May 2, 2001

WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Police believe they have solved the mystery of the long missing ghost twins, former child actors who appeared in Hollywood's most successful adaptation of a Stephen King novel, The Shining. The ghost twins were discovered in one of Canada's richest neighborhoods, although the motivation for the thefts remains unknown.

A 49-year-old man and his son have been arrested for allegedly taking an estimated $120,000 - $180,000 worth of movie memorabilia from Stanley Kubrick, deceased American director, West Vancouver Police said on Wednesday. The twins were reported missing in 1983. International efforts to locate them had been previously unsuccessful.

Authorities discovered the twins hidden in the backyard of a home in the British Properties,
an upscale neighborhood of large, estate-like homes in the mountains over overlooking Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean.

A West Vancouver Police spokesman said investigators are still trying to determine why the twins were taken and there is no indication there was any attempt to sell them. More items may still be recovered, the spokesman said. Oddly enough, the twins, raised in Roselle, NJ, and legless at birth, were apparently fitted with prosthetics and have since learned to dance.

Police were alerted after a woman lost $2,600 worth of armchairs and footed stools, and began to search the neighborhood. "We peeked over the fence through the bushes and there was enough furniture there to fill a Wal-Mart store," Kerry Copeland told the Vancouver Sun newspaper. The twins were recovered soon after Vancouver police began searching the premises.

The father and son were arrested on Tuesday, although a police official said it appears it was the son who had been caring for the twins and storing them in the large backyard of his family's property. The family was described as apparently very well-off, with several expensive automobiles and a touring bus.

The father and son, whose names have not been released by authorities, have pleaded innocent. The son has reportedly told police he rescued the twins from a circus side show, where they were being kept against their will by a family of gypsy circus bears. The son was quoted by an unidentified source as saying, "I rescued them from the freaks they were living with. They've been happy with me and our bus". Vancouver authorities are continuing the investigation.

A spokesperson for the actor Jack Nicholson who appeared with the twins in "The Shining", said Mr. Nicholson was unavailable for comment.