call me stupid. but i loved bill hall jr. till the day i die. bill hall jr. till the day i day. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. 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 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 flash 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 tells 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 and realize this is a real man who has 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 didn't happen at all? >> cut. >> all right, standby. >> movies like that one are by design deceptive, make believe worlds. but have you noticed maybe it's

all the technical doodads that digital cameras and reality twisting reality so stories of 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. it's twilight zone world of illusion and deception and deceit. follow the howling wind north across a vast period through brief, brilliant summers and winters as frigid as any on earth to the metropolis canadians call the gateway to the north. a city whose police department stays very busy. this is detective bill clark. the city is edmonton, canada.

>> today got a call from a family. their son was killed in december. >> but nothing in a long couple of rear so strange as the case of a man who went missing and bill clark found himself in the other world between fantasy and illusion. >> ever seen a case like this before? >> never in my life. >> the when it started out, it seems 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. >> after clark's decades of service 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 about what we got to. unfortunately for us to come out, you have 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. >> you've got enough to do. >> yeah. >> which explains perhaps why some of the locals have taken to calling their city dead middleton. >> our concern was, do we have a murder? because if we don't, this isn't our file. we have enough to work on. i mean, we have no indication of foul play. nothing, right? >> the missing person in this case was a guy with the name of johnny ulterior. 39, single, worked in the oil industry, like to ride motorcycles. unlucky with women. he had a wide circle of friends who are now telling police something kind of weird. i'll take her seem to have dropped off the face of the earth except for the strange emails he was sending. >> i've left with a woman, i'm going to costa rica. >> she was one of the recipients of the emails, his old friend, deborah tight grow. >> saying that he had met a wonderful girl name jen and he was going to costa rica and i

received several of them. i received six altogether but in runs of three. >> six messages. how is that -- the same message? >> the exact same message. >> same words? >> hi there, i'm at a wonderful girl name jen. i'm going to costa rica. and i will keep in touch and call you when i get back after the holidays. johnny. >> almost formal in a way. >> yes. >> suddenly. >> yes. >> it's like someone you didn't really know was sending an email. >> absolutely. i was like, that's really odd. that doesn't sound like john. >> well, it was odd. and even more so one another friend of vaulting years received the exact same message, word for word. >> i'll turn his face books that is change from single two in a relationship. >> and then i think it was the following day i was on ms and messenger and johnny popped on line. so i thought, oh he must not

have left on his vacation yet and it said johnny, his name, and then in quotations beside the name it's said, i've gotten one way ticket to heaven and i'm never coming back. >> later that same day debra got a call from a friend who told her johnny ulterior appeared to be missing. >> it's surreal, you know? you don't expect your friends to go missing. >> pretty soon, his friends got together unsure what to do really but before going to police they decided to get into his condo, see if they can 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 for his wallet, his keys, and his red mazda coop. so it looked as if he had gone out for a drive and would be back any minute. >> there were no answers to anything. he just vanished out of thin air. >> except for those strange emails altinger had supposedly

sent about falling in love, and costa rica, which to the cops, said clark, seen perfectly reasonable. not hard to imagine that 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 we're going, well that strange, but who knows? maybe he did go to costa rica. stranger things have happened, right? you don't know. >> at least that's how clark felt before he stepped through the looking glass. coming up. detective clark is about to follow johnny altinger's trail into a strange place of make believe. and up and coming directors makeshift movie studio. >> it's a suspense thriller, my skin? not me. by hitting eczema where it counts, dupixent helps heal your skin from within

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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 anytime. where was he? johnny's friends were convinced something awful happened to him. so, day after day, they prodded the police and finally seven days after johnny went missing the cops agreed to open an investigation. >> we just started with the basics. i said, well, we've got to basically find out if we can find him first. so let's find the car. find the car, hopefully we find him. or have an idea where he is. >> since johnny altinger's email said that he had taken off to costa rica, officers went to the airport to search for that read mazda and search every parking lot. it wasn't here. they combs through airline passenger lists. he was not 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. >> so it 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 email. this one tiny had received from a woman he had 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 going out on the town of the night he disappeared. but because he had never been to her place, she sent him an email with directions on how to pick her up. and out of an abundance 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 can't remember the last word of the email, but he said if anything happens to me you know where i'm at. you know, laugh out loud. >> it wasn't a phone number. not even an address.

but there were detailed directions to her place. so the cops drove the road. and the directions led them to this neighborhood, down this alley. to this garage rented by -- >> a guy named marked which will. he happens to be a local emerging celebrity. mark twitch always making a name for himself as a scrappy young independent filmmaker here in edmonton. he recently made a low budget sci-fi theme. 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 change the lock and he could not get in. so with twitchell's permission, officers broke in and looked around and found nothing. so with the change lock in the weird coincidence to johnny's email, there were things to figure out. and mark twitchell was only too happy to tag along to the police station to help out whatever way he could. >> the first thing that i notice, the padlock didn't look familiar to me. >> twitchell explain that he

had been using the rented garage as 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 sip of suspense thriller, actually. it's a short film, the total run time is only gonna be about eight or nine minutes. >> okay. suspense thriller? >> right. >> of course he had a crew in and out of the place during the filming, said mark. several actors true. maybe one of them was up to something. but it seems unlikely. and none of them 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. >> they'd let you know -- >> they -- they would ask or something like that. so yeah, i don't know anything about that. >> anyway, he said, he moved on for now to another project. >> i'm working on a comedy

right now, which is actually a full blown feature that's actually going to have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about three and a half million. >> and in the meantime, the garage come studio was empty. so why would someone break in to the place and change the lock? it didn't make sense. >> i had a padlock previously. it wasn't the same one. the one that i had was silver on the outside with a black plastic dial in the center and this one was all metal. so -- >> so you notice the different padlock. >> yes. >> and that on the door. >> right. >> mystifying, said mark. he had a bad feeling about this. the 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. >> so what about that woman

johnny altinger had been flirting with online? the one who gave him directions to the garage? told him he would meet him there? the woman who signed her emails, jen? >> does the name jen mean anything to you? >> now, constable maxwell asked me about that to. >> yeah. >> we don't have gender anything like that. >> so the name jen doesn't mean anything to you? you don't know again? you don't have an actress named jen? >> no. >> so who was this mystery woman, jen? why in the world which he arranged to meet johnny altinger here, in the very backyard garage an independent edmonton film crew was renting for use as a studio. how odd. especially since the movies producer, slash director mark twitchell express the exact 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 that johnny ever made it to the garage at all. >> the close friends were the ones who had come to the police. they basically got nothing other than these emails. >> there was one thing, though, and it came from mark twitchell. he wondered, he said, if maybe someone was being set up. >> because 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 looks 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 spend 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. >> when i watch an interview, i listen to what the guy says but i'm looking at the body language. i'm looking 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 was free-flowing with the information. he was answering 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 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 moviemaking. and mark twitchell was very good at drumming up attention and money from local investors like john princeton. >> he was a very sharp, bright young particular entrepreneur. exactly the kind of individual

that most of us are looking for. >> so he checked out. hardworking local boy in a city of hardworking 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 switches next project, the three and a half million dollar body comedy, date players. >> guys. >> 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 cuban crew member and they vouched for him completely. mark twitchell came off squeaky

clean. his film company was respected as was he. and bill clark and that police back at square one. >> when we got? we got nothing. >> amazing man's car turns up. when dateline continues. when you really need to sleep you reach for the really good stuff. new zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. it's non habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil. new zzzquil ultra. when you really really need to sleep. we can get out here.

>> bill clark doesn't mind admitting it, an old school detective. the sort that seems to exist more on the big screen than the mean streets. >> you guys here last night? >> in fact, clark is such a throwback that the younger guys on the force kid him. they call him simple which after the hard knows the tech

given the old cop show, nypd blue. >> i still 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 is different. >> in his decades on the edmonton police force, clark had seen murder take many forms. he had seen the shattering effects and has on the 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, or the dead guy, who is going to? >> and for clark, there is no greater satisfaction than bringing in a killer. >> i'm a pitbull. i consider myself a pit bull. you get your case, and you get your teeth into it. were those a type personalities. we want to get the guy, you know? we want to get this guy and put him away. >> 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, oh. this is definitely foul play.

>> no, not at all. >> no? >> now. >> all they had, after all, was a missing man, johnny, who might have just driven off somewhere with or without some mystery woman named john. certainly that would account for the fact that his red mazda coop was gone too. but really, aside from a few curious emails 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 the johnny was apparently headed for when he vanished. >> we're thinking our next step logically is the garage. we have to check inside and have a close look. >> so they applied for a search warrant and it was rejected. >> it's turned down. and it gets turned down because we're told we don't have a crime, we haven't proven there is a crime committed. >> so the next step seems simple enough. clark went to mark twitchell directly to see if he would give him permission to search the garage. >> he goes, yeah. he said i'll need you to sign a consent form. >> no problem.

>> they requisition the required form. one of the detectives hopped in the car, drove it over to mark's place to get a signature. then, the weirdest thing. >> get a phone call from the detective. the detective says to me, he says, you won't believe it but this guy just told me he read a matte red master off a guy. >> a red master? and didn't johnny altinger drive a red master and wasn't missing? mark twitchell hadn't said anything about a red mask that when he came down the police station and talked about to the text of the night before. said he forgot. really? why would he forget a thing like? that of course you don't want to get tunnel vision. >> big thing for homicide investigation, don't get tunnel vision. i keep an open mind. i pulled myself back. there's something fishy going on. >> clark invited twitchell to

come back down to the station for a meeting. 10:30 on a sunday night. and twitchell agreed. >> hi mark, thanks for waiting. >> everything you do now, where allies. we call it the apparel, the down era. it's an up arrow. mr. cooperative will come down, talk to us on 10:30. he's been cooperative. it's all good. red car. mascara. hasn't mentioned. it big down area. >> big down. arrow >> fig down arrow. >> but those two arrows are all 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's happened to johnny. >> or what had happened, whatever it was. >> exactly. >> because once again as the

interview proceeds, the young filmmaker is the very picture of cooperation. he volunteers information, answers questions without hesitation or any apparent kyle. his demeanor is expensive. even untrained eye can see that twitches 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 not a disappeared. the man seem desperate to get rid of his car, said mark. offered to sell it for practically nothing. >> he goes, well, i should act up with this really rich lady, you know, it's 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 gonna take. well, i'm thinking okay. what is their, two tons of cocaine in the trunk? i'm trying to figure out with the catch is here. >> 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 friends driveway. >> those who have close by or what? >> yeah. he lives just a couple blocks away. >> was it finally a break? the detective monitoring the interview sent a patrol car to

check it out and sure enough there was empty by the look of it. >> nothing untoward about the car. john he's not in the car. >> 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 the questions and fill them in and everything like that it turns out the car is in fact belonging to this missing guy and that it's a huge deal, so that's what this whole things about. >> one in heaven's name was going on? bill clark still did not have a clue, though but he might in a minute. because bill clark, good cop, was about to become, bill clark, bad cop.

coming up. >> there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, that you are involved in the disappearance of john all tinge are. >> he might be involved, while apart was facts and what was fantasy. >> i just feel like i'm in the twilight zone right now. >> when dateline continues.

hello i'm steven romo, actor and comedian was founded in an orlando hotel room. authorities say there was no evidence of foul play and the cause of death was not immediately known. the full house star was a 65 years old. and the appeals hearing took early this morning for tennis star, novak you conducive against the cancellation of his australian visa. he argues that he was given the medical exemption after recently recovering from covid. now, back to dateline.

now, back to dateline. >> almost 4 am, now downtown edmonton. filmmaker mark twitchell was sitting in an interview room talking to his wife on the phone. fiddling a little. >> my problem is i'm so tired and it's so hard to remember. things >> outside the room detective bill clark watched twitchell, went over a few notes, prepared to switch tactics. >> it's already started. the game is. on this big -- 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. >> i agreed with everything he. said this was not the time were interviewed to start pushing him. it wasn't the time to start

confronting him. that would come later on. >> because, one of those down arrows of big clark's lead to a particular conclusion, that mark twitchell thought bill cosby was a dumb cop. twitchell was trying to play him. >> well you're reading him during that interview, he had been reading. >> and he made some probably made some judgments about your ability as an interviewer. what did he think of you do you think? >> i think he did not think i was that smart. i think he believed he was smarter than me. i believe that, he felt that anything he told us, he could concoct to make us believe it. >> of course, there's only one proper response to that. >> let's go back to your lunch.

you're at lunch. where do you go for lunch? >> i don't remember. >> you don't know where he won four? lunch >> now. >> now it was early morning, they had been at it for hours. they had taken a break, they 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 bad cop is coming up. this is what i like. this is what i relish. >> there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, that you are involved in the disappearance of johnny altinger. no doubt in my mind at all, mark. >> why? >> now i'm going to start with the hammering with what i know. problem is, i know very little. >> but, now that it was perfectly clear to mark twitchell that he was a suspect

in a disappearance, maybe a murder, his easy camaraderie seem 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 storyteller. >> why can't you give me your version of events that night? >> because i'm scared. >> one says the night dragged on, twitchell mumbled about reality seeming more like some sign of fantasy. >> i just feel like i'm in the, twilight zone right now. >> in the face of all detective clerks accusations, mark twitchell never wavered. for nearly four hours, he answered questions always play, helpful. he did not so much is asked for a lawyer. >> by the end of the night,. >> i have no evidence.

my gut instinct at that time is that this guy is involved. he's involved up to his neck in this. >> am i being charged? >> not yet. >> in my free to go? >> yeah. >> then i will. >> okay. >> and then, as clark escorted mark twitchell out of the building into the early morning dark, he upped the ante a little. he told twitchell he was seizing his car. >> and then he goes whoa. he almost stopped, and kind of pull back. he goes well, i need to get something out of. i said you're getting nothing. i'm taking that car. >> and it was then, as clark approached twitchell's at the imposed. art that he noticed marks unusual license plate, personalized, dark jedi. coming up. >> i have never, in my life, felt fear like that. >> police find witnesses who

saw something that seemed like a horror movie. it's like every night where you had as a child, after watching a scary movie, every nightmare you have ever had is all the sudden right here. >> when dateline continues.

edmonton homicide detective bill clark along with other members of the edmonton police, felt a little like alice in the

rabbit hole. they're missing man johnny altinger had vanished without a trace. and the whispers that his disappearance could be part of some publicity stunt. their only suspect was an inspiring movie producer, storyteller, who stood up to a bill cart grilling with this man is earned tacked. even though, by this time, clark could not shake the gut feeling, that this movie director was one very bad guy. >> i was thinking he had filmed whatever he had done to johnny. i'm thinking it killed him and he filmed the murder. and so police look through twitchell's garage, car, in home they had an idea they might find a videotape of the murder. instead with a discovered was an affair. twitchell had a girlfriend. and when is way found out about that, she kicked him out.

but twitchell seemed, at least to the out to outside world, unperturbed. instead of falling apart, he simply retreated to his childhood home. moved in with his parents. and so clark paid twitchell's dad and mom a visit. >> she just struck me as a parent, that her son does nothing wrong. where is the father, wanted to listen to me. he wanted to hear what i had to say. and he listened. but he got overridden. >> 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, even picked up a 35,000 dollar check from a financial backer. >> the marked which will i was dealing with it was articulate, in control, running his project the way that you would expect any entrepreneur to be running their project. >> and the detective clark's world of up arrows and down arrows, there was one more huge up arrow in twitchell's favor. motive. for 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. did not have a record, had never even been arrested. why would a young, married father kill a perfect stranger? so besides twitch will, the police also focus their attention on this quiet suburban neighborhood around twitchell's rental garage studio. and where altinger may have gone to see a woman he met online. they went door to door. and 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.

these two, their names are melissa and trevor, they were out through an evening stroll when they step through the looking glass. and happen when a young man came stumbling out of this alley collapsed in front of them. >> the attacker was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, and a hockey mask. >> it's like every nightmare you had as a child, after watching a scary movie. >> sure. >> every night where you've ever had, all of the sudden it's rare. >> mind you, this was no bewitching hour. it was 7:30. and early autumn sun had just begun to take on the honey glow of along 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 he looks staged. >> to get us to stop so they could rob us. >> we thought it was a setup for us. >> so you didn't know whether he was going to assault you? >> exactly. >> or whether he was running from that guy. >> then said trevor in marissa, the mask man retreated into the alley, to this garage. >> and that's where he stood. he stood there on guard, like he was protecting something. >> i was like, i'm getting out here right. now >> trevor and marissa 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 prowl the streets as the autumn light angled toward the horizon. but in this 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 they wondered, was the guy in the alley actually johnny and not an actor? we see a real victim? one of the detectives went downtown to check on the report that was taken from trevor and marissa. and it did not 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. coming up. or just maybe a tv show about a serial killer. >> what attracted you to? dexter >> what i love about the show, and the books, is how he was able to explore that dark side, rationalize that it's okay to kill somebody. because this person deserved it in a way. when dateline continues.

strange things come to light under the northern sun. especially with the eighth of a search warrant. as bill clark and his colleagues closed in on a movie maker mark twitchell, they seized his office computer. they found in his house. and on the computers hard drive, they found this video. it looked almost like a movie. >> a horror movie. now, it wasn't a snuff film. it wasn't johnny altinger murder caught on tape. it was raw footage of one of twitchell's teas films. the warning told detectives 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. >> house of cards, is what

twitchell was calling it. a promotional film, get enough people talking about this and he might persuade some investor to ante up the money for feature length film. in house of cards, a killer possesses online as a fuller teaches woman to entrap is victim. in this scene it's a philandering husband who tells his wife he's heading off to the gym. >> well i'm off. >> but once he arrives at the rendezvous site, the victim is dropped with a stunning baton, murdered, then cut up and a 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 >> so police decided to have a little chat with mr. hayward. when they showed up at his door, they were no slouch when it came to the entertainment missed, and thought it was a prank as some sort. >> i've worked in reality television. it was the worst things i got into television on. they threw you curveballs and they have raiders a night in

no. i thought somebody is making this. up this cannot be true. this is not a real story. >> police also tracked down toronto actor robert barnes lee, 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. mark twitch ill mark twitchell? >> he seem like a very normal guy, trying to do a film. >> nice guy. >> very. nice >> very pleasant. >> playing a serial killer was almost too much fun. >> action. >> a kite kind of scary where i enjoyed it too much. >> you've got to be the state is big time. >> absolutely. it was very fun for me to play actually. i rather enjoyed doing. i was thinking to myself, did i just think that i could do this and make it believable?

>> which said barnes lee, was exactly what director twitchy wanted to happen. >> there is a point where i had to stab the dummy through the chest with a samurai sword. and he would be sitting behind the chair and leaning in and say ok. listen. when you're turning the blade richer teeth and really show that you're enjoying, you know. >> wait a minute. was this all about enjoying some fantasy game, pretending to be evil? detectives served around a twitchell's computer. account and discovered a facebook relationship that was all about pretending. at about the time he started filming house of cards, twitchell fronted an animal trimmer and aspiring filmmaker in rural ohio. a woman named rene wary. so in edmonton detective flew all the way to cleveland to question her. where she, quite upfront about, it told about clicking on an intriguing facebook profile, dexter morgan. there was a picture of a

michael c hall. he is the actor that portrays dexter morgan on showtime. >> did you think you are finding the actor himself? >> sure,. you know. >> what attracted you to? dexter >> what i love about the show and the books, is how he is able to explore the dark side and rationalize that it's okay to kill somebody because this person deserved it in a way. >> we flirted back and forth, then i kept asking him, who are you? really tell me who you are. because i wanted to see the man behind the mask. >> finally rene's facebook friend relented. no he wasn't the actor michael c hall. his name was, mark twitchell.

once he told me who he was a check them out. i did a lot of research on. line and found out he was legitimate, and he was up and coming. >> and for rene, the would-be filmmaker, it seemed like her big break. >> and then he express interest to, me in my riding style. and my ideas. and how we would be able to work together. >> what's the like about your writing? style >> he never said specifically. he just said i think we had chemistry together weibo to work together.

and we thought a lot unlike. >> this had to be pretty exciting. soon she was intoxicated by this online collaboration. and then, wonder of wonders, he offered her work on his next project, a feature length version of his short film, house of cards. 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 >> would city want to? do >> he told me you do it like dexter. dexter shows you how to do it all the time. >> dark? oh yes. but all in fun of course. lake twitchell's playful advice on eliminating indexed or lake fashion, one of rene's rivals and romance. >> with both her hands totally wrapped in duct a, free one arm, and slip the wrist. a hunters game processing kit comes with everything you would need to cut the body and manageable pieces. >> disturbing? well, yes. but remember, all pretense. but then, a couple of weeks later, this is what she told the police, something happened. strange and unsettling. >> we would right back and forth every day. >> 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 in with an apology. i've also had something else keeping me busy, he wrote. i'm really concerned about telling anyone because of the implications. suffice to say, i crossed the

line on friday and i like that. >> cross the line? what did that mean? it was all part of an elaborate hoax? staged fantasy? or something truly terrifying? when dateline continues. [ sneeze ] are you ok? oh, it's just a cold. if you have high blood pressure, a cold is not just a cold. unlike other cold medicines, coricidin provides powerful cold relief without raising your blood pressure be there for life's best moments with coricidin. now in sugar free liquid. halloween in edmonton, canada.

halloween, a highlight in most any child's fantasy calendar, the night to be the terrible creatures, she or he never really be. mark twitchell love halloween. he would spend weeks, months actually, stitching together fantastical get, ups out land just costumes.

in 2008, just weeks after his wave kicked him out and the cops began tailing him everywhere, he desire to be iron man. built a costume in his parents garage. but on this very witching afternoon, mere hours from his plan grand engines to a gala halloween party, as he was walking to a local coffeehouse to meet with potential movie investors, he was thrown to the ground by women wearing their own unique costumes. members of edmonton's swat team. marked which it was handcuffed, taken into custody and charged with the murder of johnny altinger. that of course, made big headlines. police even held a plus conference to announce the arrest. in the report others to gathered were left with one juicy tidbit. >> we have a lot of information that suggests idolizes dexter. >> whatever that meant. >> one of the first things we did in the newsroom is went to

mark twitches facebook page. >> steve was a crime reporter for the edmonton journal. he had a post their worries said mark twitchell has way too much in common with dexter mormon morgan. and there's an idea there is a man out there is attacking strangers, totally is victims, it's almost myth, something buildup by hollywood. it didn't seem like it could be real. >> so, here in edmonton, the question began to circulate. had the cops been cleared by a clever promoter? mark twitchell is known as a prankster. a lot of people thought this was a hoax. you almost weather whether or not he was doing it as a publicity stunt. >> 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 laptop, a very smart detective founded deleted temporary file. a document about 40 pages long.

could be described as a diary. maybe a farfetched novel. or a treatment for a dexter episode. it was called ask a 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. >> except the guy as a professional storyteller who tells, you know, movies, they're not real. were you a little bit afraid he might be about to drawn into a kind of rabbit hole here, that year, that was something that might not be true or might be true, might be fantasy? >> absolutely, absolutely.

we had huge discussions in the office about this. >> because ask a confessions, read more like a work of fiction, like a story that couldn't possibly be true. seems 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 i decided to become a serial killer. but i remember the station they hit me when i committed to the decision. it was a russian pure euphoria. there was something about urgently exploring my dark side, that greatly appealed to me. >> the author sk confession seemed inspired by the tv show dexter. up until i saw that, i was convinced that would i was was my own decision, my own path. now i truly wondered if i had little choice set at all and if genetics played a bigger role than i thought. i knew i was a psychopath,

rather than a sociopath. because i had the perfect upbringing in no history of abuse. , violence, drama. >> but an escape confessions, the violence is graphic. the description for example of how the killer dispatches victims with a metal pipe in a hunting knife. >> i thrust it in his gut, his reaction was pure hollywood. the lurched forward with the grunt was dead on tv movie of the week. >> the little bit i knew at that time, in the things we had, found i thought it was true. >> cops can have hunches, think 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 just have easily been downloaded from the internet. and so investigators started going through sk confections, 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 it is first person account tells the reader how the user processing kit to dismember the vitims body. and police found a processing kit in twitchell's garage. the-esque a killer says he tried to burn the victims body and his oral drummond parents backyard. >> and he joked about it in his storytelling, about how this dumb compton realize he had just killed a guy, and he was now going out and celebrating, having sex with his girlfriend. you could call that cop. in that cop remembered, it because he had a special license plate on his car, dark jedi. and he knew the conversation he had with him. it was basically ward forward with that story, that diary told us. exactly with the sheriff told us. >> but there was a key part of the story that could not be

verified. a detailed passage that goes on for pages about an earlier attack. the victim got away. that part of the story red lake directly from the house of cards script where the victim is tasers by a man wearing a hockey mask and hood. you know, that's a big part to prove if it's true or. not >> sure. >> it was a huge part. of it >> surely have somebody had been attacked that, where you would've heard about it. >> exactly. we would've expected someone to come forward. but we had. nothing no call, no nothing that even matches similarity. >> 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 will tweak somebody 's memory, about yeah that was me, and hopefully they'll come forward. >> 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 petering round on his computer and saw the newspaper article online. the police appeal. and felt the blood drain from his face. that person. was him. >> i'm like oh my god, that's the same hockey mask as i saw, that guy was wearing. >> the hockey. mask >> the hockey. mask >> i started reading this story and i was like oh my god, someone got killed. >> now that terrifying evening, the horror, the embarrassment, came crashing back into his head. it was he, gilles tetreault who so frightened that couple out first stroll, trevor and marissa. he 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 i've ever had with the witness. >> and now. you are about to hear that

story. firsthand. coming up. all of the sudden, i see this man, wearing this black and gold hockey mask. this guy was much bigger, any hit me with a stun gun. >> the horror story really. happened >> it was life flashed before my, eyes like oh my god, my family is never going to see me again. >> when dateline continues. nues lors we work with to help improve - and even change - people's lives. moving from mental illness to mental wellness starts in our circle. this is intra-cellular therapies. hey, come here! nurtec odt is the first and only medication proven to treat and prevent migraines.

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tetreault join the strange developing horror movie plot up in edmonton, canada. he was a man with a broken. her lonely in a new city. without the wife who had left him for another life. when gilles tetreault join the strange developing horror movie plot up was it a difficult breakup? >> it was for me. in edmonton, canada. he was a man with a broken. her lonely in a new city. without the wife who had left

him for another life. was it a difficult breakup? >> it was for me. yes well, who could resist? >> she looked beautiful in her profile. she nina was her name. i believe i made the first contact. >> what did she say about herself online? >> she said she had just moved in she was new in town, and looking to meet people. and i found it a coincidence, so as i kind of. i just moved. >> both of you alone and looking to meet somebody. >> so i thought hey, this is perfect. >> she now was her name. >> she said how about dinner in a movie? >> then she started making these kinds of excuses that i couldn't pick her up at the front door. so gilles tetreault stay asked to park in an alley, come through a back entrance, come through a detached garage.

>> and she would have the garage door open for me. i 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 did have to crawl under. i just had to squat under. >> so now hopeful, unsuspecting, he walked through the garage toward this door, that leads to the back patio. >> and i touch the knob to open the door and all the sudden somebody attacked me from behind. i turn back to look to see what was going on and that's when all of this 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. >> at first in his shock, he could not tell what it was, this stinging in the back of his neck. but listen to this.

from mesquite confessions. >> pressing the baton across the basque of his neck, pulling the trigger. it shocked and jump but do 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. >> when is it like when someone pulls a gun on? you >> i was terrified. i didn't want to do. i was like, oh my god, i think i'm going to die and i can't get away now. there is no way i can escape a gun, like a bullet. i just felt a sick feeling. i pointed straight at him and all this to needs took me seriously. his eyes wide. >> and he yells, get down on the ground, put your face down, closure eyes, put your hands on your back. i don't know where he had, it but he took out ducked up. and he ripped off apiece. that's when he covered my eyes with it. >> just about then, he decided he had come to the moment of

his own death. >> i actually started tearing up. and it was likely flash before my eyes. and it was quite emotional. 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 toward the back of me by my legs, my hair was a hero built. jiggling but once you actually heard was the sound of handcuffs as they neared his risks. he said he felt the attacker was undoing his belt. >> and i immediately thought he is going to rape me. so i was like, you know what? a better fight for my life. i said that i would rather die my way than his way and i knew that he's going to pull the gun up again and you know what if it kills me kills me. >> coming up, he makes his move. >> i just started for the gun, grabs at the end of it and pushed it away from my body. >> but this fight is far from over. >> sure, enough comes after me and grabs my legs and he starts dragging me back. >> when dateline continues.

police 30 others were hospitalized, hundreds of firefighters responded and some ran out of oxygen but continued working to save those residents. actor and comedian bob stag it was found in an orlando area hotel room. authorities say there was no evidence of foul play, and the cause of death was not immediately known. the full house star with 65 years old. now back to dateline. he was in a battle for his life. he had been lured into a garage and then assaulted by a masked man with a taser and gun. now he was determined to turn the tables. >> so i get up and i rip off the duck 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 duck 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. >> just immediately. >> immediately. >> so 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, and we're kind of struggling all over the garage. >> according to confessions, gilles by fighting back had taken the story way off script.

>> over estimating the stun baton is a mistake i would not repeat. i should have just pounded him at 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 -- >> your cooked. >> yeah, exactly. >> his adrenaline had been pumping so ferociously he was quite unaware of how the shots from the stun baton had sapped his strength. >> my muscles just couldn't move and i was just so weak. well he goes forward and tries to headbutt me. >> i delivered ahead but 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 and the head. >> >> 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 run and all of a sudden it was like my legs were paralyzed and i just couldn't move. and i just fell right on my face. >> just like being in a nightmare where you can't get away from the monster. >> yeah, and then i just start crawling away on this and paved driveway. sure enough, he comes back underneath that garage after me and grabs my legs and he starts dragging me back. and i'm thinking -- >> i'm 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 less 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 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. henry needs 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. >> legs, carry me. >> yeah. >> terrified, exhausted, he ran for just 30 or 40 feet to this

pedestrian path and that is when he collapsed in front of travel and marissa. >> and i look up in all of a sudden i see a couple walking their dog and i couldn't really talk. all i could say was, there is a man after me. he's trying to mug me. please help me. and they look stunned. they didn't know what was going on. and to me it felt like it was taking the mask demand for ever to come after me, but sure enough he came running after me. he comes towards me, i'm close to the couple. i tell them, hey, that's the man. >> and 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 and headlight look that can only be described as a total lack of comprehension. >> once he couple there, he said hey,, come on frank. >> the guy in the mask was pretending that they were friends. >> and then he pretends like he's gonna 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 start back at them through my mask for half a moment then head back for the cover of my layer. >> it was only once he arrived safe at home that he tried to put it all together. but how? what in the world just happened? who was that man behind the mask? and why had he been attacked? >> i decided, you know what's? i need to go back on to that online dating website. i want to get as much information as i can. >> sure. >> so i can give this to police. and so i go back on and auto if a sudden everything was gone.

her profile was gone. all of the sent and received messages that i got from that person we're all gone. >> what is it like to be sitting alone in your apartment and 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. >> and did not call the police. >> now. i didn't. >> maybe it was the fear in his eyes that told me deep down he wouldn't report the incident. >> four weeks after that, i had nightmares and i kept thinking, maybe the skies following me maybe he's going to attack me again. i had no idea. it was terrifying. i was facing him there with a gun. >> but now, a month later after his journey into the twilight zone, bella gilles tetreault

was giving bill clark of videotape blow by blow account of the assault. >> and it's just there is no doubt in my mind that he is being so truthful. >> the cops had real evidence that "sk confessions" was all true was all true -- except it was not quite completes. it was a story without an end. >> the part we 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 twitchell on an incredible journey to the place where something evil may have happened. >> here we are back at the killing garage. look familiar, mark? >> when dateline continues.

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the so taken with the whole idea of it that he posted this online ad in the attempt to sell the script for his house of cards short film. as if it were an original dexter episode. and in fact the story of twitches computer, the one called sk confessions. there's a lot like that episode about the avenging psychopath. >> but now, here in his rental garage, police found and looked for it like a kill room there was plastic sheeting in here, an autopsy title, all matching the kerfuffle descriptions of descriptions in "sk confessions. with the killer couldn't learn from dexter, though, was how to dispose of the body. the tv dexter of their own lives in die miami, dumps his victims in the atlantic.

but edmonton out here in the middle of thousands of square miles of farmland and oil fields as 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 and the 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. >> 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 that 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 clean sweep. you were referring to your garage as a killed room. your garage was to kill room. the table is the kill table. it's undoubtedly where you carved him up. i'm gonna show you that later, but all the blood seeps right underneath. the guys just pull all that out. when i say that show dexter, and you've seen that show dexter i mean this is all mueller after dexter. you know, that mark. it really, 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 is really no harm to society at all. >> but from twitchell, no response at all. off the next day, clark and another detective took twitchell out of jail and drove him around edmonton, hoping he would give up information. >> what was his demeanor like? >> defiance. we just took him for a drive and said you're gonna show us where the body is, you're gonna show us where johnny is and i drove right here. parked right in front of his parents house. >> and after that, mark twitchell was taken to the place 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 down to the

body? jog your memory. is this where you, which sewer you put this guy down. >> 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. >> back in the car, another detective heard off camera starts working on twitchell. >> you humiliate your victim, knocked 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. >> 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, and thing in a jumble of unrecoverable computer code. >> we're going to the computer guys, come on.

you've got to pull up more. we're right to the point that he dumped the body we don't know the location. >> so the detectives that is slow, methodical search through the desktop computer found in twitchell altinger's home and it paid off. on that computer once deleted but now found was yet another version bob 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 it's often in an alley. it's in a grassy area. it's in an older neighborhood. he talks about telephone poles in this alley. if it was really dicey, you couldn't see down. we call the city crews in.

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 stop right about where you and i are standing right here, on 138 avenue. >> so, a year and a half later, where did you find the body? >> right down there. >> who gave them that map and why? when dateline continues. are you tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters keep your laundry smelling fresh way longer than detergent alone.

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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 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 print out of this

google map. at the bottom of the page there was a hand written note. location of john altinger's remains. >> and if you can believe that it was one block south of his parents house in that alley. >> this is the alley behind the twitchell home. it matched perfectly with the description from ask a 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 they sent cameras down the line where they actually go down the line and they snake them down and having a look, they found nothing. >> nothing. >> where did they stop? >> they stopped about where you are dire standing right here on 130th avenue. >> so a year and a half later, where did you find the body? >> right down there.

five telephone poles down on the left high second hand of this alley a half block from where we stopped. >> this was johnny altinger's tomb. >> you could see a little piece of the torso and pelvis. >> probably thought it would all get washed away. >> i think he thought it would just deteriorate to a point that it would be i an identifiable, and that 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. >> but why, it just weeks before his murder trial was set to begin did mark twitchell give up johnny altinger's body? there 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 disclosures that altinger's body had been uncovered -- >> catches everyone totally by surprise. >> former crime reporter steve has written a book about the switch will case, the devils cinema.

>> it doesn't get more explosive than that. that was all new information that no one had heard of before. >> and the trial only got more bizarre as the prosecution then unveiled for the first time sk confessions. sitting in that room, said, became a journey deep into the wilderness of a mind of >> horrid, horrid details were written down. i mean, no detail was not told within this document. it's written -- it sounds just like fiction, like a script but when you take a step back and realize this is a real person he is talking about. this is a real man who has been murdered. >> but was johnny altinger murdered? well, twitchell certainly a admitted that he dumped johnny 's remains down the storm drain. he never said he murdered him. he never even admitted that he was the author of sk confessions. so detectives knew that they

would need more than this document to get a conviction. so the 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 aluminum all, the chemical that makes blood glow. >> huge spots in the garage which would indicate a large pulling of blood. they found a piece of a human tooth in the garage. we found blood splatter all along the walls. the garage doors. hundreds of spots of splatter where an obvious beating had taken place. >> also in the garage? csi and vested gaiters found this big gang processing kit. >> kitty hunters would take out and push 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 victims dna on it. >> and in twitchell's car, police found other hard evidence. >> we find a knife in their. a knife with blood on it. >> visible? blood >> visible blood on that

night. and that blood matches up to johnny altinger. >> he just left in the car? >> and the car. the car turns out to be an absolute gold mine. it absolutely blows this case wide open. there are yellow sticky notes that are right on the console. one of them has a map drawn from the garage to johnny altinger's apartment. he kept everything. the guy was meticulous. he kept receipts, wrote everything down. >> after the presentation of the heart evidence, twitchell's 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 was acquitted. >> if it gets out, i don't know i feel like he'll probably kill me. >> chris wasn't alone in his

worry. for nate wearing was unsettled to the day she testified, but for another reason altogether. >> i didn't want to feel judged. >> judged because -- >> i have dark thoughts and i shared them and with a serial killer. >> johnny altinger's friend, debra tightrope testified. >> there was a lot of sadness that day for me in the realistic-ness of it all came but all i can do is think for john and the kind of person he was. >> nice man? >> definitely a nice man and i'm sure if things had not turned out the way they did, i'm sure he would've found what he wanted in life. i'm sure of that. i have no doubt about that. >> it was the first time she had gotten a clear look at mark twitchell. >> he seems like a normal person, average person off the street. and that's what disturbs me. >> twitchell remained stonefaced, even when his own wife took the stand. >> she's crying through all of this. mark twitchell's reaction was nearly blank. >> but when this video was shown in court during bill

clark's testimony, twitchell came unraveled. >> he starts to cry, and this tears are streaming down his face and he's getting hysterical. his chest is heating. >> 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's still very upset and he's crying. he turns around and actually faces detective clark and he starts talking to him. he said i'm sorry for lying to. this is extraordinary. i've never ever had an excuse 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 in the trial. that came in the case for the defense when the attorney calls but one witness, mark twitchell. >> the room was packed, there was not a single seat. everyone was on the edge of their seat wondering what this guy is going to say? >> now, which will have finally an audience to hear his story. when he had been waiting two and a half years to tell.

coming up, and what a story it was. >> he said that you could blend fiction and reality so closely together that everyone would be fooled. >> telling fact from fiction, but now it would be a jury's job. when dateline continues.

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and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. in marc twitchell's trial the powering possibilities. 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 that 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. >> house of cards and sk confessions, said twitchell,

where to beat the building blocks to cutting edge entertainment concept consisting of both book and film. but there was more, 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. >> and he called it multi angle psychosis layering entertainment. maple for short. >> it's almost like you're sitting on a beach and there is a palm tree and there's a beach in front of you, but when you pull back it's not a beach at all. it's actually a picture of a beach. >> so the attack on tetreault according to twitchell was just a stunt.

he allowed his prey to escape. >> and johnny altinger? that assault was fake to, said twitchell, just like the first one. but johnny just didn't get the joke. and furious that there was no woman to greet him, attacked which ill with a pipe. >> and he's got this little 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, he's lifting the pipe over his head, and mark twitchell sticks both of his hands out in front of him and the next thing he sees is the knife is in johnny's stomach and the blood is on his hands and he collapses and dies on the floor in front of him. >> the only inaccuracy in sk confessions that twitchell the initial attacker was johnny altinger and then he and mark twitchell panicked and disposed of the body and its sewer. now police have their answer as to why twitchell gave up the body. it was the prologue of his elaborate tail. >> 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 scot-free. >> down in ohio, rene wearing was following all of this online. >> i watched the live blog that they had and i was screaming my head off, at home, you liar. >> 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. >> >> 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. >> right. >> she looked back and saw me and i didn't know how she'd feel. >> why i 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 i was -- that meant so much to me. >> what was that? like >> i didn't know which he'd feel towards me, and so when she did that, it was wonderful. it was almost another closing moment for me. >> 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's a hold out. maybe there's someone out there who actually does believe mark twitchell. >> after all, mark twitchell was a masterful liar. maybe this ultimate fantasy of his would be called the jury. and then that final audience troops 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. >> right. >> and there is no doubt that 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. >> because he told you. >> he told us. ultimately, johnny let us to it and mark twitchell closed it on himself by writing all about it. no doubt in my mind he would've kept on killing. we caught a serial killer on his first kill. >> 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 produced a film about it

and he would be a producer who would tell his cast and crew how to do it and only to himself he would know he actually lived it. i think that was what he wanted to do. >> and far away in ohio, rene wearing, which shows old facebook friend, arrived at the same disturbing theory. >> i think he did it for artistic reasons. >> artistic reasons? >> sure. i think he wanted to see how someone died so maybe he could make a better story. film it better. right about it better. >> 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 which you know. this sunday the cdc under fire. >> we had all winter break to have this planned out and here we are. >> with cases spiking, hospitals overwhelmed -- >> it's been a lot of uncertainty, and i'm tired. >> -- air travel disrupted, widespread labor shortages including teachers staying home. >> i would just appreciate being able to work in an environment where at least the students are all pcr tested weekly. >> criticism is growing over the government's covid response. >> we have to reorient our goal so we get into a manageable state and we can continue with our normal life while covid is around. >> my guests this morning,