EDMONTON — The mystery of what happened to Johnny Altinger was solved a year-and-a-half after he disappeared when filmmaker Mark Twitchell, sitting in lockup, wordlessly passed a folded map to detectives.
The map gave directions to a sewer grate in an alley near the home of Twitchell’s parents in north Edmonton, Det. Brad Mandrusiak told court Tuesday.
He said he and his partner drove to the alley, walked over to the grate and peered into the blackness.
“I saw what I believed to be two pieces of human remains within the sewer itself,” Mandrusiak told the jury at Twitchell’s first-degree murder trial.
Twitchell, 31, has pleaded not guilty in the Oct. 10, 2008, death of Altinger.
At the time, Twitchell was a wannabe filmmaker with two small projects in various stages of post-production.
Prosecutors say that two weeks after he finished shooting a short slasher movie in a rented residential garage, he lured Altinger there and dismembered him in a way that matched the script.
They have also entered into evidence a document found on Twitchell’s laptop.
It’s a 42-page first-person account of an unnamed author’s actions towards his goal of becoming a serial killer.
Prosecutors say it’s Twitchell’s diary, but have told jurors they expect the accused will argue it’s nothing more than a work of fiction.
Mandrusiak told court he went to the Edmonton Remand Centre on June 3, 2010, after he was summoned there by Twitchell through his lawyer Charles Davison.
Twitchell, who was already charged in Altinger’s death, was there with Davison, Mandrusiak said. Without any introductory remarks, they got down to business.
“He just passed to me across the table a piece of paper folded in half,” said Mandrusiak.
The document was a Google map, showing an area near the parents’ home, with step-by-step handwritten directions to a sewer grate, he said.
Twitchell offered no reason for the map, Mandrusiak said.
But at the start of the trial Twitchell offer to plead guilty to the lesser charge of interfering with Altinger’s remains. The Crown rejected the proposed plea.
Mandrusiak said he was chosen because he was the one who initially took Twitchell into custody and charged him with first-degree murder.
Court has heard that police had Twitchell under round-the-clock surveillance for more than a week prior to the arrest.
He became a suspect just days after Altinger’s disappearance. A friend of Altinger confirmed for police that Altinger was going to the garage that night expecting to meet a woman he had linked up with on an Internet dating site.
Twitchell was also found in possession of Altinger’s car. He told police a stranger had sold it to him on the street for $40.
At the time, Twitchell was trying to wrangle financing for his first big feature film. He was a fan of comics, the fictional TV serial killer Dexter Morgan and Star Wars.
The Crown closed its case Tuesday.
He was also a creative costume-maker, and had dazzled friends and won awards for previous Halloween creations, including a towering, working Bumblebee from the “Transformers” series.
Mandrusiak said investigators used Twitchell’s love of comics and stories to spring a trap in the middle of the afternoon on Halloween day 2008.
In the days before the arrest, an undercover police officer, posing as an investor looking to pour money into Twitchell’s production company, had made contact with him.
Twitchell, meanwhile, had been busy making an “Iron Man” costume in his parents’ basement.
That afternoon he left the house to go to a nearby coffee shop to have a 3 p.m. coffee with the “investor.”
Mandrusiak said Twitchell was carrying keys, a wallet, cellphone and two tickets to a Halloween contest when tactical officers took him to the ground and cuffed him.
“I identified myself as a detective,” said Mandrusiak. “And said, ’You’re under arrest for first-degree murder.”’