tv Dateline NBC NBC March 27, 2016 2:02am-4:02am EDT
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>>- > we had talked about how would you kill somebody and get away with it. i have dark thoughts, and i shared them with a serial killer. >> it was supposed to be a movie. >> aah! >> a frightening film about a serial killer. >> he'd say, "listen, when you're turning the blade, grit your teeth and really, really
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>> but was it really just pretend? >> he yells, "get down on the ground." he took out duct tape. life flashed before my eyes. >> i have never in my life felt fear like that. >> a rising young director filming a murder, or actually committing one? >> he told me, "well, you do it like 'dexter'." >> you've seen that show "dexter." this is all modeled off that. >> when you take a step back you realize this is a real man who's been murdered. >> the script was darker than anyone knew. >> i go, "holy mackerel." >> who are you really? >> everyone was on the edge of their seat. >> an und ground par ng garage. you're watching a violent attack caught on tape.
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what's happening? or did it halaen at all? >> cut. >> movies like that one are by design deceptive, make believe worlds, but have y noticed maybe it's all the technical do-dads, the digital cameras, the reality twisting editing. some of the ories that claim to be true aren't. anybody can ma..nipum te reality. sometimes what they say is true isn't. sometimes fiction turns out to be fact. and then there are stories, just a few, in which fact and fiction fuse. that's where we're going tonight. a twilight zone world of illusion and deception and deceit. follow the howling wind across a vast prairie through brief,
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metropolis canadians call the gateway to the north. the city whose police department stays very busy. this is detective bill clark. the city is edmonton, canada. >> today i got a call from a family. their son was killed in december. but nothing in a long career us so strange as the iose of the man who went missing and bill clark found himself in the nether world between fantasy and ilg lusion. ever seen a case like this before? >> neveroun my life. >> reporter: though when it started out, it seemed perfectly simple. a missing man. some guy just dropped out of sight. the kind of thing that tends to sort itself out once the so-called victim sobers up. >> i'm not thinking much is going to come of this. >> reporter: after clark's 31 years with the city in the highest murder rate in canada you could hardly blame him for getting a little picky. >> we don't usually go to missing persons. 're very picky o
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to. unfounately for us to come out you got to be dead ahe it bealer 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'bother calling us. >>na reporter: you got enough to do. >> yes. >> oo reporter: w ch explains perhaps why some of the locals have taken to ca ing their city dead-monton. >> our concern was, do we have a murder? if we don't, this n't adour file. we have enough to work on the . >> the missing person was a man named jonny altinger, 39, single, worked in the oil inland, liked to ride motorcycles. unlucky with women. he had a wide circle of friends who are now telling police something kind of weird. altinger seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth except for the strange e-mails he was sending. >> i've left with a woman, going to costa rica. >> she was one of the recipients of the e-mails, his old friend, deborah tycro. >> saying he had met a wonderful
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to costa rica and i received several of them. i received six all together but in runs of three. >> reporter: six messages. how -- the same metrage? >> exact same message. >> same words. >> hi there. i've met a wonderful girl named >> yes. >> reporter: suddenly. >> yes. >> reporter: like somebody you didn't really know was sending you an e-mail. >> absolutely. i was, like, that's really odd. that doesn't sound like john. >> reporter: well, it was odd. and even more so when another friend of altinger's received exactly the same message, word for word. altinger's facebfrk status changed from single to in a relationship. >> then i think it was the following day i was on msn messenger and johnny popped online. so i thought oh, he must not
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and it said, johnny, his name, and then in quotations beside his name it said, i've got a one way ticket to heav and i'm never coming back. >> reporter: later that same day debra got a call from a friend who told her, johnny altinger appeared to be missing. >> it's surreal, you know? you don't expect your friends to go missing. >> reporter: pretty soon altinger's friends got together, unsure what to do really, but before going to police they decided to try to get into his condo, see if they could find a clue to what happened to the guy. had to break in, actually. and everything lookedine. nothing out of place. no sign of any struggle. only things missing were his wallet, his keys, and his red mazdd coupe. looked as if he had gone out for a drive and would be back in a minute. >> no answers to anything. just like he vanitished out of
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strange e-mails alitngerlhyd supposedly sent abwit falling in love, and costa rica, which to the cops, said clark, seemed rfectly reasonable. not hard to imagine a love struck man might want to leave the snow and ice of edmonton behind and skip off to the tropics. >> this guy sent these e-mails to his friends and we're going, well that's strange, but who knows? maybe he did go to costa rica. stranger things have happened. you don't know. >> reporter: at least that's how clark fe before he stepped through the looking glass. and followed the missing man's trail, into a strange place of make believe. keshift vie studio. >> as soon as they called me on the pho[ ne, i got this weird chill.
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johnny altinger's condominium, as you can see, looked like anything but a crime scene. there were no signs of a struggle. no blood. it was like he just stepped out for a few minutes. could be back any time. where was he? johnny's friends re convinced something awful happened to him. day after day they prodded the
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after johnny went missing the cops agreed to open an f stigation. >> we started with the basics. it wasn't here. they combed through airline passenger lists. he wasn't on any of them. johnny's friends meanwhile went back to the apartment for another lo and found stashed away among his important papers his passport. >> we're going oh, you're not getetting out of the country without your passport. >> reporter: so seemed like he had to be within driving distance but what lirection? whe? and just as the police were contemplating that puzzle, one
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with another e-mail. wi loth directions how to pick her up. out of an abundant sense of caution, he had never met the woman after all, he sent a copy of that e-mail to a friend of his. just in case. >> i can't remember the last rd of the e-mail but he says if anything happens to me you know where i'm at. you know, laugh out loud. >> reporter: it wasn't a phone number. not even an address. there were detailed directioee to her place. so the cops drove the route. the directions led them to this neighborhood down this alley. to tirs garage rented by -- >> a guy named mark twitchell. >> reporter: he happened to be a local celebrity. he was making a name for himself as a scrappy young independent
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had recently made a low budget sci-fi movie. >> everyone working on the project is a fan, of course. i don't think anybody would be here working for us for free if they weren't. > > reporter: so they called him up of course and he readily agreed to come down and open the place up. when he got here, big surprise. someone had changed the lock. he couldn't get in. so with twitchell's p mission officers broke in, had a quick look around, and found nothing. just the same, what was the changed lock and the weisord cocidence to johnny's e-mail, there were things to figure out. mark twitchell was only too happy to tag along to the police station to help out whatever way he could. >> the first thing i noticed the padlock didn't look familiar to me. >> reporter: he explained he'd been using the rented garage for a sound stage, most recently for what they call a teaser, short film designed to drum up publicity, buzz, and with any luck attract enough investor money to allow him to
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e. >> it's a suspense thriller actually, a short film, eight or nitine minutes. >> suspense thriller? >> right. >> reporter: of course he had a crew in and out of the place during the filming said mark several actors too. maybe one of them was up to somethin but it seemed unlikely. none had ever asked to borrow th tset for anything. >> so if there was anything like that -- if somebody needed to borrow the place or whatever, then they would let me know. so -- th they'd let you know -- >> they'd ask or something like that. so, yeah. >> reporter: anyway, he said he'd moved on for now to another project. >> i'm working on a comedy right now, which is a -- actually a full blown feature that's going to have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about $3.5 million.
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the garage come studio was empty. why would someone break in d change the lock? it didn't make sense. >> the one that i had was silver on the outside with a black plastic dial in the center and this was just all metal. so i -- >> so you noticed a different padlock. >> yes. >> and that on the door. >> right. >> reporter: mystifying, said markc he had a bad feeling about this. man disappears after telling police he was going to the very place his yovie had been oshooting. >> as soon as they called me on the phone, i get this weird chill. >> what about the woman johnny altinger had been flirting with online, the one who gave him directions to the garage, told him she'd meet him there? the woman who signs her e-mails "jen"? >> does the name jen mean anything to you? >> no, constable maxwell asked me about that, too. >> yeah. >> we don't have jen or anything
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>> so the name jen doesn't mean anything to you? you don't know a jen? you don't have an actress named jen? >> uh-huh. >> reporter: so who was this mystery woman, jen? why in the world would she arrange to meet johnny altinger here? in the very backyard garage an independent edmonton film aw was using as a studio. how odd? especially since the movie's producer/direct yormark twitchell expressed exactly the same confusion as the police. he didn't get it either. the dots didn't connect. mark twitchelpadidn't knoea johnny from adam and besides there was no indication johnny ever made it to the garage at all. >> the close friends were the ones who have come to the police, basically got nothing other than these e-mails. >> there was one thing, though, adand it cume from m
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he wondered, he said, if maybe somehow? but if someone was being fooled, who wa'rit and why? was all this just some big stunt, even a publicity stunt? detective bill clark was thoroughly engaged by now. he had spent a career listening to criminals spin their stories. maybe he could figure out if this twitchell guy was trying to play the cop somehow. he pulled the recording of the interview. >> i watch an interview, i listen to what the guy says but i'm looking at body language for signs of deceit. i remember coming ou of that interview going this mark twitchell guy interviewed really we . >> it was good? >> there were no signs of deception. he's free flowing with the information. he's answering the questions logically. i don't see any, you know, looki away. i don't see any of the nervousness. nothing.
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>> and then when police looked into twitchell's production company express entertainment they encountered a perfectly legitimate company. more than that, actually. this was a promising effort to help edmonton way off here in wa northern alberta get some nationalkattention as a potential center of movie making. mark twitchell was very good at drumming up attention and money from local investors like john pinson. >> he was a very sharp, bright young artitulate entrepreneur. exactly the kind of individual most of us are looking for. >> reporter: so he checked out. hard working local boy in a city of hard working people. good parents. nice young wife. sweet little daughter. on his way to becoming a celebrity here in edmonton. detectives even got a look at the teaser film for twitchell's next project, the $3.5 million
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that's mark in the background that's mark in the background playing the role of dictor even as he was the director. sort of a hall of mirrors type story. a movie about a movie about making a movie or something. fantasy and reality all mixed up somehow. just to cover the bases police interviewed mark twitchell's crew members and they vouched for him completely. and revealed that they all shared a passion for star wars. that's mark there on the right wearing the white shirt. they loved the whole tale about the force, the dark side, so much that their first project together was a "star wars" fan film called "secrets of the rebellion." mark was wildly successful that time at drumming up local media coverage. became kind of a big deal here in edmonton. >> we keep pretty good pace with lucas film when it comes to producing the films. it takes them three years from the time they start shooting to the time they finish post iproduction to get one of their
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technically i've got until the mmer of 2009 to get done. >> reporter: this was, no bones about it, a low budget production. but even so, twitchell was able to land one of the original "star wars" actors, jeremy but llic, who playedetke bounty hunter bobafet. that was enticement enough to get toronto based actor sean stohrer to sign on for a part. >> as soon as i found out i would be playing alongside him i was like great why not? it's a named actor. >> reporter: sci-fi is not stohrer's thing though and once he got to edmonton he found the atmosphere on mark twitchell's set a little too playful maybe. unserious. at least for him. >> i remember one time he shoved the pillow up under his shirt and he said he looked like alfred hitchc k. then he wore that for the rest of the day. ridiculous. but everybody else thought it wagreat. laughed because this was him and if you don't lcugh at his joke, you know what i mean? >> reporter: yeah. >> there's the alpha in the room
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>> reporter: he was the alpha in the room. >> that's what everybody had him as.i->> repmaorter: which ch tainly fit mark's reputation as a prankster and maybe you got to be if you're trying to start a movie business. anyway, mark twitchell came ofai squeaky clean. his film company was respected as was he. and bill clark and the edmonton podice b ck at square one by the look of things. >> what have we got? we got nothing. but soon this top cop would catch a big break. >> detective says to me, this guy just told me he bought a red zda off a guy. >> the missing man's car turns up. that are out there, and especially designed for sensitivity suffnrers. it's different, there's nobody else out there
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>> reporter: in fact, clark is such a throw-back the younger guys on the force kid him. it's just a part of my life. i still have the drive. i'm still excited about it. almost every file something's different. >> reporter: in 31 years on the edmonton police force, clark has seen murder take many forms. has seen the shattering effect it has on family. >> you're the one the family depends on, and i take that seriously. ultimately that's in the back of your mind that if you don't speak for the family then, or the dead guy, who is going to? >> reporter: for clark, there is no greater satisfaction than bringing in a killer. >> i'm a pit bull. i consider myself a pit bull. you get your case and get your teeth into it, we're those "a" type personalities. we want to get the guy. we want to get this guy and put him away. >> reporter:but as for the johnny altinger case, this wasn't even a murder, at least
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so clark kept himself on a tight leash. he had yet to smell blood. you must have come to some point where you thought uh-oh. >> we're thinking our next step is logically the garage. we got to step inside and have a close look. >> reporter: they applied for a search warrant and it was rejected. it's turned down.
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we're told we don't have a crime. we haven't proven there is a crime committed. >> reporter: the next step seemed simple enough. clark went to mark twitchell directly to see if he'd give permission to search the garage. >> he goes yeah. i said i'll need you to sign a consent form. no problem. >> reporter: they requisitioned the required form. one of the detectives hopp in the car, drove it over to mark's place to get a signature. and then, the weirdest thing -- >> get a phone call from the detective. the detective says, "you won't believe it, but this guy just told me he bought a red mazda off a guy." >> reporter: a red mazda? and didn't johnny altinger drive a red mazda? sn't it missing? mark twitchell hadn't said anything about any red mazda when he came down to the police station and talked to that detectsee ehe night before. said he forgot. really? why would he forget a thing like that? >> of course you don't want tunnel vision. big thing for homicide keep an open mind.
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there's something fishy going on. >> reporter:tclark invited twitchell to come down to the station for a meeting. 10:30 on a sunday night. and twitchell agreed. >> everything you do now we're analyzing. we call it the up arrow down arrow scenario. >> reporter: yep. >> it's an up arrow. mr. cooperative.yiwill come down and talk to us at 10:30 on a sunday night. an up arrow. he's being cooperative. k*ertj p red car. mazda. hasn't mentioned it. big dswn arrow. >> reporter: big down arrow. >> big down arrow. >> reporter: but the two arr s are about all clark had to work with. >> so as you know, mark, we're just here trying to find this john fellow, john altinger. we got nothing. i don't know what happened to johnny. >> reporter: or when it happened whatever it was. >> exactly. >> reporter: because once again as the interview proceeds the young film maker is the very picture of cooperation.
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answers ques ions without hesitation or any apparent guile. his demeanor is expansive, even untraineddeye can see that twitchell's body anguyge is open, comfortable, in control. so they get to the story about the red mazda. he was approached he said just a few blocks fro his rented garage by an agitated man. it was the night johnny disappeared. the man seemed desperate to get rid of his car, said mark. offered to sell it for practically nothing. >> he goes, well, i shacked up with this really rich lady, like a sugar mama type of situation cs u ()qccare of me and she's going to buy me a new car when we get back from e vacation we're going to take. i'm thinking oka what is there, two tons of cocaine in the trunk? i'm trying to figure out what the catch is here. >> reporter: apparently, said mark, there was no catch. acing wrong with t ehear. except that it had a standard
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know how to drive. so he left it parked in a friend's driveway. >>oes he live close by or what? >> yeah. he lives just like a couple blocks away. >> reporter: was it finally a break? the detective monitoring the interview sent a patrol car to check it out. sure enough, there it was. empty by the look of it. >> nothing untoward about the car. jo ny is not ineshe cen. >> reporter: meanwhile, bill clark left the inter[[*uip &h#2 johnny altinger no estaba ahi , room partly to regroup but also to see how mark would act when they left him alone. and if he was rattled, he certainly didn't show it. here he calmly placed a call to his w1zjj >> well, i tried to answer some more of their questions and fill them in and everything like that and it turns out that the car is
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missing guy and that it's a huge deal, so that's what this whole ing's about. >> reporter: what in heaven's name was going on? bill clark sti didn't have a clue.loh, but he might in a minute, bau cop. >> there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of john altinger. >> he might be involved, but what part was fact? and what was fantasy? (cat vo #1) and we're just getting started. (avo) new friskies cat concoctions. four deliciously different flavor combinations, made for cats, by cats.
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almost 4:00 a.m. now, downtown edmonton. film maker mark twitchell was sitting in an interview room at the police station talking to his wife on the phone, fading a little. >> the problem is i'm so tired and it's so hard to remember things. >> reporter: outside the room detective bill clark watched twitchell, went over a few notes, prepared to switch tactics. >> it's already started. the game's on. me against him. i know it.
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quite sure of it that all eninmark twitchenl had been ha bing him a whole load of nonsense and expected him to believe it. also all evening as detective clk listened carefully and contemplated his up arrows and down arrows -- >> i agreed with everything he said. like i didn't -- this wasn't the time of the interview to start pushing him. it wasn't the time to start confronting him. thheat would ce later on. >> reporter: because one ofk7x those down arrows of bill clark's led to a particular nclusion. mark twitchell thought bill clark was a dumb cop. twitchell was trying to play him. while you're reading him, during that interview, he had been reading you. >> no doubt. >> reporter: he made some, probably had made some judgments about your ability as an r terviewer. what did he think of you, do you think, during that interg ew? >> i think he didn't think i was at smart. i think he thought he was smarter than me. and i believe that he felt that
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concoct to make us believe him. and of course there is only one proper response to that. >> i just let him go and then i take him back through it question and answer. standard procedure. just nail down the details now. start nailing them down. now i'm starting to see he's not remembering specific details. let's go back to lunch. you're at lunch. where do you go from lunch? >> i don't remember. >> you don't know where you went for lunch? >> no. >> reporter: so now it was early morning. they'd been at it for hours. they had taken a break. they'd let mark twitchell sit by himself and, perhaps, stew a t. noi the time had come for clark to play a different role. >> we've done the good cop routine. now my forte the bad cop is coming out. >> your forte, this is what you like? >> this is what i like. what i relish. there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of john
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no doubt in my mind at all, rk.s>> why? >> now i'm going to start with the hammering him with what i know. the problem is, i know very little. >> reporter: but now that it was perfectly clear to mark twitchell that he was a suspect in a dbsappearance and maybe a murder, his easy camaraderie seemed to lirivel. hitheyes glazed eith something that looked like fear. was he truly innocent? or w somhing,else going on, something more in keeping with his role as a story teller? >> why can't you give me your version of evehts that night? >> because i'm scared. >> reporter: once as the night dragged on twitchell mumbled something about reality seeming more like some sort of fantasy. >> i just feel like i'm in the [ muted ] twilight zone right now. >> repte ithe face of all ofee ars cusatis rkwihe nai for nely four hours he answered clark's questions
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did not so much as ask for a lawyer. onso by the end of the night -- >> i got nothing. i got no evidence. my gut instinct at that time is this guy is involved. he's involved up to his neck in this. what exactly he's done to him i don't know yet but i'm going to find out. >> reporter: finally, at daybreak, mark twitchell let clark know he'd yed en agh. >> am i ofbeing charged? >> not yet. >> am i free to go? >> yep. >> then i will. >> okay. >> and then as bill clark escorted mark twitchell out of the building and into the early rning dark, he upped the ante a little. told twitchell he was seizing his car. >> and then it's like whoa. almost stopped. >> reporter: yeah. >> kind of pulled back. he goes, well, i need to get
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edmonton homicide detective bill clark, along with other members of the edmonton police service felt a little like alice in the rabbi hoee. their missing man hnny altinger had vanished without a trace. and there were whispers his disappearance could be part of some publicity stunt. their onlyhsuspey. was an aspiring movie producer/story teller who stood up to a bill clark grilling with his manners intact even though by this time clark couldn't shake the gut feeling that this movie dictor was one very bad guy. >> i was thinking he filmed whatever he had done to johnny. i'm thinking he killed him and fiured the, urder. >> reporter: ifo ou police
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might find videotape of a murder. instead what they discovered was an affair. twitchell had a girlfriend. when his wife found out about itthat, she kicked him out. outside world perturbed and instead oft alling apart simply retreated to his childhood home, moved in with his parents. so clark paid twitchell's dad and mom a visit. >> just strull me as a parent that her son does nothing wrong whereas the father wanted to listen to me. he wanted to hear what i had to say, and he listened. but he got overridden. >> reporter: ey set up o surveillance team 24-hour watch to keep an eye on the house and twitchell. but his behavior was anything but suspicious. he went on about his business, took meetings with investors about his day players movie project. he even picked up a $35,000 check from financial backer john
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>> the mark twitchell i wa dealing with was articulate, in control, running his project the way you would expect any entrepreneur to be running their project. >> reporter: and in detective clark's world of up arrows and down ar]x1' q)e was one more huge up arrow in twitchell's favor. motive. that is to say the lack of one. there was no earthly reason for twitchell to kill altinger. tere was no love triangle. there was no rivalry. there was no robbery. and to put it more simply, twitchell was not a criminal. didn't have a record. had never even been arrested. why would a young, married father kill a perfect stranger? so besides twitchell, police alsollocused their attention on this quiet suburban neighborhood aroend twitchell's rented garage ststudio and where altinger may have gone to see a woman he met
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they went door to door. had anyone seen johnny altinger or his car or anything suerspicious? they found this couple who told a story that seemed almost lifted from yhorror movie. >> i have never in my life felt fear like that. >> reporter: these two, their names are marisa and trevor, were out for an even;j *u)oll, when they stepped through the looking glass. it happened when a young man came stumbling out of this alley d collapsed in front of them. >> he was on the ground and it was just areinstant bad feeling. >> he looked at me and said i'm being robbed. can you help me? >> reporter: then as if on cue anot thr man appearlf in pursuiurt. >> then as i looked up, the attacker almost actually ran into me. >> reporter: the attacker was wearing a dark, hooded sweat shirt, and a hockey mask. >> it's like every nightmare you d as a child after watching a scary movie. >> reporter: sure.
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had, all of a sudden it's right here. >> reporter: mind you, this was no bewitching hour. it was 7:30. an early autumn sun had just begun to take on that honey glow of a long northern evening. neighborhood kids were still straggling home from soccer@l_ practice. was it believable to you? >> well, yes and no, ecause the wa gy that he fell, to me looked rostaged. >> get us to stop so they could rob us. >> we thought it was a setup for us. >> reporter: so you didn't know whether he was going to assault you. >> exactly. >> reporter: or whether he was running from that guy for real. >> exactly. >>th reporter: then, said trevor and marisa, the masked man retreated into the alley to this garage. >> that's where he stood. he stood there on guard like he was ghotecting something. >> i was like, i'm getting out of here right now. >> reporter: trevor and marisa left the man on the ground pleading for help, like some
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ran from their walk-on role in this twilight episode. when they got home, they called the police. sq d cars prowled the streets as the autumn light angled toward the horizon. but in that soft after sup er quiet, nothing seemed out of place. nothing amiss. that was that. until weeks later, when nolice came back here looking for johnny altinger and wondered, was the guy in the alley actually johnny, not an actor? was he a real victim? one of theh etectives weng downtown to check on the report that was taken from trevor and marisa, and it didn't fit. that call was taken a week before johnny disappeared. sides, no vi ictim ever came forward. no one claimed to have been atrttacked by a masked man. the whole thing sounded almost
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movie. or just maybe a tv show about a an rial killsi. >> what attracted to you dexter? >> how he was able to explore that dark side, rationalize that it's okay to kill somebody. d of this big, expensive camera? [police car siren] why don't you come down from there, sir? you got it! why doesn't my phone work after i pour this expensive champagne all over it? how amy n 'sposed to show people how rich and carefree i am? why did i have to wait so long in this commercial to do a celebrity sports per n cameo? [scoreboard buzzer] why don't i ever get asked to be the spokesperson in the commercial? ha, ha. good question. intr exucing the only water-resistant, fast, wireless-charging, best camera having, memory expandable, pay almost anywhere, samsung galaxy s7 edge.
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strange things come to light under the northern sun especially with the aid of a search warrant. as bill clark and his colleagues closed in on movie maker mark twitchell they seized his office computer, found it in his house. on the computer's hard drive, they found this video. looked almost like a movie. >> ah! >> reporter: a horror movie. no, it wasn't a snuff film. it wasn't johnny altinger's murder caught on tape. it was raw footage of one of twitchell's tease films. the one he told the detective about the first time he talked to him. it's a suspense thriller. actually we did it, it's a short film. the total run tise is eight or nine minutes.
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what twitchell was calling it. the promotional film, get enough people talking about this and he might persuade some investor to ante up the money for a feature length film. in "house of cards" a killer poses online as a flirtatious woman to entrap his victim. in this scene it's a philandering husband who tells his wife he's heading off to the gym. >> well, i'm off. >> reporter: but once he arrives at the rendezvous site the victim is dropped with a stun baton, murdered, then cut up into little bits. imagine a cross between "friday the 13th" and "dexter." the victim in this teaser version was played by edmonton comedian chris hayward. >> you guys have been a great audience. thank you very much. >> reporter: so police decided to have a little chat with mr. hayward. but when they showed up at his door, hayward, no slouch when it came to the entertainment business, thought it was a prank of some sort. >> i've worked in reality
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it was one of the first things i got into television on. they throw you curveballs and have writers and i didn't know. i thought somebody is making this up. this can't be true. this is not a real story. >> reporter: police also tracked down toronto actor robert barnsly, who played the starring role in "house of cards." that of the deranged, masked murderer. >> i was thinking, great. short film. i like the idea of this. it sounds interesting. and of course i wanted to try to be the killer. i wanted to be the bad guy. >> reporter: mark twitchell? >> seemed like a very normal guy i actually rather enjoyed doing it. i was thinking to myself, did i just think that i could do this
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>> reporter: which, said barnsly, was exactly what director twitchell seemed to want. >>. i mean, there was a point where i had to'stab the dummie through the chest with the samurai sword. and would be sitting bhhind the chair and leaning in and say, okay. listen. when you're turning the blade, grit your teeth and really show that yan're enying it, you know. >> reporter: wait a minute..was this all about enjoying some fantasy game, pretending to be evil? detectives surfed around twitchell's computer accounts and discovered a facebook relationship that was all about pretending. at about the time he started filming "house of cards" twitchell friended an animal trainer and aspiring film maker in rural ohio. woman named rene wary. so an edmonton detective flew all the way to cleveland to question her where she, quite up front about it, told about
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there was a picture of michael c. hall. he is the actor that portrays iter morgan on showtime. >> reporter: did you think you were friending the actor himself? >> oh, sure. you know. >> reporter: what attracted you to dexter? >> you know, what i love about the show and the books is how he was able to explore that dark side and rationalize that it's okay to kill somebody because this person deserved it in a way. we flirted back and forth and then i kept asking him, who are you really? tell me who you are. because i want to see the man behind the mask. >> finally rene's facebook friend relented. no, he wasn't actor michael c. hall he admitted. his name was mark twitchell. >> once he told me whkeo he was i checked him out. i did a lot of research online and find out he was legitimate and up and coming.
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be film maker, it seemed like and my ideas. and how we'd be able to wo very well toeygether. >> reporter: soon, she was intoxicated by this online collaboration. and then, wonder of wonders, he offered her work on his next project, a feature like version of his short film "house of cards." >> camera's rolling. >> reporter: the film he told her about a serial killer. >> we had talked about our hypotheticals of how would you kill somebody and get away with it. do? >> he told me you do it like dexter dexter shows you how to do it all the time. >> reporter: dark? oh, yes. but all in fun of course. like twitchell's playful advice on eliminating in dexter like fashion one of rene's rivals in romance. >> with both her hands totally wrapped in duct tape, free one a hu er's game processing kit comes with everything you would
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manageable pieces. >> reporter: disturbing? well, yes. enbut remember, all pretense. but then a couple weeks later, this is what she told the police, something happened. strange and unsettling. >> we would write back and forth every day. >> reporter: there was a weekend long pause in their play talk about dexter, the dark side. not a single e-mail from her friend mark twitchell. then monday came. and with it an apology. i've also had something keeping me busy, he wrote. i'm really concerned about telling anyone because of the implications. suffice it to say i crossed thed line on friday and i liked it. crossed the line? what did that mean? and was it all part of an elaborate hoax? >> ge i thought you know what? this is a publicity stunt gone
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>> staged fantasy? or something truly terrifying? 4 the brave and every boy scout 4 the fun of it, 'cause you know you can 4 by 4 more air, more sea, more land 4iby 4 doin' it yourself cuz you want it done right 4 by 4 the top down - stars keep ya up at night 4 stones that were meant to be turned 4 the dares and the thrills that you've earned 4 by 4 conquest, 4 by 4 the dreams 4 by 4 waking up and crossing those streams 4ge by 4 every one of our seventy-five years 4 by 4 the wave - that's how we say 'cheers' that's how we live
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it was halloween in monton, canada. halloween,pa highlhght tn most any child's fantasy calendar, the night to be the terrible cranearure she or he could never really be. mark twitchell loved halloween, would spend weeks, months actually stitching together fantastical getups, outlandish costumes like the ones crafted for his fan film "secrets of the rebellion." this year, 2008, just weeks after his wife kicked him out and the cops began tailing him everywhere, he decided to be iron man.
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parents' garage. but on the very witching af rnoon ire hours from his planned grand entrance to a galarhallowien party as he was walking to a local coffee house to meet with potential movie investors, he was thrown to the ound by men wearing their own mark twitchell was handcuffed, ken into custody, and charged with the murder of johnny altinger. that, of course, made big headlines. police even held a press conference to announce the arrest. and t6 were left with one juicy tid bit. we have a lot of information that suggests he definitely idolizes dexter. >> reporter: whatever that meant. >> one of the first things we did in the new toom was went to mark twitchell's facebook page. >> reporter: steve was a crime reporter for "the edmonton journal." >> he had a post there where he said mark twitchell has way too much in common with dexter morgan.
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ere attacking strangers, totally innocent victims, it's almost myth, something built up by hollywood. it didn't seem like it could be real. >> reporter: so here in edmonton, the question began to circulate. had the cops been played by a clever promoter? >> mark twitchell is known as a prankster. a lot of people thought this was a hoax. >> you almost wonder whether or not he was doing it as a publicity stunt. >> i thought, you know what? this is a publicity t.unt gone bad. what better way to start a movie off than to have your >>name on the tip of everybody's tongue? >> reporter: exactly. so maybe bill clark and the rest of the edmonton police force would wind up with red faces and not just from the cold. except there was one litnow.bit of news police did not announce when they searched twitchell's car they found a laptop.
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lap top a very smart detective found a deleted te grorarh ldle. a document about 40 pages long. could be described as a diary. maybe a far fetched novel. or a treatment for a dexter episode. it was called "sk confessions" and it was the first person account written from the perspective of an aspiring serial killer. >> i remember reading this the first day when they brought it down. i go, holy mackerel. this tells us everything. >> reporter: except e guy s a professional story teller who tells, you know, movies. they're not real. weren't you a little bit afraid that you might be about to be eddrawn into a kind of a rabbit hole here that your -- >> that was something thatryight not be true or might be true, might be fantasy? >> absolutely. we had huge discussions in the office about this. so>> reporter: bicause "sk confessions" read more like a work of fiction, like a story
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seemed like a hoax right from the opening paragraph. >> this is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer. i don't remember the exact plale and time it was that i decided to become a serial killer. but i remember the sensation that hit me when i committed to e decision. it was a rush of pure euphoria. there was something about urgently exploring my dark side that greatly appealed to me. >> reporter: the author f "skbe confessions" seemed inspired by the tv show "dexter." >> i'm a huge fan of the showtime series "dexter." as you may have guessed if you are all familiar with the show. >> reporter: and it appears this rticular scene played an important role in the author's life. >> check out this brain ve. this one belonged to a serial killer executed la month. >> why are you showing me this? because look. it's exactly the same as your obrain, dex. >> reporter: i watched an episode of " xter where the
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human brains. he identified the differences between a serial killer's brain and a normal person's brain. up until i saw that, i was convinced that what i was was my own decision, my own path. now i truly wondered if i had little choice at all and if genetics play a bigger role than i thought. i knew i was a psychopath rather than a sociopath because i had the perfect upbringing and no history of abuse, violence, or trauma. >> reporter: but in "sk confessions" the violence is graphic. the description for example of how the killer dispatches victims with a metal pipe and hunting knife. >> i thrust it in his gut. his reaction was pure hollywood. the lurch forward with the grunt was dead on tv movie of the week. >> the little bit i knew at that time and the things we had fnd i thought it was true. >> reporter: cops can have hunches, think what they want, but without evidence those hunches rarely hold up in court. "sk confessions" coutd just as
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might not even be written by twitchell. it could as easily have been downloaded from the internet. and so investigators started going through "sk confessions" line by line to see if they could sort out fact from fiction and, indeed, police found details in this tale that lined up with reality. the writer in his first person accouqx story telling, about how this dumb cop didn't realize he had just killed a guy and he was now go g out cnd celebrating,
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>> now you could call that cop. >> that's right. that cop remembered him because he had a special license plate dark jedi, and it came right back. he knew the conversation he had with him, and it was basically word for word what that story, that diary told us. it was exactly what the sheriff told us. >> reporter: but there was a key part of the story that couldn't be verified. a detail passage that goes on for pages about an earlier attack. that victim got away. that part of the story read like a direct lift from the "house of cards" script whore the victim tasered b' a man wearing a hockey mask and hood. >> you reow, that is a big part to prove if it's true or not. >> reporter: sure. >> it was a huge part. >> reporter: surely if somebg y had been attacked that way you would have heard about it. >> exactly. we'd expect someone to c ae forward but we had nothing. no call. no nothing that even matched, similarity. >> reporter: so this seemed to be one part of the story that just didn't make sense.
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they went publvp maybe that person didn't even exist. but they put it out there. and waited. but not for long. because that very evening a lonely casino security officer named gilles tetreault was puttering around on hi jocompute and saw the newspaper article online. the police appeal. and felt the blood drain from his face. that person? was him. >> like oh, my god that's the same hockey mask i saw, that at gn. was wearing. >> reporter:'the htckey mask. >> the hockey mask. i started reading e story. i'm like oh, my god. someone just got killed. >> reporter: now the terrifying evening, the horror, embarrassment, came crashing back into his head.
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so frightened that couple out for a stroll, trevor and marisa. he picked up the phone and before long found himself in a little room with detective bill clark. >> and in my career it was probably the most spellbinding interview i've ever had with a witness. >> reporter: and now? you're about to hear that story firsthand. this horror story really happened. >>th it's like life flashed before my eyes, like oh my xld, my family is never going to see me again. seared quarter pounder with cheese or crispy 10-piece chicken mcnuggets for just $5 bucks. hurry in for an amazing 2 for $5 deal on the mcdonald's tastes you love.
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seemed to like him, well, who could resist? >> reporter: sheena was her name. >> she said, how about dinner and a movie? then she started making these kind of excuses that i couldn't pick her up at her front door. >> reporter: so tetreault's date asked him to park in an alley, come through a back entrance through a detached garage. >> and she'd leave the garage door open for me. i'd go through the garage to the other side, get into theo yard, and go knock on the back door to pick her up. the door was high enough that i didn't have to crawl under.lli justht,d to squat peped. >> reporter: so now hopeful, unsuspecting, gilles walked through the garage toward this door that leads to the back patio. >> and i touched the knob to open the door and all of a sudden, somebody attacked me from behind. i turned back to look to see
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and that's when all of a sudden i see this man wearing this black and gold hockey mask. this guy was much bigger than me. prodding me with this stun gun. >> reporter: at first in his shock gilles couldn't tell what it was, this stinging at the back of his neck. but listen to this from "sk confessions." >> pressing the baton across the back of his neck, pulled the trigger. itke shocked and jumped but did little more than merely alert the bastard to what was really going on. >> so i try to make a run for it. that's when he actually pulled ofout a gun. >> i pointed it straight at him and all of a sudden he took me seriously. this eyes wide. >> then he yelled, get down on the ground, put your face down, close your eyes, and put your hands in the back. i don't know where he had it but he took out duct tape and ripped off a piece. that's when he covered my eyes with it.
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gilles tetreault d >> i actually started tearing up and it was like life flashed before my eyes. and it was quite emotional, like oh, my god. my family is never going to see me again. i never told anyone where i was going that day. and all of a sudden it comes towards the back of me by my legs. i hehear his belt jiggling. >> what gilles actually heard was the sound of handcuffs as they neared his wrists and said he felt the attacker was undoing his belt. >> i immediately thought, he's going to rape me. so i'm like, you know what? i better fight for my life. i said, that i'd rather die my way than his way. i knew he's going to pull the gun out again. >> reporter: yeah. >> and, you know what? if it kills me, it kills me. so i get up and rip off the duct tape and i yell at him. i said, i can't do this. i'm not going down likstthis. he s rted yelling at me.
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back down on the ground. i just started for the gun, grabbed the end of it, andr pushed it away from my body. >> he got l'back to his feet having removed the duct ape. en i pointed the gun at him again, he grabbed it. >> it was the best feeling i ever felt in my life because i gfeltsptastic when i grabbed it. >> immediately. you suddenly realized. >> it was a fake gun. >> i think i might have seen a gleam in him that indicated he felt the gun's construction and realized it was not real. >> i grabbed him by the arms. we're kind of struggling all over the garage. >> reporter: according to "sk confessions" gilles by fighting ban#p> overestimating the stun baton is a mistake i would not repeat. i should have just pounded him in theack of the head while he was down until he lay unconscious on the floor. >> i tried to kick him.
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swiped my leg and i alckmost fell down. and i almost lost my s oe. and i'm thinking, wow. i can't get down, if i get down on the ground, i'm -- >> reporter: you're cookedc >> yeah. exactly. >> h reporter: his adrenalin had been pumping so ferociously he was quite unaware of how the shocks from the stun baton had zapped his strength. >> my muscles just couldn't move and i was just so weak. ll, he goes forward and tries we to head butt me. >> iwdelivered a head butt to his face and he broke free ag train. >> that's when he says, because you didn't cooperate, this is the way it has to -e. and then he starts punching me in the head. >> reporter: tetreault stumbled backward with every blow closer and closer to the open garage door. >> i'm letting him punch me. he punches me again. and he grabs my jacket. so then i slipped out of my jacket. rolled underneath mbe garage door. and finally made it out of that
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so i start to try to run and all of a sudden it it was like my legs were paralyzed ecd i just couldn't move. and i just fell right on my face. >> reporter: like being in a nightmare where you can't get away from the monster. >> yeah. then i just start crawling away on this unpaved driveway. surely now if he comes bac under that garage after me, and grabs my legs, and he starts dragging me back. >> reporter: oh, my god. >> i'm thinking oh, pimy god i don't know how i'm going to get away again. i'm like, god, no. i have nothing left. there is nothing else i can do. >> i grabbed him by the leg as if to drag him back into the garage caveman style. but my energy was depleting nd the human survival instinct is one of the most powerful forces on earth. >> and so he drags me back and throws me back into the garage. under the door. i'm thinking, gee, he doesn't have a hold on me anymore. so i'm like, this is my chance.
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and then i roll back underneath the garage door. i got back up and in my head i not running this time. >> reporter: legs carry me. >> yep. >> reporter: terrified, exhausted, gilles tetreault ran for just 30 or 40 feet to this pedestrian path. and that's when he collapsed. in front of trevor and marisa. >> i look up and all of a sudden i see a couple walking their dog. and i couldn't really talk. all i could say was, there' a man after me. he's trying to mug me.xlplease help me. and they looked stunned. they didn't know what was going on. and to me it felt like it was taking the masked man forever to come after me. but sure enough, he came running after me. he comes toward me. i'm close to the coupqj(n &h#1 i tell them, hey, that's the man. >> then as i looked up the attacker almost a into me. >> a couple on an evening stroll
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that can only be described as a total lack of comprehension. >> once he saw the couple there he said, hey, come on, frank. >> the guy in the mask was pretending they were friends. >> then he pretends like he's going to lift the mask up like we're playing. but he doesn't. and then he turns around. and he starts walking back to the garage. >> i stared back at them through my mask for half a moment and thelen hded back for the cover of my lair. >> reporter: it was only once he arrived safe at home that gilles tried to put it all together. but how? who was that man behind the mask? why had he been attacked? >> i decided you knoenwhat? i need to go back on to that online dating e lite. i want to get as much information as i can. >> reporter: sure. >> so i can give this to police. and so i go back on and all of a sudden everything was gone.
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all of the sent and received messages that i got from that person were all gone. >> reporter: what is it like to be sitting alone in your apartment in front of your coputer with that realizatiok, 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 wan to think about it. i want to move on. >> reporter: and did not call the police. >> no. i didn't. >> maybe it was the fear in his eyes that told me deep down he wouldn't report the incident. >> i was facing him there with the gun. >> reporter: but now, a month after his journey into the twilight zone, gilles tetreault was giving bill clark a videotape blow by blow account of the assault. >> and there is no doubt in my mind he is being so truthful. >> reporter: the cops had real evidence that "sk confessions" was all true except it was not quite complete.
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the part we've never had, we never had johnny. >> that is johnny altinger, the victim who it seemed did not escape from the suburban garage. still no sign of him. there was one more chapter, in which the killer leaves a clue. impossible to resist. cops take mark twitchell on an incredible journey of where something evil may have happened. >> here we are at the killing
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mark toitche the would-be movie director in edmonton, canada, loved, loved the tv show "dexter." he was so taken with the whole ridea of it that la pt,ted this on gelineg d in an attempt to sell the script for his "house of cards" short film as if it were an original "dexter" episode. in fact, the story on twitchell's computer, the one called "sk confessions," is a
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show about the avenging psychopath. now here in twitchell's rented garage, police found what looked for all the world like a kill room. there was plastic sheeting in here, an autopsy table, all matching the careful egyptians descriptions in "sk confessions." what the killer couldn't learn from dexter, though, was how to dispose of thees,dy. the tv dexter after all lives in miami, dumps his victims in the atlantic.gbut edmonton out herr inunge middle of thousands of square miles of farm land and oil fields bes many h nfreds of miles from the nearest ocean. and that fact seems to have stymied the sk killer who apparently had no idea how to get rid of his victim's remains. perhaps it never occurred to him to putathe body in a trunk of a car and drive 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
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that runs through town but was afraid someone would see him. so he finally decided to toss them down one of edm frton'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 an ded. >> reporter: by this time clark certainly believed the diary was true. all of it. but without a body in a case as bizarre as this one how could y jury be sure important parts of this "sk confessions" weren't just some fantasy from the dark side? so clark confronted twitchell with the evidence against him, hoping he would confess. i'll make an interesting comment. this reminds me of dexter, too. kill room. clean sweep. you were referring to your garage as a kill room. your garage was the kill room. the table is the kill table. it's undoubtedly where you carved him up. i'm going to show you that later but al
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underneath. it all does dna matching. it goes right, you know, when i say that show "dexter," you've seonen that show "dexter." this is all modeled after "dexter." you know that, mark. eerily, you kind of look like the guy. i look at that picture. i saw that one on your website and you guys kind of even look the same. th% big thing thnre though is he kills people who need killing. like he lls these guys that get off in court. you know, all the guys that get off on technicalities. he kills people unat need killing. the difference here was, you killed a guy who really was no harm to society at all. >> but from twitchell, no response at all. the next day, clark and another detective took twitchell out of jail and drove him around edmonton hoping he'd give up some information. what was his demeanor like? >> defiant. we just took him for a drive and said you're going to show us where the body is, where johnny is. and drove right here.
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>> reporter: after that, mark twitchell was taken to the place that for a rief moment was the center of his life. >> so here we are back at the killing garage. the dexter garage. look familiar, mark? we parked right on top of the sewer where you dumped the body? jog your m a ory. as to where you, which sewer you put this guy down. >> reporter: clark even took twitchell to the back of the garage, the suspected crime scene, hoping it would trigger some level of remorse. >>in bring back any memory? you want to tell us where the body is now, get this overorith, let's go. an >> reporter: ncck in the car, another detective heard off amera starts working on
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knock him over the head, beat the [ibleep ]me out of hiell, chop him up, carve him up. this pales in comparison. but you can't take it. >> reporter: but twitchell said nothing, at least not in person. he had certainly said plenty in "sk confessions" if, in fact, he was the author, but the document was complete, ending in a jumble of unrecoverable computer {-?e. >> we're going to the computer guys, come on. you got toisull up more. we're right to the point that he dumped the body and we don't know the location. >> reporter: so the detectifes did a slow, methodical sear through the desktop computer found in twitchell's home. and it paid off. on that computer once deleted but now found was yet another version of "sk confessions" with a few additional tantalizing paragraphs describing the location of the victim's remains. >> he talks about a specific sewer. he talks
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alsey. it's in a grassy area. it's an older neighborhood.fuhe talks about telephone poles in this alley. and oneb certain neighborhoods up here have telephone poles, the older ones. >> reporter: that's about the time detective bill clark became a man obsessed. >> we were pulling manhole covers off. i'd be out with a flashlight looking down. can't see nothing. if it was really nothing you couldn't see down we'd call the city crews in. >> reporter: nothing. enough to make a person doubt his own sanity. until police received a map that broke the case wide open. where'd you find the body? >> right down there. why?
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bill clark was one deeply frustrated detective. for months he had been a man obsessed, peering into the sewers of edmonton in a vain search for the missing johnny and then after a year and a half a call from the city jail. an inmate wanted to talk to detectives his name? mark twitchell. and without any explanation, he handed over a printout of this google map. at the bottom of the page was a handwritten note. location of john altinger's remains.
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was one block south of his parents' house in that alley. >> reporter: this is the alley behind the twitchell home. it matched perfectly r with the description from "sk conf anons" and in fact this area had been searched by police a year and a half earlier. >> they actually pulled all these sewers, all the covers. pulled them off. they had crews go down, search each one. they found nothing. they did this whole block in this area here and sent cameras down the line where they go doe the lines and snake them down and having a look. >> they found nothing. >> nothing. >> reporter: where did they stop? >> they stopped about where you and i are standing right here on 130th avenue. >> reporter: so a year and a half later, where did you find the body? >> right down there. five telephone poles down on the left-hand side of this alley a half block from where we
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>> reporter: this was johnny altingero tomb. >> you could see a little piece of torso and pelvis. >> reporter: probably thought it uld all get washed away. >> i think he thought it ould just deteriorate to a point that it would be unidentifiable or no one would yoever look, rrest? >> no one would ever look. because they wouldn't find the "sk confessions.l >> that's right. no one would ever look. >> reporter: but why just weeks before his murder trial was set to begin did mark twitchell give up johnny altinger's body? must have been a reason. because of all the publicity the case generated, the judge slapped a gag orteilon the press, the police, everybody. which is why on the first day of the trial, the disclosure that altinger's body had been uncovered -- >> catches everyone totally by surprise. >> reporter: former cr e reporter seat littleviewan has written a book about the twitchell caser "tvehe devil's cinema." >> doesn't get more explosive than that. that was all new information
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got more bizarre as thepprosecution then unveiled for the first time "sk confessions." sittin in that room, he sdid, became a journey deep into the wilderness of a mind of rkness. >> horrino horrid details were written down. no detail was untold within this document. it sounds like fiction like a script but when you take a step back and realize this is a real person he talking about, a real man who has been murdered. >> reporter: but was johnny altinger murdered? well, twitchell certainly admitted he dumped johnny's remains down this storm drain. he never said he murdered him. never even admitted he was the author of "sk confessions." so detectives knew they would need more than this document to get a conviction. so they quietly built a case on csi basics. take twitchell's garage r instance. this is what it looked like
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hppphoto taken from the same angle minutes later once the floor was sprayed with luminol, the chemical that makes blood glow. >> huge spots in the garage which would indicate a large pooling of blood. they found a piece of a human tooth in the garage. we found blood spatter all along the walls. the garage doors. hundreds of spots of splatter where an obvious beating hed taken place. >> reporter: also in the garage? csi investigators found this big game processg kit. >> a kit hun.ers would take out in the bush to cut up a moose or whatever they've killed to bring him out. this is what he used and every single tool in that kit had our victim's dna on it. >> reporter: in twitchell's car, police found other hard evidence. >> we find a knife in there. a knife with blood on it. >> reporter: visible blood? >> visible blood on that knife.
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altinger. he kept everything. this guy was meticulous. he kept receipts. wrote everything down. >> reporter: after the presentation of the hard evidence, twitchell's friends and co-workers were called to testify. one of the first was the actor who played the victim in "house of cards" chris hayward on his way to court that morning he worried what would happen if twitchell was acquitted. >> if he gets out i don't know. i feel like he'll probably kill me. >> reporter: chris wasn't alone in his worry. ren:hxju)j u(*hu'settled too the day she testified but for another reason all together. >> i didn't want to feel judged. >> reporter: judged because -- >> i have dark thoughts and i shared them and with a serial kit ller. >> reporter: johnny altinger's
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testified. it was the first time she had gotten a clear look at mark twitchell. >> he seemed like a normal person, average person off the street. that's what disturbed me. >> reporter: twitchell remained stone faced even when his own wife took the stand. she's crying through all of this. mark twitchell's reaction was nearly blank. >> reporter: but when this video was shown in court during bill clark's testimony, twitchell came unrreeled. >> he starts to cry. the tears are just streaming down his face and he's getting hysterical. his chest is heaving. >> the judge actually recognizes it, he took a break and he couldn't get out of the room fast enough. >> when he comes back after the break mark twitchell is no better. he is s ll very upset and he's crying. he turns around and faces detective ark and he sdarts talking. he said i'm sorry for lying to you. this is extraordinary.
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of the primary investigators in lthe middle of their own murder trial. >> but this was far from the strangest moment of the trial. that came in he case for the defense when the attorney called but one witness, mark twitchell.f>> reparter: the room was packed. there waentd' a single seat. there wasn't a single seat. everyone was on the eds of their seat wondering what is this guy going to say? >> w doitchell finally had an audience to hear his sto y. one he had been waiting two and a half years to tell. >> telling fact from fiction,
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he had cooked up this idea that you could blend fiction and reality so closely together that the peop , everyone would be fooled into thinking that what's fiction is actually reality.e- reporter: "house of cards" and "sk confessions" said twitchell were to be the building blocks to a cutting edge entertainment concept consisting of both book and lm, but there was more twisted ality. to enerate publicity, twitchell sa15id he first needed to create an online urban legend. by doing a series of harmless, >> so then when his movie comes out and the novel comes out, people would go google this and find out that there is this whole urban legend about maybe ethe moeie is real. maybe this fiction is actually reality. >> reporter: and he called it "multi anngle psychlsis layering entertainment.na" m.a.u.l.e. for short.
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sitting on the beach and there is a palm tree and beach in front of you but when you pull back it is actually a picture of a beach. >> reporter: so the attack on gilles tetreault according to twitchell was just a stunt. he allowed his prey to escape. and johnny altinger? that assault was fake, too, said twitchell, just like the first one, but johnny just didn't get
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an it was the prologue of his elaborate tale. >> his defense is br liant idea on the suorrface. i mean, he actually found a way to describe an entire police investigation that incliminated him to get him off scott free. >> reporter: down in ohio, rene waring wiwas following ala ihis online. >> i watched the live blog that they had and i was screaming my head off, "you liar." >> reporter: were you afraid the jury would believe him? >> oh, yeah. >> you're looking for that one person you can convince on a panel of 12 people to just have that doubt and, nou know, take that doubt back to the deliberation room. >> reporter: gilles tetreault was in court the day the case
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row and altinger'slpom was in e first row. she looked back and saw me and i and she just turned around. she looked at me. she smiled. she grabbed my hand and she said, "i'm so happy that you're still with us." and that meant so much to me. reporter: what aws that like? oerjt)q''t know what she'd feel toward me, and so when she did that, it was wonderful. almost another closing moment for me. >> reporter: but not for others in the courtroom. and apparently not for the jury as deliberations dragged on. >> the time rolled on. some people were thinking oh, maybe there is a holdout. maybe there's someone out there who actually does believe mark twitchell. >> reporter: after all, mark
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maybe this ultimate fantasy of his would beguile the jury. and then that final audience trooped back into the courtroom and gave him his last review. th found him guiy of the premeditated, first-degree murder of johnny altinger.m>> i've never been involved in an investigation like this in my whole career. as homicide detectives you theorize about how someone's died. >> reporter: right. >> there is no doubt we don't always get it right. we get a good idea but we're never right. here we knew exa rctly what happened to john. >> reporter: because he told you. >> he told us. ultimately johnny led us to it and mark twitchell closed it on himself by writing all about it. no doubt in my mind he would have kept on killing. we caught a serial killer on his first kill. >> reporter: but why? why did mark twitchell murder johnny altinger? was it a thrill killing?
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>> i think that ultimately he wanted to experience the feeling of killing and dismembering a body, and i think ultimately down the road he was going to try and produce a film about it and he would be a producer who would tell his cast and crew and actors how to do it and only to himself he would know that he actually lived it. i think that was what he wanted to do. >> reporter: and far away in ohio, rene waring, twitchell's old facebook friend, arrived at the same, disturbing theory. >> i think he did it for artistic reasons. >> reporter: artistic reasons? >> sure. i think he wanted to see how
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make a better story. and so intentionally or not, he offered a dismal reason for murdering a perfect stranger. it was a single line at the end of that horror movie of his, "house of cards," when the killer tells his wife. >> the best way to succeed is to hulk hogan's first interview since a jury awarded him $140 million in a sex tape battle. welcome to "access hollywood the weekend edition."e i'm liz hernandez. the hulk told billy how he felt after his winning verdict was handed down. >> is there any part of hulk hogan, forget, terry bolea for a second any part of hulk hogan in the champ in the ring, major competitor, athlete that kind of
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like the fire is back. $140 million r ard. the fact that you are on, serious, on camera with a woman who is telling the world that you are incredibly well-endowed. seems like the hulk part of that would be like, whoo, the terry part we understand. its that the case? is hulk proud? >> well, all i can say when i was in court and nick denton, stared a hole through me, i saw hiths es were pitch black like a shark, i realized at that time if i could be in the steel cage with nick denton i would predict victory for hulk hogan. but we aren't in that arena. >> you did end up in a bathroom all by yourself with him during the proceedings. lked into the batheoom. you, him. no one else in there. that must have been a very awkward orencounter.s>> yeah, i was worried. i thought he might fall down, holdisis neck. say that i attacked him.
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bathroom quick as i could. awkward to be in a bathroom with him. >> big man, small restroom. let's leave this as quickly as possible. >> gawker's nick denton had a different version of the story when i spoke to him today. >> at oy, point he said, he was nervousnthat you might fall down, grab your neck and say he hurt you fsomehow. >> he has a very, very vivid imagination. >> never crossed your mind? >>ed who would think something like that? >> denton claims the case was really about concealing, hulk's racist language on the sex tape. a claim hulk denies. another denton complaint, the jury was not allowed to hear from a key witness, hogan's ex-best friend, bubba the lovesponge clint. >> what would bubba say? >> said on the radio fir thing he said in public. he said the same thing to the fbi he said that hundak hogan knew he was being taped. they were best friends. >> later bubba denied that hogan
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