Michael Turney, the stepfather of a girl missing since 2001, was sentenced today to 10 years in a federal prison for possessing a large cache of fully functional, homemade bombs.
He pleaded guilty back in April.
Federal agents who raided Turney's home at 17218 North 34th Street in December of 2008 were shocked to find more working bombs then they'd ever seen before. They found three fire-bombs and 26 pipe bombs fitted with steel shot to enhance the shrapnel. The guy also had plenty of handguns and rifles, plus silencers and a ballistic vest.
Turney had an "operational plan" to attack the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' union hall by driving an explosives-laden van into the building, then shooting any survivors who came out the front door, according to a news release by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona.
Agents evacuated homes around Turney's neighborhood after finding the cache of weapons, which could easily have destroyed Turney's home.
"The cache of dangerous
weapons found in Turney's house were not for decoration-they put hundreds of
Arizonans at risk," said Dennis Burke, U.S. Attorney for the District of
Arizona, in the written
Turney's stepdaughter, Alissa, a Paradise Valley High School student, disappeared in 2001.
Investigators have said in the past that Turney isn't a suspect in the girl's case. But police quoted in a recent East Valley Tribune story about the case think he knows something -- or may have even killed and buried her.
Clearly, the guy's capable of murder.
