Homicide Inc. - Compelling True Crime Stories
Homicide Inc. - Compelling True Crime Stories
Episode 65 | MAN'S BLIND DATE IS A KILLER IN HOCKEY MASK | The Mark Twitchell Murder
In this episode of the Homicide Inc. podcast we’re going to go on the set of a horror movie- both literally and figuratively. When Gilles Tetreault was looking for love online, he was overjoyed when he met 'Sheena'. For their blind date she had invited him to her place. It was game on. Or was it. What he didn't know was that his date had other plans for them that night, and Gilles was going to be the lead actor in a very sinister plot. ★Enjoy!
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My name is Peter von Gomm and I'm a professional Voice actor and Narrator and in this podcast I'll be bringing you high quality True Crime that passes the test of time. You've come to the right place for a great story!
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SOURCES for this podcast
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-twitchell-the-dexter-killer-letters-48-hours/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3b
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twitchell
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/mark-twitchell-the-dexter-killer-evidence-photos/23/
https://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/twitchell-mark.htm
#truecrime #murder #truestory #homicide #homicideinc #crime #investigative #killer #horror #truecrimepodcast #truecrimecommunity
Man’s Blind Date was a Disturbed Killer in a Hockey Mask
Lights. Camera. Action! In this episode of the HI podcast we’re going to go on the set of a horror movie- both literally and figuratively. The director of this snuff film perhaps iniatally had good intentions, he had other movie projects under his belt but somewhere along the way a sinister fantasy had unwitting actors playing parts in a nightmare come true.
Movies are make-believe, the blood, the gore, the horror. No matter how real the props look, it’s all fake, fake glass, fake weapons, convincing actors, and fake blood. But in the case of Canadian film director, Mark Twitchell, it’s all real and all deadly.
Our story starts with young, hopeful Gilles Tetreault. Like many men his age, he sat anxious, curious and excited, in front of the bright computer screen. He waited impatiently as the loading screen for plentyoffish.com flashed impressively slowly. He had been reluctant at first, dating websites had never been his favourite, but he was curious, never mind that curiosity killed the cat.
His nervousness disappeared shortly as he began chatting with a woman named Sheena, in his head he imagined her as a beautiful blonde or rich a chestnut, in his head she was beautiful. They chatted for days, he was falling for her, his “Sheena”. They needed to meet and soon.
The arrangements didn’t take long, Sheena agreed to meet with him on 3 October 2008. They had arranged for him to meet her at her place, more specifically, inside the garage on her property. Sheena sent through very thorough instructions on how to get there and what to do. He knew he liked her for a reason! She told him to enter through the black door.
Speaking of movies, The Black Door sounds kind of ominous, like a bad budget slasher. But hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself here and would hate to slip you a spoiler.
Gilles was excited, he couldn’t wait to meet her, to hold her, to kiss her… you get the gist of it. There was one small part of him, the responsible voice in his head, which couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was odd. If Gilles had stopped to listen to that responsible voice, he might have to ponder why she had not given him the actual address to her house. Why hide the address, it made no sense? Instead, she had given him detailed instructions on how to get there, using main highways and landmarks. Like a twisted treasure hunt. But of course, when there’s the possibility of sex on the cards, why would he stop to think. And so that little voice was smothered as he hopped into his car, ready to start the journey.
But like most things in life, Gilles’s evening hadn’t begun as he had hoped. He was running late so he had to speed to get there, leaving him feeling stressed and agitated, he didn’t want her to think that he had changed his mind. Because he hadn’t!
By the time he had passed the yellow crosswalk sign, her alley appeared, and he slowed the car to park in the driveway. He was unsure at first, the unpaved driveway that was bordering on being overgrown didn’t scream “Sheena” and the dark deserted alleyway didn’t quell his feeling of discomfort. Maybe his “love” had been busy and didn’t have time to mow the lawn, he reasoned with himself. The black door that she had mentioned beckoned him, Sheena was there, waiting for him on the other side.
Now if Gilles were a man who believed in signs he would have turned and run the other way, but he didn’t. The secretive address, the rundown, deserted driveway and the black door weren’t signs enough, and so Gilles drew an excited breath and stepped through the black door.
The garage was dimly lit and quiet, he didn’t see her, he didn’t see Sheena. But she saw him alright, all six feet of her and she wanted him.
It took only a split second for his entire evening to change, the moment the hidden figure behind him reached out and grabbed him by his shoulder. Its reality only took a couple of seconds, but in Gilles’s mind it felt as if time had slowed down. At first, he was surprised and confused, thinking it was some sort of domineering foreplay that Sheena was into. This idea was short-lived, and the confusion gave way to horror as Gilles turned to face his attacker. Instead of his blonde-haired beauty, Sheena was not a “she” but rather a “he”. A “he” who was wearing a hockey mask. Unlike Jason Voorhees, the killer from Friday the 13th movie series, his attackers mask was black with gold stripes covering the one side. Years later Gilles would look back and wonder why in that moment he fixated so on the mask. He had been so focused on the mask that he hadn’t noticed the long black stun baton that his attacker shoved into his stomach.
The jolt of electricity that seared through his body was so unexpected he stumbled backwards, a thought flashed through his brain “wow, this is no date!”
His attacker whipped out something shiny and pointed it at Gilles, a gun.
“Get down on the floor!” He had shouted at Gilles, waving his gun threateningly in the air.
Afraid that his attacker would shoot him, Gilles had lowered himself to the floor with his arms raised, he didn’t want to provoke the man wearing a hockey mask. The moment his knees had touched the ground his attacker had pounced on him, stretching a strip of tape tightly over his eyes.
Now I don’t know about you dear listener, but having tape ripped off your arm is bad enough but ripping tape off your eyes… no thanks.
But Gilles wasn’t thinking about his loss of eyelashes, he was thinking that he had to get away, this is not how he wanted to die. He was determined, he would not die here, now or like this. If he did have to die it would be his own way, not his attacker’s. As he sat there, blindfolded he heard noises like jingling, and he was sure it was his attacker fetching another weapon.
Not wasting another moment, Gilles shot to his feet and ripped off the tape on his eyes. Instead of feeling searing hot pain, he felt nothing. The tape had been plastic. His attacker had not been expecting Gilles to rip the tape off and had not been expecting that Gilles would reach for the gun.
Gilles felt a rush of excitement course through his body when his hand made contact with the gun. It was plastic. It was not a real gun. He had a chance.
His attacker must have realized he had lost the upper hand. Gilles, who was now ready to fight for his life, pulled his arm back and punched his attacker. His euphoria was short-lived when his punch landed like a wet noodle, he was still weak from the stun baton.
His attacker used the opportunity to land his own punches to the side of Gilles head. Over and over again. Gilles tried to get away from the punches, but he wasn’t quick enough. His attacker grew tired of punching of him and reached out to grab the back of Gilles jacket. An idea formed in the back of Gilles’s mind. As his attacker tightened his hold on Gilles’s jacket, he leaned forward, further and further until he slipped straight out of his jacket, rolled across the floor out of the half-opened garage door and ran out into the driveway.
But he was still so weak from the stun baton, that his legs gave out and he went tumbling down onto the ground. It was there he felt a pair of hands latch onto his ankle and drag him back into the garage. His attacker had just pulled him into the garage when Gilles thought to himself “Oh no, what am I gonna do now. I'm dead.”
With no other choice, Gilles took a chance and rolled himself back out the garage door and pushed himself on unsteady legs to his truck. Not once did he look over his shoulder to see if he was being chased, he had one goal. Get in his truck and leave.
Lady luck must have taken pity on him, as Gilles made it into his truck, even in his weakened state, and turned the key in the ignition. The sound of the engine roaring to life was music to his ears. Without hesitation, he threw the truck into reverse and got the hell out of there.
He didn’t remember the drive home; it was all a blur.
When he got home the first thing he did was rush to his computer and opened the dating website, he was convinced that maybe it was a mugging that happened at the wrong place at the wrong time, it was all a big coincidence. That small spark of hope was snuffed out when he searched for Sheena’s profile, it had been deleted.
Feeling embarrassed and ashamed that he got catfished, Gilles sat down in his living room and vowed to erase the memory from his head.
What Gilles didn’t realize at the time was that by not reporting what had happened to him, his attacker thought that he had gotten away with it and had already found his next victim.
It was only a week later when the attacker strikes again, only this time the ending was far more deadly.
On October 10, 2008, 38-year-old John Brian Altinger vanished completely.
John, who had worked at an oilfield equipment manufacturer, had also created a profile for himself on plentyoffish.com. And like Gilles he too had found the love of his life on the dating website, her name was Jen. John couldn’t believe his luck when she had suggested that they get together, it was almost like a dream come true. More like a nightmare but let’s carry on with the story.
They had arranged to meet on October 10, Jen had given him detailed instructions on how to get to her place. And like Gilles, John didn’t think it was strange that she didn’t give the actual address. Excited to meet his love, John informed his friends that he was meeting a woman whom he met on an online dating site. They were concerned at first, but John was generally a level-headed guy, so they trusted he knew what he was doing.
Spoiler alert, he didn’t!
When John arrived at Jen’s house and the ominous black door, we can assume that he was met with the same greeting Gilles had, only this time he wasn’t as lucky.
Three days had passed without a single word back from John, nor had he been at work since October 10. His friends and family had grown concerned over this, why hadn’t he called or come into work, this wasn’t like him. Things only began getting stranger after that. Very strange.
An email from John arrived to the inbox of Johns’s friends and older brother Gary., At first a rush of relief filled them. However, that soon was replaced with concern after reading the rather odd contents of the mail.
The email began with John informing them that he had met a woman named Jen online and had gone out to meet her. They hit it off big time and Jen had taken him to Costa Rica for a long vacation and they would be staying at her winter home. He said that he would be back around 10 December.
They were deeply worried as this email was completely out of character for him. John’s boss had also received an email; a resignation letter. When he replied asking for a forwarding address for Altinger's final pay check, there was no reply.
Desperate for answers to where their friend was, they broke into John’s apartment and were shocked at what they found. His kitchen still had dirty dishes sitting in the sink waiting to be washed, his clothes were still in the closet, and everything looked like it had been left like he would be coming back. The most concerning find was his passport sitting on the counter, without his passport there was no way he could go to Costa Rica.
It was by this point that they knew something was terribly wrong and it was time to call the police.
John was officially reported as missing, and an investigation was opened.
John’s red Mazda was missing from his apartment, so police figured it would be easier to look for a car rather than a person. So, they began their search for a red Mazda, but their search turned up nothing. They had even looked at airports where the car could have been parked, but nothing. They searched nearby flights to Costa Rica but there was no record of John Altinger leaving the country, he was still here.
With the car lead a dead end, they focused on looking for John’s last known address and lucky for them, one of his friends was able to provide them with that. Before John had left to meet Jen, his friend had been concerned and told him over email meeting a total stranger off the internet was maybe not a great idea.
Ole John should have listened to his friend!
Understanding his friend’s concern John emailed a copy of the directions to Jen’s place and ended the email off with “ here's the directions. And if anything happens to me, you'll know where to look.”
And so, they did. Police rushed straight to that garage. Upon arrival, they discovered that the garage belonged to young aspiring filmmaker Mark Twitchell. He didn’t look like your typical murderer/kidnapper and when police had enquired about the garage, he graciously allowed them to have a look around. They asked him about the missing man John Altinger and the red Mazda, but he told them he knew nothing about either.
He explained to the cops that his garage was actually a film set, that he was filming a movie project inside, but they were welcome to take a look inside. The first thing that police noticed upon entry was a small amount of blood splatter on the floor, almost invisible to the untrained eye. This was immediately a massive red flag for them, when they questioned him about the blood he had responded rather casually.
He explained that he had rented the garage to film a short horror film, called House of Cards. The plot of the film involved a killer who would lure people into the garage and violently murder them. The blood was fake, a movie prop. It was all completely harmless.
With no body, no alleged crime scene, the police had no choice but to ask if Twitchell would be willing to come to the station with them, just to answer some questions. And he was more than willing to come down and chat with them, he made himself super helpful. But police soon realized he wasn’t being helpful, he just wanted to boast about his film projects.
During the interview with the police, he had explained that he was now working on a comedy, and how much the budget would be. But the police weren’t interested in that, they were more interested in his horror movie, The House of Cards.
The detective at the time of the interview had said to him how odd it was that he was filming that kind of thing- the plot of the film and its suspicious timing
Twitchell didn’t seem rattled by the questioning, he admitted that he too thought it was so weird that this missing person disappeared from his garage around the same time he was filming House of Cards
By the end of the interview, Twitchell was feeling so confident that had agreed to let the police back into the garage. And this was when is the case started to take a bizarre turn.
Detective Murphey arrived back at the garage with Twitchell, who suddenly blurted out like he had forgotten, that yes, he did have a red car, he bought it off some guy. Immediately the detective thought this was suspicious and called the station to tell them about it. Investigators thought it was odd that someone could forget that they had just bought a new car, especially a red one that you had been questioned about before.
So, they called the ever-helpful Twitchell back to the station to answer some more questions, but this time around a different detective conducted the interrogation.
Enter Detective Bill Clark. When he entered the room, he noted how confident and calm Twitchell looked, and he was reminded of Detective Murphey’s remark that Twitchell interviewed well.
Twitchell explained to the detective that some guy tapped on his window and said: "Hey buddy do you wanna buy a car? … I — I've shacked up with this really rich lady … She's even gonna buy me a new car … so I'm just looking to unload mine… how much do you have on you?"
He explained that he bought the car, a red Mazda, for a jaw-dropping amount of $40!
Detective Clark sat up in his chair, this was the missing car!
“Where is this car?” He asked Twitchell and the answer he gave didn’t surprise anybody in that interrogation room that afternoon.
“It’s parked at a friend’s.”
Detective Clark knew Twitchell was talking crap and he didn't mince words.
“There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you're involved in the disappearance of John Altinger. No doubt in my mind at all Mark.”
There was just one small problem. They had no hard evidence. None.
And so, the investigation into Mark Twitchell began.
Authorities knew he was a Canadian filmmaker who had already had one film under his belt, in 2007, Twitchell directed Star Wars: Secrets of the Rebellion, a full-length fan film prequel. He had no history of violence or any criminal record to his name, on paper he didn’t look like a suspect. With that being a dead-end police brought in actor Chris Heward, whose character in the film The House of Cards had been murdered.
Heward explained that he had arrived for filming but eventually left without having any filming done and when police asked why they were shocked.
Chris told them: “My character was killed with a samurai sword. … They said they would have a mannequin or a dummy to run the sword through, and when I got there, there was none. … When I looked at the weapons … that was my first sign. … When I saw that they were real, I thought, "This is off. … Why didn't I tell somebody where I am?”
He admitted that he left unharmed but still felt rattled by the strange experience. There was one thing about the garage that bugged the investigators, the blood splatter.
They asked him: How much of the blood splatter on the wall was from your filming?"
"None of the blood splatter was from us.” He replied.
Like a bullet from a gun, the police shot into action and rushed to Twitchell’s garage. They needed to test that blood splatter. They also needed to impound his laptop and his car.
It was these three things that led to the arrest of Mark Twitchell for the murder of John Altinger.
The laptop impounded from Twitchell was an absolute goldmine in terms of evidence. On the laptop they found a deleted file called the SK Confessions. Shorthand for Serial Killer Confessions. Sounds like a good title for a Netflix documentary!
The first lines of the confession had read: "This story is based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer. In the confessions Twitchell had revealed that he was obsessed with tv character Dexter, he explained in great detail how to murder people, the weapons he would use and how to get rid of the body. Police weren’t 100% sure if this was a manuscript or his diary.
When police interviewed Twitchell’s wife, she explained that their marriage was rocky and that she suspected that he was having an affair. Police never found who the woman was, but they did find a woman who shed some light on Twitchell’s obsession with Dexter.
Renee, who was also a big fan of the show Dexter, saw Twitchell’s Facebook profile and noticed that he looked just like the character Dexter and based his profile on him. He hadn’t used his real name, instead, he was called Dexter Morgan. She added him as a friend and they hit it off instantly, she told police that they chatted every day and often flirted.
Eventually, he revealed his real identity to her, telling her he was a filmmaker. She admitted she was rather pleased as she was an aspiring writer and a friendship with a moviemaker could open doors.
However, it didn’t take long before their exchanges grew dark, specifically with regard to murder. It was shortly before Johnny Altinger disappeared when they started talking about the psychology behind a serial killer.
At the time, Renee was upset with her ex-husband's new wife, and she admitted she asked Twitchell how she could murder her and get away with it.
"You cut her up in little pieces. You put her in trash bags, like Dexter." "You rent a boat and — dump her out in the middle of Lake Erie."
She went on to tell them, almost sheepishly that he had told her recently “over the weekend I did something… I crossed the line, and I did something, and I liked it"
She said she knew immediately that he had done something bad, that maybe he had killed somebody. His next email proved her theory right.
“There's an enormous missing person, possible homicide investigation going on around a location I've rented for film work. … So of course, the police have tossed my house and impounded my car … Not fun considering they won't find anything …"
But he was wrong, so very wrong.
During the investigation, police had searched the garage and remarked on how much it resembled a kill room. The garage had plastic sheets covering all the windows, a table with blood spatter, and cleaning supplies laid out. They had found a black and gold hockey mask, a plastic gun and Luminol tests later revealed excessive amounts of human blood that wasn't visible to the naked eye. It wasn’t fake blood after all.
Police noticed that line by line the details in "SK Confessions" were aligning directly with the evidence they found at the crime scene. One passage spoke of the killer trying to burn remains in a barrel; police found this burned barrel inside Mark Twitchell's garage.
The car also proved useful as they found evidence that really nailed him, the blood in Twitchell’s car that matched the DNA of Altinger’s.
One piece of the puzzle that had the police stumped was the fact that "SK Confessions" spoke of a victim who got away. Find that person, the police thought, and they can prove that "SK Confessions" is real and not the fictional screenplay Mark Twitchell claimed it was.
Well remember Gilles Tetreault from the opening of this story? The guy hot for make-believe Sheena? When police released public images of the mask, Gilles nearly shat himself. He came forward and that’s when police knew they had everything they needed to arrest Twitchell. It was a slam dunk.
On Halloween morning in 2008, (how fitting) the tactical team swooped in on him and took him down. The police had described to the media that “tough guy Mark Twitchell peed his pants he was so scared.”
While they had arrested Twitchell, they still hadn’t found Altinger’s body, but that all changed a year later when he revealed the location via a hand-drawn map. There they found the remains in a sewer.
Police believe Altinger was stabbed and dismembered on a makeshift autopsy table in the garage. Twitchell was charged with murder.
In the end, the jury took just five hours to find Mark Twitchell guilty. He was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Unfortunately for his victims, his actions brought him infamy and there is talk that his story might reach the big screen. Damn! I’d watch it.
