The spiritual bond between twins cannot be broken. The fate of the sisters June and Jennifer Gibbons is a vivid proof of this. The expression "become one" is unable to reflect the degree of their unity. The girls rose to a whole new level of empathy: they created their own language and did not communicate with anyone but each other. Unstable relationships, a psychiatric hospital and the mysterious death of one of the sisters who sacrificed herself for the sake of the other… It was love and hate in one bottle. Their history is shrouded in a dense veil of secrets to this day. the site tried to find out what was behind all this - intimacy or obsession?

Twins June and Jennifer were born on April 11, 1963 in the family of Gloria and Aubrey Gibbons - Barbadian immigrants. Shortly after their birth, their parents moved to the small Welsh town of Haverfordwest: their father, a mechanic in the RAF, was transferred there on duty. The older Gibbons were delighted with the quiet place and were in full confidence that it was in the United Kingdom that they could bring up their girls in the best way.

Gloria was a housewife, so the family decided not to send their daughters to kindergarten: only their mother was supposed to be involved in their development. The woman spent a lot of time with the girls and quickly noticed that June and Jennifer were behaving strangely. At first, Mrs. Gibbons thought the twins were just too shy to talk to anyone but each other. Gloria tried to look for pluses in such behavior. “The main thing is that the daughters get along great. In adulthood, they can always rely on each other, ”the woman naively believed.

Months and years passed, but the girls did not seek to expand their social circle. However, there was an explanation for this: both sisters had serious speech impairments, because of which almost no one understood them.

No one dreamed of making friends with their peers. June and Jennifer were so withdrawn and shy that they hardly left the house. But they literally understood each other perfectly and were inseparable. For some reason, parents did not consider it necessary to show their daughters to specialists. The Gibbons unanimously concluded that the twins were lagging behind in development, and let the situation take its course. So they lived for five years.

Outsider Sisters

In 1968, the youngest daughter Rosie was born in the family, and Gloria had no time to deal with older children. However, it's time to send them to school. Parents were worried about how the girls would communicate with classmates: at that time, even the mother could hardly understand their phrases. The elders' concerns were not in vain. The population of Haverfordwest was predominantly white, and the Gibbons girls were the only black babies in their area. Children are known to be very cruel: peers constantly teased the twins and made racist comments. The older children completely terrorized the sisters, giving them slaps in the face every day. Teenagers were amused by the inability of the Gibbons girls to stand up for themselves: they endured bullying in silence.

The teachers were unable to do anything against a bunch of militant children - or maybe they didn’t want to. In addition, the little ones answered in silence to any questions from teachers about how they could help. In the end, June and Jennifer began to leave home early so they could avoid meeting with high school students.

The status of outsiders did not contribute to their socialization. On the contrary, the girls began to withdraw more and more into themselves, became embittered and silent. At the same time, they never complained about the school situation to their parents: Jennifer and June were so removed from the world that they stopped even talking to them. The exception was the younger sister Rosie: the twins occasionally exchanged a couple of phrases with her.

Parents did not seem to notice the strange behavior of their own children. The Gibbons seemed to have given up on the twins.

The family seemed to split into two parts: Gloria, Aubrey and Rosie were on one side of the barricades, and June and Jennifer were on the other. Everything that concerned the school life of the sisters was not in the sphere of interests of the parents. Father and mother openly ignored the degradation of girls.

The atmosphere of bullying and aggression, in which already uncommunicative children with serious speech problems grew up, only aggravated the situation. Constant bullying led to irreparable consequences: in the end, June and Jennifer completely separated from society. They invented their own language, understood only by the two of them. This phenomenon is called cryptophasia. Science knows many cases when twins at a younger age developed a way of communication that was incomprehensible to outsiders, which was then replaced by their native language. The Gibbons sisters turned out to be an exception to the rule: every month their speech became more individual and unclear to others, and they practiced English only in writing.

Impossible without each other

When the girls were fourteen years old, a school psychologist became interested in their case. She recommended that the parents take the twins to a psychotherapist so that he "unearthed" the reason for the voluntary isolation of teenagers. The treatment did not bring results: June and Jennifer flatly refused to talk with a specialist. Then the psychologist advised Gloria and Aubrey to send the sisters to different boarding schools so that they would finally start talking to other people. This only aggravated the situation: each fell into a catatonic stupor. This condition is characterized by motor retardation and prolonged stay in the same position. Both June and Jennifer lay in the same position for weeks, not responding to either the requests or the pleas of the medical staff. Worse, they refused to eat.

For the first time in a long time, parents began to worry about their daughters and decided to take them home. The embittered sisters hardly left their own room. There they talked, played with dolls (although they were already fifteen years old) and even began to engage in literary work. They lived in their own world, where outsiders were not allowed to enter. Gloria had to leave food for her daughters at the door.

Each of the twins wrote several novels, the plots of which were very strange, and sometimes evil, so to speak. For example, one of Jennifer's works was called "Discomania". It told about the terrible deeds that people were encouraged to commit by the atmosphere of the local disco. June's opuses were even more brutal. So, the novel "Pepsicol Addict" tells the story of a high school student who was seduced by a teacher. Instead of jailing the woman, the authorities sent the boy to a correctional facility, where he was molested by a homosexual man.

The girls really wanted to become famous writers and were confident in their literary talent. Publishing houses refused to publish their works.

Along with writing novels, the sisters kept personal diaries, from which much of their behavior later became clear. The twins were inseparable, but their relationship, it turns out, was far from ideal. According to Jennifer, her sister was her shadow, without which she could finally find the desired freedom. The Englishwoman was sure that she would not be able to live a long life precisely because of a relative. Looking ahead, let's say that she was right ... June, on the other hand, often expressed fears that her sister was capable of murder: "I see a bloody gleam in her eyes." The girl looked into the water: once the twin tried to strangle her with a wire. It was a relationship that drove them to the depths of despair: teenagers equally loved and hated each other.

Together forever

After leaving school, the girls' behavior became violent and unpredictable. They began to abuse alcohol, take illegal substances and often fought. They were not at all interested in the male sex: they considered boys to be second-class people. When the sisters realized that they were not destined to become famous writers, they decided to gain fame in a different way - criminal. They burned down a tractor shop, robbed a local college, repeatedly vandalized and even attacked passers-by.

The last attempt to attract attention was the failed arson of the Broadmoor Asylum. This is the most terrible psychiatric hospital in the UK: since the nineteenth century, serial killers, maniacs and rapists have been kept in it.

This event fully met the expectations of the Gibbons sisters: all the British media wrote about them. In the meantime, the district judge sentenced the girls to fourteen years of treatment in the same mental hospital ... "June and Jennifer Gibbons suffer from a serious anxiety disorder and should be isolated from society in Broadmoor," the lawyer explained his decision. Well, the sisters finally got what they have been seeking for many years!

The girls were placed in solitary confinement in different parts of the hospital. After some time, the medical staff discovered that the patients ate in turn - every other day. They again fell into a catatonic state and at the same time took the same strange postures.

Despite the fact that the sisters, unlike other prisoners, behaved calmly and did not attempt to escape, the doctors tried to enter their cells as rarely as possible. Eleven years later, the English journalist Majorie Wallace came to the hospital to interview the "stars". Jennifer and June had their first conversation with an outsider. During rare meetings in the hospital corridors, they communicated with each other in a fictitious language, and still did not speak to other people. By the way, parents and Rosie were not allowed to see the twins ...

Beginning of the End

The sisters told Majorie that there was a long-standing agreement between them: if one of them died, the other would begin to communicate with people. Jennifer immediately added that she would leave first, because they decided so. “We cannot live apart and will always possess each other. One of us must die so that the other can become a normal person, ”the girl said.

Soon, for exemplary behavior, the twins were allowed to transfer to another clinic. As they got into the car, Jennifer whispered to her sister that soon she would finally be gone. She laid her head on June's knees and fell asleep, but they could not wake her up at the hospital: the girl died on the way. The cause of death was myocarditis, an acute inflammation of the heart. She was only thirty years old ... Some time later, Majorie Wallace again came to interview - this time only with June. “I am free: finally, Jennifer gave me her life,” the girl said happily.

How Jennifer could have known about the approaching end is still unclear to specialists. No traces of drugs or any poison were found in her body, so the investigation dismissed the version of suicide from the very beginning. Three years later, June was discharged from the clinic, and, oddly enough, she began to interact normally with people. The girl really did not violate the contract with her sister: now she lives not far from her parents' house and works as a saleswoman, but she never created a family. No matter how hard Gibbons tried to recover, she could not learn to trust people after spending eleven years side by side with rapists, maniacs and murderers.

Maybe Jennifer sacrificed herself so that June could live a fulfilling life? “We are tired of the war. It was a long battle… Someone has to break the vicious circle,” the last entry in the diary of the deceased ends with this line. This story once again proves that the twins really have incredible empathy. Unfortunately, sometimes such closeness ends very tragically.

June and Jennifer Gibbons (born April 11, 1963) are twin sisters, best known as The Silent Twins, after the name given to them because of the decision to communicate only with each other and members of their family. As a teenager, they became interested in literary work, but after a series of crimes they committed, including arson (according to one version, to attract attention to themselves), they were sent to a psychiatric clinic prison type Broadmoor Hospital, where they spent 14 years and, due to the action of drugs, stopped writing new works.

The Gibbos sisters were born in Barbados (Caribbean), but soon moved to Wales, England (the father was an RAF mechanic). The girls had a speech impediment(hyper-speed speech with a specific pronunciation) - they were hardly understood outside the family circle. The twins could even talk to each other with head nods, facial expressions, finish each other's phrases, they were inseparable. The girls were the only black children in an English school and were constantly bullied by their classmates. The school eventually began sending the twins home early to avoid traumatic bullying from classmates.
[pictured journalist Majorie Wallace, Jennifer and June Gibbons]

When the sisters were 14 years old, only their younger sister Rose could understand them, British doctors unsuccessfully tried to get them to talk to other people, dividing them and sent to study in different boarding schools, but after the separation of the sisters, they completely withdrew into themselves. They were soon reunited. The sisters spent the first couple of years shutting themselves off from the world in their bedroom, creating puppet shows, many plays and stories, which they usually dedicated to their sister Rose.

After receiving a couple of diaries as a Christmas present, they began to write. They ordered a mail-order course in writing, and the sisters each wrote several novels, mostly set in the United States, about young people caught up in strange, often criminal behavior. The sisters wrote in a very peculiar style, often with funny unusual combinations of words. Their novels were published in samizdat (small edition created by hand).
Jennifer and June unsuccessfully tried to sell their stories to magazines. Many years later one of the stories, "Pepsi-Cola Addict", has become a rare collector's book(not because of the artistic qualities of course).

According to author and journalist Majorie Wallace (who made them famous by writing The Silent Twins about them), the sisters had a long-standing agreement that if one of them died, the other should start talking and live a normal life.
In March 1993, while moving to a different, more open clinic, Jennifer died in her sleep at the age of 29 from myocarditis, an acute inflammation of the heart.
A few days later, June said: I'm finally free, set free, and finally Jennifer gave me her life “("I"m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me."").

According to 2008 data, June lives alone, near her parents in West Wales, and no longer uses the services of a psychiatrist.

Yes, by the way, in this dramatic story there is also a mysterious moment, the biography of the twins miraculously echoes the plot of the novel "Balagan, or the end of loneliness"(Slapstick, or Lonesome no more!, 1976) by American writer Kurt Vonnegut.

The case of silent twins has forever remained a mystery to psychiatrists, psychologists, linguists, speech therapists and pediatricians, but became a real source of inspiration for musicians, screenwriters, journalists, actors and other creative bohemia. Several plays were also written about the Gibbons sisters, and in 1999 the song Tsunami by the Manic Street Preachers, with lyrics dedicated to the Gibbons sisters, reached number 11 in the UK music charts (fragment):
Tsunami tsunami
came washing over me
Can't speak, can't think, won't talk, won't walk

Doctors tells me that I "m cynic
I tell them that it must be chemical
So what am I doing girl
Cry into my drink I disappear

Eyes for teeth grating over me
Bring down the shadows of my mind

P.S.: in recent years, the Broadmoor Hospital psychiatric prison, which discouraged the sisters from the craving for creativity, was mired in a series of scandals and lawsuits, including sexual violence, it was revealed that some administration employees from 1968 to 2004 had a double set of keys and visited prisoners "out of work time".

This strange story begins in 1963, when the twins June and Jennifer Gibbons are born in Barbados. Known as the Silent Twins, this creepy duo has been writing fantasy novels, but it's not all that easy. June and Jennifer only talked to each other! Yes, you understood correctly: they ignored everyone and did not communicate with anyone except among themselves. This case has not yet been solved...

Let's find out how their mysterious life led to crime, a mental hospital and the mysterious death of one of the sisters...

Known as the "Silent Twins," the Gibbons sisters developed a secret language that set them apart from friends, family, teachers, and classmates.

However, their strange relationship brought them to despair - they loved and hated each other at the same time. In the end, one of them died so that the other could lead a normal life!

Born in 1963, June and Jennifer Gibbons became known as the "Silent Twins" because they only interacted with each other.

Shortly after their birth, their family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales. Known for its calmness and regularity, this city and the Gibbons twins seem to have one thing in common - they were quiet. At first, the sisters' parents were frightened and decided that their daughters were mute from birth. But very soon they realized that the girls perfectly understand all the words and know how to pronounce them, but they flatly refuse to communicate with others. Instead, they communicated exclusively with each other and a little with Rose's younger sister, inventing their own specific language for this, understandable only to them.

Much later, one of the psychiatrists trying to decipher the girls' behavior recorded their conversation on a tape recorder. She wanted to slow down the tape and try to hear the words they were saying. However, in the process of slowing down the recorded conversation, it turned out that the girls speak ordinary English, but very, very accelerated. And this fact indirectly indicated that the Gibbons sisters most likely had a high level of intelligence.

As children, the sisters were the only black children in their area of ​​residence. Because of this, they were often bullied at school. This very traumatized their psyche, which led to their absolute closure from others.

At the age of fourteen, the twins were sent to different therapists. It was even decided to separate them and send them to separate boarding schools in order to force them to communicate with others. This further aggravated the situation.

Because of their refusal to talk to strangers, the twins were sent to several therapists. However, none of the doctors could force the girls to communicate with other people. In an attempt to help them overcome their perceived need to self-isolate, they were sent to separate boarding schools, but as a result of the separation, they became even more withdrawn.

After their reunion, the twins spent several years in self-imposed isolation in their room, where they played with each other and wrote in diaries. There they described the dark side of their union.

When the doctors saw the negative effect of separating the twins, they asked the family to reunite them. After that, the twins spent the next few years isolated in their room. For many of their life troubles, June and Jennifer did not blame the world or themselves, but each other. Indeed, on the pages of their diaries they splashed out such a burning hatred for the double that, reading this, the hair on the back of the head moved at the psychiatrists.

Here is what, for example, June wrote about her twin: “No one in the world suffers like my sister and I. When living with a spouse, child, or friend, people don't experience what we experience. My sister, like a gigantic shadow, robs me of the sunlight and is the center of my torment.”

Inspired by the diaries, they began to write novels about men and women involved in criminal activities. June wrote "Pepsi Cola Addict" and Jennifer wrote "Fistfight", "Discomania", "Son of a Taxi Driver" and several other short stories.

Everyone who got acquainted with their works noted that the scripts written by the Gibbons sisters are crammed with a huge amount of unrealized cruelty and aggression of their authors. For example, in one of the works written in those years by Jennifer and called “Pepsi-Cola Addict” ("Pepsi-Kolny addict"), a high school hero, has a sexual relationship with one of the teachers. But caught "hot", he goes to a correctional facility, where he is harassed by a homosexual security guard.

In another story, Jennifer drew a story in which a doctor, in an attempt to save his child's life, kills his beloved dog in order to use its heart in his son's transplant operation. The spirit of the dog is supposedly transferred into the child and ultimately takes revenge on the doctor for his death by brutally killing him.

Another work by Jennifer called "Discomania" described the story of a young woman who got into a closed club at a disco, where sheer madness is going on with acts of violence and sexual perversion.

Due to the fact that they were denied publication everywhere, the girls, having completely changed their tactics of behavior and attitude to life, suddenly went out into the street with the aim of becoming criminals.

They committed a series of attacks on passers-by and each other, several shopliftings, and arson, after which they were caught by the police with sixteen counts. Given their deviant and anti-social behavior, the court ruled that the Gibbons twins should be placed in a closed guarded institution. , and they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital, a maximum security mental institution, where the sisters spent the next 11 years.

At the hospital, the behavior of the sisters puzzled the doctors. They took turns starving. The sisters were kept in different cells at opposite ends of the hospital, but at the same time, despite the fact that they were not next to each other, they often took the same postures and body positions, which caused some otherworldly horror in the clinic staff.

During their stay in the hospital, they made an agreement that one of them would die. When the doctors decided to transfer the twins to the Caswell clinic, Jennifer died en route. Her death remains a mystery to this day.

During their stay in the psychiatric hospital, the twins began to believe that for one of them to lead a normal life, someone would have to die. After much discussion, they both came to the conclusion that it was Jennifer who would die. In March 1993, the doctors decided to transfer the twins to the Caswell clinic. At that time, Marjorie Wallace, one of the well-known reporters for the Guardian newspaper, will want to write about the story of the twins. Ultimately, she will be the only person from the outside world who manages to break through the sisters' wall of silence. One day, visiting Jennifer Gibbons in the clinic on the eve of their move to Caswell, she will hear from her the phrase "Marjorie, Marjorie, I'm going to die." And when asked what all this means, she will answer: “Because we decided so.”

During the trip to the Caswell clinic, Jennifer slept in June's lap with her eyes open. But upon arrival, it turned out that in the car, Jennifer fell into a coma. Having taken her to the intensive care unit, doctors can only state her death, and an autopsy performed on the same day will show that she died from acute myocarditis - an inflammatory injury to the heart muscle.

Such a sudden and strange death will cause a lot of gossip, but the conducted forensic and toxicological research will not find the presence of toxins or other substances in her body that could cause death of a person.

When June was interrogated at the investigation, she said that Jennifer behaved strangely in the days before they moved. June also said that her sister's speech was slurred and they both thought she was dying.

June later told Marjorie Wallace that in the car, her sister simply put her head on her shoulder and uttered one single phrase: “After a long wait, now we are free.” Jennifer was buried under a tombstone with verses engraved on granite: “ There were once two of us, we were one, but we are no longer two, be one in life, rest in peace» .

Today, June Gibbons is 53 years old, she lives in her parents' house, takes medication and has already socialized a little. As if even she sometimes began to talk a little with others, but still, not everyone understands her.

Even though no one really knew the bizarre and secret world of the Gibbons twins, the excerpt from Jennifer's diary speaks volumes.

She wrote: “We have become mortal enemies. We believe that energy emanates from each of us, stinging the other like a red-hot blade. I constantly ask myself, can I get rid of my own shadow or is it impossible? Can a person exist without a shadow, or, having lost it, does he also perish? Without my shadow, will I gain life and be free, or will I die? After all, this shadow personifies my suffering, pain, deceit and thirst for death.

December 3, 2017, 00:18

The Silent Twins: The Mysterious Story of the Gibbons Sisters Who Only Talked to Each Other

This strange story begins in 1963, when the twins June and Jennifer Gibbons are born in Barbados. Known as the Silent Twins, this creepy duo has been writing fantasy novels, but it's not all that easy. June and Jennifer only talked to each other! Yes, you understood correctly: they ignored everyone and did not communicate with anyone except among themselves. This case has not yet been solved...

Let's find out how their mysterious life led to crime, a mental hospital and the mysterious death of one of the sisters...

Known as the "Silent Twins", the Gibbons sisters developed a secret language that set them apart from friends, family, teachers and classmates.

However, their strange relationship brought them to despair - they loved and hated each other at the same time. In the end, one of them died so that the other could lead a normal life!

Born in 1963, June and Jennifer Gibbons became known as the "Silent Twins" because they only interacted with each other.

Shortly after their birth, their family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales. Known for its calmness and regularity, this city and the Gibbons twins seem to have one thing in common - they were quiet.

At first, the sisters' parents were frightened and decided that their daughters were mute from birth. But very soon they realized that the girls perfectly understand all the words and know how to pronounce them, but they flatly refuse to communicate with others. Instead, they communicated exclusively with each other and a little with Rose's younger sister, inventing their own specific language for this, understandable only to them.

Much later, one of the psychiatrists trying to decipher the girls' behavior recorded their conversation on a tape recorder. She wanted to slow down the tape and try to hear the words they were saying. However, in the process of slowing down the recorded conversation, it turned out that the girls speak ordinary English, but very, very accelerated. And this fact indirectly indicated that the Gibbons sisters most likely had a high level of intelligence.

As children, the sisters were the only black children in their area of ​​residence. Because of this, they were often bullied at school. This very traumatized their psyche, which led to their absolute closure from others.

At the age of fourteen, the twins were sent to different therapists. It was even decided to separate them and send them to separate boarding schools in order to force them to communicate with others. This further aggravated the situation.

Because of their refusal to talk to strangers, the twins were sent to several therapists. However, none of the doctors could force the girls to communicate with other people. In an attempt to help them overcome their perceived need to self-isolate, they were sent to separate boarding schools, but as a result of the separation, they became even more withdrawn.

After their reunion, the twins spent several years in self-imposed isolation in their room, where they played with each other and wrote in diaries. There they described the dark side of their union.

When the doctors saw the negative effect of separating the twins, they asked the family to reunite them. After that, the twins spent the next few years isolated in their room.

In many of their life troubles, June and Jennifer blamed not the world and not themselves, but each other. Indeed, on the pages of their diaries they splashed out such a burning hatred for the double that, reading this, the hair on the back of the head moved at the psychiatrists.

Here is what, for example, June wrote about her twin: “No one in the world suffers like my sister and I. Living with a spouse, child or friend, people do not experience what we experience. My sister, like a giant shadow, steals I have sunlight and is the focus of my torment."

Inspired by the diaries, they began to write novels about men and women involved in criminal activities. June wrote "Pepsi Cola Addict" and Jennifer wrote "Fistfight", "Discomania", "Son of a Taxi Driver" and several other short stories.

Everyone who got acquainted with their works noted that the scripts written by the Gibbons sisters are stuffed with a huge amount of unrealized cruelty and aggression of their authors.

For example, in one of the works written in those years by Jennifer, and called “Pepsi-Cola Addict” (“Pepsi-Cola Addict”), a high school hero, a hero of the school, enters into a sexual relationship with one of the teachers. But caught "hot", he goes to a correctional facility, where he is harassed by a homosexual security guard.

In another story, Jennifer drew a story in which a doctor, in an attempt to save his child's life, kills his beloved dog in order to use its heart in his son's transplant operation. The spirit of the dog is supposedly transferred into the child and ultimately takes revenge on the doctor for his death by brutally killing him.

Another work by Jennifer called "Discomania" described the story of a young woman who got into a closed club at a disco, where sheer madness is going on with acts of violence and sexual perversion.

Due to the fact that they were denied publication everywhere, the girls, having completely changed their tactics of behavior and attitude to life, suddenly went out into the street with the aim of becoming criminals.

They committed a series of attacks on passers-by and each other, several thefts from shops, as well as arson, after which they were caught by the police with sixteen counts.

Given their deviant and anti-social behavior, the court ruled that the Gibbons twins should be placed in a closed guarded institution, and they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital, where the sisters spent the next 11 years.

At the hospital, the behavior of the sisters puzzled the doctors. They took turns starving. The sisters were kept in different cells at opposite ends of the hospital, but at the same time, despite the fact that they were not next to each other, they often took the same postures and body positions, which caused some otherworldly horror in the clinic staff.

During their stay in the psychiatric hospital, the twins began to believe that for one of them to lead a normal life, someone would have to die. After much discussion, they both came to the conclusion that it was Jennifer who would die.

In March 1993, the doctors decided to transfer the twins to the Caswell clinic. At that time, Marjorie Wallace, one of the well-known reporters for the Guardian newspaper, will want to write about the story of the twins. Ultimately, she will be the only person from the outside world who manages to break through the sisters' wall of silence. One day, visiting Jennifer Gibbons in the clinic on the eve of their move to Caswell, she will hear from her the phrase "Marjorie, Marjorie, I'm going to die." And when asked what all this means, she will answer: “Because we decided so.”

During the trip to the Caswell clinic, Jennifer slept in June's lap with her eyes open. But upon arrival, it turned out that in the car, Jennifer fell into a coma. Having taken her to the intensive care unit, doctors can only state her death, and an autopsy performed on the same day will show that she died from acute myocarditis - an inflammatory injury to the heart muscle.

Such a sudden and strange death will cause a lot of gossip, but the conducted forensic and toxicological research will not find the presence of toxins or other substances in her body that could cause death of a person.

June later told Marjorie Wallace that in the car, her sister simply put her head on her shoulder and uttered one single phrase: "After a long wait, now we are free."

Jennifer was buried under a tombstone engraved on granite with the verse: " There were once two of us, we were one, but we are no longer two, be one in life, rest in peace» .

Even though no one really knew the bizarre and secret world of the Gibbons twins, the excerpt from Jennifer's diary speaks volumes.

She wrote: “We have become mortal enemies. We believe that energy emanates from each of us, stinging the other like a red-hot blade. I constantly ask myself, can I get rid of my own shadow or is it impossible? Can a person exist without a shadow, or, having lost it, does he also perish? Without my shadow, will I gain life and be free, or will I die? After all, this shadow personifies my suffering, pain, deceit and thirst for death.

June and Jennifer Gibbons (born April 11, 1963, Jennifer died in 1993), identical twins, whose strange story is still of great interest to psychologists and linguists. The girls grew up in Wales, UK. Many called them "silent girls" due to the fact that the twins preferred to communicate only with their closest relatives. The twin girls spoke a peculiar language that no one but themselves could understand. In the end, the girls became so separated from the outside world that they began to communicate only with each other. They wrote strange stories and plays, and together they committed several crimes to get attention. Both spent 14 years in a psychiatric hospital.

The girls' parents, Gloria and Aubrey Gibbons, immigrated to Wales from the Caribbean. Gloria was a housewife and Aubrey worked as an RAF technician. Shortly after the girls were born in Barbados, the entire family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales. The twin sisters have been inseparable since childhood. Unfortunately, the girls had a speech impediment - they were hardly understood outside the family circle. The girls were constantly offended by classmates. The school eventually began sending the twins home at the start of each day to avoid traumatic bullying from classmates. It was at this moment that the language of the girls became even more peculiar and incomprehensible to outsiders. They only spoke to each other and their little sister Rosa.

When the couple turned 14, after a series of unsuccessful attempts to get June and Jennifer to communicate, the therapists separated the sisters, sending them to separate boarding schools, suggesting that the girls would talk to others while isolated from each other. After parting, the girls completely went into themselves and stopped communicating at all.

When they met again, they locked themselves in a room for two years, where they played strange games with dolls all the time. They wrote many soap opera-style plays and stories, recording some of them on tape as gifts for their little sister. Inspired by the diaries given to them for Christmas 1979, the girls began to write uncontrollably. Both soon wrote several novels about young and beautiful people involved in strange and bloody crimes.

In The Pepsi-Cola Drinker, June describes the main character as a high school student who is seduced by a teacher and then sent to a boarding school where the hero meets a homosexual security guard. In the book Jennifer the Boxer, the doctor was so anxious to save his child's life that he kills his dog and transplants the dog's heart into the child. The spirit of the dog lives in the child and ultimately takes revenge on the doctor. The twins wrote in a unique style, often with funny, offbeat word choices.

Nobody wanted to publish their stories. A brief affair with American boys, the sons of a US Navy soldier, came to nothing. Desperate for recognition and fame (and perhaps publicity for their books), the girls committed several petty crimes, including arson, which led to the threshold of Broadmoor Hospital, a psychiatric hospital where the girls spent a long 14 years. After high doses of antipsychotic drugs, the girls were soon unable to concentrate. Jennifer apparently developed a mental disorder called tardive dyskinesia. The girls hardly continued to keep diaries, but by 1980 they abandoned them too.

The girls have long had an agreement that if one of them dies, the other will start talking and live a normal life. During their stay in the hospital, they began to believe that one of them simply needed to die in order to let the other live. After much discussion, Jennifer agreed to be the victim. Within hours of their release from the hospital, in 1993, Jennifer died of a sudden heart attack (originally thought to be myocarditis). An autopsy did not confirm the presence of either poison or drugs in the girl's body. To this day, Jennifer's death remains a mystery.

After Jennifer's death, June agreed to interviews with Harper's Bazaar and The Guardian. She became more sociable and was able to talk to other people. She lived in a house with her family in Haverfordwest apparently until 2005, after which she moved to live with her common-law husband in a nearby town. She wants to continue writing, but claims she has lost her "talent". The Pepsi-Cola Addict novel has been reprinted several times and has become a valuable collector's book.

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