The Man in the Black Mask - Ep. 1: Where's Johnny?

Summary

Dateline Originals: The Man in the Black Mask - Episode 1: Where's Johnny?

Introduction

In the gripping premiere of Dateline Originals titled "The Man in the Black Mask - Episode 1: Where's Johnny?", host Keith Morrison delves into the mysterious disappearance of Johnny Altinger, a 39-year-old oil field worker from Edmonton, Alberta. This episode intricately weaves together eyewitness accounts, investigative procedures, and the enigmatic connections that cloud Johnny's vanishing, leaving listeners on the edge of their seats as the story unfolds.

The Disappearance of Johnny Altinger

The episode opens with a serene depiction of Johnny Altinger's life in Edmonton—a bustling provincial capital often overshadowed by its more flamboyant neighbor, Calgary. Johnny, described as tall, lanky, with a friendly open face and a lopsided grin, was last seen on October 3rd during a routine evening walk with his partner, Marisa Gini.

Eyewitness Account: The Encounter

Marisa Gini recounts the unsettling event that transpired on that October evening:

“People aren't putting this puzzle together.” – Marisa Gini [00:37]

As the couple leisurely walked through their established neighborhood, a young man suddenly stumbled out of an alley and collapsed at their feet. Marisa’s partner, Trevor Hosinger, immediately sensed that something was amiss:

“Came right across our path. Just kind of fell in front of us.” – Trevor Hosinger [02:00]

Their initial sympathy was short-lived. The man pleaded for help, claiming he was being robbed. However, Detective Mark Twitchell, an integral figure in the case, observed something peculiar:

“And to me that didn't look real. Looked like it was staged.” – Mark Twitchell [02:12]

Adding to the tension, another man emerged—wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and a hockey mask reminiscent of Jason from Friday the 13th. This eerie encounter left Marisa and Trevor terrified, leading Marisa to flee the scene while Trevor grappled with confusion and fear.

The Investigation Begins

Upon returning home, Marisa and Trevor reported the incident to the police, detailing the bizarre encounter with the masked individual. Detective Bill Clark, a seasoned homicide detective known for his tenacity, was assigned to the case. Initially skeptical, Clark maintained that without evidence of foul play, the case remained unresolved.

Tracing Johnny's Whereabouts

Parallel to the mysterious encounter, Johnny Altinger sent out emails indicating plans to travel to Costa Rica with a woman named Jen, whom he met on a dating website, Plenty of Fish. These communications raised alarms among his friends and led Detective Clark to explore Johnny's possible motives for disappearing.

“If anything happens to me, you know where I'm at.” – Bill Clark [12:52]

Investigators searched Johnny’s condominium and his red Mazda Coupe but found no signs of a struggle or his presence at the stated destinations. The lack of evidence deepened the mystery, prompting the detectives to revisit Johnny's planned meeting place—a rented two-car garage owned by independent filmmaker Mark Twitchell.

The Mysterious Garage Connection

Mark Twitchell, unaware of Johnny’s plans, cooperated fully with the investigation. However, discrepancies arose when Twitchell revealed he had inexplicably purchased a red mask—a detail previously unmentioned despite prior inquiries about Johnny's missing car.

“There's something fishy going on.” – Bill Clark [28:34]

This inconsistency led Detective Clark to suspect Twitchell’s involvement. During an interview, Twitchell shared his experience of a stranger attempting to sell him a red car under suspicious circumstances, further entangling the narrative.

“Man was desperate to get rid of his car. Offered to sell it right then and there to Mark for practically nothing.” – Mark Twitchell [31:13]

Despite Twitchell’s outward cooperation, Clark’s instincts as a "pit bull" detective urged him to dig deeper, suspecting that Twitchell might be hiding critical information about Johnny's disappearance.

Unraveling Clues and Building Suspense

As the investigation progressed, the absence of concrete evidence juxtaposed with the odd behaviors of those involved created a web of suspense. Detective Clark’s relentless pursuit of the truth juxtaposed with Twitchell’s seemingly innocuous actions kept the mystery alive, hinting at underlying secrets yet to be uncovered.

Conclusion and Cliffhanger

"The Man in the Black Mask - Episode 1: Where's Johnny?" concludes with Detective Clark poised to confront Twitchell, setting the stage for future revelations. The episode masterfully balances narrative tension with investigative detail, leaving listeners eager for subsequent installments to uncover the full extent of Johnny Altinger’s disappearance and the truth behind the enigmatic man in the black mask.

Notable Quotes

• Mark Twitchell [02:12]: “And to me that didn't look real. Looked like it was staged.”
• Trevor Hosinger [02:33]: “My response was to run and get the hell out of here. I was so scared.”
• Deborah Tykrobe [09:15]: “John was a very good friend. He was very warm and loving and kind.”
• Bill Clark [16:10]: “Our crime scenes... No blood, no signs of a struggle.”
• Bill Clark [25:40]: “We don't usually go to missing persons. Like, we're very picky on what we go to.”

Looking Ahead

As the series progresses, listeners can anticipate deeper dives into the enigmatic connections surrounding Johnny Altinger’s disappearance, the true intentions behind the masked encounter, and the eventual revelation of the elusive "Black Mask." Dateline Originals promises to deliver riveting storytelling backed by meticulous investigative journalism, ensuring that each episode unravels more layers of this compelling true crime saga.

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This summary captures the essence of the first episode of "The Man in the Black Mask," highlighting key events, characters, and investigative twists. For a comprehensive understanding and the latest updates, tuning into the full podcast is highly recommended.

Transcript

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[Keith Morrison]

Friday night on dateline. A beloved doctor, an accused killer. How could they be the same man?

[Marisa Gini]

People aren't putting this puzzle together.

[Keith Morrison]

I was stunned. Pursuing justice is worth it. Friday night on Dateline at 9, 8 Central, only on NBC. It was a happy habit, the evening walk, the summer habit, of course, too soon now. That crisp bite in the air would turn bitter cold. But not yet. That day, Friday, October 3, had been uncommonly warm for Edmondson. And twilight seemed to linger as they ambled along the path that wound its way through their neighborhood. It was a good neighborhood, safe, established, not quite grand, but not modest either. So they wandered, the two of them, and listened to parents calling in kids from the park. Almost dark now there, out of nowhere there. It was sudden, shocking, terrifying.

[Trevor Hosinger]

I have never in my life felt fear like that.

[Keith Morrison]

Is Marisa Gini remembering the young man who stumbled out of an alley and collapsed at their feet.

[Trevor Hosinger]

Came right across our path. Just kind of fell in front of us.

[Keith Morrison]

So stumbling along, yes. Marissa's partner, Trevor Hosinger, was alarmed, too. But something about it seemed off somehow.

[Mark Twitchell]

And to me that didn't look real. Looked like it was staged.

[Keith Morrison]

And what. What was he doing or saying or how is he behaving?

[Mark Twitchell]

He looked at me and said, I'm being robbed.

[Keith Morrison]

Can you help me?

[Trevor Hosinger]

And it was just an instant bad feeling. It was like everything in my body just tensed up. I felt bad. This is a bad situation. I knew right away something was wrong.

[Keith Morrison]

And then, as if on cue, another man appeared, seemingly in pursuit.

[Mark Twitchell]

And then as I looked up, the attacker almost actually ran into me.

[Keith Morrison]

Attacker looked that way, at least. Whoever it was was wearing a dark hooded sweatshi and a hockey mask, just like the serial killer Jason in all those Friday the 13th movies.

[Trevor Hosinger]

It's like every nightmare you had as a child after watching a scary movie.

[Keith Morrison]

Sure.

[Trevor Hosinger]

Every nightmare you've ever had. All of a sudden it's right here. Like this masked guy is standing there.

[Keith Morrison]

And then, said Marissa, the masked man did something quite unexpected well, he.

[Trevor Hosinger]

The guy in the mask, was pretending that they were friends, that those two were friends.

[Keith Morrison]

Pretending maybe they really were friends.

[Mark Twitchell]

Because the way that he fell to me looks.

[Trevor Hosinger]

Looks staged to get us to stop so that they could rob us.

[Mark Twitchell]

Yeah, we thought it was a setup for us.

[Keith Morrison]

Now, convinced this was some sort of choreographed mugging, Marissa took off running.

[Trevor Hosinger]

I was like, I'm getting out of here right now. I was so scared. I was so scared. And I just. I needed to get out of here.

[Keith Morrison]

But not Trevor. He stayed behind, still not quite sure if the man lying at his feet begging for help, was in need of saving or out to do him harm. So you didn't know whether he was going to assault you.

[Mark Twitchell]

Exactly.

[Keith Morrison]

Or whether he was running from that guy for real?

[Mark Twitchell]

Exactly.

[Trevor Hosinger]

My response was to run and get the hell out of here. His response was, what's going on here? I need to figure out what's going on.

[Mark Twitchell]

She was down the block.

[Trevor Hosinger]

I was freaking out on him. I was yelling at him. I was screaming at him. And I was so mad at him. And I was screaming, like, high pitched.

[Jenna Bush Hager]

Trevor.

[Marisa Gini]

Trevor.

[Trevor Hosinger]

Like. Cause he kept trying to figure out what was going on. Trevor, what were you trying to do? Why are you trying to be a hero? You're trying to be a hero. And I was like, I just wanted to go.

[Keith Morrison]

Trevor said the man in the hockey mask then calmly walked away and disappeared back into the alley from which she came. But not the man lying on the path. He stayed right where he was. What in the world was going on? Trevor was done trying to solve this mystery and ran after Marisa, leaving the man on the path behind, still pleading for help, rather like a seasoned method actor, like it was an episode of the Twilight Zone. Trevor and Marissa got home quick as they could and called the police, telling them about the man in the mask and the guy begging for help.

[Trevor Hosinger]

We said, well, we think we were getting robbed. Like, that's how we had described it was. We thought we were gonna be robbed. And so where could they go from that? It was a weird situation.

[Keith Morrison]

A report was taken. Squad cars prowled the streets and alleys nearby, though by then it was too dark to see much of anything.

[Mark Twitchell]

They sniffed around and that was it.

[Keith Morrison]

Didn't find any.

[Mark Twitchell]

Didn't find anything.

[Keith Morrison]

And no victim ever came forward. No one ever reported to police that they had been assaulted in a quiet neighborhood by a man in a hockey mask.

[Trevor Hosinger]

I still have nightmares about that mask.

[Keith Morrison]

So was this some sort of staged robbery attempt or someone's idea of a sick Prank.

[Bill Clark]

I really thought that the end of this thing, he just laughs his way, all the way to the bank on it. At the end of the day, it's a big publicity thing for him.

[Keith Morrison]

Or was it something else altogether? Did you feel sometimes like you're in the middle of, you know, Alice in Wonderland or the Matrix or something?

[Bill Clark]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Keith Morrison]

I'm Keith Morrison and this is dateline's newest podcast, the man in the Black Mask. Episode one. Where's Johnny? Edmonton, Alberta, doesn't always get quite the attention it probably deserves. That generally goes to its flashier sibling, Calgary, a three hour drive south. Edmonton, on the other hand, is the provincial capital, home to a million people, birthplace of all kinds of famous types like Michael J. Fox, K.D. lang, Tommy Chong. And booming on and off courtesy of the massive oil sands a hundred or so miles to the north. Edmontonians are used to the roughnecks and roustabouts who blow through town on their way to and from the oil patch. Which is perhaps why a particular sort of case often sucks up the time of the Edmonton Police Service. Missing persons. Though typically such cases tend to solve themselves once the victim sobers up. So when veteran homicide detective Bill Clark got a missing person case dumped on.

[Bill Clark]

His desk, I'm not thinking much is going to come of this.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, that is Bill Clark. Shaved head, thick mustache, built like a cannonball. And in that moment, Bill Clark was not happy to call out a veteran homicide cop like him on a missing person case. Well, that just wasn't done.

[Bill Clark]

We don't usually go to missing persons. Like, we're very picky on what we go to. Like, basically. Unfortunately for us to come out, you gotta be dead and it better be criminal. Like, we don't even wanna come out. If you're just dead, we got enough to work on. And if the patrolman doesn't know it's criminal, don't bother calling us. Do we have a murder? Because if we don't, this isn't our file. I mean, we have no indication of foul play, Nothing. Right.

[Keith Morrison]

The missing person in this case was a guy who, no surprise, worked in the oil fields. Johnny Altinger was his name. The friends who called it in said he was 39 years old, tall, lanky, with short brown hair, friendly open face and a lopsided grin. They said they hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks. Wasn't like him, they said. So with a grumble from Clark, they opened a file on Johnny Aldinger. No idea back at the beginning how important that name was. Going to be anyway. Clark and the other investigators put together a list of alting his known friends and family members and started making calls to see if the guy really was missing or just out on a bender. One of those friends was a woman named Deborah Tykrobe.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

John was a very good friend. He was very warm and loving and kind.

[Keith Morrison]

We talked to Deborah too, and she told us she met Johnny Altinger on a dating website on plentyoffish.com plentyoffish.com yes. Deborah looked to be in her early 30s, petite, with bobbed brown hair. She said nurses training had kept her far too busy to even think about dating. But now she was done and maybe ready for a man in her life.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

And I thought, okay, I'm gonna get out there because they certainly were not falling through my roof. So I thought I better get out there. And I also was very like, oh, you know, you have to be careful. I think when you put yourself out there, you have to have some sort of air of caution about yourself.

[Keith Morrison]

Deborah has, well, would it be fair to call her the nurse's personality? Smart, hard working and quite obviously compassionate. And she was looking for those same characteristics, maybe unrealistically, in a guy, but the ones she was meeting just weren't cutting it. And then she saw Johnny Altinger's upbeat dating profile and agreed to meet him for coffee.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

I was there early and then John came in after. And John's quite tall and so he came in and he was his bubbly self. He was just like, did he look.

[Keith Morrison]

Like what you expected he'd look like?

[Deborah Tykrobe]

Yeah, he did, yeah. Because I'd seen pictures too of and we chatted about the same stuff we talked about on the phone. Of course we were both nervous and so it was a really nice visit.

[Keith Morrison]

There was a but, however. Well, Johnny certainly saw sparks. Deborah said she did not.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

I didn't feel that romantic chemistry with John.

[Keith Morrison]

But you liked him. Yeah, but he liked him more like you, like one of brothers, Like a buddy.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

Yeah, like a friend.

[Keith Morrison]

And as friends do, they began to pal around together.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

I would say we spoke almost daily. Go for coffee or lunch. I enjoyed spending time with him.

[Keith Morrison]

And so their friendship grew.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

In his emails, he'd never just emailed me, hi, Deborah. It was always, hi, sunshine girl. Everything had a high. Sunshine girl, yeah, hi, sunshine. And I used to think, oh my gosh, but, but it's not so bad. But it made me feel special. So I was like, oh, that's really sweet. And I think, you know, that's part of what built our friendship. You lifted each other up as friends.

[Keith Morrison]

He was perfectly happy to keep it going as a friendship.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

A friendship so close that the two were comfortable talking about all the different women Johnny was meeting up with on that Plenty of Fish website.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

One he dated for about a month and then it didn't work out. And then there was one other girl he was somewhat interested in and I thought, okay, and that's great.

[Keith Morrison]

And, and when he told you about these women, he told you about them?

[Deborah Tykrobe]

Yeah, he did.

[Keith Morrison]

Then around the middle of October, Deborah got an email from Johnny saying, hi.

[Deborah Tykrobe]

There, I've met a wonderful girl named Jen. I'm going to Costa Rica and I will keep in touch and call you when I get back after the holidays. Johnny, what did you think about that? My first thought was like, oh, he's really trying to get me to see he's moved on. But I was concerned for him and I felt like, be careful, you know, you don't just get on a plane and go meet a girl in Costa Rica. You have to be careful. And then I think it was the following day I was on MSN messenger and Johnny popped online and in quotations beside his name, it said, I've got a one way ticket to heaven and I'm never coming back.

[Keith Morrison]

Mind you, Johnny sent a message to a male friend or two as well. Detective Clark got hold of that one. One, it didn't mention heaven.

[Bill Clark]

He says, if anything happens to me, you know where I'm at and you know, laugh out loud.

[Marisa Gini]

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[Keith Morrison]

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison from Dateline. If you're a fan of true crime, then you need to know Dateline is back with an all new season and that means all new mysteries in our Dateline NBC podcast. Great storytelling with a twist and more. Much more new episodes available every Tuesday on the Dateline NBC podcast. Follow now.

[Jenna Bush Hager]

Hi, everyone, it's Jenna Bush Hager from Today with Hoda and Jenna reminding you to check out my podcast Open Book with Jenna in this week's episode I sit down with Oscar and Emmy award winning award winning actor Jamie Lee Curtis. She joins me to talk about her path to sobriety, what it was like growing up with famous parents and the books that changed her life. You can listen to the full conversation now by searching Open Book with Jenna wherever you get your podcasts.

[Keith Morrison]

39 year old oil field worker Johnny Altinger was missing. Maybe friends hadn't seen him around since early October. And yet those same friends were getting email messages from him saying he was on vacation in Costa Rica with a new love in his life. One email seemed to explain everything. It said, I've met an extraordinary woman named Jen who has offered to take me on a nice long tropical vacation. We'll be staying in her winter home in Costa Rica. Phone number to follow soon. I won't be back in town until December 10th, but I'll be checking my email periodically. See you around the holidays, Johnny. Which to Homicide Detective Bill Clark seemed perfectly reasonable. Not hard to imagine that a love struck man might want to leave the snow and ice of Edmonton behind and skip off to the tropics.

[Bill Clark]

Who knows, maybe he did go to Costa Rica. I mean, stranger things have happened, right? You don't know.

[Keith Morrison]

Still, just to be thorough, investigators did a little tour of Altinger's condominium and it was messy for sure. Dishes in the sink, clothes strewn about. But it certainly did not look like a crime scene.

[Bill Clark]

Our crime scenes. Guys, they've reported back from Johnny's house that there's nothing here. There's no blood, no signs of a struggle. Yeah, the place is a little bit dirty. It's a bachelor pad. You know, he didn't clean his dishes, so that's where we're at.

[Keith Morrison]

Oh, and his car was gone, his red Mazda Coupe.

[Bill Clark]

So let's find the car. Find the car. Hopefully we find him or have an idea where he is.

[Keith Morrison]

Since Johnny, altering her email, said he'd taken off for Costa Rica, officers went to the airport, of course, and looked for that red Mazda of his. They searched in every parking lot. It wasn't there. They combed through airline passenger lists. He wasn't on any of them. And just as the police were contemplating that puzzle, one of Altinger's friends surfaced with yet another intriguing email. This email was sent to Johnny while he was still in Edmonton, and it was from Jen, that woman he'd apparently accompanied to Costa Rica. It was sent to him the evening of their first date, October 10th. It was driving directions to her home and Johnny hadn't met her yet. After all so he forwarded the email to a friend, just in case.

[Bill Clark]

I can't remember the last word of the email, but he says, if anything happens to me, you know where I'm at.

[Keith Morrison]

There wasn't a phone number, not even an address, but there were detailed directions to her place. So two patrol officers drove the very route, and the directions led them to a quiet residential neighborhood and along a back alley to a detached two car garage. What an odd place to meet. The officers did some checking and found out the garage had been rented to a local celebrity of sorts, a guy named Mark Twitchell, who was making a name for himself as a scrappy young independent filmmaker, so they called him. And this Twitchell character readily agreed to leave his wife and daughter at bedtime and drive all the way across town and open up the garage. But when he got there, he took one look at the padlock on the door and realized somebody had changed it. He couldn't get in. So with Twitchell's permission, the cops broke in, had a quick look around and found nothing. Except for an empty work table, few tools on a trash drum. The place was empty just the same. Why would someone change the lock? And why did that woman, Jen, direct Johnny, alting her to that backyard garage the very day he disappeared? Don't know, said Mark Twitchell. But he'd be happy to tag along to the police station and help out any way he could.

[Mark Twitchell]

The first thing that I noticed, the padlock didn't look familiar to me.

[Keith Morrison]

In fact, this is Mark Twitchell explaining to a detective named Mike Tabler that he'd been using the Reddit garage as a poor man's soundstage to shoot a short film. It was designed to drum up publicity buzz, if you will, and with any luck, investor money to allow him to produce a full length feature movie.

[Mark Twitchell]

It's a suspense thriller. Actually, it's a short film. The total runtime's only going to be about eight or nine minutes. So, yeah, suspense thriller, like.

[Keith Morrison]

Of course, he had a crew in and out of the place during filming, said Mark, and several actors. Maybe one of them was up to something, but it seemed unlikely. And none of them had ever asked to borrow the set for anything.

[Mark Twitchell]

So if there was anything like that, if somebody needed to borrow the place or whatever, then they would let me know, I'll let you know. Or they didn't ask or something like that. So, yeah, no, I don't know anything about that.

[Keith Morrison]

Anyway, he said he didn't need the garage anymore. He'd removed all his camera gear and props and this and that and moved on to a real film project he was shooting elsewhere.

[Mark Twitchell]

I'm working on a comedy right now which is a. It's actually a full blown feature that's actually going to have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about three and a half million.

[Keith Morrison]

Which mattered not at all to Detective Tabler point was where was Johnny Altinger? And who was that woman he'd been flirting with online, the one who gave him directions to the garage, told him she'd meet him there and spirit him off to Costa Rica? The woman who'd signed her emails Jen.

[Mark Twitchell]

Does the name Jen mean anything to you? No. The next will ask me about that too. And yeah, something out of Jen or anything like that. So the name Jen doesn't mean anything to you?

[Keith Morrison]

You don't know a Jen? You don't have an actress named Jen? Mystifying, said Mark Twitchell. He had a bad feeling about this. A man disappears after telling his friends he was going to the very place Mark's movie had been shooting to meet some actress Mark had never heard of. And now police were involved.

[Mark Twitchell]

As soon as they called me on the phone, I get this weird chill.

[Keith Morrison]

And on top of that, now he just discovered somebody changed the lock on his garage studio. That was all Mark Twitchell had to say. He didn't know a darn thing. Had nothing else to add. Unless this actress Jen was some sort of phantom and a garden variety backyard garage was like a magic portal, like in some sci fi movie. Well, Detective Clark's thoughts were more practical at that moment and maybe urgent.

[Bill Clark]

So we're thinking our next step logically is the garage. We gotta check inside and have a close look.

[Mark Twitchell]

Foreign.

[Marisa Gini]

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[Keith Morrison]

What a strange coincidence it was. The rented backyard garage an independent Edmonton film crew was using as a studio was the very place the missing man, Johnny Altinger, was supposed to meet his mysterious blind date, Jen. Odd. Especially since the movie's producer, director Mark Twitchell, expressed exactly the same confusion as the police did. He didn't get it either. The dots didn't connect. Mark Twitchell said he didn't know Johnny from Adam, didn't know this gen woman either. And besides, there was no evidence Johnny ever made it to the garage at all.

[Bill Clark]

The close friends were the ones that had come to the police and they basically had nothing other than these emails.

[Keith Morrison]

Detective Bill Clark wasn't in on the Mark Twitchell meeting, but he was curious. Was the guy truly on the up and up like it seemed he was? So Clark pulled up the video recording of Twitchell's chat with Officer Tabler.

[Bill Clark]

You know, when I watch an interview, I'm not really, I listen to what the guy says, but I'm looking at body language. I'm looking for signs of deceit. And I remember coming out of the interview going, oh, this Mark Twitchell guy interviewed really well. There were no signs of deception. He's free flowing with the information. He's answering the questions logically. I don't see any, you know, looking away. I don't see any of the nervousness, nothing.

[Keith Morrison]

Oh, but now this case was under his skin. Bill Clark is, he doesn't mind admitting an old school detective, the sort that seems to exist mostly in the movies these days, kind of like a 50s film noir.

[Bill Clark]

I'm a pit bull. I consider myself a pit bull. You get a case and you get your teeth into it. It's. We're those a type personalities. We want to get the guy, you know, we want to get this guy and put him away.

[Keith Morrison]

But what guy or woman? Who was the bad guy to get in the Johnny Altinger case? Was there a bad guy? Was there even a crime? Well, who knew really? So Clark kept himself On a tight leash, he had yet to smell anything like blood. You must have come to some point where you thought, oh, this definitely foul play.

[Bill Clark]

No, not yet. Not at all.

[Keith Morrison]

All the cops had, after all, was a missing man who might just have run off somewhere with or without some mysterious woman named Jen. Which would certainly account for the fact that his red Mazda coupe was gone too. But really, aside from a few curious emails that might or might not make any sense, there wasn't much for investigators to go on. So being cops, Clark and his colleagues employed standard procedure. They doubled back for a second look at things like that garage Johnny was apparently headed for when he vanished. The first time the cops went there, it was very once over.

[Bill Clark]

So we're thinking our next step, logically, is the garage. We gotta check inside and have a close look.

[Keith Morrison]

And so they applied for a search warrant to look more thoroughly, give the place a real forensic going over, and.

[Bill Clark]

It gets turned down because we're told we don't have a crime, we haven't proven there's a crime committed, and we're going, oh, man.

[Keith Morrison]

Well, this is no good.

[Bill Clark]

Yeah, it's like, now what? I said, well, we might as well phone Twitchell. He was cooperative with Mike Tabler. Let's phone him up. Maybe he'll come down, or we'll just get the key from him. So I just phoned him up, and he's all good, no problem. And then he says, well, I'm going to my mom's house. And I said, well, you know what? Why don't we meet you there and you give us the key and then we'll go in? He goes, yeah. I says, I'll need you to sign a consent form for us to search the garage. Yep, no problem.

[Keith Morrison]

Mr.

[Bill Clark]

Cooperative, just like he was in the interview the night before. Doesn't raise any red flags with me at all. So we sent a detective out to meet up with Mark Twitchell.

[Keith Morrison]

Clark expected the detective to return in an hour or so with the key and consent form. But no, the detective called Clark instead with news that just couldn't wait about a story Mark Twitchell had just told him.

[Bill Clark]

Detective says to me, says, bought a red mask off a guy.

[Keith Morrison]

And he didn't mention it at all.

[Bill Clark]

Never mentioned it before.

[Keith Morrison]

But had somebody asked him about such a car before?

[Bill Clark]

He'd been asked several times about the.

[Keith Morrison]

Car during that first interview.

[Bill Clark]

Yeah, and by the patrolman who first met him the first night at the garage. Not a mention. Now all of a sudden, he tells Murphy, yeah, I bought a red Car for a guy. For. Slipped my mind. Forgot to tell you about it.

[Keith Morrison]

Slipped my mind.

[Bill Clark]

Right away I thought, there's something fishy going on.

[Keith Morrison]

So Clark invited Twitchell to come back down to the station for a meeting at 10:30 on a Sunday night. And Twitchell agreed.

[Bill Clark]

Everything you do now, we're. We're analyzing. We call it the up arrow, down arrow scenario. Yeah, this is an up arrow. Mr. Cooperative will come down. We'll talk to us at 10:30 on a Sunday night. That's an up arrow for Mark, right?

[Keith Morrison]

Right.

[Bill Clark]

He's being cooperative. It's all good. Red car, Mazda hasn't mentioned it. Big down arrow.

[Keith Morrison]

Big down arrow, Big down arrow, but two arrows. If that's all you had, it wouldn't buy you a cup of coffee. In a weird investigation like this one.

[Bill Clark]

You know, we're flying by the seat of your pants. Don't know anything about Twitchell. We don't know anything about this guy. Our plan was, if he's going to tell us about the red car, he's going to have to tell us where it is. So our plan was, as soon as he tells us where it is, get someone in that room to go out and find a car. Maybe something comes up in the car, let's get the trunk. Like we're thinking there's a body in it maybe, right? We don't know. So Twitchell comes in. I shake his hand, you know, hey, Mark, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. He's going, yeah, sorry all about that red car. And I'm going, you know, Mark, anybody could forget that. You know, there's a lot going on. The police are involved. And the whole time I'm thinking, who would forget this red car? Like, you're an idiot, buddy. Like something's going on.

[Keith Morrison]

But as the interview proceeded, the young filmmaker was the very picture of cooperation.

[Mark Twitchell]

So I get this call from my co producer on the phone with this guy from LA that's helped put together my big feature, the Day Players Comedy.

[Keith Morrison]

He volunteered information. He answered questions without hesitation or any apparent guile. Clark watched his body language. And it was open, comfortable. So they got to the story about the red Mazda. And what a story that was, said Mark. He was sitting in his own car. He'd stopped for some reason, reason, just a few blocks from his rented garage.

[Mark Twitchell]

Then this guy taps on my window.

[Keith Morrison]

And his knee jerk reaction was.

[Mark Twitchell]

And at first I'm thinking, okay, he's gonna ask me for like loose change or, you know, something like that.

[Keith Morrison]

As can happen anywhere, Edmonton included.

[Mark Twitchell]

But he didn't look like a transient. He seemed to be, you know, dressed like a normal person.

[Keith Morrison]

Except what he wanted to do was not even close to normal, said Mark. Man was desperate to get rid of his car. Offered to sell it right then and there to Mark for practically nothing. And the reason is crazy.

[Mark Twitchell]

He goes, well, I have jacked up with this really rich lady. You know, it's like a sugar mama kind of situation, and she's going to take care of me and she's going to buy me a new car when we get back from a vacation that we're going to take. So I'm just looking to unload buying and don't really care that much how much I get for it. How much do you have on you? And so I say, well, 40 bucks. And with that tone and everything, I'm not expecting anything here. And he's like, yeah, sure, fair enough. I'm thinking, okay, what is there like 2 tons of cocaine in the trunk? I'm trying to figure out what the catch is here.

[Keith Morrison]

Apparently, said Mark, there was no catch and nothing wrong with the car except it had a standard transmission, which he didn't know how to drive, so he left it parked in a friend's driveway.

[Bill Clark]

Does he live close by or what?

[Mark Twitchell]

Yeah, it was just a couple of blocks away.

[Keith Morrison]

A detective listening in from another room sent someone out to look for the red carpet. And meanwhile, Bill Clark left the interview room partly to regroup, but also to see how Mark would act when they left him alone. And if he was rattled, he certainly didn't show it. Instead, he calmly placed a call to his wife.

[Mark Twitchell]

Hey, so what? Well, a try to answer some more of their questions and fill them in and everything like that. And like it turns out that the car is in fact belonging to this missing guy, and it's a huge deal. So that's what this whole thing is about.

[Keith Morrison]

What in heaven's name was going on? Bill Clark didn't have a clue beyond his suspicions. That is something about this guy. He was just too to something. So Bill Clark, good cop, decided to become Bill Clark, bad cop. Right or wrong, he was about to lean in on Mark Twitchell.

[Bill Clark]

The game's on. It's me against him. I know it.

[Keith Morrison]

Coming up in future episodes of the man in the Black Mask.

[Trevor Hosinger]

He told me that he just finished his house of cards, which was about a serial killer, but he wanted to pursue more of that. And I said, well, why not a female serial killer? Why has it got to be a guy, you know? And I said, let's explore that in a story. Sure, in a story.

[Keith Morrison]

And then I turn around finally, and I see this guy and he's wearing this mask. He's hitting me all over with this sun gun.

[Bill Clark]

It was probably the most spellbinding intervention you I've ever had with a witness.

[Keith Morrison]

The man in the Black Mask is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Vince Sterling is the producer, Brian Drew, Deb Brown and Marshall Housefeld are audio editors. Justin Ratchford is field producer, Leslie Grossman is program coordinator, Adam Gorfin is co executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio Sound mixing by Katie Lau Bryson Barnes is head of audio production. Foreign.

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