PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — Attorneys finished opening statements Thursday in the trial of Michael Turney, who's accused of killing his stepdaughter, Alissa Turney.
Alissa went missing in May 2001 and hasn't been seen since. Michael is facing a second-degree murder charge in Alissa's death.
"Despite the efforts to locate her, her body has never been found," Prosecutor Vince Imbordino told the jury Thursday in opening statements.
Alissa disappeared the day she finished her junior year at Paradise Valley High School.
Prosecutors say Michael says he and Alissa argued after he picked her up early from school that day and she ran away to California.
But prosecutors claim there's nothing to prove that.
"Despite the defendant preserving years, literally years, of phone call recordings, literally years of surveillance camera footage," Imbordino said. "But no, Alissa."
During his opening statement, Imbordino said Michael sought to control Alissa and recorded conversations, calls and videos around their home and murdered her.
As part of opening statements, Imbordino also showed a 'contract' between Michael and Alissa, where Michael had Alissa swear to claim that Michael didn't sexually abuse her.
In opening statements, the defense told the jury that there was nothing to prove Alissa is dead.
"This entire case is about belief, speculation and conjecture," Defense attorney Jamie Jackson told the jury. "There's no evidence. They can't tell you where Alissa died, they can't tell you how she died and frankly, they can't even tell you if she died."
Jackson also told the jury no evidence had been found in over a decade of investigation to connect Turney to the crime.
The defense also says Michael tried to find Alissa for years after she disappeared and claims the police were the ones who didn't try to find her.
"No one would investigate it. He was putting his time and his money to investigate it," Jackson said.
Following opening statements, Alissa's younger sister, Sarah Turney, was heard as the prosecution's second witness.
A few years ago, Sarah gathered evidence, published a podcast and TikTok videos and put up a billboard to try and get more attention to her sister's case before Michael was arrested in 2020.
"It was always a bad relationship wtih Alissa and my father, which caused a lot of stress and tension," Turney said during the trial Thursday.
Both the prosecution and defense still need to finish questioning Sarah as part of the two-week trial, which is expected to pick back up on Monday morning.
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