In this crime junkies blog post I\nwill be covering two interlinked episodes on the disappearance of Alissa\nTurney. In 2001, 17 year old Alissa Turney was reported missing by her step-dad,\nhe told the police that he was almost certain Alissa ran away to live in\nCalifornia with her aunt. Alissa\u2019s case was not investigated thoroughly and was\nnot opened again until 7 years later when a massive amount of information was\nuncovered that suggested Alissa may have been a victim of foul play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nstructure of the two episodes really pulls the listener in. With minimal music\nbeing a key part of Crime Junkie podcasts, the appeal of the podcast comes only\nfrom the voicing of the story. The co-host Brit Prawat also adds helpful commentary\nto engage the listener and support Ashley\u2019s claims. Gasping at the right\nmoments, asking Ashley to relate information she just said to information\npreviously stated, etc. While the first episode gives more background\ninformation on Alissas life and story, the second episode is actually an\ninterview with Alissa\u2019s step sister who explains her theory on what happened to\nher sister. What\u2019s especially compelling, is in the first episode the facts are\nlaid out in a more neutral way. It seems probable that Alissa just ran away\nfrom home with no foul play involved. There is some evidence included such as\nhome videos that hint at the disturbing relationship between Alissa and her\nstep father but, the listener still has room to form their own opinion and\ntheories. It isn\u2019t until the end of the episode when a bomb shell is dropped and\nthe listener finds out the father of the girls had 26 homemade pipe bombs, a\nmanifesto, and a clip from a snuff film in his home. Now that the narrator,\nAshley Flowers has influenced the listener to form an opinion, the episode ends\nwith an introduction to the next episode which is a long interview with Alissa\u2019s\nstep sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The second episode consists only of Ashley Flowers and her guest Sarah Turney. Interviewing someone on the podcast is rare occasion, and just the fact that the interview was done over the phone and the sound quality is significantly lower gives it a much more\u2026 interview-y feel. The whole episode consists of Sarah giving reasons why she believes her father actually killed his step-daughter Alissa and used running away as an excuse for her disappearance. Her claims are especially powerful because in the first episode, statements from Sarah show that she thinks her father is an innocent man. For years, she is convinced her father has nothing to do with his daughters disappearance. The first episode ends with a statement from Sarah on a 20\/20 special, \u201cthe public makes him look you know, horrible\u2026 it\u2019s not him. Everyone who knows my dad is shocked,\u201d it\u2019s clear she wants to defend him. Then, the second episode starts with her stating the opposite of what she previously believed, \u201cwhen I saw myself on the 20\/20 episode now as an adult\u2026 I look so na\u00efve and it\u2019s just really sad, I really believed that my father had nothing to do with it\u2026\u201d Her outlook on her fathers involvement in the case does a complete 180, really adding to the shock value of this case. The rest of the episode is an information dump of strong evidence against Alissa\u2019s step father as the reason for her disappearance, but, it also provides a very human aspect to this particular story since the listeners get to hear from a primary source on the case. Sarah explains how as a child she couldn\u2019t see what was in front of her eyes but years later she is able to point out how her father was a manipulative man who didn\u2019t care about his children. Listeners can hear the pain in her voice as she talks about her missing sister and how much she regrets ever believing her father was a good man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One especially\nbeneficial part of this two episode story is Ashley uses her huge media\nplatform to try and spread awareness about Alissa\u2019s story. At the beginning and\nend of the podcasts she emphasizes that she does not want her podcasts to be\npurely for entertainment purposes, but should also push listeners to take action\nwhen they can. She gives information on websites about Alissa that Sarah has\nmade and, a petition listeners can sign that would push law enforcement\nofficials to take action on the still open case after serious neglect of the\ncase. Listeners get to hear Sarah plead to her audience for action to avenge\nher step sister by prosecuting her father. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this crime junkies blog post I will be covering two interlinked episodes on the disappearance of Alissa Turney. In 2001, 17 year old Alissa Turney was reported missing by her step-dad, he told the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-engl200c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}