The Devil's Cinema (46 page)

His biggest enemy, however, remained the prosecution: “The Crown's theory leans on too many fallacies of logic and contradictions in reasoning to make any sense. This must be corrected.”

Twitchell's appeal, regardless of sufficient legal grounds raised or not, could take years to work its way through the judicial system. In the meantime, the prosecution decided to stay the attempted murder charge for
the attack on Gilles Tetreault. The decision came after years of vigorously pursuing the allegations, but a disappointing court ruling forced the criminal charge to be heard separately from the murder trial. Gilles had only been allowed to testify to help prove the truthfulness of S. K. Confessions, not to prove if the attack itself was an act of attempted murder. And the guilty verdict of first-degree murder handed down in April 2011 meant Twitchell had already received Canada's maximum prison term – life with a minimum of twenty-five years. This made a second court case a moot point, especially since victims would have to relive their trauma once again on the witness stand for a best result of no additional prison time.

Twitchell will therefore be fifty-four years old before he can apply for parole for the first time in 2033. When he'll actually be released from prison is unknown. If he continues being a model prisoner, he may be shown leniency. But there is also a community expectation in such high-profile cases for the parole board to deny such freedoms multiple times. And in cases featuring the most heinous of criminals, those inmates with no remorse and a demonstrated risk to the public, parole can be denied for years – potentially forever.

Despite these possibilities, Twitchell would not be silenced. Shortly after his appeal was filed, he turned his attention to William Strong, his prison pen pal, for assistance. At Twitchell's request, his pen pal finally created a website Twitchell had dreamed about in remand that would feature excerpts from his prison writings. His celebrity sketches were also listed for sale. Such acts drew intense controversy and national outrage in the media, which was perhaps one of Twitchell's objectives. The website was pulled off the Internet within a day of being discovered by the press, the community backlash cited as one of the main reasons why.

The thing the public could not understand was why the media kept publishing anything that Twitchell did or said. “I am really hoping this is the last we hear of Mark Twitchell,” read one exasperated letter to the
Edmonton Journal
. Editors themselves seemed willing to put the entire ordeal behind them, writing how the guilty verdict brought “an end to one of the darkest chapters” in city history. “The efficient work of 112 police officers investigating Altinger's disappearance stopped what might have been a series of murders,” stated the
Journal's
main editorial.

Others were left puzzled by unsolved elements in the criminal case. Twitchell had seemingly come out of nowhere, a rare self-professed psychopath whose first criminal conviction didn't arrive until the age of thirty-one. There was no warning. The crime had also been entirely random, terrifying a community that demanded explanations for such seemingly unpredictable behaviour.

For Mark Twitchell was a product of a simple life, of a family that did nothing wrong and tried their best to raise him, but he had somehow changed, become a chameleon, a man of many faces. He was a pretender and a trickster, the so-called committed husband and father who was hiding a sinister plan and a girl on the side.

But Twitchell believed this innate desire to understand people like him was pointless. In fact, he treated the continued search for clues into his background and motives to be like stumbling alone in a smoke-filled labyrinth. “It would appear that I'm unique in the world,” he declared in his writings. “There is no key. No root cause.… There's no school bully, or impressionably gory movies, or video game violence, or Showtime television series to point the finger at. It is what it is and I am what I am.”

As the years passed by, it was as close as he would ever get to making a full confession.

T
HE
T
WITCHELL CASE HAD
a prevailing impact on both the city of Edmonton and how the media would cover future murder trials, whether they drew an international audience again or not. Before the jury was called in for the first time, Justice Clackson made it clear his starting position was one of openness. “Whatever I see, the media is entitled to see,” he told the court.

But in a measured ruling issued minutes later, he granted access to all exhibits while banning the use of electronic devices. “My preference is not to risk the fairness of this trial.” Essentially, he was striking a balance with transparency, seeing a potential distraction brewing in his courtroom if two dozen reporters were bashing away on their laptops or smartphones. It was a wise move. One juror proved to be easily bothered by even the slightest of whispers. At one point the juror even requested that a journalist stop writing in his notepad. His pencil was making too much noise.

But Justice Clackson also appreciated the huge public interest in the case and the media's goal of providing coverage on a timely basis. He decided to set up a secondary courtroom two floors below that would receive an audio feed from the trial. Down the hall from the courthouse library, Room 211 became a hub for city journalists filing minute-by-minute updates on blogs, Twitter feeds, and online news sites while traditional newspaper, television, and radio reporters remained upstairs. By the end of the trial, thousands of people were reading near-live coverage online. Whether city councillors, police officers, or some of Johnny's out-of-town friends – all received news of the verdict nearly simultaneously with Mark Twitchell.

Justice Clackson's ruling was a development in how court cases could be run smoothly in Alberta, despite a massive media presence. No doubt the case will be used as a benchmark by media lawyers to achieve similar levels of open access for high-profile cases down the road.

The trial's biggest impact was on those who had followed the case, especially those closest to Twitchell. It exposed his secret life and his elaborate lies, his bizarre descent into the gruesome and the wicked, and his exploitation of those around him to achieve his dark plan. Friends who had given him the benefit of the doubt saw their faith in him crumble. “I thought he had the perfect family, but he had this whole other life going on that I didn't know about,” said Rebecca. “He would always talk about making it big. I never imagined it would be like this.”

Twitchell's former roommate Jason Fritz felt he had lost a friend but regained faith in the justice system. “Before there was a police investigation or a global news report, before there was CNN calling our houses, it was just a bunch of guys coming together, making movies with this awesome dude,” he said. “He was a charming and persuasive guy.” But after the trial, everything changed. “Nothing can excuse what he did. When I heard what actually happened, I had no idea who that guy was. That's a guy I never met.”

Twitchell's friends had trusted him, been led to believe it was a horrible mistake, perhaps a hoax fuelled by corrupt detectives. But even in the best-case scenario, Twitchell had openly admitted to dismembering and burning the body of a stranger before discarding his remains in a city sewer. Such admissions did not evoke a sense of compassion for Twitchell's predicament. Whether it was a planned and deliberate murder became almost secondary for some of his acquaintances; at the very least, he had committed one of the most disgraceful acts imaginable against another human being. “Thinking about it actually makes me feel uncomfortable,” said one member of his film crew. “Mark knew where I lived. He was in my house. That's a strange thing looking back on it now. Imagine finding out Ted Bundy visited you regularly.”

The brutality of Twitchell's misdeeds also elevated the city's already notorious crime status. Edmonton had always been a blue-collar city with blue-collar problems, but its reputation as a crime capital tended to be exaggerated by media coverage. Then the Twitchell case happened. It was the stuff of nightmares, a bizarre crime that only seemed imaginable in a Hollywood horror film. And the Twitchell case was the third serial killer investigation in the region within four years. For a city region of only a
million people, it was an extraordinary figure that drew sustained interest in the press. Civic boosters could only shake their heads.

Local columnists began calling “Deadmonton” a term of “ironic endearment.” In an effort to take back the nickname, Deadmonton also became the name of a city Halloween festival. A new art gallery was built, public transit was rapidly expanded. Plans were finalized for a downtown arena district and a potential new museum. The city looked toward the future with pride. Fingers crossed.

In St. Albert, Twitchell's home changed owners three times between his arrest and trial. Johnny's condo in south Edmonton was purchased by an oil worker who moved in with his girlfriend. They had no idea their home had once belonged to a man whose brutal murder had transfixed the city. Mail addressed to Johnny continued to arrive at the condo for several years.

In Edmonton, Twitchell was one of the last inmates to await a murder trial entirely within the cell blocks of downtown remand. The thirty-year-old building was scheduled for decommission. The long underground tunnels leading to the courthouse would soon be emptied and inmates transferred to a brand-new facility on the northern outskirts of town. Inmates would be housed in smaller buildings or pods. Court appearances would occur via video-link or see inmates driven in big vans that parked in the courthouse basement. It was an end to the plastic beds, double or triple bunking, and a view of the city skyline. Girlfriends would no longer leave chalk or spray-painted messages of love on the sidewalk outside. But some things never change. Shit bombs would remain a popular prison prank no matter where its concrete walls were raised.

Mark Twitchell's kill room continued to be a morbid draw well after the slaying. Neighbours such as Lynda Warren would sometimes look out their front window and see a driver slowly pass by, locate 5712 40th Avenue, and pull in to the nearest parking spot. She'd then stroll to her kitchen window and see them standing in the back alley. There'd be whispered talk and pointing. Some would just stare at where Johnny had taken his last steps, where Gilles had fought and escaped. “It just doesn't leave your mind. I think of Johnny every day,” she said. “I don't even know him, but he's certainly not forgotten. We think of him more than of who did it.”

The property lived on. Half of the old maroon fence was replaced. The back door to the garage was given a new lock, but the wood door remained with the holes once drilled for Twitchell's padlock still visible. The old couch was removed. For years after the murder, pencil sketches made by the blood spatter expert could be seen on the white door frame.

A new tenant was found for the garage too. He was a construction worker based out of the city. He used the garage as a storage space for his machinery and tools. He had barricaded the back door with his gear. A firm body check could not open it.

The two owners, a young married couple running a property investment company, held on to the land after the murder trial, but the house continued its revolving door of tenants. In the basement suite, a father and his young daughter were never told what had happened in the garage prior to signing a lease, though the owners had no legal obligation to do so. When they did discover the property's deep secret on their own, one of the owners became quite furious. He had previously been debating the impact such widely publicized news could have on his property value. The startled tenants, however, did not share these same concerns.

The house was listed for rent a few weeks later.

D
ETECTIVE
B
ILL
C
LARK HAD
less than a day to bask in the joy of his biggest case victory. About twenty hours after the verdict, a man driving in the city's western outskirts made a discovery on the side of a dirt road. Clark was called in. At the scene, the bodies of an elderly couple had clearly been dumped among melting snowdrifts and piles of exposed earth. Dale Johnson, promoted to detective and now a permanent member of homicide, was assigned as the primary investigator. The couple had been missing for three months.

For a brief moment, the case was a media sensation. Then the killing in the city continued at an alarming rate. While none were connected, the trend triggered more stories. Clark, Johnson, and the rest of the team worked double or triple shifts. By June 2011, there were twenty-five homicides in Edmonton – one a week, or by far the highest in the nation. By comparison, three hours south in the larger city of Calgary, there were only two. The 2005 homicide record was shattered by October, prompting gripping front-page headlines such as
MURDER CITY
in the local tabloid. Politicians, nearly breathless at the awful statistics coming back yet again, could only call the city's skyrocketing homicide rate truly “horrifying.”

It was Deadmonton, after all.

And this was Clark's city. He didn't plan on leaving the homicide unit any time soon. In fact, he was later promoted to co-head of the squad. He thrived in the pressure-cooker environment, loved grilling the bad guys, getting that confession. And by the look of it, there'd be no shortage of opportunities in the future. When the oil boomed, so did the violence. But the question remained: would either of them ever stop?

R
ETIRED
D
ETECTIVE
M
ARK
A
NSTEY
was relieved to have left such a bull pen and found a far less stressful job in the building next door. Not far from the Crown Prosecutor's Office, Anstey became an investigator who audited
the province's peace officer program. He considered it a great career move, one toward semi-retirement.