EDMONTON — Jury selection has been completed in Mark Twitchell’s lengthy court proceedings, leading the way for a criminal trial to begin later this week.

Twitchell is charged with the first-degree murder of Johnny Altinger, a 38-year-old who vanished in October 2008.

After seven hours of deliberations today, a jury of 12 people and two alternates was selected from a pool of 192 people.

The trial will begin at 1.30pm on Wednesday, March 16th and is expected to run no later than the end of April. Over 70 people are expected to be called as witnesses.

I won’t be blogging or tweeting any of this case over the next four to six weeks as I’ll be focused solely on research for the forthcoming book (to be published by McClelland and Stewart).

Anyone with information about this case can contact me at 780-802-3835 or via e-mail at steve [at] stevelillebuen [dot] com.

There’s always the post office too:

PO Box 403   Stn. Main
Edmonton, AB   T5J 2J6

Anonymity is guaranteed.