Evil Twins: Chilling True Stories of Twins, Killing and Insanity

by John Glatt

They give a whole new meaning to the phrase "Dead Ringers"

Identical twins, with the exact same genetic information, are a fascinating study in human behavior. It is a known fact that when separated at birth, they will often end up with very similar lives, without ever having met one another. So it seems to follow that if one twins turns out to be a "bad seed," the other will also go to the dark side. the shocking stories in Evil Twins prove this to be the case time and time again. And even more astounding are stories of twins turning upon each other in furious rivalries that may date back to the womb. Her is just a sampling of the compelling true stories about evil twins:

Sins of the mothers: Harvard-educated chemical engineer Jane Hopkins stabbed her two young children to death before killing herself-six years after her twin sister Jean had tried to poison her own two children...

My brother's killer: Identical twins Jeff and Greg Henry were close as brothers could be, inventing their own language and often exchanging identities. But they grew up to become violent alcoholics, and on one fateful binge, Jeff turned on his own twin brother and shot him in the heart with a shotgun...

Loathsome Lotharios: Handsome, charming twin brothers George and Stefan Spitzer went to Hollywood to become famous actors. But their movie-star good looks never landed them any parts-except in the lurid home movies they shot of themselves raping the unconscious women they doped up on "Roofies"...

Evil twins: Double the deadliness...with eight pages of shocking photos!

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 15, 1999

About the author

English-born John Glatt is the author of Golden Boy Lost and Found, Secrets in the Cellar, Playing with Fire, and many other bestselling books of true crime. He has more than 30 years of experience as an investigative journalist in England and America. Glatt left school at 16 and worked a variety of jobs—including tea boy and messenger—before joining a small weekly newspaper. He freelanced at several English newspapers, then in 1981 moved to New York, where he joined the staff for News Limited and freelanced for publications including Newsweek and the New York Post. His first book, a biography of Bill Graham, was published in 1981, and he published For I Have Sinned, his first book of true crime, in 1998. He has appeared on television and radio programs all over the world, including ABC- 20/20Dateline NBC, Fox News, Current Affair, BBC World, and A&E Biography. He and his wife Gail divide their time between New York City, the Catskill Mountains and London.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/johnglatt

Reviews

[Mariel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only finished this book today. I lied on my goodreads finish date because I didn't want to look like I took months to read this. I care what people think about me. That's all I did was memorize this book! It's a guide book. Mariel, are you looking for how to get away with it? It's.... complicated.... And only a few pages were pictures... I am thinking about writing letters to the one with acne and... I suddenly developed dyslexia... Evil twins! They did it.

I enjoy the mystique of being a twin. "It wasn't me. My evil twin did it." Sometimes I say that I'm the evil twin. I've put up with all of the seeing double jokes so I feel I'm entitled to a lame one or two about evil twins (pain and suffering). But this is a lazy stab at a few bucks. They couldn't have aimed higher than that. John Glatt is a shit writer. They probably paid him in pizza and gave him a weekend to watch episodes of... My mind is blanking on an equivalent of trash tv news (I'd never watch something like that. Subliminal message: Mariel is classy). Something before it was on 24/7. This is worse than the shoddiest episode of a true crime show on A&E (you know the ones that make out that Al Capone was a good guy because he had great taste in golf clubs? Produced by his golfing buddies grandson! Or the makers of the golf clubs. It's totally corrupt). Your local news douche bag would blush to read this from the teleprompter. IKEA makes better books than this! (I get to double stress how much stuff sucks because I'm a twin. It's like the mint inside the other mint. Squared.)

They aren't evil. There are lots of depressing stories about people who lacked all spark and fed off an almost as dim bulb that happened to be their twin. I was really depressed a few times and had to put the book down. Episodes of Hoarders depressing. Any one of these it could have been another brother, or a husband, a mom, friend. Glatt throws around "evil twins" a lot because that's the title of the book. He's an idiot. (I didn't finish this because it was boring. I finished it because I guilt myself about not finishing books. Since I'm a twin Glatt would make a case that I was an evil twin to not finish books.) Abusive family stories. The chalk outline on the ground reads it was sad. The brain splatters on the walls cannot be picked through for insight 'cause Evil Twins doesn't have any (brains!).

Jeff and Greg Henry. (I inverted the name order because they wouldn't let McCartney go before Lennon.) Jeff was a clone created to clean up after Greg. Jeff should have quit and become maid to a look-a-like instead of murdering his twin. There are no retirement benefits in murder. Not to mention no references. (A twin would never have written "They were as different as chalk and cheese." I told you Glatt was practically illiterate! Isn't that evil?)

Jane and Jean Hopkins. Their parents couldn't resist the similar names, could they? They tried to kill themselves and their kids because they looked like mini versions of themselves! It's like what they say about people killing themselves if they bump into their past self when time traveling.

Sunny and Gina Han: Sunny was a snitch. Everyone knows what happens to snitches.

Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe: The inspiration for the Matlock character was the attorney so that means they didn't do it. His clients were never guilty. (C'mon, Glatt! You're really stretching it here. Betty killed her husband for money. Peggy had nothing to do with it.)

Gretchen and Gloria: Gretchen's son was named Shawn. He messed up the alliteration team and had to go. (Abused kids with no basis in reality. One got pregnant. Wtf did their being twins have to do with it?)

June and Jennifer: I rest my case.

Cyril and Stewart Marcus: How many times does the phrase "Two peas in a pod" need to be in this book?! Was as different as night and day too expensive? Different as apples and oranges too cliche? What gives? So the brothers tricked their girlfriends into having sex with the other brother in disguise. John Glatt would do the same thing. He's like three peas in a pod with the brothers. He's a banana in their fruit bowl. I'm on to you, Glatt.

John Glatt is obsessed with one twin controlling the other one. He has an agenda. Maybe his brother slept with his fiancee (if he had either of those things). If I didn't know better I'd say that he was a writer for the tv series Avonlea (or one of the Green Gables spin off movies). What do you have against twins? What did we ever do to you other than not write Evil Twins?

Timothy and Todd: Can he not put TWO together? Blame the parents!

I'm bored (I was even going to make some kind of a joke about Morrissey's crush on the Kray brothers. The Spandau Ballet guy played one in a movie and I'm too bored to even snark on that. This is bad. My twin would have had ten jokes ready about Spandau Ballet). I've watched reenactments better than this. Two actors with a ball park resemblance are in a tussle. "You can't tell me what to do! You're not me!" "But I am you! Are you sure you're not a figment of my imagination? I can finish your sentences. Check this out." "That's not..." "Fair." If you think the first actor looks familiar that's because he is. He played the teen rapist in a season ten episode of Law and Order. Two years later he'd look suspicious while folding towels and refuse to answer questions. Because he did it! John Glatt would say that made him a bad apple.

What I learned from this book is that the media like to give criminals in the papers stupid names to make them more memorable. "The cookie lady" is in this book. I was hoping she'd be blue and furry... (The reenactment features the kid twins stealing cookies from the cookie jars. It sealed their fates as... The cookie ladies! They wear Cookie Monster jumpers. The kid is from your local BBQ place commercial. She loves ribs!)

Aren't there any GOOD twin killing stories? Like switched at birth stuff. The twins name their dogs the same name and the good twin's dog responds to the evil twin's every command.

In vitro twins versus natural twins! (Us natural twins will win! It's called natural selection.) Siamese twins will beat us in the relay races but we'll be back. Fraternal twins are lost because they don't remember who are their twins. It's complicated. Glatt doesn't know any of this because he's not a twin. So obvious.

What about twins absorbed into the bodies of their brothers and sisters when still in the womb? Maybe single children killed their twins? Did you ever think of that, Glatt?

[PinkAmy loves books, cats and naps · Rating 3 out of 5]

The twelve stories in EVIL TWINS are creepy, twisted, depraved and fascinating. Unfortunately, John Glatt’ as style of storytelling rarely lives up to the twin perpetrators.

Most of the twins grew up in highly dysfunctional families and were also cursed with mental illnesses. Some were abused. I had read some of the stories in previous books, including the UK’s SILENT TWINS.

Glatt doesn’t give much real insight into the twins’ psychopathologies, other than what’s available in the general public. Still, having the stories together in a book was interesting.

[Christina Schiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy true stories of twins who have gone a little nuts, or very nuts... As an identical twin, it was a very interesting read for me.

[Eden Prosper · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a twin with a long-standing interest in true crime, I anticipated these stories would be wacky; favoring in sensationalism over substance. I was immediately amused by the foreword, in which the author offered an entertaining assumption about twins, taping into the natural fascination people have with twins; particularly the eerie potential for shared madness or mutual destruction. However, one thing is true, my twin and I do share a deep bond.

Evil Twins: Chilling True Stories of Twins, Killing and Insanity tells the stories of unsettling and often tragic lives of identical twins whose bonds led them down dark paths. The book explores various cases where shared genetics and possibly intertwined fates resulted in violent crimes, psychological breakdowns, and familial betrayals.

The writing, as a whole, lacked deep psychological analysis or expert commentary that could have provided insight into why these twins acted the way they did. This absence left me wanting more than just lurid details and surface-level descriptions. Not to mention the spelling and grammatical errors “his Rutger .22 shotgun” what is that?

The persistent recycling of the trope involving twins switching places (whether in academic settings, but especially in romantic relationships) came across as an eye-roll-inducing cliché, veering more toward a wishful fetishization than any reflection of reality. (As an identical twin, no—we have never done this.) The only case in which it seemed plausible was the Romanian Spitzer Twins; but they were sexual deviants charged with drugging and recording the rape of multiple women—so, the least of their crimes would be swapping.

Additionally, many of the cases are presented with minimal context, which made the book feel more like a tabloid-style overview rather than a thoughtful exploration of criminal psychology and twin dynamics.

[Guy Portman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evil Twins is a true crime book that spawned a television series of the same name on the ID channel. Divided into twelve sections, each dedicated to a different set of 'evil' twins, these shocking stories entail everything from madness to dual psychosis, murder and fratricide. Included are the famous London gangster twins, the Krays, as well as black widows, rohypnol Romeos and deranged doctors.

The book embraces a tabloid journalistic approach, complete with photographs and sensationalist section titles, such as The Twins From Hell and The Gift Of Death. The stories are short, easy to read overviews that utilise artistic license to create the crime setting. Whether in every instance one or both twins can be justly labelled as evil is a matter of conjecture. One pertinent example is The Silence Of The Twins chapter, which tells the tragic story of the Gibbons sisters. After being convicted for a series of relatively minor arson attacks, the twins, who were beset with complex issues, were sent to prison and then detained in Broadmoor mental hospital for eleven years. To classify either of these twins as evil seems to be overly simplistic. However the purpose of Evil Twins is sensationalism and it is effective in achieving this objective. Despite there being several typos in this reader's copy, he would none the less recommend this book to all true crime aficionados.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has no probative analysis of any of these cases but regardless this is a fascinating, wide collection of twins in murderour extremis. The visciousness of twin-on-twin murder is especially memorable.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old John Glatt doing what he does best -- telling us about the crazy crime cases he's sniffed out. A good read, full of interesting mini-biographies of twins whose lives went terribly wrong. I wish there had been more photos!

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes me glad that I am an only child!

[Shandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seen every episode on the ID channel, nothing to rate.

[Snem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great true stories I haven’t heard before and a wide variety of evil twins presented here. It’s titillating and engrossing. Twins have always had an intriguing mystique surrounding them. There are photos and they could be considered kinda gruesome and triggering. It also kinda reads like a true crime tabloid magazine.

To be more legitimate this book could’ve benefitted greatly with a chapter with scientific information or even historical information. Present some statistics, biographical dna information, legal information. Any or all of that would have made this a less salacious and more legitimate piece of nonfiction.

Hey it’s quick, it’s interesting and while it could’ve used a careful editor and perhaps some science it was still a good true crime read for the beach.

[Jill Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn’t really all that well written and though there are certainly crimes involved the overall feeling is just sadness. I came away feeling sorry for most of these twins. Even the murders seemed to be from mental illness or ignorance.
Thank goodness these are aberrant twins and not the norm.

[Fred Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not live up to what I expected. The book was written like a teen non-fic book, just synopsis of abused/maladjusted peoples' crimes, no real insight, and copy I read (interlibrary loan) was edited for spelling/grammatical errors by previous reader.

[Norma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick look at some interesting cases.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew twins could have such strange and tragic connections. Sad stories, sad endings.

[Margaret Crampton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very comprehensive book documenting crimes of identical twins. There are 12 examples and I found this book thought provoking and interesting.

[Juanita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review: Evil Twins by John Glatt.

These are true stories and all the information in this book only pertains to the stories you will read in this book. This book is a variety of short stories about evil twins and how one twin is more domineering then the other and how their behavior status begins at birth. One bad, one good 26..

The collection of stories written in this book are really intense and others are just outrageous. It was interesting to me to read how similar a lot of the twins were in regards to their behavior patterns. I can also say every story was a page turner. I never got bored and read through the book in one sitting.

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

My Aunt Pat was married to Tim. I remember Tim taking me and my twin brother and bought us a triple scoop of Ice Cream, I do not remember much about Todd, except that him and Tim got into a fist fight in our front yard and my dad stopped the fight.
My Grandfather told me this when I asked him about the story Tim and Todd by themselves were nice young men, but classed them like this. "Too much money too young of age"

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many studies involving the separation of twins at birth where they grow up to live astonishingly different lives. However there are true cases where, if one twin turns out "bad", the other will follow them down the same destructive path. This book is a compilation of twins committing evil acts against others or each other as jealousy and anger spark seemingly from the womb. I have to say that I enjoyed this book as I had never heard of any of these cases, so I give the book A+!

[Dara S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are twelve stories about twins who kill each other or those they love. Some are pretty bizarre. Several of them involve a dominate twin manipulating the more passive twin to follow along. The theme with a number of them is the twins could not seem to part and usually lived together and if they married those marriages fell apart.

[John Spalding]

Along with "What to Expect the First Year," I bought this after my identical twins were born. Over-the-top, sensationalistic fun stuff.

[Stacy Simpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me quite some time to finish this book obviously. Some of the stories were I treating but the book ad a whole dragged on and on.

[Cindy Boss · Rating 4 out of 5]

a different way of the writings from this author, it was many stories in one, it was good though