Mystery Surrounds the Deaths of Reclusive Old Hollywood Twins

Patricia and Joan Miller, identical twins who sang and danced their way through the 1950s for the likes of Bing Crosby, were found dead in their Lake Tahoe home last week, the Associated Press reported today.

Never married and without children or pets, the Miller sisters had long withdrawn into the four-bedroom home they purchased in 1976. When people called, the sisters came up with excuses to get off the phone. Without explanation, they stopped sending birthday cards to a childhood friend. And on the rare occasion when they left their home, the two women didn't chat up the neighbors.

The 73-year-old twins appear to have died within hours of one another, though foul play has thus far been ruled out.

"My perception is one died and the other couldn't handle it," the investigating officer, Detective Matt Harwood, told the Associated Press.

Based on decomposition of the bodies, police speculate that the twins had been dead for "at least several weeks" before they were discovered by volunteers on a routine trip to check on the sisters' welfare.

Their home was not disheveled or unkempt. There was a window open.

One body was found in a downstairs bedroom; the other in the hallway just outside.

"All they had was each other and that's actually the way they wanted it," explained Detective Harwood.

Meanwhile, in Malibu, in the dining room of a cavernous Spanish Colonial Revival, Mary-Kate Olsen feels a chill run up her spine, and looks at her sister texting away the silence of yet another empty hour, and shudders.

[Image via AP]