Transcripts For KNTV Dateline NBC 20160327

Committing one . He told me, well, you do it like dexter. Youve seen that show dexter. This is all modeled off that. When you take a step back you realize this is a real man whos been murdered. The script was darker than anyone knew. I go, holy mackerel. Who are you really . Everyone was on the edge of their seat. An underground parking garage. Youre watching a violent attack caught on tape. Who is this . Whats happening . Or did it happen at all . Cut. Movies like that one are by design deceptive, make believe worlds, but have you noticed maybe its all the technical dodads, the digital cameras, the reality twisting editing. Some of the stories that claim to be true arent. Anybody can manipulate reality. Sometimes what they say is true isnt. Sometimes fiction turns out to be fact. And then there are stories, just a few, in which fact and fiction fuse. Thats where were going tonight. A Twilight Zone world of illusion and deception and deceit. Follow the howling wind across a vast prairie through brief, brilliant summers and winters as frigid as any on earth to the metropolis canadians call the gateway to the north. The city whose Police Department stays very busy. This is detective bill clark. The city is edmonton, canada. Today i got a call from a family. Their son was killed in december. But nothing in a long career so strange as the case of the man who went missing and bill clark found himself in the nether world between fantasy and illusion. Ever seen a case like this before . Never in my life. Reporter though when it started out, it seemed perfectly simple. A missing man. Some guy just dropped out of sight. The kind of thing that tends to sort itself out once the socalled victim sobers up. Im not thinking much is going to come of this. Reporter after clarks 31 years with the city in the highest murder rate in canada you could hardly blame him for getting a little picky. We dont usually go to missing persons. Were very picky on what we go to. Unfortunately for us to come out you got to be dead and it better be criminal. We dont even want to come out if youre just dead. If the patrolman doesnt know its criminal dont bother calling us. Reporter you got enough to do. Yes. Reporter which explains perhaps why some of the locals have taken to calling their city deadmonton. Our concern was, do we have a murder . If we dont, this isnt our file. We have enough to work on the. The missing person was a man named jonny altinger, 39, single, worked in the oil inland, liked to ride motorcycles. Unlucky with women. He had a wide circle of friends who are now telling Police Something kind of weird. Altinger seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth except for the strange emails he was sending. Ive left with a woman, going to costa rica. She was one of the recipients of the emails, his old friend, deborah tycro. Saying he had met a wonderful girl named jen and he was going to costa rica and i received several of them. I received six all together but in runs of three. Reporter six messages. How the same message . Exact same message. Same words. Hi there. Ive met a wonderful girl named yes. Reporter suddenly. Yes. Reporter like somebody you didnt really know was sending you an email. Absolutely. I was, like, thats really odd. That doesnt sound like john. Reporter well, it was odd. And even more so when another friend of altingers received exactly the same message, word for word. Altingers Facebook Status changed from single to in a relationship. Then i think it was the following day i was on msn messenger and johnny popped online. So i thought oh, he must not have left on his vacation yet. And it said, johnny, his name, and then in quotations beside his name it said, ive got a one way ticket to heaven and im never coming back. Reporter later that same day debra got a call from a friend who told her, Johnny Altinger appearedo be missing. Its surreal, you know . You dont expect your friends to go missing. Reporter pretty soon altingers friends got together, unsure what to do really, but before going to police they decided to try to get into his condo, see if they could find a clue to what happened to the guy. Had to break in, actually. And everything looked fine. Nothing out of place. No sign of any struggle. Only things missing were his wallet, his keys, and his red mazda coupe. Looked as if he had gone out for a drive and would be back in a minute. No answers to anything. Just like he vanished out of thin air. Reporter except for the strange emails altinger had supposedly sent about falling in love, and costa rica, which to the cops, said clark, seemed perfectly reasonable. Not hard to imagine a love struck man might want to leave the snow and ice of edmonton behind and skip off to the tropics. This guy sent these emails to his friends and were going, well thats strange, but who knows . Maybe he did go to costa rica. Stranger things have happened. You dont know. Reporter at least thats how clark felt before he stepped through the looking glass. And followed the missing mans trail, into a strange place of make believe. A makeshift movie studio. As soon as they called me on the phone, i got this weird chill. It not only softens and freshens, it helps protect clothes from the damage of the wash. So your favorite clothes stay your favorite clothes. Downy fabric conditioner. Wash in the wow. Its easy to love your laxative when that lax loves your body back. Only miralax hydrates, eases and softens to unblock naturally, so you have peace of mind from start to finish. Love your laxative. Miralax. Nothing will keep you from magnum double caramel. Silky vanilla bean ice cream rich caramel sauce all covered in thick chocolate. Discover magnum, double dipped for Double Chocolate pleasure. Because i trust their quality. Vitamins. They were the first to have a vitamin verified by usp. An independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards. Nature made. The number one pharmacist recommended letter vitamin brand. At olive gardene is back choose one delicious entree at our place and another for yours starting at 12. 99 may all your tomorrows be as delicious as today olive garden Johnny Altingers condominium, as you can see, looked like anything but a crime scene. There were no signs of a struggle. No blood. It was like he just stepped out for a few minutes. Could be back any time. Where was he . Johnnys friends were convinced something awful happened to him. Day after day they prodded the police and finally seven days after johnny went missing the cops agreed to open an investigation. We started with the basics. It wasnt here. They combed through Airline Passenger lists. He wasnt on any of them. Johnnys friends meanwhile went back to the apartment for another look and found stashed away among his important papers his passport. Were going oh, youre not getting out of the country without your passport. Reporter so seemed like he had to be within driving distance, but what direction . Where . And just as the police were contemplating that puzzle, one of altingers friends came up with another email. With directions how to pick her up. Out of an abundant sense of caution, he had never met the woman after all, he sent a copy of that email to a friend of his. Just in case. I cant remember the last word of the email but he says if anything happens to me you know where im at. You know, laugh out loud. Reporter it wasnt a phone number. Not even an address. There were detailed directions to her place. So the cops drove the route. The directions led them to this neighborhood down this alley. To this garage rented by a guy named Mark Twitchell. Reporter he happened to be a local celebrity. He was making a name for himself as a scrappy young independent film maker here in edmonton and had recently made a low budget scifi movie. Everyone working on the project is a fan, of course. I dont think anybody would be here working for us for free if they werent. Reporter so they called him up of course and he readily agreed to come down and open the place up. When he got here, big surprise. Someone had changed the lock. He couldnt get in. So with twitchells permission officers broke in, had a quick look around, and found nothing. Just the same, what was the changed lock and the weird coincidence to johnnys email, there were things to figure out. Mark twitchell was only too happy to tag along to the Police Station to help out whatever way he could. The first thing i noticed the padlock didnt look familiar to me. Reporter he explained hed been using the rented garage for a sound stage, most recently for what they call a teaser, short film designed to drum up publicity, buzz, and with any luck attract enough investor money to allow him to produce a full length feature movie. Its a suspense thriller actually, a short film, eight or nine minutes. Suspense thriller . Right. Reporter of course he had a crew in and out of the place during the filming said mark. Several actors too. Maybe one of them was up to something. But it seemed unlikely. None had ever asked to borrow the set for anything. So if there was anything like that if somebody needed to borrow the place or whatever, then they would let me know. So theyd let you know theyd ask or Something Like that. So, yeah. Reporter anyway, he said hed moved on for now to another project. Im working on a comedy right now, which is a actually a full blown feature thats going to have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about 3. 5 million. Reporter in the meantime, the garage come studio was empty. Why would someone break in and change the lock . It didnt make sense. The one that i had was silver on the outside with a black plastic dial in the center and this was just all metal. So i so you noticed a different padlock. Yes. And that on the door. Right. Reporter mystifying, said mark. He had a bad feeling about this. Man disappears after telling police he was going to the very place his movie had been shooting. As soon as they called me on the phone, i get this weird chill. What about the woman Johnny Altinger had been flirting with online, the one who gave him directions to the garage, told him shed meet him there . The woman who signs her emails jen . Does the name jen mean anything to you . No, constable maxwell asked me about that, too. Yeah. We dont have jen or anything like that. So the name jen doesnt mean anything to you . You dont know a jen . You dont have an actress named jen . Uhhuh. Reporter so who was this mystery woman, jen . Why in the world would she arrange to meet Johnny Altinger here . In the very backyard garage an independent edmonton film crew was using as a studio. How odd . Especially since the movies producer direct yorMark Twitchell expressed exactly the same confusion as the police. He didnt get it either. The dots didnt connect. Mark twitchell didnt know johnny from adam and besides there was no indication johnny ever made it to the garage at all. The Close Friends were the ones who have come to the police, basically got nothing other than these emails. There was one thing, though, and it came from Mark Twitchell. He wondered, he said, if maybe somehow . But if someone was being fooled, who was it and why . Was all this just some big stunt, even a publicity stunt . Detective bill clark was thoroughly engaged by now. He had spent a career listening to criminals spin their stories. Maybe he could figure out if this twitchell guy was trying to play the cop somehow. He pulled the recording of the interview. I watch an interview, i listen to what the guy says but im looking at body language for signs of deceit. I remember coming out of that interview going this Mark Twitchell guy interviewed really well. It was good . There were no signs of deception. Hes free flowing with the information. Hes answering the questions logically. I dont see any, you know, looking away. I dont see any of the nervousness. Nothing. I see nothing. And then when police looked into twitchells Production Company express entertainment they encountered a perfectly legitimate company. More than that, actually. This was a promising effort to help edmonton way off here in northern alberta get some National Attention as a potential center of movie making. Mark twitchell was very good at drumming up attention and money from local investors like john pinson. He was a very sharp, bright young articulate entrepreneur. Exactly the kind of individual most of us are looking for. Reporter so he checked out. Hard working local boy in a city of hard working people. Good parents. Nice young wife. Sweet little daughter. On his way to becoming a celebrity here in edmonton. Detectives even got a look at the teaser film for twitchells next project, the 3. 5 million buddy comedy. Thats mark in the background playing the role of director even as he was the director. Sort of a hall of mirrors type story. A movie about a movie about making a movie or something. Fantasy and reality all mixed up somehow. Just to cover the bases police interviewed Mark Twitchells crew members and they vouched for him completely. And revealed that they all shared a passion for star wars. Thats mark there on the right wearing the white shirt. They loved the whole tale about the force, the dark side, so much that their first project together was a star wars fan film called secrets of the rebellion. Mark was wildly successful that time at drumming up local media coverage. Became kind of a big deal here in edmonton. We keep pretty good pace with lucas film when it comes to producing the films. It takes them three years from the time they start shooting to the time they finish post production to get one of their films wrapped up. Technically ive got until the summer of 2009 to get done. Reporter this was, no bones about it, a low budget production. But even so, twitchell was able to land one of the original star wars actors, jeremy bullic, who played the Bounty Hunter bobafet. That was enticement enough to get toronto based actor sean stohrer to sign on for a part. As soon as i found out i would be playing alongside him i was like great. Why not . Its a named actor. Reporter scifi is not stohrers thing though and once he got to edmonton he found the atmosphere on Mark Twitchells set a little too playful maybe. Unserious. At least for him. I remember one time he shoved the pillow up under his shirt and he said he looked like alfred hitchcock. Then he wore that for the rest of the day. Ridiculous. But everybody else thought it was great. Laughed because this was him and if you dont laugh at his joke, you know what i mean . Reporter yeah. Theres the alpha in the room and everybody flocks to them and reporter he was the alpha in the room. Thats what everybody had him as. Reporter which certainly fit marks reputation as a prankster and maybe you got to be if youre trying to start a movie business. Anyway, Mark Twitchell came off squeaky clean. His film company was respected as was he. And bill clark and the Edmonton Police back at square one by the look of things. What have we got . We got nothing. But soon this top cop would catch a big break. Detective says to me, this guy just told me he bought a red mazda off a guy. The missing mans car turns up. That are out there, and especially designed for sensitivity sufferers. Its different, theres nobody else out there that im aware of that has developed whitening for people with sensitivity in this way. Glad forceflex. Now Even Stronger to avoid rips and tears. Be happy, its glad. So come try the largest variety of lobster dishes of the year, like lobster lovers dream or new dueling lobster tails. Its a party on every plate, and youre invited. So come in while it lasts. S. Okay, well get out here. Bill clark is, he doesnt mind admitting it, an old school detective of the sort that seems to exist more on the big screen than the mean streets. You guys here last night . Reporter in fact, clark is such a throwback the younger guys on the force kid him. Its just a part of my life. I still have the drive. Im still excited about it. Almost every file somethings different. Reporter in 31 years on the Edmonton Police force, clark has seen murder take many forms. Has seen the shattering effect it has on family. Youre the one the family depends on, and i take that seriously. Ultimately thats in the back of your mind that if you dont speak for the family then, or the dead guy, who is going to . Reporter for clark, there is no greater satisfaction than bringing in a killer. Im a pit bull. I consider myself a pit bull. You get your case and get your teeth into it, were those a type personalities. We want to get the guy. We want to get this guy and put him away. Reporter but as for the Johnny Altinger case, this wasnt even a murder, at least not as far as anybody knew yet. So clark kept himself on a tight leash. He had yet to smell blood. You must have come to some point where you thought uhoh. Were thinking our next step is logically the garage. We got to step inside and have a close look. Reporter they applied for a search warrant and it was rejected. Its turned down. It gets turned down because were told we dont have a crime. We havent proven there is a crime committed. Reporter the next step seemed simple enough. Clark went to Mark Twitchell directly to see if hed give permission to search the garage. He goes yeah. I said ill need you to sign a consent form. No problem. Reporter they requisitioned the required form. One of the detectives hopped in the car, drove it over to marks place to get a signature. And then, the weirdest thing get a phone call from the detective. The detective says, you wont believe it, but this guy just told me he bought a red mazda off a guy. Reporter a red mazda . And didnt Johnny Altinger drive a red mazda . Wasnt it missing . Mark twitchell hadnt said anything about any red mazda when he came down to the Police Station and talked to that detective the night before. Said he forgot. Really . Why would he forget a thing like that . Of course you dont want tunnel vision. Big thing for homicide keep an open mind. I pulled myself back. Theres something fishy going on. Reporter clark invited twitchell to come down to the station for a meeting. 10 30 on a sunday night. And twitchell agreed. Everything you do now were analyzing. We call it the up arrow down arrow scenario. Reporter yep. Its an up arrow. Mr. Cooperative. Will come down and talk to us at 10 30 on a sunday night. An up arrow. Hes being cooperative. P red car. Mazda. Hasnt mentioned it. Big down arrow. Reporter big down arrow. Big down arrow. Reporter but the two arrows are about all clark had to work with. So as you know, mark, were just here trying to find this john fellow, john altinger. We got nothing. I dont know what happened to johnny. Reporter or when it happened whatever it was. Exactly. Reporter because once again as the interview proceeds the young film maker is the very picture of cooperation. He volunteers information, answers questions without hesitation or any apparent guile. His demeanor is expansive, even an untrained eye can see that twitchells body language is open, comfortable, in control. So they get to the story about the red mazda. He was approached he said just a few blocks from his rented garage by an agitated man. It was the night johnny disappeared. The man seemed desperate to get rid of his car, said mark. Offered to sell it for practically nothing. He goes, well, i shacked up with this really rich lady, like a sugar mama type of situation me and shes going to buy me a new car when we get back from the vacation were going to take. Im thinking okay. What is there, two tons of cocaine in the trunk . Im trying to figure out what the catch is here. Reporter apparently, said mark, there was no catch. Nothing wrong with the car. Except that it had a standard transmission, which he didnt know how to drive. So he left it parked in a friends driveway. Does he live close by or what . Yeah. He lives just like a couple blocks away. Reporter was it finally a break . The detective monitoring the interview sent a patrol car to check it out. Sure enough, there it was. Empty by the look of it. Nothing untoward about the car. Johnny is not in the car. Reporter meanwhile, auip h 2 Johnny Altinger no estaba ahi, room partly to regroup but also to see how mark would act when they left him alone. And if he was rattled, he certainly didnt show it. Here he calmly placed a call to well, i tried to answer some more of their questions and fill them in and everything like that and it turns out that the car is in fact belonging to this missing guy and that its a huge deal, so thats what this whole things about. Reporter what in heavens name was going on . Bill clark still didnt have a clue. Oh, but he might in a minute, bad cop. Theres absolutely no doubt in my mind that youre involved in the disappearance of john altinger. He might be involved, but what part was fact . And what was fantasy . cat vo 1 and were just getting started. avo new friskies cat concoctions. Four deliciously different flavor combinations, made for cats, by cats. Theres a hot new deal on Mcdonalds Mcpick 2 menu lemme get a mcpick 2. Now pick any two of your favorite classics for just 5 bucks. Mix n match. Share n savor. 2 for 5. Name your flavor choose any 2 iconic tastes, a big mac made with 100 beef, a flaky filetofish, seared quarter pounder with cheese or crispy 10piece chicken mcnuggets for just 5 bucks. Hurry in for an amazing 2 for 5 deal on the mcdonalds tastes you love. Bada ba ba ba brandois heaven in a jar. Thats because our ingredients come from. Farmers committed to responsibly sourced oils. Blended with ingredients like cagefree eggs. Mmm. Heaven. Real ingredients. Thats how were working to bring out the best. We rely on our courage. The courage that shows up when we need it. And when cancer is least expecting it. Give now to the american cancer society. Im my bargain detergent, ithift couldnt keep up. Ter. So i switched to tide pods. Theyre super concentrated. So i get a better clean. Voted 2016 product of the year. If its got to be clean, its got to be tide. Once i left the hospital after a dvt blood clot. What about my wife. What were building together. And could this happen again . I was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me . I spoke to my doctor and she told me about eliquis. Eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots and reduces the risk of them happening again. Not only does eliquis treat dvt and pe blood clots. But eliquis also had significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. Knowing eliquis had both. Turned around my thinking. Dont stop eliquis unless you doctor tells you to. Eliquis can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. If you had a spinal injection while on eliquis call your doctor right away if you have tingling, numbness, or muscle weakness. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. And it may take longer than usual for bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Eliquis treats dvt pe blood clots. Plus had less major bleeding. Both made switching to eliquis right for me. Ask your doctor if its right for you. Almost 4 00 a. M. Now, downtown edmonton. Film maker Mark Twitchell was sitting in an Interview Room at the Police Station talking to his wife on the phone, fading a little. The problem is im so tired and its so hard to remember things. Reporter outside the room detective bill clark watched twitchell, went over a few notes, prepared to switch tactics. Its already started. The games on. Me against him. I know it. Reporter he also knew he was quite sure of it that all evening Mark Twitchell had been handing him a whole load of nonsense and expected him to believe it. Also all evening as detective clark listened carefully and contemplated his up arrows and down arrows i agreed with everything he said. Like i didnt this wasnt the time of the interview to start pushing him. It wasnt the time to start confronting him. That would come later on. Reporter because one ofk7x those down arrows of bill clarks led to a particular conclusion. Mark twitchell thought bill clark was a dumb cop. Twitchell was trying to play him. While youre reading him, during that interview, he had been reading you. No doubt. Reporter he made some, probably had made some judgments about your ability as an interviewer. What did he think of you, do you think, during that interview . I think he didnt think i was that smart. I think he thought he was smarter than me. And i believe that he felt that anything he told us he could concoct to make us believe him. And of course there is only one proper response to that. I just let him go and then i take him back through it question and answer. Standard procedure. Just nail down the details now. Start nailing them down. Now im starting to see hes not remembering specific details. Lets go back to lunch. Youre at lunch. Where do you go from lunch . I dont remember. You dont know where you went for lunch . No. Reporter so now it was Early Morning. Theyd been at it for hours. They had taken a break. Theyd let Mark Twitchell sit by himself and, perhaps, stew a bit. Now the time had come for clark to play a different role. Weve done the good cop routine. Now my forte the bad cop is coming out. Your forte, this is what you like . This is what i like. What i relish. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that youre involved in the disappearance of john altinger. No doubt in my mind at all, mark. Why . Now im going to start with the hammering him with what i know. The problem is, i know very little. Reporter but now that it was perfectly clear to Mark Twitchell that he was a suspect in a disappearance and maybe a murder, his easy camaraderie seemed to shrivel. His eyes glazed with something that looked like fear. Was he truly innocent . Or was Something Else going on, something more in keeping with his role as a story teller . Why cant you give me your version of events that night . Because im scared. Reporter once as the night dragged on twitchell mumbled something about reality seeming more like some sort of fantasy. I just feel like im in the [ muted ] Twilight Zone right now. Reporter in the face of all of detective clarks accusations Mark Twitchell never waivered. For nearly four hours he answered clarks questions always polite, apparently helpful. Did not so much as ask for a lawyer. So by the end of the night i got nothing. I got no evidence. My gut instinct at that time is this guy is involved. Hes involved up to his neck in this. What exactly hes done to him i dont know yet but im going to find out. Reporter finally, at daybreak, Mark Twitchell let clark know hed had enough. Am i being charged . Not yet. Am i free to go . Yep. Then i will. Okay. And then as bill clark escorted Mark Twitchell out of the building and into the Early Morning dark, he upped the ante a little. Told twitchell he was seizing his car. And then its like whoa. Almost stopped. Reporter yeah. Kind of pulled back. He goes, well, i need to get something out of it. I says, youre getting nothing. Im taking that car. Reporter and it was then as clark approached twitchells car to take it to the impound yard, that he noticed marks unusual license plate personalized. Dark jedi. Police find witnesses who saw something that seemed like a horror movie. I have never in my life felt fear like that. What body aches . What knee pain . What sore elbow . Advil liquigels make pain a distant memory nothing works faster stronger or longer what pain . Advil. Lois pricese. [ifrom Grocery Outlet. Hi, its. The rest of us hey there. Hi hey. Loifor over 60 years now, Grocery Outlet has been selling the brands you know and love, for up to 60 less than what youd pay at Traditional Grocery stores. And check this out. Announcer its time again for our amazing wine sale right now, save 5080 on all our wines over 150 to choose from Grocery Outlet bargain market bargain market. Now its stuck in my head. Hush my darling. Dont fear my darling. The lion sleeps tonight. [snoring. ] hush my darling. [snoring. ] dont fear my darling. The lion sleeps tonight. [snoring. ] take the roar out of snore. Yet another innovation only at a sleep number store. Edmonton homicide detective bill clark, along with other members of the Edmonton Police service felt a little like alice in the rabbit hole. Their missing man Johnny Altinger had vanished without a trace. And there were whispers his disappearance could be part of some publicity stunt. Their only suspect was an aspiring movie producer story teller who stood up to a bill clark grilling with his manners intact even though by this time clark couldnt shake the gut feeling that this movie director was one very bad guy. I was thinking he filmed whatever he had done to johnny. Im thinking he killed him and filmed the murder. Reporter so as police searched his car and home and garage they had an idea they might find videotape of a murder. Instead what they discovered was an affair. Twitchell had a girlfriend. When his wife found out about that, she kicked him out. Twitchell seemed at least to the outside world unperturbed and instead of falling apart simply retreated to his childhood home, moved in with his parents. So clark paid twitchells dad and mom a visit. Just struck me as a parent that her son does nothing wrong whereas the father wanted to listen to me. He wanted to hear what i had to say, and he listened. But he got overridden. Reporter they set up a Surveillance Team 24hour watch to keep an eye on the house and twitchell. But his behavior was anything but suspicious. He went on about his business, took meetings with investors about his day players movie project. He even picked up a 35,000 check from financial backer john pinson. The Mark Twitchell i was dealing with was articulate, in control, running his project the way you would expect any entrepreneur to be running their project. Reporter and in detective clarks world of up arrows and down ar]x1q e was one more huge up arrow in twitchells favor. Motive. That is to say the lack of one. There was no earthly reason for twitchell to kill altinger. There was no love triangle. There was no rivalry. There was no robbery. And to put it more simply, twitchell was not a criminal. Didnt have a record. Had never even been arrested. Why would a young, married father kill a perfect stranger . So besides twitchell, police also focused their attention on this quiet suburban neighborhood around twitchells rented garage studio and where altinger may have gone to see a woman he met online. They went door to door. Had anyone seen Johnny Altinger or his car or anything suspicious . They found this couple who told a story that seemed almost lifted from a horror movie. I have never in my life felt fear like that. Reporter these two, their names are marisa and trevor, were out for an even;jau oll, when they stepped through the looking glass. It happened when a young man came stumbling out of this alley and collapsed in front of them. He was on the ground and it was just an instant bad feeling. He looked at me and said im being robbed. Can you help me . Reporter then as if on cue another man appeared in pursuit. Then as i looked up, the attacker almost actually ran into me. Reporter the attacker was wearing a dark, hooded sweat shirt, and a hockey mask. Its like every nightmare you had as a child after watching a scary movie. Reporter sure. Every nightmare youve ever had, all of a sudden its right here. Reporter mind you, this was no bewitching hour. It was 7 30. An early autumn sun had just begun to take on that honey glow of a long northern evening. Neighborhood kids were still straggling home from soccer lo practice. Was it believable to you . Well, yes and no, because the way that he fell, to me looked staged. Get us to stop so they could rob us. We thought it was a setup for us. Reporter so you didnt know whether he was going to assault you. Exactly. Reporter or whether he was running from that guy for real. Exactly. Reporter then, said trevor and marisa, the masked man retreated into the alley to this garage. Thats where he stood. He stood there on guard like he was protecting something. I was like, im getting out of here right now. Reporter trevor and marisa left the man on the ground pleading for help, like some seasoned method actor, and ran from their walkon role in this twilight episode. When they got home, they called the police. Squad cars prowled the streets as the autumn light angled toward the horizon. But in that soft after supper quiet, nothing seemed out of place. Nothing amiss. That was that. Until weeks later, when police came back here looking for Johnny Altinger and wondered, was the guy in the alley actually johnny, not an actor . Was he a real victim . One of the detectives went downtown to check on the report that was taken from trevor and marisa, and it didnt fit. That call was taken a week before johnny disappeared. Besides, no victim ever came forward. No one claimed to have been attacked by a masked man. The whole thing sounded almost like, well, a scene from a movie. Or just maybe a tv show about a serial killer. What attracted to you dexter . How he was able to explore that dark side, rationalize that its okay to kill somebody. D of, expensive camera . [police car siren] why dont you come down from there, sir . You got it why doesnt my phone work after i pour this expensive champagne all over it . How amy i sposed to show people how rich and carefree i am . Why did i have to wait so long in this commercial to do a celebrity sports person cameo . [scoreboard buzzer] why dont i ever get asked to be the spokesperson in the commercial . Ha, ha. Good question. Introducing the only waterresistant, fast, wirelesscharging, best camera having, memory expandable, pay almost anywhere, Samsung Galaxy s7 edge. Vr experience ended. Man, i would have made a great spokesperson. The new doeverything galaxy s7 edge. To you, theyre more than just a pet. So protect them with k9 advantix ii. It kills fleas, ticks and mosquitoes. K9 advantix ii. For the love of dog. Janes always on the move. Luckily her light fit protein smoothie can keep up with her. Packed with 12grams of protein and no added sugar. So she can watch her calories and where shes going. Light fit feel free to enjoy. At olive gardene is back choose one delicious entree at our place and another for yours starting at 12. 99 may all your tomorrows be as delicious as today olive garden for every trip taken, theres a story waiting to be told. Now imagine 500 trips, to 500 cities. Oh, the stories by those who want a downtown stop, and nonstop productivity. By dreamers and adventurers. The curious and the carefree. See where the train can take you. Save up to 25 with amtrak saver fares. Strange things come to light under the northern sun especially with the aid of a search warrant. As bill clark and his colleagues closed in on movie maker Mark Twitchell they seized his office computer, found it in his house. On the computers hard drive, they found this video. Looked almost like a movie. Ah reporter a horror movie. No, it wasnt a snuff film. It wasnt Johnny Altingers murder caught on tape. It was raw footage of one of twitchells tease films. The one he told the detective about the first time he talked to him. Its a suspense thriller. Actually we did it, its a short film. The total run time is eight or nine minutes. Reporter house of cards is what twitchell was calling it. The promotional film, get enough people talking about this and he might persuade some investor to ante up the money for a feature length film. In house of cards a killer poses online as a flirtatious woman to entrap his victim. In this scene its a philandering husband who tells his wife hes heading off to the gym. Well, im off. Reporter but once he arrives at the rendezvous site the victim is dropped with a stun baton, murdered, then cut up into little bits. Imagine a cross between friday the 13th and dexter. The victim in this teaser version was played by edmonton comedian Chris Hayward. You guys have been a great audience. Thank you very much. Reporter so police decided to have a little chat with mr. Hayward. But when they showed up at his door, hayward, no slouch when it came to the entertainment business, thought it was a prank of some sort. Ive worked in reality television. It was one of the first things i got into television on. They throw you curveballs and have writers and i didnt know. I thought somebody is making this up. This cant be true. This is not a real story. Reporter police also tracked down toronto actor robert barnsly, who played the starring role in house of cards. That of the deranged, masked murderer. I was thinking, great. Short film. I like the idea of this. It sounds interesting. And of course i wanted to try to be the killer. I wanted to be the bad guy. Reporter Mark Twitchell . Seemed like a very normal guy i actually rather enjoyed doing it. I was thinking to myself, did i just think that i could do this and make it believable . Reporter which, said barnsly, was exactly what director twitchell seemed to want. I mean, there was a point where i had to stab the dummie through the chest with the samurai sword. And would be sitting behind the chair and leaning in and say, okay. Listen. When youre turning the blade, grit your teeth and really show that youre enjoying it, you know. Reporter wait a minute. Was this all about enjoying some fantasy game, pretending to be evil . Detectives surfed around twitchells computer accounts and discovered a facebook relationship that was all about pretending. At about the time he started filming house of cards twitchell friended an animal trainer and aspiring film maker in rural ohio. A woman named rene wary. So an edmonton detective flew all the way to cleveland to question her where she, quite up front about it, told about clicking on an intriguing facebook profile, Dexter Morgan. There was a picture of michael c. Hall. He is the actor that portrays Dexter Morgan on showtime. Reporter did you think you were friending the actor himself . Oh, sure. You know. Reporter what attracted you to dexter . You know, what i love about the show and the books is how he was able to explore that dark side and rationalize that its okay to kill somebody because this person deserved it in a way. We flirted back and forth and then i kept asking him, who are you really . Tell me who you are. Because i want to see the man behind the mask. Finally renes facebook friend relented. No, he wasnt actor michael c. Hall he admitted. His name was Mark Twitchell. Once he told me who he was i checked him out. I did a lot of Research Online and find out he was legitimate and up and coming. Reporter for rene, the would be film maker, it seemed like and my ideas. And how wed be able to work very well together. Reporter soon, she was intoxicated by this online collaboration. And then, wonder of wonders, he offered her work on his next project, a feature like version of his short film house of cards. Cameras rolling. Reporter the film he told her about a serial killer. We had talked about our hypotheticals of how would you kill somebody and get away with it. Reporter what did he want to do . He told me you do it like dexter. Dexter shows you how to do it all the time. Reporter dark . Oh, yes. But all in fun of course. Like twitchells playful advice on eliminating in dexter like fashion one of renes rivals in romance. With both her hands totally wrapped in duct tape, free one arm, and slit the wrist. A hunters game processing kit comes with everything you would need to cut the body into nice, manageable pieces. Reporter disturbing . Well, yes. But remember, all pretense. But then a couple weeks later, this is what she told the police, something happened. Strange and unsettling. We would write back and forth every day. Reporter there was a weekend long pause in their play talk about dexter, the dark side. Not a single email from her friend Mark Twitchell. Then monday came. And with it an apology. Ive also had something keeping me busy, he wrote. Im really concerned about telling anyone because of the implications. Suffice it to say i crossed the line on friday and i liked it. Crossed the line . What did that mean . And was it all part of an elaborate hoax . I thought you know what . This is a publicity stunt gone bad. Staged fantasy . Or something truly terrifying . 4 the brave and every boy scout 4 the fun of it, cause you know you can 4 by 4 more air, more sea, more land 4 by 4 doin it yourself cuz you want it done right 4 by 4 the top down stars keep ya up at night 4 stones that were meant to be turned 4 the dares and the thrills that youve earned 4 by 4 conquest, 4 by 4 the dreams 4 by 4 waking up and crossing those streams 4 by 4 every one of our seventyfive years 4 by 4 the wave thats how we say cheers thats how we live 4 by 4ever the ouit almost feels like from were inside the house. Not that ive been in there. Or have i . Now get this charbroil® 4burner gas grill for only 179 at lowes. It was halloween in edmonton, canada. Halloween, a highlight in most any childs fantasy calendar, the night to be the terrible creature she or he could never really be. Mark twitchell loved halloween, would spend weeks, months actually stitching together fantastical getups, outlandish costumes like the ones crafted for his fan film secrets of the rebellion. This year, 2008, just weeks after his wife kicked him out and the cops began tailing him everywhere, he decided to be iron man. Built the costume in his parents garage. But on the very witching afternoon mere hours from his planned grand entrance to a gala Halloween Party as he was walking to a local coffee house to meet with potential movie investors, he was thrown to the ground by men wearing their own Mark Twitchell was handcuffed, taken into custody, and charged with the murder of Johnny Altinger. That, of course, made big headlines. Police even held a press conference to announce the arrest. Bit. We have a lot of information that suggests he definitely idolizes dexter. Reporter whatever that meant. One of the first things we did in the newsroom was went to Mark Twitchells facebook page. Reporter steve was a Crime Reporter for the edmonton journal. He had a post there where he said Mark Twitchell has way too much in common with Dexter Morgan. This idea there is a man out there attacking strangers, totally innocent victims, its almost myth, something built up by hollywood. It didnt seem like it could be real. Reporter so here in edmonton, the question began to circulate. Had the cops been played by a clever promoter . Mark twitchell is known as a prankster. A lot of people thought this was a hoax. You almost wonder whether or not he was doing it as a publicity stunt. I thought, you know what . This is a publicity stunt gone bad. What better way to start a movie off than to have your name on the tip of everybodys tongue . Reporter exactly. So maybe bill clark and the rest of the Edmonton Police force would wind up with red faces and not just from the cold. Except there was one little bit of news police did not announce when they searched twitchells car they found a laptop. And on the hard drive of that lap top a very smart detective found a deleted temporary file. A document about 40 pages long. Could be described as a diary. Maybe a far fetched novel. Or a treatment for a dexter episode. It was called sk confessions and it was the first person account written from the perspective of an aspiring serial killer. I remember reading this the first day when they brought it down. I go, holy mackerel. This tells us everything. Reporter except the guy is a professional story teller who tells, you know, movies. Theyre not real. Werent you a little bit afraid that you might be about to be drawn into a kind of a rabbit hole here that your that was something that might not be true or might be true, might be fantasy . Absolutely. We had huge discussions in the office about this. Reporter because sk confessions read more like a work of fiction, like a story that couldnt possibly be true. Seemed like a hoax right from the opening paragraph. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer. I dont remember the exact place and time it was that i decided to become a serial killer. But i remember the sensation that hit me when i committed to the decision. It was a rush of pure euphoria. There was something about urgently exploring my dark side that greatly appealed to me. Reporter the author of sk confessions seemed inspired by the tv show dexter. Im a huge fan of the showtime series dexter. As you may have guessed if you are at all familiar with the show. Reporter and it appears this particular scene played an Important Role in the authors life. Check out this brain wave. This one belonged to a serial killer executed last month. Why are you showing me this . Because look. Its exactly the same as your brain, dex. Reporter i watched an episode of dexter where the flashback showed his father showing him ct scans between the human brains. He identified the differences between a serial killers brain and a normal persons brain. Up until i saw that, i was convinced that what i was was my own decision, my own path. Now i truly wondered if i had little choice at all and if genetics play a bigger role than i thought. I knew i was a psychopath rather than a sociopath because i had the perfect upbringing and no history of abuse, violence, or trauma. Reporter but in sk confessions the violence is graphic. The description for example of how the killer dispatches victims with a metal pipe and hunting knife. I thrust it in his gut. His reaction was pure hollywood. The lurch forward with the grunt was dead on tv movie of the week. The little bit i knew at that time and the things we had found i thought it was true. Reporter cops can have hunches, think what they want, but without evidence those hunches rarely hold up in court. Sk confessions could just as well be a make believe story. Might not even be written by twitchell. It could as easily have been downloaded from the internet. And so investigators started going through sk confessions line by line to see if they could sort out fact from fiction and, indeed, police found details in this tale that lined up with reality. The writer in his first person accouqx story telling, about how this dumb cop didnt realize he had just killed a guy and he was now going out and celebrating, having sex with his girlfriend. Now you could call that cop. Thats right. That cop remembered him because he had a special license plate dark jedi, and it came right back. He knew the conversation he had with him, and it was basically word for word what that story, that diary told us. It was exactly what the sheriff told us. Reporter but there was a key part of the story that couldnt be verified. A detail passage that goes on for pages about an earlier attack. That victim got away. That part of the story read like a direct lift from the house of cards script where the victim is tasered by a man wearing a hockey mask and hood. You know, that is a big part to prove if its true or not. Reporter sure. It was a huge part. Reporter surely if somebody had been attacked that way you would have heard about it. Exactly. Wed expect someone to come forward but we had nothing. No call. No nothing that even matched, similarity. Reporter so this seemed to be one part of the story that just didnt make sense. So police lofted a hail mary pass. They went publvp maybe that person didnt even exist. But they put it out there. And waited. But not for long. Because that very evening a lonely casino Security Officer named Gilles Tetreault was puttering around on his computer and saw the newspaper article online. The police appeal. And felt the blood drain from his face. That person . Was him. Like oh, my god thats the same hockey mask i saw, that that guy was wearing. Reporter the hockey mask. The hockey mask. I started reading the story. Im like oh, my god. Someone just got killed. Reporter now the terrifying evening, the horror, embarrassment, came crashing back into his head. It was he, Gilles Tetreault, who so frightened that couple out for a stroll, trevor and marisa. He picked up the phone and before long found himself in a little room with detective bill clark. And in my career it was probably the most spellbinding interview ive ever had with a witness. Reporter and now . Youre about to hear that story firsthand. This horror story really happened. Its like life flashed before my eyes, like oh my god, my family is never going to see me again. Seared quarter pounder with cheese or crispy 10piece chicken mcnuggets for just 5 bucks. Hurry in for an amazing 2 for 5 deal on the mcdonalds tastes you love. Bada ba ba ba frequent heartburn brand in america. I hope you like it spicy get complete protection with the purple pill. The new leader in frequent heartburn. Thats nexium level protection. When Gilles Tetreault joined the strange developing horror movie plot up in edmonton, canada. He was a man with a broken heart. Lonely in a new city. Without the wife who had left him for another life. So when he came across the truly lovely, intelligent woman on an Online Dating site and she seemed to like him, well, who could resist . Reporter sheena was her name. She said, how about dinner and a movie . Then she started making these kind of excuses that i couldnt pick her up at her front door. Reporter so tetreaults date asked him to park in an alley, come through a back entrance through a detached garage. And shed leave the garage door open for me. Id go through the garage to the other side, get into the yard, and go knock on the back door to pick her up. The door was high enough that i didnt have to crawl under. I just had to squat upped. Reporter so now hopeful, unsuspecting, gilles walked through the garage toward this door that leads to the back patio. And i touched the knob to open the door and all of a sudden, somebody attacked me from behind. I turned back to look to see whats going on. And thats when all of a sudden i see this man wearing this black and gold hockey mask. This guy was much bigger than me. Prodding me with this stun gun. Reporter at first in his shock gilles couldnt tell what it was, this stinging at the back of his neck. But listen to this from sk confessions. Pressing the baton across the back of his neck, pulled the trigger. It shocked and jumped but did little more than merely alert the bastard to what was really going on. So i try to make a run for it. Thats when he actually pulled out a gun. I pointed it straight at him and all of a sudden he took me seriously. His eyes wide. Then he yelled, get down on the ground, put your face down, close your eyes, and put your hands in the back. I dont know where he had it but he took out duct tape and ripped off a piece. Thats when he covered my eyes with it. Reporter just about then, i actually started tearing up and it was like life flashed before my eyes. And it was quite emotional, like oh, my god. My family is never going to see me again. I never told anyone where i was going that day. And all of a sudden it comes towards the back of me by my legs. I hear his belt jiggling. What gilles actually heard was the sound of handcuffs as they neared his wrists and said he felt the attacker was undoing his belt. I immediately thought, hes going to rape me. So im like, you know what . I better fight for my life. I said, that id rather die my way than his way. I knew hes going to pull the gun out again. Reporter yeah. And, you know what . If it kills me, it kills me. So i get up and rip off the duct tape and i yell at him. I said, i cant do this. Im not going down like this. He started yelling at me. Get back down on the ground. Back down on the ground. I just started for the gun, grabbed the end of it, and pushed it away from my body. He got back to his feet having removed the duct tape. When i pointed the gun at him again, he grabbed it. It was the best feeling i ever felt in my life because i felt plastic when i grabbed it. Immediately. You suddenly realized. It was a fake gun. I think i might have seen a gleam in him that indicated he felt the guns construction and realized it was not real. I grabbed him by the arms. Were kind of struggling all over the garage. Reporter according to sk confessions gilles by fighting q the story way off script. Overestimating the stun baton is a mistake i would not repeat. I should have just pounded him in the back of the head while he was down until he lay unconscious on the floor. I tried to kick him. But as i did that, he saw me going to do that, so he actually went and swiped my leg and i almost fell down. And i almost lost my shoe. And im thinking, wow. I cant get down, if i get down on the ground, im reporter youre cooked. Yeah. Exactly. Reporter his adrenalin had been pumping so ferociously he was quite unaware of how the shocks from the stun baton had zapped his strength. My muscles just couldnt move and i was just so weak. Well, he goes forward and tries to head butt me. I delivered a head butt to his face and he broke free again. Thats when he says, because you didnt cooperate, this is the way it has to be. And then he starts punching me in the head. Reporter tetreault stumbled backward with every blow closer and closer to the open garage door. Im letting him punch me. He punches me again. And he grabs my jacket. So then i slipped out of my jacket. Rolled underneath the garage door. And finally made it out of that garage. So i start to try to run and all of a sudden it it was like my legs were paralyzed and i just couldnt move. And i just fell right on my face. Reporter like being in a nightmare where you cant get away from the monster. Yeah. Then i just start crawling away on this unpaved driveway. Surely now if he comes back under that garage after me, and grabs my legs, and he starts dragging me back. Reporter oh, my god. Im thinking oh, my god i dont know how im going to get away again. Im like, god, no. I have nothing left. There is nothing else i can do. I grabbed him by the leg as if to drag him back into the garage caveman style. But my energy was depleting and the human survival instinct is one of the most powerful forces on earth. And so he drags me back and throws me back into the garage. Under the door. Im thinking, gee, he doesnt have a hold on me anymore. So im like, this is my chance. I can maybe get away again. And then i roll back underneath the garage door. I got back up and in my head i was like, there is no way i am not running this time. Reporter legs carry me. Yep. Reporter terrified, exhausted, Gilles Tetreault ran for just 30 or 40 feet to this pedestrian path. And thats when he collapsed. In front of trevor and marisa. I look up and all of a sudden i see a couple walking their dog. And i couldnt really talk. All i could say was, theres a man after me. Hes trying to mug me. Please help me. And they looked stunned. They didnt know what was going on. And to me it felt like it was taking the masked man forever to come after me. But sure enough, he came running after me. He comes toward me. Im close to the coupqj n h 1 i tell them, hey, thats the man. Then as i looked up the into me. A couple on an evening stroll saw me coming after him sporting a deer in the headlight look that can only be described as a total lack of comprehension. Once he saw the couple there he said, hey, come on, frank. The guy in the mask was pretending they were friends. Then he pretends like hes going to lift the mask up like were playing. But he doesnt. And then he turns around. And he starts walking back to the garage. I stared back at them through my mask for half a moment and then headed back for the cover of my lair. Reporter it was only once he arrived safe at home that gilles tried to put it all together. But how . Who was that man behind the mask . Why had he been attacked . I decided you know what . I need to go back on to that Online Dating website. I want to get as much information as i can. Reporter sure. So i can give this to police. And so i go back on and all of a sudden everything was gone. Her profile was gone. All of the sent and received messages that i got from that person were all gone. Reporter what is it like to be sitting alone in your apartment in front of your computer with that realization in your head . It felt almost ashamed. It was like, i cant believe i got duped by this woman, like, i just want to put this behind me. I just dont want to think about it. I want to move on. Reporter and did not call the police. No. I didnt. Maybe it was the fear in his eyes that told me deep down he wouldnt report the incident. I was facing him there with the gun. Reporter but now, a month after his journey into the Twilight Zone, Gilles Tetreault was giving bill clark a videotape blow by blow account of the assault. And there is no doubt in my mind he is being so truthful. Reporter the cops had real evidence that sk confessions was all true except it was not quite complete. It was a story without an end. The part weve never had, we never had johnny. That is Johnny Altinger, the victim who it seemed did not escape from the suburban garage. Still no sign of him. There was one more chapter, in which the killer leaves a clue. Impossible to resist. Cops take Mark Twitchell on an incredible journey of where something evil may have happened. Here we are at the killing garage. Look familiar, mark . Im lucky to get through a shift without a disaster. My bargain detergent, it couldnt keep up. So i switched to tide pods. Theyre super concentrated. So i get a better clean. Voted 2016 product of the year. If its got to be clean, its got to be tide. Are you powered by protein . We are. Milk has 8 grams to help give you energy to unleash your potential. Start every day with milks protein and milk life. Wewe. Get. Angry. So cancer, youve got two options. Get out of the way or get rolled over. Give now to the american cancer society. Ii cant believe its made with real, simple ingredients. Ter. I cant believe. Were on a whale. I cant believe my role isnt bigger. Real ingredients. Unbelievable taste. Enjoy i cant believe its not butter Better Things than for rheumatoid arthritis. Before you and your rheumatologist move to a biologic, ask if xeljanz is right for you. Xeljanz is a small pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. Xeljanz can reduce joint pain and swelling in as little as two weeks, and help stop further joint damage. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma, and other cancers have happened. Dont start xeljanz if you have an infection. Tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts, and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. Your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common, and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Xeljanz can reduce the symptoms of ra, even without methotrexate. Ask your rheumatologist about xeljanz. Mark twitchell the wouldbe movie director in edmonton, canada, loved, loved the tv show dexter. He was so taken with the whole idea of it that he posted this online ad in an attempt to sell the script for his house of cards short film as if it were an original dexter episode. In fact, the story on twitchells computer, the one called sk confessions, is a lot like the episode of the tv show about the avenging psychopath. Now here in twitchells rented garage, police found what looked for all the world like a kill room. There was plastic sheeting in here, an autopsy table, all matching the careful egyptians descriptions in sk confessions. What the killer couldnt learn from dexter, though, was how to dispose of the body. The tv dexter after all lives in miami, dumps his victims in the atlantic. But edmonton out here in the middle of thousands of square miles of farm land and oil fields is many hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. And that fact seems to have stymied the sk killer who apparently had no idea how to get rid of his victims remains. Perhaps it never occurred to him to put the body in a trunk of a car and drive it out past the city limits and bury it behind some old abandoned barn. So according to sk confessions he tried burning them but that didnt work. So he thought about throwing them in the Saskatchewan River that runs through town but was afraid someone would see him. So he finally decided to toss them down one of edmontons thousands of storm drains. The diary had got to a point that he talked about dumping the body in a sewer and then it ended. Reporter by this time clark certainly believed the diary was true. All of it. But without a body in a case as bizarre as this one how could any jury be sure important parts of this sk confessions werent just some fantasy from the dark side . So clark confronted twitchell with the evidence against him, hoping he would confess. Ill make an interesting comment. This reminds me of dexter, too. Kill room. Clean sweep. You were referring to your garage as a kill room. Your garage was the kill room. The table is the kill table. Its undoubtedly where you carved him up. Im going to show you that later but all the blood seeps right underneath. It all does dna matching. It goes right, you know, when i say that show dexter, youve seen that show dexter. This is all modeled after dexter. You know that, mark. Eerily, you kind of look like the guy. I look at that picture. I saw that one on your website and you guys kind of even look the same. The big thing there though is he kills people who need killing. Like he kills these guys that get off in court. You know, all the guys that get off on technicalities. He kills people that need killing. The difference here was, you killed a guy who really was no harm to society at all. But from twitchell, no response at all. The next day, clark and another detective took twitchell out of jail and drove him around edmonton hoping hed give up some information. What was his demeanor like . Defiant. We just took him for a drive and said youre going to show us where the body is, where johnny is. And drove right here. Parked right in front of his parents house. Reporter after that, Mark Twitchell was taken to the place that for a brief moment was the center of his life. So here we are back at the killing garage. The dexter garage. Look familiar, mark . We parked right on top of the sewer where you dumped the body . Jog your memory. As to where you, which sewer you put this guy down. Reporter clark even took twitchell to the back of the garage, the suspected crime scene, hoping it would trigger some level of remorse. Bring back any memory . You want to tell us where the body is now, get this over with, lets go. Reporter back in the car, another detective heard off camera starts working on twitchell. You humiliate your victim, knock him over the head, beat the [ bleep ] out of him, chop him up, carve him up. This pales in comparison. But you cant take it. Reporter but twitchell said nothing, at least not in person. He had certainly said plenty in sk confessions if, in fact, he was the author, but the document was incomplete, ending in a jumble of unrecoverable computer c . E. Were going to the computer guys, come on. You got toull up more. Were right to the point that he dumped the body and we dont know the location. Reporter so the detectives did a slow, methodical search through the desktop computer found in twitchells home. And it paid off. On that computer once deleted but now found was yet another version of sk confessions with a few additional tantalizing paragraphs describing the location of the victims remains. He talks about a specific sewer. He talks about how its off an alley. Its in a grassy area. Its an older neighborhood. He talks about telephone poles in this alley. And only certain neighborhoods up here have telephone poles, the older ones. Reporter thats about the time detective bill clark became a man obsessed. We were pulling Manhole Covers off. Id be out with a flashlight looking down. Cant see nothing. If it was really nothing you couldnt see down wed call the city crews in. Reporter nothing. Enough to make a person doubt his own sanity. Until Police Received a map that broke the case wide open. Whered you find the body . Right down there. Who gave them that map, and why . All this and 50 off iphone 6s on the fastest network. Plus, try us out for 30 days. If youre not satisfied, well refund your money. Dont let dust and allergies get and lifes beautiful moments. With flonase allergy relief, they wont. Most allergy pills only control one inflammatory substance. Flonase controls six. And six is greater than one. Flonase changes everything. The yogurt made from your milk, is delicious. Mmmm, yoplait. Lois pricese. [ifrom Grocery Outlet. Hi, its. The rest of us hey there. Hi hey. Loifor over 60 years now, Grocery Outlet has been selling the brands you know and love, for up to 60 less than what youd pay at Traditional Grocery stores. And check this out. Announcer its time again for our amazing wine sale right now, save 5080 on all our wines over 150 to choose from Grocery Outlet bargain market bargain market. Now its stuck in my head. Bill clark was one deeply frustrated detective. For months he had been a man obsessed, peering into the sewers of edmonton in a vain search for the missing johnny and then after a year and a half a call from the city jail. An inmate wanted to talk to detectives. His name . Mark twitchell. And without any explanation, he handed over a printout of this google map. At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note. Location of john altingers remains. If you can believe that it was one block south of his parents house in that alley. Reporter this is the alley behind the twitchell home. It matched perfectly with the description from sk confessions and in fact this area had been searched by police a year and a half earlier. They actually pulled all these sewers, all the covers. Pulled them off. They had crews go down, search each one. They found nothing. They did this whole block in this area here and sent cameras down the line where they go down the lines and snake them down and having a look. They found nothing. Nothing. Reporter where did they stop . They stopped about where you and i are standing right here on 130th avenue. Reporter so a year and a half later, where did you find the body . Right down there. Five telephone poles down on the lefthand side of this alley a half block from where we stopped. Reporter this was Johnny Altingers tomb. You could see a little piece of torso and pelvis. Reporter probably thought it would all get washed away. I think he thought it would just deteriorate to a point that it would be unidentifiable or no one would ever look, right . No one would ever look. Because they wouldnt find the sk confessions. Thats right. No one would ever look. Reporter but why just weeks before his murder trial was set to begin did Mark Twitchell give up Johnny Altingers body . Must have been a reason. Because of all the publicity the case generated, the judge slapped a gag order on the press, the police, everybody. Which is why on the first day of the trial, the disclosure that altingers body had been uncovered catches everyone totally by surprise. Reporter former Crime Reporter steve littleviewan has written a book about the twitchell case, the devils cinema. Doesnt get more explosive than that. That was all new information that no one had heard of before. Reporter and the trial only got more bizarre as the prosecution then unveiled for the first time sk confessions. Sitting in that room, he said, became a journey deep into the wilderness of a mind of darkness. Horrid, horrid details were written down. No detail was untold within this document. It sounds like fiction like a script but when you take a step back and realize this is a real person he is talking about, a real man who has been murdered. Reporter but was Johnny Altinger murdered . Well, twitchell certainly admitted he dumped johnnys remains down this storm drain. He never said he murdered him. Never even admitted he was the author of sk confessions. So detectives knew they would need more than this document to get a conviction. So they quietly built a case on csi basics. Take twitchells garage for instance. This is what it looked like during the normal light of day. Hoto taken from l light of day. The same angle minutes later once the floor was sprayed with luminol, the chemical that makes blood glow. Huge spots in the garage which would indicate a large pooling of blood. They found a piece of a human tooth in the garage. We found blood spatter all along the walls. The garage doors. Hundreds of spots of splatter where an obvious beating had taken place. Reporter also in the garage . Csi investigators found this big game processing kit. A kit hunters would take out in the bush to cut up a moose or whatever theyve killed to bring him out. This is what he used and every single tool in that kit had our victims dna on it. Reporter in twitchells car, police found other hard evidence. We find a knife in there. A knife with blood on it. Reporter visible blood . Visible blood on that knife. That blood matches up to Johnny Altinger. He kept everything. This guy was meticulous. He kept receipts. Wrote everything down. Reporter after the presentation of the hard evidence, twitchells friends and coworkers were called to testify. One of the first was the actor who played the victim in house of cards Chris Hayward on his way to court that morning he worried what would happen if twitchell was acquitted. If he gets out i dont know. I feel like hell probably kill me. Reporter chris wasnt alone in his worry. Ren hxju ju ahusettled too the day she testified but for another reason all together. I didnt want to feel judged. Reporter judged because i have dark thoughts and i shared them and with a serial killer. Reporter Johnny Altingers friend debra tightrope testified. It was the first time she had gotten a clear look at Mark Twitchell. He seemed like a normal person, average person off the street. Thats what disturbed me. Reporter twitchell remained stone faced even when his own wife took the stand. Shes crying through all of this. Mark twitchells reaction was nearly blank. Reporter but when this video was shown in court during bill clarks testimony, twitchell came unraveled. He starts to cry. The tears are just streaming down his face and hes getting hysterical. His chest is heaving. The judge actually recognizes it, he took a break and he couldnt get out of the room fast enough. When he comes back after the break Mark Twitchell is no better. He is still very upset and hes crying. He turns around and faces detective clark and he starts talking. He said im sorry for lying to you. This is extraordinary. Ive never had an accused turn around and Start Talking to one of the primary investigators in the middle of their own murder trial. But this was far from the strangest moment of the trial. That came in the case for the defense when the attorney called but one witness, Mark Twitchell. Reporter the room was packed. There waentd a single seat. There wasnt a single seat. Everyone was on the edge of their seat wondering what is this guy going to say . Now twitchell finally had an audience to hear his story. One he had been waiting two and a half years to tell. Telling fact from fiction, but now it would be a jurys job. Silky vanilla bean ice cream rich caramel sauce all covered in thick chocolate. Discover magnum, double dipped for Double Chocolate pleasure. At olive gardene is back choose one delicious entree at our place and another for yours starting at 12. 99 may all your tomorrows be as delicious as today olive garden when my doctor prescribedbad, medicationan opioid. It really helped but it came with some baggage opioidinduced constipationoic. Sooo awkward. You sound like youre ready for the movantalk opioids block pain signals. But they can also block activity in the bowel, causing constipation. Movantik can help reduce constipation caused by Opioid Pain Medications. Do not take movantik if you have a bowel blockage or a history of them. Serious side effects may include a tear in your stomach or intestine. And can also include symptoms of opioid withdrawal. Common side effects include stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, gas, vomiting, and headache. Tell your doctor about any side effects and about medicines you take as movantik may interact with them causing side effects. Im so glad i had the movantalk with my doctor constipated by your prescription Opioid Pain Medication . Ask your doctor if movantik is right for you. If you cant afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. Lergies with nasal congestion . Find fast relief behind the counter with claritind. [ upbeat music ] strut past that aisle for the allergy relief that starts working in as little as 30 minutes and contains the best oral decongestant. Live claritin clear, with claritind. What aremaking a cake ht now . Ayla reminds me of like a master chef and emiana reminds me of like a monster chef. Uh oh. I dont see cake, i just see mess. Its like awful. It feels like i am not actually cleaning it up whats that make mommy do . doorbell whats that . Swiffer wetjet. So much stuff coming up. This is amazing woah. Wow. Now i feel more like making a mess is part of growing up. Stop cleaning. Start swiffering. In Mark Twitchells trial the defense had but one witness, twitchell himself, and right he said what he had done is he had cooked up this idea that you could blend fiction and reality so closely together that the people, everyone would be fooled into thinking that whats fiction is actually reality. Reporter house of cards and sk confessions said twitchell were to be the Building Blocks to a cutting Edge Entertainment concept consisting of both book and film, but there was more twisted reality. To generate publicity, twitchell said he first needed to create an online urban legend. By doing a series of harmless, so then when his movie comes out and the novel comes out, people would go google this and find out that there is this whole urban legend about maybe the movie is real. Maybe this fiction is actually reality. Reporter and he called it multi angle psychosis layering entertainment. M. A. P. L. E. For short. Its almost like youre sitting on the beach and there is a palm tree and beach in front of you but when you pull back it is actually a picture of a beach. Reporter so the attack on Gilles Tetreault according to twitchell was just a stunt. He allowed his prey to escape. And Johnny Altinger . That assault was fake, too, said twitchell, just like the first one, but johnny just didnt get the joke and furious there was it was the prologue of his elaborate tale. His defense is a brilliant idea on the surface. I mean, he actually found a way to describe an entire Police Investigation that incriminated him to get him off scott free. Reporter down in ohio, rene waring was following all this online. I watched the live blog that they had and i was screaming my head off, you liar. Reporter were you afraid the jury would believe him . Oh, yeah. Youre looking for that one person you can convince on a panel of 12 people to just have that doubt and, you know, take that doubt back to the deliberation room. Reporter Gilles Tetreault was in court the day the case against twitchell was completed. I got to sit in the second row and altingers mom was in the first row. She looked back and saw me and i and she just turned around. She looked at me. She smiled. She grabbed my hand and she said, im so happy that youre still with us. And that meant so much to me. Reporter what was that like . Oerjt qt know what shed feel toward me, and so when she did that, it was wonderful. Almost another closing moment for me. Reporter but not for others in the courtroom. And apparently not for the jury as deliberations dragged on. The time rolled on. Some people were thinking oh, maybe there is a holdout. Maybe theres someone out there who actually does believe Mark Twitchell. Reporter after all, Mark Twitchell was a masterful liar. Maybe this ultimate fantasy of his would beguile the jury. And then that final audience trooped back into the courtroom and gave him his last review. They found him guilty of the premeditated, firstdegree murder of Johnny Altinger. Ive never been involved in an investigation like this in my whole career. As homicide detectives you theorize about how someones died. Reporter right. There is no doubt we dont always get it right. We get a good idea but were never right. Here we knew exactly what happened to john. Reporter because he told you. He told us. Ultimately johnny led us to it and Mark Twitchell closed it on himself by writing all about it. No doubt in my mind he would have kept on killing. We caught a serial killer on his first kill. Reporter but why . Why did Mark Twitchell murder Johnny Altinger . Was it a thrill killing . Or something even darker . I think that ultimately he wanted to experience the feeling of killing and dismembering a body, and i think ultimately down the road he was going to try and produce a film about it and he would be a producer who would tell his cast and crew and actors how to do it and only to himself he would know that he actually lived it. I think that was what he wanted to do. Reporter and far away in ohio, rene waring, twitchells old facebook friend, arrived at the same, disturbing theory. I think he did it for artistic reasons. Reporter artistic reasons . Sure. I think he wanted to see how someone died so maybe he could make a better story. And so intentionally or not, he offered a dismal reason for murdering a perfect stranger. It was a single line at the end of that horror movie of his, house of cards, when the killer tells his wife. The best way to succeed is to write what you know. Youre watching Iraqi State Television your only alternative. [ laughter ] hello, and welcome back to continuing coverage of the 2002 iraqi president ial election. Whoo we have a wild one on our hands tonight. [ laughter ] and so far, it shows few signs of settling down