EDMONTON–In a case police call a diabolically cruel convergence of art and life, local filmmaker Mark Twitchell will appear in court Monday charged with first-degree murder.

The 29-year-old fervid fan of the psycho-slasher TV show Dexter is accused of luring now-missing Johnny Altinger to a garage and killing him in a scenario that resembled Twitchell's latest film project – in which a man is abducted, tortured, and hacked to bits.

"We have a lot of information to suggest he definitely idolizes Dexter and a lot of information that he tried to emulate him during this incident," said Edmonton police homicide Det. Mark Anstey.

"It was definitely planned. He put a lot of thought, a lot of work, into it."

Dexter, a program on the Showtime network, follows Dexter Morgan, who studies blood spatters for Miami police but leads a secret life as a serial killer, hacking up victims in the name of vigilante justice.

In August, Twitchell – on his Facebook social networking site – referred to himself in the third person, saying "Mark has way too much in common with Dexter Morgan."

Another said, "Mark is set to evil."

Altinger, an oil and gas industry worker originally from White Rock, B.C., disappeared three weeks ago.

Police say the 38-year-old motorcycle enthusiast who came to the Alberta capital a decade ago, recently met a girl online on Oct. 10 and reportedly went to meet her at a southside detached residential double garage, where Twitchell had recently filmed a movie.

He hasn't been seen since, but police believe even without a body, they still have enough evidence to lay a charge.

"The movie was about luring a male from a dating Internet site and basically killing the male in the garage and chopping up his body parts and getting rid of the body," said Anstey.

Police declined to reveal more details about the crime to protect the integrity of the investigation.

The garage was rented separately from the house. Police believe Twitchell acted alone and didn't previously know Altinger.

In the movie, the victim was also forced to reveal personal banking information and passwords for his social network sites.

Shortly after Altinger's disappearance, he appeared to send friends an email message saying: "I've met an extraordinary woman named Jen who has offered to take me on a nice, long tropical vacation. We'll be staying in her winter home in Costa Rica."

It said he wouldn't be back until December. Friends said it didn't sound like the normally reserved man they knew and Anstey agreed.

"It definitely was not Mr. Altinger."

Police say they also want to talk to a man who may have been lured to the garage a week before Altinger on the same premise of an online date.

Two area residents reported seeing a man running from the garage on Oct. 3, eluding a pursuer who had been wearing a black-and-gold-painted hockey goalie mask.

"The victim was able to break free and run into the lane," said Anstey.

Police say the mask was used in Twitchell's movie and was found in his home in St. Albert – a city on Edmonton's northern outskirts.

Twitchell was arrested at his parents' north-end home on Halloween and returned there with police a day later in an apparent search for evidence.

Twitchell had been educated in Edmonton and was working on the fringes of the movie business as an independent director and producer.

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"The world is getting bigger and so is my influence on it," the father of two tells readers on his MySpace social networking site.

"My lifeblood is filmmaking," he adds. "I'm hooked. "If I don't end up doing it for a living, I'll feel that I failed somewhere down the line.

"My other passion in my life is my beautiful wife Jess. I've never been so in love in my life."

In late August, Twitchell was between projects, so he posted a Facebook request for actors to work for free on a mystery thriller short titled House of Cards, set to shoot over the last weekend of September – just days before the first alleged victim was seen running from the garage pursued by the man in the goalie mask.

Among the advertised roles for House of Cards were: The Killer ("Need a male, playing mid to late 20s. Needs to deliver in a cold sociopathic voice") and The Victim (Male, playing age mid-40s).

"I'm casting all these roles personally so just contact me through Facebook to start the process. We're short on time so the sooner the better," wrote Twitchell on Facebook.

Just three days before the shooting date, Twitchell was back on Facebook. "Mark," he wrote. "Is gearin' up for a crazy weekend of filmin' action."

On his blogsite, Twitchell says he doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and counts the Star Wars Luke Skywalker character as among his heroes.

Star Wars has been core to his work. He had been finishing post-production on a low-budget tribute movie titled Star Wars: Secrets of the Rebellion – a work Twitchell's production company Xpress Entertainment trumpeted as one that emulates an "$80-million film on a budget of just $60,000."

Though the project is not affiliated with Lucasfilm, Twitchell, on his blogsite, said it was his life's calling to fix what Star Wars creator George Lucas had ruined by focusing on special effects over storyline.

"Often I feel beside myself, stunned that it's me who gets the divine opportunity to tell this story," says Twitchell.

"I was born to do this and every turn I've taken on the path to life has led me to this. It's my destiny to revive the electricity of Star Wars and invoke that chill in the spine that Lucas was too focused on the money to do.

"He (Lucas) is more machine now than man."

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