Sarah Turney Fights for Answers

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Things are going to get weird. It's your fave villain, Kale Lowry.
And you're listening to Barely Famous. Welcome to another episode of Barely Famous podcast.
Today we have Sarah Turney. You may have followed her story on family secrets on Peacock.
There was a documentary done on her story and she also has acquired over a million followers on TikTok because she believes that her father had everything to do with her sister's disappearance. And we're going to talk to her about her story and how she came to that conclusion.
If you guys can find this documentary on Sarah Turney, Alyssa Turney, on Peacock, it's called Family Secrets. So I'm going to welcome her in right now.
Hello, Sarah. Welcome to Barely Famous Podcast.
Hi, thank you so much for having me. And from my understanding, you also have a podcast.
Is that right? I do. Yeah, it's called Voices for Justice.
Okay. And what do you guys cover on your podcast? Obviously, we'll get into your whole story, but I'm assuming that that is sort of what inspired your podcast.
Yeah, absolutely. I started with my missing sister's case, and then I moved on to other cases that just need justice.
So unsolved true crime cases. Absolutely.
Who do you think killed JonBenét Ramsey? Oh, my gosh. I don't know.
I feel like that one is so tricky, to be honest, and I could probably argue every side. Do you know? Do you have a theory? It's definitely someone in the family.
I definitely think it was someone in the family, but I just thought maybe because it was unsolved, maybe you had some theory. but we can dive right into your story.
I originally came across you on TikTok, and then one of my girlfriends sent me the documentary that you did on Peacock called Family Secrets. And I had never heard of a case like this before.
And so I sort of don't even know where to start because, I mean, your story is very unique, right? So you are a child when your sister goes missing. Yeah, yeah.
I was just 12 when she went missing. So this has been like a lifelong journey for me.
Right. And your dad was in law enforcement.
Is that right? And your mom, unfortunately, passes away when you are a toddler. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Okay. And so walk me through sort of basically what, you know, I know you guys covered this on the documentary, but walk me through what is going on in your childhood at this time after your mom passes.
You have a blended family of, you know, your dad came into marriage with kids, your mom came into, you know, the family with kids, and then they had you together. Walk me through sort of what's going on after your mom passes away.
Yeah, I mean, of course, I was really young. But from what I know from my family members and through these home videos is, you know, we were a really fragmented family at that point.
You know, my brothers are going into their 20s, they're moving out of the house. And it's really just me, Alyssa, my sister and my dad.

So really, Alyssa and I were just raising ourselves.

Our dad basically checked out.

You know, we were on our own.

Do you think there was any maybe like was his mental health super fragile at this time?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, he'd always struggled with his mental health. But, you know, as my family says, after my mom died, he essentially broke.
Okay. So based on what I saw in the documentary, you know, your house is sort of in disarray.
Dad's still recording, though. Everything, every move that you guys make is on home video footage.
Yeah. I mean, he would have a camera not only in his hand, but also would, you know, he would like set it up in the corner and just record everyday movements.
And then, of course, you know, he started hiding cameras from us and recording us secretly, which is just insane. So you were also being recorded.
It wasn't just Alyssa. Yeah, I mean, you know, as far as I know, there were no recording devices in my room.
And, you know, a lot of people say that there were in Alyssa's room. So it was primarily for Alyssa, but I was, you know, also living in that house being recorded.
Absolutely. What was the age gap between you and Alyssa? Four years.
Four years, which is a big deal when you're, you know, 12 and 17. Those are totally, you know, two different worlds.
Oh, 100%. And so you are in seventh grade and your sister is a junior in high school.
She goes missing. Was it normal or common, frequent that your dad would pick you guys up from school or was that in and of itself already something that stood out to you now looking back? No, that was pretty normal,

you know, especially in the summertime. May in Arizona can get up to like 110 degrees.

So even walking just the short distance, you know, from school to our house was unbearable.

So he'd usually pick us up and drop us off. Okay, so he picks you up.
Can't get a hold of Alyssa.

Alyssa is nowhere to be found. You get home after calling her several times.
What year is this? What

year where she was a junior and you were in

Thank you. can't get a hold of Alyssa.
Alyssa is nowhere to be found. You get home after calling her several times.
What year is this? What year where she was a junior and you were in seventh grade? What year? 2001. So we're using like Nokia cell phones at this time.
So very low tech. Okay.
But still, but still reliable, I guess, right? Like the phones at that time were working, but she's not answering. You get home.
Her phone is left in her room. Bag is at home.
And she leaves a note. What? I guess my question is, obviously, as a child, you're not you're not thinking of your dad as the suspect at this time, right? Like you're not thinking that there's anything wrong outside of your sister, maybe potentially ran away.
Looking back. What is your theory on that note? Yeah, I mean, you know, the note really correlates with an incident that happened quite, you know, some time before she went missing.
It references a conversation she had with our aunt about going to go live with her in California. But we had such an estranged family.
We didn't know our aunt, and me and Alyssa talked about this. She didn't want to go to California to go be with her.
She didn't know her. She didn't want to leave me.
So the context of that note, when she says, I really am going to California, references a really old conversation. She also talks about taking $300, which is a well-documented incident that Alyssa did take that money from our dad months before and gave it back.
So I think that note was from quite some time ago and that my dad just kind of kept it and planted it. I don't have any words for that because, I mean, he had to have been watching her and known her every move to know that that even existed, that note.
Yeah, and he did. You know, he would go through her stuff.
You know, obviously he watched her every move. We had a passive recording system on our home phone.
Everything we did was monitored, and especially Alyssa. He would watch her outside of her work and ask, who's that guy that came through the drive-thru? Who's that guy that's working with you? It was obsessive.
So she knew the level of obsess, I guess, obsessed that your dad was with her but did she because we'll get into some more stuff that i wrote down um you know with sexual abuse and things like that did she know you know the depth of and the lengths that he was going to or was it sort of like you know she didn't she really didn't know i mean i can't imagine she knew about the camera in the vent in the living room. Right.
She eventually did find out about the camera in the vent. She would tell her friends about it.
So I think that she knew on a certain level, but not I don't know. You know, it's hard to say for sure, but she definitely knew about a lot of the monitoring.
I don't know if she knew about everything. And to be honest, I'm sure that there are things that we still don't know to this day that he did.
Leading up to your sister's disappearance, did anyone think anything different? Like, did you guys have issues with him? Because I know that prior to your mom passing, you know, there was a definite distinction, I guess, between, you know, before your mom passed and then after your mom passed. So none of these things were occurring before then? No.
So the recording system on the phone had been there since I, before I was born, since the 1970s. So, you know, all of us really grew up in this environment where we were being monitored in some fashion.
And unfortunately, it became our new normal. But of course, as our brothers got older and got out of the house and, you know, explored the world, they began to realize that that's not normal.
But I didn't. There was the first thing that caught my attention on TikTok specifically was the video where there's a home recording and I think it was you that was recording and your sister says something along the lines of dad's a pervert.
Yeah, yeah. I remember finding that video and freaking out.
We were just camping and I have the video camera, which, you know, was pretty often I would always try to grab it and, you know, little kid stuff. And I was like, hey, I want to film me.
And then Alyssa all of a sudden says, Sarah, Sarah, dad's a pervert. And then my dad kind of freaks out and tells me, you know, he grabs the camera for me, which is something he didn't really do.
My dad was never really aggressive towards me. So it kind of shocked me, but he grabs it and he continues filming.
It's very strange. Insults you.

He says that you're like a fucking moron or something like that or something along those lines.

He calls Alyssa a moron.

Yeah.

And he goes, and Alyssa is a moron in response to her calling him a pervert.

Okay.

So sort of maybe his way of like deflecting or making it seem like it wasn't that big of a deal.

Yeah.

I mean, just discrediting her, which is, you know, something he did our whole lives. You know, Alyssa's stupid.
Alyssa needs extra help. He's always said horrendous things about Alyssa.
I just can't wrap my mind around any of this. And I just have to, I wish that I knew what the site, it feels like a psychotic break watching from the outside, you know, sort of from the documentary, the TikToks and things like that.
And, you know, I watched the clip of your dad saying that essentially you're ruining, you ruined the family because of your theory. But you posted a TikTok, I believe it was, that said that you were the last person to believe that he did it.
So pretty much everyone in your life had already believed that your dad had something to do with her disappearance. Is that right?

Yeah, like literally everybody. And by the time I came around, I was like, hey, I think this.
And my brothers were like, yeah, this is essentially like our big family secret. And I was like, what do you mean this is our big family secret? Like, what are we doing about it? It was really, really shocking.
What was the turning point for you that, you know, when you finally, you know, the switch was flipped that you were like, OK, I think my dad did this. What was that turning point for you? Yeah, you know, it was a lot of different factors.
I think one, just getting older and getting out from under his manipulation. You know, he did go to prison and we can talk all about that.
He went to prison for quite some time as I was entering my early 20s. I was in college and I was finally able to get that separation from him.
But one major point I can turn to is I remember, you know, my boyfriend at the time, we'd been together for like 10 years. He lived with me and my dad when we were teenagers.
And I said, do you think my dad could have killed my sister? And he said, Sarah, everyone thinks your dad killed your sister. And I was like, okay, all right.
You know, I think people were just trying to be kind. You know, I lost so many people in my life that they didn't want to take away my dad too.
So I get it. I do wish people had told me earlier, to be totally honest, but I get it.
It was crazy. So I don't want to villainize anyone else in your life.
Obviously, that's not my place. And that's not why we're here.
But is there a reason why they didn't feel the need to sort of get you away from him if that's what they all suspected? That's a great question. And, you know, I don't want to villainize them either.
You know, I think, you know, out of six kids, we were all on very different journeys. But yeah, I do think about that all the time.
Why was I left in that house when they knew what was going on? I don't know. I like, you know, I struggle with my own childhood stuff and I go back and forth with like resenting them for not doing something about it.
And so I just wonder if you ever went through a period. And again, we're not here to villainize them.
In hindsight, it's always 20-20. But have they ever explained why or have they given you a reason why they didn't try to take you from him? So I will say that at one point, one of my brothers did try to take me.
They tried to convince me to move back east, but that came with a lot of rules. And when I 15, and the choice is going with my brother who wants to give me structure or staying with my dad where I can be absolutely feral and do whatever I want, I'm going to stay with my dad.
But yeah, you know, I do certainly have some resentment. I'm not going to lie.
It's hard now that I'm closer to their age. And I think I would never do that to my little sister.
So, yeah, you know, it's a mix. They tried.
And I think one of the biggest factors, too, is that Alyssa wasn't his biological daughter. And I was.
And they always told me that they never thought that he would hurt me. So that was sort of their reasoning.
And I guess it's so weird. I just i did an interview with um gypsy last week and i just think under certain like different circumstances you become a different person and so maybe he was sort of a different person with alissa and obviously that doesn't justify anything but it just is so fascinating to me that humans work in that way um so when you had the the light bulb moment that you were like okay maybe he could have had something to do with This is so fascinating to me that humans work in that way.
So when you had the light bulb moment that you were like, OK, maybe he could have had something to do with Alyssa's disappearance. Did you go to your siblings and talk to them immediately about it? Do you still have conversations with them about it? Yeah, I mean, I went to them right away and I was like, you guys, like, what are we going to do about this? And again, they were just kind of like, we already knew this.
And, you know, at that point, I didn't know that they had told this to the police. Many of them had said what they saw.
They just didn't tell me. Because you were so young.
Yeah, exactly. Nobody sat me down at 12 and said, hey, your dad's a monster.
You know, your only parent left. Yeah, we just, you know, I think over the years, too, we just kind of stopped talking about it.
It just hurt too much. So you guys don't talk about it today.
Do they know that you have your podcast and that you talk about, you know, your story on TikTok and how do they feel about that? Yeah, they know. And they all have different feelings about it, but all of them basically just don't want to be involved, which is really, really hard.
I'm not going to lie. You know, I understand and I forgive them for that.
But at the same point, I get really protective over my sister. And, you know, I do wish that they fought this fight with me.
It certainly would have been a lot easier. Yeah, no doubt.
I can't even imagine. Like, essentially, you feel like you're fighting it alone.
Yeah, I mean, I am, you know, and a lot of them have families now and their concern is,

you know, the family name, the family name. We don't want our kids to Google this and see it,

which I can certainly empathize with. But at the end of the day, Alyssa is forever a 17 year old.

And I feel like I have to take care of her as if she is my child at this point. You know, she doesn't have anybody else right so when you get the note from the house and you guys your dad calls law enforcement and i don't have a great i don't always have great experiences with law enforcement and i know that they'll cover for each other which immediately when i learned that your dad was law enforcement calls to report you know potentially a runaway and they don't do anything they don't come to talk there's a note found it's sort of like put on the back burner i thought that was interesting because I feel like because he was law enforcement and it was his daughter that maybe they would actually try and then they didn't.
But the call that comes in from what it was a payphone from California. Yeah.
Yeah. Riverside.
Did that ever actually come in? And do you think it was just a coincidence or what do you think that was? So the call came in. We have the call records to confirm that a call came from that payphone, right? But I believe it was orchestrated.
Again, we had a passive recording system on our phone. That didn't catch it.
We had multiple cameras in the house. That didn't catch the phone call.
And my dad made this big show about, you know, suing the phone company, which is so interesting to me because we had caller ID. You know, he also didn't use star 69 or whatever, where you can, you know, call back and get the number.
So I believe that during his many trips to California, you know, because when Alyssa first went missing, he was just gone. I remember him just like not being in the house for weeks on end.
And he made several trips to California. So I think during one of those trips, he possibly orchestrated that call.
I don't know. He paid somebody to do it, had a friend go do it.
I'm not sure. But me and the police, we don't believe that that call came from Alyssa.
I'm speechless because, I mean, for your dad to have orchestrated this so essentially seamlessly and also, I mean, not to be morbid, but like no body has been found is insane. And I feel like it also is, you know, a testament to the fact that he is in law enforcement.
And so he sort of knows what to do. So your dad serves prison time.
Can we talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So he goes to prison for what were the charges?

So it was for, I forget the exact name of it, but it was for basically bombs, bombs and guns.

So yeah, in 2008, I was in college, my first few years in college, and they called me down to the station. I had been my sister's point of contact for police since I was a teenager.
And so they're like, hey, we have some updates. We want to talk to you.
It's not really anything crazy for me. It was pretty normal.
So I go down there and I'm like, hey, I have a Spanish test. Am I going to be back in time? I'm thinking about college.
And they sit me down and they're like, actually, we're raiding your house right now. We think your dad killed your sister, which was a huge shock to me, right? You know, obviously, my whole world was turned upside down in just a moment.
But later on the news that night, I see that my whole neighborhood had been evacuated because they essentially found the biggest pipe bomb and gun bust in Phoenix history. It was like 26 pipe bombs, all these illegal gun parts or whatever.
And he was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. So nothing related to Alyssa.
He just had all these bombs and this manifesto to use them. It was insane.
And did that further everybody's belief that he had something to do with Alyssa's disappearance?

I think so. Yeah.
You know, I think at that point it made us, you know, fairly certain that he had the propensity for violence. You know what I mean? Obviously.
But where does that come from? Like, did you ever suspect something like that? What was he? Because obviously you were in college. So you were were you home when you were going away to college when you were away at college or did you live on campus? No, I lived with him like right around the corner from the community call.

I was with him, living with him, which is insane. These bombs were, like, a hundred feet from my head, and I had no idea, you know, but to be totally honest, my, you know, my priority at that time was partying.
I was, like, 19. I had the master bedroom, my own entrance, you know.
He spoiled me to the point where I didn't see anything like I all I could care about was, oh, I make a bunch of money at the tanning salon I work at and, you know, I can party in my house. And so I had no idea that was going on.
I knew that he had guns. You know, we're in Arizona.
He'd always had guns. But I had no idea that there were a bunch of bombs in the house.
And I was, you know, to this day, I'm still pretty angry about it. You know, he obviously put me and, you know, my nephew, who often came over, was just a baby in danger.
So do you, first of all, to touch on him spoiling you and you having the master bedroom and everything, do you think that that was a manipulation tactic or what do you think that was all about? Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah, it was literally the like two months after Alyssa went missing.
He said, I'm going to move you to the master bedroom and I'm 12. Right.
And he says, it's because I want you to have your own bathroom so that you don't walk around the house in a towel and somebody calls CPS on us saying that I'm sexually abusing you, which is crazy, right? But when I'm 12, all I think is master bedroom, master bedroom. Yeah.
I mean, you're a child. You can't know any different.
You're excited. This big room, you know, like that.
So you don't think anything different. But obviously looking back, you're like, that is absolutely manipulation.
So he basically is a completely different person towards you. And so you're not going to think any different, right? Like you're going to think the world of him.
And, you know, at that time, probably think that he's going, you know, doing whatever he needs to do to find Alyssa when in fact, he's probably not. And, you know, that's absolutely terrifying.
So when you find out about the bombs, and then the neighborhood is, you know, evacuated, what is his explanation to you? Do you guys have a conversation about it? Is he, are you his first phone call? Like, what does that look like? Yeah. So, um, he knew that we were all at my brother's house, you know, when everything happened.
Um, but I was the first person he spoke with and right away, you know, he said, everything's going to be fine, but I need you to bail me out. I need money to get out.
And I was ready to give him my entire college savings. But they ended up upping the bail.
Thank goodness. I didn't give that money over.
Right after we had planned to bail him out, they upped it to something like a million dollars, something insane, which is warranted for a domestic terrorist. Let's be real.
But yeah, I was his first call because I was the easiest to manipulate. And that's exactly what happened.
I essentially became his legal secretary. He gave me legal power of attorney, his youngest child.
I wasn't even 20. I got this legal power of attorney.
I took over the house. I took over all his affairs, gave him all my money when he was in prison.
And he told me that the police planted those bombs, which sounds crazy to believe. But I think I just wanted my dad back so much that I just, I believed him.
You know, he was my best friend. I truly believed that he had this very sad story of a life.
You know, his wife died when she was very young, leaving him with all these kids. And my sister goes missing.
You know, he's on disability. I really felt for him.
And I'm such an empath. And I hate saying that, like, I'm an empath.
But I'm very empathetic. And so I just wanted to help him.
Well, I think those manipulation tactics up until that point were sort of the foundation of those feelings, too. Because, I mean, just going back to the bedroom alone and sort of you're being spoiled by him is, you know, of course, you're going to think the world of him and that he didn't do it.
You're going to believe what he said. You want to believe what he said.
So at that point, when you were a power of attorney, what did the rest of your siblings say about that? Nothing really, to be honest, they didn't help during the bomb trial. I was very much just left on my own you know i always say like basically i i've been alone since i was about 19 and so has he since been released yeah he got released and then arrested again for alissa's murder well fine to fucking lee yeah you know what i mean like i don't know what the hell is going on so okay so at the point that he is going to prison for all of the bomb stuff did you finally hit a wall where you're like okay i know that you did this or did you sort of believe in his innocence all the way up until the sentencing and and up until the release um it was about halfway through his sentence um i was there all through the trial.
I went to every single hearing for him. I advocated for him.
And then it was about halfway through that I had that, you know, light bulb moment of like, hey, you did this. Like, it's just very, very clear.
And I confronted him, you know, he's still in prison. So he has to call me.
And I was like, Dad, like, this doesn't add up. You didn't tell me that you picked her up early from school.
You know, I'm hearing all these things. I want to talk to you about it.
And he basically just like changed the subject. And I was like, OK.
Like, you know, there was no moment you'd think as a parent, he'd be like, no, like, how could you think that? Oh, my gosh, like, let's talk this through. Absolutely not.
Like and he just changed the subject. And I was like, okay, this is real.
He did it. So at that point, did you already sort of go back on believing in his innocence about the bomb situation as well? Yeah, I mean, at that point, I think I finally came to that he had created the bombs.
It took me a while to believe that he was going to use them, if I'm being totally honest. I wish I could have seen it more clearly, but that's just the honest journey of, you know, slowly losing faith in my father.
Did he ever address the bomb situation with you? Like, did he ever admit it or any anything? Give you any? No. He always, he was innocent.
Yeah, to this day. he says that the the phoenix police department planted those bombs even though he wrote the manifesto to use them and then so you you don't you no longer believe that he's innocent with the bombs you also have come to with your sister's disappearance he changes the subject he doesn't want to talk about it And then do you ever talk to him again? Do you still try to, at that point, were you still trying to kind of get information out of him or did you just stop and you were like, this isn't going to go anywhere? Yeah, I stopped.
I cut off that relationship because I knew that he wouldn't say anything on a prison recorded line. You know, he's too smart for that, unfortunately.
I knew that he'd never put anything in documentation, right? He wouldn't write about it. He wouldn't talk about it on a recorded line.
But when he was released in 2017, I went and met with him in person because I was like, okay, this would be the time that he's going to give me answers, right? Is when nobody's watching, when he thinks that he can manipulate me, I'm going to confront him and record it. And that's exactly what I did.
And can you talk about what was said during that conversation? Yeah, I mean, so much. But I think the most damning things are, you know, when I confronted him, he said, Sarah, come to my deathbed and I'll give you all the honest answers you want to hear.
And not only, right, that's enough. That's enough for me.

But he also said, I'll give a confession if the state gives me lethal injection

within 10 days.

So he offered to confess twice.

And the state doesn't want to do that?

Or what is going on?

Oh, of course.

I ran to the police, you know,

and I was like, you guys, I got it.

I got it.

I got the evidence.

Like, let's lock him up.

And they were like, it's not good enough. He didn't confess.
But he's willing to if they kill him. Yeah, right.
And that's and that's what I said to them. I said, OK, if I say I'll tell you what happened to, you know, Kaylee Anthony on my deathbed, what does that mean to you? And they were like, it's not good enough.
Did this ever make you want to pursue law and get into that whole situation? Because I just feel like this would light a fire under my ass so bad that I wouldn't even know. I just don't understand.
Are you okay? Mentally, are you well? Because I don't know how I would function just knowing the information that you know and having the feelings that you have and be able to function on a day-to-day basis to be able to just operate, right, like regularly, but also to sort of try to get, you know, the wheels going for, I don't know, bills to be passed or just anything to change sort of the structure of what is going on?

Yeah, I mean, you know, first, I do think I'm okay. Thank goodness.
And I think a lot of that

is, you know, when when Alyssa went missing, you know, I didn't have a dad anymore. I had

this live in kind of best friend, you know, guy who paid for all my stuff. So I I've really

supported myself for, you know, most of my life. And, you know, in terms of emotional capabilities,

I'm not so much financial, obviously. So this is kind of the life that I'm used to is just being on my own, doing it myself.
And it certainly has helped to channel how I feel into positive actions. I did want to be a lawyer for a long time.
I took the LSATs, but at that time I was in my early 20s and I was like, I'm going to, you know, actions. Right.
I did want to be a lawyer for a long time.

I took the LSATs. But at that time, I was in my early 20s and I was like, I'm going to, you know, have all these kids and I don't think I can be a lawyer and juggle both.
And so I went with a different career path. But of course, you know, channeling everything into true crime has been so therapeutic for me to help others.
gives me so much peace and to help Alyssa. At a certain point after I went to the police and told them, I changed my mind.
I see what you guys see now. Here's this conversation with my dad.
They told me your best chance of getting justice for your sister is getting media. And that's really where my true crime journey started.
I never watched true crime. I was never into it, but they told me to get media.
So I poured myself into that. And it was really, really hard, but in a certain sense, healing.
You know, when I felt like I was doing everything I can to help Alyssa to rectify this situation, it's given me peace. Even though I don't have the outcome I want, just working for it is really, really helpful.
I can imagine it's very therapeutic. I also went on your TikTok.
I was on it this morning and I saw that people have written into you and said your story and you sharing your story has inspired them or made them feel at peace in some way or felt closure in some way. And I can imagine that that would be also healing for you is like, I know that you don't have the outcome that you want, but you know, you're helping people all around just by sharing your story.
In one of the videos, or it was the documentary, I'm not entirely sure you, or maybe it was on this podcast. I don't know.
I have ADHD. I'm unmedicated.

You said that your dad was gone for a lot of the time after the disappearance. Do you think that

he was covering up a murder? Do you think he was spending his time doing that? Yeah, I think so.

And maybe just losing himself and his new freedom, too. When Alyssa first went missing, he rented a white convertible and said,

my dream was always to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.

You know, so we went to California.

We handed out a few flyers for Alyssa.

And then he was like living his dream, which is so looking back now, right?

Hindsight is 20-20.

It's so obvious.

It's very, it gives me Casey Anthony vibes and, you know, her going out

to the bar and, you know, doing the hot body contest or whatever. He was just, I think,

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Do you get the feeling that he's ever hurt anybody else aside from your sister? Yeah. So in the process of making the podcast and diving into Alyssa's story, I spoke with as many people as I could.
And it's very well known that my father has sexually abused women dating back to the 70s. And it was always like someone he was adjacent to in the family.
It was typically a sister-in-law, like the sister of his wives. And was that also sort of kept family secret or was that, you know, they reported it to police and there was investigations? So some things are documented, you know, but back when a lot of this was happening in the 70s and 80s, when they would report it, it wasn't like mandatory charges like it is today.
Right. There are some reports on some things and others not.
But yeah, it was one of those family secrets. When I went to my brother's and I was like, did you know this happened? They're like, oh, yeah.
You know, my mom talks about that all the time. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, we not having these conversations? Yeah, I mean, some of it was known, some of it wasn't.
I learned so much just reading these police reports. Everybody has their own account of what happened, and they speak so differently in front of a police officer versus at a family function.
I feel like some people were a lot more open with police. So it was very eye opening.
Do you think if the police investigators, anybody came out to your house the day that your sister went missing, you would have more evidence or you would have a different outcome? A thousand percent. I think that would have made all the difference.
You know, because nobody came. I didn't speak with police for like six years.
And if somebody came out to the house that day, they could have seen, oh, my gosh, well, there's a camera here. You know, did it capture anything? They could have spoken to my dad and, you know, felt him out a little bit and probably got those weird vibes that almost everybody did.
I think it would have changed everything. And one of my new initiatives is creating Alyssa's Law, where essentially when a child is reported missing in Phoenix, I love for it to be everywhere, but I got to start local.
When a child is reported missing in Phoenix, an officer has to come in person to take a report. That's it.
I don't think it's a lot to ask. Well, I'm wondering, did your dad know that they wouldn't come out? Because I'm just wondering, based on how, you know, sort of smart he was in that way, like, would he have, did he take the cameras down before he made the call with the anticipation that they could come out? Or did he know they weren't going to come out? Or because of the note and her being a runaway, you know, that's something that they wouldn't necessarily look into it's just so it reminds me a lot of um scott peterson when lacy went missing and nobody came out for like i think days or even a week or longer that is so much time to hide any and everything that could have possibly been evidence that i feel like that makes a huge difference and then with you moving rooms i feel like that also is strange because how soon after did you move rooms it was a few months after so it wouldn't have been anything the police saw that day i got um yeah but but yeah i mean because of his you know experience in law enforcement i i think that's exactly what happened he called and said my rebellious teenage smokes weed, she's on drugs.
She ran away to her aunt's house in California. Like that's, he called the non-emergency line.
And he spelled it all out. Yeah.
This is a rebellious teenager who is mad at me because she wants to do drugs. And I know where she's at.
I know that she's somewhere safe. So yeah, the police aren't going to come out and investigate that.
Did he ever give a reason for why he would say that? No, he says that's not how it happened, that the police are lying in their police report. Yeah, that's what he says.
He says, I'm like, well, what about this? Well, the police made up that document. The police lied.
That's always his excuse. The footage, and I hate to even bring it up, but in the documentary, there's footage, it

may be recreation, I don't know, of Alyssa with a guy that she was hanging out with dating.

Your dad was taking videos of that through the vent in the house.

Did he ever explain those?

Why he would have those?

Yeah, he said that he kept them because he thought that her boyfriend was suspicious. He didn't keep, you know, the tape of the day that she went missing, but all this footage of her and her boyfriend, I, you know, I think he was very much trying to get, you know, any attention off him and onto this boyfriend because he orchestrated a fight between them.
You know, he went up to Alyssa's boyfriend, who was like 16 at the time,

and said, Alyssa's cheating on you.

And so he's like, hey, are you cheating on me?

And she's like, what are you talking about?

And they get in this fight.

He, you know, peels wheel because he's 16 in his truck or whatever.

And he gives this to police and says,

look, I think the boyfriend did it.

And was he ever a person of a person of interest because i know in the um i guess initial questioning they did he didn't have the body language of someone who you know was of interest but did he become a person of interest at any point um not according to the police file um but i know that they thoroughly investigated him you know and be fair, he was one of the only people that actually looked for Alyssa that night, her boyfriend. Oh, he physically went out and looked for her? Yeah, the only person.
I, yeah, his life was, you know, rocked really, really hard after Alyssa was gone. Even according to, you know, his friends, people that knew him, he didn't date for years.
He was just super heartbroken over it. Has he ever reached out to you to help with any of your efforts? Yeah, we talk behind the scenes, but he doesn't want to be in the media.
And I don't blame him. Even in my interviews, they would ask about him.
And I'm like, yeah, my dad says that he's not a nice guy and that he's hurting my sister. So I don't blame him for wanting to stay away.
You know, poor him, you know, being somewhat of a suspect in this case, I just feel terrible for him. I mean, obviously, there's trauma all around.
And just a 16 year old, I mean, boys already mature a lot slower than women. And so just to think about a 16 year old going through you know that where he was probably in love with Alyssa right like they were together for what a year at that point yeah they were like each other's first boyfriend girlfriend at least serious ones right yeah first loves and then he's traumatized by your dad because he's picking a fight and then you know now know, now he's being interrogated for the disappearance of Alyssa.
Like, I can't even imagine what that is, what that would be like. Yeah.
His alibi all checks out, too, right? You know, he was at work all day, just for the record. Yeah.
I know how true crime can be. Yeah.
Well, and that's the whole thing I saw on your TikTok. Somebody said that they, you know, your story has changed the way that they consume true crime.
And I always ask, like I've asked other people on, you know, my podcast is like, it's so interesting sometimes how true crime, it is such a tragedy to those that are affected by it. And then, you know, we come on a podcast and talk about it.
And so, like, I don't want this to be a source of entertainment because it is truly a tragedy and so devastating to you. But how do you think that we can change the way that we consume true crime for that reason? Yeah, I mean, I think it just goes back to conscious consumerism, right? If it feels bad, it probably is affecting the people involved pretty badly.
It's really about trusting your gut instinct and remembering what's real and what's entertainment, right? You know, I have seen my sister's story covered on every medium you can think of, podcasts, YouTube, Dateline, 2020, and not every source is reliable. So I think at the end of the day, it's really remembering what's real, what's not, and that we're all real people.
And that unfortunately, it could happen to any one of us. Yeah, that's, I mean, and that's, that's the harsh reality is I think that we all walk around thinking we're invincible and nothing is going to happen to us.
And then, you know, you really, you truly don't know. So where does, so your dad's in prison now, right? Or he's not in prison right now?

No. So he, we went to trial and the prosecution did a really terrible job.
That's a whole story in itself. But at the end of the day, he was acquitted.
They got to the bench and his defense team said, hey, you know, the prosecution hasn't properly presented their case.

They haven't presented the evidence needed. And the judge agreed.
they got to the bench and his defense team said, hey, you know, the prosecution hasn't properly

presented their case. They haven't presented the evidence needed.
And the judge agreed.

So he's a free man. So it's more for lack of preparation than it was because then it was for

lack of evidence. Or was it a lot of circumstantial evidence that is like, at that point, you have to

believe that he did it because of the circumstantial evidence. So almost nothing was presented at trial.
All the things that we were told were going to be presented just wasn't. And I will say that the prosecution was very preoccupied with another case right before that.
For three years, they told me, you know, we're keeping you in the dark. We can't tell you much, but we're busy with this other case, this serial killer case.

And it was only about two weeks before the trial that they said, OK, that case is done. Now we're going to start working on Alyssa's case.

So they had about two weeks essentially to prep for this trial, which isn't enough.

It took me about five weeks to get through her case file. And that's me reading it as fast as I can.

So, you know, I think it was truly a lack of evidence being presented.

They told me that they were going to, you know, show the jury my podcast, my interviews with my dad, with him saying, come to the deathbed. I'll confess under these circumstances.
That never happened. They weren't able to talk about the sexual abuse.
They weren't able to talk about basically anything. So the defense basically said, this is a wild teenager who was extremely sexually promiscuous.
She wasn't a good kid and she ran away. And that's what was presented at court.
It wasn't any of this evidence that the police found. It wasn't any of these statements from my dad.
Almost nothing got in. and it was extremely frustrating.
So for your listeners, for my listeners, what was some of the evidence that they could have presented, right? Like, that was pretty damning. Could you talk about that? Yeah.
You know, there were a variety of things that were found in our house that day when they did the raid in the house. My dad had an off-site storage unit that was just unknown.
Nobody knew about it, so he had a place to potentially store a body. There was also a receipt found for a large amount of lime, which, not to be morbid, is used to basically dissolve a body.
They weren't able to talk about the bombs, his prior convictions for violence. So there was also a really pivotal moment where the prosecution was able to present, one of our neighbors saw our father physically abuse Alyssa.
She, of course, also knew about the sexual abuse. But at the end of the day, the defense said, okay, we'll allow the prosecution to talk about that incident of physical abuse.
And the prosecution said, no, that's OK. We don't think we need it.
Like, I truly think they just gave up. And it's so weird.
Like, I don't know why. Like, part of me is wondering if this whole trial and this arrest was to get, you know, the media off their back.
You know, did they ever really think that this case was going to win? I don't understand why they didn't try. And, you know, I know that I can sound really biased.
Of course, I am biased, right? I'm her sister. But just let me tell you that the night before the trial, I got a call at like 9 p.m.
from my victim's rights lawyer. And he said, the prosecution wants to know how late you're going to stay up tonight.

And I was like, what do you mean?

Like, I'm trying to like be chill.

The trial's the next day.

Like, I'm about to take a bath.

And they're like, well, they have questions.

And that night they were like, we need you to find these audio tapes that the police said that they gave back to you 10 years ago.

We think that it has all this damning evidence on it.

And they were also asking questions like, which one of your brothers has which mom? Like, they just didn't know anything when this trial started. And this was the night before? The night before the trial started.
Listening to you tell me this is like, okay, well, could they have just waited and like to pursue this? Would you have rather, I guess is a better question. Would you have rather they waited a year or two longer to pursue this and do it the right way than to have gone through what you went through for this trial? Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
I wish that they would have been prepared. If they needed another few years, then let's wait.
Absolutely. Because now, and correct me if I'm wrong, now he cannot be retried for it unless there's new evidence.
Yeah. So I'm told that essentially if we can find Alyssa's remains, that he can catch other charges.
But that's basically our best hope. But with him traveling to California so frequently frequently is it possible that it would he crossed state lines and that that won't happen well so i'm and i'm like just talking to prosecutors and lawyers like whoever will help me um it's actually i guess in our favor if it is found across state lines because then they can make, too, apparently.
I am by no means a legal expert. Like I said, I took the LSATs, never went to law school.
But yeah, I'm told that it's almost better if they find it in California. Okay.
Okay. So that, I mean, that's on your side, right? I just don't, do you think that he'll confess that at this this point because your relationship with him is obviously strained or estranged? Do you think that he would still confess on his

deathbed? No, I don't think that he has that kindness in his heart. I don't think that he

has any sympathy or empathy for his children. So no, I think that he'll go to the grave with this

secret. What was the last conversation that you had with him? That was what you saw in the documentary.
You know, I, yeah, I called him and was like, let's talk. And we, we met the next day.
And, you know, this time I was a lot more prepared, I think. All the other times I was just like speaking from my heart.
You know, I was just like, dad. And this time, because the trial had happened, I wanted to ask him the questions that I wish they would have asked him at trial.
you know because he like he wrote crazy letters to Alyssa about Alyssa you know talking about the

contracts he made her sign that said that she wasn't sexually or physically abused. So I was ready.
So the last time I spoke with him was February 2024. Which was recent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he still, I don't know if you've seen, he has a YouTube channel now where he posts almost every single day.

And it's mostly about how terrible of a person I am and a lot of like government conspiracies, too.

He essentially wants to be an influencer now.

I don't know how I missed that.

I don't know how I missed that.

So can you do anything about that? Is there anything or do you just let him do his thing? Because surely people are not on his side.

yeah i mean i think he has like one or two people that are like yeah the government's out to get us all and you know you're just a patriot or whatever just insane stuff um but no you know most of the

comments are hate um because it's just so clear what he's doing and his story continues to pivot

um so i do watch i record record them because he does trip up and, you know, change his story sometimes, which I think is really interesting. Well, and I think that would be good for you to have for documentation because I still am holding out hope that you will get justice for Alyssa.
And I'm holding out hope that at some point he I mean, I don't care if it's on his deathbed, he should be charged. And I think that, you know, if you keep watching, I mean, it's the same thing that we're seeing right now with, you know, JonBenet Ramsey.
I mean, if you watch old interviews of Patsy and John, they're sort of not matching what they're saying now. And so at some point, you know, the foundation of those lies is going to crumble.
And I can only hope that for Alyssa and for anyone else that goes missing, that there will be a break in the case that is new or whatever that looks like. So do your siblings have a relationship with him at all at this point? Only one.
His oldest son. Yeah, I know.
Exactly. And I told him that.
When my dad got out of prison, I found out that my brother had been helping him secretly. And of course, nobody told me because they knew that I'd be pissed.
Right. And so I told him, I said, I don't forgive you.
Like, I don't have it in my heart to forgive you for helping dad when you wouldn't even help me. I begged my brothers to help with this trial.
I said, you know, the prosecution is not talking to me, but they'll talk to you. Somebody needs to know what's going on with this trial and they won't tell me you have to step in i called them crying begging and they would promise me that they would and then they never did um so yeah when i found out that one of my brothers is still helping him um i was pissed and he says you know that's our dad we have to love him and i'm like the fuck we do no we fucking don't i haven't had a dad since i was you know since alissa left i i was never fathered or you know i never had that parental figure um fuck that you know alissa was a child what are you doing and you know he just that's our dad and i need to help him um but no nobody else talks to him you know does he also think's guilty, but feels like that's your dad? So he both are true.
Yeah. Yeah.
He was actually, I believe, the first person that told police, I think my dad did this. He was sexually abusing my sister.
Like, he's crazy. Was this the one in the documentary who Alyssa went to initially about the sexual abuse? Yes.
Okay. So he believes that your dad is guilty, but still maintains a relationship.
Do we think, playing devil's advocate, do we think that your brother could potentially just be trying to be on his good side to get a confession? So I think it's possible. And there are some stories in the family that my brothers have tried to elicit you know information from him so I think it's possible but I don't think it's the main the main reason I do truly think that he has that you know he was born you know in like 1971 right so I think he has that old school mentality of that's our parent no matter what they do I have to be loyal right where like today i think it's more common to say we don't care if you're family or not if you're toxic we're not fucking with you you know what i mean and i think that's common today and you know younger generations than it is for because i think that what 1970 is after boomers or right around the boomer yeah my dad's a boomer yeah for sure so that so interesting.
And how close do you live to your dad now? He lives a few cities away, but he's, you know, close enough and he knows where I live. It's scary.
You know, when I hear something, a bump in the night, I certainly think it could be him. That's terrifying.
Yeah. And I can't get a restraining order because he hasn't like, I know, because the first thing after trial, my victim's rights attorney, who was amazing, he volunteered his time.
He was like, do you want a restraining order? And I was like, fuck, yeah, I do. Like, get him away from me.
I don't want him to talk to me to, you know, nothing. And they're like, well, he hasn't made any actionable threats.
So it looks like we're not going to be able to get it. Even though he said in a video that I'm going to die soon.
So you're going to die soon. And he also literally built bombs while you lived with him.
That is not a big enough threat in and of itself. I guess not.
And sort of the unstable mental status, I guess. I mean, you have to be unstable to want to make bombs and keep them in a house with your kids, right? Like, that should be something be something.
I mean, has he gotten any sort of like therapy that you know of, or is he willing to do that? Does he, do you think he's aware of his own self? Yeah. So my entire childhood growing up, he had like, you know, a part of his disability was he had this mandated therapy that was, I think like three times a week.
So he was under extensive care for most of my life. But that's where the manipulation factor comes in.
He manipulated his doctors. You know, during his bomb trial, he admitted that he had this like deal with his psychiatrist where he would give her his extra pills.
Like, so it was never like legitimate care. Are you kidding right now? No, no, I fucking wish.
He like, it is insane. His first doctor lost his license and moved all his stuff into our house.
He's always had these really inappropriate relationships with his psychiatrist. That's giving Menendez psychiatry that whole thing where they're.
Oh, my God, I didn't realize the corruption ran that deep. How do you go about your day-to-day life without this, like, literally consuming and taking over your life? Or has it? I mean, some days, you know, of course I have good days and I have bad days.
It just depends. But I think it goes back to, for me, the peace comes in trying to, and it sounds so cheesy, right, but like make the world a better place to, you know, I'm working on a new season about Alyssa where it'll be like my definitive word on what happened to her, what I think happened to her.
And so, yeah, I think it's just paying it forward and knowing that I'm hopefully doing something to make these situations better. But yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lie, some days it's unbearable.
And I think, you know, why me? Why my sister? Why did this happen? Why does my family act this way? But it took a lot of years to realize that I was just a child and that it wasn't my fault and that my brother's reactions to everything is also not my fault and that I did nothing wrong. And I'm so thankful that I had, you know, honestly, it sounds so parasocial, but when I had nobody, I had TikTok.
You know, I had a million people there that were cheering me on and telling me, you know, fuck what your family says. You are doing the right thing.
And that was so healing for me and it continues to be healing for me. And I hope you that because that is the truth i mean 100 when um i came across your story on tiktok and things like that it was like this is so powerful and i know that it's painful i know part of the progress can be painful but i think just you know the end goal is justice as you know and as you say and also just the healing part of it i just can't imagine being in your shoes and sort of, I don't know, and I'm sure there's ebbs and flows to it too, right? Like some days there's forgiveness and some days there's you feel healed and then other days like setbacks too, just like anything else.
But when it's, you know, there's no closure and this is your sister. Are you, is the A on your necklace for Alyssa? Yeah, yeah, it is.
I love that. If you could say anything to Alyssa today, what would it be? Yeah, you know, I get asked this often and it comes down to I'm sorry.
You know, I think a part of me will always be sorry that I didn't see what was right in front of me. And I'm sorry that she had to, you know, she felt the need to stay to protect me.
That's one of the hardest things. You know, she wanted to leave, but all her friends say she stayed because she didn't want to leave me alone in that house.
So that, you know, that's an unbearable guilt, to be totally honest. Again, I've forgiven myself.
So part of me would say, I'm sorry. I love you.
And also just thank you, you know, for everything she did for me. She truly was the only mother I really ever knew.
And she had to give up so much of her childhood to make that happen, to, you know, do my laundry, to do my hair, to make sure my nails were done, to make sure I didn't look, you know, crazy or insane going to school or whatever when I was a kid. So yeah, you know, thank you.
I'm sorry. And I love you.
Well, I hope that you just continue to push forward. And if there's anything that I'm able to do, like truly from the bottom of my heart, I'm not saying this because we're on a podcast, like if there is any resources that I can offer you, I don't know what that would look like.
But I'm here to help if you want me to post anything, share anything, say anything on my podcast, you know, whatever you need, I'm here to help. And I'm not just saying that you're here.
So and if there's, you know, anything now that you want me to repost, reshare, I'm willing. Where can people follow you? Where can people listen to your podcast? Just remind people what your podcast is called.
Yeah, my podcast is called Voices for Justice. I also produce the Media Pressure podcast, where I help other families like me tell their stories of their loved ones.
You can find me everywhere. Hopefully TikTok will stay around and you can find me there at Sarah E.
Turney across all platforms or the Voices for Justice podcast. Perfect.
Thank you so much for coming on Barely Famous. And if you if there's anything else you want to say or anything that we didn't hit on, like we can always edit that into.
Yeah, you're so sweet. No, just thank you.
And to be honest, I've followed your journey since the beginning, like I'm sure a lot of your guests have. And you were always so inspirational to me because I always felt like you were also on your own at a young age.
And I remember watching your journey and thinking like, I can do it too. I don't even have like a kid strapped to me.
Right. So I felt like I could do it too.
So I just wanted to thank you because you've always been a really big inspiration to me. So thank you so much.
I didn't even know if you knew who I was or anything. I just was like, let me help her get her story out there.
But yeah, I mean, like I said, anything you need, I'm here. My team is here.
If you ever want to like, I can share your stuff. If you have a break in the case, like whatever you need.

Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. This is incredibly helpful.
Thank you.