Missing Woman Alissa Turney's Sister Continues Search for Answers 16 Years Later: "She Just Vanished"

In many ways, Alissa was a typical teenage girl. Her older brother James described her to ABC News as someone who was “incredibly social” with an “incredible smile.”

But Alissa also had her share of hardships. She grew up in a blended family with her mom Barbara Farner and stepdad Michael, but when she was just nine years old, her mother died of cancer.

The two youngest siblings in the family, Alissa and her younger sister Sarah, who Farner and Michael shared custody of together, were left to be raised by Michael.

Her brother James said Alissa had an “unpleasant” and “tense” relationship with her stepfather before she disappeared. The comments were echoed by Alissa’s friends.

“The friends, when we ask, ‘Is there anything negative in her life?’ They continually point out her relationship with her stepfather,” Detective William Andersen told ABC News.

Michael acknowledged to the outlet in 2009 that he was “very strict,” but claimed he was trying to “protect” Alissa and keep her in school.

Alissa disappeared on May 17, 2001 after telling her boyfriend Jon Laakman that her stepdad was picking her up from her last day of high school that year to take her to lunch.

Michael told ABC News that the pair got into an argument at lunch because Alissa wanted to stay out later at night than he would allow and when they returned home, she went to her room.

Michael said he went out to run errands, but when he returned home, Alissa was gone and a note was left on the dresser in what appeared to be in her handwriting saying she was running away to go live in California, according to a report from NBC News. Her cell phone also lay on the dresser.

Sarah told the news outlet that her father seemed “frantic” in the hours and weeks after her disappearance, traveling to California and passing out fliers about Alissa around town.

“He was always frantic about her,” Sarah remembered. “Always had to know where she was and what she was doing. He was very overbearing. But he wasn’t like that with me.”

In 2006, detectives took a fresh look at the case and discovered that although Alissa had around $1,800 in savings when she disappeared, the money was never touched, according to ABC News.

They also learned that Michael had a regular habit of recording what went on inside their home using a camera hidden in a vent in the living room and would sit outside Alissa’s job at the Jack in the Box and film her from his car. 

“Mr. Turney has stated that he would routinely show up an hour or two early to ensure she did not leave the premises with anybody else,” Andersen said, according to NBC News. “It’s very much over the top.”

Her brother, James, told Dateline that just months before she disappeared, Alissa told him she was “afraid” of Michael.

“I told her she could come stay with me. And then when I found out she was missing, we 100 percent believed she had run away,” he said. “She got away from him and that’s what she wanted. But she never came to me. Or to her aunt’s house in California. She had so many options of places to go. But she just vanished.”

At least three different people, including her boyfriend at the time, told authorities Alissa had alleged that her stepfather was touching her inappropriately — a claim he has adamantly denied.

Michael had also had Alissa sign notarized contracts where she agreed to certain rules or claims about her life. In one, she stated that Michael had never physically or sexually abused her, according to NBC News.

Some of Michael’s grown children, including Sarah, who created the podcast Voices for Justice about her sister’s case, also believe he had something to do with Alissa’s disappearance. In 2017, Sarah met with her father and recorded a conversation where she confronted him about what happened to Alissa. 

“Be there at the deathbed, Sarah,” he told her, according to People. “I will give you all the honest answers you want to hear.”