Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

Is That Even Legal?

On his first day of college in 1980, Robert was surprised to discover that people around him knew who he was. Girls would come up and kiss him, guys asked him how he was doing. It seemed like Robert was in a parallel universe. The first thing his roommate said was “Are you adopted?” Shocked, Robert answered yes. “And your birthday is on July 12, 1961?” The roommate then concluded “Look, you won’t believe this but you have a twin brother!”
This is how 19-year-old Robert Shafran found out that he had a twin brother whose name was Eddy Galland and who studied in the same college one year before him. They had the same hairstyle, smile, behavior, IQ - both were higher than average. They even had the same favorite movie quotes and both knew them by heart. Boys became famous. Magazines wrote several articles about them, they gave TV interviews. Some time later, a young man called Robert’s parents. He began his story by saying “You won’t believe this..”
In another college in New York, David Kellman saw a picture of Robert and Eddy and noticed that they look just like him. As it turned out, all three brothers were given for adoption by a Jewish couple. Interestingly, each bother had a sister who was 2 years older. Robert had a rich family. His stepfather was a doctor, stepmother was a lawyer. Eddy’s family was middle class. His stepfather was a teacher. David, on the other hand, was poor and lived in Queens.
After talking to their families, journalists found out that each year they visited the adoption center and had to answer numerous questions and boys had to pass many “weird” tests. Long story short, all three families participated in the horrible test they didn’t even know about…
A New York psychiatrist named Peter Neubauer found a way to study the theory of ‘nature versus nurture’. Milestones in their lives, such as learning to talk and ride a bike, were filmed and logged and psychologists spent hours watching them playing with toys and talking to them as well as interviewing their parents and older sisters. Although psychologists agree that the experiment is horrible and unethical, they agree that the study could have changed our opinion on what is the best way to raise children.
However, the results of the study haven’t been published. It later emerged that Robert had been convicted of manslaughter after an 83-year=old woman was beaten to death in a robbery he was involved in. Eddy, who had been suffering from depression, killed himself, aged just 33. David became an insurance consultant.