Canadian True Crime - 30 The Murder of Johnny Altinger

Episode Date: August 8, 2018

Truth and reality blended in a murder case in Edmonton that came to be known internationally as the “Dexter Murder”. It all started on October 3, 2008. Dating profile as mentionedPictures of Canadian Crime Podcast Event - July 22 Support my sponsors! Here's where the discount codes are:www.canadiantruecrime.ca/sponsors Podcast recommendations:Australian True CrimeSouthern Fried True CrimeThe Westside Fairytales Join my patreon to get early, ad-free episodes and more: www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrime   Credits:Research and writing: Danielle ParadisAdditional research and writing, narration and music arrangement: Kristi LeeVoice of Mark Twitchell: Tyler Bell from The Westside FairytalesAudio production: Erik Krosby All credits and information sources can be found on the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca.Support the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta, the province known for many of those beautiful iconic Canadian scenescapes featuring mountains, forests, lakes and prairies. The city of Edmonton has around 930,000 residents and is often referred to as the Gateway to the North. It's often the first hub for provincial business, like the nearby oil sands mining activity. Edmonton is also the place many tourists travel to before heading north to access other recreational sites in Alberta, like Jasper National Park and the Canadian Rocky Mountains as well as more rural parts of Northern Canada.

Edmonton is also called a festival city because there are always festivals to attend year round, like the world-famous Fringe Festival and a music folk fest as well as ample shopping and cultural activities. In 2008, Edmonton would also host a very strange and twisted story where truth and reality blended together in a murder case. This is Christy, and you're listening to Canadian True Crime, Episode 30, The Dexter Killer. On Friday night, October 3rd, 2008, 33-year-old computer company contractor Gilles Tetreault

had a date planned with a woman he'd just met online. He was recently separated and had just moved to Edmonton in the summer. He was finding it tough to meet new people in his city, so he did what many of us do, went online. He used the popular online dating website Plenty of Fish. There, he began to strike up a conversation with a pretty 24-year-old blonde named Sheena. He thought that not only did she look attractive, but from their conversations, she seemed articulate and intelligent too.

He was impressed. She was keen for them to get together for dinner and a movie, so he agreed to drive to the south side to a neighbourhood in southeast Edmonton known as Millwoods. But she said she didn't want to give her full address to a stranger, so she gave him a complex set of directions to follow that would lead him to a garage suite where they would meet. It was fall, so night time fell early in Edmonton. When Gilles arrived, he parked in front of the open garage door thinking Sheena would

be waiting for him inside. He started walking in, cautious, in the darkness. Gilles was hit by a stun gun several times. It happened so quickly, his brain wasn't able to process what was happening. He looked up to see that the man attacking him was wearing a hockey mask. Gilles was pushed to the ground and the attacker put duct tape over his eyes. He had no idea what was happening, was it a mugging, a kidnapping or what? Whatever was going on, he hadn't told anyone where he was, so he had to fight.

He pulled the tape from his eyes, got to his feet and fought back. The masked man was holding a gun. In desperation, Gilles tried to grab it. When his fingers wrapped around the weapon, he realized it was just made out of plastic. It was a toy gun. The attacker continued his assault, punching Gilles repeatedly. Gilles tried to punch him back, but he felt really weak. It seemed like his only option was to try and maneuver towards the garage door and away from the punches.

He managed to pull himself away from the man and roll out under the garage door. The attacker followed him and as Gilles tried to get away, he suddenly realized the extent of the paralyzing effect of the stun gun. His legs just wouldn't work properly. The man in the mask grabbed him to drag him back into the garage, but as Gilles struggled to mobilize his legs, he spotted a couple walking their dog coming down the alleyway, named Marissa and Trevor. Gilles yelled to the couple that a guy was trying to rob him and begged for their help.

They stopped and froze, not really knowing what to do next. The attacker put on an act like he was Gilles' friend and gestured as though he was going to remove the mask, but then walked away. Marissa was suspicious and wanted to leave. She thought it might have been an elaborate staging to lure the couple into being robbed themselves. Trevor wasn't sure, but they decided to walk away from the scene and once they'd reached safety they called 911.

According to Trevor, he took the police to the alley to see the location of the attack, but they didn't hear anything from the police again after that, and they didn't hear anything more about what became of the victim. The following Friday night, 38-year-old John Eltinger was also on his way to meet a woman he'd met on plenty of fish. John, or Johnny as he was frequently called, was no stranger to the internet. From a young age he loved computers and would teach his older family members how to use them.

As use of the internet became more widespread, he would spend a lot of time on a local bulletin board system, an early version of an online forum that used phone lines as part of the internet connection. Johnny would speak to people in his local area regularly, making really good friends that he would often meet up with in real life. He was frequently online and well known by his online handle, Ultra Magnus. Johnny worked in quality control at an oil-filled equipment manufacturer just outside Edmonton. He owned two motorbikes that he absolutely loved and lived in a small ground floor apartment

that he owned, described as a tidy bachelor pad. His friends and family described him as quiet, affectionate and giving. He wore small wire-rimmed glasses and in pictures he had a wide grin. His life was cozy and comfortable, but something was missing, a companion to share it with. It was a no-brainer for Johnny to use the internet in his search for companionship. A co-worker of his named William used the same dating sites, like Lava Life and Plenty of Fish, and he and Johnny regularly shared stories about their experiences. Johnny had told William that he'd set up a date with a woman from Plenty of Fish.

She was going to meet her at her place on the evening of October 10. Johnny sent William a link to the woman he was meeting. As William would later recall, the profile picture showed a woman in a bikini who was about 35 years old. Johnny mentioned that the instructions Jen gave him about how they would meet were weird. She wouldn't give her phone number or address. He forwarded William one of her emails to check out. In it, she said she wanted to make sure he wasn't some kind of weirdo, so gave him instructions

to get to the back of her house from the alleyway and in through the garage, adding that she wouldn't have to give him any kind of physical home address that way. Then she ended with, quote, I want to play very much, but I have to be cautious, which I'm sure you understand. On a lighter note, though, if we really gel, you said you had four days off. How long can I keep you for if I choose? Maybe you should pack for a few days, LOL. The date was scheduled for Friday night, October the 10th.

Earlier in the day, Johnny called his friend Dale to firm up plans for a motorbike ride on the Sunday. Dale had just purchased a new bike and had made plans for Johnny to teach him how to ride. During the call, Johnny mentioned his date plans for later, but said that the woman had given him strange directions to follow. They were to meet behind the back of a garage. Dale thought something seemed off and asked Johnny to call him before he went into the woman's place.

Johnny promised that he would. Later on that night, Dale received the promise call from Johnny, but he said that Jen wasn't at the garage when he arrived. Instead, he was surprised to meet a guy who said he was making a movie, adding that the man had shown him a replica of a gun and some other movie props. Johnny seemed to be okay, so he and Dale ended the phone call. Later that night, Dale got an email from Johnny. It read, He he, she's home, I'm going back.

Dale didn't hear from his friend again that night. He called Johnny several times and was concerned when he didn't get a call back. Two days went by and Johnny still hadn't checked in. When he didn't show up for the Sunday motorbike lesson, Dale was beyond worried. Johnny was not the kind of guy to just not show up for something. Dale organized a group of Johnny's friends to go to his condo. No one answered when they knocked on the door. They checked the parkade and Johnny's car, a red Mazda 3, was also gone.

His friends brought their concerns to the police, but they said that it wasn't taken seriously. On the Monday, several people who knew Johnny received emails from his hotmail account. Johnny's co-worker William received an email with the subject line, It's all good, starting with a greeting of, Hey man, William found this greeting odd. It wasn't something that he could ever recall hearing Johnny say. The email said that he and Jen had hit it off big time and that she was really wealthy and had offered to take him on a tropical vacation for three months.

Johnny's sometime love interest, a woman named Deborah, also received an email. A while ago, she and Johnny had maintained a close friendship, but it became clear to her that he wanted more, so she called things off and they hadn't actually spoken for a few months. On the Monday, out of the blue, Deborah received an email from his account, declaring that he'd met an extraordinary woman called Jen. He was taking him on a long vacation to Costa Rica and he'd be back around Christmas. Since they hadn't talked for a while, Deborah thought it was extremely odd to receive this

message out of the blue. Johnny's brother Gary also received a strange email that day. As did Dale, the friend who Johnny was supposed to teach how to ride the motorbike. He called a mutual friend of his and Johnny's named Marcello to see what he thought. They both agreed that the email seemed odd. They called Johnny's place of employment and learned that his boss also received an email from Johnny's hotmail account, saying he was resigning from his job because he'd received another offer that was too good to pass up.

Marcello's wife Carrie Lynn sent Johnny a Facebook message, saying that they were all worried and if he didn't check in soon they would have to contact the police. She received a response from the account, saying similar things to the previous messages. Johnny was just on vacation and having the time of his life. Marcello and Carrie Lynn decided it was time that they called the police, who said they would come and take a statement from the couple but didn't show up. According to them, the police were a little casual about the whole thing, adopting the common attitude of wait and see when it comes to missing people.

Johnny's friends decided to take things into their own hands and broke into his apartment. The place looked like the house of someone who was only expecting to be gone a few hours. They found his passport, suitcase and a shaving kit, not things you would expect to find belonging to someone who had gone on a long tropical vacation to Costa Rica. Finally, the police took the situation seriously. It had been almost nine days since Johnny was last seen and the various messages received from his hotmail account just didn't add up. As Johnny had emailed the directions to the garage to his friend, the police were able

to trace back to it and the person who was renting it. It was a local filmmaker named Mark Twitchell, who lived in St. Albert, about 40 kilometres away on the other side of Edmonton. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level? Squarespace makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and sell anything from your products to the content you create and even your time. When I launched this passion project six years ago, I needed some kind of online hub to manage all the non-podcasting tasks that come with podcasting.

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Go to squarespace.com slash ctc for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Go to squarespace.com slash ctc with offer code CTC and get your passion project off the ground today. Constable Maxwell of the Edmonton City Police contacted Mark Twitchell saying there'd been activity at the garage he'd been renting and asked him to meet them there to investigate. Mark was affable and willing to help. They met at the garage at 11.30pm and Mark said the last time he'd been there was nine

days earlier on October the 10th, the day of Johnny's date with the mysterious woman called Jen. Mark noted that there were several items out of place in the garage. The lights were left on and a steel drum he used as a garbage can seemed to have been used as a fire pit now. The Constable asked him about the previous Friday, the last day Johnny had been seen. Mark said he'd been cleaning there from 3 to 5.30 in the afternoon but didn't recall seeing anyone else around the location at the time.

Mark went down to the station for a police interview. He was relaxed and continued to chat amiably with Detective Mike Tabler about film production and the projects he was working on. He provided elaborate details about his plans including talking about a comedy he was planning to film that would have a $3 million budget. He told the police he'd rented the garage the month beforehand for the purpose of making a short suspense thriller film which he shot the last weekend of that month with some colleagues and two actors.

He told the interviewer that he planned to send the finished film to film festivals and use it for pitch material in order to get more money to make films. I'm interested in writing, producing and directing and I've only noticed that for the three or four years that I've been trying to get into the industry that the only way to do it is to make your own stuff, prove that you know what you're doing, and people start to take it seriously. So I started making my first film with a feature, a sci-fi fantasy film based on Star Wars content which is all completely 100% shot now in prose production.

I'm working on a comedy right now which is actually a full blown feature that's actually going to have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about $3.5 million and just closing the first round of financing for that at the end of this month. And then we're moving into pre-production so we can finish off like casting A-list actors, getting all that stuff set up and then preparing to film that sometime in May or April next year. Really? So yeah, it's been a long process.

I started developing Day Players which is the name of the comic. Mark went on and on about it using a lot of industry jargon. It seemed important to him to establish his film credentials. Detective Tabla humid him. Anything else is crap. Nothing else could make me feel fulfilled in what I was doing and how little I do so I just chased it with everything I had. Need?

No. So getting back here, the only person that would have had access is Mike Young or yourself to that place. Yeah. Mike, you were asked to go down there and meet our constables at the grad and that's because they were looking for a missing person. Yeah. Okay.

And you were contacted, you were apparently at home in St. Elver which is quite a distance from this and yet you readily responded down to the health police and we certainly appreciate that. Now, you arrived at the grad and you noted something immediately on your arrival when you went up to the door to show the police the garage. Yeah. And what was that? Well, the first thing that happened, I drove in, I parked in the back where I usually parked

there. Actually, the constable was calling me. I was about a minute out to get there and talked to him and said, yeah, so like, where are you? And he's in the back. So I went to meet him and I get into the back and I'm like, okay, well, let's go check it out. So I get to the actual gate, the side gate there and they mentioned that it had been

blocked off somehow. I didn't know what that was about. I overdid there was nothing there. So they said, okay, well, yes, it's not. It was a little odd. But went down the side of the garage, came back around, looked at the door itself. And the first thing that I noticed upon looking a little closer at it, so like it wasn't that great, but I could see what was going on.

The padlock didn't look familiar to me and I was the one that actually put the latch on the door. And I had a padlock previously, but it wasn't the same one. The one that I had was like the silver on the outside, like a black plastic dial in the center. And this one was just all metal. So you noticed a different padlock. So Friday the 10th, you get out of there and clean the place up.

And that's the last time you were there. Because I'm wondering if that's when you last saw your padlock on the door. He's thinking. One of my problems is I have issues with remembering tasks to do, so I live on lists. I try to formulate lists as long as I have a list and I can check things off as I'm doing them. But I mean, so I need to stay organized and I'm going to procrastinate and stuff like that.

I did, I think I did drop off. And I honestly, I don't remember if it was this past week or the week before it, but I remember dropping off some cleaning materials just for the next time when we were going to go in there. My intention again was to pitch this thing and get it into a TV series or a movie and place itself inexpensive to rent. I figured, you know what, for future episodes I'd agree. Mark talked about his jobs over the years.

He had worked for Tallis, a national phone company in Canada, but usually preferred working at sales jobs on commission. He said that the last time he worked at a job was several months earlier. Since then, he'd been working on the film plans. The money for the film came from investors, including his brother-in-law and an accountant who he found online. Detective Mike Tabler pointed out the odd coincidence that Mark was filming a thriller movie in a garage that police were then called to during the investigation of a missing person's

complaint. The conversation turned to that missing person. So, now you've been told that we're looking for a missing man. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, have you been told his name? No. Okay.

The name is John, okay. Altinger. A-L-T-I-N-G-R. Okay. Does that name the ring of Altie or mean anything to you? No. Never heard of it before? No.

He's nobody that you've been using as an actor or that maybe Mike or Jason would have been in touch with? No, I don't think so. I don't know if Mike or Jason know him, but nothing that, in terms of casting or a production crew or anything like that? No. No. Not a worker, not an employee. You've heard about it now.

No. Okay, the indications we have in the way that we've got this through our investigations and the address comes up and the garage is described and he actually says that he was there on that particular day. The particular day we're talking about is, I think, the 15th. Okay. Now, and I may be mistaken, I may be mixing a couple of things up, but I think the 15th, and that's the day you're indicating that you were probably down there putting splice

there. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Like on Wednesday or something. Yeah. Yeah. And it was in and around the same sort of timeframe that you were there, you know, that he would

have been there. Okay. Like in the afternoon. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And he was supposed to go there and meet a girl who described the address and told her to get there.

Now, this is really his math through. All of a sudden, he disappears. The last known place was there. Said he went there. Met a guy. The girl wasn't there. Met a guy in the garage. Apparently.

Okay. But can you tell me, what does it explain to you? Tell me what you're thinking. Well, it explains the foreign padlock. If he switched it out or something like that, that makes sense. Who switched it? Whoever this guy is. Well, he didn't switch it.

And he went there and met somebody there. Yeah. Okay. But that's what I mean. Like whoever he met there. Yeah. Because I don't know of anybody else that has access unless they, you know, access it themselves pretty much.

So your life was totally gone off there. Yeah. I just want to make movies that will entertain people and get out there into actual movie theaters and have tickets and stuff like that. So that's always been the ultimate goal for me. But yeah, no porn or anything like that. Okay. So, as you ever heard.

These online dating sites. What are some of the ones you've heard of? Oh, man. I don't know. Mads.com. I've heard plenty of fish ones. Okay. Plenty of fish.

Yeah. There's, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've heard plenty of fish ones. Okay. Plenty of fish. Yeah. There's, oh, what else is there?

I don't know. There's a bunch of them. There's like hundreds of them. Yeah. So. Okay. You don't frequent them? No.

Okay. I did some research on them for a freelance article that I wrote. That was like a month ago. About a month ago? Maybe more. So a little bit more a month ago. This is a freelance project that I got. I'm on this website called ifreelance.com.

You get like, you know, basically writing gigs and stuff like that. And this guy said, you know what, we need an article. So what did you end up doing with that? So you pretend you're somebody and do the online dating sort of thing? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's a social experiment for the purpose of figuring out what your guy's view and opinion of it is and that kind of thing.

And it's a lot easier just to touch base with the people who use the site and get their overall opinion from it. So in that, you weren't really posing as a person that was trying to date people. What you were doing is just contacting them saying, hey, looking for views on them. Yeah. Okay. And that's why, you know, what some of those sites are. Okay.

All right. Now, like I said, I'm going to talk to my people and see if I... Mark's body language throughout the interview was relaxed and open. The police noted that he was being upfront and honest. After the interview, one detective wrote in his notes, very open and forthcoming in the interview, does not come across as deceptive. Meantime, the police put out a plea to the public for information and got back in contact with Marissa and Trevor, who said that after they witnessed the man begging for help at

the garage, the police failed to follow up with them. Police suspected that this man they saw may have been Johnny Eltinger. The couple were horrified to think that because they decided to get to safety before reporting the attack, Johnny Eltinger was now missing because of their inaction. But soon afterwards, the police realized that the attack Marissa and Trevor had witnessed happened a full week before Johnny's date with the mysterious woman named Jen. There were, in fact, two victims. The police again asked the public for any information on another man who may have been

lured to the garage. They had no idea what had happened to him. That man, the first victim, was still alive. Jill Tetro had managed to get away and later described that feeling when he rolled under the garage door as the happiest moment in his life. But he was petrified after his attack. He wondered whether the attacker was going to track him down. He still hadn't gone to the police about it, so they had no idea who he was.

It took a month before he plucked up the courage. He went to the police and described his encounter with the masked man and the gun. The stun gun, the way they wrestled, the way Jill rolled under the garage door. Is this an all in a tense battle or is it like... No, that's the thing is like... This is the whole thing, this is what I'm thinking. Well, I'm doing this. This guy, he had... If he was more professional, he could have killed me right away.

Right when I walked in, I didn't see him. He could have hit me over the head with a bat, a baton or anything. I could have knocked me unconscious right away. I don't know why he did that. His whole plan was to use this taser thing on me first, and I was stupid on his part. But he had many chances to kill me, he never did. That's why I thought afterward all this happened. He had a bigger plan for me.

I thought maybe he was going to handcuff me and take me somewhere and do something. And so we're just struggling. You could tell it's just weird. If he was a real gun, he would have fired it or whatnot. He never did. He had nothing and he just wasn't professional. It was maybe his first time. That's how I thought of it. A couple of days after Mark Twitchell's police interview, he emailed Detective Mike Tabler with a few details he said that he forgot.

He said that someone had broken into his car while it was parked at the mall on October the 8th, two days before Johnny went missing, and the thief had stolen a receipt with his address on it. Four days later, Mark found the front door to his house unlocked. Then while he was pulled over at a gas station, he said a man suddenly knocked on his window. Mark assumed that he was just looking for directions or money and rolled it down. According to Mark, the man said he was moving to the Caribbean with his sugar mama and offered to sell his car for whatever money Mark had on him at the time. So Mark bought the car for $40 with no bill of sale.

The car was a red Mazda hatchback, the same Macon model as Johnny Ultinger's car. It was, in fact, the very same car, and Mark was still in possession of it. His email went on to say, quote, At this point, it seems that whoever broke into my car on the 8th used all of the information they stole to use my location and personal property for who knows what. I don't know if the person who sold me the other car is involved, but looking back, it certainly feels that way, and I have to wonder if I'm being targeted or if it's a nasty coincidence.

In a second police interview on October the 20th, 2008, homicide detective Bill Clark confronted Mark about his involvement in the disappearance of Johnny Ultinger. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of John Ultinger. No doubt in my mind at all, Mark. Why? As I said, Mark, there's no doubt in my mind that you're involved in this disappearance. I just want to get to the bottom of this because this is not going to go away. It's not going to leave you, Mark. I don't understand.

Gone is the relaxed, affable and chatty Mark Twitchell from the earlier interview. This one is closed, guarded, and talks reluctantly. This can't be. I don't... What do you mean it can't be? I just don't understand. What don't you understand? We have a fellow who's missing. We know he's been to your garage.

We've talked to all the neighbors now. The neighbors saw you changing the lock about a week, a week and a half ago. Neighbors watch. They see all these things. Little things that you don't realize. We know the lock was changed long before the 15th. Yeah, when you get there on the 15th, you tell me, oh, that's your lock on there on the 15th. It's not until you go back with the policeman last night that you notice what you say.

So that's a lie. That's a lie you told me. When you gave your version of events to Detective Tabler last night, your version of events was different than what you told me today. What you wrote down was different than what you told me in this room. What you told me in this room when I first came in was different from your final version of events. You've changed your whole story. What happened to John Morgan? What'd you do with him?

Wrong dream. Wrong dream? No, tree. Wrong tree. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that, Mark? I'm done. What do you mean you're done? I mean, it's not hard anymore. This is ridiculous.

What is your explanation? You haven't answered any of the questions. If you didn't do anything wrong, why wouldn't you answer those questions? Do you know why, Mark? Both of you and I know the answer because you're involved. What drove you to this? Is there something going on? And obviously there's something going on behind the scenes that I don't know about. Because you seem like a decent guy that you seem like you go have a beer with.

That's the type of guy you come across in this. You're involved over your head in this. Is anything that you're saying genuine or is this sort of tactic? You got to get away from the acting part, Mark, and listen to what I'm saying. You have told me nothing but lies. An innocent man does not come in here and tell lies. That's genuine, Mark. It's time for you to step up to the plate.

Tell me what happened to John. Tell me where he is. So we can do the decent thing. Not only for him, but for his family. And for your own well-being. You're not going to be able to live with yourself like this the rest of your life. You'd be surprised what I can live with. I hate you too, man.

You'd be surprised at what I can live with. At the end of the interview, the police had no choice but to let Mark go. They didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. What they had was only circumstantial and he wasn't giving up anything else. They had to search his home and car to see if they could find anything. Mark Twitchell always had a fascination for the internet, as well as comic books, movies, props and costumes, and Star Wars. He had always been a huge fan of Star Wars.

In 2000, at age 21, he was trawling an internet chat room in Edmonton and met a 20-year-old woman named Megan, who lived in Colorado in the US. She said he was a charming guy, really sweet, smart, called himself the Renaissance man. They hit it off and just months later, she moved to Edmonton where they had a quick wedding. But the happiness didn't last. Megan compared Mark to a kid with a new puppy, Rapid Initial Fascination, with a novelty wearing off just as quickly as it began. Early in their marriage, he suddenly asked her if she'd ever thought about killing someone.

She was a little startled by the question, but answered that, yes, everyone gets angry and has those thoughts, but you don't act on them. He responded that he'd thought about it and had even gone so far as to formulate a plan to find a homeless person where the chances of making a connection would be minimal. In an interview for CBC's The Fifth Estate, Megan said she suddenly realized that she'd just come thousands of miles from home to marry a guy she met on the internet and she didn't even really know him. Quote,

I think he would find something in a movie, a character, and he would get lost in it and he wanted to emulate it himself. She realized that he'd cheated on her more than once and he lied about it. Soon, there was a widening rift in their marriage. He actually lied about a lot of things. He said he paid bills when he didn't and she would find out when the debt collectors came calling because she was the one left sorting out the mess. Also, he was obsessed with creating fake profiles on the internet, many on dating websites.

He would then pretend to be these profiles. Megan said it was almost like he wanted to be a different person and seemed to get a kick out of messing with people online. She had no Canadian work permit so without anything to do and her marriage and ruins, she moved to Iowa to be with her sister. Eventually, the couple decided to give the marriage another chance and Mark moved to the US. Together, they settled in a small town in Illinois where Mark became a successful salesman at an appliance and furniture store

and Megan went back to school. But things didn't get much better. Mark started to bury himself deep into his fantasies of being a filmmaker connecting with local actors and Star Wars fans and making costumes and props at home. He continued to spend a lot of time on the internet and Megan felt like she didn't really know him. He continued to tell lies and she found more evidence of infidelity. The marriage lasted a couple of years before Megan decided she'd had enough and left him once and for all. Mark decided that this was his time to move back to Edmonton

and finally realize his lofty filmmaker dream, production of a low-budget Star Wars tribute film. It was now 2005. Not long after his return to Edmonton, Mark met a new woman on the Plenty of Fish website, who name was Jess. They got married not long after and their daughter was born in 2008. But Mark wasn't finished lying and by the fall of 2008, the marriage was in trouble. Jess caught Mark looking at a website that married people used to schedule affairs. He told his new wife that he was doing research for a story he was writing but she didn't believe him.

He offered for her to listen to a call with his editor and she agreed the call was scheduled. A month afterwards though, she asked him if the editor was real. He told her no and that he was an actor he'd hired to play the part. He also confessed to kissing an ex-girlfriend. They began sleeping in separate rooms. Jess upstairs in the master bedroom and Mark in the basement bedroom with all of the movie costumes and props he'd collected. Around this time, Jess found out that Mark was only pretending to go to his security system sales job each day.

He'd actually lost his job five months before and decided to dedicate his time to his filming pursuits but didn't bother to tell his wife. Now, he'd told her he started up a film production company called Express Entertainment and was planning on filming a movie. The movie was going to be called House of Cards and he told her it was going to be filmed in a rented garage over the weekend in late September 2008. The plot of the movie was a killer who used an internet dating website to lure married men who use the internet to try and arrange affairs.

They would meet at a garage but in a strange plot twist in this proposed film the murderer turned out to be a screenwriter who conducted his research by committing real murders. When Mark told Jess that the end of the movie involved the victim being decapitated, she was horrified. Mark's second marriage was also not doing well but they hadn't given up on the marriage just yet. They were now in counselling as a couple and Mark also had separate psychiatrist sessions on Friday nights. The movie House of Cards was shot on the weekend as scheduled by Mark and some of his friends turned film crew. The movie ended up being eight minutes long. On Friday, October 10th, the night that Johnny Altinger was meeting his mystery date at the garage

Jess thought that Mark was at his usual psychiatrist appointment but he came home much later than the appointment finished. He told her that he was at the gym but she knew the gym had closed. When confronted, he said he was actually at a different gym location than the one she had in mind. Ten days later, the police came to the house and told Jess that Mark was a suspect in a murder. Crying, she gathered their nine-month-old baby girl and left the family home. Later on that day, she confronted Mark at his parents' house and then that was it for their marriage. The thing about Mark is he seemed to live a life awake but dreaming. He had a movie playing in his own mind where he considered himself a talented and successful filmmaker,

suave womanizer and an uncatchable killer. Still, he seemed an unlikely suspect to police. He had no history of violence and was married with a young family but he left a plethora of evidence for the homicide detectives. Most homicide files take up two or three binders full of evidence and notes. Investigators had 21 binders on Mark Twitchell. When police searched his home and car, they found receipts from August to October of 2008 that hinted at his dark plan. He had purchased a goalie mask with the mouth cut out and gold stripes painted across the face. He bought a large steel drum online.

There were also separate purchases from Home Depot that included a drop cloth, duct tape and overalls. On August 31, 2008, he purchased a set of handcuffs and a meat cleaver online as well as a steel barrel and stun gun. Investigators also found a Dexter novel in the back seat of Mark's car and burned DVDs of the Dexter TV show in his basement. Dexter was a popular TV show about a man named Dexter Morgan, a fictional character who works as a Miami police blood spatter expert and moon lights as a vigilante serial killer. The police searched Mark's car, a maroon Pontiac with a vanity license plate that read Dark Jedi and turned up the most peculiar evidence of all. They found Mark's laptop and uncovered a deleted file titled SK Confessions. Mark would later argue that the SK stood for horror writer Stephen King's initials, but police believe it stood for serial killer. The opening line was, this is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer.

I don't remember the exact place and time it was that I decided to become a serial killer, but I remember the sensation that hit me when I committed to the decision. It was a rush of pure euphoria. I felt lighter, less stressed if you will, at the freedom of the prospect. There was something about urgently exploring my dark side that greatly appealed to me, and I'm such a methodical planner and thinker, the very challenge itself was enticing to behold. This realization was just the last in a series of new discoveries I made about myself. I just knew I was different somehow from the rest of humanity. I feel no such emotion as empathy or sympathy toward others, for example. Of course, when it came to actual one-on-one conversations with therapists, I had to lie.

I mean, talk about leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. The last thing I needed to do was err around all of my darkest fantasies and have formed plans to someone who is legally obligated to contact the authorities if they think a patient will do harm to themselves or others. I'm not stupid. He details how he lured a man to a garage through an online dating site. The character's name was Jim. In the story, the author introduced himself as a local filmmaker named Harry and showed Jim a plastic gun that was being used as a prop. He told Jim that the woman he was supposed to be meeting with was running late, so Jim left, came back 20 minutes later, and then when she still wasn't there, he left again. The author wrote about how he contacted Jim via the dating site, posing as the woman, and offered to reschedule the date, but Jim said he was willing to go back that night.

The author, quote, crouched, poised, I had a whole new plan. According to the author, Jim then entered the garage and he struck him on the head several times with a pipe and then stabbed him in the neck and stomach. The manuscript gives disturbing graphic details of the dismemberment of his body. The author then wrote that while he was cleaning up the garage, his wife, a woman called Tess, called and asked him to pick up formula for their baby on the way home. He then got into Jim's Mazda, drove it into the garage, shut the garage door behind him, and then left to go back home. Two days later, the author said he used Jim's keys to get into his apartment. From there, he was able to get into Jim's Facebook, email, and internet dating accounts because they were set to remember passwords. He then wrote about how he sent emails to Jim's contacts, posing as him, saying he was going away with a woman for two months.

The author then described how he tried to burn the dismembered body in a barrel before dumping the remains in a sewer. And finally, he gave his opinion on how he differs from most people. Most people fantasize and it only ever stays a fantasy. They don't have the disposition or the stomach to go all the way with their dark urges, but I do. I do not have any reservation about disposing of the negative people in this world who deserve a one-way ticket to the afterlife. If such a thing exists. In real life, evidence from Mark Twitchell's credit card purchases seemed to align with the details in this SK Confessions document found on his laptop. The police knew they had their man.

Now for a successful arrest. An undercover officer contacted Mark, posing as an investor looking into his production company. On October 31, 2008, Halloween, Mark went to a coffee shop to meet with this investor. When he got there, tactical officers took him to the ground, put him in handcuffs and arrested him for the first degree murder of Johnny L. Tinger. According to Detective Bill Clark, Mark Twitchell wet himself during the arrest. Having cottoned onto the story, the media were continuing to search for details on this innocent-looking filmmaker. He really did look like the boy next door. They found out Mark went to school in Edmonton and did postgraduate studies in radio and television.

They also looked into Mark's Facebook posts where he claimed that he had way too much in common with Dexter Morgan. They asked ex-landlords and old friends and soon discovered the depths of Mark's obsession with Dexter, Star Wars and costumes and comic books. From then on, Mark Twitchell was often referred to as the Dexter Killer. Over 18 months after Mark had been arrested, he and his lawyer requested a meeting with the police. In June 2010, two detectives went to the Edmonton Remarne Center to meet with Mark, not knowing what was going to happen. The meeting lasted only a couple of minutes. Mark did not say a word and simply slid a piece of paper across to the detectives. On it was a Google map with written instructions of where the police could find the remains of Johnny Eltinger.

They were in a storm sewer in an alleyway. That night, the police went to the site and spotted what looked like human remains at the bottom of the storm sewer. They belonged to Johnny. Initially, when the Crown was preparing their case for trial, they argued that the charges for the attempted murder of Gilles Tetreault and the first degree murder charge for Johnny Eltinger should be heard simultaneously. The reasoning was that they were both attempts at the same goal of becoming a serial killer, as described in the SK Confessions document found on Mark's laptop. But the judge, Terry Claxton, was not convinced by the Crown's arguments that these actions were part of the same transaction. He ordered the charges to be severed and heard separately, quote, The offences are related and connected, but remain discreet.

As a result, the attempted murder charge cannot stand on the same indictment as the charge of murder because they are different transactions. The trial for the murder of Johnny Eltinger began in March 2011 in the court of Queens bench in Edmonton. The room was packed with spectators, looking for the chance to set eyes on the famed Dexter killer. Mark Twitchell pleaded not guilty to murder, but told the court that he would admit to interfering with human remains. It didn't matter because this trial was for first degree murder. In his opening statement, Crown prosecutor Lawrence Van Dyke told jurors that Mark Twitchell's plan was quite simply and shockingly to gain the experience of killing another human being. The Crown entered into evidence Mark's books and DVD about Dexter, as well as the SK Confessions file from his computer that detailed the murder where evidence from his credit card purchases aligned with the details in the story. The Crown contended that this file described what was likely an accurate account of what happened to Johnny.

It also detailed the assault on Jill. Some of the descriptions in Mark's document were too graphic and inflammatory to be presented at the trial, and there was a publication ban until the jury was sequestered. Mark's now ex-wife, Jess Twitchell, testified about his character. She said that he would spend hours creating costumes in their basement. He had lied to her about nearly everything in their lives. He lied about his job, saying he was working in sales while he lived off the money he convinced friends to give him as an investment in his movies. And he was also having an affair with an ex-girlfriend which he lied about too. Jess testified that on the Friday nights that Jill Tetro was attacked and the next one when Johnny Altinger had his mystery date and disappeared, she thought that Mark was at psychiatrist appointments.

The night Johnny went missing was the night Mark gave her his story about the late night gym session. Jess told the court about the various movie props they had lying around their house, and she recognized a black and gold hockey mask, a fake gun, and a few samurai-style swords. Jill Tetro testified about his own experience being given odd directions to a garage from an attractive blonde woman he met on an internet dating site, and his assault by a man in a hockey mask armed with a stun gun. A woman named Renee, an internet acquaintance of Mark's, testified at the trial via video conference from Ohio about she and Mark's online friendship. Mark was going by the handle Dexter Morgan when they first began chatting. They would talk over Facebook a few times a day. Renee was an aspiring writer and hoped that a friendship with a film director could help open up a few doors for her. But it wasn't all shop talk about writing and filmmaking.

Renee and Mark had exchanged dark fantasies. Renee had recently been through a divorce and had an extreme dislike for her ex-husband's new girlfriend. One of the shared dark fantasies was about murdering and dismembering this woman. Renee spoke only vaguely about it, but Mark counted by saying, quote, If you really want to make this happen and get away with it, prepare a kill room in the same way Dex does. Wall-to-wall plastic sheeting. He also told her that she should get a stun gun to immobilize the victim. Renee testified that for her, these dark conversations were just a way to blow off steam and deal with a difficult situation in her life.

But she discovered that for Mark, this might have been more serious. In mid-October, just days after Johnny Altinger's disappearance, Mark sent her a message, quote, This weekend, I made the rounds to two Thanksgiving events, and I also had something else keeping me busy. But I'm really concerned about telling anyone because of the implications. Suffice it to say that I crossed the line on Friday and I liked it. Renee said she tried to get more information or to get him to confess to a murder, but he didn't elaborate on what he meant. One of Mark's film crew testified that just a few days after Johnny Altinger disappeared, Mark called him to come and collect the red Mazda that he'd supposedly bought at the gas station for $40.

Mark couldn't drive a stick shift, so he asked his friend to pick up the car and drive it back to his house, saying he was going to register it to sell straight away. His friend worried that the car was in fact stolen and told Mark that he should tell the police. That's when he sent the email to the detectives with the details he'd forgotten. Not long after, Mark sent an email to his friends and film crew asking them not to talk to police because they can't be trusted. During the trial, the jury watched a video of Mark's interrogation. At one point, homicide detective Bill Clark was speaking to him about his wife and daughter, and in court, Mark broke down. He began hyperventilating while sitting next to his lawyer, then started to cry and use tissues to wipe the tears from his eyes and face before an adjournment was called.

There was also DNA evidence. Johnny's blood was everywhere. It was on a hunting knife and a pair of jeans found in Mark's car, on the knee and back pocket. Mark's DNA was found on the waistband. Johnny's blood was found on items taken from the rented garage, including a game processing kit, a kit that contained sharp knives, scissors, a saw, and a metal pipe. His blood was also found on the belt and shoe that Mark Twitchell was wearing when he was arrested three weeks later. Alberta's assistant chief medical examiner, Dr Bernard Bannick, testified that the graphic descriptions of dismemberment found in the SK Confessions document were medically credible and matched his own autopsy experiences.

He also spoke about the discovery of Johnny's remains. His torso bones were found in a storm sewer and Dr Bannick testified that there was clear evidence that a saw and a sharp knife had been used to dismember the remains. He also testified that a tooth belonging to Johnny Ultinger was found at the bottom of the sewer. Finally, Mark Twitchell himself took to the stand in his own defence. He spent more than four hours testifying, admitting that he'd posed as a woman to lure Johnny to the garage where he was shooting his macabre movie. He said that the plan was part of an intricate hopes that was meant to drum up publicity for his film and leave the audience questioning whether events were facts or fiction. He told the court this concept was called multi-format psychosis layering entertainment and he hoped this would create an urban legend that drew publicity to his work. Mark claimed that Johnny was angry when he learned that he'd been duped and the two exchanged angry words.

He went on to say that they fought using a pipe that was in the garage. Mark claimed that Johnny had reached for the pipe first. Side note, Johnny's family reacted angrily when they spoke to the media about Mark's testimony. His mother said that he was gentle and would walk away from any conflict. Mark Twitchell cried in front of the packed courtroom as he recounted using a knife to stab Johnny. The crown asked him if what he felt afterwards echoed what was written in the SK Confessions document. He said he felt the opposite. Quote, I felt a lot weaker like a piece of scum.

I felt like I was carrying a serious burden that I was worried I wouldn't be able to share. Mark argued that the document was simply based on fiction to dramatize the work and make it more appealing. Crown prosecutor Avril Inglis commented, quote, Because of your savant inspiration for your project, you just happened to have all the tools lying around to dismember a body. Mark admitted to dismembering the body and said he didn't provide the sewer location sooner because of his legal advice at the time. He also admitted to breaking into Johnny's apartment to send emails and post the message to his Facebook about Johnny taking an abrupt tropical vacation. He updated Johnny's status to say, I've got a one-way ticket to heaven and I'm not coming back. The crown asked him about the message he'd sent to his online friend Renee a few days after the murder,

saying that he'd recently crossed the line and he liked it. Mark responded that he was just referring to kissing an ex-girlfriend in a movie theater a few hours beforehand. Through questioning, the crown highlighted Mark's willingness to lie to everyone, friends, family, police or victims, and about almost every detail of his life. After nearly four weeks of testimony, the jury retired to deliberate and came back with a verdict after only five hours. Mark Twitchell was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Johnny Altinger. At the sentencing hearing, a victim impact statement by Johnny's brother Gary was read out. Gary was seven years older than Johnny. As a child, Gary told his mother he wanted a baby Johnny, so that's exactly what his mother named her youngest son. He said, quote, the pure joy that my brother John brought to our family after his birth can never be measured in words.

Going on to describe Johnny as someone who never caused any kind of problem and when bullied would turn the other cheek. Quote, we were all very proud of Johnny's ability to help others much older than he was with his technical savvy. Countless times he would sacrifice his own responsibilities to rescue me by word-processing term papers, essays and other assignments while I was attending university. His mother, Alfreda Altinger, said that she can't think about what happened to her son without going over the edge. Quote, people have asked me if I wish there was still the death penalty and I must answer no. My wish is for the perpetrator of this unforgivable and horrific act to reflect on his actions and die a slow death every day of his life. Mark Twitchell was given 25 years to life with no eligibility for parole. Johnny's family gasped after hearing the verdict and then for a brief moment they smiled.

There was one document that came out the day the trial ended and the publication ban was lifted. The SK Confessions document was allowed into the trial but there was a second document that wasn't because it was deemed too prejudicial. It was called Profile of a Psychopath and was written just weeks before the attack on Jill and the murder of Johnny. It was essentially a document detailing how Mark self-diagnosed himself as a psychopath and his reflections on how his thoughts and actions had demonstrated that. I go by so many names so I will leave tags out of it. I am simply me. I am different from most people. I suppose I've always been different for as long as I remember but didn't truly understand the depths of it until recently. Not till an inadvertent intervention by a family member woke me up to the truth. The truth that I am a psychopath. He then talks about the symptoms of psychopathy that he doesn't think he has. Like preying on family members and friends, the fact that he's high functioning and that he's never hurt animals or children.

And then he goes into the traits that he thinks he does have. I am a pathological liar. I've habitually lied my entire life and despite my incredibly well adjusted and healthy family life and upbringing, it never stopped. I apologize but never meant it. I never corrected the behavior. I lied to my wife and my family on a practically constant basis. Sometimes I do this to protect them, to save them from knowing the truth about what I really am. And sometimes I do it for my own gratification and there's no reason to it at all. Like many psychopaths, I have trouble holding down a job because I get bored very easily, waste company resources and will often quit or get fired within four months. In my own personal case, I do this because I consider working for anyone other than myself an unbearable servitude. I still lie to my wife to this day. Every day I get up and get dressed into business attire, feed her a line about my appointments for the day and then leave the house. I set up shop in a coffee shop and work towards producing my film all day long. Then I come home, lie about how it went and move on with our free time.

He then goes on to detail how he fraudulently obtained a mortgage because his wife wanted a new house and he had a terrible credit rating. He invented a new ID, spoke in a fake voice over the phone, photoshopped bank statements and created fake letters of confirmation. He got the mortgage. He went on to say his whole life he just did whatever he wanted without remorse, guilt or consideration for anyone else. He cheated on his wife multiple times and told more lies to cover it up. He admitted to having a distinct lack of empathy. And finally he ends by saying he has to come to terms with the fact that he's going to have to live a charade for the rest of his life because that is preferable to coming clean and the damage that will do. In 2011 the attempted murder charge for the attack on Gilles Tetreux was stayed because crown prosecutors felt it was unnecessary to hold another trial. In 2013 the National Post reported that Mark Twitchell was still watching his favorite show Dexter inside the maximum security wing of the Saskatchewan Penitentiary. The actor who plays the character of Dexter Morgan, Michael C Hall, was eventually told about the aspiring serial killer his character had inspired.

He and the show's writer publicly denounced Mark's actions and assured the public that quote, Reading Dexter will not make you a killer. There are no magic words that will turn you into a psychopath. Mark Twitchell would go on to register on a site called Canadian Inmates Connect Limited. It helps prisoners find pen pals and possible romantic connections on the outside. According to his profile, he describes himself as creative and considers himself insightful, passionate and philosophical with a great sense of humor. He enjoys tennis, chess and clever storytelling. His ad is not currently posted on the site, but there is a link to a screenshot of it in the show notes. More parts recovered from the SK Confessions document were published after the trial. They revealed that Mark had chosen two more victims to meet their end in his kill room. One of them was one of his old direct managers as an act of revenge for firing him. And the other was the former boyfriend of his own ex-girlfriend Tracy for no other discernible reason than he knew the man was also a fan of the show Dexter and thought he would be honored to find himself murdered in a similar way.

In Steve Lillabuein's book The Devil's Cinema, the untold story behind Mark Twitchell's kill room, detective Bill Clark said there was no doubt in his mind that Mark would have kept on killing. Quote, we caught him on his first one, so he's a very poor serial killer, and thankfully he will never become a serial killer. Thanks for listening. A huge thank you to Albertan journalist Danielle Parody who chose this case and researched and wrote the bulk of this episode. Thanks also to Tyler Bell who provided a voice for Mark Twitchell in the SK Confessions and profile of a psychopath documents found on his laptop. Tyler is a super talented horror fiction writer. You should check out his podcast The West Side Fairy Tales. Thanks also to all of you for listening and for your kind words and good reviews. I can't thank you enough. I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by searching for Canadian True Crime. And if you have a case suggestion for me, feel free to check out my website where I have a short little form that helps me to keep everything in order.

It's at CanadianTrueCrime.ca. Submit. If the ads bug you, you can receive early ad-free versions of my episode via Patreon for just $2 a month. Visit Patreon.com slash CanadianTrueCrime to sign up. This week's other podcast recommendation is Southern Fried True Crime by my lovely friend Erica. It's a very similar show to mine except she has an amazing Southern accent. Check it out. Hey there, this is Erica Kelly, host of the podcast Southern Fried True Crime. Each week I take a look at a different Southern Crime and like any good gossip, I'm interested in anyone or anything. I cover contemporary and historical cases and I love listener suggestions.

Come join me as I explore the dark underbelly of the Deep South. I'm a one-woman show in a narrative format, kind of like sitting by the fire and listening to a story. So pull up a chair and subscribe if you're interested. I'd love to have you. You can find me on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and just about any podcast platform. Just search for Southern Fried True Crime. Until then, y'all take care. A huge thank you to these patrons for your support. This episode of Canadian True Crime was primarily written by Danielle Parody. Audio production was by Eric Crosby. The Canadian True Crime theme song was written specifically for me by We Talk of Dreams.

I'll be back soon with updates and back on September the 15th with the next full episode. See you then. you