Twins

Bobbie and Betty, twin sisters from Purlear, North Carolina, lived lives so closely knit that they seemed to be one. Their identical experiences, from childhood to adolescence, were, however, overshadowed by a growing mental illness that ultimately led to tragic events. After years of living together and dominating each other, in 1962, both sisters were committed to a psychiatric hospital, where their fates became inexplicably intertwined. Shortly after their bodies were separated, both died under identical circumstances, leaving behind an unsolved mystery whose key may lie in their inseparable bond.

Bobbie and Betty lived identical lives, and they shared identical deaths. They died at the same time, at midnight, and both death certificates stated identically that the cause was undetermined. None of the known physical ailments killed the twins. Yet, it seemed as if death struck from within. Had they summoned it by the power of their will? Or perhaps one of the sisters had caused their demise?

The shadow of death fell upon the sisters from the moment they were born. Bobbie and Betty were born on August 19, 1930, in Purlear, North Carolina. Their third child, Billie, was also born that day, but only two of the triplets survived.

Bobbie and Betty went to school in identical outfits. They suffered from the same childhood illnesses at the same time. They bought the same kind of candy. They had their tonsils removed at the same time, and when one of them had toothache, the other also had toothache. When one of them had a tooth decayed and had to be extracted, her sister's tooth was beginning to decay and also had to be extracted.

In fifth grade, when the twins were eleven years old, they were tested. The tests revealed that the sisters' physical identity extended beyond teeth and tonsils, but extended far deeper. The inseparability of their lives was also reflected in their intellectual unity. In school, they achieved identical or nearly identical grades.

It seems that around this time, a new kind of relationship began to develop between them. Although the girls still seemed indistinguishable to outside observers, their parents and some teachers noticed that Bobbie was starting to slightly overtake Betry and gain a slight advantage over her, both physically and mentally.

Perhaps it was then that the sisters reached a decisive juncture in their twin lives. Bobbie's otherness could have alienated her from Betra. Each girl could have begun to live more fully in her own way, could have developed a more authentic individuality. But this didn't happen. On the contrary, the twin similarity deepened, with Bobbie beginning to gain dominance.

In high school, they were still close and stayed close. Both were members of the chorus group because of their exceptional musical talent. When one of them began humming a tune, the other would pick up the tune, carrying on in the same voice, even if the sisters were seemingly out of earshot.

Forensic experts who later had the disheartening opportunity to delve into the girls' ritual detected a pattern of increasing dominance on Bobbie's part. By their third year of high school, the twins held senior positions in class government. Bobbie had straight A's; Betty had straight B's.

In a secret assessment of their teachers' character traits, Bobbie was judged to be more reliable and hardworking than Betty, though most teachers considered both likable and admirable. Both took piano lessons. Bobbie played better than Betty, towering over her by two and a half centimeters and weighing slightly more. In high school, she occasionally dated boys. Betty stayed home. Bobbie's handwriting matured compared to Betty's. Based on school records and interviews with people who knew the twins, a picture emerges of Bobbie becoming increasingly authoritarian, and Betty becoming increasingly subservient. Bobbie, for example, had poorer eyesight than Betty and had to wear glasses. Betty also began wearing glasses, even though she didn't need them. And when Bobbie stopped wearing her glasses, Betty stopped, just as suddenly. At one point, Betty even spelled her name with an "ie" at the end to resemble Bobbie's. Although there wasn't any noticeable tension between Bobbie and Betty, after high school, Bobbie apparently tried to break away and live on her own. She got a job at a general store ten miles away. This was the first time either twin had left Purlear, and also the first time they'd ever been separated.

After about a year, Bobbie quit her job, and the sisters became inseparable again. They met briefly in Purlear, then headed to Winston-Salem, where they resumed their pattern of parallel lives. They found work in the same cigarette factory, lived in the same tenement building, and came home together on weekends.

Neither they nor their relatives or friends realized that deep within their twin minds, psychic time bombs had long been ticking. The same gene duplication process that gave them identical toothaches and gray-brown eyes had also triggered an identical kind of madness within them.

Bobbie seemed to be the first to succumb to his attack. After two years in Winston-Salem, she returned home and began to act, as the Purlear residents put it, "quite unlike herself." Betty tried to stay in Winston-Salem a little longer, clearly struggling to gain her own independent identity. But she, too, returned to Purlear, as if drawn by an invisible magnet.

Returning home, the twins began to live their own lives, in a strange, detached world. When anyone came, they fled to another room. They were withdrawn, pathologically shy, suspicious, and timid. "They couldn't cope with themselves at all," their father said. And with the insight of a mountain preacher, Pastor Eller diagnosed his daughters' illness. Doctors call it schizophrenia.

Bobbie and Betty simultaneously succumbed to the slowly and inexorably progressing illness. They became increasingly detached from reality, retreating further and further into their tangled selves. Eventually, the family committed the sisters to the state psychiatric hospital in Morganton, about forty miles from Purlear. It was January 1961.