WATCH ABOVE: The mixed-up brothers of Bogota — two sets of twins accidentally swapped at birth and just recently discovering their true identities and featured in an incredible article by Susan Dominus from the New York Times. John Hadden explains.
Two sets of twins mixed up at birth. A new New York Times feature tells the chilling story of four boys, growing up believing they each had a fraternal twin when, in fact, their biological sibling was just hours away with another family in Colombia.
Jorge, William, Carlos, and Wilber, dubbed the Mixed-up Brothers of Bogota, are two sets of twins who were separated at birth who only learned of their identical twin’s existence decades later at 24 years old.
In the twisted story told by the NYT’s Susan Dominus, the men stumble upon each other’s existence by chance. Two women head to a butcher’s shop, where one recognizes William, the butcher, behind the counter as her colleague at an engineering firm named Jorge. Her friend insists it’s William, and chalks the similarity up to coincidence.
Months pass, and the pair ruminate about the uncanny resemblance. They decide to show Jorge an image of William – he’s mesmerized. They share the same soft brown eyes, bright smile, hair texture – handfuls of minute details.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw one photo of his apparent identical twin.
“Jorge felt a rush of confusion, and then his stomach dropped. The friend sitting next to his double had a face that Jorge knew better than his own: It was the face of his fraternal twin brother, Carlos,” the feature reads.
Jorge and Carlos grew up in their grandmother’s small house in Bogota. Jorge ended up at the engineering firm while his brother worked in accounting. From their humble beginnings in the bustling city, they created comfortable adult lives.
The other set of fraternal twins, William and Wilber, grew up on a remote farm in Santander.
The identical twins were accidentally swapped at birth.
“Sitting beside Jorge in his bedroom, Carlos shut the laptop and fell silent. He headed into his room and closed the door. Jorge followed him, saying things that Carlos knew were meant to make him feel better — no matter what, even if one of us was exchanged, we’re still brothers — but that made him feel only more isolated.”
The full feature is online now, and will be the magazine’s cover story on Sunday.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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