(Credits: NBC)

Not every criminal story ends with justice served and every killer caught, and even with disappearances, not every missing person is found either, and in May 2001, when 17-year-old Alissa Turney walked out of her Arizona home and disappeared into thin air, what was deemed a runaway case has turned Netflix into a private investigator.

For years, Alissa’s name was growing stale in missing-person databases, having crossed the statute of limitations, where all concerned had lost hope and stopped asking questions; the world had moved on. Police believed she had gone to California, just like the note left in the wake of the incident said, but the story never fit: her phone was still on her nightstand, her clothes were in the closet, and her savings were untouched. It felt like someone wanted people to stop looking, and sadly, the plan worked.

Now, more than two decades later, Netflix is adding Alissa’s story to its growing true-crime catalogue under Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney. Originally released by Oxygen in 2024, the platform is reintroducing the documentary to millions who may have missed it the first time.

What exactly happened to Alissa Turney?

On May 17th, 2001, Alissa finished her last day of junior year at Paradise Valley High School, telling her friends she was going to lunch with her stepfather, Michael Turney, and that was the last time anyone saw her. When Michael came home, he claimed she was gone, and on her bed was a handwritten note saying she had run off to California to start a new life. But no one ever heard from her again, nary a call, or a letter, or even a single confirmed sighting, as if she’d just ceased to exist.

Michael told everyone they had fought that afternoon, which led to her slamming the car door and walking away angry; however, it just didn’t add up. You see, he was a strict and obsessive father who wouldn’t have let her walk away after misbehaving like that. Moreover, what’s fishier is that he was always filming her, and years later, when his younger daughter Sarah Turney started looking back at all those details, including the surveillance tapes and the strange notes, she realised something was not right.

The case had gone cold for years, and even though nothing about the disappearance made sense, the police had washed their hands of it. It wasn’t until Sarah grew up and started asking questions that things began to move again. She began searching through family archives and public records, and what she found changed everything, which was enough to turn suspicion into a full-fledged investigation.

In 2008, the police searched Michael’s home and found weapons, explosives, disturbing documents, you name it, and by 2020, he was charged with second-degree murder, though the case later collapsed for lack of evidence. Through it all, Sarah became the loudest voice for her sister, using social media and podcasts to keep Alissa’s story alive.

The documentary Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney traces that entire journey from the day Alissa vanished to the day her sister stood in court demanding answers, and now that Netflix will be streaming it soon, bringing the forgotten story to find new audiences and maybe even new clues, for even after 23 years, Alissa Turney’s disappearance refuses to fade.