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Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full

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Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. What happens when we die? Everyone has their

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Speaker 1: own theory. According to some religions, if we're good people

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Speaker 1: on earth, then our souls are rewarded in heaven, or

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Speaker 1: if not, they're tormented down below. Others believe that our

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Speaker 1: souls are joined with a higher power in what is

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Speaker 1: known as eternal unity. In Buddhism, there is something called

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Speaker 1: the rebirth doctrine or reincarnation. A person may be reborn

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Speaker 1: into an existence at drew death based on how they

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Speaker 1: acted when they were still alive. As far as we know,

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Speaker 1: the Pollock family of Hexham, England, were not Buddhists, but

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Speaker 1: what we do know is that what happened to them

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Speaker 1: has confounded experts for decades. Jacqueline and Joanna were six

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Speaker 1: and eleven, respectively when the unthinkable happened. It was May

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Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty seven, and the girls were walking to

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Speaker 1: church with a friend of theirs. A woman driving under

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Speaker 1: the influence of drugs hit them, killing all three children.

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Speaker 1: It was a horrific tragedy and the girls parents, Florence

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Speaker 1: and John, were racked with grief. In the months following

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Speaker 1: the incident, Florence became pregnant, and something about the pregnancy

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Speaker 1: affected John somehow. He knew that his little girls were

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Speaker 1: not gone forever well. One year after the accident, Florence

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Speaker 1: gave birth to twin daughters, Jillian and Jennifer. Both babies

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Speaker 1: were almost identical save for differing sets of birth marks,

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Speaker 1: but to add to the strangeness of the birth marks themselves,

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Speaker 1: their locations were also highly unusual. Jennifer had a mark

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Speaker 1: on her left hip and a spot on her forehead,

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Speaker 1: which was eerily similar to her late sister Jacqueline, who

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Speaker 1: had a similar marking of her own on her hip

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Speaker 1: and a scar in the same spot on her forehead.

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Speaker 1: Three months after Jennifer and Jillian were born, the whole

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Speaker 1: family moved out of Hexham to nearby Whitley Bay. As

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Speaker 1: they were only a few months old when they moved,

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Speaker 1: they shouldn't have remembered anything about their time in Hexham,

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Speaker 1: and yet upon a return visit four years later, they

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Speaker 1: started exhibiting some odd behavior. For one, the twins knew

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Speaker 1: several landmarks in Hexham despite never having seen them before.

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Speaker 1: The school, for example, seemed very known to them, even

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Speaker 1: though they had never stepped foot inside it. There was

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Speaker 1: also a local playground they never been to, yet they

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Speaker 1: knew exactly how to get there. The only members of

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Speaker 1: the family who had known about that playground were their

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Speaker 1: parents and their older brothers, and of course, their late sisters,

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Speaker 1: Jacqueline and Joanna. Only a few years earlier, the girls

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Speaker 1: had started asking to play with certain toys. These had

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Speaker 1: been their late sisters to poise that their mother, Florence,

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Speaker 1: had packed away after their death. Jennifer and Jillian had

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Speaker 1: never seen them before, didn't even know they existed, but

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Speaker 1: they started asking to play with them by name, as

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Speaker 1: if they had done so all their lives. And the

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Speaker 1: more John and Florence watched their girls, the more similarities

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Speaker 1: they saw between them and the sisters they had never known.

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Speaker 1: They played the same games and loved the same foods.

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Speaker 1: John was convinced that Jacqueline and Joanna had come back

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Speaker 1: to them that they had been reincarnated as Jennifer and Jillian,

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Speaker 1: but Florence refused to listen, and then the twins started

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Speaker 1: talking about the car accident Florence once heard. The girls

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Speaker 1: re enacted the event, with Jillian holding Jennifer in her arms,

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Speaker 1: telling her the blood's coming out of your eyes. That's

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Speaker 1: where the car hit you. After that, Florence quickly changed

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Speaker 1: her mind. Jillian once told her sister that the birthmark

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Speaker 1: on her forehead was a result of Jennifer falling on

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Speaker 1: a bucket. That was actually how Jacqueline had received a

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Speaker 1: scar before she died. And perhaps the most bizarre behavior,

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Speaker 1: the twins exhibited their fear of cars. They hated being

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Speaker 1: around them, and once held on to each other at

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Speaker 1: the sound of a car starting, they screamed that it

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Speaker 1: was coming to get them. It wasn't after Jillian and

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Speaker 1: Jennifer turned five that the memories and similarities with their

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Speaker 1: deceased sisters began to disappear. As they continued to grow,

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Speaker 1: they developed personalities of our own, although Jillian did have

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Speaker 1: occasional instances where she remembered something Joanna had done years earlier.

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Speaker 1: The case of the Pollock Twins is widely considered to

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Speaker 1: be proof that reincarnation is real. Others have claimed that

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Speaker 1: the girls went through was simply the past lives overlapping

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Speaker 1: with the present time. Whatever the case, it was enough

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Speaker 1: to convince their parents that at least for a short while,

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Speaker 1: Joanna and Jacqueline had come back to them, perhaps to

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Speaker 1: say the goodbyes they never could, or to hug their

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Speaker 1: mom and dad again. Either way, it gives us hope

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Speaker 1: that the ones we love are never truly gone, and

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Speaker 1: if we're lucky, we might get to see them one

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Speaker 1: last time. June and Jennifer Gibbons were close, like really

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Speaker 1: really close. They were both born on April eleven of

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three to Gloria and Aubrey Gibbons, a West

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Speaker 1: Indian couple who noticed strange behavior from the girls early

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Speaker 1: on after they moved from Barbados to England. Shortly after

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Speaker 1: the twins birth, those behaviors started to grow more noticeable.

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Speaker 1: For one, they didn't speak, at least not to their

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Speaker 1: parents or anyone else. June and Jennifer were known as

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Speaker 1: elective mutes. They could speak, they just chose not to

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Speaker 1: unless they were talking to each other. They came up

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Speaker 1: with their own language based on a sped up version

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Speaker 1: of Beijing Creole that only they could understand. Their special

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Speaker 1: language also helps solidify their bond. The girls were in

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Speaker 1: separate r bowl One time, when they were teenagers, June

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Speaker 1: and Jennifer were split up and sent to different boarding schools.

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Speaker 1: Each twin immediately started pulling away from everyone else, classmates, teachers, administrators, everyone.

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Speaker 1: They eventually reached a catatonic states and were unable to

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Speaker 1: function until they were finally reunited. Their childhood was tough.

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Speaker 1: The girls and their three other siblings were the only

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Speaker 1: black children in their neighborhood. They were shunned at school,

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Speaker 1: and teachers often allowed them to leave before the bell

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Speaker 1: rings so that they could avoid being bullied on their

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Speaker 1: way home. Their lack of friendships with the other kids

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Speaker 1: only drove them closer together, especially June and Jennifer, who

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Speaker 1: only played with and spoke to one another in their bedroom.

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Speaker 1: They did everything together, much of it creative in nature.

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Speaker 1: The girls would often use their toys and dolls to

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Speaker 1: put on plays, which they recorded on tape for their

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Speaker 1: younger sister Rosie to play. They were also given diaries

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Speaker 1: one Christmas, which ignited a passion for writing within them.

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Speaker 1: Around nineteen seventy nine, June and Jennifer used a mail

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Speaker 1: order creative writing course to learn how to write short

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Speaker 1: stories and novels, becoming prolific authors early on in their lives,

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Speaker 1: but their lack of a connection to others influenced their

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Speaker 1: work in questionable ways. One book was titled Pepsicola Addict,

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Speaker 1: and the twins put the money they earned from their

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Speaker 1: unemployment together to have it published. It remains the only

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Speaker 1: publicly available work by either of the sisters, and although

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Speaker 1: it's no longer in print, copies are held within the

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Speaker 1: collection of five libraries all over the world. Jennifer's work

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Speaker 1: was similar, if not darker. Her novel The Pugilist told

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Speaker 1: the story of a doctor who used the heart from

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Speaker 1: the family dog to save the life of his son,

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Speaker 1: but the dog's spirit took over the child and got

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Speaker 1: revenge on the man who killed him. One of the

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Speaker 1: few things about their lives that followed a typical childhood

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Speaker 1: was the rebellious teenage phase for the twins that included

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Speaker 1: drinking and drugs and acts of petty theft. Eventually, those

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Speaker 1: crimes grew into vandalism and arson, resulting in the burning

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Speaker 1: down of attract shop. They almost torched a local technical

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Speaker 1: school as well, but were arrested and sent to Broadmoor

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Speaker 1: Hospital in Berkshire, England. That was a high security mental

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Speaker 1: facility where they lived for over ten years. June believed

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Speaker 1: that they were being punished for refusing to speak. She

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Speaker 1: was quoted as saying, juvenile delinquents get two years in prison.

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Speaker 1: We got twelve years of hell because we didn't speak.

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Speaker 1: She once wrote the Queen for a pardon, but it

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Speaker 1: never came. Sadly, the medication they were placed on, as

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Speaker 1: well as their time of confinement, affected them deeply. They

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Speaker 1: continued to write in their diaries, but their passion for

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Speaker 1: creative writing had gone. But they did become more social

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Speaker 1: as the twins grew more comfortable with life within the hospital.

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Speaker 1: They even joined the choir. But they also had a secret.

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Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to the hospital staff or anyone really, June and

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Speaker 1: Jennifer had made a pact with one another. If one

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Speaker 1: of them were to somehow die first, then the surviving

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Speaker 1: twin was to begin speaking and living her life as

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Speaker 1: normally as possible. It was a Roman It's an idea,

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Speaker 1: this notion that the surviving sister had to carry on

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Speaker 1: and succeed, but it was life in broad Moore that

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Speaker 1: turned that promise into reality. In March of n as

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Speaker 1: the twins were being transferred to a more relaxed facility

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Speaker 1: in Wales, Jennifer placed her head in her sister's lap

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Speaker 1: and fell asleep. When she failed to wake up, she

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Speaker 1: was rushed to the hospital, but sadly, she was pronounced dead.

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Speaker 1: The cause, they said, was an inflamed heart. There was

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Speaker 1: nothing in her system that could have caused it either.

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Speaker 1: It was almost as if she had given up on

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Speaker 1: her own life for the sake of her sister. June

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Speaker 1: believed that Jennifer's sacrifice had a cleansing effect on her,

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Speaker 1: and in a way it did. She left the hospital

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Speaker 1: system and moved into a place near her parents. She

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Speaker 1: also started giving interviews to newspapers and magazines about her

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Speaker 1: life growing up, and she became an active member of

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Speaker 1: her community. A journalist who met the girls while they

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Speaker 1: were incarcerated read their diaries. She determined that June and

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Speaker 1: Jennifer Gibbons wanted two things from life, fame and freedom,

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Speaker 1: but not freedom from the hospital. Freedom, they said from

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Speaker 1: each other. They loved one another, but their bond had

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Speaker 1: become a burden. Jennifer gave her sister the freedom she

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Speaker 1: craved and the fame. Well that happened anyway. The Silent Twins,

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Speaker 1: as they were called, became the subjects of numerous documentaries,

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Speaker 1: a play, songs, and even a feature film, and for

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Speaker 1: good reason, their story was quite unique. Throughout it all,

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Speaker 1: June and Jennifer Gibbons never shied away from who they

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Speaker 1: really were. Smart, resourceful and creative women with a bond

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Speaker 1: as deep as the ocean, and a relationship that was

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Speaker 1: more than a little curious. I hope you've enjoyed today's

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Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by

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Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show is created by

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Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I

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Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,

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Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all

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Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.

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Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,