Steve Lillebuen on Meeting (Dexter Killer) Mark Twitchell — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00why tell this story why why venture into
2. 0:03the mind of the the so-called dexter
3. 0:05killer yeah well i was uh working on the
4. 0:08crime beat for the edmonton journal when
5. 0:10this
6. 0:10story broke and i remember just being
7. 0:13very busy
8. 0:14when news of his arrest and charges had
9. 0:17happened but then sort of as the dust
10. 0:18settled
11. 0:19there was this big unanswered question
12. 0:21which was you know why
13. 0:22did this happen like how could you go
14. 0:24from being this
15. 0:25suburban father with a filmmaking career
16. 0:28to being a
17. 0:29you know dexter inspired want to be
18. 0:31serial killer
19. 0:32and you know i had a real curiosity
20. 0:34about you know how did someone make that
21. 0:36transformation
22. 0:37and that's what really drew me down this
23. 0:39path was just the
24. 0:41curiosity to know how a mind like that
25. 0:44works and how
26. 0:45how the psychology of someone like like
27. 0:47that who can put up together
28. 0:48put together a crime like this in such a
29. 0:50way can can transpire especially in my
30. 0:52home city
31. 0:53did you seek out his participation in
32. 0:56the book
33. 0:57yeah yeah i had that on my list of of of
34. 1:00course
35. 1:01what i wanted to do i was going to wait
36. 1:02until after his trial had concluded
37. 1:04before making the initial contact
38. 1:07but i was at home one day a few months
39. 1:09before the trial when uh
40. 1:11he called me i got this call out of the
41. 1:13blue and uh the voice on the other end
42. 1:15said hey it's mark
43. 1:17so how would he get your number is it
44. 1:19was it through contact with
45. 1:21yeah other contacts you had made to to
46. 1:23find out about them
47. 1:24exactly i had been interviewing his
48. 1:26friends and you know contacting his
49. 1:28family and uh you know basically anyone
50. 1:30that i could ever find that had ever
51. 1:32had contact with mark twitchell i had
52. 1:33given them my business card and
53. 1:35just worded trickled through the great
54. 1:37vine to him while he was
55. 1:38awaiting trial at the reman center and
56. 1:41they passed on the number and then he he
57. 1:43called me from one of the prisons
58. 1:45prison phones so what was his motivation
59. 1:46in doing that
60. 1:48i think i think he was a bit kind of
61. 1:50seeking out what i was up to
62. 1:52you know i was writing about his life
63. 1:53you know what does he want to do is he
64. 1:55trying to run my family into the ground
65. 1:57you know what are his motivations
66. 1:58i think he had an interest in that um
67. 2:01but i think he must have turned to leave
68. 2:03because he obviously spoke to you
69. 2:04yeah he spoke to me in uh in great
70. 2:06detail was about a year of
71. 2:08of contact that we had and i think his
72. 2:11other
73. 2:11motivation too was he knew that
74. 2:15i would get everything at the trial and
75. 2:17i'd be writing about all these
76. 2:18extraordinary and you know often
77. 2:20gruesome
78. 2:21details of what he had done but this was
79. 2:23an opportunity for him to tell
80. 2:25the complete story about his life not
81. 2:27just the crime but uh sort of how he got
82. 2:29there
83. 2:30so could have broadened the broaden the
84. 2:31perspective which he uh he wanted to do
85. 2:33and so so what makes this man's mind
86. 2:36tick
87. 2:37what what did you learn about that inner
88. 2:39mark twitchell
89. 2:40yeah well uh you know meeting him i i
90. 2:43remember meeting him for the first time
91. 2:45and i was
92. 2:45i mean to be honest i was expecting
93. 2:47hannibal lecter uh i was expecting to
94. 2:49walk in there and he'd just kind of you
95. 2:51know leer into the room and i'd just be
96. 2:52like you know taken it back in my chair
97. 2:55um you know and uh when i actually did
98. 2:58meet him
99. 2:59i was struck by how charming he could be
100. 3:02and uh
101. 3:02not that i'm defending him or anything
102. 3:04but he he has the side to him caught you
103. 3:06off guard
104. 3:06that caught me totally off guard i was
105. 3:08laughing um he was good at telling jokes
106. 3:10he's very charismatic and uh you know
107. 3:14that that really
108. 3:15really surprised me and i learned a lot
109. 3:17about his life and sort of his interest
110. 3:19in fantasy that had
111. 3:20gone back really is to early childhood
112. 3:23from things like star wars and comic
113. 3:24books and
114. 3:25his you know quest for make-believe had
115. 3:27sort of just slowly evolved
116. 3:29throughout his life until it became this
117. 3:31murder were you hesitant
118. 3:33at all to use his voice in the book
119. 3:36i was yeah i'm i mean you've always got
120. 3:39to
121. 3:40question your source and the credibility
122. 3:42of your source as a journalist as a
123. 3:43journalist and
124. 3:45i'm coming to writing this book is a
125. 3:47it's a
126. 3:48narrative non-fiction i don't make
127. 3:49anything up it's i wanted it to be a
128. 3:51true
129. 3:52fair accurate and you know balanced
130. 3:54account of everything that had happened
131. 3:56and but he's an admitted liar a
132. 3:59convicted murderer
133. 4:00and even a self-professed psychopath so
134. 4:02you know you gotta
135. 4:03kind of question who's talking to you so
136. 4:06i only used
137. 4:07from the correspondence that he gave me
138. 4:10prison letters and
139. 4:11conversations i only use things that i
140. 4:14could verify from
141. 4:15you know a third party so if he told me
142. 4:17something about some event
143. 4:19i would try to find that other person to
144. 4:20confirm did this actually happen is his
145. 4:23perspective on this
146. 4:24so you had to edit through all of this
147. 4:26and and but only some of it actually
148. 4:28made it into the book some of it was
149. 4:29weeded out
150. 4:30yeah there was there was a lot of you
151. 4:32know detail about his life
152. 4:33um that i just i wasn't able to get that
153. 4:36uh
154. 4:36third party confirmation so i didn't
155. 4:38include it in the book
156. 4:40they're also toward the end of the book
157. 4:42uh there's mention that that you wanted
158. 4:44to give his
159. 4:44his victim a voice how successful were
160. 4:47you in that
161. 4:49yeah i mean my heart goes out to johnny
162. 4:51altinger and and his family
163. 4:52i mean i'm you know i was very uh very
164. 4:56uh touched by finally meeting them
165. 4:58at the trial um we had spoke a few times
166. 5:00on the phone
167. 5:01um but you know they were so traumatized
168. 5:04by this event not only because of the
169. 5:06gruesomeness of of what had happened but
170. 5:08then
171. 5:09the media overexposure i mean they were
172. 5:11called you know incessantly and people
173. 5:13were they were bugged on facebook you
174. 5:15know every reporter and north america
175. 5:16was
176. 5:17trying to get them to to open up but i
177. 5:20was lucky in that some of his close
178. 5:21friends from work
179. 5:22and he had a few friends from the
180. 5:24vancouver area where
181. 5:25he had spent many years they did open up
182. 5:28to me and tell me
183. 5:29more about his life and and his
184. 5:31background and
185. 5:32you know he was a computer geek and was
186. 5:34sort of
187. 5:35had grown up one of the first members of
188. 5:37this internet age he was on the internet
189. 5:39before we even knew there was an
190. 5:40internet so there's lots of interesting
191. 5:42details about
192. 5:43johnny's life that haven't come to light
193. 5:45yet uh
194. 5:47mark twitchell himself has he read the
195. 5:49book are you still corresponding with
196. 5:51him
197. 5:52is there more of this tale to tell uh i
198. 5:55don't think he's read the book
199. 5:56um i i do wonder if uh you know
200. 5:59the prison system will have a
201. 6:01correctional plan for him and what's the
202. 6:03best
203. 6:03course of action for his rehabilitation
204. 6:08if that's even possible that's a big
205. 6:09unknown that at this early stage
206. 6:11and i don't know if reading a book about
207. 6:13himself would be
208. 6:14in that correctional plan but i do know
209. 6:16he knows about the title because uh
210. 6:18he must have heard it from one of his
211. 6:20friends and he wrote me one of his last
212. 6:22letters he said the devil's cinema
213. 6:23he's like isn't that a bit melodramatic
214. 6:26and i
215. 6:27that just cracked me up because i
216. 6:28thought i mean well that's the least
217. 6:29melodramatic part
218. 6:30about this whole story yeah steve really
219. 6:33appreciate uh
220. 6:34you're sharing this with us tonight and
221. 6:36it looks to be quite the read thank you
222. 6:38thanks very much
223. 6:39steve lillibuen is the author of the
224. 6:42devil's
225. 6:42cinema