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Twitchell demands appeal

Convicted murderer Mark Twitchell believes media coverage and assaults on his character during his recent high-profile murder trial are among many reasons why his conviction should be quashed and a new trial granted.

Convicted murderer Mark Twitchell believes media coverage and assaults on his character during his recent high-profile murder trial are among many reasons why his conviction should be quashed and a new trial granted.

Twitchell filed a notice on Monday with the Alberta Court of Appeal seeking to have his first-degree murder conviction overturned and granting him a new trial in front of a judge, instead of a jury.

In the handwritten appeal notice, authored from the Saskatchewan institution where he is currently being held, he argued press coverage of the case ruined his chance for a fair trial.

“The media attention surrounding my case was so extensive, so blatant and so overtly sensationalized that it is unreasonable to expect any unsequestered jury to have remained uninfluenced by it, regardless of the judge’s instructions.”

At the opening of the trial and in his charge to the jury, Justice Terry Clackson specifically told the jury to put out of their mind any information they might have learned about the case through the media.

Twitchell also claims there was a host of evidence demonstrating he could not have planned the killing the way the Crown suggested.

He argues he had a detailed work history with computers and due to that knowledge would never have used a computer to commit a crime.

He also said the defence did not present any evidence about his film career and a financial windfall he was expecting through that work that would defeat any argument he killed John Brian Altinger for financial reasons.

“If explored, it will directly undermine the Crown contention that extorting potential victims was ever a motive.”

Twitchell also focused on the document ‘SKconfessions,’ which was tabled as exhibit 88 during the trial, arguing there was evidence that went uncalled demonstrating the document was mostly fiction.

“Significant differences in the philosophical world view and the individual search for meaning between myself and the exhibit 88 narrator were not discussed.”

The Crown called several witnesses during the trial, including Twitchell’s ex-wife and former girlfriend, who pointed to real life instances that directly mirrored the SKconfessions document.

Twitchell said that evidence was also used to showcase times he had lied to the two women giving the jury a false depiction of his character.

“This led the jury to make an inappropriate and skewed character judgement — concluding I’m a lifetime liar.”

Twitchell argued the safeguards the court put in place to prevent the jury from focusing on his character, rather than evidence about the murder itself, failed.

He wrote the Crown’s theory of the case does not make sense and needs to be challenged.

“The Crown’s theory leans on too many fallacies of logic and contradictions in reasoning to make sense.”

Twitchell admitted to killing Altinger during the trial, but argued he had done so accidentally or in self-defence. He said Altinger had become enraged after arriving at a south Edmonton garage expecting go on a date, only to find out Twitchell had lured him there as part of a film project.

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