The Dexter Copycat Killer Explored

Life Imitates Art is a tale as old as time that sometimes has malevolent consequences, namely the phenomenon of copycat killers, individuals who base their crimes on acts of violence already committed by another person, real or fictional. Today on Scream to Screen, we analyze the real-life tragedy behind Mark Andrew Twitchell. Dexter Morgan is the sociopathic protagonist of the Darling Dexter book series, written by Jeff Lindsay, as well as the television and series Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall. In both the novels and TV series, Dexter is a forensic blood splatter analyst who works for the fictitious Miami Metro Police Department and holds a dark secret. In his spare time, he is a vigilante serial killer who targets other murderers who have evaded the justice system. He follows a code of ethics taught to him in childhood by his adopted father, Harry, which is referred to as the Code of Harry, or simply just The Code, and hinges on two principles. Dexter can only kill people after finding conclusive evidence that they are guilty of murder, and he must not get caught. For the vast majority of his murders, Dexter incapacitates his victims by injecting them with an anesthetic, rendering them temporarily unconscious, where he takes them to his private killing site. When the victims awaken, they are bound to a metal table with plastic wrap before Dexter kills them using various methods. In the books, he's known to torture his victims with various sharp knives, but in the show, prefers to use more immediate methods of delivery to the great beyond. Dexter ultimately stows his victims in black heavy-duty trash bags and disposes of the evidence by dropping the blood-soaked bags offshore to be dispersed into the Gulf Stream. Mark Andrew Twitchell was a Canadian filmmaker convicted of first-degree murder of John Johnny Brian Altinger in 2011. His trial attracted particular media attention as it became apparent that the murderer idolized Dexter Morgan. Wanting to reenact the life of Dexter, Twitchell had adopted his persona on Facebook and made a movie that was similar to how the sociopathic antihero operates on the Showtime series. After writing a script for a Dexter fan film, Twitchell began posing as women online, interested in having an affair with married men. In October 2008, Johnny Altinger unknowingly interacted with Twitchell on the dating website Plenty of Fish. On October 10, Altinger informed his friends of his plans to meet a woman he had been chatting with online, only to discover much too late that Twitchell had been catfishing him in order to lure him into a setup in his garage, complete with Dexter's infamous metal table. Twitchell then proceeded to take Altinger's life and then attempted to get rid of the remains via a nearby storm sewer. Following his disappearance, Altinger's friends grew suspicious and concerned after receiving emails in which Altinger claimed that his date had taken him on an extended vacation to Costa Rica. This was an immediate red flag, as the email did not read in Altinger's usual tone, and his friends all knew he doesn't like hot weather. After his employer received a cryptic email detailing his resignation, Johnny's friends broke into his condo, where they found his passport, dirty dishes, and no indication that he had packed for a trip. They reported their concerns to the Edmonton Police Service, and a homicide investigation was soon launched. Although Twitchell was not initially a suspect, he related an improbable account to police of having met Altinger before his trip to Costa Rica. According to Twitchell, Altinger sold his car to him for $40, claiming to not need it anymore now that he'd be on holiday for a while. Not believing his story, officers searched Twitchell's home and found a plethora of science fiction memorabilia and film posters. They also found books about forensic science, serial killers, and a guide to Costa Rica, along with a pile of blank postcards and a black hockey mask with gold stripes, which appeared to have blood on it. Once authorities impounded Twitchell's laptop and car, they uncovered a military knife stained with Altinger's blood and blood soaked carpet in the vehicle's trunk. Investigators also found dozens of post-it notes with cryptic messages scrawled on them like kill room, clean sweep. Twitchell was arrested on October 31, 2008, and charged with the first degree murder of Johnny Altinger the same day. The key piece of evidence presented by the Crown at Twitchell's murder trial was a document entitled SK Confessions, or Serial Killer Confessions. The document which had been recovered from Twitchell's laptop despite having been deleted began with the passage, this story is based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer. SK Confessions presented an account of its narrator's planning, failed first attempt, and successful second attempt to lure a man into his garage and murder him using fake online dating profiles as bait. It went on to describe the process of dismembering the body and attempts to dispose of the remains. The document read that the killer wanted to target married men who were cheating on their spouses, but he feared that they'd be missed. Instead, he decided to focus his killing on middle-aged single men. It outlined what the killer would wear when he murdered the men, a black hockey mask painted with gold stripes and a black hooded jumper, and told of how he would murder his victims in a kill room on a metal table, just like Dexter. The Journal also wrote about another target who had managed to escape from the killer a week before the second murder. The document said that the man arrived at the garage and was attacked with a stun gun but didn't go down. Instead, he fought his attacker and got away in his car. Police didn't believe Johnny was the first person to visit the garage and held a press conference announcing Twitchell's arrest, presenting the black and gold hockey mask and urging other victims to come forward. Two days later, Giles Tetreault contacted authorities, revealing he was the first man to be attacked in the garage a week later before Johnny Altinger's death. He was embarrassed to report his assault as he was a married man, but he knew that he had to come forward after Johnny's death was linked to the mask. Tetreault testified that he was lured using the website Plenty of Fish, expecting a date with a young woman named Sheena, only to be attacked by a man in a hockey mask with a stun baton when he arrived at the garage in Edmonton rented by Twitchell. After a violent struggle, Tetreault escaped, but did not report the attack to police. Giles Tetreault's testimony earned him the nickname, The One Who Got Away, by several media outlets and went on to write a book of the same title, detailing his account and close call with Mark Twitchell. During the trial, Twitchell's strong interest in the Dexter series kept coming up, and his personal identification with the lead character, Dexter Morgan, prompted several media outlets to refer to him as the Dexter Killer. On the stand, Twitchell admitted to killing Altinger and authoring the document, citing self-defense. He claimed the attacks were part of a PR stunt meant to cause a buzz around the new movie and that all the victims were supposed to escape. But Johnny had fought back, resulting in Twitchell accidentally killing him. He went on to describe the document as fiction based on fact, as if he had planned Altinger's death deliberately in order to craft a compelling story. Unsurprisingly, the jury didn't buy this fabricated account. And after just five hours of deliberation, Mark Twitchell was found guilty on first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. In December 2021, Michael C. Hall stated in an interview on the Canadian radio show Q that he did not think Dexter supported the lifestyle of serial killers. When the subject of Twitchell came up, the actor became horrified that his breakout role could have something to do with someone's murder. Marc-Andrew Twitchell was not the only fan to take his infatuation with Dexter Morgan to macabre heights. In 2009, 17-year-old Rising Sun resident Andrew Connelly, who claimed to identify with the murderous vigilante, strangled his 10-year-old brother to death, citing his love for the Showtime series as an inspiration. In an affidavit filed on Ohio County Court, Connelly told police that he watches a show called Dexter on Showtime about a serial killer, and I feel just like him. Even more sinister, after killing his brother, Connelly put a plastic bag over the young boy's head, mimicking a practice that Dexter ritually commits to dispose of his victims. Conley pleaded guilty to the murder of his young brother, Connor, on Ohio Circuit Court in 2010. The now 29-year-old is currently serving a life sentence without parole with the Indiana Department of Corrections. Copycat killings are murders committed in a way that is already established by previous murder committed by someone else. Some credit the year 1912 with the birth of this class of killer, with intense media coverage of the Jack the Ripper murders spawning a multitude of similar crimes and coining the term copycat effect. Modern criminologists have long been aware of the potential for media exposure to lead to copycat killings. As the media has grown, other forms of entertainment, especially movies, television series, and video games, have come under fire for allegedly leading to copycats based crimes on what they see on the screen. Outside of Dexter, Jack the Ripper may be the most notorious killer to inspire protégés, spawning dozens of copycat killers over the last century, including Derrick Brown, who murdered two women that he picked up from the same location in East London, where the Ripper carried out his murders over 120 years prior. Other famous copycats include Eddie Setta, who echoed the Zodiac Killer in the late 1980s, and Benjamin Derris and Sarah Edmondson, a teenage couple who went on a killing spree the day after watching the film Natural Born Killers while under the influence of LSD. So there you have it. The story of Dexter Morgan and the not one but two copycat killers who became influenced by his fictitious work, along with some other notable copycats,