Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney
Hayu, 2024 — the unsolved Arizona disappearance of 17-year-old Alissa Turney and the murder case against her father
Quick facts
What Is the Series About?
Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney is a 2024 true-crime documentary series streaming on Hayu that examines the disappearance of 17-year-old Alissa Turney from the Phoenix, Arizona area on May 17, 2001 — a case that investigators eventually treated as a suspected homicide. The series follows the decades-long effort to hold someone accountable for her fate, centering on the criminal case brought against her father, Michael Turney, and the public campaign waged by her sister, Sarah Turney. According to IMDb, the documentary carries the title ID tt33402423 and was released on October 13, 2024, with a listed runtime of approximately 1 hour and 24 minutes.
The series sits at the intersection of a cold-case investigation, a high-profile criminal trial, and a deeply personal family story — making it one of the more emotionally charged true-crime releases of 2024.
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The Case
Alissa Turney Disappears
On May 17, 2001, Alissa Turney — aged 17 — vanished from the Phoenix, Arizona area under circumstances that were never satisfactorily explained. In the immediate aftermath, local authorities treated her disappearance as that of a runaway teenager, a classification that effectively stalled meaningful investigation for years. No body, no murder weapon, and no crime scene were ever recovered — a void of physical evidence that would later prove central to the legal proceedings against the man accused of killing her.
The Investigation and Michael Turney
The case was reopened in 2006 after false claims made by a fellow prisoner prompted investigators to take a closer look. That renewed scrutiny focused increasingly on Michael Turney, Alissa's father, who became the prime suspect as detectives dug deeper into the circumstances of her disappearance. Over the following years, law enforcement built what they believed was sufficient circumstantial evidence to support a murder charge.
On August 20, 2020 — nearly two decades after Alissa was last seen — Michael Turney was arrested in Mesa, Arizona and formally charged with second-degree murder. The arrest marked a turning point in a case that many feared would never see the inside of a courtroom.
The Trial and Its Outcome
The murder trial took place in 2023 in Maricopa County Superior Court. After six days of proceedings, the charge was dismissed. As ABC News reported, the presiding judge stated there was "no body, no crime scene" and that substantial evidence sufficient to warrant a conviction did not exist. Michael Turney was released from custody on July 18, 2023. He has maintained his innocence and, following the dismissal, stated publicly that the case was over.
Alissa Turney's body has never been found. The case therefore remains officially unresolved — a suspected homicide without a conviction.
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Sarah Turney and the Public Campaign
A defining element of the documentary — and of the broader public interest in the case — is the role played by Sarah Turney, Alissa's sister. Sarah launched a highly visible social-media campaign accusing her father of responsibility for Alissa's disappearance, drawing attention from true-crime communities and mainstream media alike. PEOPLE described her as a "viral sensation" whose advocacy kept the case alive in public consciousness and arguably contributed to the renewed prosecutorial interest that led to Michael Turney's 2020 arrest.
Sarah's willingness to speak openly about her suspicions — and about the painful dynamics of her family — gives the documentary much of its emotional weight. Her perspective frames the series not merely as a criminal investigation but as a story about a family irrevocably fractured by a single day in May 2001.
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Production
The series was released on Hayu on October 13, 2024. Platform listings, including Apple TV, place the runtime at approximately 1 hour and 24 minutes. The director and episode count have not been confirmed in available public sources at the time of publication. The documentary appears to draw on case files, trial proceedings, news coverage, and personal testimony from those connected to the case — most notably Sarah Turney, whose public record of advocacy and media appearances provides a substantial foundation for the narrative.
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Reception
Public reaction to the series has been significant, if mixed. True-crime audiences — many of whom had followed Sarah Turney's social-media campaign in real time — were already familiar with the broad outlines of the case before the documentary premiered. For that audience, the series offered a consolidated and emotionally cohesive account of events spanning more than two decades.
Coverage from outlets including The Independent and PEOPLE emphasized the unresolved nature of the disappearance and the tension between Sarah Turney's certainty about her father's guilt and the legal system's inability to secure a conviction. Michael Turney's acquittal — and his own public statements asserting innocence — has generated ongoing debate about whether justice was served or denied.
A verified IMDb rating is not available at this time.
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The Case Today
As of the documentary's release in October 2024, Alissa Turney's fate remains unknown. Her body has never been recovered. The murder charge against Michael Turney was dismissed in July 2023, and he has not faced further criminal proceedings. The case is, in formal legal terms, closed — yet for Sarah Turney and others who believe Alissa was killed, closure remains elusive.
Family Secrets: The Disappearance of Alissa Turney arrives as a document of that unresolved grief: a case in which the courts found insufficient evidence, investigators found a compelling suspect, and a family found only more questions.
