sunday night. our whole team will be assembled for a preelection special from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. eastern, two hours live on this network. so we hope to see you then. and for now on behalf of all my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. thanks to you at home for we had talked about how would you kill somebody and get away with it. i have dark thoughts, and i shared them with a serial killer. >> it was supposed to be a movie. >> aah! >> a frightening film about a serial killer. >> he'd say, "listen, when you're turning the blade, grit your teeth and really, really show that you're enjoying it." >> but was it really just pretend? >> he yells, "get down on the ground." he took out duct tape. life flashed before my eyes. >> i have never in my life felt fear like that. >> a rising young director filming a murder, or actually committing one? >> he told me, "well, you do it like 'dexter'." >> you've seen that show "dexter." this is all modeled off that.

>> when you take a step back you realize this is a real man who's 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. you're watching a violent attack caught on tape. who is this? what's happening? or did it happen at all? >> cut. >> movies like that one are by design deceptive, make believe worlds, but have you noticed maybe it's all the technical do-dads, the digital cameras, the reality twisting editing.

some of the stories that claim to be true aren't. anybody can manipulate reality. sometimes what they say is true isn't. sometimes fiction turns out to be fact. and then there are stories, just a few, in which fact and fiction fuse. that's where we're 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 so-called victim sobers up. >> i'm not thinking much is going to come of this. >> reporter: after clark's 31 years with the city in the highest murder rate in canada you could hardly blame him for getting a little picky. >> we don't usually go to missing persons. we're very picky on what we go to. unfortunately for us to come out you got to be dead and it better be criminal. we don't even want to come out if you're just dead. if the patrolman doesn't know it's criminal don't 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 dead-monton. >> our concern was, do we have a murder? if we don't, this isn't 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 e-mails he was sending. >> i've left with a woman, going to costa rica. >> she was one of the recipients of the e-mails, 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. i've met a wonderful girl named jen. i'm going to costa rica. i will keep in touch and call you when i get back after the holidays, johnny.

>> reporter: almost formal in a way. >> yes. >> reporter: suddenly. >> yes. >> reporter: like somebody you didn't really know was sending you an e-mail. >> absolutely. i was, like, that's really odd. that doesn't sound like john. >> reporter: well, it was odd. and even more so when another friend of altinger's received exactly the same message, word for word. altinger's 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, i've got a one way ticket to heaven and i'm never coming back. >> reporter: later that same day debra got a call from a friend who told her, johnny altinger appeared to be missing. >> it's surreal, you know?

you don't expect your friends to go missing. >> reporter: pretty soon altinger's 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 e-mails 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 e-mails to his friends and we're going,

well that's strange, but who knows? maybe he did go to costa rica. stranger things have happened. you don't know. >> reporter: at least that's how clark felt before he stepped through the looking glass. chem -- coming up. they are following the missing man's trail in to a strange place of make believe. a makeshift movie studio. >> as soon as they called me on the phone, i got this weird chill. when "dateline" continues. telinc zinc, other minerals, and herbs. that's why when you start every morning with airborne, you'll have the confidence to take on the day. no wonder pharmacists recommend airborne

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johnny altinger's 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? johnny's 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. i said, well, we got to find out if we can find him first. let's find the car. find the car. hopefully we find him or have an idea where he is. >> since johnny altinger's e-mail said he had taken off for costa rica, officers went to the airport to look for that red mazda, searched every parking lot. it wasn't here. they combed through airline passenger lists. he wasn't on any of them. johnny's friends meanwhile went back to the apartment for another look and found stashed away among his important papers his passport. >> we're going oh, you're 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 altinger's friends came up with another e-mail. this one johnny had received from a woman he met online. jen was her name. the same woman with whom he had supposedly scampered off to costa rica. jen and johnny had a date for going out on the town the night he disappeared. but because he had never been to her place she sent an e-mail 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 e-mail to a friend of his. just in case. >> i can't remember the last word of the e-mail but he says if anything happens to me you know where i'm at. you know, laugh out loud. >> reporter: it wasn't 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 sci-fi movie. >> everyone working on the project is a fan, of course. i don't think anybody would be here working for us for free if they weren't. >> 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 couldn't get in. so with twitchell's 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 johnny's e-mail, 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 didn't look familiar to me. >> reporter: he explained he'd 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. >> it's 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 -- >> they'd let you know -- >> they'd ask or something like that. so, yeah. no, i don't think anything like that. >> reporter: anyway, he said he'd moved on for now to another project. >> i'm working on a comedy right now, which is a -- actually a full blown feature that's 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 didn't 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 she'd meet him there? the woman who signs her e-mails "jen"? >> does the name jen mean anything to you? >> no, constable maxwell asked me about that, too. >> yeah. >> we don't have jen or anything like that. >> so the name jen doesn't mean anything to you? you don't know a jen? you don't have an actress named jen? >> uh-huh. >> 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 movie's producer/direct yormark twitchell expressed exactly the same confusion as the police. he didn't get it either. the dots didn't connect. mark twitchell didn't 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 e-mails. >> there was one thing, though, and it came from mark twitchell.

he wondered, he said, if maybe somebody was being set up. >> cause it just doesn't sit right, so the first thing i start asking myself is who all knows about what we do there and what our schedule is like, and stuff like that. >> was the disappearance staged 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 i'm 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. he's free flowing with the information. he's answering the questions

logically. i don't see any, you know, looking away. i don't see any of the nervousness. nothing. i see nothing. >> and then when police looked into twitchell's 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 twitchell's next project, the $3.5 million buddy comedy. that's 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 twitchell's crew members and they vouched for him completely. and revealed that they all shared a passion for star wars. that's 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.

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okay, we'll get out here. >> bill clark is, he doesn't 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 throw-back the younger guys on the force kid him. they call him sipowicz after the hard-nosed detective in the old cop detective show "nypd blue." >> i still like coming to work

every day. i enjoy it. it's just a part of my life. i still have the drive. i'm still excited about it. almost every file something's 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. >> you're the one the family depends on, and i take that seriously. ultimately that's in the back of your mind that if you don't 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. >> i'm a pit bull. i consider myself a pit bull. you get your case and get your teeth into it, we're 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 wasn't 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 uh-oh. definitely foul play. >> not at all. >> reporter: no? >> no. >> reporter: all they had after all was a missing man, johnny, who might have just driven off somewhere with or without some mystery woman named jen. certainly that would account for the fact that his red mazda coup was gone, too. really, aside from the few curious e-mails that might or might not make any sense there wasn't much to go on. so being cops, clark and his colleagues employed standard procedure and doubled back for a second look at things. like that garage johnny was apparently headed for when he vanished. >> we're 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. >> it's turned down. it gets turned down because we're told we don't have a crime. we haven't proven there is a crime committed. >> reporter: the next step

seemed simple enough. clark went to mark twitchell directly to see if he'd give permission to search the garage. >> he goes yeah. i said i'll 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 mark's place to get a signature. and then, the weirdest thing -- >> get a phone call from the detective. the detective says, "you won't believe it, but this guy just told me he bought a red mazda off a guy." >> reporter: a red mazda? and didn't johnny altinger drive a red mazda? wasn't it missing? mark twitchell hadn't 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 don't want tunnel vision. big thing for homicide investigation don't get tunnel vision. keep an open mind. i pulled myself back. there's 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 we're analyzing. we call it the up arrow down arrow scenario. >> reporter: yep. >> it's an up arrow. mr. cooperative. will come down and talk to us at 10:30 on a sunday night. an up arrow. he's being cooperative. all good. red car. mazda. hasn't 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, we're just here trying to find this john fellow, john altinger. we got nothing. i don't 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

twitchell's 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 and she's going to take care of me and she's going to buy me a new car when we get back from the vacation we're going to take. i'm thinking okay. what is there, two tons of cocaine in the trunk? i'm 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 didn't know how to drive. so he left it parked in a friend's 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, bill clark left the interview room partly to regroup but also to see how mark would act when they left him alone. and if he was rattled, he certainly didn't show it. here he calmly placed a call to his wife. >> 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 it's a huge deal, so that's what this whole thing's about. >> reporter: what in heaven's name was going on? bill clark still didn't have a clue. oh, but he might in a minute, because bill clark, good cop,

was about to become bill clark, bad cop. >> there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of john altinger. >> he might be involved, but what part was fact? and what was fantasy? it's sups , making easy work of tough messes. dawn is a go-to grease-cleaner throughout the kitchen, too. keep a bottle in the laundry room to pre-treat greasy stains and keep dawn in the garage to lift grease off car rims. it's even gentle enough to clean wildlife affected by oil. dawn's grease cleaning power takes care of tough grease wherever it shows up. scrub less, save more...with dawn.

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have turned in ballots. early voting continues in many states this weekend. now, back to "dateline." 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 i'm so tired and it's so hard to remember things. >> reporter: outside the room detective bill clark watched twitchell, went over a few notes, prepared to switch tactics. >> it's already started. the game's 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 didn't -- this wasn't the time of the interview to start pushing him.

it wasn't the time to start confronting him. that would come later on. >> reporter: because one of those down arrows of bill clark's led to a particular conclusion. mark twitchell thought bill clark was a dumb cop. twitchell was trying to play him. while you're 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 didn't 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 i'm starting to see he's not remembering specific details. let's go back to lunch.

you're at lunch. where do you go from lunch? >> i don't remember. >> you don't know where you went for lunch? >> no. >> reporter: so now it was early morning. they'd been at it for hours. they had taken a break. they'd let mark twitchell sit by himself and, perhaps, stew a bit. now the time had come for clark to play a different role. >> we've 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 you're involved in the disappearance of john altinger. no doubt in my mind at all, mark. >> why? >> now i'm 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 can't you give me your version of events that night? >> because i'm scared. >> reporter: once as the night dragged on twitchell mumbled something about reality seeming more like some sort of fantasy. >> i just feel like i'm in the [ muted ] twilight zone right now. >> reporter: in the face of all of detective clark's accusations mark twitchell never waivered. for nearly four hours he answered clark's 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. he's involved up to his neck in this. what exactly he's done to him i don't know yet but i'm going to

find out. >> reporter: finally, at daybreak, mark twitchell let clark know he'd 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 it's like whoa. almost stopped. >> reporter: yeah. >> kind of pulled back. he goes, well, i need to get something out of it. i says, you're getting nothing. i'm taking that car. >> reporter: and it was then as clark approached twitchell's car to take it to the impound yard, that he noticed mark's 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. it's like every nightmare you had, all of a sudden, it's right here. con. mice love it to death. when your v-neck looks more like a u-neck... that's when you know, it's half-washed. downy helps prevent stretching by conditioning fibers, so clothes look newer, longer. downy and it's done.

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 couldn't shake the gut feeling that this movie director was one very bad guy. >> i was thinking he filmed whatever he had done to johnny. i'm 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 twitchell's 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 24-hour 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 clark's world of up arrows and down arrows there was one more huge up arrow in twitchell's 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. didn't 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 twitchell's 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 evening stroll, 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 i'm 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. >> it's like every nightmare you had as a child after watching a scary movie. >> reporter: sure. >> every nightmare you've ever had, all of a sudden it's 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 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 didn't 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. >> that's where he stood. he stood there on guard like he was protecting something. >> i was like, i'm 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 walk-on 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 didn't 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 it's okay to kill somebody.

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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 computer's hard drive, they found this video. looked almost like a movie. >> ah! >> reporter: a horror movie. no, it wasn't a snuff film. it wasn't johnny altinger's murder caught on tape. it was raw footage of one of twitchell's tease films. the one he told the detective about the first time he talked to him. >> it's a suspense thriller. actually we did it, it's 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 it's a philandering husband who tells his wife he's heading off to the gym. >> well, i'm 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. >> i've 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 didn't know. i thought somebody is making this up. this can't 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 trying to do a film. >> reporter: nice guy. >> very nice. very pleasant. >> reporter: playing a serial killer was almost too much fun, said barnsly. >> action. >> it got kind of scary where i enjoyed it too much. >> reporter: you got to be the sadist big time huh? >> absolutely. it was very fun for me to play actually. 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 you're turning the blade, grit your teeth and really show that you're enjoying it, you know. >> reporter: wait a minute. was this all about enjoying some fantasy game, pretending to be evil? detectives surfed around twitchell's 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 it's 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 rene's facebook friend relented. no, he wasn't 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 her big break. >> and then he expressed interest in me, in my writing style. and my ideas. and how we'd 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." >> camera's 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 twitchell's playful advice on eliminating in dexter like fashion one of rene's rivals in romance. >> with both her hands totally wrapped in duct tape, free one arm, and slit the wrist. a hunter's 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 e-mail from her friend mark twitchell. then monday came. and with it an apology. i've also had something keeping me busy, he wrote. i'm 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? >> staged fantasy? or something truly terrifying? when "dateline" continues. ue really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them a lot more than the mudroom. thankfully they bundled their motorcycle with their home and auto. they're protected 24/7. mm. what do you say? one more game of backgammon? [ chuckles ] not on your life. [ laughs ] ♪ when the lights go down a blast of immune support and the confidence to take on the day. that's why airborne is the only #1 pharmacist recommended immune support brand.

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it was halloween in edmonton, canada. halloween, a highlight in most any child's 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. in 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 unique costumes. members of edmonton's s.w.a.t. team. 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. and the reporters who gathered were left with one juicy tid 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 twitchell's 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, it's almost myth, something built up by hollywood. it didn't 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. >> 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 twitchell's 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. they're not real. weren't 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 couldn't 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 don't 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." >> i'm 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 author's life. >> 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 killer's brain and a normal person's 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 account tells the reader how he used a game processing kit to dismember the victim's body and police found a processing kit in twitchell's garage. the sk killer says he tried to burn the victim's body in an oil drum in his parents' back yard. and at twitchell's parents house police found the burn ring on the back lawn. there was even a minor detail about the killer getting a speeding ticket, and so did twitchell just about the time johnny altinger disappeared. >> and he joked about it in his story telling, about how this dumb cop didn't 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. >> that's 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 couldn't 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 it's 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. we'd 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 didn't make sense. so police lofted a hail mary pass. they went public and released a photo of the hockey mask. >> and that'll tweak somebody's memory about yeah that was me and hope they'll come forward. >> reporter: it was a long shot. really. maybe that person didn't 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 that's the same hockey mask i saw, that that guy was wearing. >> reporter: the hockey mask. >> the hockey mask. i started reading the story. i'm 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 can before long found himself in a can can little room with detective bill clark. can >> and in my career it was can probably the most spellbinding

interview i've ever had with a witness. can >> reporter: and now? you're about to hear that story can can can can can can can can can can can can can can can firsthand. coming up. >> all of a sudden i see this man wearing this black and gold hobbling i can ma hockey mask. >> reporter: the horror story really happened. >> it's like life flashed before my eyes, like oh my god, my family is never going to see me again. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. vicks sinex. instantly clear everyday congestion. come on! let's hide in the attic. no. in the basement. why can't we just get in the running car? are you crazy? let's hide behind the chainsaws. smart. yeah. ok.

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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. >> reporter: it was a difficult breakup? >> it was for me. >> reporter: did she just want to move on.

>> yeah, she just fell out of love with me, i guess it was not easy at all. >> reporter: 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? >> she looked beautiful in her profile. >> reporter: sheena was her name. >> she said, how about dinner and a movie? then she started making these kind of excuses that i couldn't pick her up at her front door. >> reporter: so tetreault's date asked him to park in an alley, come through a back entrance through a detached garage. >> and she'd leave the garage door open for me.

i'd go through the garage to the kbr other side, get into the yard, and go knock on the back door to pick her up. the door was high enough that i didn't have to crawl under. i just had to squat under. >> 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 what's going on. and that's 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 couldn't 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. that's when he actually pulled out a gun. >> reporter: what is that like when somebody pulls a gun on you? >> i was terrified. i didn't know what do. i was like, oh, my god, i think i'm going to die and i can't get away now. there's no way i can escape a gun, like a bullet. i just felt a sick feeling. >> 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 can hands in the back. i don't know where he had it but he took out duct tape and ripped off a piece. that's when he covered my eyes with it. >> reporter: just about then, gilles tetreault decided he had come to the moment of his own death. >> 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, he's going to rape me. so i'm like, you know what? i better fight for my life. i said, that i'd rather die my way than his way. i knew he's going to pull the gun out again. >> reporter: yeah. >> and, you know what? if it kills me, it kills me. >>. >> reporter: coming up, he makes his move. >> i just darted for the gun, grabbed the end of it and pushed it away from my body. >> but this fight is far from over. >> sure enough, he comes after me and grabs my legs and he starts dragging me back. >> reporter: when "dateline"

continues. n "dateline" continues. keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging.

hello, i'm dara brown. the head of the medical association is firing back at president trump after he suggested that doctors were lying about the number of patients dying from coronavirus. in a statement, the president of the ama called trump's quotes, quote, malicious and outrageous. meanwhile, americans shall heading to the polls early in record numbers ahead of tuesday's election. and a federal judge has order the u.s. postal service to use, quote, extraordinary measures to ensure mailed ballots are delivered on-time. now back to "dateline." d on-ti. now back to "dateline." >> reporter: he was in a battle for his life. he had been lured to a garage and assaulted with a man way mask and a gun. now he was determined to turn the tables. >> so i get up and i rip off the

duct tape and i yell at him. i said, i can't do this. i'm 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 gun's construction and realized it was not real. >> i grabbed him by the arms. we're kind of struggling all over the garage. >> reporter: according to "sk confessions" gilles by fighting back had taken 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 i'm thinking, wow. i can't get down, if i get down on the ground, i'm -- >> reporter: you're 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 couldn't 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. >> that's when he says, because you didn't 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. >> i'm 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 couldn't move. and i just fell right on my face. >> reporter: like being in a nightmare where you can't 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. >> i'm thinking oh, my god i don't know how i'm going to get away again. i'm 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. i'm thinking, gee, he doesn't

have a hold on me anymore. so i'm 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, terrified, exhausted, he ran for just 30 or 40 feet to this pedestrian path. and that's 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 couldn't really talk. all i could say was, there's a man after me. he's trying to mug me. please help me. and they looked stunned. they didn't 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. i'm close to the couple. i tell them, hey, that's the man. >> then as i looked up the attacker almost actually ran

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 he's going to lift the mask up like we're playing. but he doesn't. 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? what in the world just happened? 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 can't believe i got duped by this woman, like, i just want to put this behind me. i just don't want to think about it. i want to move on. >> reporter: and did not call the police. >> no. i didn't. >> maybe it was the fear in his eyes that told me deep down he wouldn't report the incident. >> for weeks after that i nightmares and i kept thinking maybe this guy's following me, maybe he's going to attack me again. i had no idea. it was terrifying. 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 we've 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. unless just about then detectives uncovered something, an updated version of "sk confessions." there was one more chapter, in which the killer leaves a clue. impossible to resist. coming up, the police take mark twichell on an incredible journey to the place where something evil may have happened. >> here we are at the killing garage. look familiar, mark?

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mark twitchell the would-be 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 twitchell's computer, the one called "sk confessions," is a lot like the episode of the tv show about the avenging psychopath. now here in twitchell's 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 care ffl descriptions in "sk confessions.

what the killer couldn't 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 victim's 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 didn't 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 edmonton's 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" weren't just some fantasy from the dark side? so clark confronted twitchell with the evidence against him, hoping he would confess. i'll 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. it's undoubtedly where you carved him up. i'm going to show you that later but all the blood seeps right underneath. the guys just pull all that out. it all does dna matching. it goes right, you know, when i say that show "dexter," you've 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 he'd give up some information. what was his demeanor like? >> defiant. we just took him for a drive and said you're 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, get you back to the station? okay. let's 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 can't 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 code. >> we're going to the computer guys, come on. you got to pull up more. we're right to the point that he dumped the body and we don't know the location. >> reporter: so the detectives did a slow, methodical search through the desktop computer found in twitchell's 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 victim's remains. >> he talks about a specific sewer. he talks about how it's off an alley. it's in a grassy area. it's an older neighborhood. he talks about telephone poles in this alley. and only certain neighborhoods up here have telephone poles, the older ones. >> reporter: that's about the time detective bill clark became a man obsessed. >> we were pulling manhole covers off. i'd be out with a flashlight looking down.

can't see nothing. if it was really nothing you couldn't see down we'd call the city crews in. >> reporter: nothing. enough to make a person doubt his own sanity. coming up, police are about to get some help. a map that will break the case wide open. >> they stopped right about where you and i are standing right here, on 130th avenue. >> a year and a half later, where'd you find the body? >> right down there. >> who gave them that map and why? when "dateline" continues. tha why? when "dateline" continues. em. but dad, rid-x contains billions of enzymes proven to break down even paper to keep your whole septic system healthy. for paper, grease or waste breakdown. use rid-x. my job is to help new homeowners who have turned into their parents. i'm having a big lunch and then just a snack for dinner. so we're using a speakerphone in the store. is that a good idea? one of the ways i do that is to get them out of the home. you're looking for a grout brush, this is --

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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 altinger. 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 altinger's 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 left-hand side of this alley a

half block from where we stopped. >> reporter: this was johnny altinger's 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 wouldn't find the "sk confessions." >> that's 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 altinger's 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 altinger's body had been uncovered -- >> catches everyone totally by surprise. >> reporter: former crime reporter steve littleviewan has written a book about the twitchell case, "the devil's cinema." >> doesn't 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 johnny's 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 twitchell's garage for instance. this is what it looked like during the normal light of day. and this is a photo taken from 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 they've killed to bring him out. this is what he used and every single tool in that kit had our victim's dna on it. >> reporter: in twitchell's 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. >> reporter: he just left it in the car. >> in the car. the car turns out to be an absolute gold mine. it absolutely blows this case wide open. there are yellow sticky notes right on the console. one of them has a map drawn from the garage to johnny altinger's apartment. he kept everything. this guy was meticulous. he kept receipts. wrote everything down. >> reporter: after the presentation of the hard evidence, twitchell's friends and co-workers 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 don't know. i feel like he'll probably kill me. >> reporter: chris wasn't alone in his worry. rene wearing was unsettled too the day she testified but for another reason all together. >> i didn't want to feel judged.

>> reporter: judged because -- >> i have dark thoughts and i shared them and with a serial killer. >> reporter: johnny altinger's friend debra tightrope testified. kbr. >> there was a lot of sadness for me, but all i can do is speak for john and the kind of person i was. >> reporter: nice man. >> reporter:? >> deflt nice man and if things had not turned out the way they were, i'm sure he would have found what he wanted in life. i had no doubts about that. >> reporter: it was the first time she had gotten a clear look at mark twichell. >> he seemed like a normal person, average person off the street. that's what disturbed me. >> reporter: twitchell remained stone faced even when his own wife took the stand. >> she's crying through all of this. mark twitchell's reaction was nearly blank. >> reporter: but when this video was shown in court during bill clark's testimony, twitchell came unraveled.

>> he starts to cry. the tears are just streaming down his face and he's getting hysterical. his chest is heaving. >> the judge actually recognizes it, he took a break and he couldn't 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 he's crying. he turns around and faces detective clark and he starts talking. he said i'm sorry for lying to you. this is extraordinary. i've 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. can there wasn't 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

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in mark twitchell's trial the defense had but one witness, twitchell himself, and right from the start he admitted killing johnny altinger. and then he told the jury the story. >> 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 what's 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, staged attacks identical to those depicted in his movie and novel. >> 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. >> it's almost like you're 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 didn't get the joke and furious there was no woman to greet him attacked twitchell with a pipe. >> and he's got this little did knife on his belt and he tells the jury in his testimony that he puts his hand on the handle of the knife and just as johnny is about to come at him, lifting the pipe over his head, mark twitchell sticks both his hands out in front of him and the next thing he sees is the knife is in johnny's stomach and the blood's on his hands and he collapses and dies on the floor in front of him. >> reporter: the only inaccuracy in "sk confessions" was that the initial attacker was johnny altinger and then he mark twitchell panicked and disposed of the body in the sewer. now police have their answer as to why twitchell gave up the body. 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. >> you're 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 altinger's mom was in the first row. she looked back and saw me and i didn't know how she'd feel. >> reporter: why did that guy live and my son died? >> yeah. exactly. and she just turned around. she looked at me.

she smiled. she grabbed my hand and she said, "i'm so happy that you're still with us." and that meant so much to me. >> reporter: what was that like? >> i didn't know what she'd 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 there's 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, first-degree

murder of johnny altinger. he was sentenced to life in prison. >> i've never been involved in an investigation like this in my whole career. as homicide detectives you theorize about how someone's died. >> reporter: right. >> there is no doubt we don't always get it right. we get a good idea but we're 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, twitchell's 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. film it better. write about it better. >> reporter: in fact, mark twitchell himself offered an answer to all those people who wondered why. he was different, he wrote in his "sk confessions." he simply could not feel for anyone. 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. >> and i'm natalie morales, and this is "dateline". at night, this is absolutely pitch dark. >> reporter: it'd been abandoned and it was secluded. this was his playground. >> this was the place we'd been searching for. >> reporter: it was in the still of the night when the killings started. >> i've been shot, me and my mother have been shot! >> you can feel and hear the fear in her voice. >> reporter: a single mother and her teenage daughter, ambushed in their bedrooms. >> here comes a monster into your house. >> i just broke down, you know? i just couldn't imagine who would want t