The Devil's Cinema (48 page)

B
EFORE HIS JOURNEY INTO
the macabre, before dark fantasies of death merged into film and script, Twitchell had lived in the United States for four years, selling electronics to anyone who would buy them. To trace his movements back in time, down the long highways in his maroon Grand Am to the beginning of this voyage, led to the small-town characters of the Midwestern plains. Twitchell's first wife had called it home. Now she was a confused young woman who realized she had the first glimpse of what he would become. Throughout the spectacle of his arrest and public trial, however, she had kept her association hidden from view, like a prequel to the horror that transpired in a future far removed from her own. She was never called to testify.

Megan Casterella had the round face of a cherub, big brown eyes, and a demeanour to please. She had grown up in Colorado Springs, and one night in an Internet chat room she had become acquainted with a man
in northern Canada. They began to email, then talk on the phone, send each other pictures and flowers. Twitchell was twenty-one; Megan, twenty. During one of their long-distance phone calls, he asked for her hand in marriage. It was Halloween. Megan thought the offer exciting and agreed, as long as she had a return ticket in hand. She boarded a flight to Canada a few days after Christmas and was married in Edmonton on January 4, 2001. There was a small gathering afterwards at his parents' place.

But the relationship was virtually over before their honeymoon began. Megan looked back on the situation years later by comparing Twitchell to a kid with a new puppy: fascinated for a few days but quickly losing interest. He cheated on her regularly. She caught him surfing a porn website all the time. She couldn't pry him off the Internet. With no Canadian work permit, she headed to Davenport, Iowa, to be near her sister. The newlyweds lived apart. Twitchell started up a relationship with another woman but didn't tell her he was married. He tried to divorce Megan via email. The situation eventually blew apart and Megan and Twitchell made amends, deciding to give their nuptials a second chance. He moved to America to be by her side.

Four years passed in the Midwest as they worked on their marriage. Megan went to school. The couple moved two hours away to the small town of Peoria in the deep soils of the Illinois prairie, south of Chicago. Twitchell became a top-tier salesman at American TV, Appliance and Furniture, but yet they never seemed to have much money to spare. He met local actors and
Star Wars
fans, called himself Psycho Jedi online, and it was here where he first began talking about making his own fan film for the sci-fi franchise.

Megan saw how her husband was a dreamer, always seeing the big picture but failing miserably at the little details. He made costumes but sometimes cut corners, buying props on the Internet but then passing them off as if he made them himself. And despite several years together, she never felt like she got to know him like a wife should know her husband. “He kind of had that really dark, secretive side,” she said later. “He would make comments like, ‘You can't handle what goes on in my mind. You can't handle it.' It makes me wonder now.”

The relationship soured.

He took off one September weekend to Atlanta for Dragon Con, a huge sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book convention, and met another girl. He cheated
on Megan once again and had no regrets whatsoever. She knew the moment he returned. He promised a divorce, but it never came.

Eventually, Megan took control and cited “extreme and repeated mental cruelty” in her divorce documents as grounds for their separation. Twitchell did not dispute her explanation. Together they had accumulated a $40,000 debt. She tried her best to forget about him, but it was a difficult task considering he moved only a few doors down. And he was suddenly in another relationship, living with a California girl who had moved to the Midwest to be with him. In a few months, she was gone too, another woman tossed aside and out of Twitchell's life when he lost interest. He finally packed up his car in 2005 and drove northwest across America, back to his hometown to achieve his new dream – and find a new wife.

Lingering memories of him came back to Megan. She had moved on, met a new man, but suddenly she saw her ex-husband's face on the international news. While she had quite the story to tell of her former life with him, she did not utter a word in public. It wasn't until months after Twitchell's arrest when she was finally convinced to come forward. A homicide detective from the Edmonton Police Service flew down to meet with her. And she confided some of her deepest held secrets. Upon reflection, she felt it would mean something for the investigation. The police did too.

About three days into their marriage, Megan had been sitting in a bedroom with Twitchell. It was one of those lazy days of rolling around on the bed, when the weather outside was chilly and nobody wanted to dare leave the house to face the Edmonton winter.

Twitchell had been sitting in silence when he suddenly turned to Megan and began a conversation with an outrageous hypothetical question: “Have you ever thought about killing someone?” He honestly wanted to know.

Startled, Megan realized she had met this man over the Internet and was now a five-hour flight away from her own family. She still wasn't really sure whom she had just married.

She treaded carefully.

“Sure, I guess everyone has gotten angry enough in their lifetime that you'd think about it,” she said. “But I could
never
do it, if that's what you mean.”

Twitchell didn't stop to consider her answer. “Well, I've thought about killing somebody,” he confessed in a cold monotone. “I've actually thought
about finding a homeless person and killing him. I figure nobody would really miss him or even think about it.”

Megan looked at her new husband in shock.

Twitchell had an odd expression on his face, a shimmer in his eyes she couldn't understand. She couldn't quite comprehend what she was hearing. But it was almost as if Twitchell had found the very idea of it … enjoyable.

O
N THE SHORES OF
Canada's southern Pacific, waves send driftwood tumbling past long wooden piers into beaches of dark brown sand. The ocean laps in one spot at the pebbled feet of a giant white boulder as the tidal payload of dead branches is delivered. Above the water's edge, the large stone stands as a sailing beacon and symbol of town folklore, giving the surrounding community of White Rock its name. With their ordeal finally behind them, Johnny Altinger's family could look at this place with a degree of finality. In their grief, they had collected his ashes from Edmonton and returned him to this coastal city he had once called home.

Closure for his family did not come easily. Their hearts remained wounded and scarred long after Johnny's remains had been returned for a proper burial. What little comfort they did feel came from detectives who told them Johnny was a hero. Police would never have stumbled upon the garage if it wasn't for Johnny's foresight. The driving directions he passed on to his friends remained the crucial piece of evidence that unfolded the entire case. Detectives feared what could have happened if their investigation hadn't swooped in on their suspect and his property so quickly.

Johnny's mother, Elfriede, hung a plaque on a memorial wall in her son's memory. She wanted the world to remember him as a man of kindness. But there were no plans for a funeral service. Like his father, Johnny had wanted to be laid to rest with as little fuss as possible. At his core, he had remained a simple and modest man. “John was the most selfless person,” said his brother, Gary. “He was always helping everybody. He was gentle. He was a good friend to anybody who ever knew him.”

Fittingly, his memory lived on through the Internet and he has not been forgotten. Johnny's Facebook profile was transformed into an online headstone. Even years after his death, friends continued to post messages of love or to wish him happy birthday. His friend Marie Laugesen was relieved she had made amends with Johnny and that they had enjoyed a wonderful day
of riding indoor roller coasters before his sudden passing. “I know you are not here to read this anymore, but know that you had many friends who cared deeply for you,” she shared on his Facebook page. Another friend simply added: “Johnny, you will remain in my heart forever.”

Having bonded with Johnny through their shared interest in spirituality, Darcy Gehl paused to remember his friend in a moment of silent reflection. He had witnessed first-hand how Johnny had likely achieved a level of nirvana most people fail to explore. It brought him comfort knowing a man facing such a tragic demise had at least developed a mindset of tranquility and acceptance. “He would have been the type of person to say, ‘It was my time to go.' He had put his mind at peace by then,” he explained. “He believed there was something more.”

Johnny had offered clues of this profound insight long before his death. In searching for answers to the meaning of things, he had often stumbled upon others taking the same journey and commenting within online newsgroups. One searcher had shared excerpts from an ancient text that described how one must merge the “sheaths of being to realize the unity of life.”

Reading the posting late one night, Johnny had considered these words and felt compelled to respond. “Well said and absolutely true,” he replied. “Everything is one. Life is an illusion. Now if only we could get people to wake up and realize that.”

T
HE TRUTH IS IMPORTANT
to me – and it proved difficult to find in this case, often hiding behind layers of exaggeration and falsehoods that had merged with real life. But as a journalist, I was only interested in writing the factual account of these events so I could document the story's historical value and impact. This non-fiction narrative has therefore been drawn from extensive research, beginning during my time as a police reporter at the
Edmonton Journal
and continuing on for years afterwards as the case progressed from arrest to conviction.

Anything that appears within quotation marks or as an excerpt has been taken from a written document, court testimony, or interview and been edited for minor points of grammar and clarity. Publicly accessible archives were also of assistance, ranging from newspaper records and lawsuits to government databases maintained by Environment Canada and Statistics Canada.

No dialogue has been fabricated. Conversations have been taken directly from police evidence or court testimony, or have been recreated from the accounts of first-hand witnesses. Descriptions of mannerisms are based upon witness recollections, my direct observations, or are evident from dialogue or within video recordings and photographs.

Wherever possible, I utilized multiple sources of information for each person described in the book: my interview with them, their police interview and court testimony, and their own written words, including (but not limited to) personal blogs, online message board postings, and activity on social-networking websites. Many interviewees had kept old emails or had vivid memories of specific moments in time. There were videos and hundreds of photos taken of witnesses at key points in their lives. No names have been changed in the entire book, with two exceptions: “Rebecca,” who requested anonymity, and “William Strong,” who did not want his birth name published.

Nearly every chapter has been assisted by my own history. I was born in Edmonton, lived in the area for more than twenty-five years, and visited virtually every scene depicted in the book. Furthermore, I also read, listened, or watched every story in the media about the case to add colour to scenes that I may have previously missed.

Large pieces of the narrative were filled in by members of the Edmonton Police Service, who gave detailed accounts of the inner workings of a homicide investigation. Many detectives agreed to be interviewed, some on numerous occasions.

I firmly believed that Johnny Altinger deserved to be a major focus in the text. I wanted the reader to get to know him; I wanted to focus on how he lived, not only on his tragic death. I was able to recreate the last days of his life through the accounts of his friends, court records, and his own writings. I was fortunate in locating many old posts he had written on Internet newsgroups.

Lastly, I attended every day of Mark Twitchell's murder trial and took extensive notes of the proceedings. On the witness stand, he largely acknowledged his controversial document S. K. Confessions as a true account of his actions. Police had also estimated that their own investigation had proven more than 85 per cent of the writings as accurate. The forty-two-page document therefore provided a solid foundation on which to build further research around.

And there was no shortage of information available about Mark Twitchell, who was a willing participant in my research efforts. Months before the trial, he called me quite out of the blue with a genuine offer to participate in this project. “If you're going to be writing a book about me,” he began, “it's probably best for both of our interests that you come straight to the source.” He had heard about me through his friends and associates. But he sounded nervous as he began pitching me reasons as to why I should listen to him. “I would never ask you to just up and take my word on anything,” he insisted. “Obviously anything that I would talk to you about would be checkable.” He saw his participation as a chance to tell his story accurately and on a different level than media accounts of his case.

It was a rare opportunity for a journalist, but one I seized upon with extreme caution. I laid down some ground rules: if we did talk, we would
remain nothing more than subject-author and there would be no conditions placed on our contact. He would have no editorial control. “I wouldn't expect otherwise,” he told me. No money exchanged hands.

We remained in contact for months, and I was the only journalist to interview him before and after the trial. He mailed me more than three hundred pages of letters from prison, which gave me my first insight into his compulsion to write everything down. We spoke several times in person at the Edmonton Remand Centre and over the phone as well.