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How Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney Used Home Footage to Depict Family Struggles
"It's really a story about how victims can find a new way to take control of the narrative," director Jesse Sweet said of the documentary, which features interviews with Alissa's sister Sarah.
When Alissa Turney went missing in 2001, her sister Sarah Turney thought that the then-17-year-old left of her own volition. But as time went on and Sarah grew older, she realized that there could be a more sinister explanation for her sister's disappearance, one that involves her very own father.
Sarah's shifting perception of the missing persons case is explored further in the upcoming documentary Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney — premiering Sunday, Oct.13 on Oxygen — directed by Ricki Stern and Jesse Sweet. It features original home video and interviews with Sarah and other members of the Turney family who have come to believe that Michael Turney played a role in Alissa's disappearance.
"Part of the way we wanted to tell a story was through Sarah's eyes, to really understand how you can go over a decade believing that your father had nothing to do with the disappearance of your sister, and then, it wasn't until her late 20s, where she started to become suspicious. How did that happen?" Stern told Oxygen.com in an interview.
How Home Footage Shaped Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney
Using home footage provided by Sarah, the directors look back at the Turney sisters' upbringing, including visits to Disneyland and family dinners. But there are also hours of footage showing Alissa's life and interactions with her father.
"You can at first watch a video and think like, 'Oh, that's a dad, maybe teasing or joking with a daughter.' But then when you get the further context and the details, it flips it 180 degrees," Sweet said.
Some of the footage shows Alissa begging for her father Michael to turn off the camera as she comes out of her job at a local fast-food chain. "It starts to have a more nefarious kind of feel to it as you start to get into it," Stern shared.
Knowing that Alissa ultimately went missing, Stern wondered if the teenager was not showing "cries for help" in the videos.
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Directors Praise Sarah Turney for Her Strength
Though Alissa remains missing to this day, Sarah has not let her sibling's disappearance bring her down. Instead, she's channeled her grief towards helping others by starting the Voices for Justice podcast and advocating for other missing or murdered persons.
Sarah's efforts inspired Stern and Sweet to make this documentary, which doesn't fit the mold of your typical true crime program. Sweet explained that Family Secrets isn't about finding out who's "guilty" since there is no knowing what happened to Alissa. So, Sweet said, "It's really a story about how victims can find a new way to take control of the narrative, to be active in the investigation, not be passive."
Stern added that in speaking with Sarah, she learned that social media and the true crime community can be a powerful resource for victims and their loved ones who may feel that law enforcement hasn't done enough to bring attention to their cases. "This allowed her to keep her sister's story out there. She feels it's empowering for other survivors, victims, family members, because you can do this now with social media, and get the story out there," said Stern.
To learn more about Sarah's activism, watch the extended cut of Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney when it premieres on Peacock Tuesday, Oct. 22.
