diplomatically as possible, that âthe results were markedly different.â No one had contacted the relationship-seeker, but the woman wanting casual sex had her profile viewed nearly four times more often and had received more than fifty instant message requests. âThere were a number of repeats as well, guys that were repeatedly trying to get a hold of me,â he said.
The experiment didnât say much for men, but it said a lot for the investigation: it proved another fact in Twitchellâs diary was true. The document had stated the very same differences in responses based on the type of interaction the woman was seeking. The officer could cross that one off the list of 301 tasks from the diary to prove.
But this was just one of the two duties assigned to the officer by homicide during the Twitchell investigation. The other would require an elaborate plan. The cop would need to be cunning and determined. It was to be a covert operation, requiring him to get as deep into Twitchellâs life as possible while remaining completely undetected.
T HE SURVEILLANCE TEAM HAD been given orders to arrest Twitchell only if he tried to flee or commit a crime. Sometimes officers crawled into the yard at night to peer into a window to confirm he was still in the basement. But twenty-four-hour surveillance was expensive. The team had to include a half-dozen officers at any given time. After only a few days of steady monitoring, a decision was made to pull the night crew. Surveillance started leaving at 1:30 a.m. and returning at 5:30 a.m., giving Twitchell a four-hour window each night when no one was watching.
They could only hope he was staying put.
A NSTEY HAD BEEN WAITING for lab results for three days, trying to be patient, but he was frustrated. Detectives started each day rolling their eyes when told the lab results for the new items taken from Johnnyâs condo still werenât back. They would joke that lab techs from television crime shows like
CSI
could get DNA results in an hour. In real life, there were city cases that had been stalled on DNA analysis for weeks, sometimes months. Even with a case as high priority as Twitchellâs, it would still take time. No one knew how long.
Anstey passed Clark in the hallway. âIâve changed my mind,â he said. He wanted Paul Linkâs role in the case changed. âIf he doesnât believe this guy did it, then I canât have him interview him. You guys decide amongst yourselves how you wanna do it.â
Clark talked it over with Link, and they figured they would work as a tag team when an arrest interview took place. Clark would bombard Twitchell with the facts and see how he responded. Then he would introduce Linkas the biggest cop in town. He would be addressed as an âInspector,â the top dog in every criminal investigation. They thought Twitchell may think it was beneath him to talk to a detective; they would stroke his ego by making him think his actions had attracted the attention of the most senior officer in the city.
But the truth was, they didnât know the man at all. They had a lot of evidence, but they still didnât know what really made him tick. The guy was weird, some kind of
Star Wars
and horror film fanatic. He was a father, a businessman, and a wannabe serial killer? It didnât make any sense. What was his motive?
The police theory was that Mark Twitchell had decided he wanted to become a serial killer, documented that decision in writing, and embarked on that career by luring strangers to their deaths. No one knew why. It started with the shooting of a short film called
House of Cards
, about a killer who attacks cheating husbands for their infidelity. The movie plot was then replicated in real life, but with single men as the victims. According to the diary, Twitchell failed in his first attempt on Friday, October 3, and the man got away. But he must have learned from his mistakes when he
The experiment didnât say much for men, but it said a lot for the investigation: it proved another fact in Twitchellâs diary was true. The document had stated the very same differences in responses based on the type of interaction the woman was seeking. The officer could cross that one off the list of 301 tasks from the diary to prove.
But this was just one of the two duties assigned to the officer by homicide during the Twitchell investigation. The other would require an elaborate plan. The cop would need to be cunning and determined. It was to be a covert operation, requiring him to get as deep into Twitchellâs life as possible while remaining completely undetected.
T HE SURVEILLANCE TEAM HAD been given orders to arrest Twitchell only if he tried to flee or commit a crime. Sometimes officers crawled into the yard at night to peer into a window to confirm he was still in the basement. But twenty-four-hour surveillance was expensive. The team had to include a half-dozen officers at any given time. After only a few days of steady monitoring, a decision was made to pull the night crew. Surveillance started leaving at 1:30 a.m. and returning at 5:30 a.m., giving Twitchell a four-hour window each night when no one was watching.
They could only hope he was staying put.
A NSTEY HAD BEEN WAITING for lab results for three days, trying to be patient, but he was frustrated. Detectives started each day rolling their eyes when told the lab results for the new items taken from Johnnyâs condo still werenât back. They would joke that lab techs from television crime shows like
CSI
could get DNA results in an hour. In real life, there were city cases that had been stalled on DNA analysis for weeks, sometimes months. Even with a case as high priority as Twitchellâs, it would still take time. No one knew how long.
Anstey passed Clark in the hallway. âIâve changed my mind,â he said. He wanted Paul Linkâs role in the case changed. âIf he doesnât believe this guy did it, then I canât have him interview him. You guys decide amongst yourselves how you wanna do it.â
Clark talked it over with Link, and they figured they would work as a tag team when an arrest interview took place. Clark would bombard Twitchell with the facts and see how he responded. Then he would introduce Linkas the biggest cop in town. He would be addressed as an âInspector,â the top dog in every criminal investigation. They thought Twitchell may think it was beneath him to talk to a detective; they would stroke his ego by making him think his actions had attracted the attention of the most senior officer in the city.
But the truth was, they didnât know the man at all. They had a lot of evidence, but they still didnât know what really made him tick. The guy was weird, some kind of
Star Wars
and horror film fanatic. He was a father, a businessman, and a wannabe serial killer? It didnât make any sense. What was his motive?
The police theory was that Mark Twitchell had decided he wanted to become a serial killer, documented that decision in writing, and embarked on that career by luring strangers to their deaths. No one knew why. It started with the shooting of a short film called
House of Cards
, about a killer who attacks cheating husbands for their infidelity. The movie plot was then replicated in real life, but with single men as the victims. According to the diary, Twitchell failed in his first attempt on Friday, October 3, and the man got away. But he must have learned from his mistakes when he
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