The twin pact

Identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons made a bizarre childhood od pact – to cut themselves off fromm the outside world and only speak to o each other. They devised a secret language, which was later found to be a speeded up form of English, and it alienated them from family, friends, teachers and classmates.

“It started as a game,” June said years later. “But the longer it went on, the more trapped we felt. It wentnt too far and although we longed to be normal, we couldn’t break out.”

As teens, June and Jennifer began committing petty theft and arson. They loved and loathed each other in equal measure and their continuous torture and jealously of one another even led to them trying to kill each other. At one point, Jennifer tried to strangle June with a radio cord, and June attempted to drown Jennifer in a river.

In 1982 when the twins were 18, they were committed to a maximum security psychiatric hospital and became the youngest inmates to be incarcerated there. After 11 years and with a transfer to a lower security facility imminent, they agreed one of them needed to die before the other could live a normal life.

When Jennifer died suddenly at age 29 of an inflammation of the heart, June finally broke her silence, calling her death tragic but a sign she was finally free.