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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live without your twin if you killed them?
Born on April 4, 1974 in Korea, the twin sisters SUNNY and GINA (also called JEEN(A)) HAN grew up in the heart of a family that grew over the years to have no fewer than six children. SUNNY was the first to be born, exactly five minutes before her sister GINA, which immediately gave her the preference of her mother, who thought it was more important to focus on the older twin. But at three years old, the parents of the two girls divorce and while SUNNY stays to live with her mother, GINA is sent to live with her father for some time. He eventually remarried, and abandoned his child, who returned to her mother. However, life was no more rosy on the maternal side, as their mother quickly fell into a strong gambling addiction.
This addiction was that when the twins were eleven years old, the mother took them to live in Seattle so that she could work in a casino as a croupier. But this did not calm her addiction, which worsened, so that the mother decided to entrust SUNNY and GINA to their aunt. Before this painful placement, GINA had already noticed that her mother was putting forward her sister SUNNY, being the eldest, not hiding her preference. Growing up, and this, in their aunt, jealousy and a certain rivalry settled down between the HAN sisters, with yet different personalities.
SUNNY was described as a bright, popular, friendly, and most importantly, the prettiest twin. GINA, for her part, was more withdrawn and shy, more serious than her sister, and had to make more effort to have the same academic results as her. In addition to being the eldest, SUNNY got the first access to things, like having a boyfriend, or a job, and the rivalry intensified, GINA not understanding why she did not deserve the same life as her twin. Jealousy became physical, fights regular, and SUNNY even attacked GINA by sticking a pen in his body.
At 17, things got out of hand when their aunt discovered that SUNNY, against her ban, was exchanging letters with her mother. The aunt had advised them against maintaining any relationship with her, after abandoning them following her addiction. In return, the aunt expelled SUNNY who then had to live a year with a neighbor, but against all odds, the twins were able to pass their final exam brilliantly, obtaining their diploma with honors. They had lived together all their lives, making the same choices, while being constantly compared, and now decided to take different paths for the first time.
SUNNY joined the university, after obtaining a scholarship covering all of her graduate studies. But quickly, she focused on parties between students, and boys, her grades dropping drastically until she lost her scholarship. In parallel, she had begun to lead a life of luxury, buying designer items to make her entourage believe that she was succeeding in life, and was rich. But the reality was quite different, she had to stop university for lack of money to pay for the tuition. She then began working as a receptionist.
GINA, for her part, preferred to drop out of school, having always had to work twice as much as her sister to maintain her academic level. She decided to join the US Air Force, but left the army a month later, not supporting obeying orders from superiors. She went to work in a casino as a croupier, following in their mother’s footsteps, and developed the same addiction, losing all her savings, creating debts, and stealing more than $4,000 from her friends. One of their mutual friends would say, a few years later, talking about the twins :
« They seemed to lack practical common sense… They didn’t know how to manage things ».
By dint of leading a life of theft to obtain money, GINA allowed herself to wither and ended up committing a suicide attempt. After her recovery, she was arrested for stealing her friends’ bank cards, and spent ten days in prison and received three years of probation. As her addiction intensified, her personality evolved into a liar and manipulator. After years of hardship, it is at twenty-two years that the twins decided to live together in colocation, GINA leaving to settle at SUNNY’s. But since graduating from high school, the sisters had little contact, having rarely spoken to each other. Discovering the life of «luxury» of SUNNY, GINA became jealous of her sister who lived in a beautiful apartment, had designer items and even a BMW, while GINA, she had $ 1,000 in debt.
In reality, SUNNY was also covered in debt. The luxurious life she lived was far too expensive for her income, and her purchases were only possible because she stole her friends’ credit cards. Everything was only fake, and as soon as the twins settled together, conflicts began again, more violently than when they were children. When they were younger, their mother compared them on a daily basis, pointing out how much better SUNNY was because she was the eldest of the two. GINA had often felt too much, not good enough to be noticed, not smart or pretty enough compared to her sister.
One evening, while they were fighting as usual, a neighbor called the police to silence the screams. Arriving at the scene, they discovered GINA with a broken nose, after SUNNY threw his phone in his face. SUNNY was arrested, not for violence, but because she had again stolen money from one of her friends who had also filed a complaint. During her deposition, the twin told the authorities: «I did not think my friend would care, she is rich». She received the same condemnation as GINA. The latter took advantage of her sister’s absence to steal her BMW, wear her clothes, use her bank card to bet money, thus living the life of SUNNY. In the space of a few days, it is a debt of a thousand dollars that GINA contracted on the account of her sister, had passed for her each time when she bet.
On leaving prison, SUNNY noticed the misdeeds of her sister, and filed a complaint, GINA being then sentenced to ten months of prison, and having to pay $10,000 to her sister for the theft of her car. At the point where the twins stole from each other, they finally decided not to live together, but things did not go as planned. GINA phoned from the prison to her sister to agree on a time when, when she got out of prison, she could come and get her things to move to another apartment. GINA, resentful, and stressed since her friends realized that she was not rich, but that she stole their money, robbed herself and refused for her sister to get her things back, asking her never to call her again. GINA then had the feeling that the last member of her family had just abandoned her, having no more contact with her aunt for a long time.
That’s when GINA had enough. Not supporting the years of conflict with her sister, and this sudden abandonment, she began to express all her anger towards SUNNY, telling the other prisoners how much she wanted to kill her. On leaving prison, she met two young boys; ARCHIE BRYANT, sixteen, and JOHN ADAM SAYARATH, fifteen. She made them believe that if they helped her get her things back from SUNNY, she would give them each $100. The boys interested in a little money, accepted, and it is by going to SUNNY that GINA stopped in a supermarket to buy equipment including garbage bags, gloves, detergent, scotch, then she also bought a weapon that she entrusted to ARCHIE.
« At some point, yes, I wanted to kill my sister. I hated her. The more I thought about my sister turning our mother against me the more… I felt unfairly betrayed by her. And with the rage rising in me, I wanted my sister to die. » – GINA
On November 6, 1996, then aged 22, GINA set out with ARCHIE and JOHN, to kill SUNNY. The plan was simple: the boys pretended to be magazine salesmen, and would knock on the apartment to be able to break in. It was the roommate of SUNNY who opened the door, HELEN KIM, who found herself with a revolver pointed at her temple. She was soon tied up and gagged, while SUNNY took refuge in the bathroom to call the police. In the appeal to the authorities made public, she said that she thought that her roommate was being raped, and that she had not been able to see the burglars. But ARCHIE smashed the door of the bathroom, and ends up tying in turn SUNNY while waiting for GINA to arrive to kill her.
However, that moment never came. After calling the police, a nearby brigade arrived, so that GINA and JOHN fled while ARCHIE found himself trapped. He freed the two young women by telling them to say that it was only a joke, and that he did not intend to do anything to them, but he was arrested as well as GINA and JOHN who were found quickly afterwards. Initially, GINA tried to pretend to be SUNNY to be released, but without success, and she explained that she just wanted to get her things back, frightened her sister, and that the last time they had seen each other, SUNNY having broken her nose, She preferred to come with someone in case things went wrong.
The trial made public, the attempted murder of GINA on her own twin made a lot of noise on American television, and also Korean, dozens of journalists moving to the United States to attend. Soon, GINA was nicknamed the «evil sister», while SUNNY was the «good sister». After all, who would try to kill their brother or sister over money and jealousy? On the third day of the trial, the scales reversed. SUNNY appeared in court without make-up, not wearing hair, and at a neglected pace. Feverish, she says she swallowed a box of medicine the day before after arguing with her boyfriend, to take her life. Found unfit to testify on the stand, she was taken to hospital for treatment, and the trial was delayed until her recovery.
On her return, the public discovered SUNNY under a new look. She was now defending GINA, imploring the judges not to condemn her heavily, because she was convinced that her sister would never have killed her. In addition, she had hired a press officer and a manager to sell the rights of her story to make a film worth $10,000, did many interviews and even appeared on TV in the program «DAYTIME TALK, LEEZA EXCLUSIVE». She confessed to the judges to make as much money as possible from this case, which she now called absurd. The public thought she had tried to end her life with sympathy, and thus more money.
GINA was diagnosed with a borderline and antisocial personality, and the two sisters were considered sociopaths: personality disorder characterized by disregard of social norms, with difficulty in feeling emotions, a lack of empathy, and great impulsiveness [Larousse]. It was also acknowledged that GINA had tried to enlist a woman to help her carry out her plan, before meeting the two boys. This same woman having seen that GINA revolved around ARCHIE and JOHN, had warned them not to trust her, because she had felt that something was suspicious in her plan to recover her belongings from SUNNY.
The twins lived in the city of Irvine, one of the cities with the lowest crime rate in the country. But there, an attempted murder incurs the same penalty as a murder, because the attempt is only the failure of a murder in the eyes of the law. Thus, the judges considered that there was premeditation, because GINA had asked for help several times, bought equipment and a weapon. She was sentenced on 17 November 1997 to 26 years in prison for attempted murder. ARCHIE received 16 years, and JOHN as he was only fifteen at the time of the attempt, 8 years and four months. While most of the jurors considered that GINA wanted to kill her sister to steal her identity, the Korean media found the sentence too heavy, because in the end, GINA had neither killed her sister nor even had time to touch her, because the police had arrived on time.
Once the trial was over, SUNNY disappeared and was never again publicized. It was known that she was repeatedly arrested for various charges, including theft and concealment of money. GINA graduated from social behavioural sciences while in prison. Popular, she received many letters from admirers throughout her sentence, and even received $100,000 from a man she had never met. After four years in prison, JOHN was released, ten years for ARCHIE, and it was after twenty years, in May 2018 and aged 44, that GINA was released. When she left, she said:
« I felt a lot of guilt and shame for my sister’s life, because I know she’s been struggling. Not being able to be there for her and the trauma of my actions my sister had to endure. I know it was hard for her. I was feeling very, very, very guilty and shameful for what I’ve done to my sister ». — GINA
Released, GINA reconnected with her mother, who was still in addiction, and did not hear any more about her sister. In interviews after her release, she even stated that the silence for years of SUNNY had convinced her of her death, the life of self-destruction that she led can only lead to the worst. Although this story ends well, it proves that the understanding between brothers and sisters, and even twins, is not always the most obvious. Although the twins could not live without each other, they could not live together. One had to disappear so that the other could live her life in peace.
Journalist : Pillet Anaïs
Sources : KSTATION TV, see under pictures
