Cain and Abel

Philippe Levasseur was the good one. He was 25, quiet, slender, clean-cut, a steady worker. Until about six months ago, he lived at home with his parents, farm workers in the Normandy village of Londinieres. Then he went to the nearby port of Dieppe and got a job working in the oyster beds.

Gilbert Levasseur was the bad one.

An occasional stevedore on the Dieppe piers, a drifter, a petty thief, he drank heavily, and then would get into fights. He was even known as "Judoka," the judo expert, because of his brawling.

Despite their differences, Philippe and Gilbert were identical twins. Said Police Captain Pierre Patruel: "They resembled each other so much that you would have to see them standing next to each other to pick out the slight differences between them." Some of the neighbors referred to them as Cain and Abel.

The Levasseurs, who have six other children, expelled Gilbert from their home five years ago; so the twins scarcely saw each other until Philippe followed his brother to work in Dieppe last spring. Then they quarreled whenever they met. Gilbert began deliberately to involve his unwitting twin in his own capers. He would order dinner in a restaurant, refuse to pay the bill and then identify himself as Philippe. Once he stole a truck, and it was Philippe who found himself answering police questions. Just two weeks ago, Philippe encountered some sailors who told him he had made a fool of himself in a barroom brawl the night before (when, of course, he had been home in bed).

Storm of Curses. That weekend, when Philippe went home to Londinieres visit his parents, he was surprised to encounter his wastrel brother Gilbert in a cafe. Gilbert was already drunk. "I have to put up with you in Dieppe, but I'm not going to stand having you here," shouted Philippe. They started quarreling again. Philippe ordered Gilbert to get out of Londinieres and go back to Dieppe.

Gilbert went outside and tried hitchhiking to Dieppe, but he could not get a ride. Then he started running drunkenly through a cornfield. Philippe ran after him. In a sudden onrush of pity, Philippe urged the bedraggled Gilbert to come and spend the night in his room. Gilbert replied with a storm of curses.

Philippe, the good twin, his patience finally exhausted, fell upon Gilbert, the bad twin, and strangled him. Then he went to the police and confessed: "I have killed my brother."

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