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Man on trial for murder wanted to be serial killer

EDMONTON — Filmmaker Mark Twitchell lured, killed and dismembered a stranger just like in one of his movies, then described it in graphic detail in what he termed the diary of a serial killer, a Crown lawyer alleged Wednesday.

EDMONTON — Filmmaker Mark Twitchell lured, killed and dismembered a stranger just like in one of his movies, then described it in graphic detail in what he termed the diary of a serial killer, a Crown lawyer alleged Wednesday.

“Mark Twitchell’s plan was quite simply and shockingly to gain the experience of killing another human being,” prosecutor Lawrence Van Dyke told jurors in his opening address before a packed gallery in Court of Queen’s Bench.

The challenge, said Van Dyke, will be to sort fact from fiction in the case of a man who played in the fantasy world of film, killed in the real world and then wrote a story that the Crown alleges was tantamount to a confession.

Earlier Wednesday, Twitchell, 31, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder but offered to admit to interfering with a dead body. The Crown refused to accept the plea bargain and the trial continued.

“This story is based on true events,” reads the opening portion of a 30-page document found on Twitchell’s laptop after he was arrested in the fall of 2008 for the murder of Johnny Altinger, 38.

“The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer.

“I had a lot of trial and error in my misadventures. Allow me to start from the beginning and I think you’ll see what I mean.”

Van Dyke said the document was saved under the tag skconfessions.

The Crown lawyer said he will be tendering the document as an exhibit. He also said the story eerily matches evidence that shows what happened to Altinger on the evening of Oct. 10, 2008, and what almost happened to another man a week earlier.

Van Dyke, in his half-hour address, said jurors will hear about events that took place over a five-week period starting on Sept. 26, 2008.

The trial is set to last six weeks and is expected to hear from between 50 and 72 witnesses.

Twitchell, a fringe amateur filmmaker, was with some friends making a short film in a garage he had rented behind a home on Edmonton’s south side. The movie, titled “House of Cards,” revolved around a killer who lures a man to a garage on the premise of an Internet date and kills him.

A week later, said Van Dyke, Twitchell crossed from fantasy into reality.

He said jurors will hear that Altinger, a pipeline inspector originally from White Rock, B.C., was lured to that same garage for an Internet date with someone named Jen.

Instead, said Van Dyke, Altinger was ambushed by Twitchell.

“He (Twitchell) killed Johnny Altinger by bludgeoning him over the head with a copper pipe,” he said.

“He then stabbed him to death with a hunting knife, then dismembered the body and dumped the remains down a sewer.

“You will hear very graphic details,” he cautioned the jury.

The same fate almost befell another man a week earlier, Van Dyke suggested. That man, too, came to the garage for a date and was jumped by a male wearing a hockey mask and wielding a fake gun. The man managed to escape, but didn’t come forward until after he heard about Altinger.

Van Dyke said Twitchell built his trap using the Internet, and the Internet is what ultimately did him in.

Altinger emailed a friend the directions of where he was going that fateful night. After he disappeared, friends became suspicious when they received emails with his name saying he was quitting his job and running off to Costa Rica with Jen. They said that was out of character.

Police went to the garage and talked to Twitchell, who said he didn’t know anything about Altinger, but then confessed he had possession of Altinger’s car. He said he had recently bought the Mazda for $40 off a stranger.

Suspicious, police searched the garage, searched Twitchell’s home and his parents’ home and found overwhelming physical evidence, Van Dyke said.

They found Altinger’s blood on the walls and on a table in the garage, on a bloody copper pipe, in the trunk of Twitchell’s car, on a steak knife and hunting knife in his possession, on tools used to carve up big game and on clothes in his house.

Van Dyke said police found one of Altinger’s teeth. The lawyer also told jurors that Twitchell first tried to burn the remains in a steel barrel at his parents’ place, then settled for dumping them down a sewer two blocks away.

Van Dyke said for reasons that will be made clear later in the trial, Twitchell directed police to Altinger’s remains. The bones that remain, Van Dyke said, “show signs of cutting, breaking, sawing and sectioning.”

Twitchell, dressed in a white golf shirt and slacks, did not sit in the prisoner’s dock during the hearing, but instead chose to be beside his lawyer, Charles Davison, at the defence desk.

The accused did not look up during Van Dyke’s address, but kept his head down and scribbled notes.