June and Jennifer Gibbons - Crime and Hospitalization

Crime and Hospitalization

Their novels were published by a vanity press called New Horizons, and they made many attempts to sell short stories to magazines, but were unsuccessful. A brief fling with some American boys, the sons of a U.S. Navy serviceman, led nowhere. Desperate for recognition and fame (and perhaps publicity for their books), the girls committed a number of petty crimes including arson, which led to their being committed to Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security mental health hospital. There they remained for 14 years. Placed on high doses of antipsychotic medications, they found themselves unable to concentrate; Jennifer apparently developed tardive dyskinesia. Their medications were apparently adjusted sufficiently to allow them to continue the copious diaries they had begun in 1980, and they were able to join the hospital choir, but they lost most of their interest in creative writing.

The case achieved some notice due to newspaper coverage by The Sunday Times journalist Marjorie Wallace. The Sun, a British tabloid gave a brief but accurate account of their story, headlined "Genius Twins Won't Speak" (an apparent reference to their having tested above average intelligence when being considered for Broadmoor Hospital).