good night. thank you for staying up late with us. i will see you all next week. i am very lucky to be in this seat. that was pretty spectacular. see you monday. ♪ ♪ ♪ 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. a frightening film about a serial killer. >> great your teeth, and really show your joy. >> but was it really just pretend? >> he yells, get down on the ground. and took out duct tape. love my life flashed before my eyes. >> i have never in my eyes felt fear like that. >> a young director filming a

murder? or accidentally committing a? and >> he told my mom about dexter. >> you see the show dexter, this is all modeled after dexter. >> when you take a step back, you see this is a real man who's been murdered. >> it was darker than anyone knew. >> holy mackerel! >> everyone is on the edge of their seat. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> an underground parking garage. you're watching a violent attack, caught on tape. who is this? what is happening? or did it happen at all? movies, like that one. are by design deceptive. they blur words. but have you noticed, maybe

it's all the technical doodads. the digital cameras. the reality pristine editing. some stories have claimed to be true. are not. anybody can manipulate reality, but 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 hughes. and that's where we're going tonight. a twilight zone world. an illusion. and deception. and deceit. follow the howling wind, north across a vast prairie. to breathe, brazil and summers. as frigid as any on earth. to a metropolis canadians called 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 i career so strange, as the case as the man who went missing. and bill clark found himself in the another world. between fatty and illusion. >> ever seen a case like this before? >> never in my life. >> but 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 victims sobers up. >> i'm not thinking much is gonna come of this. >> after clark's decades of service in this city with the highest murder rate in canada. you can't blame him for getting a little picky. >> i don't usually go with missing persons. basically, unfortunately for us to come out. it better be dead and he better be criminal. if a patrol or doesn't know his criminal, don't bother calling us. >> which explains perhaps, why some of the locals have taken a calling the city, dead mentone.

>> our concern was do we have a murder because if we don't. this is in our file. we have enough to work on, we have no indication of foul play, nothing. the missing person in this case was the name by johnny altinger. >> 39, single, worked in the oil industry. who unlucky with women. he had a wide circle of friends. but with police, something kind of weird. he seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. except for the strange emails that he was sending. >> i left with a woman, i'm going to costa rica. >> she was one of the recipients of the emails. the old friend, debra. >> saying that he had met a wonderful world name jan and he is going to costa rica. i received seven of them, but six altogether. in the runs of three. >> six messages? the same message? >> the exact same message. >> same words? >> hi there, metal wonder for

girl named jen. 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, it's like someone you did not know is sending you an email. >> absolutely, and i was like, that's really our. it doesn't sound like john. >> but it was hard. and even more so when another friend received the exact same message. word for word. and his facebook status changed from singleton in a relationship. >> and i think it was the following day, i was on as emerson messenger and he hopped online. so i thought, he must not have left on his vacation yet. and it said, johnny, his name, and then in quotations beside's name it said i have a one way ticket to heaven and i'm never coming back. >> then later that day, they got a call from a friend that

told her that johnny altinger, appeared to be missing. >> it's surreal, you know? you don't expect your friends to go missing. >> pretty soon altinger friends got to gather. unsure what to do. but before going to police, they thought they would go into his condo. see if they could find a clue into what happened to the guy. and to break in, actually. and everything looked fine. nothing out of place, no sign of any struggle. only things missing where his wallet, his keys, and his red mazda coop. so, it looked like he went out for a drive. could be back any minute. >> there was no answers to anything. he just balanced banished out of thin air. >> except for the strange emails that he had sent about falling in love, and costa rica. which to the car, said clark seemed perfectly reasonable. not hard to imagine that a love struck man might want to leave

the snow and ice behind and trip off to the tropics. >> he spent an email to his friends, and we go that's strange. but who knows? maybe did go to costa rica. trade things have happened. >> at least, that's how clark felt. before he stepped through the looking glass. >> coming up! detective clark is about to follow johnny altinger trail into a strange place of make believe. an up and directors makeshift movie studio. >> this is a suspense thriller. >> it's a short realm. it's gonna be about eight or nine minutes. >> as soon as they called me on the phone. >> when dateline continues! teline continues otic. you see... your gut has good and bad bacteria. and when you get off balance, you may feel it. the bloating, the gas - but align helps me trust my gut again. plus, its recommended by doctors nearly 2x more than any other probiotic brand.

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struggle. no blood. it was like he just stepped out for a few minutes. could be back anytime. where was he? john these friends were convinced something awful had happened to him. so, day after day. they prodded the police. and finally, seven days after he went missing, the cops agreed to open the investigation. >> we just started with the basics. we said well, we basically have to find if we can find him first. so let's find the car, hopefully we find him. or have an idea where he is. >> since johnny altinger email said he had taken out for costa rica. oz freezers went to the airport to see if they could find his car. they come through airline passengers, he was not any of them. his friends, meanwhile went back to the apartment 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 seems like he had to be within driving distance, but, what's direction? where? and just as the police were contemplating that puzzle. one of his friends came up with another email. this one he had received from a woman he had met online. jen was his name. the same woman that he supposedly scampered off with costa rica. they had a date, tougher going out on the town the night he disappeared. but because he had never been to her place, she spent an animal with directions on how to pick her up. and after an abundant sense of caution, he had never met the woman after all, he sent a copy to a friend of his. just in case. >> i can't remember the last words of the email, but he says if anything happens to me, you know where i'm at. 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 route. and the directions led them to this neighborhood, down this

alley and to this garage. rented by, >> again in march. >> who happen to be a bit of an alert merging celebrity. he made a name for himself as a scrappy filmmaker in edmonton. he recently made a low budget sci-fi movie. so they called him up of course, and he readily agreed to come down and open the place up. but when he got here. big surprise. someone had changed the locks. he could not get in. so, with his permission, officers broke in. had a quick look around and found nothing. just the same, what with a changed lock and the weird coincidence of the email. there were things to figure out. and mark was only too happy that tag along to the police station. to happen out, in whatever way he could. >> the first thing that i noticed, the padlock did not look familiar to me. >> he explained that he had been using the rented garage as a sound stage.

most recently from what they call a teaser. a short film designed to drum up publicity, bus, and with any luck, detract enough investor money to help him produce a full length feature movie. >> it's a suspense thriller, actually. we did it, it's a short film. the total run time is only gonna be eight or nine minutes. >> okay. >> suspense thriller? >> right. >> of course he had a crew in and out of the place said mark. several actors to. maybe one of them was up to something. but it seemed unlikely, and none of them had ever asked to poorer 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. said >> they would let you know. >> they, they would ask or something like that. so i don't know anything about that. >> anyway, he said, he had moved on for now. to another project.

>> i'm working on a comedy right now which is a full blown feature that's actually gonna have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about three and a half million. >> in the meantime, the garage turned studio was empty. so, why would someone break into the place and then change the lock? he wondered? did not make sense. >> and i had a padlock previously, but it wasn't the same one. the one that i had one was silver on the outside with a black plastic dial in the center. and this one was all metal. >> so you notice the different padlock? >> yeah. >> and then on the door. >> right. >> mystifying, said mark. he had a bad feeling about this. a man disappears after telling police he was going to the place his movie had been shooting. >> as soon as they called me up on the phone, i got this weird chill. >> so what about that woman that johnny had been flirting with online? the one who gave him directions to the garage? told him she would meet him

there? the more women who signed her emails jen? >> does the name jen mean anything to you? >> no. constable maxwell helps me about that too. >> yes yeah? >> i don't know anything about that. >> so the name jen doesn't mean anything to you? you don't know again? you don't know any actress named jen? >> no. >> so who was this mystery woman? jen? and why in the world where she arranged to meet johnny altinger here, in the very background garage that he was using as his studio? how large? especially since the movie producers director, mark, expressed the exact same confusion as the police. he did not get it either. the dots did not connect. mark did not joel johnny from adam, besides there was no indication that johnny made it to the garage at all. >> the close friends where the ones that went to the police and they basically had nothing

other than the emails. >> there was one thing though, and it came from mark. he wondered, he said, if maybe. somebody was being set up. >> because, it just doesn't sit right so the first thing i started asking myself is, who all knows about we do in there about our works and stuff like that? >> was the disappearance stage somehow? but if someone was being fooled, who was it and why? was all of this just some big stunt, even a publicity stunt? the detective was thoroughly engaged by now. he had spent a career listening to criminal spin their stories and maybe he could figure out if the twitchell guy was trying to play the cops somehow and he pulled a recording of the interview. >> you know i watched the interview and i'm looking at but the guy says. but i'm noticing signs of d.c.. and mark interviewed really

well. there were no signs of deception. he is free-flowing with the information and answering the questions logically. i don't see any looking away or any of the nervousness, nothing. i see nothing. >> and then when police looked into the production company express entertainment, they encountered a really legitimate company. more than that. this was a promising effort in northern alberta. it was a potential center of moviemaking. and mark was very good at drumming up attention to money from local investors like john dissent. >> he was a very sharp, bright, young, entrepreneur. exactly the kind of inch individual most of us are looking for. >> so he checked out. hardworking local boy in the 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 twitchell's next project, a three and a half comedy called day players. >> that's mark in the background playing the role of director. even as he was the director. sort of a hall of mirrors types of 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 members and he vouched for him completely. he came off squeaky clean, and his film company was legit. bill clark and the police were back at square one by the look at things. >> what do we have? we have nothing. >> coming up! soon this tough cop would catch a big break. >> you get a phone call from the detective. detective says, you won't believe it but this guy just told me he bought a red mass off a guy. >> a missing man's car turns up!

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admitting it. an old school detective. this one that exists more in the big screen than the mean streets. in fact, he is just such as throwback that the one in the

force who are younger call him sipowicz. after the cop show. >> i thought i would work every day. enjoy it. it's just a part of my life. i have the drive, still excited about. it almost every file, something is different. >> in his decades on the edmonton police force, he had seen murder take many forms. he had said in the shot effect that it had on a family. >> you're the one the family depends on. and i take that seriously. it's in the back of your mind. and if you do not speak for the family of the dead guy, who is going to? >> and for clark, there is no greater satisfaction than bringing in a killer. >> i'm a pit bull. i consider myself a pit bull. if you get a case, get your teeth into it. it isn't a type personality. we want to get this guy and put it 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. and yet to smell blood. >> you must have come to some point where you felt like this was definitely foul play? >> no. >> not at all? all they had after all was a missing man, johnny. who might just have driven off somewhere with or without some mystery woman named jen. certainly that would account for the fact that his red mazda was gone to. but it didn't make any sense, there wasn't much to go on. so being cops, him and his buddies had standard procedure. they doubled back for a second look at things. like the garage that johnny was headed for when he vanished. >> the next step logically is the garage. we have to step inside and take a close look. >> so they applied for a search warrant and it was rejected. >> it turned down. and it is turned down because we haven't proved there was a crime committed.

>> so the next thing, simple enough, they want to mark twitchell directly to see if they gave him consent to search the garage. >> we gave him a form to -- >> they gave him a form, one of the directors jumped in the car, went over to mark's place to get a signature. then the way to stay. >> got a phone call from the detective, he says the readjusting. he says he bought a read mazda off again. i >> didn't johnny drive a red mazda? he didn't say anything when he came to the police station to talk to the detective the night before, but really? why would he forget a thing like that? >> you know on the television. big thing for homicide investigation, to look at the television. so i keep my mind on. it pullback. but there's something fishy going on. >> so clark invited twitchell

to come back down to the station for a meeting, 10:30 on the sunday night, and twitchell? agreed. >> hey mark, new. >> everything you do now. we're analyzing. we call it the up arrow down arrows scenario. mr. cooperatives? he'll come down, and talk to us on 10:30 on a sunday night. that's for mark, he's being all good. that car, as the hasn't mentioned it? big down or. >> but those 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. johnny altinger. >> we had nothing, i don't know what happened to johnny. >> or whatever happened? >> exactly. >> because once again as the interview proceeds, the young filmmaker is the very picture of cooperation. he volunteers information. answer questions without

hesitation or any apparent guile. his demeanor is expensive. even an untrained eye can see the twitchell body language is open, comfortable, in control. so they get to the story about the red mans that. he was approached, he said, just a few blocks from his garage by an agitated man. it was the night that johnny altinger disappeared. the man seem desperate to get rid of his car. said mark. offered to sell it for practically nothing. >> and he goes, well, i shacked up with this really rich lady. a, you know, a sugar mark metallic situation. and she's gonna take care of me and buy me a new car when we get back from vacation. >> i'm thinking, okay is there are 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. and nothing wrong with the car. except that had a standard transmission which he did not know how to drive. so he left it parked in a

friend's driveway. >> does he live close by your white? >> yeah. he lives a couple of blocks away. >> was it finally a break? a detective monitoring the interview sent a patrol car to check it out. and sure enough, there was. empty, by the look at it. >> nothing untoward about the car. donny is 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 did not show it. here, he calmly placed a call to his wife. >> well, i tried to answer some more of the questions, film them in. everything like that. it turns out that the car is in fact belonging to this missing guy. and it's a huge hail. so, that's with this whole thing is about. >> what's in heaven's name was going on? bill clark still did not have a

clue. but he might, in a minute. because, bill clark, good cop, was about to become. bill clark, that cop. >> coming up! >> there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you are involved in the disappear of johnny altinger. >> he might be involved. but what part was fact, and what was fantasy? >> i just feel like in the twilight zone right now. >> when dateline continues! teline continues but what if you could begin to see the signs of hope all around you? what if you could let in the lyte? discover caplyta. caplyta is a once-daily pill, proven to deliver significant relief from bipolar depression. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta treats both bipolar i and bipolar ii depression. and, in clinical trials, feelings of inner restlessness and weight gain were not common.

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happening. in ukraine, europe's largest nuclear plant is under threat from occupied russian forces. ukrainian officials warned russia is planning to take the plant off line. that could lead to a nuclear disaster. this is the u.s. prepares to send 770 million dollar aid package for ukraine. and in georgia, a federal judge denied lindsey graham's attempt

to evade a superior to testify in the grand jury, investigating an interference in the 2020 election. he is expected to testify august 23rd. now back to dateline! o dateline almost 4 am now, downtown edmonton. filmmaker mark twitchell was sitting in the interview room at the police station talking to his wife on the phone. fading a little. >> my problem is that 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. it's me against him, i know it. >> he also knew that he was

quite sure that all evening mark twitchell have been handing him a whole load of nonsense. and expected him to believe it. but also, all evening, as detective clark listened carefully and contemplated his up arrows and down arrows. >> i agreed with everything he said. i didn't, this wasn't the time in the interview to start pushing him on it. it wasn't the time to start to find him. that would come later on. >> because one of those down arrows at bill clark's lead to a particular conclusion. mark twitchell thought bill clark was a dumb cop. he was trying to play him. >> well your reading him in the interview, he had been reading you. >> no doubt. >> and he had probably had made some judgments about your ability as an interviewer. what do you think of you do you think? >> i think he didn't think that i was that smart. he thought he was smarter than me. and i believe that he felt that

anything that he had told us, he could concoct to make us believe him. >> and of course, his only one proper expanse to that. >> i let him go, and then i take him back through. it question and answer. standard procedure. just nailed down the details. start nailing them down. now i'm starting to see, he is not remembering specific details. >> let's go back to your lunch, your at lunch. where do you go for lunch? >> i don't remember. >> don't know where you went for? lunch >> now. >> so now it was early morning. they have been out for hours. they had taken a break. and they let mark twitchell slip by himself and still a bit. now the time had come for clark to play a different wall. >> we've done the good cop good routine, now the backup is coming. out >> this is what you 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? >> i'm going to start with the hammering of 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 the disappearance. and maybe a murderer. 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. >> as the night dragged on, he mumbled something about reality seeming like a fantasy. >> i feel like i'm in the twilight zone right now. >> but in the face of all of detective clark's allegations,

mark twitchell never wavered. for nearly four hours he answered clarks questions, always a polite. apparently helpful. did not so much is asked for a lawyer. >> so by the end of the night, i got nothing. 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 is done to him? i don't know yet. but i will find out. >> finally, at daybreak. mark twitchell let clark know that he had had enough. >> am i being charged? >> not yet. >> am i free to go? >> yeah. >> then i will. >> okay. >> and then, as bill clark escorted mark twitchell out of the building, and into the early morning park. he up the ante a little. told twitchell that he was seizing his car. >> and then he goes, he almost stopped and pulled back. he goes, well, i need to get

something out of it. i said you're getting nothing. i'm taking that car. >> and, it was then. as khark approached twitchell's car to take it to the impound lot. that he notice the license plate, personalized. dark jedi. >> coming up! >> i have never in my life felt fear like that. >> police find witnesses that saw something like a horror movie. >> it's like every nightmare that you had as a child. after watching scary movie, every night you ever had all the sudden is right here. >> when dateline continues! continues try downy free & gentle. downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, and gentler on your skin. try downy free & gentle.

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one click data clearing and more stop companies like google from watching you, by downloading the app today. edmonton homicide detective duckduckgo: privacy, simplified. bill clark, along with other members of the edmonton police service felt a little bit like alice in the rabbit hole. the missing man, johnny, had balanced without a trace. and they're worried that the disappearance could be part of some publicity stunt. the only suspect was the aspiring movie producer, storyteller. who stood up to bill clark grilling him with his manners intact. even though, by this time, clark could not shake the gut feeling that this movie director was one very bad guy. >> i was thinking that he had filmed whatever he had done to johnny. i think he had killed him and

filled the murder. >> so they looked into twitchell's car and home. they had an idea they would find a videotape of a murder. instead, what they discovered was an affair. twitchell had a girlfriend. and when his wife found out about that. she kicked amount. but twitchell seemed, at least to the outside world, unperturbed. and instead of falling apart, he simply retreated to his childhood home. moved in with his parents. and so, clark paid twitchell dad and mom a visit. >> she struck me as a parent, 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 says surveillance, to keep an eye on the house. and twitchell. but his behavior, was anything but suspicious. he went on about his business. took meeting with sweat investors about his project. even picked up a $35,000 check

from financial backer, john vincent. >> the mark twitchell i was dealing with was articulate, in control. running his project the way that you would expect any entrepreneur to run the project. >> and detective clark world of apparels and down arrows. there was one huge up arrow in twitchell's favor. motive. or that is to say, the lack of one. there was no earthly reason for twitchell to kill altinger. there was no love triangle, no rivalry, 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. people police also focus their attention on the quiet neighborhood around the studio. and where all taker may have

gotten to see a woman that he liked. and they went door to door, had anybody seen johnny altinger or a his car? or anything suspicious? and they found this couple, who told the story that seemed almost lifted from a horror movie. >> i have never, in my life felt fear like that. >> these two, the names are marissa and trevor. we're out for an evening stroll. when they stepped through the looking glass. it happened when a young man kept stumbling out of the army and fell down on the ground with them. >> it was an instant that feeling. >> he looked at me and said i'm being robbed, can you help me? >> then, as if on cue. another man appeared in pursuit. >> and then as i looked up, the attack here. almost ran into me. >> the attacker was wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt. and that hockey mask. >> it's like every nightmare

you have as a child. after watching a scary movie. every nightmare you've ever had. all of a sudden it is right here. >> they knew that this was no be watching our. it was 7:30. an early autumn sun had just begun to take on the honey glow of a long evening. neighborhood kids were still struggling home from soccer practice. >> was it believable to you? >> well. yes and no. because the way that he fell, to me, looked staged. >> to get us to stop, so that they could rob us. >> yeah, we thought it was a setup for us. >> so you didn't know whether he was going to assault you? or whether he was running from that guy for a real? >> exactly. >> then, said trevor and marissa. the masked men retreated in the alley to this garage. >> and that's where he stood. he stood on guard like he was protecting something. >> i said i was getting out of here right now. >> trevor and marissa left the man on the ground pleading for

help, like some seasoned method actor. and ran from this twilight zone episode. when they got home, they called the police. so squad cars were on the streets. as it angle toward the horizon. but then, after supper, quiet. nothing 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, not an actor? a real victim? one of them went downtown to check on a 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, like a scene from a movie.

coming up! just maybe, a tv show about a serial killer. >> what attracted to you to dexter? >> what i love about the show in the books is how he was able to explore that darkside. rationalize that it is okay to kill somebody because this person deserved it in a way. >> when dateline continues! ne continues or atopic dermatitis under control? hide my skin? not me. by hitting eczema where it counts, dupixent helps heal your skin from within, keeping you one step ahead of eczema. hide my skin? not me. and that means long-lasting clearer skin and fast itch relief for adults. with dupixent, you can show more skin with less eczema. hide my skin? not me. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems such as eye pain or vision changes,

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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. founded in his house. and on the computers hard drive, they found this video of the -- looked almost like a movie. a horror movie.

no, it was not a snuff film. it wasn't johnny altinger murder call on tape. it was one of the tease films. the one he told the detective about, the first time he talked to him. >> it's a suspense thriller. actually. it's a short film, the total times gonna be about eight or nine minutes. >> 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 attract his victim. in this scene, it's a philandering husband who tells his wife that he is heading off to the gym. >> well i'm off. >> but once he arrives at the one day boo site, the victim is dropped with a stun baton. murdered, and 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 have been a great audience thank you very much. >> so police decided to have a little chat with mr. hayward. but when they showed up at his door, they were -- thought it was a prank of some sort. >> i haven't worked on reality television. it's one of the first things i got reality television on. and they threw you curveballs, they have writers. and i didn't know. i thought someone was making this. up this can't be true. this is not a real story. >> police also tracked down toronto actor, robert, 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, sounds interesting. and of course i wanted to try to be the killer. i wanted to be the bad guy. >> mark twitchell? >> seemed like a very normal

guy trying to do a film. >> nice guy? >> yeah, very nice. very pleasant. >> playing a killer serial killer was almost too much foreign, said barnes lee. >> he got kind of scarily where i enjoyed too much. >> well it was big time? >> absolutely. it was rather fun to play. i enjoy doing it. i was thinking to myself, did i just think that i could do it and make it believable? >> which, said him, it was directly what director twitchell seem to want. >> there was a point where i had to stab the dummy through the chest with a samurai sword. and he'd be sitting behind the chair, and leaning in. and say listen, when you're turning the blade, grate your teeth and show that you are enjoying it. >> wait a minute, was this all about enjoying some fantasy game? pretending to be evil? detectives surfed around his computer account and discovered a facebook relationship that

was all about pretending. at the time he started filming house of cards. he friend id an animal trainer, a woman named rene. so an edmonton detective through all the way to cleveland to question her. where she, cried upfront about, it told about clicking on an intriguing facebook profile. dexter morgan. >> there was a picture of markle c hall, and he was the actor that portrays dexter morgan on dexter. >> did you think that he -- >> sure. >> what attracted you to dexter? >> what i love about the show in books is how he was able to explore that darkside. and rationalize that it is 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 a little? tell me who you are. because i want to see the man

behind the mask. >> finally, rene's facebook friend relented. no, he was not the actor, 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 found out that he was, legitimate. and he was up and coming. >> and for rene? the would-be filmmaker. it seems like hybrid break. >> and then he expects interest in me and my writing styles. and my ideas. >> would it be like about your writing styles? he >> never said specifically, he just said i just think that we have chemistry together. and we'd be able to work very well together. and, we thought a lot alike. >> this had to be pretty exciting. >> yeah. >> soon she was intoxicated by this online collaboration, and then. wonder of wonders. he offered her work on her next

project. his feature length 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. >> whether they want with you? >> he said, you would do it like dexter because dexter shows you how to do it all the time. >> dark? oh yes. but all in fun of course. like twitchell's playful advice like eliminating, indexed or like faction, one of rene's rival in romance. >> with both of her hands wrapped in duct tape, free one arm, and slit the wrist. a hunters game kit comes with everything you need to cause the body into nice manageable pieces. >> disturbing? well yes. but remember. all pretense. but then, a couple of weeks later. and this is what she told the police. something happened. strange, and unsettling. >> we would write back and forth. every day. >> there was a weekend long

pause in the play talk about dexter, the dark side. not a single email from her friend, mark twitchell. then monday came. and with it, and apology. >> i've also had something else 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? wet did that mean? hey coming up! was this all part of an elaborate hoax? the staged fantasy of something truly terrifying? when dateline continues! en dateline continues! the pain has taken me away from my family and friends. but i finally found relief with nurtec odt it's the only medication that can treat my migraine right when it strikes and prevent my next attack. treat and prevent all in one. don't take if allergic to nurtec. most common side effects,

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-- the night to be the terrible creatures she or he could never really be. mark loved halloween. what's been weeks, months actually stitching together fantastical get ups, 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 a costume at his parents garage. but, on the very witching afternoon, near hours -- to a halloween party, as he was walking to a local coffeehouse to meet with potential movie investors, he was thrown to the ground by men wearing their own unique costumes. members of edmonton swat team. mark twitchell was handcuffed and taken into custody, charged with the murder of johnny altinger. and 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 tidbit. >> we have a lot of information to suggest that he idolizes dexter. >> whatever that meant. >> remember one of the things we did is we went to his facebook page. >> he was a crime reporter for the edmonton journal. >> he had a post there that said that mark twitchell has too much in common with dexter, the idea that there is a man up there who is attacking strangers, totally innocent victims, it's almost a myth. something that is built up by hollywood, it didn't seem like it could be real. >> so, here in edmonton, a question began to circulate. had the cops been played by a clever promoter? >> he was 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 sent. >> 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 found a deleted temporary file, a document about 40 pages long. could be described as a diary. maybe a farfetched novel. or treatment for a dexter episode. it was called ask a confession, it was the first person account, written from the perspective of an inspiring serial killer. >> i remember reading this the first day when they brought it down, i said holy mackerel, it tells everything. >> except, the guy is a professional storyteller who tells, you know, movies. they're not real. were you a little bit afraid

that you might be about to be drawn into a kind of a rabbit hole? it might be true, might not be true, might be a fantasy. >> absolutely. we had huge discussions in the office about this. >> because, it read more like a work of fiction. like a story that couldn't possibly be true. seemed like a hoax, right for 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. >> the author of this book seemed inspired by the tv show, dexter. >> i'm a huge fan of the showtime series dexter, as you may have guessed, if you're at all familiar with the show. >> and, it appears, a particular scene played an

important role in the author's life. >> i watched an episode of dexter where the flashback showed his father showing dexter a scan of his human brain. he showed the differences between a serial killers 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, but 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. >> but in this book, the violence is graphic. the description for example of how the killer dispatches victims with a metal pipe, and a 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 i found, i thought it was true. >> the cops can have hunches, think what they want, but without evidence, those hunches

really don't hold up in court. it could have just been a make believe story, might not even be written by twitchell, it could just have been downloaded from the internet. and so, investigators started going through the book 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 the processing kit in twitchell's garage. he said he try to burn the victims body in an oil drum in his parents backyard. and in twitchell's parents house, they found the burn ring in the backyard. there's even a minor detail about the killer getting a speeding ticket and so did twitchell just about the time johnny altinger disappeared. >> he joked about it in his storytelling about how this

dumb cop didn't realize he had just killed a guy. and he was not going off to celebrate and have sex with his girlfriend. >> now you could call that cop. >> that's right, the cup remembered it because he had a special license plate, and he remembered the conversation he had with him. it was word for word what that story, that diary told us, was exactly what the sheriff told us. >> but there was a key part of the story that couldn't be verified, a detailed passage that goes on for pages about an earlier attack, and that victim got away. that part of the story read like a direct lift from the house of cards script where the victim is staged by a man wearing a hockey mask and hood. >> and that is a big part to prove if it's true or not. it was a huge part of it. >> surely if someone had been attacked, you would've heard about it? >> exactly, we would expect someone to come forward, we have nothing. no call, no nothing that even matches similarities. >> they seem to be one part of

the story that didn't make sense. so police lofted a hail mary pass, they went public and released a photo of a hockey mask. >> and that will tweak somebody 's memory about, yeah, that was me and hopefully they will come forward. >> it was a long shot, really. maybe that person didn't even really exist. but, they put it out there and waited. but not for long, because, that very evening, but a lonely casino security officer was putting around on his computer and saw the newspaper article online. the police appealed and felt the blood train from his face. that person was him. >> i'm like, oh my god, it's the same hockey mask as i saw. the guy was wearing it. the hockey mask. i started reading the story and settle my god, someone got killed. >> and now that terrified evening, it's horror, it's

embarrassing nature came crashing back. it was he who so frightened that couple out on the stroll. he picked up the phone, before long found himself in a room with detective bill clark. >> and, in my career, it was probably the most spellbinding interview i have ever had with a witness. >> and now, you're about to hear that story. firsthand. >> coming up. >> all of a sudden i see this man wearing this black and gold hockey mask, this guy was much bigger than me. he was prodding me with the stun gun. >> the horse story really happened. >> it was like life flashed before my eyes, i said oh my god, my family is never going to see me again. >> when dateline continues. hen dateline continues you look fantastic. it's jon. hamm, from the blind date we went on years ago.

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it's easy. just call the toll-free number for free information. (soft music) ♪ >> when he 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. was it a difficult breakup? >> it was, for me it was. >> you just wanted to move on?

>> she fell out of love with me, i guess. >> that's not easy. >> not easy at all. >> so, when he came across that lovely woman on an online dating site and he seemed to like her, who could resist? >> she looked beautiful. i believe i made the first contact. >> what did you say about herself online? >> she said that she had just moved and she was new in town and looking to meet people, and i found it a coincidence that so was i. i had just moved. >> both of you alone, looking to meet people. >> yeah, i thought this is perfect, right? >> she said how about dinner in a movie? then she started making these excuses that i couldn't pick her up at her front door. >> so his date asked her to park in a back alley, come through a back entrance in a

detached alley. >> she left the garage door open for me, i went through the garage, to the other side, get into the yard and go knock on the back door, pick her up. the door is high enough that i didn't have to crawl under, i just had to squat under. >> so now, hopeful, unsuspecting, he walked through the garage towards this door that leads to the back patio. >> and i touch the knob to open the door, and all of a sudden, somebody attacked me from behind. i turned back to look to see what is 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 stunt gun. >> at first, he couldn't tell what it was, what was thinking at the back of his neck. but listen to this, from the diary. >> pressing the baton across the back of his neck, pull the trigger. it shocked and jump but did

little more than alert the bastard to what was really going on. >> i try to make a run for it, that's when he actually pulled out a gun. >> what is it like when someone pulls a gun out on you? >> i was terrified, i don't know what to do, it 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. 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 yells, get down on the ground, put your face down, close your eyes and put your hands in the back. i don't know where he had it but he took out doctor and he ripped off a piece, 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 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 he comes towards the back of me, i hear his belt jiggling. >> what he actually heard was the sound of handcuffs as they neared his wrist, he said he thought the attacker was undoing his belt. >> immediately i thought he is going to rape me, so i'm like, you know what i better fight for my life, i said, i'd rather die my way than his way. i knew he is going to pull the gun out again and if he kills me, he tells me. >> coming up, he makes his move. >> i just started for the gun, grabbed the end of it and push it away from my body. >> but this fight is far from over. >> sure enough, he comes after me and grabbed my legs and he

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what's happening. russia is threatening to shut down europe's largest nuclear power plant. a move that could affect the chances of a nuclear disaster. the un secretary general visited ukraine, said any damage to the plant would be quote suicide. the department of transportation is warning airlines to address chronic flight delays and cancellations or face tougher regulations. now, back to dateline. w, back to dateline. >> he was in the battle for his life, he had been lured into a garage and then assaulted by

mask man with a taser in a gun. but now he was determined to turn the tables. >> i get up and i rip off the duck tape and yell at him, i say 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 darted for the gun, grab the end of it and pushed it away from my body. >> he got back to his fees having remove 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. >> immediately? >> immediately. >> you suddenly realized -- >> it was a fake gun. >> i think i might have seen a gleam in him that indicated the gun's construction and realize that it wasn't real. >> we're struggling all over the garage. >> according to the confessions, he, by fighting back, had taken the story way off script.

>> overestimating the stun baton is a mistake i would not repeat. i should've 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 and actually went in 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 -- >> your cooked? >> exactly. >> his adrenaline had been pumping so ferociously he was unaware of how the stunt baton had stunned his strength. >> i was so weak. he tries to headbutt me. >> i deliver had foot to his face, he broke free again. >> that's when he says because you didn't cooperate, that so it has to be. and he starts punching me in

the head. >> he stumbled backwards with every blow, closer and closer to the open garage door. >> i'm letting him punch me, hunters moon can. and he grabs my jacket, so then i slipped out of my jacket, rolled underneath the garage door and made it out of the garage. so my legs were paralyze and i couldn't move. i fell right on my face. >> that's like being in a nightmare when you can't get away? >> yeah. >> i just start crawling away on this on page driveway. >> sure enough he comes back underneath the garage after me. he grabs my leg and he starts dragging me back. and i'm thinking, oh my god, i don't know i'm going to get away again. and i'm like oh no. i have nothing left. there's nothing else i can do. >> i grabbed him by the light as if to drag him back into the garage cavemen 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, underneath a door, i'm thinking, hey, he doesn't hold on me anymore. so i'm like, this is my chance, i can maybe get away again. and then i rolled 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. >> yes. >> terrified, exhausted, he ran for just 30 or 40 feet to this pedestrian path and that's where he collapsed. in front of trevor and marissa. >> 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 is a man after me, he is trying to mug me, please help me. >> and they looked stunned. they didn't know what was going on. to me it felt like it was taking the mask man forever to

come after me, sure enough, he came running after me. comes running after me i say hey, that is the man. >> and then as i looked up the attacker he almost ran in me. >> they saw me coming after him, sporting a deer and a headline look that can only be described as a total lack of comprehension. >> once he saw the couple there he said hey, frank, or come on, frank. the >> kind of mask was pretending that they were friends. >> and then he pretend like he is going to lift the mask up like we are playing, and he doesn't and 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 lawyer. >> it was only once he'd arrived safe at home that he tried to put it back together. but how? what in the world just happened? who was the 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. so i can give it to police. i go back on and all of a sudden, everything was gone. her profile was gone, all the send and received messages that i got were all gone. >> 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 like shame, i can't believe i got duped by this woman. i just want to put this behind me, i don't think about it, i want to move on. >> and did not call the police? >> no. i didn't. >> and maybe it was the fear in his eyes that told me deep down he wouldn't report the incident. >> for weeks after that i had nightmares and i kept thinking, maybe this guy was going to attack me again, i had no idea, i was terrified.

>> i was sitting there with a gun -- >> but now, a month after the journey into the twilight zone, he was giving bill clark a videotape blow-by-blow account of the assault. >> and it is just no doubt in my mind that he's being so truthful. >> the cops had real evidence that the confessions were 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 seemed did not escape from the suburban garage. still no sign of him, unless, just about then detectives uncovered something. an updated version of the diary that had one more chapter, in which the killer leaves a clue impossible to resist. coming up.

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movie director in edmonton, canada. loved. loved. the tv show dexter. with so taken with the whole idea of it that he posted this online ad, and attempts to sell the script for his house of cards short film. as if it were an original dexter episode. and in fact, the story on twitchell's computer, the one called skconfessions is a lot like the episode of the tv show of the avenging psychopath. and now here in twitchell's rented garage, police saw would look for all of the road world like a kill room.

there was plastic sheeting, an autopsy kit. all matching careful descriptions of skconfessions. what's the killer couldn't learn from dexter though, was how to dispose of the body. the tv dexter lives in miami, dumps his victims in the atlantic. but edmonton, out in the middle of thousands of square miles of farmland and oil fields is many hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. and that seems to have stymied the ask a killer. who apparently had no idea how to remove his victims remains. perhaps it never occurred to him to put the body in a trunk of a car, drive it out past the city limits, and bury it behind some old abandoned bar. so according to skconfessions, he tried burning them. but that did not 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 got to a point where he talked about dropping the body in the sewer. and then 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 the important parts of this skconfessions were just some fantasy from the dark side? so clark confronted twitchell with the evidence against him. hoping he could confess. >> today i make the incensing comment, it reminds me of dexter too. keller, queen's creep. you're referring to your garage is the kill room. the table is a kill table. it's there where you carved him up. i'm gonna show you. but all the blood seeps underneath. the guy just pulls all that out, it does dna matching. you know, when i say the show dexter. you see in that show dexter,

this is all modeled after dexter. you know that. eerily, you kind of look like the guy. i look at that picture, i saw the one on your website and you even look the same. the big thing there though is, he tells people that need killing. the guys who get off in court, on technicalities. he tells 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 him out of jail and drove him around edmonton. hoping he'd give up some information. >> what was his demeanor? like >> defiant. we took him four drive saying you're gonna show us where the body is. you're gonna show us where johnny's. and we draw him right here. parked in front of his parents house. >> and after that? he 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? and we parked right on top of the sewer where you dump the body? draw map to which the way you put this tie down. >> he even took twitchell to the back of the garage, the suspected crime scene. hoping it would trigger some level of remorse. >> is this affecting your memory? do you wanna tell us where the body is now? get you back to the station? okay, let's go back in. >> back in the car, another detective off camera starts working on twitchell. >> you humiliate your victim, knock him over the head. with the -- out of him. chop him up. carved 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. ending in a jumble of unrecovered computer code. -- >> we're going to the computer guys, come on you, have to pull out more wear right at the point where he dumped the body and you have no location. >> so a slow methodical search through the deck top computer in mitchell's home. and it paid off. on the computer, once deleted but not found. was yet another version of skconfessions, with a few additional tantalizing paragraphs. describing the location of the victims remains. >> he talks about a specific sewer, how it's often ali. it's in the grassy area. it's in an older neighborhood. he talks about telephone poles in this alley. and only certain neighborhoods

up here have telephone poles. the old ones. >> and that's about the time that detective bill clark became a man obsessed. >> we're putting manhole covers off. to flash and let them down. if it was really dicey, we couldn't see down. we would call the city. >> nothing. enough to make a percent out his own sanity. coming up! police were about to get some help. a map, that would break the case right open. >> they stood right where you and i were standing. right here. 130,000. >> so a year and a half later, where to find the body? >> right down there. >> who gave him that map? and why? when dateline continues! ateline continues! that casserole!" [ both laugh ] i just love that word "bundle." it's so fun. two things coming together like a force of nature, like it was really meant to be, y'know? yes, yes, i do. and i'm so glad you wanna save money. rodney, set up a bundle for jon hamm.

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frustrated detective, four months he had been a man of soft. peering into the sewers of edmonton for the vein search of the missing johnny altinger. 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 print out of the google map. at the bottom of the page, a handwritten note. the location of johnny altinger remains. >> and if you can believe it, it was one block south of his parents house and that ali. >> and this is the alley behind the twitchell home. it match perfectly with the description from skconfessions. and in fact, this area had been searched by police a year and a half earlier. >> they actually pulled all of the sewers. all the covers. pull 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 lines where they actually goes down the lines and sneaks them down. and having a look fountain a thing. and where did they stop? about where you and i were standing around here. >> so a year and a half later, where did you find the body? >> right down there.

five telephone poles down on the left side of this alley. a half a mile of where we stopped the search. >> and this was johnny altinger to. >> there was a little piece of it there. >> probably thought it would all get washed away. he >> thought it would deteriorate to a point where it would be an identifiable and no one would ever. look >> yes, no one would ever luck. >> so just weeks before his murder trial is set to billy guin that he gave up johnny altinger body. because of all the publicity the case generated, the judge slapped a gag order on the practice, the police, and everybody. which is why on the first day of the trial, the disclosure that johnny altinger body had been uncovered. >> everyone surprised. >> for reporter, had written

the book about the case. the devil cinema. >> it's a case no one had ever heard about before. >> at the trial, it got more bizarre. as the prosecution unveiled for the first time, skconfessions. sitting in that courtroom became a journey deep into the wounded-ness of a mind of darkness. >> horrid details were written down. no detail was not told within this document. it's written like, it sounds just like it's fiction, like a script. but when you take a step back, he realized this is a real person that he is talking about. this is a real man who has been murdered. >> but was johnny altinger murdered? well twitchell certainly admitted he dumped them down the storm train. he never said that he murdered him. never even admitted that he was the author of skconfessions. so detectives knew that they would need more than the

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 grow. >> huge spots in the garage which would indicate a large pooling of blood. we found a piece of a human tooth in the garage. we found blood spatter all along the roars of the garage doors. hundreds of spots where an obvious beating had taken place. >> also in the garage? csi investigators found this game processing kit. >> hunters would take out in the bush, to cut up a moose or whatever they have killed. to bring them up. 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 knife. and that blood matches to johnny altinger. >> in the car? he just left in the car? >> and the car turns out to be an absolute gold mine. it absolutely blows this case wide open. their yellow sticky notes, right on the console. one of them has a map drawn from the garage to johnny altinger apartments. he kept everything. this guy is meticulous. he kept receipts, wrote everything down. >> after the presentation of the hard 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 the way to court that morning, he worried. what would happen if twitchell was acquitted. >> if he gets out, he will. i don't know i feel like he will probably kill me. >> chris was not alone in his wary. renee was unsettled to, the day she testified. but for another reason on

altogether. >> i did not want to feel judged. >> judged because? >> i have dark thoughts. and i share them. and, with a serial killer. >> johnny altinger friend deborah testified. >> a bit of nervous for sure. and a lot of sadness that day for me. the realistic-ness of it all came but all i can do is speak for john in the kind of person he was. >> nice man? >> definitely a nice man. and i'm sure, had things not turned out the way they did. he would've found what he was looking for in life. i have no doubt of that. >> it was the first time she had gotten a clear look at mark twitchell. >> he seemed like a normal person, average person off the street. that's what's disturbed me. >> he remained stonefaced. even when his own wife took the stand. >> she is 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 became unraveled. >> and he starts to cry. and the tears are streaming down his face. and he's getting hysterical. his chest as he bag. >> the judge actually recognizes to take a break, and he couldn't get out of the room fasten up. >> when he comes after the break, he's no much better. he's still upset. and he's crying, and he turns around and actually faces detective clark. and he starts talking to him. >> he said, i'm sorry for lying to you. >> this is extraordinary. he would never, ever, haven't 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 gave the case for the defense. when the attorney called but one witness. mark twitchell. >> the room was packed, there wasn't a single seat. i think everyone is on the edge of the seat. like what is this guy going to say? >> and now, twitchell finally had 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. would now be a jury's job. when dateline continues! ateline continues! (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right.

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defense said that one witness, twitchell himself. and right from the start he admitted killing johnny altinger. and then he told the jury, his story. >> and he said that what he had done, is he had cooked of this idea that you could blend fiction and reality. so closely together, that the people, everyone would be fooled into thinking that what was fiction was actually

reality. >> house of cards, and skconfessions said twitchell, would be the building blocks to a cutting edge entertainment concept. consisting of book and film. but there was more twisted reality. to generate publicity, twitchell said that he first needed to create an online urban legend. by doing a series of harmless, staged attacks. identical to those predicted in the movie and novel. so >> when the movie comes out, and the novel comes out, people would go and google this and they would find out that there is this whole urban legend. maybe the movie is real. maybe the fiction is reality. >> and he called it, multi angle psychosis layering entertainment. maple for shorts. it's almost like. >> you're sitting on the beach and there's a palm tree an front of you. but when you pull back, it's not a beach at all, it's a picture of a beach. >> so the attack on geo, according to twitchell. was just a stunt. he allowed his prey to escape.

and johnny altinger we? that was fake to. said twitchell. just like the first one. but johnny did not get the joke. and, furious that there was no one to greet him, attacked twitchell with a pipe. >> and he's got this little knife on his belt, and he tells the jury in the testimony that he puts his hand on the handle of the knife. and just as johnny is going to come at him, he lifts the pipe over his head. and mark twitchell sticks his hand in front of him. and the next thing he sees is that 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 was that the attacker was johnny altinger, and then he panicked and dispose of the body in the sewer. so now police had the answer as to why twitchell gave up the body. it was the prologue of his elaborate hill.

>> 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. renee was following all this online. >> i watch the live blog that they had. and i was screaming. my head off at home. you lie are! were >> you afraid the jury wouldn't believe you? >> oh yeah. >> you're looking for that one person that you can convince on a panel of 12 people. to have that out. and take that doubt back to the deliberation room. >> gia was in court. the day the case against twitchell was completed. >> i got to sit in the second row and his mom was in the first row. she looked back, and saw me. and, i didn't know how she would feel. >> why did that guy live? and my son died?

>> exactly. and, she just turned around and looked at me. she smiled. and she grabbed my hand. and she said, i'm so happy that you're still with us. and that meant so much to me. >> what was that like? >> i didn't know which he would feel towards me. 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, people were thinking oh there was a hold out. there's someone out there who actually does believe mark twitchell. >> after all, he was a masterful liar. maybe the ultimate famine sea of him would be kyle the jury. and then, that 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 senators to life in prison. >> i have never been involved in an investigation like this in my whole career. as homicide detectives, you theorize about how someone has died. and there's no doubt that we do not always get it right. we have a good idea, but we're never right. here, we knew exactly what happened to johnny. >> because he told you? >> he told us. ultimately, johnny led us to it. and mark twitchell closed in on himself, by quote writing all about it. no doubt, 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 down the road, he was going to try to 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 that he knows that he actually lived it. i think that's what he wanted to do. >> and far away in the ohio, rene, twitchell's old facebook friend. arrived at the same disturbing theory. >> i think he did it for artistic reasons. >> arctic thick reasons? >> sure. i think he wanted to see how someone died, so maybe he could make a better story. filament better. right about a better. >> in fact, mark twitchell himself offered an answer to all those people who wondered why. he was different, he wrote. it sk confessions. he simply could not feel for anyone. and so? intentionally are 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! i'm craig melvin,. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is dateline! >> what did you hear? >> laughing. some screaming. >> you heard screaming? >> i've known these kids their whole life. i don't believe for a minute that they made any of that up. >> like screaming noises or something else? >> like laughing screaming. >> they believe that their father kill their mother. >> they found her in the bedroom, the young mom stabbed to death. >> i could see her fighting, fighting for her life. >> i was so