The Devil's Cinema (42 page)

He viewed his forthcoming defence as a sustained attack on S. K. Confessions, a document even he had grown to hate. Now he wanted to make it vanish; he wanted to wipe the slate clean. Twitchell compared his strategy to bursting a giant bubble of misinformation. “The world is completely fooled,” he wrote. “Right now they think and believe only what I initially designed for them to think and believe.”

It had been two weeks since his breakdown in court, and a psychiatrist had cleared him to leave the mental health unit. He was feeling fine, bolstered by lengthy preparations with his lawyer. Over cups of jailhouse mocha – hot chocolate mix, coffee whitener, three sugars, and instant coffee – Twitchell had spent the past weekend digging into the far corners of his mind, recalling every tiny detail, anything that could be used to help in his case. A legal decision had been finalized: he would be taking the stand in his own defence. He was the only person who could refute that incriminating diary.

Davison had spent hours with him to prepare for his court appearance. He warned Twitchell repeatedly to reply to questions on the stand with
very specific answers, to always tell the truth, and to certainly drop his wry sense of humour. The final point resonated with Twitchell. He had been hoping his testimony could begin on April Fool's Day as a way to hint at his “inner prankster,” but the timing was off by five days. But he did understand the courtroom was no place for a comedy routine. “Although I often do have a morbid, inappropriate sense of humour at times, many times done for the sheer shock value, even I have my limits,” he explained later. “Cracking one-liners while I'm testifying at my own murder trial is too over-the-top – even for me.”

Between his restless nights and bouts of studying to prepare for his defence, however, Twitchell did find time to compile a fantasy cast for a future Hollywood movie about his life and trial. He decided Jim Carrey would be a great fit for the role of his own lawyer – “His last crack at drama” – or perhaps Hugh Laurie, who could use the role to shake off the typecasting from the TV series
House
. The prosecution would be played by Casper Van Dean, a chiselled James Dean lookalike who had starred in
Starship Troopers
, and Natalie Dormer, a British actress best-known as Lady Anne Boleyn in Showtime's
The Tudors
. The judge would be given a tough guy image with Robert De Niro presiding over the courtroom battle. Twitchell couldn't decide between his top three picks to play himself: Ryan Phillippe, Matt Damon, or Guy Pearce. Even on trial, he couldn't help drifting into fantasy.

Davison clearly had his work cut out for him in bringing Twitchell back on task. His client had a burning desire to go on the attack the second he was confronted with the evidence against him. As they prepared for court, Twitchell likened Davison to a disciplined piano teacher, slapping his hands whenever he ventured into territory that was pointless or out of bounds for his upcoming testimony. He appreciated Davison's thoroughness and expertise.

Twitchell debated how realistic his chances were of winning his murder trial as he sat in the holding cell awaiting the start of court. Other inmates in the basement tank frequently asked Twitchell this very question at the beginning and end of each day. After all, he had attracted a certain notoriety in prison. Everyone knew of him as “the movie killer” and recognized his face from television and in the newspapers. Twitchell was expecting
these kinds of inquiries. When asked, he would always reply that the extent of the prosecution's evidence against him was no surprise, but he wouldn't have waited years for a criminal trial if he didn't honestly believe he had a fighting chance.

He still believed that as he waited for court to begin. Twitchell felt his defence was so strong at times that the jury would be overcome with a beautiful epiphany. He imagined jurors having a change of heart and deciding the possible life sentence he was facing should be reduced to a lesser charge, perhaps even going so far as to set him free for time already served.

Minutes later, Davison tried to “set the context” of the trial during his opening address to the jury. He compared this criminal trial to watching an artist paint a picture. “What you think he's going to draw or she's going to paint at the beginning isn't quite what the finished project turns out to be.” There would be a new perspective put on this entire case, he said, and the defence was relying on only one piece of evidence to make its point. Today, Davison would call his first and final witness: Mark Andrew Twitchell.

Wearing his white polo shirt, now yellowing from being worn nearly every day of the three-week-old trial, Twitchell took an affirmation instead of swearing an oath to God. He wasn't much of a believer. People sometimes thought he was an atheist since he often described the Bible as a “bizarre book,” but when asked directly he explained he was of two minds on the religion issue. “I have chosen my own purpose in life and it's very empowering to do so. I'll worry about the ethereal plane when I get there.”

He began his testimony haltingly, stumbling over his words. Standing a few steps up from the floor beside Justice Clackson, peering over the tops of the heads of observers seated in the packed gallery, he appeared nervous. Today, he was the main attraction. Guards once again were having to turn away people at the door.

Davison stood in the centre of the court at the main podium, asking Twitchell basic questions about his filmmaking career until he had settled in and was more comfortable, ready to tell his side of the story. He would remain standing throughout his testimony.

Twitchell turned to face the jury. He began speaking slowly, projecting his voice. Oddly, he referred to himself as “we” several times until he was warned to stop. He knew this was the critical moment that would decide
his fate and freedom. But even now, in his tiredness, Twitchell didn't know how best to explain himself.

He liked comparing himself to Dr. Frankenstein, but he didn't dare broach this subject in front of the jury. Just like the infamous doctor, he had considered the possibility that he, too, had created a monster that had gotten out of hand. The difference was Twitchell honestly believed his own monstrous creation had surpassed even the worst nightmares of Frankenstein. His creation had resulted in his arrest, a murder charge, the end of his future as a filmmaker, and it had sucked countless innocent people into its massive jaws.

Twitchell's monster was called MAPLE.

It was an acronym, he explained: Multi-Angle Psychosis Layering Entertainment.

The prosecution and the detectives watching him in court shared a collective look of surprise. It was the first anyone had heard of it.

Davison gave Twitchell plenty of time to elaborate. On the witness stand, his client soon became animated and looked confident, moving full-on into a mini sales pitch.

Twitchell described in excitement how early on in the development of
House of Cards
it had become clear the project had the potential to go beyond being just a simple short film. There was promise of so much more. He had envisioned a feature film, a novel, and an online marketing campaign working together to sell the same product through his new concept, MAPLE. The point was to keep the audience believing fiction was reality long after they had seen the film or read the novel. Twitchell brought up
Alice in Wonderland
and how he loved the idea of keeping everyone “down the rabbit hole” or in a fantasy world for as long as possible.

The movie, he said, would follow the story of a man's progression into becoming a serial killer. The man would use a suburban garage as a kill room. This horror film would detail how there are dangerous people everywhere: at the bank, the bakery, perhaps even in the movie theatre. The novel, to be released shortly after the movie, would be a first-person account written from the perspective of the producer who made the film. But the book would also reveal that the producer is actually a serial killer who had made the film to hide the evidence of his real-life slayings. The
novel would include plenty of detail from the producer's own life, Twitchell explained, to fool readers into believing the novel was the true story of a serial killer, blurring the line between fiction and reality so thoroughly that there would be controversy and debate over what was real and what was fake. Is the producer really a serial killer? Is the movie a true account of a murderer's method? Is the book a confession or a work of fiction?

The jewel in MAPLE's crown would be a final ploy to use the Internet to spread the story virally, so it would become an online urban legend. Twitchell imagined his audience would immediately search online for any evidence of fakery, and such online buzz could go a long way in keeping the mystery alive. A plan developed. Twitchell wanted to locate “recruits” to support the MAPLE concept by luring them off dating websites, just like in the plot of the movie and novel. When these recruits arrived, he would pitch them the idea of supporting the MAPLE concept by having them “pretend” to be survivors of real-life attacks when the movie and novel were released. But Twitchell testified he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to scare the arriving recruits into thinking they were actually under attack. These so-called victims would be so terrified, he said, they would flood online message boards, the film's website, and social-networking sites such as Facebook with comments. “I was there. I
saw
the room,” they'd say. Their belief that they had survived a real attack would support the reality/fiction structure of MAPLE even more and keep the audience guessing. Twitchell testified that he had come up with this concept following the
House of Cards
wrap party. After dinner, he had stayed up late, his Internal Creative Genius striking him again.

Twitchell testified that his interest in such horror-themed material led him to borrow ideas from multiple sources, including writers Stephen King, Thomas Harris, and Jeff Lindsay. But he explained away his Dexter Morgan profile on Facebook as just a way to interact with fans of the show. His message on October 14, 2008, that he had “crossed the line on Friday … and I liked it” was a reference to falling in love with Traci at the movies all over again, not killing someone.

His testimony was a virtual admission to all of the evidence against him, but he contended that essentially everyone had been fooled by what it meant: the homicide cops who arrested him, the Crown prosecutors who
pursued him, and now the court for denying his bail and pressing forward with a first-degree murder charge. All of them had been pulled down the rabbit hole, he said. It was all fantasy. Twitchell was the puppetmaster, but his puppet had turned on him and implicated him in a real-life murder when it was all a work of fiction. Those murder weapons? All movie props. The table and chair? Props too. The garage? A movie set. And S. K. Confessions? That was the first draft of the novel portion of MAPLE. Of course the writings are brash and insensitive. And for good reason: it is the fictionalized diary of an evil serial killer! The reason why it had so many elements of Twitchell's own life within it was all due to MAPLE. The novel could only work if reality and fiction blended and merged so thoroughly that nobody could tell the difference.

The jury hung on to every word of Twitchell's explanation. But did they buy it?

One problem was how closely the testimony of Gilles Tetreault had matched the account of the first attack in S. K. Confessions, right down to the most minute detail. But Twitchell explained away the incident as a plan that went horribly awry. He testified that he had only wanted to fool Gilles into thinking he was under attack as his first MAPLE recruit. He had no intention of actually hurting him – just a plan to scare him, let him escape, and spread the word online about his own terrifying experience with a masked man in a garage once the movie and novel were released.

A second problem was obvious: Johnny's skeletal remains.

Twitchell, on the witness stand, then made a startling admission: he killed Johnny Altinger. But it wasn't what the prosecution thought, he testified. It wasn't murder. Not even close.

Davison stepped in at this point and began guiding Twitchell through his testimony point by point. He asked his client to explain what happened when Johnny arrived at the garage, having been lured there off the Internet by Twitchell pretending to be a woman named Jen.

Twitchell said he had learned from his mistakes with Gilles. So when Johnny showed up he wasn't pretending to be the masked killer anymore. He identified himself as a filmmaker. But he also wanted to draw this experience out as long as possible so he'd have more material for his novel. He started toying with Johnny, making him come back and forth, thinking Jen
was just late and still on her way. When Johnny returned for the third time and said, “I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment,” Twitchell testified he decided to finally spill the story about Multi-Angle Psychosis Layering Entertainment. He explained to Johnny that Jen did not exist because it was all just a hoax that he had cooked up, but that he wanted Johnny to be part of the MAPLE concept to help promote the film in the future.

Twitchell said Johnny “didn't seem too humoured by it” and appeared indignant and angry. “He was telling me, ‘This is what you do? You're luring people over here and then, what, springing this on them?' I don't remember his exact words or phrasing,” Twitchell told the jury. “And then at the end he just goes, ‘Well, that's pathetic.' And then of course I'm gonna react so, in not the kindest way, I tell him, ‘Pathetic? Hey, look who's talking?' “

“What were the words you used, the best you remember them?” Davison asked.

Twitchell licked his dry and cracking lips. He had been on the witness stand for more than two hours by this point. He grabbed the plastic water cup beside him, took a tiny sip, paused, and then exhaled. “I turned my back on him and then I told him that he should probably just crawl back to whatever little hole he crawled out of.” Twitchell hesitated and rolled his hand out in the air like it was something he didn't want to say. “Because he could probably never get a woman that good-looking in his life anyway.” He said he then turned away and thought Johnny was walking out the door.