The mystery of the Silent Twins

                We all know identical twins are creepy, especially if you’ve watched or read The Shining, and sometimes the real world reinforces this feeling—as is the case with the Gibbons sisters. Lately I’ve been tooling around with the idea to research some unexplained mystery or phenomenon, not in the vainglorious hopes of solving it, merely to expand my own thinking. While this thought was ruminating, I stumbled across a short article about the Gibbons sisters; twin girls from a small Welsh town. Their story caught my attention, and over the proceeding weeks I found my thoughts often returning to them.

                So I began to research them. I read news articles from the 80s and 90s, interviews with the journalist who wrote their biography, and my basic understanding of them grew. And so did my questions.

                June and Jennifer Gibbons were born on April 11, 1963, in Barbados. Their father was a technician for the RAF, currently stationed there. Soon after their birth the family moved to the small Welsh town of Haverfordwest. It should be noted that they were a black family, and as one knows small Welsh towns are not known for their diversity—they were the only black people in the entire community. The twin girls were often bullied and left out of school events (the staff would often let the girls leave early in an attempt to avoid altercations), and several of the psychologists who would later look into the twins believe this had a negative impact on their life. Who would think that racism and bullying could have a negative impact on children?

They began to withdraw from everyone except each other, and they soon had even developed their own personal language to communicate with. They were taken out of their public school and sent to a special education school. They numerous tests done—many of which came back with contradictory results: one test would call them withdrawn, while the next would say they were sociable. By the time they were 15, the majority of their time was spent in their bedroom with the door shut. Their parents worried, but never did anything about it because those around them simply said that this attitude would pass. While they kept themselves locked away, they discovered a creative streak and began to write. They filled numerous journals with personal thoughts, and wrote short stories, poetry, scripts, and several novels—one of which was self-published. Their writing was dark and violent, and filled with the dream of Malibu, the sun drenched opposite of gloomy Haverfordwest. Their biographer compared their methods of inspiration to the Bronte sisters, but their works to A Clockwork Orange.

Their personal life soon became as violent as their writing. Their parents often heard the sounds of violent struggles coming from their room that would quickly subside. June, ten minutes older than her sister wrote this of Jennifer: “She wants us to be equal. There is a murderous gleam in her eye. Dear lord, I am scared of her. She is not normal … someone is driving her insane. It is me.” Meanwhile, Jennifer wrote this of their relationship: “We have become fatal enemies in each other’s eyes. We feel the irritating deadly rays come out of our bodies, stinging each other’s skin. I say to myself, can I get rid of my own shadow, impossible or not possible? Without my shadow, would I die? Without my shadow, would I gain life, be free or left to die? Without my shadow, which I identify with a face of misery, deception, murder.” The words gave way to action with Jennifer attempting to strangle June with a cord, and on another occasion, June attempted to drown Jennifer in a nearby river. After each event, they went back to treating each other as friends, as if the attempted murders never happened.

When they couldn’t get the desired attention from their writing, they turned to crime instead. They would commit acts of petty theft and arson, and would even let the police know ahead of time. Eventually they were caught in the act, tried, convicted, and sent to the Broadmoor Hospital (a high security mental health hospital), a place usually reserved for rapists and murderers.

Whenever the hospital staff separated the girls, they would become catatonic and unresponsive, only regaining life when brought back together. During this time they wrote about how they wanted to become their own people, but they could only live when they were together. They came to the conclusion that for one of them to live a normal life, one of them would have to die.

In March, 1993, the girls, now 31, were transferred to Caswell Clinic in Bridgend. Upon arrival Jennifer was unresponsive. She was soon pronounced dead of acute myocarditis, a sudden inflammation of the heart. The doctors could find no cause for this. According to June, Jennifer’s last words were: “At long last, we’re out.”

Soon after, June gave several interviews, and by all accounts was leading an “ordinary life”.

This is all just preliminary. Over the next while I will be looking more in depth into this mystery, and posting my own thoughts and theories. I do hope you find this interesting.