Twins Arrested for Sexual Assault, but Police Can't Figure Out Which One Is Guilty

In news that’s literally begging to be turned into an episode of Law & Order: SVU, 24-year-old twins Elwin and Yohan were recently arrested on suspicion of six similar sexual attacks on women between the ages of 22 and 76 years old. Taking place in the French city of Marseille between Sept 2012 and Jan 2013, the police found a lead from CCTV footage and a victim who identified the twins, but couldn’t tell them apart. This is some Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield shit — well, if they were French and one of them was a sociopath*.

The police have plenty of DNA from the attackers, but the issue is that with twins, it’s very difficult to see the differences. According to the BBC:

Police have been told it would cost upwards of 1m euros (£850,000) to conduct an ultra-sophisticated genetic test that would be able to tell one set of the twins’ DNA from the other.

One expert told the French newspaper La Provence: “For a normal analysis, we would compare 400 base pairs [of nucleotides] which make up DNA.”

In the case of identical twins, he added, “We would be looking at billions.”

Insanity.

You would think that the police work of figuring out alibis and questioning the two men separately might help here. Or maybe it’s both of them working together in some sort of sick twins scheme? That’s something twins do! Either way, this is double the crazy.