Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #32 - The Identical Deaths of the Identical Marcus Twins

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Would you choose to have an identical twin? Someone who looked so much like you, that even your own mother couldn’t always tell the two of you apart?  Someone whom friends and even lovers couldn’t distinguish you from? Someone who experienced the world in a way so similar to your own, that no one else could ever possibly be able to relate to you quite like they could. Could be fun! But as you'll see... it could be also dangerous.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com

Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today I'll be sharing the story of the identical deaths of the identical Marcus twins. If you could, would you choose to have an identical twin? Someone who looks so much like you that even your own mother couldn't always tell the two of you apart. Someone whom friends and even lovers couldn't distinguish you from. Someone who experienced the world in a way so similar to your own that no one else could ever possibly be able to relate to you quite like they could. Could be fun, right? But couldn't it also be dangerous?

Could a situation like that tempt you into behaving in very strange or even very immoral and criminal ways? Could it leave you isolated in the world from everybody but them? And couldn't that be a very, very bad thing? Words and ideas can change the world. Hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream.

I plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. Have you ever seen or heard of the movie Dead Ringers? It's a weird one. Dead Ringers is a 1988 film by David Cronenberg and Norman Snyder that tells the story of Beverly and Elliot Mantle, identical twin gynecologists and creepy social misfits, both played by actor Jeremy Irons. The Mantle twins operated an infertility clinic in Toronto. Elliot's a womanizer who seduces his female patients, weirdly passes him along to his brother Beverly once he grows tired of them. The women are totally unaware of this switch, which is more than

a bit cringy. It's rape. They consented to having sex with one twin and then the other slipped in. An actress named Claire Naveau comes to the clinic for infertility treatment and is seduced by Elliot and then he encourages his brother Beverly to have sex with her next. Beverly then develops actual feelings for Claire which upsets the brothers typically deviant sexual and social dynamic. Beverly now begins abusing prescription drugs with Claire, who then she learns that Elliot has been impersonating Beverly in order to have sex with her more. In a now famous scene, she confronts them both in a restaurant and breaks off her relationship with Beverly,

but then later decides to continue her relationship with him, with hopefully only him. When Claire then leaves town to work on another film, Beverly falls into depression, continues abusing drugs, which causes him to have strange delusions about mutant women with abnormal genitalia. He then hires a metallurgical artist to create a set of gynecological instruments to operate on these mutant women. The chrome instruments he comes up with to deal with this entirely theoretical problem are curved and hooked and corkscrew shaped They're horrible things designed for ripping and tearing as they plunge Beverly clearly losing his damn mind is about to use one of his weird and terrible new tools on a patient before his surgical Team stops him. He then collapses on top of the patient begins using her gas mask

Both brothers are suspended over this and put on administrative leave. Elliot now decides to lock Beverly inside the clinic to help him get sober, but he then starts taking pills to synchronize himself with his twin. When Claire returns, Beverly leaves the clinic to be with her, but then he comes back to find Elliot now intoxicated from drugs and has to take care of him. The two then decide to use drugs to celebrate their mock birthday and Elliot volunteers to be killed. So Beverly can now live his own life. In his drug state Beverly now disembowels Elliot with his custom gynecological equipment. The following morning when he wakes up he realizes what he has done. He leaves the clinic, calls Claire one last time but doesn't actually speak, then returns to the clinic where he dies in his brother's arms.

It's a fucking insane story. And as crazy as it is, Dead Ringers, which was also adapted into a 2023 mini-series of the same name starring Rachel Weisz as the twins, was inspired by a true story. The very mysterious lives and very weird deaths of the Marcus twins. Dr. Cyril Marcus and Dr. Stuart Marcus really were identical twin gynecologists. They really did struggle mightily with serious addiction. They really did go fucking nuts. They might not have shared lovers but they might have. They definitely tricked and shared patients without their patients realizing they

were being shared which is super weird. They did get put on administrative leave for making terrible mistakes with patients, and they really were both found dead at the age of 45 in a New York City apartment on July 17th, 1975. One twin did not die in the other's arms, but it was pretty close to that. When their bodies were found, Dr. Donald Jason from the medical examiner's office said they had both been dead for about a week, but that Stuart had died one or two days before Cyril, and Cyril had been spotted outside the apartment after Stuart was believed to have been dead, meaning he lived with his twins body for at least a day, but never called anybody for help. Instead, he returned to the apartment and quickly died alongside his brother. So did he or did they die by suicide? Not exactly.

Violence was soon ruled out as a cause of death in the medical examiner's office, was not getting any results from various toxicology tests which would have revealed an overdose. There was additionally zero evidence that either twin was suffering from any serious physical illness and yet each of them had lost a lot of weight around 50 pounds in the months leading up to their deaths and they didn't have that much weight to lose. Cyril who was 5'11 weighed just over a hundred pounds when he died. That's disturbingly thin. Stuart weighed less than 120 pounds. On July 20th, a physician who knew the twins said they might have died from what he referred to as suicidal despondency after they'd each suffered some sort of emotional breakdown.

This physician had worked with the brothers at a hospital in the city and he recalled an incident a month earlier where the brothers were both hospitalized on the same day because they were both acting so very strangely at work. One of them was supposed to perform an operation that day but called off. The physician declined to elaborate only telling the New York Times that they were really out of it. What the hell was going on with these two? And that was not the only incident of concerning behavior, not even close. Colleagues and patients had been concerned about both twins for several years and their concerning and erratic behavior had worsened substantially in recent months. So what was going on? Why were both of them acting so strangely? Let's backtrack and

explore the strange lives of the Marcus twins to see if we can figure that out. Stuart Lee Marcus and Cyril Carlyle Marcus were both born June 2nd, 1930. Stuart was the older twin by a whole two minutes. Their parents were Jack and Anna Marcus who were incredibly also identical twins and with each other. It's very rare for identical twins to be different genders but it does happen. So this was like next level incest. And making it even worse, their parents were also each other's identical twin

and their grandparents were the same and their great grandparents were. Their family tree literally didn't have any branches for at least four generations. So did the most extreme example of incest that the world has ever seen play a part in the twins mental struggles? I mean perhaps and of course I'm being absurd. Can you fucking imagine your parents are not only

siblings but identical twin siblings? Like identical obviously other than their genitals and and then your grandparents are the same? Oh man your chromosomes be so fucked up. You'd be swimming in the shallowest gene pool ever Why is that so funny to me to only have one set of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents, etc? Before moving forward identical twins really can be different genders, which I had not heard of before I didn't make that part up It's just extremely rare Anyway, the twins father Jack was a physician According to the New York Post at least, and

was a homemaker. We don't have much info about the twins early lives, but we do know they grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey and graduated from Bayonne High School. Bayonne is about 10 miles from New York City, located on a little peninsula between New York Bay and New York Bay. 1930, the population was almost 89,000 by 1920 the population actually had actually decreased by quite a bit to approximately 71,600. Not sure exactly what happened but I think the dip has something to do with oil refining. Back

in 1930 the city had one of the largest oil refineries on the planet. A lot of refining still does occur in the area but not as much as it did back then or you know what's going on back then. Back to the twins now both of them did a pretty well very well in school. I don't know why I was about to say pretty well. They did great. They each joined their school's National Honor Society. Each ran for student office. Stuart ran for class president. Cyril ran for treasurer. While neither one they apparently didn't lose by much. Ironically a photo of Stuart was captioned, bound to win in the school yearbook. Stewart did win the B'nai Brith essay contest and was his class valedictorian.

Cyril was the salutatorian. Cyril just always like a tick less than his brother, which I would think had to have been infuriating. Very smart Jewish kids from New Jersey, these twins. B'nai Brith International, by the way, is an international non-profit and staunch defender of the state of Israel. They advocate for global jewelry and champion the cause of human rights. Their high school paper did a story on six different sets of twins at the school titled Double Trouble at Bayonne High, that featured of course the Marcus twins. Six sets in one school. What the hell was in the water there? Maybe a lot of oil.

In the story the twins were described as fraternal twins who happened to look very much alike which is not true. They were identical. This is the only indication to suggest the twins were not identical. Seems the editor of the school paper got it wrong. The double trouble story shed a tiny bit of light on the brothers childhood with the following statement. If one of them got into mischief both were spanked by their mother to be sure that the right one was punished. That's weird. I'd be so pissed. If I was smart enough not to get caught doing stupid shit. But my twin kept getting caught and I kept getting my ass beat for that.

And I mean and their mom should have known better, being an identical twin herself married to her own brother, her kid's dad. Sorry, I can't stop thinking about just such an absurdly skinny family tree. A family log, a family two by four, rather than a tree. Anyway, it seems like the twins were not the most popular guys in school, but they weren't social outcasts either.

They shared a friend group, but spent most of their time together, just the two of them. Ah, they even color coordinated their outfits with Stewart typically wearing light colors and Cyril wearing dark colors. In a 1976 story for Esquire, journalist Ron Rosenbaum and writer Susan Edmiston described Stewart as the natural leader, outgoing, effervescent. Cyril was quote, more withdrawn and quiet unlike his brother a left-hander, but otherwise apparently content to serve as his brother's right-hand man. The doctors graduated from Syracuse University in 1951, graduated from the State University of New York's Upstate Medical Center in

1954. The twins completed their internships at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and then did their residencies in gynecology. During the first year of residency, the twins caught the attention of Dr. Alan Frank Gutmacher, the chairman of gynecology at Mount Sinai. An Esquire reported, their careers since high school, Gutmacher could see from their resumes, were nearly identical. Same college, Syracuse. Same fraternity, same academic honors, same medical school, also Syracuse, shared the same cadaver in their first year anatomy class, same medical honoraries, same internship program at Mount Sinai, same residency program in gynecology at Mount Sinai, 26 years together and they were expecting to spend at least three more

years together at Sinai. And would you want to do all of that with a sibling? I don't think I would. I'm too independent for all that. I think I'd hate constantly being compared to the same person all the time. Living together, taking the same classes, hanging out with the same friends, studying the same shit. That does not sound fun at all to me, especially if your twin is always doing a little bit better than you. I feel like you'd always feel a little bit less than. Where if you were alone you might feel great. Dr. Goopmacher was a twin himself, also considered an expert on twins, and he believed twins interestingly were in general quote monsters. He wrote all

separate identical twins may be regarded as monsters who have successfully escaped the various stages of monstrosity. And he thought that these so-called monsters who are not physically conjoined had to be careful not to become mentally conjoined. Which to be fair to him is exactly what seemed to have happened to these two. Dr. Gutmacher believed that conjoined twins might actually be mentally healthier than separated twins because he found no cases of conjoined twins with dementia or of any conjoined twins who had died of suicide. Gutmacher thought that twins in general could and often would negatively affect each other's adult development. And because of that, he wanted the Marcus twins to complete their residencies at separate

hospitals, get away from each other. And he might have also had another motivation for sending the twins away Dr. Joseph Ravinsky former chief resident of gynecology at Mount Sinai said about the twins as quoted by Esquire They were arrogant resentful of criticism Disobedient of orders there were tremendous conflicts with the other residents So they needed to get these guys apart because they're they're not helping each other They're feeding into each other's you know, worst impulses. It seems like a bad echo chamber. They're the two get these guys apart because they're not helping each other. They're feeding into each other's, you know, worst impulses, it seems like. Bad echo chamber the two of these guys are in.

In her book, The Professor and the Prostitute and Other True Tales of Murder and Madness, journalist Linda Wolf quoted a student who did their residency at the same time as the brothers, and the student said, when they talk to you, and most of the time they didn't talk to anyone, just to one another, you got the distinct impression that their responses were artificial. That they didn't really have emotions that other people did, but were aping others' emotions trying to imitate them. Sounds like the twins may have been identical sociopaths.

Dr. Guttmacher got his wish. Stewart was sent across the country to Stanford while Cyril went to the New York University Hospital for joint diseases. A year later, Stuart's supervisor, Dr. Charles McLennan, recalled that he left Stanford to do his residency at an orthopedic hospital. Stuart's program director didn't list any record of exactly where he spent that year, but eventually he would return to Stanford. Cyril seemed to thrive without his twin, you know, no longer being in Stuart's shadow. The best years of his life, you know, were spent being out from under the shadow of somebody who looked exactly like him but seemed to get more out of boys and always do a bit better.

He married a woman named Corrine Stein and they would have two daughters together, Pamela and Nancy, who were unfortunately for my entertainment purposes not identical twins. Also unfortunate that Corinne's parents were not identical twins whose parents were also identical twins who married and had kids with each other. After completing his residency, Cyril started working in the gynecology department at New York Hospital, now called the Weill Cornell Medical Center. After three years of separation, Cyril arranged to be with his twin brother again. And man, would that turn out in the end

to be a terrible decision. The head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York Hospital had agreed to put them back together. Esquire reported, "'This reunion signaled the beginning of another kind of marriage for the twins. They seem to have consented to wed their individual career ambitions into a single two-headed unit, a very dysfunctional unit.

The brothers soon were jointly running a private practice in New York City, and in 1967 they were both put in charge of the infertility clinic at New York Hospital, and this pairing seems to have led directly to their downfall. Stewart consistently seemed to get all the glory for their joint accomplishments, even though Cyril worked in the office more than his twin did. Stewart focused on research, gave speeches at conferences around the world while Cyril did the day-to-day work in New York to keep clinic running. Dr. Fritz Fuchs, the chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York Hospital, told Esquire, in order for Stewart to conduct his laboratory work, Cyril did more than his share in the office. He sacrificed some of his own ambitions to work in the lab. They both wrote scientific papers, edited a

collection of research that was published in 1967 in the form of a textbook titled Advances in Obstetrics and Gynecology. And because of this, the Marcus twins quickly became known and respected around the country in gynecological circles. And because of their renowned, wealthy clients began traveling to them to receive infertility treatment from them at their private practice. After 1967, Stuart stayed connected to the clinic but also accepted an offer for a full-time associate professorship at New York Hospital. Cyril didn't join him because he did not get the same offer.

And now maybe a rift begins between the two begins to develop. Stuart is working even less hours in their private practice as his new goal is to become department chairman at a teaching hospital. That leaves Cyril to manage their private practice alone most of the time now and spend even more hours to keep their joint project afloat. Also his wife had just had their second daughter and now he's spending even less time with his family than before and he has no time to pursue his own research projects. Most likely because of his intense workload a nurse he worked with at this time said he now began to take amphetamines. Not good. Meanwhile, Stuart's life though, it's going fucking great.

He's getting to travel to medical conferences all over the world still. Doesn't have to work long hours in the clinic. He's also single, which gives him more time than his brother to do as he pleases. And then two years later, Cyril's life gets even worse. His wife has had it with his long hours. He's barely ever around. When he is around, he's exhausted or fucking high on amphetamines. So in 1969, she asks for a divorce and he grants it. In April of 1970, newly single Cyril now moves to the Upper East Side. He lives in apartment 10H in a building called Sutton Terrace at East 63rd Street.

Cyril gets a dog after he moved out in hopes that his daughters would visit him more, but then his neighbors complain about the dog barking all the time when he has to get rid of the dog and his daughters do not visit him very often. And he begins to abuse amphetamines more. Things are really not going well. Cyril's life had taken a significant downturn after his divorce. People who knew him said he was quote shattered and depressed. It was his first time living alone now since he'd been separated from his brother during his residency but now thanks to his

divorce you know he's feeling far far more alone than ever before. Cyril at this point in his life has literally no friends other than his brother and his brother's not around like he used to be. Cyril starts complaining to his patients about how unhappy he is at his private practice and it's about how unhappy he is with life in general which is you know you can imagine is a bit awkward and not good for business and imagine showing up to a fertility doctor all excited about starting family and he's like I don't even know why you're I don't even know why you're bothering with this I I mean, they're just gonna leave you.

Everyone leaves you, you know? Everyone. Your partner, your kids, your dog. Your twin brother is supposed to be there for you always, forever! Fuck my life! I'm sorry, what were we talking about again? Oh, yeah, in vitro fertilization. God damn it, I hate this job. You sure you want to do that? Sucks. It's gonna suck. I'm sure you want to do that? Sucks. It's going to suck. I'm telling you right now, it's going to suck.

You're going to spend a lot of money just to maybe have a kid who maybe will be healthy. And best case, you'll only have joint custody anyway in the fucking end, and then you won't even let you have a dog. In our 1975 piece for New York Magazine, author Linda Wolf uncovered numerous cases of the twins' problematic and disturbing behavior towards their patients from around this time. She had special insight into that because she was once the twins' patient.

Her friend recommended Stuart Marcus to her, but her friend said she sometimes had doubts about who she was seeing during her visits. She thought the twins sometimes switched places, like mid-appointment, which is so fucking weird. Linda spoke to a woman who told her quote, Of course, they never told their patients they were doing this, but I got so I could tell which was which. Stuart's neck was thicker. Another former patient recalled, having them in attendance was horrible. One checked with his fingers to see how far I was dilated. Then he called his brother, had him checked too. Then they did it again. It

was painful enough to have one person checking the dilation, excruciating to have two people doing it. It was also, I should add, totally unnecessary. But they did it anyway. It was as if one couldn't bear to do something without the other sharing what he was doing with his brother. That is weird. And was it even weirder than that? Was there something sexual going on there? These two freaks comparing notes on their patients' vaginas. Patients also noticed a difference in personalities. One of the twins was kind while the other was inaccessible. Interestingly, they disagreed on which one was the good twin

and which one was the bad twin. Linda stopped seeing this Stuart Amarcus around 1965. I almost called him the Stuart. Linda stopped seeing the Stuart. I would have loved that if he would have referred to himself as the Stuart. Hello I'm the Stuart. Linda stopped seeing Stuart around 1967 because he was distant and unwilling to explain things to her. She was glad she left especially as more women told her about their experiences with these oddballs. A woman named Arlene Gross told Linda Wolfe about her terrible experience with one of the twins. She said, I didn't know I was going to have twins. Still I suspected it.

There are twins in both my husband's and my own family's, but no one believed me. The obstetrician, Dr. Marcus, certainly didn't. On one of my visits, I told him I thought maybe I was carrying twins and he got peculiar, hateful, and cold. I'll never forget it. He stared at me and he said, You pregnant women are all alike. Just because you overeat and get fat, you think you are going to have twins. He spoke to me with such contempt. It was as if I had said I thought I was going to have the Messiah. As if giving birth to twins was something too special for the likes of me. Which was funny since he was a twin. Cyril once told another woman who had

only gained 20 pounds during her pregnancy, you're disgustingly obese. What the fuck? The twins became more and more arrogant. Rude to their patients as time went on. Were known to become irrationally angry when a patient dared to question them in any way. One patient, Cyril, had her operation delayed three times. When Cyril finally told her he was going to perform a biopsy instead of the operation, she asked him why, like why the change? Before this, she thought he was a pleasant doctor, but now he, quote, flew off the handle. She never saw him again. A writer named Jen Baer who would go on to write a book

on assertiveness training told Linda Wolf that she saw Stewart for years. She stopped after she needed an appointment before she left for vacation but he didn't show. She then called Cyril asked if Stewart would be able to see her and if not what should she do? He responded by screaming at her in a way she had never experienced before. Why were they acting like this? Partially I imagine you know because they could. No matter how they treated their patients they still always had enough patience sticking around to make plenty of money. They were still considered geniuses, still prominent members of their field. Women still traveled from all over the country, even outside of the country, to be seen by them. You know, so much easier to act like they did

and still be successful in the days before online reviews. Also, their business continued to thrive at least for a little while longer because they were still legitimately very good at what they did. The twins were well known for performing the quote purse string operation that helped women carry babies to full term. This operation involves sewing the cervix shut to reduce the risk of a pregnancy loss. They were also considered among the best in the nation when it came to inserting IUDs with minimal pain. One former patient was able to conceive and give birth after years of failed treatments with other doctors, told Esquire, they were like gods.

Numerous patients named their children Stuart or Cyril as an expression of gratitude towards these doctors. Some of it even felt like the twins were the fathers of their children, making statements like, I had my first baby by Cyril or Stuart finally got me pregnant. He did everything but plant the seed. I mean, with these fucking weirdos, maybe he did plant the seed. Despite their prominence, the twins' lives were spiraling downward as the mid 1970s approached and they wouldn't continue to do good work for very much longer. They were too fucked up on drugs now. Before we properly explore their downward spiral time for today's mid

show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads any longer you can sign up for our patreon become a space leader for five dollars a month get the entire catalog ad free hundreds of hours of additional content and more and I am back let's head to 1972 find out how much stranger things got for these two weirdos in their final years in the summer of 1972 Stewart received a phone call from handyman Bill Terrell and the Sutton Terrace apartments or at the Sutton Terrace Apartments, or at the Sutton Terrace Apartments. Terrell told Stuart that he thought something was wrong with Cyril.

Stuart responded, just a minute. And then Terrell could hear Stuart, put the phone down, and then just still sit there. It didn't sound like he was doing anything, just sitting there and listening. Like he's just fucking with him. Terrell waited, he said, a full minute and a half before he finally said, hey doctor, you know I'm talking to you. And Stuart responded, you're right. And then Terrell asked, I'm right about what? And Stuart answered, you're right, something's wrong. And then he just got quiet again. What's the fucking deal with these guys? Such weird behavior. Terrell now tried to convince Stuart to hurry

over to the building. He finally agreed to come over. Once he got there, they had to break down the door because Serrell would not answer. And inside they found Serrell on the foyer floor. Looked like he had lost consciousness while crawling towards the phone. Stuart now said, he's dead, and then just wouldn't approach his twin. Terrell got close, saw that no, Serrell was alive, but barely. Serrell then told the handyman to perform mouse-to-mouth on his brother and Taro replied, you're the doctor, you do it. But Stuart wouldn't. He just stood there and stared at his barely alive bro like a fucking weirdo. Taro went and alerted some other doctors who lived in the building. They came to the scene and they helped Ciro. They didn't believe Ciro was trying to end

his life because he'd gotten dressed for the day. It looked like he was on his way out when he collapsed. So they wondered like did he have a stroke or something? Stuart spoke to a friend over the phone the day after Cyril collapsed. He said he wasn't sure what happened, but he was worried Cyril suffered brain damage from a lack of oxygen while he was unconscious. This friend later told Esquire that after this incident, he started to notice that Cyril started to repeat himself during conversations. The friend said, something had happened to alter his functioning in some way. It was just not the same old Cyril. The friend added, it was all down, down, down after that.

The more Cyril deteriorated, the more Stuart involved himself in trying to bail him out and maintain a good front. Maybe Stuart was hoping that by not letting down the front, things would work out. He would always reassure me, Cyril's fine, he's fine. Maybe it was wishful thinking, like trying to save a drowning man who pulls his rescuer down with him. After Cyril's health scare, Stuart quit his recent job as a chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the Nassau County Medical Center and moved into an apartment just three blocks away from Cyril. And this would not be a good move for either of these guys. In the fall of 1972, the twins started working at an abortion clinic in addition to still working at their clinic. They may have done this for the money because Cyril needed to make a heavy alimony payments

and child support payments was having trouble doing so because his behavior was finally starting to really negatively impact business at the clinic. This new business transition won't go well for Stewart either. He really starts to struggle. His demeanor changes and in November of 1972, his publisher cancels the second volume of a textbook he was working on. Then Stewart alienates his contributors by failing to return their manuscripts. Things are not going so well at the private practice either. Their patients continued to notice the twins' odd and often frustrating behavior.

They were still impersonating each other by one leaving the room in the middle of an exam, then having the other come in and pretend to be the other twin. Like, was it just a game for them to do that? They just played it to amuse one another? Apparently. Stuart once told a patient who caught them that they had done that with 14 patients that day, and they'd managed to trick nine of them. During this conversation, he mentioned that even their mom had trouble telling them apart.

Anyone else wondering now if these dudes were rapists in the sense that they would sleep with each other's partners? Which again would be rape, right? Consenting to have sex with one twin doesn't make it okay for the other twin to sneak in and fuck you. I wonder if Stuart ever used to sleep with Cyril's wife. Some patients who would leave a message for Cyril would get a call back from Stuart, which would soon be followed by another call from Cyril who didn't realize his brother had already called.

One patient recalled speaking to Cyril over the phone and she noticed that his voice was slurred. And then she heard a voice in the background talking to him and realized it was Stuart and she thought Stuart was giving him instructions on what to say. There were others also being reported for failure to fill out insurance forms by 1974 and that was a problem that had started years earlier. Seems like an easily avoided problem. A patient reported that back in 1965 she spent months calling and visiting the office just to get one form signed. For some reason the twins were often unwilling to sign insurance forms. I don't know if

they were committing some sort of fraud. No one seems to speculate that. I guess it just seems like they were just fucking weird. No one seems to really understand why they were doing that. They wouldn't answer phone calls about the issue. Wouldn't respond to mailed in forms, they would lie to patients, say they had mailed the form out when they hadn't, then later claimed that the post office must have lost it. They sometimes even refused to send their patients bills, just so they wouldn't have to fill out fucking forms.

No one hated filling out forms more than these two jackasses. The hospital their clinic was affiliated with would then bill the patient anyway, but the insurance companies required doctors to fill out their forms before a patient could be reimbursed, so now, because of what they're not doing, their patients aren't getting their money back. One patient named Evelyn Chaite fought with these twins for four years trying to get some basic insurance forms filled out. In late 1974, she finally reported them to the New York State Department of Professional

Conduct and the department sent out an investigator to look into her complaint. Also in 1974, colleagues were becoming very concerned that the twin's quality of work was diminishing sharply. On March 6, 1974, Cyril attempted to perform a circumcision on an infant with the handle of a knife. The dude was just pushing the knife handle into some poor baby's business apparently. When a concerned nurse questioned him, he said, I know. I know I don't have the blade on. Then he turned the knife around and held it like he should have in the beginning. The nurse still rightfully very concerned. Cyril was sweating profusely. His hands were shaking. Not good for circumcisions.

When she asked him if he felt alright, he snapped at her, told her stop asking questions. And then he did perform the circumcision and I hope that baby didn't grow up to be some dude with a just mangled cock. In April of 1974, Searle suffered another fall. He fell outside the operating room at New York Hospital shortly before he was supposed to begin an operation. As co-workers suspected he was very high on drugs and transferred him to the ER. Stewart came to the hospital to check on his bro was greeted by obstetrics and gynecology chairman who we've met Fritz Fuchs who now suggested that Stewart take a vacation because he looked exhausted and

he demanded that Cyril take a leave of absence immediately. Both brothers would now step away from work at the hospital for months. But they still worked at their private practice during that time, which is scary. They were finally allowed to return to work in August at the hospital, but they were placed under close monitoring by hospital administration. But they wouldn't need much monitoring because they wouldn't do much more work at the hospital. The twins only admitted 18 patients over the next 11 months. They now spent nearly all their time at the private practice, where things are also not going well. In the spring of 1975, a nurse at the private practice spoke to a patient

about what had been happening at the office, saying that the twins, quote, tried to straighten up and get better, but it didn't last long. She claimed they were now openly abusing amphetamines in the office. The issue with the insurance forms is ongoing. Maybe some other weird shit was going on too because the husband of one patient got so fucking angry he came to the clinic, burst into Cyril's office, they got into a heated argument, lots of screaming, and at one point pulled out a gun. The twins also began to fall behind on paying their office rent now. They are spiraling.

And instead of working more to make enough money to catch up, they start working less. They start calling into their practice, you know, sick more and more often, telling their employees they're just not coming in, you know, cancel their appointments for the day. It's around this time that the brothers began to lose a lot of weight, especially Cyril. They get weirdly skinny. Their main nurse becomes increasingly worried. She goes to see Chairman Fuchs twice, tells him she wants to quit the practice. But he encourages her to stay in order to protect the twins' patients from the twins.

He should have spoken with the medical board and tried to get their licenses revoked. In the late spring of 1975, a patient checked into New York Hospital because she was experiencing a spontaneous abortion, and the woman and her husband wondered if Cyril's failure to perform certain tests was a partial cause. When Cyril came to the hospital and saw his patient bleeding in her bed, he asked her, do you want to go home now? And everyone was flabbergasted. What? Send her home? To do what? Have an abortion by herself in the bathroom? Maybe bleed out and die? Cyril was ushered out of the room and different not fucked up on amphetamines doctors treated her. At the same time, a Department of Professional Conduct investigator was becoming very frustrated because he just couldn't get the twins on the phone. He threatened to subpoena Cyril if he did not appear before the department. Cyril had initially come to the investigator's office

back in October of 1974, but then the investigator suspected that it was Stuart, just pretending to be Cyril. That's so weird. Late May of 1975, obstetrics and gynecology chairman, Fritz Fuchs, called the twins into his office, finally told him, somebody suspected them of having a drug problem.

He asked if there was something he could do to help them, offered them a medical leave of absence. They denied the allegations, but Dr. Fuchs told them they could accept either medical leave or they could voluntarily resign. There was not a third option. If they refused, he would recommend them to the medical board to be dropped from the hospital and possibly lose their medical licenses. The twins said that no matter what they chose, their careers and repututations were gonna suffer. Dr. Fuchs wouldn't budge and he gave him two weeks to make their decision. Now the twins almost stopped coming to their practice altogether. They canceled more often than they came in and when they did come in they were fucking weird. One patient who managed to

see them in early June was alone with Cyril for two hours. Cyril was very upset about the death of actor and filmmaker who he did not know, Ozzy Nelson. This is the actor from the old sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet, which have been off the air at this point for almost a decade. It's very random. Cyril also started talking to her about how identical twins often die the same medical conditions such as cancer, which was Nelson's cause of death. And he said that he and his brother were not identical twins, which was not true. The twins were supposed to inform hospital chairman Fuchs of their decision by June 12th, but he doesn't hear from him. Then when he calls Stewart, Stewart

says they haven't decided yet. They didn't fucking care about the deadline. He promises to call him by June 16th, but then he doesn't. Fuchs now calls him repeatedly, but Stewart now refuses to make a decision. These arrogant pricks. Dr. Fuchs starts writing to the hospital's medical board now to recommend against rehiring the twins. If they chose to, the twins could have contested the recommendation before the medical board, but they don't. Still, one member of the medical board said they might have allowed Stewart to continue

working because all he had done was miss some appointments. It wasn't as bad as Cyril. By June of 1975 the Department of Professional Conduct Investigator looking into the twins now has 11 unresolved allegations against him. He subpoenaed them for same-day appearances but they just won't show up. They called, they asked for an adjournment. On June 27th, 1975, the director of the department authorizes charges against the twins to a panel of five doctors. The panel votes to charge them with unprofessional conduct and now they're ordered to appear for a trial. That same month, Stewart receives a call from Dr. Roger Steinhardt, the chairman of the

New York County Medical Society Board of Sensors. The board had been receiving complaints about Cyril Marcus since 1973. Most of them centered around his failure to fill out insurance forms and forward their records when requested. After months of postponement, Cyril appears before the board, but they suspect it's fucking Stuart, pretending to be Cyril again. Because of his affable and easygoing demeanor. What a mess. This board had no legal powers, but they could investigate complaints and recommend that a member be censored or expelled which did not affect their right to practice however the board could and would then relay their findings and recommendations to the State Department of Education and that department does have the power to revoke a medical license. In June of 1975 the board began receiving complaints

about Stewart in addition to even more complaints against Cyril. Dr. Steinhardt called Stewart in June of 1975, asked if Cyril was sick or emotionally disturbed or if he had suffered a cerebral accident. Stewart vehemently denied that his brother needed help and refused to communicate further, just hung up the phone. Dr. Steinhardt now set up a meeting with the department chairman at New York Hospital. Unfortunately, due to a calendar mix-up, Steinhardt didn't show up and the meeting would now never take place because the twins would die before it could be rescheduled. On July 10th, 1975,

the twins failed to show up to a meeting with the New York Hospital Medical Board to defend themselves and the board responded by dropping them from the staff. On July 17th, the handyman for the Sutton Terrace Apartments went to Unit 10H to check out a foul odor. And inside, he found the source. Tenants had been smelling the dead and rotting bodies of Stuart and Cyril Marcus. One twin, the mainest man, nor the police could initially tell who was who, was lying face up on the floor, butt naked, except for a pair of black socks. Totally normal for him to be naked with

his adult brother. Not weird at all. The other twin was lying face down on the bed wearing a single black sock and blue striped shorts. Okay? Rosenbaum and Edmondson wrote for Esquire, The apartment was filthy and in a state of total disarr with litter and garbage. Not just in a single layer, but almost a foot and a half high. Bits of unfinished TV dinners and chicken bones, paper bags and sandwich wrappers from castides were heaped around the bed, a collection of plastic wraps from the dry cleaners entirely filled one closet, and human feces rotted in a handsome leather armchair of the type so many doctors favor. My god. Let me never fall into such a state of apathy, drug-induced or

otherwise, that I just decide, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just gonna shit my nice chair. The first responders had trouble identifying who was who, as I mentioned, but then the main disman recalled that once he thought he was working in the apartment, or sorry, that once when he was working in the apartment, he thought he saw Cyril walking around in the striped shorts. So the twin on the bed is now identified as Cyril and the twin on the floor is identified as Stuart, but that was wrong. It was actually the opposite.

Cyril's ex-wife couldn't identify his body or tell who was who, which caused the medical examiner to suspect there was a mix-up. The medical examiner's office called in a forensic odontologist who corrected the mistake. Homicide was ruled out as a cause of death because there were no injuries or signs of violence and the apartment was double locked from the inside. 30 prescription pill bottles, empty liquor bottles, and more were found scattered throughout the apartment, as well as $22 worth of cash. There were also a bunch of bottles of soda lying around everywhere,

along with cookies, cakes, ice cream. The investigators found a number of barbiturate sleeping pill capsules on the floor around the bodies. The maintenance man found dozens of empty Nembutyl bottles in a kitchen cabinet. Nembutyl is the brand name for pentobarbital, which is a sedative, anticonvulsant, typically used to treat tension, anxiety, nervousness, and insomnia. It can also help patients relax before surgery or medical procedures. It can also treat epilepsy and other seizures. And it's used by people to kill themselves often enough that when I searched on YouTube for Nambutil, instead of immediately getting results,

I got a message that said, you're not alone. Big bold letters. Under those big bold letters was the message, if you or someone you know is having a hard time, talk to somebody today, followed by the suicide hotline. Some other pill bottles on the floor were labeled Demerol, a prescription painkiller. Investigators believe that Stuart Marcus most likely died between July 10th and July 14th. Cyril most likely died between July 14th and July 17th. The foul smell was noticed as early as Monday, July 14th, but on Tuesday, July 15th, two doormen saw Cyril leave the building in return, so it sure seems as if the twins did not die on the same day.

One of the doormen, George Sick, who saw one of the twins leaving the building, told author Linda Wolf, I thought he looked ill. I thought he was going to faint and I hurried over to help him. And then the twin told him in a rude voice, I'm alright. The other doorman saw Sirl weaving and stumbling, followed him to the 10th floor, but he declined any help getting into his apartment. He also told his answering service he did not want any more calls. Investigators initially suspected Stewart had overdosed on barbiturates. It was speculated the twins made a suicide pact or that they chose to put themselves

into a coma by both taking a big dose of nebutal and that Stewart died but Cyril didn't because he had a higher tolerance due to years of drug abuse. He then possibly woke up from the coma several days later, found his brother dead, left the apartment one last time on July 14th, when he returned, he typed his ex-wife's address on a sheet of paper and chose to end his life. No one knows exactly why Cyril lived

with his brother's body for days or why he returned to the same apartment to die. While the apartment was a mess, officers did find things like deodorant, shaving cream, tanning lotion, and razors. Even though their lives were falling apart, the twins always tried to keep up a neat appearance in public. As messy as the apartment was, they didn't reek of filth when they left it. They didn't look disheveled. Police also found an empty bottle of Dilantin, another anticonvulsant used to treat seizures caused by narcotic withdrawal.

And that caused investigators to wonder if Stewart tried to help Cyril by giving him the Dilantin or if they started taking it to help them stop using drugs to try and save their careers. So, you know, were their deaths an attempt at privately detoxing and it just went horribly wrong? Possibly, but probably not. The dates on the prescription bottle showed they were still buying barbiturates after they purchased the Dylanton. The police also discovered a box near Stewart's body that had the words will slash insurance on it.

Stewart had no will, but Cyril had made plans for his daughter's inheritance. A homicide sergeant went to Stewart's nearby apartment after the bodies were found and discovered that Stewart had the same type of pills in his apartment along with piles of mail, a bunch of rotten food, right? Like what the fuck? His doorman said that Cyril had been literally the only visitor to Stewart's apartment in the past year and that Stewart forbade any of the staff to ever enter his apartment. Finding the doorman reported that he had not seen Stewart at all in the month leading up to his death. The public wouldn't learn about the twins deaths until July 19th.

Dr. Stanley Birnbaum, director of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Hospital, told the press that the twins were quote, very dedicated, quiet and conscientious. But they seem to have been having some emotional problems over the past year. The amount of work they did at the hospital had markedly diminished. But whether that was of their own choosing or because of problems, I don't know. Everybody felt they were sick somehow. But just what was the nature of their illness? If any, I have no idea. Hardcore addiction, I would guess.

The twins were buried July 20th, 1975. They had a simple 15-minute funeral service performed by Rabbi Samuel Mendelwitz at a funeral home in Hackensack, New Jersey. On July 21st, the medical examiner's office officially ruled out barbiturate overdose as a cause of death, which eliminated the first theory about how the twins died. Further testing for tranquilizers, narcotics, and liquor still ongoing. By July 25th, the medical examiner's office completed over 30 different chemical tests, still could not identify the cause of death. Somehow, despite their addiction, there were literally zero traces

of typical chemical causes of death, such as alcohol, barbiturates, narcotics, or depressants. Medical examiner Dominic DiMio said they were going to keep investigating and look for, quote, unusual drugs with tests that are not routinely administered. Then on July 31st, the medical examiner's office concluded that the twins had died of acute barbiturate withdrawals.

That makes sense to me. Dr. Dominic DeMile ruled that the twins, quote, were physiologically dependent on barbiturates and suffered longstanding addictions that cause chronic malnutrition. And what a fucking brutal addiction. Is shitting on chairs a common side effect? I don't know. According to the New York Daily News, he said,

The Daily News reported that a heavily addicted person will typically experience withdrawal symptoms after 24 hours and then goes through and then go through three days of the shakes before suffering seizures that can cause death within four to seven days. After the news came out medical organizations began to question the hospital about his policies because the brothers had performed surgery and saw patients when they were clearly high as fuck. One individual at the hospital recalled an instance when Dr. Marcus, which brother is unspecified, removed the anesthetic mask from a patient pre-surgery and put it on his own face. Right? Just like the movie. He was quickly replaced by his brother, but his brother was also

quote, out of it. The hospital denied that the anesthetic mask incident ever happened and yeah, sure they did. They're trying to cover their asses, you know, prevent a class action malpractice lawsuit from taking place. On August of 1975, the New York Times reported from this episode and numerous lesser incidents reported by colleagues, acquaintances and patients of the Marcus brothers, it seems apparent that many people knew they were undergoing some kind of deep-seated long-term change for the worse. Hospital officials were tight-lipped in the early days about what disciplinary actions they took. One congressman from Queens called the incident

a medical watergate, called for federal funding to be cut off until all questions had been answered with this case. After the medical examiner's office determined the cause of death, the case faded from the spotlight and many details of the twins' demise remained unsolved. Or I guess, unresolved. In 1976, Chief Medical Examiner Dominic DeMaio told Esquire, I don't mind telling you we have a major medical mystery on our hands.

We've exhausted all the regular possibilities and now we're going for rare things. Exotic is the word, I guess. Rosenbaum and Edmondson wrote in their article, this explanation of dying from withdrawals didn't satisfy many people. It assumed the twins went into simultaneous comas from heavy barbiturate use, stayed in the comas long enough to metabolize all the barbiturates in their systems, emerged from the comas to go immediately into seizures, so simultaneous and incapacitating that neither could make use of the anticonvulsants also

found at the death scene. It also assumed neither twin could call for help or help the other. The theory apparently didn't even satisfy the medical examiner himself. He quietly sent Marcus, Marcus twin tissue samples out to another lab for further analysis after announcing the cause of death. Dr. Hugh Lucky, the president of the New York Hospital, proposed a different theory. Dr. Lucky was under public fire due to accusations that the hospital was not properly protecting his patients and he was

quoted as saying, just because there were barbiturate bottles doesn't mean they died of barbiturate withdrawal. I will tell you something, any smart physician could dispose of himself by a mechanism which could never be discovered by anyone, including his insurance companies. No relationship to the Marcus brothers. I have no evidence, but I know the way I would do it if I were going to. Dr. Lucky said he would do it quote, by injecting something in places where you would never find it. The injection mark he's referring to. Like in a hemorrhoid. Okay. According to Esquire, at the end of an interview

between Dr. Lucky and hospital administrator Mel Platt, Dr. Platt said if he could figure out the mystery he would write the greatest novel of all time. They both agreed that no one would ever find out what happened. In late August of 1975, the New York Daily News published a piece on the brothers about how leaders in medicine were questioned if the brothers could have been saved. At that time, the American Medical Association estimated that 14 to 17,000 practicing doctors struggled with alcohol and drug addiction or psychiatric conditions. Studies from the mid-60s found that addiction was an occupational hazard that affected physicians more frequently than it did the average citizen. Dr. Aaron Ament

spoke at an AMA conference about trying to find someone to help a fellow physician experiencing mental health problems and he said, I suspect that when a physician begins to deteriorate, most of us would rather he went to someone else. I suspect that there are many physicians who in one form or another cry out more and more desperately for help who are repeatedly turned away. I suspect that their desperation often increases to the point where they have such a tenuous control of their impulses that they are literally in danger of hurting themselves or others. Relatively few of us commit murder, a fair number of us commit suicide. I suspect this happens when the controls finally give way after the cries for help have gone unrecognized. I have begun to believe that we physicians let

each other die. This is still a major problem in medicine. Around 300 to 400 physicians die by suicide each year in the US alone. According to the 2022 Medscape National Physician Burnout and Suicide Report, 10% of physicians experience suicidal thoughts on average in a given year. But that number can be high as 13% in some specialties. Physicians have one of the highest suicide rates of any professions or of any profession. The suicide rate for male physicians 40% higher than for the general population. Suicide rate for female physicians

130% higher. The major risk factors of physician suicide are depression, emotional exhaustion, low self-evaluation, untreated mental illness, substance abuse, impaired relationships, and malpractice claims. Abuse of prescription or illegal drugs is rare among physicians, but 12.9% of male physicians and 21.4% of female physicians meet the diagnostic criteria for either alcohol abuse or dependence. The deaths of the Marcus twins remain a mystery almost 50 years later. Many people find their story fascinating because of the Dead Ringers movie and subsequent miniseries. The brothers decline was witnessed by many, but few tried to intervene. But also, few really knew them.

And I think more than anything, that's why they spiraled and died. Right? They had been in an echo chamber of just two people for the majority of their lives. That's not good for anybody. They spent way, way too much time with each other and not nearly enough time with other people. Not nearly enough time with somebody else who could become close enough to them, you know, to call out their deteriorating behavior. become close enough to them, you know, to call out their deteriorating behavior. Somebody who could tell each of them that the best thing for each of them was to get the fuck away from the other twin. Go lead your own independent life.

The twins struggle with letting others into their inner circle who could have helped them and many outside of me believe that their intense twin bond is what led to their downfall. When they separated for the residencies, right, they thrived. They should have stayed separated. And now that song, uh, gotta keep them separated, just popped in my head. Always having someone since birth, since before birth to share your life with, you know, it might sound like a dream. And maybe it is for some identical twins. I hope it is. It can also clearly be a nightmare. Especially if you're struggling with all the complications that can come from having parents who are also identical twin siblings whose parents are also identical twin siblings whose parents

are also identical twin siblings. Tough to deal with life in general when your chromosomes are so fucking rusted out and misshapen thanks to having a family straw or a family fence post instead of a family tree. Sorry, you just had to throw that image in your mind one last time. And that's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog, beefier, deeper dive episodes of Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time, new episodes of the long

running paranormal podcast, scared to Death every Tuesday at midnight with two episodes of Nightmare Fuel. Fictional horror written voiced by me, thrown into the mix each month, scored by Logan who's been killing it. Thank you to Olivia Lee for the initial research and thank you to Logan Keith polishing up the sound in today's episode. Please go to Badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend. Add Magic Productions