It was a shocking revelation. Every journalist in the courtroom began scribbling furiously in their notepads, trying to write down every word. How did the police keep this secret?
But Van Dyke didn’t give it much time to sink in. He went straight to summing up the evidence. “We, as the Crown, are confident that you will find that Mark Twitchell was responsible for planning and deliberating upon, and ultimately carrying out, the intentional execution of Johnny Altinger and is therefore guilty of first-degree murder.”
He thanked the jury for their attention and patience.
“Order in court,” the jury officer called out.
Everyone clamoured to their feet for the morning break.
TEN MONTHS EARLIER, ON June 3, 2010, two homicide detectives were told to meet Twitchell and his new lawyer. Charles Davison had recently taken over the case after Twitchell had parted ways with his first legal counsel. Twitchell had asked for the meeting, but only under three conditions: no questions, no media, and no Bill Clark. He was adamant the police detective he had grown to hate could not be involved and that no media release or tipoff to the press could occur in this case. The meeting had to remain secret or there was no deal. Police command agreed and Detective Mandrusiak took Clark’s place since he had dealt with Twitchell from arrest to remand visits. He brought along Detective Kerr, who had taken over as the primary investigator when Anstey retired.
It was shortly after 6:00 p.m. and raining on the horizon when the two men walked through the remand building’s main doors and headed straight to the bank of inmate interview rooms. Through the scratched glass they could see Twitchell sitting at a table with Davison hunched beside him.
The meeting was as short as it gets, but Twitchell had wanted one even shorter.
As both detectives entered, Twitchell shot up and tried to shove something in Mandrusiak’s hands, as if anxious to rid himself of a terrible burden. Mandrusiak told him he would have to go over a few legalities before they could officially begin the meeting.
The detectives took their seats across from Twitchell, read him his rights once again, reminded him that he could seek legal advice – even now from another lawyer – and then they gave the go-ahead to begin the meeting.
But Twitchell just stared at the two of them.
After a moment, he pulled out a single piece of paper. It was folded in half. Twitchell slapped it on the table and slowly pushed it toward the detectives.
The rustle of the paper was the only sound in the interview room.
Mandrusiak saw the word “Google” printed on the top corner.
And that was all.
Mandrusiak slipped the paper inside his file folder, thanked Davison and Twitchell for their time, and the two detectives stood and walked out the door.
They got as far as the elevator at headquarters before they gave in to the urge to see what they had. It was a printout from Google Maps, taking up the majority of the sheet. Below the map of northern Edmonton were a few words scrawled in blue ink: “Location of John Altinger’s remains.”
Twitchell had signed and dated the sheet of paper and provided a three-sentence description of the exact location. On the map, he had drawn in an alley north of downtown and marked a sewer grate site with a red circle.
Mandrusiak rushed to the photocopier and made numerous copies. Then it was out the door and into the car for a mad drive with Kerr, following the directions closely to a parking spot near the mouth of the highlighted alley. The two men hustled on foot down the middle of the street to a sewer grate and a manhole near the fifth power pole from the road. Nearby was an aging fence with white peeling paint.
The sun was low and they were losing their light. Mandrusiak grabbed a flashlight and dropped to his belly to take a peek into the sewer. At the bottom of the manhole the flashlight beam illuminated two mounds floating in stagnant water. It was too late in the day to go down there now. Kerr called in the forensics team while a patrol car was parked to watch the location overnight.
Everyone returned the next day. It was Friday.
Police tape sealed off both ends of the alley and a portable white tent was pitched over the sewer grate. Police officers crowded around a team of medical examiners. Dennis Caufield, a medical investigator, had slipped on rubber boots, coveralls, and a safety harness. Waiting with a bucket in hand, he was going to rappel into the depths of the sewer.
He made several trips, but the initial descent was the most disturbing: he found a human torso. Subsequent trips into the sewer recovered a pelvis bone, a knee cap, an intact tooth, two teeth fragments, and buckets of mud, gravel, wood, metal, plastic, and smaller bones. The sewer held about half a decomposing skeleton. The limbs and the skull were missing, possibly flushed farther down the sewer during a spring thaw or heavy rainstorm. Many of the found bones showed signs of cutting, breaking, and sawing as clear evidence of deliberate dismemberment. A DNA test confirmed it was Johnny – or what was left of him.
The grim discovery officially ended the police investigation. While it was a relief to finally bring closure to a grieving family, detectives were still left frustrated and annoyed. Johnny’s body had been discarded three blocks from Twitchell’s parents’ house. Searching a radius just a few houses wider would have located the dumping site years earlier and without his help.
But as part of the deal with Twitchell, the police, the prosecution, and the defence kept the recovery of Johnny’s remains a secret. Detectives were fortunate no nosy neighbour had seen what they were up to that summer day in the back alley. While Johnny’s immediate family was told, they too kept it secret. Even Johnny’s closest friends weren’t told.
Twitchell began his murder trial having given up the most incriminating evidence. No one really knew why he did it. The jury would hear he wanted to give the Altinger family some closure and that the timing coincided with the switch to his new defence team. Detectives such as Mandrusiak believed their relentless pressure had likely pushed Twitchell in that direction as well. But the implication of giving up the body, and Twitchell’s attempted guilty plea, was clear: he may have dumped Johnny’s body in the sewer, but he would be disputing that it was a pre-meditated murder. This would frame how the evidence would be heard during the entire trial.
It was the best his lawyer could do, considering the real-life killing blueprint that Twitchell had left behind in S. K. Confessions. On top of that, there were layers of forensic evidence haunting Twitchell’s criminal case like a telltale heart: the body that just wouldn’t go away and a trail of blood dripping from the suburban kill room into Twitchell’s unravelling, chaotic life.
A TRIAL OF TERROR
THE TWITCHELL TRIAL ATTRACTED new and diverse spectators each day until lineups started forming outside the courtroom an hour before the doors were even opened. A curious couple – a man with a skull tattoo and piercings, a woman with pink hair – watched for several days, as did a young teacher with big-rimmed glasses who was on spring break. They had no connection to Twitchell or Johnny but, like so many others, were mesmerized by the case. Four sheriffs were stationed inside on the busiest days to keep order over this burgeoning crowd of onlookers.
Prosecutors Van Dyke and Inglis brought more than 110 exhibits to court and settled on calling forty-six witnesses to testify. Their case started with the police forensics team and ended with a statement declaring Dexter Morgan to be a fictional serial killer who relies on his “dark passenger” as both an alter ego and his desire to kill. The defence agreed on this final point.
A great deal of testimony over the four-week trial descended into the grotesque. Explanations arose about decomposed mushy and waxy tissue, sliced rib bones, and cracked teeth. Outside the courtroom, city residents complained of the “absolutely disgusting” media coverage as testimony dipped into such disturbing detail. “Is this just another example of extremely dark entertainment for the masses?” a reader queried in a letter to the editor.
There were moments of misery and torment
, especially when Twitchell’s former wife took the stand on the fourth day of the court case. Jess wore black and had dyed her hair red. She entered the courtroom with confidence but was quickly reduced to tears. Over two hours, she revealed her entire history with the man on trial: their private discussions and marital difficulties, his costumes and failed career. “We were living pretty separate lives,” she sighed. “He was selling scripts and had a bunch of projects in development, but he wasn’t making any money.” Inglis showed Jess several photos and asked her to identify them. “That’s a photo of our house in St. Albert.” Jess began to cry, staring at the picture of her former home. Another photograph appeared on the computer screen beside her. She completely broke down. It was a photo of the game processing kit, each knife cleaned, sharp and shiny. Jess covered her mouth in a gasp and wailed. She grabbed a tissue and wiped away her tears. She had never seen such things before, but she knew what it meant. In her grief, she was allowed to leave. Twitchell had rarely taken his eyes off his ex-wife throughout her entire testimony, but she left in a hurry, having barely acknowledged that he was even there.
Departing the courthouse, Jess lifted a big parka hood over her head to shield herself from the probing lenses of television cameras. But her attempt to preserve her privacy proved to be a futile endeavour. The Edmonton Journal had already uncovered her wedding day pictures, retrieving them from a forgotten corner of a personal photo website. Her pictures were reposted that afternoon on the newspaper’s website, then went viral on the Internet and appeared on the six o’clock news. Under her white veil, her blue eyes stared out in a lasting gaze at thousands of viewers, Twitchell standing tall in a black suit, nestled in beside her. The photo dominated the front pages of all the morning newspapers.
Twitchell’s friends and film crew were infuriated by the media circus. They were being forced by subpoena into an unwanted procession as the start of the trial’s second week focused intently on their lives. Upon giving his evidence on the making of House of Cards, Scott Cooke thundered out of the building with Jay Howatson by his side, both chased by an eager media pack. “You guys have no respect, you know that?” Scott growled over his shoulder. Twitchell’s director of photography, David Puff, was quick to clarify that he was not a friend of the accused killer. But Mike Young made a specific point of calling Twitchell his friend, even though he refused to discuss that friendship with the media following his testimony, sticking his hands in his pockets as reporters tried to hand him their business cards. Actor Chris Heward, once strapped to a metal chair for Twitchell’s low-budget thriller, stared down the filmmaker as he testified, telling the jury of his experience on set. And Joss Hnatiuk, now long removed from contact with the rest of the crew, took the stand a day later to share his story of moving the red Mazda 3 to his parents’ driveway and being foolish enough to believe Twitchell had bought the vehicle for only forty dollars.
As the weeks passed, this procession of witnesses became more solemn. Traci Higgins gave her account of a love affair with Twitchell; Renee Warring spoke of exchanging dark fantasies. Johnny’s friends shared all: the confusion, determination, and panic at his unexpected disappearance turning into shock and, finally, to anguish.
And then, a tale of survival.
Gilles Tetreault was called into the courtroom near the end of the prosecution’s case. He was still rail thin but dressed sharply in a navy-blue dress shirt and gold tie. The gallery had filled to capacity earlier than usual on word of his coming testimony.
He began slowly, telling of his arrival at the garage to meet his date and being forced to the floor with duct tape over his eyes. “A lot of things were going through my head,” he testified. “When they say your life flashes before your eyes, that’s what it was.”
The jury listened intently, riveted by his story. Gilles explained his split-second decision to fight back, grab the gun, and his complete surprise in discovering it was a fake. “I tell my friends it was the best feeling I ever felt in my life,” he chuckled, “because I wasn’t afraid of the gun anymore.”
Gilles spoke with confidence, recalling every detail of the attack. “I was fighting for my life.” He repeated the statement a number of times. And after an hour, he left, having given his evidence, the impact of his testimony becoming quite clear from the reaction in the room. Both the public gallery and the jury appeared to be completely astonished by what they had just heard: how lucky he had been for the stun gun baton to have failed, for him to have reached for that fake firearm, to have crawled to freedom, to have somehow survived.
TWITCHELL HAD BEEN LARGELY isolated from this emotional upheaval until the prosecution’s focus returned to his interactions with police. Halfway through the trial, Detective Bill Clark entered the courtroom to finally give his evidence. He would present a video recording of his first overnight police interview with Twitchell, the night the homicide unit took over the case.
Clark took a seat behind Twitchell as the lights were dimmed in the court. The video was played on a projector screen in front of Twitchell, who found himself sandwiched between Clark in the past and Clark in the present. It was his life on the big screen and he was reliving his own destruction, every flaw exposed along with the lies that would inevitably bring him down.
Twitchell kept his head lowered, pretending to be absorbed in his notes. It didn’t help. He was beginning to feel like Clark’s questions were coming at him once again in an endless, repetitive inquiry, breaking through the hardened exterior Twitchell had built up in preparation for his trial. What happened to John, Mark? What happened to John? The question echoed in his head and brought back memories of police and blood spatter.
His eyes became glassy. Twitchell reached for a tissue and blew his nose, one nostril at a time. He rocked backwards, closed his eyes, and pointed his chin at the ceiling as hot tears streamed down his face. As the video interrogation escalated into intense questioning, he began hyperventilating.
Van Dyke glanced over in the darkness and saw Twitchell’s chest heave. He leaned into Davison’s ear and whispered. Van Dyke rose and asked the judge for a break.
The video was stopped. Twitchell, now a slobbering mess, scurried to his cell, wiping his face.
Van Dyke and Clark were stunned by the reaction. It was the first emotion, other than anger, that the detective had pulled out of Twitchell in more than thirty months on the file.
The twenty-minute break did little to calm Twitchell. When a guard led him back into the courtroom, his face was puffy and red, his eyes still watery. He sat down for a moment at the defence table just as the judge walked back in. The jury was still out of the room.
Twitchell’s lip began quivering. He was anxious and noticeably shivering.
Suddenly, he spun around to face Clark, who had his head down at the time. “I have to do this,” Twitchell blabbered through more tears. “I’m sorry for lying –”
But Clark cut him off quickly, raising up his hand like a stop sign. “You shouldn’t talk,” he stated, turning away from him.
Twitchell was still reaching his hands out toward Clark, palms up, when his defence lawyer realized what was going on behind him. Davison spun Twitchell’s chair back around and scolded him through gritted teeth.
Clark hadn’t seen an accused do that in a hundred trials. Twitchell could have derailed the trial right then if the jury had been in the room, but they had yet to be called back in from the break. Justice Clackson recognized the impact the detective’s presence was having, so he directed Clark to move away from Twitchell for the duration of the video.
Twitchell fared no better, his despair crashing upon him in a series of waves. By the time the video concluded at the end of the day, he had collapsed across the table, his arms sprawled out, his head down, his cheeks pressed against his notes.
As he was led back to remand, the guards became increasingly concerned for his well-being. He was put on suicide watch the moment he was returned to cells. He would spend the weekend wearing the
“oven mitt” – the one-piece suicide-proof gown inmates call “babydolls” – in the mental health ward. He would be kept awake by the wails and screams of disturbed minds. He would have everything sharp and pointy taken away, including all his pens and pencils. There would be no journal entries in Aurebesh tonight.
THE MIND OF THE SUSPECT
IT WAS A DECISION that would change their lives. Justice Clackson eventually ruled that, with a little editing, the vast majority of S. K. Confessions could be presented in court. All twelve jurors would examine each passage of cold and calculated immorality. Under his orders, only the most inflammatory passages would be removed, meaning the jury never heard some of the most explicit descriptions of dismemberment – not that the passages deemed to be admissible weren’t graphic too. It would take more than two hours for the edited version of the incriminating journal to be read into the record.
The document weaved together Twitchell’s personal life and sordid details of spilled blood. No detail was left unsaid. What was especially unsettling was the written perspective on acts of violence. “It’s not me who chooses the victims, but fate,” Twitchell wrote. “Oh sure, I choose the victim to match my own criteria in the interest of remaining free and at large, but for the most part I am merely following my nature which was devised by the grand design of the universe.”
The document, which included an elaborate description of the entire modus operandi, viewed killing as fun, as some sort of sadistic career choice: “Starting a kill on a Friday works on so many levels. For one thing, most people are not hard and fast expected to be anywhere on the weekend, which gives me three days to clean up and tie up the loose ends.”
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