Reclusive Twins’ Mystery Deaths Perplex Investigators

The deaths late last month of sisters Patricia and Joan Miller at the ages of 73 have posed a challenge to investigators, after the reclusive twins’ corpses were found in the home they shared when the Millers failed to answer the door during a welfare check.

It’s kind of one of those Old Hollywood macabre mysteries- Patricia and Joan were found dead in their home in South Lake Tahoe, California earlier this week. No blood nor a sign of struggle was evident. There was no indication of forced entry. The home was tidy, not unkempt as is often seen when reclusive elderly people decline in health. Neither sister was known to be chronically ill nor suffering from any significant health issues. (An autopsy was pending.)

So reclusive were the sisters- who lived in the home for 40 years and spent time in Hollywood at the height of their showbiz careers- that authorities were unable to keep their names out of the news pending familial notification. After the February 25th welfare check, police entered forcefully a day later, finding the sisters’ decomposed bodies in the home- one in a bedroom, and the other outside the door of that room.

The El Dorado County sheriff’s office’s Detective Matt Harwood told press that while toxicology tests were pending, it seems that the deaths were coincidentally natural:

“My perception is one died and the other couldn’t handle it,” said Harwood… “It appears purely natural, but we are still trying to piece it all together.”

Distant cousins of the reclusive twins were found by sleuths on the internet after the women’s deaths became news, but even those family members report that the Millers had rebuffed contact in recent years.