In Some Cases, the Ties Don’t Bind

Hayley Mills was a good one. Bette Davis was a good one and a bad one.

They were movie twins, part of a rich tradition of stories dating from Genesis about that most intriguing human relationship: the identical sibling.

An Irvine case involving allegations of one twin trying to knock off the other and assume her identity--and good credit--reminds us how fascinating the bond is.

Before a pack of international media, Jeen Young Han faced arraignment last week in a Newport Beach courtroom on charges that she had the starring role in a plot to murder her identical twin, Sunny Young Han, earlier this month.

But despite legends harking back to ancient Rome about dueling twins, scientists and psychologists say their research shows animosity between twins is very uncommon. In fact, the identical twin bond “is a very close one and perhaps the closest of all human relationships,” says Nancy Segal, professor of psychology at Cal State Fullerton and one of the nation’s leading scholars in the field of how twins relate to each other.

For more than a decade the study of twins has served as the clearest window into human development and personality, exploring questions about the importance of genes and environment on behavior and to what degree either shapes who we become.

Usually, says Segal, whose specialty involves cooperation and competition among fraternal and identical twins, problems facing identical twins germinate “outside the twinship. Parents or teachers compare them and create a competition.”

In the Irvine case of the 22-year-old sisters at odds, it would appear this theory bears out. Sunny Han and Jeen Han, who commonly uses the name Gina, were co-valedictorians at their small rural high school in San Diego County and reportedly got along until they graduated.

Then, say police in two counties, things changed. In Placentia, where they lived earlier this year, Sunny reported to police that Gina had stolen her BMW and credit cards; Sunny was arrested on a 1994 warrant from La Verne police charging her with misdemeanor credit card fraud.

And more recently, San Diego Sheriff’s Department deputies investigating credit card fraud in El Cajon say the sisters were clearly warring. Gina Han would end up behind bars over the theft case, but escaped from a work furlough program when there were 98 days remaining on her sentence.

On Nov. 22, she was brought from Orange County Jail to Harbor Municipal Court in Newport Beach to face more serious charges: conspiracy to commit murder, robbery, assault, burglary, false imprisonment and criminal conspiracy. Police allege that the former honor student conspired to have Sunny killed at her Irvine condo so she could assume Sunny’s identity and get out from under her checkered past.

A judge ordered Gina returned to jail without bail until her arraignment, which was continued to Dec. 13. If convicted as charged, she faces a minimum of 26 years to life in prison.

Those who know the sisters say they were baffled that such seemingly high achievers could find themselves wanted by the law at various times. It’s almost like a movie, they say.

And no wonder. Hollywood has had a love affair with twins and the tricks they play at least since a sinister Bette Davis tried to snatch her sweet sister’s hubby away in 1946’s “A Stolen Life.”

Davis starred as both sisters, of course, as she did some 20 years later in “Dead Ringer.”

But then, silver screen twins aren’t always half bad.

In 1961’s “The Parent Trap,” a young Hayley Mills plays twins who at first conspire against each other, and then unite to reunite their parents.

Less familiar to the Nick at Nite generation are Romulus and Remus, an ancient pair of battling twins. In Roman mythology, they grow into bitter rivals. Eventually, Remus is killed, either by Romulus or one of his followers, and Romulus becomes ruler of Rome, the city he built and named for himself.

*

Investigators don’t know much about the Han girls’ childhood in South Korea. But Korean culture places great importance on birth order in the family, which some have suggested might be a factor in the discord between the twins. Elder siblings are treated with deference by younger siblings. This holds true even with twins. Sunny Han is 5 minutes older than Gina, who would have been expected to defer to her.

In 1991, records show, Sunny and Gina entered Mount Empire High School in unincorporated San Diego County during the middle of their junior year. Their teachers described them as seemingly well-adjusted honor students. In a small class of 80 students, the Han girls graduated in 1993 as co-valedictorians, along with three others.

“They were really dedicated and serious students,” says computer teacher Shirley Langford.

Because people often called them the wrong names, the twins gave Langford some tips on how to differentiate between them.

“Gina wore bangs, generally, and Sunny always wore her hair long,” Langford says.

Although the identical twins were hard to tell apart, Langford says, their personalities were noticeably different.

“Sunny was a little more lighthearted, fun-loving and humorous,” she says. “Gina was more serious.”

Langford adds that there appeared to be no significant rivalry besides challenging each other academically.

“I was really shocked to hear that this happened,” Langford says.

The sisters, who lived with their divorced mother’s cousin, apparently had not been in the U.S. long when they enrolled at the high school, Langford says.

Olin Elliott, a teacher of advanced placement calculus, had both Han girls in his class during their senior year and says they “never showed any signs of friction.”

By spring of 1996, that had clearly changed.

Gina was working for a casino on a Native American reservation in Lakeside where, court documents say, she had developed a gambling problem. She would end up being arrested and prosecuted in El Cajon for charges stemming from credit card fraud, burglaries and grand theft. Two judges ordered her to attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings. She was sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay $10,500 restitution to her victims.

But her attorney, San Diego County Deputy Public Defender Dan Lester, says Gina claimed that her twin actually committed some of the crimes.

“Gina had advised me that she was taking the blame for her sister’s actions,” Lester says.

Sunny, whom police say remains fearful and in seclusion, was not available for comment.

Lester says Gina claimed her sister was involved with check fraud in 1995. That, apparently, was when their sisterhood turned sour.

“When they were younger and in school, they apparently got along well,” Lester says. “But the Sunny allegations created a rift between the two girls.”

*

On May 24, Sunny summoned Placentia police to her apartment in that city to file a report against her sister. Sunny alleged that her twin, who was temporarily staying with her, had disappeared with her 1995 BMW, some of her credit cards and other belongings.

Her BMW was found the following week in El Cajon, and Gina was arrested for taking the car and making purchases with her sister’s credit cards.

But before her work furlough sentence was up, Gina left, and the San Diego marshal’s office issued a no-bail arrest warrant charging her with probation violation and escape.

That caught up with her about the time that the alleged murder scheme unraveled.

The story line for that, according to the official record, is as follows: Gina Han enlisted two teenagers from San Diego to help her. She drove them up to her sister’s condo and had one of the boys pose as a magazine salesman to get inside. Eventually, he pushed his way in, tied up Sunny’s roommate and was to summon Gina and the other teenager from outside. Sunny foiled this plot, however, because she heard the commotion, thought her roommate was being raped or assaulted and barricaded herself in a bedroom from which she called police by cellular phone.

Gina and one teenage boy eluded police and escaped. On her return to the San Diego area, Gina stopped off at a car dealership to try charging a Nissan on her sister’s credit card, a plan that failed.

At a San Diego International Airport car rental agency, police nabbed her.

*

Developing a separate identity is an essential part of growing up--and that is especially so for twins, therapists say.

As children mature, they separate from the parent, forming their own identity, generally in adolescence. This is commonly known as teen rebellion, and it is healthy, though sometimes a painful process.

For twins, the separation is from both the parent and the other twin, a process that can be difficult for identical siblings, says Eileen Pearlman, a Santa Monica psychotherapist who specializes in treating twins and their families.

“To be an individual is to . . . have your own interests and hobbies and to know who you are, so that’s really important for all people,” says Pearlman, herself an identical twin. “And it’s even a little harder sometimes for identical twins to achieve this separation. . . . When they find out who they are, they can come back to the twin and know who they are, and who they are with the twin. . . . I think it’s important that some identical twins who are not close don’t feel something is wrong with them. . . .”

In the book of Genesis, the troubled relationship between twins Jacob and Esau is eventually resolved.

Jacob pretends to his blind father, Isaac, that he is Esau, thereby deceptively receiving Isaac’s blessing, meant for Esau, to lead the Hebrews. Ultimately, Esau forgives Jacob, who emerges victorious, but only by facing up to his character flaws, says Rabbi Arnold Rachlis of University Synagogue in Irvine.

“He learns his lessons . . . most of all by facing that there’s an ugliness inside of him he needs to change,” Rachlis says.

* Times staff writers Zan Dubin and Anna Cekola contributed to this report.