Mark Twitchell


Mark Andrew Twitchell is a Canadian filmmaker convicted of first-degree murder in 2011 for killing John Brian "Johnny" Altinger. His trial attracted particular media attention because Twitchell had allegedly been inspired by the fictional character Dexter Morgan. The character appears in a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay and the television drama Dexter.

Filmmaking ambitions

Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Twitchell dreamt of making blockbuster films. Twitchell had directed Star Wars: Secrets of the Rebellion, a 2007 full-length fan film prequel set a few days prior to the original film. Secrets of the Rebellion included a cameo by Jeremy Bulloch, a British actor best known for his role as the Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett. The film, still in post-production, never saw release. He had also scripted Day Players, a buddy comedy. In September 2008, he shot a short horror film entitled House of Cards at a garage he rented in the south end of Edmonton.

Arrest and trial

Twitchell's victim, John Brian "Johnny" Altinger, was a 38-year-old man who worked as an oilfield equipment manufacturer. On October 10, 2008, Altinger informed his friends of his plans to meet a woman he had been chatting with on the online dating website Plenty of Fish.
Following his disappearance, Altinger's friends became concerned after they received emails in which "Altinger" claimed that his date had taken him off on an extended vacation to Costa Rica. At work, a resignation letter arrived by email, but without a response to a request for a forwarding address for sending a final paycheck.
Altinger's friends broke into his condominium only to find his passport, dirty dishes and no indication of his having packed for a trip. A homicide investigation was soon launched by the Edmonton Police Service.
Twitchell, interviewed a second time by police, related an improbable account of having met Altinger before his trip to Costa Rica. According to Twitchell, Altinger then sold his car to Twitchell for 40 CAD, all the cash Twitchell had on hand. In retrospect, Twitchell sold Altinger’s car to another man. This man happened to be a victim of his who got away and was reluctant to report his incident to police. This man later reported to police an incident of being attacked at the garage owned by Twitchell and where he thought he was meeting a woman for a date.
The police, not believing this story, arrested him on October 31, 2008, and, on the same day, charged with the first-degree murder of Altinger.
The key piece of evidence presented by the Crown at Twitchell's first-degree murder trial was a document, entitled "SKConfessions", which stood for "Serial Killer Confessions". The document had been recovered from Twitchell's laptop, despite having been deleted. The document begins with the passage:
"This story is based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer."
It presented an account of its narrator's planning, failed first attempt, and successful second attempt to lure a man to his garage and murder him, with fake online dating profiles used as bait. It went on to describe the process of dismembering the body and attempts to dispose of the remains.
During his trial, Twitchell admitted to killing Altinger and authoring the document, but said he had acted in self-defense. He described the document as fiction based on fact, as if he had planned Altinger's death deliberately, in order to craft a compelling story.
Another document found on Twitchell's laptop did not make its way into the evidence file for the jury to read during his trial. Entitled "A Profile of a Psychopath", and believed by investigators to have been written by Twitchell, it is a detailed self-analysis of personality and behaviour. It was released after the trial ended as it was deemed too inflammatory and would compromise the trial.

Attempted murder charge

Twitchell was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Altinger. He still faced an attempted murder charge for his alleged attack on Gilles Tetreault. Tetreault testified that he was lured using the website PlentyofFish expecting a date with a woman, only to be attacked by a man in a mask with a stun baton when he arrived at a garage rented by Twitchell. Tetreault escaped with his life. Crown prosecutors had not immediately decided if they would pursue the charge of attempted murder upon securing a conviction of first-degree murder as a conviction of attempted murder would not add to the life sentence Twitchell had already received.
On June 17, 2011, an attempted murder charge against Twitchell was stayed in the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta, meaning that Crown prosecutors could resurrect the charge within a one-year period.
The attempted murder charge against Twitchell was dropped. Detectives were adamant they had gathered a mountain of evidence – much of it revealed during the murder trial – while even Twitchell himself admitted on the witness stand to committing the attack. In preparing the case for trial, the Crown had argued in court for both the attempted murder and first-degree murder charges to be heard simultaneously as they were part of the same "transaction" of his attempt to become a serial killer. Under Canadian law, charges can only be heard together if they are linked in some way. Court of Queen's Bench Justice Terry Clackson was not convinced by the prosecution's argument that the attack on the first victim, Gilles Tetreault, and the murder of Johnny Altinger were part of the same transaction. He ordered the charges to be severed and heard separately. "The offences are related and connected, but remain discrete," Justice Clackson wrote in his reasons for the decision. "As a result, the attempted murder charge cannot stand on the same indictment as the charge of murder because they are different transactions." A conviction of first-degree murder in April 2011 secured a maximum sentence — life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years — and, therefore, eliminated any need to proceed with more charges.

Media controversy

Extensive media coverage of the case created debate both inside and outside of the courtroom. Observers argued for and against the media's reporting on the more sensational details of the crime.
Prior to the criminal trial, Crown prosecutors and the defense sought vast publication bans and sealing orders over the police evidence, preventing the media from reporting on the details of the case until the jury would hear it during the future trial. The media fought the application, but the judge agreed to both a sealing order and publication ban, stating in his ruling that "there is a real risk that pretrial publicity will undermine the accused's constitutionally protected right to a fair trial." The jury pool was then polled through a "challenge for cause" procedure to determine if a potential juror had been influenced by the media coverage prior to the publication bans taking effect.
When the bans were lifted, a large media presence attended and reported on the trial, including American television programs Dateline NBC and 48 Hours.
Following his first-degree murder conviction, Twitchell used the extensive media coverage of his case as grounds for an appeal. He argued in his notice of appeal that "the media attention surrounding my case was so extensive, so blatant and so overtly sensationalized that it is unreasonable to expect any unsequestered jury to have remained uninfluenced by it, regardless of judges' instructions in the charge." However, he then abandoned his appeal in 2012.

Post-trial media coverage

In December 2012, Michael C. Hall, the actor who plays Dexter Morgan on the Dexter television series, was interviewed by Jian Ghomeshi on the Canadian radio show Q. Hall stated that he did not think Dexter supported the lifestyle of serial killers. "I would hope that people's appreciation was more than some sort of fetishization with the kill scenes," he said. Ghomeshi brought up Twitchell and Hall said, "I wouldn't stop making Dexter because someone was fascinated by it only in that way. I try to tell myself that their fixated nature would have done it one way or the other, but it seems that Dexter had something to do with it. It's horrifying."
In May 2013, it was reported that Twitchell had purchased a television for his prison cell. Twitchell stated that he had caught up on every Dexter episode that he missed since he was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder.
Twitchell's case was featured on the American newsmagazine Crime Watch Daily on May 1, 2017. Much of that day's program focused on Twitchell's methods and featured interviews with Gilles Tetrault, his first intended victim, and Steve Lillebuen, author of the book The Devil's Cinema, which focused on the case. Part of the report included a return trip by Tetrault to the garage in which the incident had taken place.

Books about the case