The Man in the Black Mask - Ep. 6: House of Cards

Summary

Dateline Originals: "The Man in the Black Mask - Episode 6: House of Cards"

Overview

In the gripping sixth episode of Dateline Originals titled "House of Cards," host Keith Morrison delves into a chilling true-crime narrative set in the frigid winters of Edmonton. This episode uncovers the sinister story of Mark Twitchell, a beloved doctor turned accused killer, and the disappearance of Johnny Altinger. Through relentless investigation, twisted motives, and courtroom drama, the episode paints a vivid picture of deception and justice.

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1. The Disappearance of Johnny Altinger

The story begins with a seemingly straightforward missing person case involving Johnny Altinger. As winter grips Edmonton, Detective Bill Clark and his team embark on an investigation that quickly spirals into a complex and horrifying mystery.

Keith Morrison sets the scene:

"[00:14] Keith Morrison: Winter was coming to Edmonton. They were running out of time. What had begun as a simple missing person's investigation seemed to have uncovered something unthinkable."

Bill Clark expresses his frustration and determination:

"[00:07] Bill Clark: People aren't putting this puzzle together. I was stunned. Pursuing justice is worth it."

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2. Unraveling SK Confessions

The breakthrough in the case comes when detectives discover the SK Confessions, a series of bizarre entries on Twitchell's computer. These deleted files hint at a gruesome act, likening the unfolding events to a real-life version of the TV show Dexter.

Bill Clark reveals the significance of the deleted files:

"[00:55] Bill Clark: You gotta realize, the computer guys, when they went through the computer, it was a deleted file."

Despite the challenges of retrieving the erased data, the team believes they've found a critical piece of the puzzle.

Keith Morrison narrates:

"[01:02] Keith Morrison: Trouble was, Detective Bill Clark and the others knew they were missing something. And it might be the most important bit of the awful story."

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3. The Desperate Search

Armed with the unsettling clues from Twitchell's laptop, Detective Clark leads a meticulous search for Johnny's body, believed to be disposed of in an Edmonton sewer system. The search is a race against the impending winter, adding urgency to their mission.

As the team digs deeper:

"[02:58] Bill Clark: Everything's turned out to be true, so we got no reason to disbelieve this."

They locate a potential manhole based on SK Confessions:

"[03:42] Bill Clark: This block area matches the diary, the SK Confessions, with the telephone poles, the sewers."

Despite exhaustive efforts involving city maintenance workers and extensive sewer searches, the body remains elusive as winter's grip tightens.

Keith Morrison highlights the futility they face:

"[04:21] Bill Clark: I'd be out with a flashlight looking down. Now I can't see nothing."

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4. The Gag Order and Public Speculation

A judicial gag order prevents any details of the case from being disclosed to the public, fueling rampant speculation and the emergence of urban legends. The community becomes rife with theories, ranging from pranksters engineering a hoax to the possibility of Johnny Altinger's dramatic return.

Bill Clark reflects on the public's skepticism:

"[05:46] Bill Clark: There was this whole mythology that had been built up and this idea that there was a hoax, right, that how do you know it's not a prank and Johnny Aldinger isn't just going to walk in the first day of the trial?"

This environment poses significant challenges for prosecutors aiming to present a solid case without solidifying Johnny's status as deceased beyond doubt.

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5. The Breakthrough and Twitchell's Revelation

A pivotal moment occurs when Twitchell agrees to share crucial information under strict conditions:

"[07:01] Bill Clark: One, no media can be present. Two, he will pass a piece of paper to the detectives at the remand center and they will not be allowed to ask him any questions. And three, Detective Bill Clark can't be one of the detectives."

Twitchell provides a detailed map pinpointing the exact location of Johnny's remains:

"[07:26] Keith Morrison: [...] a six block by six block section of his parents neighborhood. In the bottom right hand corner of the map was a hand drawn manhole cover circled in red so you wouldn't miss it."

Despite the proximity to Twitchell's parents' home, initial searches miss the mark until further investigation reveals the gruesome discovery.

Bill Clark shares the triumphant find:

"[10:57] Bill Clark: When we looked down it and just shot a flashlight down, we could see."

They uncover body parts, confirming Johnny Altinger's death and Twitchell's involvement.

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6. The Courtroom Showdown

Twitchell's trial becomes a spectacle, with mounting evidence against him:

• Bloodied knife found in Twitchell's car with Johnny's blood.
• Blood spatter and DNA evidence in Twitchell's garage.
• The interrogation tape revealing Twitchell's emotional breakdown.

Bill Clark presents the evidence:

"[15:37] Bill Clark: He just left it in the car."

Keith Morrison describes the forensic findings:

"[16:37] Bill Clark: Big pools of blood that lit up under the dark lights."

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Twitchell maintains his innocence, claiming self-defense and framing the incident as part of his "brand new kind of entertainment."

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7. Twitchell's Defense and Unexpected Apology

Twitchell's courtroom demeanor is initially cold and detached. However, a dramatic shift occurs when Twitchell, after watching a video of his initial interaction with Detective Clark, breaks down and apologizes:

"[20:43] Bill Clark: Mark Twitchell does no better. He's crying throughout it, and actually, by the end of the day, he's actually collapsed and he's fallen over top of the table in front of him and is just sobbing into his notes."

This unexpected display raises questions about his true intentions and psychological state.

Bill Clark reflects on Twitchell's behavior:

"[21:09] Bill Clark: I thought it was an act, but looking back on it, I think there's some validity to the fact that he'd probably never been confronted by anyone before in his life."

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8. The Verdict and Aftermath

After hours of deliberation, the jury delivers a guilty verdict for Mark Twitchell, confirming his premeditated first-degree murder of Johnny Altinger. Despite the victory, the victory feels surreal to those involved, as they grapple with the loss and the complexities of the case.

Deborah Tekrob, Johnny's friend, expresses her feelings:

"[28:14] Bill Clark: Deborah Tyrov, that friend girl, the one Johnny liked so much, was relieved, of course. But was the verdict an occasion to celebrate? No, said Deborah."

Detective Bill Clark shares his introspection:

"[29:37] Bill Clark: I've never been involved in investigation like this in my whole career. [...] We knew exactly what happened to John."

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9. Twitchell's Twisted Motives

The episode concludes by exploring Twitchell's disturbing motives. He sought to blur the lines between fiction and reality, creating an "urban legend" to generate publicity for his creative works. His obsession with blending his cinematic creations with real-life events led him to orchestrate the murder of Johnny Altinger.

Mark Twitchell explains his twisted strategy:

"[24:01] Keith Morrison: [...] he decided to create an online urban legend by pulling off a series of Harmless staged attacks identical to those depicted in his movie."

His final words in the diary reveal a chilling lack of empathy:

"[31:09] Keith Morrison: [...] he wrote he simply could not feel for anyone."

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Conclusion

"House of Cards" masterfully weaves a tale of art, deception, and murder, showcasing the relentless pursuit of justice by Detective Bill Clark and his team. Through meticulous investigation and unwavering determination, the truth behind Mark Twitchell's facade is unveiled, delivering a poignant commentary on the dangers of blurring reality with fiction.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Clark on the significance of the deleted files:

  "[00:55] Bill Clark: You gotta realize, the computer guys, when they went through the computer, it was a deleted file."

• Twitchell's Emotional Breakdown:

  "[20:36] Keith Morrison: Though few in court were actually watching the screen, instead, their eyes were on Twitchell."

• Twitchell's Admission:

  "[20:22] Bill Clark: There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of John Altinger. No doubt in my mind at all."

This episode serves as a stark reminder of the complexities within criminal investigations and the often-hidden layers of human motives.

Transcript

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Bill Clark]

People aren't putting this puzzle together. I was stunned. Pursuing justice is worth it.

[Keith Morrison]

Friday night on Dateline at 9, 8 Central, only on NBC. Winter was coming to Edmonton. They were running out of time. What had begun as a simple missing person's investigation seemed to have uncovered something unthinkable. Like a real life version of that TV show Dexter. And now a race against Winter as the detective search for a body. All because they believed the bizarre stories they'd unearthed from Mark Twitchell's computer. SK Confessions.

[Bill Clark]

You gotta realize, the computer guys, when they went through the computer, it was a deleted file.

[Keith Morrison]

He tried to get rid of the file.

[Bill Clark]

He tried to get rid of it.

[Keith Morrison]

Trouble was, Detective Bill Clark and the others knew they were missing something. And it might be the most important bit of the awful story. They still didn't know how it ended. That bit was gone, cut off. Buried even deeper in Twitchell's computer. Maybe irretrievable.

[Bill Clark]

We're going to computer guys. Come on, you gotta pull up more. We're right to the point of where he dumped the body and we don't know the location.

[Keith Morrison]

So one more time. As each day grew a little colder. Frost in the morning, flurries in the afternoon. The computer people dug through the entrails of Mark Twitchell's laptop. And then, a week or two later, finally, there it was. There was more. It was the ghoulish end of a very strange story. Here is how it began. The beginning of the end. I grabbed a banana nut muffin, a double chocolate donut and a cafe mocha on the way to my destination. But then, banal the horrid, the tone changed.

[Bill Clark]

I drove back to the kill room.

[Keith Morrison]

To finish destroying evidence. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is the man in the Black Mask, a podcast from Dateline. Episode six, House of Cards. The sewer. Of course. How obvious. Six simple words from the erased files on Mark Twitchell's laptop. Words that told Detective Bill Clark that he must surely have been right all along. Mark Twitchell's scary story wasn't fiction. He must have murdered the missing Johnny Altinger and must have dumped his body in an Edmonton sewer.

[Bill Clark]

Everything's turned out to be true, so we got no reason to disbelieve this.

[Keith Morrison]

And here, as read by the voice actor, the recovered lines of SK Confessions. I chose the eastern suburb of the city to dump my waste. The housing in this part of my world was also older, done back in the 60s and 70s, when there were.

[Bill Clark]

Back alleys to be had.

[Keith Morrison]

Within moments, I found exactly what I was looking for. A manhole cover placed off to the.

[Bill Clark]

Side behind a power pole.

[Keith Morrison]

I parked in an empty driveway and popped the trunk. And just like that, Bill Clark knew. He could picture the neighborhood. He knew it well. He'd been there many times. It was where Mark Twitchell's parents lived.

[Bill Clark]

This block area matches the diary, the SK Confessions, with the telephone poles, the sewers.

[Keith Morrison]

But the author of SK Confessions didn't say which sewer drain he used. And there were many, of course. So many that police had to bring in city maintenance workers to help them search.

[Bill Clark]

City crews actually pulled all these sewers. All these. All the covers, all the covers, pulled them off. They had crews go down, search each one, and they sent cameras down the lines where they actually go down the lines, and they snake them down. And having a look, they found nothing.

[Keith Morrison]

But on went Bill Clark, like a pit bull in search of a bone.

[Bill Clark]

I'd be out with a flashlight looking down. Now I can't see nothing. If it was really dicey, you couldn't see down, we'd call the city crews in.

[Keith Morrison]

But the whole notion that Altinger's body was dumped down a sewer drain in some back alley was, in the end, information that was just enough. Yet not enough. Winter descended. Back alleys filled with snow. The search for Johnny Altinger petered out, and by spring was over for good.

[Bill Clark]

After the snow melted, thought, geez, if he's in a sewer, he's gonna wash away. You know, the amount of snow we get here and in spring runoff. We thought there was little hope. Now.

[Keith Morrison]

Had they been those detectives like Don Quixote, been tilting at windmills. So much fruitless work for so long. And in secret, since a judge had slapped a gag order on the whole case, none of them could say anything to anybody around town. Anyone following the story of the movie maker and the missing man would probably have heard the theory that the whole thing was a joke, a prank that landed Mark Twitchell in jail temporarily. And then Johnny Altinger would make a dramatic appearance, and Mark Twitchell would walk out of lockup with a big smile on his face. Certainly that's what reporter Steve Lillibuan was hearing.

[Bill Clark]

There was this whole mythology that had been built up and this idea that there was a hoax, right, that how do you know it's not a prank and Johnny Aldinger isn't just going to walk in the first day of the trial?

[Keith Morrison]

It need hardly be said that any potential prosecution of Mark Twitchell might encounter an issue or two. What if it was fiction? What if the missing man did suddenly appear? Large as life among prosecutors everywhere is a natural reluctance to try a man for murder when no body has appeared. Still, prosecutors in Edmonton gradually and carefully built a case, one they hoped would convince all 12 members of a jury that Johnny Altinger really was dead and not about to walk into the courtroom as the trial was gaveled into session. Then, a year into their preparation, out of the blue, there was a call.

[Bill Clark]

We get a phone call from the Crown Prosecutor's office telling us that the defense lawyer has some information he wants to pass on. Mark wants to pass on to the detectives.

[Keith Morrison]

But three conditions would have to be met.

[Bill Clark]

One, no media can be present. Two, he will pass a piece of paper to the detectives at the remand center and they will not be allowed to ask him any questions. And three, Detective Bill Clark can't be one of the detectives. And that to me was like the coup de grace for me. It was like I got to him.

[Keith Morrison]

Well, an offer they couldn't refuse. A team of detectives minus Bill Clark was dispatched to the jail where without a word of explanation, Mark Twitchell handed them a sheet of paper. On it was a black and white printout of a six block by six block section of his parents neighborhood. In the bottom right hand corner of the map was a hand drawn manhole cover circled in red so you wouldn't miss it. And below that there was a handwritten note which read location of John Altinger's remains. Hey everybody, it's Hoda Kotb from the.

[Bill Clark]

Today show reminding you to check out.

[Keith Morrison]

My podcast Making Space. In this week's episode, I sit down with fancy like country singer Walker Hayes to talk about his journey through sobriety, his life as a dad and the inspiration behind his music. You can listen to the full conversation right now.

[Bill Clark]

All you have to do is search.

[Keith Morrison]

Making Space wherever you get your podcasts. 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, finding the perfect gift for a true crime podcast fan can be tricky. What do you get for someone who loves twisty mysteries, determined detectives and secrets hiding secrets? All great stuff, but hard to wrap. So we put all that and more in a subscription to Dateline Premium. You'll actually be giving three gifts in one ad. Free listening to all Dateline podcasts, early access to all new episodes, and exclusive bonus content. You are so generous. Just go to datelinepremium.com and give the gift of Dateline. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more. It's just what I wanted. How did you know? Dateline premium.com.

[Bill Clark]

It fits perfectly. And I love the color.

[Keith Morrison]

If a detective is truly lucky, if he or she follows every lead, refuses to give up in the face of skeptics, sails past repeated failures, then one fine day, the suspect he or she has long pursued might simply say. You got me. Mark Twitchell had just admitted that Johnny Altinger was dead and that he Twitchell disposed of his body down a sewer drain. Poor Johnny. And which one was it?

[Bill Clark]

This one right here.

[Keith Morrison]

Just the one off the edge of the alley here?

[Bill Clark]

Yeah, right down here in this sewer. And it matches perfectly.

[Keith Morrison]

We went there much later, Bill Clark and I. Whoa, how do you even tell what the hell's down there? And suddenly here the horror was very real.

[Bill Clark]

When we looked down it and just shot a flashlight down, we could see.

[Keith Morrison]

You could see it.

[Bill Clark]

You could see body pieces, a piece of the torso and a piece of the pelvis.

[Keith Morrison]

He probably thought it would all get washed away.

[Bill Clark]

I think he thought it would just deteriorate to a point that said, you know, it'd be unidentifiable. Or no one would ever look.

[Keith Morrison]

Right, no one would ever look. Yeah, because he wouldn't find that sk confessions.

[Bill Clark]

That's right. No one would ever look.

[Keith Morrison]

And where were we? Just one block from Mark Twitchell's parents place. Yet somehow in all their searching, they had missed it.

[Bill Clark]

We were there. We had detectives searched every sewer, pulled up every sewer in the alley of his parents house, a one square block area, and pulled them up and had city maintenance workers go down and they stopped at the avenue south because it just didn't quite match the diary about being an eastern suburb outside the city. The way it was described.

[Keith Morrison]

How far away were you from the body in that search?

[Bill Clark]

In that search we were five telephone poles away, half a block. Wow, we were that close.

[Keith Morrison]

But why? Why? After keeping his awful secret for 20 months, why did Mark Twitchell suddenly decide to give up Johnny al body and thus implicate himself in the man's death? Well, there was a reason, of course there was. And therefore another secret to keep Mark Twitchell's secret, which he would not reveal until he the would be famous film director went on trial for murder. It was March, two and a half years since Johnny Altinger was first reported missing. And ice was beginning to give up its grip on the North Saskatchewan river as it made its eternal way past the very human drama about to begin at the Edmonton courthouse. Inside, all had assembled in the courtroom. Defendant, lawyers, judge and jury. And a gallery made up almost entirely of people who had been kept in entirely in the dark. Remember the judge's gag order? It had worked, which meant that now the public was in for a whole cascade of surprises beginning even as Mark Twitchell stood at the defense table, his face an impassive mask, and his trial was gaveled into session. Reporter Steve Lillibuan, court clerk, asks you.

[Bill Clark]

How do you plead to the charge of first degree murder? Mark Twitchell says, not guilty. Then his lawyer stands up and surprises everyone, and he says, now, my lord, you'd like to plead guilty to the charge of interfering with human remains. And this catches everyone totally by surprise, including the prosecution. They were stunned. And one of the things that did is this, removed this myth that, well, if you're gonna plead guilty to doing something with a dead body, clearly this is not a hoax. There's something very serious that happened here. And you're admitting some level of involvement.

[Keith Morrison]

Surprise number two was courtesy of the prosecutor. The discovery of Johnny's body had never been made public, nor the fact that it was Twitchell himself who told police where to look.

[Bill Clark]

So the police, the prosecution, his defense lawyer, everyone had kept the secret for.

[Keith Morrison]

10 months, but it was the next revelation that made jaws hang open.

[Bill Clark]

They had a diary documenting how Twitchell did it. It doesn't get more explosive than that, but.

[Keith Morrison]

And on this question, the trial would turn. Was Johnny Altinger murdered? Well, Mark Twitchell certainly admitted to dumping Johnny's remains down a sewer drain. He never admitted that he killed. Killed anybody. Never even admitted that he was the author of SK Confessions. The prosecutors knew they would need more than that document to get a conviction. So they had diligently built a case on CSI basics, going back to all the evidence they'd uncovered when Twitchell was first being investigated, but which was never made public. Their presentation began with the discovery in Twitchell's car.

[Bill Clark]

We find a knife in there, a knife with blood on it, that knife.

[Keith Morrison]

Visible blood.

[Bill Clark]

Visible blood on that knife. And that blood matches up to Johnny Altinger in the car.

[Keith Morrison]

He just left it in the car.

[Bill Clark]

In the car, yeah. The car turns out to be an absolute gold mine. It absolutely blows this case wide open. There are yellow sticky notes that are right on the console. One of them has a map drawn from the garage to Johnny Altinger's apartment.

[Keith Morrison]

And in that garage, that makeshift movie.

[Bill Clark]

Studio, we found blood spatter all along the walls, the garage doors, hundreds of spots of splatter where an obvious beating had taken place.

[Keith Morrison]

Also in the garage, CSI investigators found a big game processing kit.

[Bill Clark]

Kits hunters would take out in the bush to cut up a moose or whatever they've killed to bring them out. This is what he used. And every single tool in that kit had our victim's DNA on it.

[Keith Morrison]

And when investigators sprayed that iridescent chemical, luminol, on the garage floor, they found.

[Bill Clark]

Big pools of blood that lit up under the dark lights. The garage is pretty neat. If you didn't take a good look, you wouldn't notice it. When the constables initially saw the first night, they never. We're looking for blood spattering. He explained that stuff away. Don't forget he was telling us he was filming a movie about a serial killer killing people and they chopping up bodies.

[Keith Morrison]

Right after the presentation of the hard evidence, Mark Twitchell's friends and co workers were called to testify. One of the first was Twitchell's Facebook friend Renee Waring.

[Bill Clark]

He was sitting there calm and cocky and wanting all of this big circus show to be about him.

[Keith Morrison]

Johnny Altinger's friend Deborah Tekrob got the same impression.

[Bill Clark]

When I saw him in court, he seemed so calm. He sat there and just made his.

[Keith Morrison]

Notes and I'm like, wow, like he.

[Bill Clark]

Has children and a wife. And he just seemed so normal. He seemed like a normal person, average person off the street. And I was. That's what disturbed me.

[Keith Morrison]

Marisa Guarini and Trevor Hossinger, the couple who encountered Gilles Tetron and the masked man well out for their evening stroll, said Mark Twitchell didn't seem the least bit interested in their testimony. Instead, it was Marissa who was all tied up in knots in the courtroom.

[Bill Clark]

It was terrifying. When I got up there, I wanted him to look at me. I needed to look at him. I don't know, maybe it was just something inside me that said I need to face this guy because.

[Keith Morrison]

Because you were still pretty scared inside.

[Bill Clark]

Yeah, I mean, my. I'm scared of everything now, but I.

[Keith Morrison]

I don't know, I wanted to face him.

[Bill Clark]

And he just sat there and doodled on his paper and that was it. Didn't look up nothing.

[Keith Morrison]

Reporter Steve Littlebuan said Twitchell remained stone faced even when his own ex wife took the stand.

[Bill Clark]

She's crying through all of this. Mark Twitchell's Reaction was nearly blank.

[Keith Morrison]

There was perhaps one exception. One witness, Mark Twitchell, seemed to pay attention to. It was when Jill's Tetro took the stand to tell his tale.

[Bill Clark]

It felt like a huge weight lifted.

[Keith Morrison]

Off my shoulders, and it was finally done.

[Bill Clark]

I was like, wow, it felt so good.

[Keith Morrison]

And you looked at him?

[Bill Clark]

Yeah, well, he wouldn't look at me in. In the courtroom while the Crown was asking me the questions. But when his lawyer cross examined me, he looked at me the whole time, and I looked back at him, and.

[Keith Morrison]

I wasn't scared of him anymore. And then something very strange happened. They played the video of Mark Twitchell's first encounter with Detective Bill Clark.

[Bill Clark]

Did you not think that kind of strange? I mean, I have to ask, is you paying $40 for a car? How much did you think the car was worth? I thought it was worth somewhere between three and 4,000.

[Keith Morrison]

Which.

[Bill Clark]

You're paying $40 for it? Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

And the emotionless defendant came unraveled, and.

[Bill Clark]

He starts to cry, and the tears are just streaming down his face, and he's getting hysterical. His chest is heaving. The judge actually recognized that they took a break and he couldn't get out of that room fast enough. When he comes back after the break, Mark Twitchell is no better. He's still very upset, and he's crying. But he turns around and actually faces Detective Clark, and he starts talking to him and said, I'm sorry for lying to you.

[Keith Morrison]

Turned around and apologized for lying for lying to me.

[Bill Clark]

I thought it was an act, but looking back on it, I think there's some validity to the fact that he'd probably never been confronted by anyone before in his life.

[Keith Morrison]

Once Twitchell took his seat, prosecutors resumed playing the tape.

[Bill Clark]

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of John Altinger. No doubt in my mind at all. Why? I have no idea what the hell's going on.

[Keith Morrison]

Though few in court were actually watching the screen, instead, their eyes were on Twitchell.

[Bill Clark]

Mark Twitchell does no better. He's crying throughout it, and actually, by the end of the day, he's actually collapsed and he's fallen over top of the table in front of him and is just sobbing into his notes. And in that moment, he's looking at himself, and he's looking at his own destruction. He's looking at Detective Clark, likely the first man who's ever stood up to him and called him out and said, you've been lying to me for hours, and I'm not putting it up with anymore.

[Keith Morrison]

And yet stranger things were to come when the defense called their one and only witness, Mark Twitchell.

[Bill Clark]

The room was packed. There wasn't a single seat. I think everyone was on the edge of their seat wondering what is this guy gonna say? They called it the happiest place on the high desert, home to a tight knit group of 30 something who like to party. It starts as a Playboy channel fantasy, but this is real life where passion leads to murder and a killer seeks God's help with the COVID up.

[Keith Morrison]

I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Deadly.

[Bill Clark]

Mirage, an all new podcast from Dateline.

[Keith Morrison]

All episodes are available now. To listen ad free subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or dateline premium.com. hi everyone, I'm Jenna Bush Hager from TODAY with Hoda and Jenna and I'm excited to share my new podcast, Open Book with Jenna. Each week celebrities, experts, friends and authors will share candid stories with me about their lives and new projects. Guests like Stephen and Evie Colbert, Nicholas Sparks, Emily Henry and more. Like a good book, you will leave feeling inspired and entertained. Join me for my brand new podcast, Open Book with Jenna. New episodes of Open Book with Jenna.

[Bill Clark]

Are released every Thursday.

[Keith Morrison]

Listen now on Apple Podcasts.

[Bill Clark]

Let the TODAY show make you a gift giving expert. I'm Adriana Brock, Shop TODAY editorial director. My team tests thousands of products and recommends only what we love. And everyone on your list will too.

[Keith Morrison]

From carefully curated holiday gift guides to.

[Bill Clark]

Exclusive deals for TODAY show insiders, find what they really want this year. So relax and text shop to 34318 and we'll make your holiday shopping a breeze.

[Keith Morrison]

Text shop to 34318. Mark Twitchell had waited a long time for this. Nothing but time to think during his long months in an Edmonton remand center awaiting trial. And now that it was finally his turn. Right from the start of his testimony, he admitted that yes, he did kill Johnny Aldinger. But then he told the jury a story again. This is reporter Steve Lillibuan.

[Bill Clark]

And he said that what he had done is he had cooked up this idea that you could blend fiction and reality so closely together that the people would, everyone would be fooled into thinking that what's fiction is actually reality.

[Keith Morrison]

His house of cards and SK confession, said Mark Twitchell, were to be the building blocks of a brand new kind of entertainment. A kind of twisting urban myth. Pure fiction, reality, all rolled into one kind of movie. To generate publicity, said Mr. Twitchell, he decided to create an online urban legend by pulling off a series of Harmless staged attacks identical to those depicted in his movie.

[Bill Clark]

So that then when his movie comes out and when the novel comes out, people would go and Google this and they would find out that there's this whole urban legend about maybe the movie is real, maybe this fiction is actually reality.

[Keith Morrison]

He called this multi angle psychosis layering entertainment. Maple for short.

[Bill Clark]

It's almost like you're sitting on the beach and there's a. You know, there's a palm tree and there's a beach in front of you, but when you pull back, it's not a beach at all. It's actually a picture of a beach.

[Keith Morrison]

So, attacking Jill's tetro. Well, of course that happened, said defendant Twitchell, but it was only a stunt. Part of his publicity strategy. He allowed his prey to escape, but Johnny Altinger, poor Johnny, just didn't get the joke. Didn't want to be part of anybody's pr. He was there to meet a woman. And when no woman was there to greet him, Altinger got all worked up, furious by the look of him, said Twitchell, and attacked him with a pipe. Or so Mark Twitchell told the jury.

[Bill Clark]

And he's got this little knife on his belt. And he tells the jury in his testimony that he puts his hand on the handle of the knife. And just as Johnny is about to come at him, he's lifting the pipe over his head. And Mark Twitchell sticks both his hands out in front of him. And the next thing he sees is the knife is in Johnny's stomach and the blood's on his hands, and he collapses and dies on the floor in front of him.

[Keith Morrison]

So the only inaccuracy in SK confessions is said Mark Twitchell was the matter of who attacked whom. Johnny Altinger was the aggressor, said Twitchell. And he, well, he killed Johnny in self defense. And so now police had their answer to one mystery. Why did Mark Twitchell suddenly relent and tell them where to find Johnny Altinger's body? Because that was his prologue, a clever way to foreshadow his elaborate tale. And now the story's twist, its big reveal, was right there in the courtroom, just like in a movie.

[Bill Clark]

His defense is a brilliant idea on the surface. I mean, he actually found a way to describe an entire police investigation that incriminated him to get him off scot free.

[Keith Morrison]

Renee Waring was following the trial online.

[Bill Clark]

I watched the live blog that they had, and I was screaming my head off at home. You liar. You liar.

[Keith Morrison]

Were you afraid the jury would believe him?

[Bill Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

Twitchell Never disputed any of the forensic evidence or the timeline or that he'd been out catfishing men, meaning there was really no point in calling any other witnesses, expert or otherwise. So once Mark Twitchell finished with his testimony, the defense rested, leaving it now to the jurors to decide which was the truthful telling of the story of John Altinger's violent death.

[Bill Clark]

You're looking for that one person you can convince on a panel of 12 people to just have that doubt and, you know, take that doubt back to the deliberation room.

[Keith Morrison]

Twitchell's tactic, if tactic is what it was, seemed to be working. That is, if the worried murmurs around the courthouse were any guide. For hours and hours, the jury talked, argued, perhaps discussed, certainly behind their locked door. What were they doing? No one knew.

[Bill Clark]

The time rolled on, and we still didn't have a verdict yet. So people were thinking, oh, maybe there's a holdout. Maybe there's someone out there who actually does believe Mark Twitchell.

[Keith Morrison]

And then finally, the signal was given, and Mark Twitchell's most important audience filed back into the courtroom, their faces as blank as the defendants had been during much of the testimony against him. Finally, the foreperson stood and gave Mark Twitchell his last review. Guilty of the premeditated first degree murder of Johnny Altinger. Deborah Tyrov, that friend girl, the one Johnny liked so much, was relieved, of course. But was the verdict an occasion to celebrate? No, said Deborah. It was not. I think it's just. It's surreal, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's just surreal.

[Bill Clark]

You don't.

[Keith Morrison]

You don't expect your friends to go.

[Bill Clark]

Missing, and they're really just pulled right.

[Keith Morrison]

Out of your life, and you don't.

[Bill Clark]

Get to have the funeral and the.

[Keith Morrison]

You know, to say the goodbyes later. Detective Bill Clark was in a reflective mood.

[Bill Clark]

I've never been involved in investigation like this in my whole career. As homicide detectives, you theorize about how someone's died, and there's no doubt. We don't always get it right. We got a good idea, but we're never right here. We knew exactly what happened to John.

[Keith Morrison]

Because he told you.

[Bill Clark]

He told us. You know, 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.

[Keith Morrison]

But why? Why did Mark Twitchell murder Johnny Altinger, a guy he'd never met, a total stranger? Food for thought, said Bill Clark.

[Bill Clark]

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 casting crew and actors how to do it. And only to himself, he would know that he's actually lived it. I think that was what he wanted to do.

[Keith Morrison]

And far away in Ohio, Renee waring, Twitchell's old Facebook friend, arrived at the same disturbing theory.

[Bill Clark]

I think he did it for artistic reasons.

[Keith Morrison]

Artistic reasons, sure.

[Bill Clark]

I think he wanted to see how someone died so maybe he could make a better story, film it better, write about it better.

[Keith Morrison]

Was that why he kept so much incriminating evidence? The knives, the notes, the receipts that would later help prove his guilt? Research material and sk confessions? Well, that was a diary, after all, Just as the Edmonton police service had believed from the very beginning. And perhaps it was in those entries that he could not, in the end, erase that Mark Twitchell himself offered an answer to all those people who wondered why he was different. He wrote he simply could not feel for anyone. And so, intentionally or not, he offered a dismal reason for murdering a perfect stranger. It was a single line at the end of that horror movie of his, the one he called house of cards, when the killer tells his wife, the best way to succeed is to write what you know. The man in the Black mask is a production of dateline and NBC News. Vince Surla is the producer. Brian Drew, Deb Brown, Marshall house Feld and Kelly Loudean 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.