The Ericksson Twins

What started as a family trip rapidly devolved into one of the most terrifying, peculiar, and ultimately tragic tales. In this episode, find out what caused a set of seemingly normal twins to act not just out of character, but completely out of control.

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This is So Bizarre, a podcast where we find the weirdest stories from history and share them with you. I'm Bianca. I'm Nicole. Let's get started. So, Nicole. Bianca, I have a story for you this week. Nice. I didn't expect a story. No, this one It's so out of the blue. So, this particular story, it's been something that I've heard about, I've known about it for years. And I've always really wanted to like dive deep into it because it's kind of spooky, eerie, all the good things. But also sad. Oh. Okay. I'm emotionally prepared for both of these things. You're an open vessel. Yes. Great. So this is the story of the Ericsson twins. You're looking at me like I know what that means? No, I was like waiting just in case. No, I don't. Murder, twins, superhuman strength. Today's story has a lot of bizarre qualities. How did two normal sisters by all accounts begin acting so erratically and violently without any clear explanation in May of 2008? Oh, 2008? It's a recent one. Oh, good, good, good, good, good. Yeah. So buckle up. So our twins that we're talking about, the Ericsson twins, are Ursula and Sabina. So born in idyllic, and this is me pretending to do Swedish. I think it's possible. We'll see. Born in Idyllic Sunna, Sweden, in 1967, the twins lived a relatively normal life. There's actually little information about them, but by all accounts, there were regular blonde little Swedish girls. How old? Well, they were born in 1967, so they were Bebez. Right, right, right, right, right. Oh, you want me to do math again? I do want you to do math. This is a learning podcast. I'm never going to get there. I'm in my 30s. Well, 2008, they're gonna be about 40. But before we get there, I just want to go a little bit more about them. So they had two older siblings. They kept to themselves, and while we don't have a lot of information about them, some accounts have said that they were a little odd. I don't know if this is revisionist history after what we find out, but there you go. Not kids being odd. Kids being twins. Twins are odd. Um yeah, my mom's a twin, and the pictures of her when she's a kid is so spooky with my aunt, like matching like the shining kind of outfits. It's so your grandma dressed them alike. Hundred percent. What do you think's weirder that your grandma did that, or my mom would dress me and her in the same exact outfit for a really long time, like all of my photos until I was four. And because my um next sibling is a boy, it was just me and her in these like 90s, 80s like tie-dye dresses. That's cute because I know your mom, and I'm like, that's endearing. And I feel like I don't know, it when you say that, it makes me think of twins like Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and you're like little Danny DeVito. That's a great spin. Yeah. Anyways, the most important thing about them growing up is that there was no known history of mental illness or criminal activity. We're gonna flash forward now to 2008. They're 40 years old. Ursula, for some time now, relocated to the U.S. and Sabina is living in Ireland with her partner and two children in Mallow County, Cork. Excellent names, by the way. I know. Excellent names. Ursula and Sabina. So on Friday, May 16th, 2008, Ursula flies from the US to Ireland to reunite with her sister, and that's when shit hits the fan. Oh no, not the fan the fan. The fan. Okay. Ursula gets to her sister's house in Ireland, and by evening, for reasons that nobody knows, the sisters traveled secretly to Liverpool by ferry. So they went from Ireland to England. They arrive in Liverpool at 8:30 in the morning and immediately go to St. Anne's police station. Sabina is freaking out and saying her children are in danger. Her children back in Ireland. So the officers are kind of like, What is this? You came to Liverpool to tell us about your kids in Ireland being in danger. They think it's really strange, but they're like, okay. Also by ferry. Yes. Let's not forget that little. They think it's weird. They think it's weird they call up uh the Dublin cops who figure out that the kids are fine. The only strange detail that they uncover is that Sabina had a fight with her partner the previous evening. But it doesn't matter. Because by 11 30 a.m., the pair are on a national express bus heading to London. Again. No clear reason why. So it's just the two of them. Just the two of them. That is some twin shit. That is some twin shit. Yeah. It's so far it's like weird. The officers are like, why did this woman come to Liverpool to report about her kids in Ireland? Where where is she going? They it's all confusing. Now the bus is where things get even stranger. First of all, they're holding onto their bags super tightly. They're showing signs of paranoia. They keep standing up and sitting down. And then they ask to be let out of the bus because they said they're not feeling well. The driver stops at Keel station, but is so weirded out by them that he doesn't let them back on. Especially when he asks to search their bags, because they're clutching them super tight and being super weird, and the women refuse. So this is 2008, and the driver's asking to search their bags. Well, at this point, from like I could see why. From this, from like the driver's perspective, they're clutching their bags, and I'd be like, maybe they've got a weapon, maybe they've got drugs. They're post-9-11. They're acting twitchy. We're not just post-9-11, it's also um post bus terrorist attacks in London. True, true, true, true, true. So the London terrorist attacks were just three years prior in 2005. So things are very, it's tense. The manager of the service station is also aware of what's going on, and even she called the police because she was kind of like, I don't know. This is strange. The police arrive, but eventually let the women go because they're deemed as harmless. We're gonna move on to even weirder shit. Please. This is when some pretty odd things happen. So the women leave the service station and they're just wandering down the M6 motorway. This is the busiest motorway in all of the UK. This is the one that goes from top to bottom. It goes to, I don't know, Southampt Southampton to England. I don't know. I can drive around, but yeah. That sounds right. Um, so they're walking and they're acting again. Wait, so they're walking on a highway. They're walking on the shoulder and they're being really erratic. They're kind of dodging in and out of traffic and not very well. Sabina gets hit by a SIAT. What? Yes. Not very well is a selling room. So she gets hit by a car but keeps going. They're super strange. They've got their bags. Keeps going? Yes. What kind of hit? Not a very big one. I don't know. We'll see. But we'll see. This is some foreshadowing. Now, I'm just gonna make a quick aside that apparently about this, their older brother claimed in a Swedish newspaper that his sisters were fleeing from maniacs who were chasing them. Although there's nothing to support this. Now, while this is happening, by complete coincidence, the BBC actually have a film crew out on the M6. They're filming for a show called Motorway Cops, which sounds like Paddington Bear meets cops, but like it's basically like highway cops. And they wait, like a reality? Yeah. Okay. And they record what happens next. The police are called to herd the women together, get them off the freaking highway. And they're there, film crew's there. The police are kind of trying to figure out what's going on because this is all weird. We've got two blonde Swedish women just wandering, getting bumped around by cars. Were they being filmed by the Yes? All of a sudden, Ursula breaks away and runs right into the highway. Gets hit head on by a truck. Sabina immediately follows her and gets hit by, I believe, a Volkswagen polo. This is very zombie apocalypse. Yes. First people infected. The women are laying on the road somehow there, but still showing signs of being alive. Sabina is out cold. Ursula's legs are crushed and she has multiple compound fractures. Ursula's also screaming and spitting and clawing at the police as they try to help her. That tracks for her though. I mean she ran. She didn't want to deal with police. No. But also, like your legs are like, I'm doing my own thing. Where what's the next move? What did you think would happen if I ran it? Obviously, I wanted to crush my legs. Still. Ursula's also recorded saying, I recognize you, I know you're not real. Then Sabina, who was out cold for 15 minutes, and when I say she was hit by a car, I mean head like smack into a car. No, it was a car, but I'll show you the photos. She hits the windshield and like it's full on. It's a full-on, head-on hit. So when she comes to she is aggressively resisting help, just like her sister. And then stands up and starts to run away. She's running away. As she's going, she manages to punch like cold cock a police officer who falls to the ground. Yes, bye. She's screaming, they're going to steal your organs. And also screaming for the police. The police, look, they're filming this entire thing, so you can see it. The police are literally screaming back, We are the police. Oh my god, there's a video? Yes. And she's running. When I say running, I mean she's got that like that like meth strength, you know? Like she is just like, she's she's weaving and bobbing like a fighter. It's pretty wild. Marvel superhero. She just got hit by a car. Not only that, but she probably got hit by a car earlier. Not only that, but she took an all-night ferry. Like probably wasn't well in the from the beginning of it. I didn't leave the house today. I'm still a little sleepy just because like I didn't have a coffee. Like, this is nuts. If I take the ferry from Lower Manhattan to Greenpoint, which is 10 minutes, I'm like, no one talk to me. I my body has to recover from this. I I need the day off. That's your day. That's your day. That's it. That's it. That's it. So it took six people to restrain her. Three officers, and then just three regular people, because she's running across this giant motorway. She's stopping both sides of traffic, and people are just pulled over and they're like, What's happening? They restrain her. Six grown-ass people. See, this is what I would like to think of myself if I were ever to encounter that kind of situation. I would like to think that I could just mow down a shit ton of people and do my thing. I watch way too much Marvel. Everyone knows that. Yeah, that is that is that is not how you should be thinking. It's what I think about myself, and I'm very aware that that's not true. Yeah. Good. That is um, that's worrying, if I'm gonna be honest with you. Yeah, but she's doing an amazing job. She's doing it, you know. She's doing a great job. Women, women just women gotta support women. Ursula is seriously injured. Our girl got hit by a a truck, a lorry. She's admitted to hospital by air ambulance and does not test positive for alcohol or drugs. Sabina also goes to the hospital, but she's fine. In fact, she's released five hours later. She's then taken into police custody and is described by police as relaxed and joking. Joking? She's just like, What's she got? Swedish. Banter. Swedish banter. Do this do the Swedes banter? They do their own banter. They do their banter. They banter. Sorry to any Swedes who are listening. Sorry to any Swedes. Sorry to our Swedish families. You're very nice. Um she's kind of like chill. That's how she's described. Who knows if that's just like from the sedation. But either way, she pleads guilty to motorway trespass and hitting an officer and is sentenced to only one day and released without a psych avow. And the bags that they were clutching the whole time and freaking out about only had their passports and then several cell phones. Well, okay, that's sus. It's sus, but it's also like They're right. It's their right. Burner phones? Sure. Also, is their right to have a bunch of cell phones? Yeah. Is it weird? It sure is. Is it their business? It sure is. Yeah, everyone mind your business. Mind everyone's business. Just kidding, they're in the motorway throwing themselves on cars, actually. So police are confused because they were thinking it was one of two things drugs, alcohol, or a suicide pack. They don't test positive for drugs. Well, actually, I should correct that. As of what I read, only Ursula was tested for drugs or alcohol. Sabina, from what I can recall, was not at this moment. But who knows? One weird thing that Sabina does say though, while she's in police custody, she says, We say in Sweden that an accident rarely comes alone. Usually at least one more follows, maybe two. So the rule of threes. The rule of threes, which is especially universal. Yeah. Sweets. They're just like us. Okay. Nicole, do you want to see the video? I have not stopped thinking about it since you said there's a video. Okay. Are you ready? I am. So here's a quick clip. This is just the officers coming up to the twins. Nothing major has happened yet, and they're just about to run into the motorway. The red one is going to be a little bit red. As she ran out, he tried to grab her instinctively. Luckily for him, um her jacket came off, or else he could potentially have been in the carriageway as well. She was obviously struck by the HGV. Once the first girl had run out, um, the second one, for some reason, also decided she was gonna run out into the traffic as well. This second clip is where you can see Sabina coming to getting up, punching the officer and then running and screaming. Right, don't get going anywhere, okay? Just chill, chill, okay. She's unconscious initially. Um, I mean, you can see the damage to the vehicle, the windscreen, and the roof as well. Majority of people don't survive collisions um when they've had an impact like that. Trying to make sure you're okay. It was unbelievable when she started to come round and just decided that she was perfectly okay. Stay still her strength was absolutely phenomenal. The only time I've dealt with people with similar strength are those people that have been on um drugs or under the influence of alcohol. Come on down, calm down, calm down, calm down, shoot! She's she's looking to fight, she's in a fighting stance. I'm now confronted with uh a seriously deranged woman. Nicole, describe what you've just seen. Oof. I have such mixed feelings. First of all, we don't have it on audio, but I immediately started laughing and screaming how beautiful Sabrina's clothes were. Sabina. Sabina. She's wearing just like this really long and she looks tall. Floor length. Floor length red duster? I want to say a duster. Yeah, with like a little hood and at first they have this like the foil that you put on someone that gets out of a fire. Um and then she just really all of a sudden is like into the street. Yeah. And my favorite part is then when the cops are trying to calm her down, before she's about to fight the cops, she takes off her jacket. She's basically like hold my hoops. She immediately takes off her jacket and like goes towards them. She's not even running anymore. She stops running, takes off jacket, goes towards them. She's like, What is up? It's very hold my hoops. Yes. And this is obviously a really tragic story. We'll go into it more. But one thing I really enjoyed was just that one cop saying, chill over and over again. It's like that friend when you're like trying to talk somebody off, like fighting with someone. You're like, chill. Yeah, but like a minor fight at a bar. No. Just don't argue about the tab, it's fine. Yeah. I can't imagine what must have been going through all of their minds. Just this woman, you're trying to help her and she's scratching at you and screaming and punching you. Sabina, like I said, was in police custody for about one day, I believe. She's now alone. They've released her, and she's on the streets of Stoke on Trent looking for her sister in the hospital. I'm not sure what was happening, but she was just wandering around, possibly looking for hospitals. Just seemed very lost. And and to be fair, reading all of these accounts, I couldn't help but be a little bit surprised that the place were just like, no psyche valve, bye. Bye. Good luck. You live where? In nowhere, Ireland. In Ireland. Okay. Okay. Do you have I hope you have enough? You have a million cell phones, so call somebody, I guess. I don't know what to tell you. Around 7 p.m., she meets two local men. 54-year-old Glenn Hollinshead, a father of two welder, paramedic, and former Royal Air Force Airman. The second man was his friend Peter Malloy. She meets these guys. She's on the street. By all accounts, she's friendly, right? Glenn has a dog. She's petting the dog. She's starting up a conversation. She's asking them for directions for like a nearby place, like a hotel. She's trying to find her sister, blah, blah, blah. But the area didn't have any hotels or bed and breakfasts as these men tell her. And Glenn, feeling bad for her, invited her to his house. I don't know who I'm more scared for. Her going to a strange man's house or him. Yes. Yes. So I it sounds like he, again, it sounds like he was just trying to be like a good Samaritan and it was kind of late in the day, and he was like, look, if you need a place to stay for the night, come by. The three of them head back to Glen's house where Sabina is acting weirder and weirder. The men, well, Peter in particular, thinks that she's actually run away from an abusive husband because her behavior is so paranoid. She keeps getting up while they're sitting in Glenn's house. She keeps getting up and looking out the window like she's looking for someone or someone's trying to look for her. Um, she even offers them cigarettes and then snatches them out of their mouths before they're lit, saying they're poisoned. Well, they're fucking expensive. They're fucking expensive. That's a good excuse. Sorry, they're poisoned. I would give you this, but it's poisoned. Um, the next day, Glenn is trying to help Sabina find Ursula. And around evening time, 7:40, they're preparing a meal. Glenn leaves the house to ask his neighbor for some tea bags. Very British. And he gets back home and not even a minute later, steps right back out of his house. His neighbor's outside washing the car, sees everything happening. Steps outside, he's been stabbed five times. I did not see this coming. And he tells his neighbor, she stabbed me. And then his last words, Nicole. Oh, he dies. No. His last words were, look after my dog for me. Oh, I feel bad for complimenting her clothes. Yeah, you should. You see what I did? You see how I allured you? Oh no. It's this that's why I keep saying this is actually a really tragic story. And while we may not know every single detail, it does sound like Glenn was trying to do the right kind thing. Yeah. He quickly succumbed to his injuries and passed away. Sabina, quick, without skipping a beat, is already running on the streets. The police have been called. Sabina's running on the street and is holding a hammer with her. And as she's running, periodically hitting herself in the head with the hammer. A passing motorist is seeing this happen and actually tries to tackle her. But Sabina pulls a roof tile from her back pocket and hits him in the head with it. She's stabbed. Stunning him. She's pursued until Heron Cross, where she proceeds to jump from a 40-foot bridge onto the A50, breaking both her ankles and fracturing her skull. But makes it. But she still survives. Yeah. She had literally out of her mind. Let's let's tally this. Got off a ferry, been hit several times by a car, spent the night in the slammer. Next day, encounters this man, spends a night on his couch, maybe, then murders him, then starts hitting herself in the head with a hammer, then jumps off a bridge, and she's still yes. So I'm gonna say something really weird. When I watch a lot of like epic sagas or movies, I have this thought constantly where I know that we're not supposed to see that as the audience or think about it, but I'm like, when are they eating? Like in superhero films. I'm like, when when are they eating? It's been like eight days since I've seen anyone eat. What are they eating? That's why I like that one Marvel movie where they sat and had like, was it Schwarma or something? Sure, but even like in Lord of the Rings, I'm like Oh my god, all the hobbits do is talk about food. Yeah, and then they stop eating. But I'm just saying, what has she had some gallowin is fucking fish? Has she had water or food? Uncle. How is she still? I feel like no. I feel like no. Unfucking clear. So Tess would later reveal that she had no traces of alcohol or drugs in her system. Sabina pleads guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility in September of 2008. She did not try to explain her actions. She only replied to no comment to police questioning. Her defense? Foly a deux or shared psychosis instigated by the presence or perceived presence of her twin sister, Ursula. No, no. They also told the court that Sabina suffered from a rare psychiatric disorder, which made her hear voices. The judge, when he sentenced her, and I'm paraphrasing heavily, the judge said, This sentence is not designed to reflect the grief the relatives have suffered or to measure the value of Mr. Hollinshead's life. No sentence that I could pass could do that. It is a sentence which I hope fairly measures a truly tragic event. It is not one of those cases where the defendant could have done something to avoid the onset. Glenn's brother had this to say about it. We don't hold her responsible. The same as we wouldn't blame a rabid dog for biting someone. She is ill and to a large degree not responsible for her actions, but her mental disorder should have been recognized much earlier. That is a level of empathy that everyone should strive to, but it's very like think about the time that it was happening. These Englishmen or anyone really, we didn't have the language to talk about therapy or get into nuance about untreated diagnoses. Yeah. It's it honestly is heartbreaking. He's the hero. He is. So the weird thing is that people still don't know what happened. We say folia deh because it's shared psychosis, and you know, that's what was that's what she pled guilty with, but there's also questions of how could drugs not be involved? Like she had such a superhuman strength, and so did her sister. Wait, so what happened to Ursula? Ursula stayed in hospital until September 2008 and then quietly went back to Sweden. She wasn't involved in everything that was going on. Sabina was sentenced to five years and served about two to three years of that sentence. For murder? Yeah. Well, manslaughter with diminished responsibility. And when she was released, we really don't know what happened to them. No follow-up whatsoever. Well, she was released in 2011, and I did read in some places that she might be back in the US in the Pacific Northwest. Um, we do know that when she was in jail, she turned to Christianity. So some of the things that I was reading was saying that she's deep in a church somewhere. Um Nicole, what do you think happened? I the whole twin shared psychosis is something that people just hear that and they're like, I want no part of this, I don't understand. And we just believe it. Sure, that's a thing. So I don't I mean, I don't really have an idea. Obviously, it wasn't drugs. Maybe they just both happened to not be well because they are like empaths towards each other. It's pretty crazy though that it's they've named Ursula as the alleged instigator, so that she would come in because everything started going pretty nuts immediately when she landed in Ireland, right? So she's there, they take the ferry to Liverpool, and so begins the journey. But also when I hear about things like that, I'm like, wow, so Sabina, even without her sister around, is still under this like fugue state for days. It's pretty wild. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I mean, it's kind of wild to me that nothing further happened. She didn't serve a lot of time. And what about the kids? What about the children? What about the children? Husbands, I assume, or partners, or at least baby daddies that would have something to say about it. But yeah, I mean, that's pretty crazy. I honestly don't have any ideas of how that could happen. I will say we've said it before, and I'll say it again. Twins are pretty spooky. Pretty spooky. I say that, but then also you have twins in your family. So many twins. So yeah, so you heard it from me first. I I love you, Danny. I love you, Dee Dee. Those are my cousin twins. Spooky. All right, Bianca, what's your Housewives tagline? I guess we're gonna go with this until we forget or it gets too dumb. Oh my god. Uh let me think. I want everyone to be clear. I don't watch Housewives. I just really That's a lot. You watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hells with me. For a few episodes. Enough to understand the tagline in how and how amazing this is. Um, okay. Baby, this is one double trouble that you can't throw under the bus.