Edmonton killer Mark Twitchell files appeal
Posted May 10, 2011 4:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Mark Twitchell, the man convicted of first degree murder for killing and dismembering a complete stranger in 2008, has launched an appeal.
The 31-year-old Edmonton filmmaker is currently serving a life sentence in a Saskatchewan prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
A jury found he lured Johnny Altinger over the Internet and murdered him in a way that mirrored one of his movie scripts.
Twitchell is blaming both the media and his original defence lawyer for his murder conviction.
In the appeal notice, he argues that his trial got so much media coverage, that no unsequestered jury could possibly have not been influenced, no matter what instructions the judge gave them.
He also says his lawyer didn’t adequately address key points as to his state of mind at the time of the killing and his credibility.
Twitchell contends that while he may have been caught telling lies to his girlfriend, that doesn’t mean he lied to police.
He also says his advanced knowledge of computers wasn’t adequately taken into account during the trial. He says because he knows so much about the gadgets, he would understand that if he had lured Altinger over the Internet with the intent to kill him, he would know the evidence could be easily tracked.
Twitchell filed the papers himself and does not yet have a lawyer.
