10 Real Life Horror Stories That Will Freak You Out
5. The Silent Twins (1963-2014)
The tale of June and Jennifer Gibbons is an extremely strange one. Unlike most entries in this list though, it has somewhat of a happy ending. Depending on your definition of happy.
June and Jennifer were identical twins who moved to Wales shortly after their birth, from Barbados. The twins were, as most twins are at a young age, inseparable. Their strange combination of bajan and welsh accents and the high speed with which they spoke meant that it was extremely difficult for anyone outside of their immediate family to understand them. Additionally, as the only black children in the community, the twins were ostracised at school, and heavily bullied - causing the school administrators to dismiss them early each day to avoid leaving with the other children. Eventually, the twins developed their own language, or strange dialect of English and would mirror each other's actions identically.
Within months, the twins would speak to no one at all, with the notable exception of their younger sister Rose Gibbons. After a series of therapists failed to get the twins to communicate with anyone, they were sent to separate boarding schools in an attempt to break their isolation. Once separated however, the twins became completely catatonic and unable to function on even a basic level. Once reunited, the twins spent several years engaging in creative endeavours, preparing plays with dolls and creating soap opera stories that they would read aloud and record as gifts for their sister. Soon they advanced to writing full novels, all with an extremely inventive violent theme and dealing with the concepts of psychosis, murder, seduction and forbidden homosexuality. After their stories and novels proved unsuccessful when self published, and magazines would not print their work, the girls began to commit crimes; leading to a bout of arson which had them committed to Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security mental hospital, often dealing with the criminally insane.
After large amounts of antipsychotic medication stunted their interest in creative writing, they spent 14 years as prisoners in the mental hospital, joining the choir and writing extensively detailed diaries of their experiences. The twins had long had an agreement that neither could have a true life whilst the other lived, and that if one were to die, then the other must begin to speak and live normally. Throughout their 14 year incarceration, the twins believed it necessary that one of them must die and after large debate and discussion, Jennifer Gibbons chose to die. Upon moving from Broadmoor to a less secure facility, Caswell Clinic, Jennifer could not be roused. She was rushed to hospital and died soon after of a sudden inflammation of the heart which could not be explained by doctors or pathologists. With no evidence of drugs or poison, her untimely death remains a mystery. June is quoted as saying soon after, "I'm free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me." At the most recent time of communication, June Gibbons is living independently near her parents home in West Wales, and is no longer in need of psychiatric services; being accepted by her community and apparently reticent to discuss her twin, or her past.