A horror film director and a seasoned homicide detective match wits in a high stakes game of cat and mouse. This episode originally published on October 15, 2024.
Chapter 1: Who is Mark Twitchell and what is his situation?
He's any place, anywhere, as stressful, as confining, as exhausting as a police interview room at 4 o'clock in the morning. Filmmaker Mark Twitchell had been in that little room for five hours, patiently answering Detective Bill Clark's questions about this guy, Johnny Altinger, who'd been missing for more than a week.
And now, during a break, a decidedly drooping Twitchell pulled out a cell phone and punched in his wife's phone number.
The problem is that I'm so tired and it's so hard to remember things.
Of course, he wasn't exactly alone. At that moment, he shared the space with a microphone and a camera so that outside the room, Detective Bill Clark could watch and listen. But all Mark Twitchell did was complain to his wife.
It's so hard to remember, like, these minute, specific details about these days that I just didn't ever bother to think about or remember because who the hell does that, you know?
Detective Clark was asking so many detailed questions because... I know I'm not getting the truth.
I know he's lying to me. No doubt in my mind. I know he's involved up to his neck. I still don't know what he's done.
If anything, that is, because really all Clark had was just a feeling that Mark Twitchell had been handing him a whole load of nonsense, fully expecting Clark to believe it. He didn't, but... He'd been letting things develop, organic-like, if you will, patiently. Like he bought it all.
I agreed with everything he said. Like I didn't, this wasn't the time of the interview to start pushing him on it. It wasn't the time to start confronting him. That would come later on.
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Chapter 2: What was the interaction between Mark Twitchell and Detective Clark?
Because an innocent man, we expect you to say this. Look, I didn't do it. You got the wrong guy. We've done the good cop routine. Now my forte, the bad cop's coming out.
Your forte.
This is what you like. This is what I like. This is what I relish. Now I'm going to start with the... Hammer him with what I know. Problem is, I know very little. And I know I know very little. And he must know. By the way I talk, I don't know much.
But Detective Clark acted like he knew everything from the moment he opened the door and re-entered the room. It was all bluster, of course.
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. Why? I have no idea what the hell is going on. And then his response is like it's, he goes, well, what do you mean? Or something like that. He goes, it's like. I can't believe this. Yeah, I'm going like, holy, this is our guy. Now we need to know what he did. I know then.
I got him. Like, I know he's done it. He's done something to him. I don't know what. I don't know how. Just based on his reaction to your accusation. Absolutely. I don't understand. But you do understand because you know what I'm talking about. You're involved in this. I just don't understand.
Now that it was clear to Mr. Twitchell that he was being questioned not as a witness, but as some sort of suspect, he dropped the chummy act like a bad script.
You can see a whole change in demeanor. Sure, certainly he shut down. He shut down. And, you know, I'm looking in his eyes. I'm watching him. He's leaning back at times. He's tightening up a little bit. All signs, you know, he's uncomfortable. I got him uncomfortable. But I...
You know, I don't have any evidence to confront him with, to really push him on the points and get him to make any confessions or any admissions about anything. Why can't you give me your version of events that night? Because I'm scared.
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Chapter 3: What evidence did the police find regarding Johnny Altinger's disappearance?
He was a very sharp, bright, young, articulate entrepreneur. Exactly the kind of individual that most of us are looking for. So he came to our group. He... Sold the group, really, I think on the enthusiasm. He was dropping Alec Baldwin, for example, as being someone that he had a commitment from. Basically, what he was looking for was 10 individuals to put forward $35,000.
Detectives even got a look at the teaser film for Twitchell's next project, the three and a half million dollar buddy comedy, Day Players, in which Mark played the role of director, even as he was the director. Sort of a Hall of Mirrors type story. A movie about a movie about making a movie or something.
What?
Guys, can you keep it down back there? We're trying to keep the audio clean for the take. I don't want to have to do this 16 times. Sorry. Sorry.
Fantasy and reality all mixed up somehow. Just to cover the basis, the police interviewed Mark Twitchell's crew members. They vouched for him completely and revealed they all shared a passion for Star Wars. They loved the whole tale about the Force and the dark side. Loved it so much that their first project together was a Star Wars fan film called Secrets of the Rebellion.
Mark was wildly successful that time at drumming up local media coverage, which is when he started becoming kind of a big deal in Edmonton. He was even interviewed by the CBC. We keep pretty good pace with Lucasfilm, actually, when it comes to producing the films. His was, no bones about it, a low-budget production.
But even so, Twitchell was able to land one of the original Star Wars actors, Jeremy Bullock, who played the bounty hunter Boba Fett. That was enticement enough to get Toronto-based actor Sean Storer to sign on for a part.
As soon as I found out that I would be playing alongside him, I was like, great, why not? It's a named actor.
Sci-fi is not Storer's thing, though. And once he got to Edmonton, he found the atmosphere on Mark Twitchell's set a little too playful, unserious, at least for him. One cringeworthy moment happened when Twitchell paraded around the set with a pillow stuffed under his shirt.
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Chapter 4: How did Mark Twitchell's personal life affect the investigation?
Yeah, but entertaining. It's not real.
And particularly fascinating.
Very fascinating, yeah.
So when Waring saw that Michael C. Hall Facebook profile, well, she fired off her friend request. Did you think you were friending the actor himself?
Sure, you know.
You thought it was the actual guy?
Sure. Yeah, but I also thought that, you know, an actor in Hollywood has more things and better things to do than to play around with people on Facebook, you know.
Except she actually got a response.
I asked him within the second or third email, I said, are you the Michael C. Hall? And he was honest and he said, no, he was not.
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