Twitchell rubbed his face, pausing for a moment at the view, but his thoughts were interrupted by mumbling sounds from within the room. Sleeping in the other bunk was a new roommate, some homeless dumpster diver who had been talking to himself and snoring all night. A pile of stale food sat near his bed. Twitchell sighed. He wasn’t used to waking up so early, and the lack of sleep from this nuisance didn’t help. He started getting ready anyway just as morning radio programs were blasting previews of his case. Between weather and traffic updates, announcers were making wisecracks, calling him the “small-time filmmaker with big-movie dreams” who would soon have the “lead role” in a riveting courtroom drama. He would stand trial for the murder of Johnny Altinger in a matter of hours, more than two and a half years since his Halloween arrest.
It was March 16, 2011. The fog retreated into smaller patches within the river valley as journalists began their trek to the building. Melting piles of late-winter snow crunched under boots and shoes, mixing with chocolate-brown mud and road salt. Reporters joined a growing crowd that jammed the security gates at all three entrances. Everyone had to remove their belts and jackets, empty their pockets, and dump everything into grey plastic bins. Their belongings were sent through an X-ray machine. Guards then swung metal detectors around each person in the search for weapons.
The first reporters to arrive spotted Twitchell’s name in the docket list displayed on a flat-panel monitor and took the elevator to the fourth floor to gather in a central foyer with black leather chairs. Room 417 was a quick stroll down the hallway, where clerks were busy preparing the chosen courtroom. Producers from American television programs 48 Hours Mystery and Dateline NBC had already arrived. National broadcasters, wire agencies, and newspapers had called in their prairie correspondents to cover the trial. The Edmonton Journal assigned two journalists, as did the Edmonton Sun. Three CBC reporters were in attendance, joined later by a producer with the national network’s investigative program, the fifth estate. Every local television station was there. Photographers and camera operators huddled around each entrance on the off chance someone who knew Twitchell would show up or make a statement. Deadmonton history was being made under the gaze of the awaiting media, ready to broadcast the story around the world.
But at the moment, Twitchell looked no different than any other inmate. He was crammed within a pack of a dozen other prisoners, lined up in rows of two. Guards led the group through a lengthy underground tunnel connecting remand to the courthouse. Twitchell’s right wrist was handcuffed to another inmate’s as they shuffled into the basement of the court. The only televisions down here were within “the bubble,” where guards could monitor security camera screens from behind thick glass, watching closely as inmates were escorted individually from the holding tanks up to their respective courtrooms.
On the fourth floor, Twitchell’s defence lawyer, Charles Davison, strolled out of the elevator in the customary black robes worn in Canada’s superior-level courts, tugging a cart of boxes and binders behind him. Throughout his legal career, the salt-and-pepper-haired barrister had secured case victories for many accused killers. And in preparing for this murder trial, he had spent months trying to have S. K. Confessions excluded from evidence, but the court had dismissed his pleas and decided that the writings could be read by the jury. This morning, Davison would try another approach. He was also planning a surprise for later in the day, while his competition had a few of its own.
The court held a voir dire a mere three hours before the jury would be called in. Such hearings, a virtual trial within a trial, are common practice in criminal proceedings, but not on opening day. A publication ban would also be placed over the entire voir dire, meaning nobody would know what was discussed, or even that it had occurred, until after a verdict. Twitchell was led in by one guard, emerging from the interior corridors. He took a seat at the defence counsel table and looked up at Davison just as the judge appeared and the courtroom was called to order. Everyone rose to their feet and bowed.
Justice Terry Clackson walked in at a brisk pace, smiling as he took a seat perched high above the room. The jury waited in a backroom, unaware of what was transpiring in the court. Davison stood up, pushed his glasses up his nose, and launched into his eleventh-hour argument.
The writings within S. K. Confessions were “not entirely true.” That was the defence’s position. And the forty-two-page document contained statements that were far too prejudicial to Twitchell’s right to a fair trial to ever be heard by the jury. Davison suggested some of the worst sections could be removed and still not seriously undermine the prosecution’s case. He wanted the document edited with certain sections deleted or censored. A key concern was the sordid details of the dismemberment, which were so lurid and horrid, he said, that it would inflame the jury’s passions. “What’s on those pages is simply so graphic … that it could even bring on physical reactions.”
Twitchell blushed. Shifting his weight in his chair, he focused intently on a notepad on the desk in front of him. As his lawyer spoke, he rubbed his temples and started scribbling.
The prosecution’s argument was that S. K. Confessions was a diary and a confession – to everything. It provided insight into Twitchell’s state of mind and his consistent levelheadedness in planning, executing, and cleaning up after the murder. The fact that he could dismember a human body with such a lack of emotion – to write about it methodically, clinically – was evidence in and of itself. The case was unavoidably gory, violent, sickening.
The judge listened carefully but reserved his judgment to a later date. The issue of the diary’s contents would remain unresolved before the trial officially began later that afternoon.
TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE trial’s scheduled start time, Detective Bill Clark emerged from the elevator, having taken the short walk to the courthouse from police headquarters. He pulled on the brass handles to the courtroom’s creaky wooden doors and surveyed the crowd. Room 417 was already half full with fifty people as a stream of onlookers came in through the other entrance. Twitchell wasn’t there yet. He was being held in the holding cell in an adjacent room.
Clark exchanged a glance with Lawrence Van Dyke, one of the two prosecutors, seated at their counsel table.
“Ready to deliver the opening?” Van Dyke quipped.
Clark rolled his eyes, chuckled, and slapped him on the back. He leaned in and whispered in his ear. Behind them, the crowd had grown to seventy. Few watching would have known that Clark was a detective, that this murder trial was his biggest homicide file to date, or that Twitchell hated him so deeply. Clark spoke with Van Dyke for only a minute to wish the team good luck. He would have to testify in a few weeks so he couldn’t stay in the courtroom once the jury was let in. Clark stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled out the door with a smile on his face.
In the front row, a court sketch artist had pulled out a large sheet of paper and was madly scribbling. Behind her, a row of law students was crammed together, whispering about their weekend parties. Journalists took up the entire back row of the court, pens and notebooks clasped in their hands. Police officers sat nearby, close to a few curious lawyers who had a spare couple of minutes from their own cases. Twitchell’s remaining friends and his film crew, as well as those who knew Johnny, would be called to testify and were barred from observing the trial until they had given their evidence. But an elderly friend of Johnny’s mother sat in the centre of the courtroom, to be joined later by the rest of his out-of-town family. Twitchell had no support. His parents and sister never appeared, even though they were allowed to attend. He was all alone.
Davison pulled up into the courtroom again, lifted his robe tight on the sides, and sat down. In a minute he would be entering Twitchell’s plea. Two plastic cups half-filled with water sat on the desk in front of him. He pulled out a pen, leaned back, and scanned through his notes.
Across the court, Van Dyke was deep in a conversation with co-prosecutor Avril Inglis, their whispers d
rifting like a soft hiss over the murmur of the growing crowd. Together, they would be the tag team for the Crown, having been assigned the file hours after Twitchell’s arrest. The sketch artist began to draw an outline of Van Dyke and Inglis: his short army-style haircut and square jaw, her long black hair and glasses. They were both tall and in their late thirties. As two rising stars within the Department of Justice, they had studied each page, every photograph, every video. Some seventy-two people had been included in their final witness list. They had been preparing for months.
The door to the holding cell suddenly thumped open. A hush spread, but the crowd roared to life once again. It was just one of the sheriffs entering the room. The remaining few seats in the public gallery were taken just as the trial clerk arrived from the judge’s chambers, signalling that the start of the trial was finally moments away.
A sheriff pulled on the door and vanished behind it, heading to the holding cell to retrieve Twitchell. The room rolled to silence. All eyes fixated on the door as if it was a theatre curtain about to rise on the performance of a lifetime. Everyone was eager to get their first glimpse of the man profiled in the world’s media. After more than two years behind bars, he was now notorious. How would he walk in to the room?
The door handle clicked. The crowd grew very still. An old man in the middle row whispered as he elbowed the man beside him: “Here he comes!”
But the star of this show was in no mood for an audience.
The door flew open, nearly hitting the bar, a brass banister separating the public gallery from the front of the court. In three quick strides Twitchell glided to a leather office chair beside Davison and settled in behind the desk. He never looked back. The public would stare at the back of his head for the rest of the day.
Seconds later Justice Terry Clackson walked in, took his seat, and called in the jury. One by one the jurors entered the court in silence and swore an oath. The jury had been chosen two days earlier during a seven-hour selection process. The six men and six women who would decide Twitchell’s fate were a diverse group: two government executives, two retirees, a sales clerk, salesman, banker, engineer, teacher, librarian, nursing aid, and chef. Only one juror wasn’t Caucasian. Four of them had never even heard of Twitchell’s case before. They would be paid fifty dollars a day for their service. Only one juror affirmed. The rest took their oath on the Bible.
The trial clerk was tasked with reading Twitchell’s formal arraignment and entering his plea. Twitchell was asked to rise and respond to the criminal charge.
He rose and stood tall. Folding his hands in front of him, he took in a deep breath and exhaled. Davison stood beside him. It would soon be time to reveal his big surprise.
The clerk began reading off the indictment sheet.
“Mark Andrew Twitchell,” she stated, her voice echoing off the back wooden wall. “You stand charged that on or about the 10th day of October 2008 at or near Edmonton, Alberta, did unlawfully cause the death of Johnny Altinger, thereby committing first-degree murder, contrary to Section 235 Sub One of the Criminal Code of Canada.” She continued reading off the paper. “How say to this charge? Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”
Twitchell did not hesitate. “Not guilty,” he said flatly.
Davison raised his finger. “Now my Lord –” he interjected, coughing. “Having said that …” He explained that the law would allow Twitchell to enter a guilty plea to another offence arising from the same incident, despite pleading not guilty to the murder charge. “I have his instructions this afternoon to enter a guilty plea to an offence under Section 182 of the Criminal Code, in particular the offence of improperly interfering with a dead human body. Is that correct, Mr. Twitchell?”
“Yes.”
The court’s spectators were stunned. No one had anticipated this.
Van Dyke shot up from his chair. “Sir! The Crown is not consenting to that alternate plea being entered. We’ll be proceeding on the charge of first-degree murder, sir.” He sat down.
“All right. Thank you. Thank you,” said Justice Clackson.
The trial clerk appeared confused. She looked up from her desk at the judge. “So do I enter the not guilty or the –?”
“You enter a plea of not guilty to the charge,” he replied, cutting her off.
The crowd started whispering. What is happening?
“Ladies and gentlemen, that development was a little unusual,” Justice Clackson explained, looking at the jury. “And I’ll have more to say about what that means for you as this trial proceeds. But for now, all you need to remember is that Mr. Twitchell is charged with murder and has pled not guilty.”
It was just what Davison had wanted. The tactic worked beautifully. He caught the prosecution totally by surprise and it planted a seed of doubt in the jury’s mind. All twelve jurors would remember that attempted guilty plea while every piece of damning evidence was presented. Nobody knew precisely what this plea meant just yet, which would mean a lot to the defence. It would cast doubt on the intent behind all the forensic evidence that the jury would be bombarded with over the coming three to four weeks. And the surprise came just as Van Dyke was about to give his opening statement, like a spoiled appetizer served right before the main course.
When he finally did rise, Van Dyke tried to brush off this unexpected incident and present the Crown as a friend of the jury, not an enemy of the accused. After all, Twitchell looked like anyone’s son in his clean, crisp white polo shirt, khaki pants, and neatly trimmed hair. Van Dyke had to show this case wasn’t a vendetta against Twitchell but a conclusion based on a mountain of evidence. Van Dyke cleared his throat, rested his hands on the podium on his desk not far from the jury, and turned to his left to greet them.
“My name is Lawrence Van Dyke and my colleague’s name is Avril Inglis, and together we have the privilege of representing the Crown and the prosecution of this case,” he said slowly as he read off his notes. He looked up, smiling, making eye contact with each juror.
He thanked them for taking the opportunity to become a juror, spinning it like they were empowered to make this decision rather than compelled by court order. He focused on Twitchell’s right to a fair trial and stressed that each of them should keep an open mind. And with that proviso, he launched into describing a road map that Twitchell had left behind, a bloody trail that the Crown believed had exposed his deepest, most sinister desires.
“His plan was quite simply and shockingly to gain the experience of killing another human being,” Van Dyke said bluntly. “He not only formed this plan but methodically deliberated on how to best accomplish this goal.”
The prosecutor delivered the thirty-minute address like a story, one as colourful and peppered with clichés as any of Twitchell’s own movie scripts. Van Dyke used phrases such as “fateful evening” and described the moment of the attack as when Twitchell’s “murderous trap was sprung.” It was quoted in the newspapers for days.
Twitchell ignored Van Dyke, turning his attention back to the notepad on the desk in front of him. He had little patience for the prosecution and rolled his eyes when Van Dyke brought up S. K. Confessions and described it as a diary. Instead of listening to the Crown, Twitchell focused on a mental exercise, one that would occupy a lot of his time for the remainder of the trial.
It started first with a little scribble. To anyone in the courtroom it would appear as if he was doodling, but he wasn’t. He was writing a speech.
Back in remand, Twitchell had taught himself to write in a foreign language. He had used it to help design an inmate’s tattoo and later for his own prison journal, keeping its contents a secret. The language he was using was easy to learn: each letter of the alphabet was replaced with a symbol like a square, triangle, or intricate design. It was as simple as memorizing each symbol and writing it down in place of the letters making up each word. The language was called Aurebesh. Not many people knew about the language due to its origins – it was only spoken by aliens on a distant planet in
the Star Wars universe.
As he sat in the courtroom, where his future lay in the hands of twelve of his peers, Twitchell began writing in Aurebesh like some fictional alien in a fictional universe. It was the only way he could distract himself from the harsh reality of the court case. He wrote dialogue from the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, detailing a scene where two kings line up their armies but decide to let their brewing war be decided with a one-on-one battle between their two greatest warriors. One side calls in Achilles, who slays his far larger opponent in one swift blow.
This odd behaviour caught the attention of the public gallery, and at least one juror stared at him frequently. His lawyer had worked hard to gain the court’s approval to allow Twitchell to wear civilian clothes instead of inmate blue coveralls and to sit up at the defence table like a professional instead of in the prisoner’s box. But rather than listening intently with a blank expression, Twitchell was off in his own little world, writing page after page of indecipherable text.
As Twitchell continued writing, Van Dyke neared the end of his opening address. He had saved his best material for last. It was a conclusion the defence was anticipating, but no one sitting in the public gallery had ever thought to expect.
“You will hear evidence that over one and a half years after Johnny Altinger’s disappearance,” Van Dyke said, pausing for effect, “the police had a further meeting with Mr. Twitchell at the Edmonton Remand Centre.” He let another moment pass. “And as a result of information provided in that meeting, the police were able to locate some of Johnny Altinger’s skeletal remains.”
The Devil's Cinema Page 27