn over the records without a sepa. So turney went, took court to get one. Meanwhile, he continued to look for a lisa everywhere he was.

driving out to places to canvas the area to see if he was around, handing out flyers, driving to california, talking to her friends.

James says his dad became obsessed with finding a lisa who was the oldest girl in their blended family. Mike wasn't her biological father. He met and married to this his mother, barba.

When a lisa was two years old, barber also had an eight year old sun named john. You decided to adopt a lisa, and john make IT official. Why you take that extra step and and not just be stepped out anymore .

because I love barber. I mean, you know it's it's a package. If you love somebody, um you you have to accept what they have with them.

My cat, three sons from a previous marriage, including James. James says his dad always had the video camera out. Here's a lisa at the center with her large family.

When SHE first came into the family, he was just this little box of energy SHE zoomed everywhere. He was constantly on the go, always in between. Whatever us. Brothers were currently at that moment doing, always want them to be a part of IT.

Sa was born a few years later. Did you all click really well given the fact that you are blended family?

Yeah, I would say pretty quickly, we were all pretty close with each other.

and they stayed close when tragedy struck. A lisa was in second grade when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Barber died a year later. How did you help her get through IT? Where is there anything that you did for a lisa or set to a lisa that made IT a little easier?

Well, at that time my father was kind of, um I would say really out of IT, he seemed to be in shock. I was the person that he was kind of leaning back on. I member at the funeral, specifically SHE, understandably, completely broke down. Remember taking her how and going into one of the church's classrooms in order to comfort her until he was able to return back the funeral.

By the time a lisa was in high school, her older brothers were grown, and on their own IT was just mike.

and the two girls had a really bubble like friendly personality.

Her friend Chris lived down the street, and they worked together at a jack in the box near the high school. Would you hang out a lot when you were n at work?

We would go to school together so I would walk our house and, you know, get her and may be hang out sometimes at her house, get waiting for to get ready.

He remembers a lisa and her father argued a lot.

you know, he was always, always trying to demand what he was doing, always trying see her phone, things like that, like heavy handed parents ing like, you know.

helicopter style. Mike said IT was for her own good. He worried about her, especially after he believed delisa had been giving out their home phone number to guys SHE met while working the jack in the box drive. How did you find that out?

The phone calls that came in .

and you would ask them, how do you get this number?

Would try to most of time I just hung up.

Molly, click cap metal lisa in seventh grade, oh, he says a lisa was a bit of a rebel, but in a good way, independent, outspoken. SHE didn't care what anybody like, thought SHE just died her own thing. And I think that's what I really liked about her, because I wasn't like that very much.

And I older. What did you all do for fun? Let's do a lot of music.

We like talk a lot. Class talked about boys a lot. SHE just made me smile all the time, made me laugh.

Did you do home work together since you had so many in the same classes? yeah. Who was helping who I would say he was poly helping me more yeah.

After soft more year, Alyssa transferred to a different high school and SHE and Molly lost touch, but Molly often thought about her friend SHE still has these photos, illicit giver, with notes written on the back. What would you say you'd be like? Hey, i'm glad to know you're my best friend. And and you put like two thousand and two, which is we also to graduate two thousand and two rock loveless a that summer, elissa disappeared. No one knew if he would be back to start senior year, much less graduate.

It's unsettling. It's very sad. You know, you like what happened? You kind of think the worst, but you got to keep the hope alive.

There was some good news, the court issue, that that sepia and delicious dad got the phone records. What do you find out where that all come from?

The area could suggested california, and they even give me the location, just gave me the number. And so I just get calling IT. And finally, somebody answer IT.

IT was a convenient store clerk. The number I had been calling was from a payphone outside of a store, riverside, california, not too far from L. A. Mike abb. Sarah, and drove the three hundred and twenty miles from area's ona to california and found the payphone I want IT.

I took pictures of the phone just to keep my memory strait. Then I started going to the various place department giving out fires.

but no one remembered seeing her back home. Might pushed to get a licence. Case noticed. He worked with the national center for missing and exploited children, and with their help, he was able to get a lisa featured at a nascar event. Her face appeared on the hood of a race car.

I did whatever I could. I even have a desperation to get and keep the attention of lisa.

That included pressuring the police for updates and preparing them with suggestions, people they could talk to. But nothing came of IT as time started to move on, and no sightings of elisa. Are you starting to to get concerned that something bad has happened?

Yeah, I love my sister, but I don't think he had the ability to completely wipe her life and disappear and and nothing .

that's hard to do. Holidays and birthdays past one year turned into two, then into many.

I can't emphasize enough if he would have called somebody, you know, that was so out of character for her to not call Alice is missing .

person's file was passed from one detective to another. Small steps were taken like collecting her dental records and DNA from the family. They never did any interviews. But soon a new detective was on the case, and he had questions for everyone.

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Thousands of people are reported missing every year in phoenix, many of them considered runaway for years. The case of missing teenager elisa torney SAT gathering dust in the phoenix department.

SHE remained listed as a missing person, but there wasn't an overt effort to track her .

down that was about to change. Seven years after a lisa vanished, detective will Anderson joined the phenix P. S. Missing persons unit.

I was assigned a portion of the alphabet and started working.

So this came about because of the alphabet.

Yes.

tea for tourney quickly LED him to a this is case. And when he started reading the file, he felt an instant connection with her father, mike.

Mike, the same age is my father. Mike served in the army, just like my father. When I got out of the army, he briefly worked at plover's nuclear power plan.

So did my father. Wow, my test. Three biological sons and the oldest brother have three.

So this is unreal. The parallels .

IT is IT is handy's former laender cement. So i'm going to do everything I can to make sure that we give them a resolution because they deserve that.

even if the resolution would be devastating because the detectives instincts were telling him that a lisa, who would have been twenty four when he got the case, was not just hiding out somewhere.

She's an adult. SHE can do anything he wants. At that point. She's going to seek out her I D. She's going to contact family, get a copy of pursuit fate.

But that didn't happen. That did not happen, which is a huge red flag.

Absolutely, something has interrupted that pattern of life. My named Anderson and detective here.

one of the first people detective Anderson talk to was a licia sister, Sarah. SHE was nineteen. Now, when a lisa disappeared.

SHE was twelve. Your sister's cases new to me. I'm reviewing. I'm going to go over and and .

I want to give the attention that deserts like her father had.

Sarah described delisa as rebellious, naive. No.

yeah.

SHE told the detective her sister had issues with their father's rules. Sh'd even talked .

about leaving home time .

same time. Was that .

directed ports?

dad? Yeah over heard .

taking to do stuff like go out whenever he wanted or if you should check or something like do .

you .

really protect to compare them to to other parents of your friends.

other parents with her? He was he was very overprotective .

her because .

all yeah exactly. And you know, he was the type the detective covered.

every topic he could think of, including any security precautions at the house.

any cameras, anything like.

We did. I not sure we do have cares now. I don't think we had been. No, no, no, we did.

Security cameras were rare in two thousand. One, SHE said her dad installed them after a theft .

at their house. The cameras, they would record the main door that you guys use. Yeah, come.

Out, he said. They also had a recorder to tape phone calls. The reason in the past, her dad had worked as an electric, but had a falling out with the electrical union. He told Sarah he had enemies.

I know he's really politically out sort. He's really like a White guter. Some people do things bad. We should.

The detective wondered if there was security footage from the day a lisa went missing.

a day he went over with Sarah in detail. And I found no.

That note bothered the detective and his experience. It's unusual for a run away to leave one on top of that SHE didn't t take her cell phone or the .

silver jury SHE always wore SHE left a lot of violence 30SHE didn't take much with her all except and the ones at a door .

SHE was wearing just.

just SHE SHE only took her regular jeans and then a few.

a few t shirts. Still, Sarah held .

out hope and encouraged her dad to do the same. You know, so detective .

henderson thought all options were on the table. Either a lisa ran away and something tragic happened, or maybe SHE hadn't left on her own. After all, maybe someone closer, her knew something they weren't telling. That would include a this is many friends under high school boyfriend john lak men.

the serious .

relationship I.

So pretty much the entire during your year.

I really.

I want dad, how do you feel about john.

you know, like him? Because something happened, her finger got slammed in the door and he got. Something like that, he didn't like the way john to her either. The talking down .

to slammer car doors, talking down to her. The boyfriend went to the top of the list of people he wanted to interview, and there were .

others get as many others as many friends that you father time to.

From the beginning, mike tourney had given police names of people he wanted investigated, and now detectives were finally tracking them down. Would one of them hold the key to what happened to a lisa? Mike brings up an individual that he thinks might have actually killed a lisa.

yes.

In the years after a lac's disappearance, her brother James had moved away from phoenix, but Carried with him a sense of loss and uncertainty that only grew with time. How are you feeling when you find out there are fresh eyes on this case, new detectives?

I was static. I was incredibly happy. I had been constantly calling over and over with the previous detectives that were incredibly unresponsive and helpful and basically not doing anything.

Detective Anderson started knocking on doors, including a list is old friend mallie. IT had been nine years since last spoke to a lisa, and he was stunned to hear from the detectives that elisa was missing.

I can't even imagine just the that you would have in that moment yeah was like, what how do you even know how to say anything that I was like? It's been a long time what they say, they said they had here found my name and like your books and like address books. They told her they were looking for anything with the, this is writing on IT.

Molly went in search of those class pictures. The ones with the list is writing on the back. He took those and he said, I need to do because he wanted no, and we need to analyze her, know, writing on the back and everything.

A lisa had left that note, but also her phone, clothes and money. In the back eighteen hundred dollars, the detective turned his attention to the names her father had given, police names of people might thought might have helped her run away, or worse, that included her boyfriend john. Were you concerned that john might be involved in her disappearance? yes.

And I tried to get that through to the finance P. D. I had been .

suspicious of john because he and allister had a nasty fight a few weeks before SHE IT was recorded on the tourney's home security cameras.

What happens in the video? What I can see, the lisa throws the phone is upset, and then you can hear the squealing, the tires of john living.

Now, years later, detective Anderson and his partner asked john to come in for an interview. Family knows one thing, my friend, everyone knows more. I and friends, so how did you guys meet? I met at at school. We had a class together and.

We together for the .

whole year.

pretty much nine months through that year.

the detective wanted to know about that fight. Of course, john study was that because he just .

found out a lisa had.

In fact, after their fight, he says the two of them made up and went to prom. Johnson said prom was one of his favorite memories with a lisa, and after he disappeared, he was heart broken. Yes, I was. Detectives thought he was telling the truth, but just to be sure, they ran his vehicle if he d left the state around the time of lisa disappeared.

there is no break in his life pattern that suggests he has any missing time. We have the opportunity to do anything with her.

Anderson moved on from the boyfriend. There was another worker, coworker of hers that that you felt might have aided.

You know, that was a doctor running away. Uh, he was a shift supervisor, mike standing, and he given a right.

He was the guy lisa had been with while dating john, my cat video of that too, a lisa and my standing kissing night.

I always turned the record on record, and while we were asleep, I was unfortunate that I caught to make out on.

okay. Detectives asked him to come in for an interview. Was there anything suspicious with him?

Know what you voluntarily comes in. He's CoOperated. Nothing as far as means, motive, an opportunity to suggest that he is responsible .

for the another dead end. But there were more names on mike turny list. Mike brings up an individual that he thinks might have actually killed a lisa.

Yes, paul abbot is the name he provides. This was a person who was doing wiring .

at the school allissa school. Abbott also frequented the jack in the box where he worked. Had they argued or with her any reason was he obsessed with her?

No IT is is one of many people that um mike is offered as possible suspects in her disappearance all .

those leads but none were panning out. Anderson wanted to go through the whole case with a this is dad and a sit down interview. To his surprise, mike said no. He told the detective Sarah could speak for the family.

I stead in all do respect to Sarah. She's nineteen now, but her memories are that of a twelve year old.

Does he agree to come in?

No.

but Anderson wanted more than just to sit down interview. He wanted something he believed might be in .

the tourney house. In Michael burney's own words, there's a video from the day he .

disappeared could be a gift falling in your lap in this investigation.

This absolutely.

The finex police department was investigating one lead after another in the illicit attorney called case. And there in the file, detectives found another lead. Maybe, just maybe, this was IT. A few years earlier, a convicted killer named Thomas hyper had confessed several murder. And he said one of his victims was a lisa.

This person in prison at that time for homicide.

hyper, had written the letter to the FBI saying he'd made a lisa in a drug dealers van outside of a phoenix AR. His letter described how we drove red, a georgia, and killed her in a hotel room, dumping her body in a trash compacter. The FBI had looked into a story and dismissed IT hyper never provided any details beyond what was available to the public. But years later, with still no sign of eliza, Anderson and his partner wanted to check him out.

I spoke to hammer. I arranged a conversation with him.

Anderson's partner travelled to a florida prison to interview hammer in person. He brought along a technician to give the convicted killer a polygraph.

Was the time you my questions true? Do you have question? But any question 叫做 外甥。

But that's not what the polygraph results showed right there in the room. The polygraph determined timer .

was making IT all up never me anyone. so.

It's quickly becoming apparent to you that so is not a lis killer. So all the detective hat was a pile of debt, most of them provided by mike tourney. While Anderson had initially felt a connection with a this is father.

Now while he felt was frustration, mike was still refusing to come in for a formal interview. What's happening in the story is a big shift. This dad has gone from doing everything he could define his daughter to now being unCoOperative.

The father has gone from following up on every lead, providing us information, uh, directing who we should, we do. But when you get that copy, wants to meet with you, want your input, your information, I start getting objections .

in the years since a lisa disappeared, makes public campaign to find her had wined he didn't have a job, collect a disability for an injury he suffered working as an electrician and Sarah told investigators he'd been treated for depression. SHE continued to be as helpful as he could.

I stated I wanted more of the licence artifacts. Did you keep anything of her? S, yes, we've kept everything wonderful .

to allow to.

absolutely. They arranged the date I showed up with two other detectives and a truck, anticipating a large volume of material that i'd be able to take and review, to try and figure out who a lisa was.

What did you get?

I got her.

Your book. That's IT that was IT. So you have a truck sitting outside for a year book.

for a year book.

Contrary to what sara to them, mike said that all they had left of a licious things. Anderson was certain there had to be more in the house. That's because in the case file, there was this letter written by mike years earlier to the national center for missing an exploded children.

What I really key in on is a statement by mike saying that he has internal external security cameras at his home and IT. He hasn't eight hour video from may seventeen of two thousand, one, the day this ran away.

the day you went missing. Yes, this is crucial, potentially. yes. Did you ask him if you could see the video?

Yes, he states he will look for IT, but he's not sure if he kept IT.

the detectives says mike told him there hadn't been anything useful on the tape anyway, so Anderson asked him for something else. Remember that phone call might got from the payphone in california? Anderson knew he had a history of recording calls. So the million dollar question is, did he record the call that he said a listen made to the house. Does he have IT?

no.

And there was more on the detectives radar.

We've talked to so many people at this point that their allegations floating around that have me Frankly concerned.

One allegation came from malicious biological father Steve strom m. Years earlier, he analysis, mother had divorced. He hadn't seen Alyssa and he was a toddle SHE was one of those kids just go, go, go. And he was really outgoing, very sweet kid. When he heard he was missing, he contacted police.

He expresses concerns. Are you sure that she's a runaway?

He wanted investigators to know he didn't believe a lisa left on her own. What did you think that happened? I think IT did something to her.

I just felt IT as as a father, I can feel there was something not right there. He's talking about mike tourney. The two men had a contentious history.

They battled over a custody and child support. He was just a nurse. etic. That's what he was. It's all about Michael and no one else in the world.

Maybe Steve was biased, but he wasn't the only one pointing the finger at mike. A lesser boyfriend, john had a lot to say about mike. tony. For one, he told investigators that the fight he had with a lisa started because of something. Mike said.

my turn is, stop him. Lens orn says she's cheating on you.

Odd thing to say from a dad. John told police he was suspicious of mike from the beginning.

I think dict ous terrible Anderson .

continue to push mike for evidence, having no idea that what he would uncover next could blow up the whole investigation. He had enough explosives there to take out our whole neighborhood. Holy cow.

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Detective Anderson was done playing games for months. He'd been asking mike tourney for video of the day is a vanished and audio of that call from california. My tourney responded by handing over those two other types, elisa, fighting with her boyfriend, and delicia kissing that other guy in the living room, neither of which helped the investigation.

I'm looking for that video day. I'm looking for that audio, tate. So authorities .

went to court and got two search warns, one for the housework lisa grew up and another for the house mike lived in. Now, right across the street is the entire house being turned upside down? Yes, everything's being looked at. Yes, they didn't need to look hard to find out that I had guns, lots of them. But investigators had come looking for tapes, and there were plenty of those two.

We found hundreds of hs tape and hundreds of audio tape, cash recordings.

With the tapes they wanted be among them. IT was too soon to know, and their focus had shifted to something more imminent, a large stash of explosives, including home made pipe bombs.

These are somewhat competently created devices.

This is a dangerous situation.

but this is a deadly situation. 什么？

The big question? What was my torney planning? They found the answer in a locked .

safe Michael torney had created and stamped, sealed. And for N, B, C, for A, B, C, for local media, is being described as a manifesto.

IT was titled diary of a madman lost in an obsession for justice enclosure. Remember, Sarah had mentioned her dad's trouble with an electrical union, said he was a kind of whistle .

blower who worried about retaliation. I know he's really outspoken. People think.

well, he'd done more than worry. He'd been obsessed.

He believed that the union sabotage his job in california and that they tried to kill him by knocking him off of a latter. And IT gets even worse than that.

Mix manifesto made an outrageous claim that the union had murdered a lisa.

He was abducted by union members that somehow recognized her, killed her in, left her body in desert center, california.

He wrote in the manifesto's cover letter, I got to this point in my life that my death, vengeance and mass murder was all I had left. He'd even marked his calendar with a big .

x that happened to be the next date for the local unions Christmas party. That's when they would have other members, wives, children at the party.

That holiday party was just a few days away. The detected believed that the day might have chosen to Carry out an attack. This search warrant that was not looking for this ended up potentially preventing a mass shooting.

absolutely prevented .

IT mike torn ney was arrested. A detective called James with the news said that .

pipe bombs have been found in the house. We are evacuating that particular part to be the bomb squad in, and we're cordon off area.

What's going through your mind?

IT was a several experience. All I have thinking during that stuff was, oh my god, my sister was living there and my family was visiting there. This is crazy.

crazy, surreal, but in a strange way validating for James. You see for years he'd been the odd man out of his family austerities ed, he says, for chAllenging his father.

I was asking too .

many questions.

Elsa battle, so yeah, i'd started this um even before a list went missing, a cap asking questions about how all the girls who we have been taken care of, why the rooms dirty when I come over wise, the house not clean, just things along those nature .

and after a lisa vanished while his dad appeared to be searching everywhere, he told James .

something downright bizarre. Well, he tells me that he has found the killers of my sister and that he had killed the killers of my sister. Now you have to also remember, my father has told me crazy things my entire life. Um so there was also a part of he was like, going, is this guide just rambling, like just telling me this to make me happy, telling me this to try to comfort me and some sort of bizarre. But IT definitely raised word flags and IT started to begin the checking, in my mind, doesn't make set.

You really started asking questions that you hadn't necessarily .

asked before yeah um and as I ask more questions the answers became um more I would say absence and IT was more and more contradictions.

Now bomb squad were rolling into his old street neighbor judi got a knock on her door. IT was the biggest shock I ever got in my life. The police office car was like, you're gonna to evacuate over overnight, so you have ten minutes.

They stayed at the front of the door, waited for us to get all of us stuff. And this is right across the street, right across the street. He had enough explosives there to take out our whole neighborhood.

The next day, the neighbors were allowed back. But the drama wasn't over. A new search was under way at mike tourney's old house, the one he lived in at the time of ellice's disappearance.

A bunch of police cars were there and I notice that they had decay nine um and I figured they were here to to have cador dogs and to search yeah for the this is body potentially because they came out here to the backyard and I and I watch them, I kind of got up on my, and I just kind of looked over and I saw them digging their side, just kind of took my camera, oh, my phone and just started taking some pictures. So you're playing erna st. Investigators were searching what they solve this mystery and finally find a lisa.

As the digging continued and the king snipped around, mike Turner's old house neighbor juty weaker, held her breath, my heart was going fifty miles an hour, you know, thinking, oh my god, you know. And when I heard they didn't find anything. I was relieved, but there was little relief for James.

His father pleaded guilty to illegally possessing those pipe bombs and was sentenced to ten years in prison. And with his dad behind bars, James thought back on all the strange thin his father had said and done one thing that really bothered him. He says his dad never told the family that he'd picked a lisa up early from school. That day, he disappeared.

To me, IT kind of looks like if you take a person out of school early and you want to to do something that may make them want to go away or go away, it's best to do IT at a time when no one else is around to ask questions.

Detective Anderson was more than a little suspicious, too. He hoped mike tourney would finally talk to him from prison. Is he CoOperative? Or as he does.

he shut down, he shut down. We solicit him. Can we, can we talk about a lisa? No, you will not talk to us.

But my tourney wasn't going anywhere for now. There was plenty of time for police to sort through those piles of recordings. Remember detectives, we're looking for two things. The video from the day lisa went missing and that phone call, mike said, SHE made from california. Finding these two types that you need is like finding a needle, two needles.

two needles in a stack of needles.

Many of the audio recording seemed to mune. So you were used to the recorded phone calls.

all right? Yeah, we, from a very Young age.

there were phone recordings of Sarah ordering pizza and calling to check movie show times. Here's a lisa on the phone with her boyfriend, john. 好了 没有？ 好了没， but then there was this recording, a phone call between mike and one of his sons from before a, this is disappearance. Mike is talking about elisa.

Everything else is going to leave because of some stupid ass bitch. I give basic an alternative cops where you can bond back with me in the family and stopping such a.

these types are showing an unhealthy relationship with his daughter.

There are definitely some issues in that home.

There were hours and hours of family videos.

Lisa a. lisa.

But what to make of this, that's a lisa at work. SHE seems annoy her father is outside with his camera, and how often is he coming to her work and recording her .

comes on a regular basis. Mister tourney has stated that he would routinely show up an hour too early to ensure that he did not leave the I with anybody else.

My god, it's like she's being stocked almost.

Yeah, it's very much over the top.

I remember her saying kind of some about that and I was like, that's weird. And that was.

why would you do that? Detectives also come through the video captured by mike turney security cameras. Years worth a camera outside and a hidden camera inside inside .

was up in the register.

In the vent you can see IT, yeah, like a red light.

You like IT was a red light.

He's got the camera in the event and then of course, he's video of tapping a lisa on the job. He's you that all these things are happening yeah .

that to my knowledge, never ever occurred until elisa and IT would seem to be pretty specifically focused on her. On her specifically.

IT would take thousands of hours to go through all the tapes years, in fact. And after all that work, detectives never found the video of a lisa from the day he disappeared. And there was no recording of that phone call either.

I can tell you the family ordered a large cheese pizza, half peppo and half union. I can tell you that h Sarah was trying to find a good movie time for the, for princess diaries. All of those ridiculous calls are recorded.

but no call from california.

but no call from california.

Despite the hundreds of tapes collected from the house. Remember, turney had only volunteered two tapes to police elisa with a guy in the living room and that fight with her boyfriend, john. Now, when you see this video, and you know what you know, what are you thinking was theater.

I'm thinking mr. Journey kept this video to give law enforcement something to look at.

something to possibly distract from my tourney himself. Yes, detective Anderson was now convinced that mike torney was responsible for his daughters disappearance, and the stories people were telling him about mike were beyond disturbing. Remember IT creep me out in this forever Green mind brain.

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Phenix police detectives learned a lot about mike tourney and his relationship with a lisa while he SAT behind bars before his arrest, he told detective Anderson elisa was impulse. Sive had bad judgment when he came to guys and that he wasn't very bright.

The stories that are told about a lisa are not charming stories. Everything he says, everything he does, is geared to make a lisa look foolish, look sexual.

But now he was hearing that's not how others saw her.

He was hot and happy. And people like.

They heard plenty of ugly stories, but those were about my was.

when we finally get around to talking to all these people, they come forward with these horrible situation.

One of those people was a lac's older cousin. He lived with the tourneys for a short while as a Young adult. In a call with police, he described A V, H tape he found in the house.

One day, he showed a girl lying on what he believed was his uncle mikes couch. A newspaper covered her eyes. He was, granted, had short hair.

I was clear up a with the earth. The her he was talking about was his cousin elisa. Police asked him to come in so they could talk in person.

So did you that the time growing up, or yes, he brought his wife with him and described the video again, yeah, yeah. I mean, you could tell, because I had a real distinct nose. I could tell IT as her and let to see the color of hair. So if you have put a part of how you work, I would say a good ninety percent sure. And this is being recorded by mike.

This appears to be a home video I can tell you who took i've never seen the video.

Investigators never found a video with that top less girl during the search of the tennis house. Mike says that's because IT doesn't exist. But the this is cousin was convinced he saw something deeply disturbing.

I D I remember I at me out in this for very grain, my brain, a lsa. Cousin, was not the only person that described unsettling things. Others shared stories.

They said the'd heard from a lisa directly. This story ranks up there with with some of the worst stories you've heard. This is third grade teacher. Yes, the teacher met with detectives .

in a parking lot.

SHE said, to be set of my day, what is? And I talked to her and I said on this, why you saying, yeah, are you, are you truly telling you this? Because if you told me, I would have called the C. P. S. whatever. And SHE said, no one.

And this is A A little girl, third, great lisa, walking around saying she'd had sex with her father. So SHE confronted Michael about that. Michael said, no, no, no. She's confused. SHE thinks sexes, when people kissed each other.

Good night. I have a third greater myself and he knows what yes, yeah.

A lisa had also told .

friends and family about something SHE said happened when he was a teenager. But you said that he touched her. This high school friend recounted a story. Illicit told her about a drive into the desert with her dad.

They are in his truck, and he let her drive meet her really uncomfortable. And he got out and walked home.

SHE specified what he did that made her fill .

company hardly try so hard to forget. And maybe he put his hand on her life or got to close her.

Something in was you tell he touches her.

he groups, or he tries to do something to her. That particular story comes from three different sources.

the same story.

the same story.

And did they all talk or know each other? Or was this all independent?

independent?

Alyssa boyfriend john was one of the three sources for that story. Think the story was pulled over somewhere. And you know an not guide area, some like desert area, try phone around with there.

And he got aggressive fighting about you. Did you ask these three? Did you say? Did SHE seem like he was trying to get back at her dad? She's just sick of him being so controlling.

Absolutely, absolutely, for all three of them and they said, genuine this was emotional. This was her in the moment, shaking and cry .

in a call with police, another friend said elisa confided in her two.

There is one time that um he gets to me about something that he said that was physical. SHE had told me about waiting up to him um one night hugging her with a dog at .

trying to strangle her when he came to do in her life. What was gone on he did stopped what he tried to explained her afterward is that basically um SHE ever told anybody nobody would ever believe her. He was always frightening her that way, threatening her not to tell people things because, you know he what people need over her. The detectives couldn't verify the sexual abuse stories without a lisa, but there was this, a lisa talk, ture. And in california, just weeks before SHE disappeared and mike knew IT after all, he recorded their calls.

快点。

So you have a seventeen year old girl, whatever issues are going on in that home, she's not willing to tolerate them anymore and she's finally able to stand up and recognize that he has some resources SHE could go to her maternal .

and you believe my tourney is losing control at this point?

absolutely. And if he is not alright, losing control, he's in that SHE is going to cause him harm.

giving him a possible motive. Yes, for wanting you're gone.

Means, motive and opportunity are entirely mikes.

That was the theory, but they needed more something, or maybe someone to make the case.

My named a sattar ney and this voices for justice.

Just treat me out. Investigators heard a slew of distressing stories about my tourneys relationship with a lisa. Her brother James hadn't heard any sexual abuse allegations, but he did have a story of his weeks before SHE disappeared, Alyssa told her brother he wanted to go live with him. Did he say why he .

said that he couldn't take living with my father anymore, that SHE was afraid of him? SHE at that time was weeping. Very, very emotional.

How worried were you about her when she's saying these things and crying?

I was concerned, but at the same time I had been told that he was a problem child, that he was causing all swords of issues. He was into all sorts of trouble.

James says their dad always made IT seem like a lisa was the problem. And for a long time he'd believed him. He was bad mouths, saying he was dumb, naive to sexual.

Yes.

but I do all that.

In order to control her.

James spent years thinking about his upbringing and learning about domestic and child abuse. He believes his father used something called course of control to dominate a lisa.

And as kids, you make that person feel isolated and that basically you're the only one that can help them because they're too stupid to whatever to be part of any other group。

Would you say you were under his spell back then?

Oh, when we were Younger, yeah, we were, I call us a cold. And everything that my father said was, you know, the word, the true word, and everyone else was an outside influence. You know, you couldn't trust anyone else what he said. He believed.

James says, as soon as he started to doubt the true word, he was basically kicked out of the family. After his dad's arrest, he tried to get his siblings to start asking questions too. You had been trying to convince your siblings that, hey, somethings not right here with dad, with a lisa, with a her disappearance.

Yes, for years the majority of my question, and had to be very, very cautious. I had been slowly just doing things like doing this. You know, interaction here seem a little off. Why don't you question this too? Or do you not see this .

raising delt?

Yeah, definitely know. I was to come out directly ly and say, I think dad did something I would push back immediately.

James says. Eventually, one by one, his brothers came around and started CoOperating with investigators. In fact, his brother rat was one of the many people to tell investigators about a, this is allegation of sexual abuse.

But one turney still wasn't convinced. Ed, her father had harmed delisa. Sarah had long supported her dad. When did SHE start making that shift to questioning him as well?

I would say, after his incarceration, I think SHE was internal to her own thoughts. And SHE was reviewing what SHE had experiences, what he had seen.

what he had read. You had a delicate dance with Sarah because she's supported her dad for so long. yes.

And now you're trying to to show her look, I don't think he's the father. You think he is? yes. Anderson decided to let the evidence speak for itself. Over the course of several meetings and even more emails, he showed Sarah the case being built against her dad.

sharing a video with a, releasing a video to her, telling our hakes, blame this to me. Walk me through .

this IT was twenty sixteen, fifteen years after illicit disappeared, mike tourney was about to be released from prison. After serving time for those weapons charges, detective Anderson SAT with a prosecutor from the mariot accounting attorneys office and walked him through the case. By then, Sarah had changed her mind.

Now, all the tourney siblings believed in their father was involved in a licious disappearance. The prosecutor looked at what police had, and despite all the smoke, he saw no fire. He told the detective to keep digging. Mike tourney would not be charged in a this is disappearance .

IT was incredibly frustrating. IT made us so angry and we've been told all along that he'll be charged when he comes out. We're going to charge you with this.

Don't worry about IT. And then not long after he was released, just nothing IT was like, you've got to be kidding us. Why would you even tell us that he was gonna en? why? Why even give us that hope?

But someone was coming for mike tourney.

My name is sera turney, and this is voices for justice.

Sarah was now thirty years old, a college graduate living on her own with her father out of prison. He was going to do everything he could to send him back.

She's the ultimate creation of my father. And he did not expect that SHE was able to definitely turn IT full one eighty and be the driving force, something that none of us could have ever done.

SHE started a podcast dedicated to her sister's case.

might have part of my sister list a story before, but I promise that you ve never heard IT .

like this and created a tiktok account.

Can we please just get justice for a less? Now please help me share this. This is insane and should .

never happen to anyone. SHE raised money to put up this billboard in phoenix to spot like the case.

as he would have done for me.

and reached out to national media, including deadline.

I did not expect to blow on tiktok overnight.

so thank you. IT worked a lsa story went viral and sa gained more than a million followers. It's like SHE single handedly got millions of people interested in a lys's case and put this incredible pressure on police to get things done exactly.

IT took several years. Then finally, IT happened in August of twenty twenty officers and tactical gear surrounded mike tourney as he exited his vehicle with his hands in the air. Today I am announcing the granger entitled for secondary murder of Michael roy turn.

There was a new district tourney and her team had taken a second look at a lichas case with largely the same evidence is before he decided IT was enough to a lisa sister. SHE gave sera shelter for keeping the case front center. Your perseverance and commitment to finding justice for your sister or lisa is a testament to the love of a sister in .

our Sarah immediately .

shared the news on her tiktok account.

My father's been arrested for this as murder, and I just stopped crying, and i'm trying not to cry again.

And I just IT made me sly Better at night, just knowing that he was there. And IT made me think maybe there's a chance my sister will get justice. Maybe there is a .

chance mike tourney was behind bars once again, but would IT be for good this time. They need to prove that .

he did something. And from our perspective, that evidence just was never there.

Hey friends, ted dancing here and I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called where everybody knows your name with me, ted dancing and woody harrel sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud woody to reconnect after cheers wrap thirty years ago. Plus we're introducing each other, the friends we've D.

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Public offender Jamie Jackson headed over to the miracle of account jail to meet his new client, mike tourney. What's your first impression .

from the very beginning? He was adamant that he did not do this.

and after just a quick Lance of the files, jie thought his client had a strong case for me. IT was .

immediately, wow, there is very little physical evidence, obviously this case or none. And IT seems that this all became kind of a character assassination.

Deputy county attorney vince in borneo disagreed.

We were advanced that we had sufficient evidence to show that he ordered her, that he had a motive to killer, and he had time to kill her.

But the prosecutor had obstacles, big ones. There was no body, no physical evidence of a murder. And while the alleged motive was compelling, IT was possible. A jury would never .

hear IT IT was problematic in the sense that a lot of the information we had about Alice a alleging abuse were statements that SHE had made to her friends and her family. Well, we could not get those in because it's here.

In a blow to the prosecution, the judge ruled that the sexual abuse claims could not be discussed in front of the jury. So frustrating for you that, you know, this is the crux of your possible motive here, and you can't deliver IT to the jury.

Very frustrating. But we have rules of evidence, as you know, and you just have to work around IT.

And those rules of evidence precluded something else. Like in most criminal cases, the prosecution wasn't allowed to talk about prior convictions. My tourney, of course, was a convicted felon.

The pipe bomb case, which they couldn't say because they felt that might make him look like he was a criminal, but he was a criminal.

on july six, twenty twenty three, the prosecutors stood before a jury and laid out what was left call. The pieces of circumstantial evidence, he believed, added up to just one logical conclusion. Mike turney was a vengeful father, desperate to silence his daughter and the last person known to ever see her alive.

He told the jury how turney didn't have the security video of from the day lisa disappeared or the recording of that call. He said elissa, made from california, detective Anderson had a theory about that. We know what call was made because there's a record of IT. So who do you think made that call?

My suggestion would be that there was Michael turn.

You think he drove all the way to california and made the call from the payphone .

and then draw of home? He himself says he made several trips to california and he easily couldn't made that.

All the prosecutor played calls. They did have those recordings of mike saying nasty things about elisa. So he showed video from the camera. Mike hit inside the living room event, the one the prosecutor said mike used to spy on a lisa, he suggested to the jury add all added up to mike turney unnatural obsession with his daughter.

To basically control every part of her life, whether he was at home, whether he was at school, whether he was at work.

This is one of the several contracts.

He also showed the jury what he described as the contract, an unusual document that my turney wrote up, titled my statement about things in my life at home. Alyssa signed IT at the very top number one, said my father, mike tourney, has never physically or sexually abuse me at any time when prosecutors entered IT into evidence as a way to let the jury at least hear something about the alleged sexual abuse.

we utilized the contract of vowing that he had never done any of these things to her.

the sexual abuse.

So the only argument we were trying to make was that whether IT happened or not, he's concerned about IT and if he's losing control of her, then he's concerned that people are going to believe her and not him.

James Turner.

James took the stand, but he wasn't allowed to say much. That story about a lisa crying, asking to go live with him because he was scared of their dad, that was ruled to prejudicial. What was that like getting up there on the witness stand with your dad right there and your eyes are meeting? Yeah, he was uncomfortable.

IT took a while before I started to look at him. And then I started to look at him, and he never looked at me.

The prosecution hoped its star witness, the sister who fought so publicly to get justice for a lisa, might be able to convince the jury of her dad's guilt. Sarah describe the animosity between her father and sister.

No, as far as I can remember, I was just always a bad relationship with the listen and my father, which caused just a lot of stress intention.

What would they argue .

about everything? I mean, IT was a lot of criticism of allia.

When the prosecutor asked Sarah about the note, he and her dad found SHE got choked up as SHE recited IT for memory live.

said dad and sa, when you dropped me off at school today, I decided really am going to california. Dad, that I took three hundred dollars from you. Sarah always said, you want to be gone. Now you have IT elisa. The prosecutor .

didn't dispute that elisa wrote the note, so you believe that he did write IT .

a forensic h handwriting analysis was that it's clear that a lisa arrove them up. We don't know when, we don't know energy, what circumstances.

but he felt, certainly lisa didn't write the note the day he disappeared. Sarah testified that things, things, a lisa route didn't line up with the events of the day. Like dad and sera, when you drop me off at school today.

had your father dropped you and elisa off at school together that day? no.

And the part about Sarah not wanting lisa around, SHE said that was about an old argument from long before a lisa went missing.

sir testified and would tell you that that's not what was going on at this time. So clearly, elissa wrote that note at some point in time, but not on the seventeen th. Have you on occasion ask your father? What happened to .

elisa many times.

one of those times was at a starbucks. After her father got out of prison, taking a page from him, sarra recorded their .

conversation.

Then why are you making me? Is offered to go to .

your death what you looking for? The prosecutor .

didn't play the tape in court, but asked sara to describe the conversation.

tell me, he told me on his death bed.

and he told the jury about another conversation with her dad. A creepy story he says happened about a month after a lsa disappeared. SHE was twelve at the time. He wanted to swap bedrooms with her.

My father moved me into .

the mater bedroom. Did he tell you why he was? And I, have you stay in that bedroom? Yes, what what was that? He didn't want to be accused .

of molesting me and having me walk around in the towel. So we wanted to mean to have .

my own bathroom. IT was another work around another way to raise the suggestion of sexual abuse, but the defense fired back, ready to both calls and what they believed was a weak case. Starting with series credibility.

convenient, the things that you remember and .

debt objection argument stained.

Our argument obviously was SHE had got IT through her mind at some point that her her dad was guilty and was adding facts .

to speak with. The defense showed the jury how series story changed in big, in small ways. Since the first time he spoke to police, you told detective anners and that he would give her phone number and addresses to strangers.

That's what I was told. That's what you told detective.

And incorrect CT, yes.

like any country, repeatedly implied that, like her brother SHE once believed.

whatever her dad said, that's what I was told, what I was told in court.

Mike tourney SAT silently watching at all. Outside of court, he had plenty to say to us about the accusations against him.

Human air, i've forgot to turn the .

record on the police. Find that very convenient. Of course he did. You should see how that sounds. alright.

Defense attorney Jamie Jackson and his co council Olivia hicks were feeling pretty confident. They told the jury the state's case was nothing but a character assassination.

The state's entire case is based .

on circumstantial evidence.

based on speculation, based on belief, with no actual facts.

Still, they had concerns. What did you think was the most damming evidence or testimony against the client?

I would say the negative phone call .

in the contracts, the phone call where he calls her a bitch and an aho, yeah, yeah. Because in at least, I think would put something in the jurors mind that, well, I would never, no matter what, say that about my daughter and the contract that now you're putting sexual abuse in their minds, the jars minds. So would mike torney take the stand? His lawyer said he was ready to tell jurors his sign of the story, a story he told us too.

I'm not gonna play girls to do something I didn't do. Believe me, I thought about that. I really did.

How did you feel when you had gone from the father who appeared to be doing everything you could to find a lisa, to suddenly now the police are looking at you that you harmed your daughter?

How do I feel? Well, first off, I knew him from the beginning when they showed up at the door of that they weren't looking for a lisa, that they were focusing on me.

He believes detective Anderson never really investigated all those leads he'd passed along.

Anderson had made up his mind from the day one, and he focused completely on me.

He completely denies that. He says that he had an open mind and wanted to find a lisa. He's a liar.

They didn't follow through anybody else. That was all a ruse.

They say though that that you trying to find your daughter doing all these various things to find a lisa, that was the rules that you were were not trying to find her because you knew that he was dead because he would kill her. That's what the police say.

That's a lie. I did not kill my daughter. That just did never happened.

Detectives, Anderson said that he wanted to talk to you, but you wouldn't talk to him in a formal setting. Why not?

Because we couldn't agree on the fact that I wanted to take my video cameras. Two of the one on him won on me. The only thing that was refused was the formal interview. I talk to Anderson all the time gave me many thing he wanted.

Days after Alyssa disapearance, you say you ve got a call from her?

Yes, I did.

You're the the dad who records every call. Did you record the call?

No, because the record had to be set manually. okay. So when the tape ran out, IT lipped off, and I had to started to that morning yet .

so thirty years of calls and then you miss recording this call.

you have heard when it's just one of those things didn't happens, do you think I don't regret IT?

Did you make that call yourself what the call that you say was from a lisa? Did you make that call to .

your house phone call myself?

That's a theory that the police have floated. No, they probably .

thinking I was jack the ripper two for all I know. I don't care what they think.

What about video tapes? You, you video tape inside the house, outside the house every day. Did you have video of a lisa from the day he disappeared from inside the outside? Video.

lisa, that day that won the video turned on that morning because .

I forgot to the police said that you told them there was a recording of the day that Alyssa disappeared, but that you felt there wasn't anything was while on IT. So you didn't keep IT.

I told them in the beginning you look at IT and then you can verify that there's nothing on IT.

So there was a recording of the day or there was not.

there was never recording on the V, C, R. From that day.

So why that day? Why not that day?

When every other day, human air, I forgot to turn the record on the police .

find that very.

of course, good.

You see how that sounds. That right? People will see that you're not recording the day he calls. There's no video of the day he disappears when you have hundreds, thousands of video tapes and audio t tapes.

Look of the circumstances you heard .

on the recording. Calling her and a hole a bitch. Why I called those name.

very embarrassing thing venting, because I found out that list was IT in mind to me.

He says, the man you hear on those types as a parent at the end of his rope, a father trying to protect a rebellious and expulsive teenager. One of the ways that you kept in I and her was by video taping her at her job.

video taping at her job.

like from the parking lot. I mean, what what dad does that IT seems that seems a little much.

Your the information.

yes. Okay, my shelter n when they .

first had their first shop IT was a family dish because I video taped all the time when a this is saw that her brothers or four brothers had been video to SHE asked me to .

do that SHE ask .

you to video tape drive .

what teenager once they'd video taping them at their drop I can barely get my daughter to take a photo .

I don't know, because probably because I grew up with the me taking videos all the time.

Why did you have contracts that you had a licence sign saying that you did not sexually .

abuse her or I didn't?

As for sure, what i'm trying to understand is how did I get to the point where you felt you need to have a contract of a lisa saying you did not sexually abuse her? I don't understand where that comes from.

A lisa started brightening me with cps. SHE wanted to be emancipated in an arizona SHE couldn't do that. So SHE was trying to pressure me.

You were concerned a list was going to lie. Is that what you're saying?

I know light because I didn't do .

that because he told people that you did that you took her out to the desert and sexually abused her.

I don't know what he told those people. What I do know is over some of the people that I was keeping her away from .

are trying to during our interview, turney made repeated claims about people being out to get them from the police. They lied to the union he plotted against.

They were making trips. Guess my family.

But he did not want to talk about the crimes that had sent him to federal prison. You can understand how how someone with pipe bombs could be seen as very unstable.

I don't want to get pipe bombs. thanks. I have no memory of all I of .

the p that's right. No memory.

No memory of IT.

How is that possible? Beat me. Oh, you think the paypal bs were planted in your house?

I'm going to do that.

My name is Sarah a turney.

Your daughter Sarah had supported you for years, and then all that changed. He believes that you, yes, killed a lisa.

Upsetting to me. Because do you understand the phrase turning the family is a police technique? Anderson continued to perpetuate the lives, and he turned Sarah.

Sarah seems like a very smart woman, independent. I. Doesn't not speak a lot though about her making up her own mind about whether you were involved or not. She's read all the evidence and that's .

what strange because by now he should have concluded that wasn't no evidence.

but he broke my heart. And as for that remark, y made to sera about giving her answers on his death bed, he says, listen to the .

whole tape and he denied austria zing his .

son James for any reason. He says, IT was James who turned on him. Did you kill elisa?

I did not kill elisa.

Do you know where else is body is?

I have no idea where this is alive or did.

In the end, the man who had an answer for red, just about everything, would not be taking the stand. That's because the defense had another plan. This was the twist of all twist.

I've never seen this before. I was just to in disbelief. I I think i'm still processing IT.

We are back on the record in state versus journey.

How did you feel when you rusted your case?

I thought we had done a good job. I was confident that we had presented all the evidence that we had, all the evidence that we needed to present, all the evidence that we were allowed to present.

Alyssa brother James SAT, through every day of testimony and did not agree .

when they rested. I was horrified. And because I was like, so what did they actually say?

Prosecutors said that he would all come together and closing arguments, but first, a courtroom formality.

The rule twenty is done in every case that is once to stay present or evidence, we make an argument that there's not substantial evidence that this case can go forward.

In other words, the defense asked the judge to throw out the case before IT even gets to the jury. Defense of lawyers tried all the time. Judges rarely go for IT.

and we were told by the liars, this is Normal. They do this every trial to worry about IT. But I was just shaking through IT all when IT started off.

please. And john and i'm going to take up some legal issues with the jury out of the courtroom. Defense argued for an immediate equator.

The state has not presented any evidence to prove that my acted intentionally or recklessly to cause the death. In this case, there is no confession, no evidence of a plan and no evidence of how a death occurred.

The prosecution defended its case.

We don't have to prove how he killed her. We don't have to prove whether he strangle her, whether he beat her. All we have to prove is that he killed her, and there is a circumstantial of evidence that he could be back .

and the judge waited with this. There is evidence in the case. I am not here to suggest that the state has put forth no evidence.

There is evidence. The question then becomes, is its substantial that would warn a conviction for second degree murder? The answer to that question, no evidence does not exist to warn a conviction.

Its ordered grand defendants motion for a rural twenty judgment of acquittal, an acquittals for my tourney. There was silence in the courtroom for ten long seconds as the judges decisions sunk in. I was just disbelieve.

I think i'm still processing IT. My tourney was free to go. mr. Tourney, you're going to be signing for a copy of your release.

Take IT to that moment for you. I felt like an out of body experience for me. So for me, when he said the words, everything just dropped.

And I, like he did IT again. I had been telling the prosecution from over and over again. Remember, crazy, not stupid.

My father will. Anything he possibly can, he will use. And they were successful in fighting every piece of evidence, in my opinion, that they possibly could.

We started this afternoon with breaking news about a murder trial. People around the country are watching a, this is friend. Molly had been watching the trial online.

I said at the top of that, he said that he was there and let go. And I was like, what are you doing a double take? yeah.

Am I reading this right? yes. Is this the case that that haunts you?

You know, sadly, this haunts me. It's been going on for twenty years of my life. I feel that I failed.

The information is there. I believe in what i'm telling you. It's there.

Seventy five year old mike tourney told us he's not giving up on his mission to find out what happened to elisa.

你是不是 没事？ SHE gave me this state alive. Sorry.

and to anyone who says that these tears are not real.

I don't care what people. Want you can actually. This is for real.

James left photo x the moment the trial ended, he wanted to put as much spaces possible between himself and his father, a man he believes is dangerous.

That made me feel very afraid for my person in my family. I'm so concerned. I will be concerned until my father is either be arrested for something or until he passes.

His sister Sarah is not backing down. He is still podcasting from photo x, still using her voice to highlight unsolved cases, including her sisters.

I do planned to finish a list season and tell you how I got to this point, because there is still so much to say.

Twenty two years ago, seventeen year old delia was chucked out of school early and never seen by her loved once again. What happened next is still a mystery. Her case remains open at the photo x police department and the national center for missing and exploited children recently produced an updated age progression photo of elisa SHE would turn forty years old in April twenty twenty four.

He was an incredible spirit. Her presence was just so strong that it's hard to believe she's not here. Guys still feel like he has to be here. There's no way that kid who was so able to put her expression forward and her opinions and tell you exactly how he felt, how that not still here. IT hasn't diminish even after all these years.

That's all for this edition of date line and check out our talking date line podcast, Andrew accounting and josh maker. It's will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode available wednesday in the date line feed. Wherever you get your podcast, we'll see you again thursday at ten, nine central.

And of course, i'll see you each week night for nbc nightly news. I'm less or halt for all of us at nbc news. Good night.

Hey, i'm yh hei, and i'm the host of the optimistic project. This is the podcast that asks what gives you hope. Each week I sit down with change makers you may or may not know from comedy, music, academia and more to uncover what inspires them to create a Better tomorrow.

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