Kodinhi – Kerala’s village of twins

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Kodinhi – Kerala’s village of twins By any metric, conceiving twins and triplets is a rare natural occurrence around the world. In fact, on average only 16 out of 1,000 successful pregnancies in the world result in twins and this average is even lower in India at just 9. However, this ratio is heavily skewed in the sleepy hamlet of Kodinhi in Kerala , which has a record 400 pairs of twins in a population of just over 2,000 families! Geneticists and scientists have long tried to explain this rare phenomenon but are only now making some headway. While experts have pointed to genetics as an obvious factor, what’s even more mysterious is that irrespective of religion, lineage or their original heritage, all families living in the village have conceived more than the average pairs of twins over the last few generations, and the number is consistently growing.

Mr. Bojangles

Mr. Bojangles

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On May 5, 1993, the town of West Memphis, Arkansas, would be plagued by one of the most controversial criminal cases of all time after the brutal murder of three eight-year-old boys: Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steve Branch. Three local teenagers—Damian Echols, Jesse Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin (the “West Memphis Three”)—were convicted of the crime but soon acquired a slew of supporters who believed they were wrongfully convicted. The case generated so much controversy that the West Memphis Three were released from prison in 2011 after entering an Alford plea. There has always been much debate about who the real killer of the three boys might be, but a major wild card in this story is an unidentified individual known only as “Mr. Bojangles.”
On the night the boys went missing, West Memphis police received a phone call from the manager of a Bojangles’ chicken restaurant, which happened to be located near the wooded area where the victims were eventually found. According to witnesses, a black man entered the restaurant and went into the ladies’ room, where he remained for nearly an hour. He was bleeding, covered in mud, and looked disoriented and shell-shocked.
By the time police arrived to take a report, the man had already left, but since they were preoccupied with the search for the missing boys, they did not inspect the washroom until the following day. Small blood samples were taken from the washroom wall, but the evidence was never sent for analysis and inexplicably went missing. The mysterious “Mr. Bojangles” was not seen again.
Even if this man had nothing to do with the murders, it’s possible he may have stumbled upon the victims’ bodies at one point or witnessed something which could provide much-needed answers for the West Memphis Three case.


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