The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Tragic True Story of The Pollock Family

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

In 1957, a tragic car accident claimed the lives of two young sisters in England. A year later, their parents gave birth to twins who not only resembled their lost daughters but seemed to possess their memories and habits. The Pollock Twins case has become a cornerstone in the study of reincarnation, sparking debate among skeptics and believers alike. Could this be evidence of life after death, or is there another explanation? Find out in this intriguing exploration of the Pollock Twins mystery. Pollock Twins Segment - https://youtu.be/UhpuvUiQ2xA  Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers. Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Singularity, Midjourney and Pexels. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library.  All other footage used under fair use. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Pollock Twins 02:50 Welcome to The Tape Library 04:20 A Tragic Start 09:39 A Prediction 16:27 Moving On 22:09 Ian Stevenson 24:49 Old Story, New Life 30:26 What Really Happened? 41:45 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I'm to talk about evidence for life after death. It's unfortunate that they're not better known and not more adequately studied. It was a dark rainy evening and he was at it again. John Pollock was pacing up and down in his study, smoking his pipe, lost in fort. His family all tucked up in their beds, but John wasn't able to shut off for the evening. No, he was far too busy. contemplating life's biggest mystery. He put his pipe down and fell to his knees and began to pray. He always fell back to prayer when his mind reached that dead end. He was sure he was right. He was

sure he had the answer. He knew what happens after we die, but he needed proof, proof that only God could provide. Despite the fact that it went against his church's beliefs, John Pollock once again asked God for proof. Proof that when we die, it isn't the end, but he wasn't seeking proof of heaven or of hell. No. John Pollock believed that we come back, that we are reincarnated after death, returning to the earth to play out a part yet again. John Pollock would give anything to be shown the truth, but time after time his prayers went unanswered. It seemed tonight as he got back up from his knees, decided to head for his bed, that this was the case yet again. But sometime later, one of John's son's 14-year-old Ian Pollock

would be heard screaming in the middle of the night. John rushed into his son's bedroom, flicked on the light and saw his son, sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. He looked terrified. His breathing heavy and panicked. John asked his son what had happened and after a few moments Ian was able to compose himself. It had just been a dream, Ian told his father. But it was so real. John asked his son what it was. Ian said he dreamt that someone in the family was going to be hurt. Really hurt. Something tragic was about to happen and it would take place just down the street. John reassured his son and settled him back down to sleep. But as he returned to his own bed, something was ticking away in his mind. Ian had never had nightmares like this before.

Something about it unsettled John deep down, but he didn't know why. Just days later, an incident would take place that would send John the proof he so desperately asked for. But maybe he didn't quite know what the cost of his prayers would be. In the last episode on the Hexham Heads, I spoke about how the small market town of Hexham in Northumbria wasn't the sort of place you would expect something fantastical to take place. But that wasn't strictly true. Back in the 1950s, something arguably more miraculous took place in this town. A tragedy happened that stunned the community, but out of that tragedy, a glimmer of hope

appeared, something that changed the perceptions of many of those involved. A grieving father believed he had finally stumbled upon proof of reincarnation, but was he to be believed? Or was something more sinister taking place within this family. Welcome to the take place. Library. I really can't wait to hear what you will make of this story if you haven't heard it before, so be sure to leave me a comment when you're done with your thoughts. I think this one might generate quite a lot of conversation. It's a tale of warring religious beliefs, of tragic events and grave

injustices, of unbelievable coincidences, but a tale that may possibly give you a different outlook on the world we live in. Get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable. It's time to delve into the strange case of the Pollock Twins. It all started in quite a dark way. Sunday, May 5th, Hexham. The year was 1957, and the Pollock family were living a seemingly normal, happy life. John Pollock was a local milkman. He would head out each morning on his float, delivering pints of milk to the surrounding area.

He was married to a woman named Florence, and they had six children, four boys and two girls. The girls were Joanne and Jacqueline, aged 11 and 6, received. respectively. Two loving, happy children with brown hair. Despite the age gap in a home surrounded by boys, the sisters became inseparable. On the morning of the fifth, the girl's friend Anthony, a nine-year-old boy, had met up with the sisters, and they were headed off to church, as they did every Sunday. Anthony's father later described a scene as he watched all three trot off along the pavement, hand in hand. Anthony was due to be an altar boy at that morning's mass. John Pollock was still finishing his milk round, with his four boys in tow,

and Florence told the girls she would meet them at the church. It was only a short walk down a quiet road. No one could have suspected what would happen next. As the three children walked hand in hand, they must have heard the sound coming from behind them. We will never know if they knew what happened, if there was time to be scared, a chance to move out of the way.

They were a few hundred yards from the house when a green colour, crossed into the opposite lane behind them the car suddenly mounted the pavement driving for 150 yards before running down all three children the two girls remained on the pavement Anthony was thrown into a nearby garden the speed at which the car was moving meant there was no hope for any of them the girls died instantly Anthony didn't make it to hospital the car in question sped along the pavement and then back onto the road for another 300 yards before coming to a stop. By this point, locals had started to come out of their homes to see what all the noise was about. A motorist pulled over further up ahead, unsure what had just happened, and approached

a car that was just stopped in the middle of the road. The driver looked into the window and saw a slightly confused-looking, middle-aged woman, sitting at the will. The driver asked if she was okay, to which she replied, Yes, did I hit something? It didn't take long for word to spread about what had happened. Someone rushed to find John Pollock on his milk round. Florence wept as the news was broken to her.

The children's friends were waited at the church, in their white dresses, ready for that day's May Day celebrations, before one by one they found out that they would not be coming. The driver, in a state of shock, was taken to a nearby hospital where a policewoman sat by her bed. Hexham went into mourning. To this day, there are those who remember this taking place. Three innocent children suddenly lost in such a brutal way. But this wasn't just a local story, though. The death of these children shocked the entire country.

It was on the front pages of many newspapers the following morning. One of which included an interview with John Pollock, in which he said something rather unusual. He said to a reporter on the day that his daughters had died, that he had lived in fear of this moment. since the Tuesday earlier that week, when his son Ian had a premonition that something terrible would happen. John stated that the accident happened just a few hundred yards away from where Ian predicted it would. Seemingly, this wasn't the only premonition though. John Pollock would

later reveal that Joanna used to say to John before she died, over and over, I will never be a lady, as though she knew she would never grow up. John would have an experience of his own on the afternoon they died. John claimed he had a vision of them in heaven, although it's hard not to just chalk this up to the words of a grieving parent. Just days later, the three coffins were carried into the same church they were headed to that day. Three hundred of their fellow school friends marched down the streets of Hexham in silence towards the church. Traffic at a total standstill. It was as if the entire town came out to pay their respects. Free reefs were laid on the coffins, sent by the driver that had killed the children.

Understandably, the family was torn apart by this event. But John Pollock seemed to distance himself from the rest of his family, rather than seeking comfort in them. He retreated back to his study, night after night. This was his space, the place he felt most comfortable. Everyone that knew John knew he spent hours every day in his study, listening to classical music and drinking scotch. While he may have been a milkman,

He saw himself as something of an intellectual, a man who would often be seen walking around town in a three-piece suit, a man who spent many hours of the day reading and questioning the world he lived in. John had converted and become a Roman Catholic in his adult life. Yet despite this, he also apparently had been interested in the topic of reincarnation from a young age. This conflict of beliefs clearly had a profound effect on John in the wake of his daughter's deaths. John believed this was God's punishment for praying for proof of reincarnation, although maybe punishment was the wrong word. John still believed that his proof would be provided to him. Maybe this was the cost, a sacrifice made to allow him to open the world's eyes to what truly lay beyond. But something told John that the girls, or at least some part of them, were still with him.

even in this moment. He stated that there was a room in the house that any time he would find himself in, he could feel the presence of the two girls, almost as if they were there, just waiting. At some point in these late solitary nights of contemplation, John made a startling prediction.

He went to his wife and said she would discover she was pregnant again. She would give birth to twins, two twin girls to be exact, and those girls would carry the reingingings. incarnated souls of Joanna and Jacqueline. Florence Pollock wasn't overly impressed by this. The idea of having another child so soon after losing their daughters felt macab to her. What's more the notion of reincarnation spat in the face of her faith. Initially, she just let John's wild claim go.

They were both grieving and grief has a way of bringing out strange behaviors in all of us. But John wouldn't let his prediction go. He kept going on and on about it. Florence grew increasingly frustrated and at times even angry about his insistence and the reality of reincarnation. What's more, John would never lay flowers at his daughter's grave. In fact, he wouldn't visit them at all. Why would he? They were now just meaningless monuments. But sure enough, not long after this, Florence turned to John one evening and told him that she was in fact pregnant.

A smile crept across John's lips. It was his first sign that he was on the right path. Florence went for tests, and they put a damper on John's claims, though. There was only one heartbeat. It would just be a single child. Meanwhile, the trial of Marjorie Wynne, the woman who had killed the children had begun. Just weeks after the incident, she was brought to the courthouse, as large crowds gathered outside to get a look, and in some cases to berate her,

This woman was seen by a huge population of the country as pure evil. Hundreds of death threats had been sent to her over the previous weeks. Rumours swirled. Was she drunk? Was it an accident? Or had she done it deliberately? Marjorie was rushed into the courthouse, practically carried in fact. She covered her face as she moved, but she looked weak and barely even there.

She had been brought from a nearby mental health facility where she was being evaluated. She sat, I shut the entire time she remained in court. The judge informed her she was being charged with the deaths of children by dangerous driving. A psychiatrist informed the court that Marjorie Wynne had been suffering from depression and would not be fit to stand trial until she was treated. Electroshock therapy may even be required. In July, she was brought back to court. The charge now specifically mentioned her being under the influence of drugs,

which was not a common case for 1950s rural England. England and a more complete picture of what took place was painted. It appears Marjorie Wynne had taken 14 aspirin and multiple barbiturate tablets before getting into her car on that fateful day. Wynne pleaded not guilty and a full criminal trial was arranged. October rolled around and the full story was finally revealed. Marjorie Wynne was a well-off woman who had recently moved to Hexham. She had family connections to some very influential people, including her father who

was a former member of parliament. Her husband, an RAF pilot, tragically died six years prior, and her two teenage daughters headed off to boarding school earlier that year. In the months leading up to the crash, she had been suffering from pretty severe depression. She had been recommended to see a psychiatrist, but declined. She also wasn't taking the medication she had been given. On the day of the deaths, she had clearly decided that she had had enough, and decided to end it all.

But taking the tablets didn't work. In a half-conscious state, she apparently decided to take a drive and clear her head. A fatal decision. Marjorie Wynne stood before the court and finally pleaded guilty before collapsing into her seat. What happened next shocked the entire country. The judge decided that she was not of sound mind when the children were killed. Therefore her responsibility was greatly diminished. She was given three years probation and a seven-year driving ban, and that was the end of it.

Marjorie Wynne was a free woman. People were angry, disgusted at what they saw as a total miscarriage of justice. This woman had killed three children. How could she get off practically scot-free? John Pollock was also disgusted by this verdict, but for a very different reason. He thought she shouldn't face any punishment whatsoever. At around the same time, Florence Pollock had gone into labour. The midwife rushed to her home one day in October to deliver the baby. John seemingly over this whole birth thing, since this was the seventh time they had been through it, simply headed off on his milk round, and left the women to it.

Without any major complications, the midwife was soon cutting the cord on the Pollock's new baby daughter, but then something strange happened. The contractions didn't stop. A close friend of the Pollux found John and his milk round that morning. He had news, he told John. Great news. The story goes that John simply smiled at his friend and said, I know. Twins, right? John had been right. Florence had given birth to twin girls. John returned home and rushed into the bedroom.

There he found Florence, cradling the girls. Speechless as she looked up at her husband. John looked down at the pair before he noticed something above the eye of one of them. the birth mark This was his proof This was his message from God He was sure of it now When she was three years old Jacqueline Pollock had been riding her new bike

Around the Pollock's garden When she suddenly fell off The young girl unfortunately hit her head on a metal bucket As she fell The blood covered her face streaming from a cut above her eyebrow She wasn't seriously hurt But it did leave a scar

a scar that was present when she passed away. This scar was in the same place this baby now had a birthmark. Why would John Pollock think that Marjorie Wynne shouldn't be punished for running the children over? Well, because they weren't dead. They were alive and well, reborn in front of him.

Once the twins were born, John never felt the girl's presence in that room ever again. The Pollocks didn't remain in Hexham for long. By the time the twins were six months old, the family had moved to Whitley Bay to run a small grocery shop together. The twins were named Gillian and Jennifer, Gillian the older girl by 10 minutes. Florence wasn't quite a firm believer yet, but she was much more open to the possibility that John could be right, that the twins could be Joanna and Jacqueline. John's belief grew stronger and stronger as time passed.

He began talking to anyone who would listen about how this was proof of reincarnation. He became more interested in spirituality and left a lot of his previous Christian beliefs behind. As the months and years passed, John became even more convinced he was right. First, there were the birthmarks. It wasn't just the scar above Jennifer's eye. Jennifer also had a birthmark just above her waist, exactly as Jacqueline also had. As the girls grew, more physical similarities to the older girls began to present themselves.

Jennifer would write by holding her pen in her fist, just as Jacqueline had done. Gillian walked in the same way Joanna had. Her feet pointed outwards as she waddled along. They also loved to comb other people's hair, just as the dead girls did, specifically John's hair. Then came the incident that put Florence in the True Believer camp. After the girls had died, they had boxed up all their toys and left them in the loft. But after the move, they were discovered again.

And once they got a little older, Florence decided to give the toys to the twins. Straight away their attention was grabbed by the two dolls. Jennifer pointed to one doll and said, That's Mary. Gillian pointed to the other doll and said, That's my Susan. The same names that dead girls had given to the dolls. Gillian was the older twin by 10 minutes,

and they thought she was the older daughter Joanna. Well, Jennifer was the younger Jacqueline. The two girls then claimed the dolls as their own, Gillian taking Joanna's doll, Jennifer taking Jacqueline's. Florence couldn't believe it, But it must be true. Her girls were back.

The Pollocks were adamant that they never told the girls the names of the dolls. In fact, at this point, they claimed that the twins didn't even know their older sisters existed. John had taken all photos of Joanna and Jacqueline and put them in a draw when the twins were born. They didn't want to tell the twins about their sisters. It was too confusing, too macabre for such young girls to hear. They wouldn't be able to understand all of this. and they made their brothers promise to do the same, still traumatised by the loss of their sisters. They were happy to not keep reliving the incident themselves.

It seemed the twins were not just showing physical signs of their past selves though. They were having memories too. Gillian apparently once said to Florence that the birth mark on Jennifer's head was a scar one Jennifer got when she fell on the bucket. But of course, Jennifer had never fallen on a bucket. Jacqueline had, was Gilliam mixing up her past and current lives, her memories mashing together. More concerningly, Florence became convinced they were able to remember the accident. They both were terrified of crossing the road, refusing to do so unless they were holding their mother's hand.

What's more, they were terrified of cars in general. John recalls one story where the girls were out back of the house playing in an alleyway. A car had been parked down the alley, and the driver had returned to his car. and started up the engine. John heard the screams from inside the house and came running, terrified that something had happened to the twins. He found them, huddled in the corner, screaming in terror. The car slowly driving off. It had been nowhere near them, but just the sound of the approaching car had set something off in the girls. The Pollocks also claim that they would overhear the girls talking about the accident. It always seemed like they were just playing make-believe.

But when they listened to what they were saying, the games were often quite disturbing re-creations of some sort of accident. On more than one occasion, shouting things like, The car is coming for us while they played. The most chilling incident of which was reported by Florence, who claimed she walked into the children's playroom one day to find the girls on the floor. Gillian was cradling Jennifer in her arms, stroking her head. Gillian was saying to her sister, The blood is coming out of your eyes.

That is where the car hit you. Then, when the girls were four, the family made a trip back to Hexham. The twins had never been, and the Pollock's claim they'd never discussed the town with them. John and Florence were walking with the twins towards St. Mary's Church. The church Joanna and Jacqueline had been headed to on that fateful day. When the twins suddenly stopped, Gillian turned. to her sister and pointed to her left stating that's the school we used to go to. Sure enough, it was the school their sisters had attended. But what made this all the more remarkable was the

school was actually just around the corner. It wasn't actually visible from where the girls stood. As they approached their old road, the girls pointed out the Pollock's old home. John and Florence claim that they never told them they lived there, and the twins were only six months old when they they left. Shortly after this, the twins asked to go and play on the swings at the play park. There was a play park, again just around the corner from where the family was standing. But the twins had never played there. They were too young when they lived in the area. But Joanna and Jacqueline had spent many days playing on those swings. While various news outlets reported on the Pollock story over the years, most of what we know

about this story comes from Ian Stevenson. Stevenson was a psychiatrist and was a psychiatrist and was the head of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Virginia. Early in his life, much like John, he too had become interested in the subject of reincarnation, although he didn't begin to study it until much later in his life. Stevenson was treated as a joke by some of his colleagues for attempting to seriously study something that they saw as ridiculous. But there were many who believed in Stevenson's research, leading him to receive near unlimited funding to pursue his life's work. He had travelled to India and South Asia, collecting countless stories from those who claimed they could remember their past lives. Stevenson discredited many of them as not having anything

substantial behind them, but was blown away by the ones where he was able to verify the accounts being made by these supposed reincarnated children. They would remember details about people, places and events that they should never have even been aware of. Stevenson began to notice. Stevenson began to notice similarities in many of these cases. The people that seem to remember their past lives often died a violent or sudden death, as though the shock or the event sent a kind of echo into the next life. He had noted that many of them were born with birthmarks, that would echo wounds they had received from that previous death. For example, a mark where a bullet would have killed a previous gunshot victim. He also noticed that in almost all cases of children remembering their past lives,

These memories faded between the ages of six and eight, providing only a small window in which he was able to talk with these families and get direct results from the children in question. While he was uncovering fascinating stories in the East, where belief in reincarnation was prevalent, he was aware that both the religious beliefs connected to this, and the fact that he was having to rely on what were at times, unreliable translators, casted doubt on the validity of his research. so when he heard there was a case of two young girls remembering their past life in England, he jumped at the chance to talk to them. Ian Stevenson made his first trip to the Pollux in 1963, and he would return time and time again over the course of 20 years, writing extensively about the twins, and many other cases in several books,

and many, many papers throughout his life. Over the years, various newspapers picked up the Pollock story, but while the deaths of the children was big news at the time, The reincarnation side of it didn't become widely known until 1978. At this point, the family were living in Scarborough, and the twins were entering their 20s. The memories they once had were a hazy, fractured dream that they could no longer bring to mind. But a television producer had been visiting his wife's family in Hexham, and they told him all about the Pollux. The community in Hexham, it seemed, was still deeply upset by what happened to the children.

but the producer was fascinated by the entire story and decided to track down the Pollux. Soon the production trucks were rolling into Scarborough, giving not just John and Florence the chance to tell their story to a wider audience, but for the twins to finally explain their side too. While many back in Hexham were still mourning the deaths of the children all these years later, the producer was genuinely shocked that the parents were not, that they seemed to genuinely believe that no truth, tragedy had taken place. That their girls had come back to them. John and Florence both gave

interviews, repeating many of the stories they had told Ian Stevenson over the years. The camera then turned to the twins. They filmed Jennifer's birthmark and then attempted to interview them. But the twins appeared uncomfortable talking about the whole thing. They practically had no memory of it by this point and were likely just reliant on whatever their parents had said. There may be one other reason why they were seemingly so difficult to interview. But we'll get into that a little later. I was unable to find the entire television segment on the Pollux, but a partial upload of it is present on YouTube,

which I'll include a link to. The Pollux were suddenly big news. They were being recognised in the street, a fact that likely made the twins uncomfortable, but John Pollock very happy. His message was finally getting out there to a wider audience. There is lying. after death. Florence was now running a bookshop in Scarborough and she shut up shop one lunchtime to go and get her

haircut. While there, Florence had a heart attack, suddenly dropping dead at the age of just 57. In 1982, three years later, Ian Stevenson returned to find John Pollock living in a new home with a new family. The Pollock family had been torn apart. Just one year after Florence is passing, John had remit. John had remarried, while a lack of mourning may be understandable given John's strongly held beliefs, that Florence likely wasn't actually gone, just somewhere else living a new life. This lack of grief wasn't shared by the rest of his family. The older boys in particular quickly began to resent their dad, even more so when he sold their family home, effectively making Florence's mother, who also lived with them, homeless,

just one year after losing her daughter. The family all went their separate ways, and this event is a key part of why the Pollock story just began to fizzle out. The family split and it became increasingly hard for anyone to talk to the family about what had happened. Stevenson and John did still meet though, and John's relationship with the twins at least seemed to remain strong. On that visit in 1982, John revealed that it seemed the twins' memories were not completely gone. Gillian told John something the year prior. She had a memory of her childhood when she was a little girl, playing in a sandpit. Gillian continued to explain details about what she saw in the memory, asking her dad where this was,

as she couldn't remember whose house it was. It was in fact the Pollock's house. The house she described was actually a house the Pollux had lived in prior to the twins being born, when Joanna was a child. Later in life, John claimed to have undergone hypnotic regression and experienced the memories of a past life, where he was burying a man he had killed in the 17th century, while some of the details of John's memory matched actual records.

Many other details did not, casting doubt that this was a true memory of a past life. Yet John seemed totally convinced of his experience and talked about it openly. Stevenson, however, did not believe in hypnotic regression, and never included any of John's story. about his past life in his papers. On April 5th, 1985, Good Friday, John Pollock was alone in his study, smoking and listening to records as he often did when he suddenly felt a pain in his chest. Just like Florence, John died of a heart attack.

Then at the age of just 43, Gillian Pollock, one of the twins, also died. After John's death, Ian Stevenson totally lost touch with the remaining Pollux, and his study of the twins came to an end. When writing about the case in his later books, Stevenson does acknowledge that while the Pollock case is a very strong one, it isn't without its flaws, mostly that due to John Pollock's strong belief in reincarnation, he struggles to believe that the twins could not have overheard the concept at the very least during their childhood, although there is obviously so much more that this alone would not explain. Stevenson would die at the age of 88 in 2007, after a lifetime of studying reincarnation,

and so ended the story of the Pollock Twins. A case that remained an enduring and fascinating little slice of English 40 and history. Well, that was until last year. So what really happened? Well, this is where things get quite a bit dark, So please be warned. The story I've laid out for you here is pretty much everything that was known of the Pollock twins up until now.

But in October of 2024, Apple released a podcast called Extra Sensory, which was a detailed seven-part exploration of the Pollock family's tale. While it was able to add a bunch of additional texture and smaller details to the widely known story, its greatest achievements, at least to people like me who have been interested in this case, years were two things. Number one was to stop me going insane about this photo I have spent far too long staring at while putting this episode together. Every single video, article, blog, thumbnail or whatever about the Pollock twins seems to contain the same black and white photo of two dark-haired girls in matching black dresses, standing side by side with each other.

It's a genuinely creepy-looking photo, but I kept looking at it and then back to other pictures of the Pollock sisters and thought I was going insane. These were not the same girls, but so many people surely haven't included the wrong photo, have they? Well, according to the podcast, seemingly they have. The twins in this famous photo are actually two girls from New Jersey. They have nothing to do with the Pollock case, nor any paranormal story for that matter. It's just a random photograph of two twins at a party. The second, and likely much more important contribution to this story, was to track down a number of the Pollock family, including the remaining twin, Jennifer. But first, they would talk to two of John's granddaughters, and what they had to say has cast a lot of doubt over the Pollock story,

mostly due to the character of its chief narrator, John Pollock, who they argue was unreliable, to say the least. Liza and Joanna are Ian Pollock's daughters, the boy who apparently had the premonition at the start of our story, and they are able to fill in some details, about what happened with John. Brothers Keith and Ian were not the least bit moved by their father's passing, and would barely even speak about the man in future to their children.

Keith has since died, as did Ian later on, and the other two Pollock brothers don't want to talk about any of what went on. One of John's granddaughters, Liza, was more than happy to though, and did not have kind words to say about John Pollock. It seems this whole reincarnation story is something of a family secret,

that the boys at least have shared with any of their children, seemingly in a hope that the whole thing would die out and be forgotten about. Liza didn't find out about their family secret until she found a VHS copy of the TV report in her teens. She knew John, and along with her older sister, or one of the few grandchildren actually met him. She stated that she loved her grandmother Florence and thought she was quiet and timid, but caring and fun at the same time. John Pollock, however, was more distant. He barely spent any time when the family came to stay, mostly spending time in his study. She states in the interview that it wasn't a nice atmosphere when he was around.

They had to creep about and be quiet. Ian's stories of his dad to his daughters painted him as a strict cold father. He also apparently said that he had no premonition, that John had lied about that story to the papers. Bear in mind this accusation is particularly shocking because John made that statement, not in the years that followed, but on the day his daughters had been cruelly taken from them. His granddaughter Liza believes the entire reincarnation story was a lie. John loved being the centre of attention and the story brought him attention in spades. Liza does note that she didn't

know him well though. She was very young and only has fleeting memories of him. So most of her interpretations come from other members of the family. Her older sister Joanna now lives in California and remembers John better. She was a similar age to the twins because Ian had her young, and in fact she's actually named after one of his dead sisters. She knew they died, but the story of what happened to the girls was never talked about when they were younger. She reiterated a lot of the statements about John that Liza made, that John wanted to be a big important man and he ran with his story for decades just for attention. She thinks he came up with the idea much later than he claimed. When the doll incident happened, she thought the whole thing with the dolls

was just a coincidence and then John ran with the idea that the children were reincarnated. John was a horrible figure in her life, who did much to damage their family. She said that he told so many lies about everything, that he was cruel and controlling to Florence, forcing her to go along with his stories, at times even being physically abusive towards her. She said the kids would hide in the playroom when John would start having a go at Florence, something they were forced to do on a semi-regular basis when the family came to stay. She said Florence would often be covered in bruises. She even claims that later Florence told her that the whole reincarnation thing was nonsense and that John forced her to go along with it. Then, towards the end of the podcast, she comes out

with her darkest claim about John Pollock. Joanna also says that John would invite her up to his study. He would show her books about autopsies and pictures of murder victims. When she was very young, she estimates only about four years old. She then claimed he would begin touching her. It instantly becomes apparent why the grandchildren have such a strong hatred of this man. But the remaining family members who were interviewed for the podcast do paint two very different versions of John Pollock. For the first time in 40 years,

Jennifer Pollock, one of the twins, then gave her interview to the podcast. To Jennifer, John was a loving, caring father, especially to his two girls. She believed they were a strong, close-knit family. John would often invite his girls to come and chat to him in his study late at night, and he loved spending as much time as he could with his daughters. Which, if John's beliefs were genuine, is understandable. They were his living miracles. proof of a world beyond our own.

She says that John was very outgoing, popular, and she believes he did love his wife. She never saw them argue, she didn't think he would hurt a fly, and never saw any abuse. But she didn't describe John as a saint either. He did have affairs, and one time even took Jennifer to the home of one of the women he was having an affair with, using Jennifer to cover when the woman's husband came home, making her lie to him about why John Jennifer were there. Jennifer doesn't believe he made any of it up. She said he was a true believer in spiritualism and never wavered from his claims that the twins were reincarnated. Their cousin suggested that John had coached the twins to say some of the things they said, but Jennifer refutes this too.

John would say when people asked her questions to tell the truth, if she genuinely remembered something to tell people. But if not, then don't lie. This was all too important to think to make up lies. Jennifer said they didn't know anything about her dead sisters until they were in their teens. And in fact, it wasn't until the documentary crew came, when they were 21, that John and Florence sat the girls down and told them all the details of everything, which does maybe explain why they were so uncomfortable in the interview. This was all information they had only recently learned. I can't imagine being told that not only do you have two dead sisters, but that you

are apparently the reincarnation of those sisters and then after only having a short time to process this information you find yourself on national television talking about it. Jennifer doesn't remember the Hexom trip nor receiving the dolls but they were very young when these things happened and she does remember having the dolls just not the initial event of getting them she did confirm a lot though she confirmed her and Gilliam were very nervous when it came to crossing rows even now she doesn't like cars. She also confirmed the detail about brushing their dad's hair, her method of holding a pen. She remembers Gillian's walking and how people at school claimed she walked like a penguin. She still has the birth marks, although they are now a little harder to see with age. What's more,

Jennifer is a believer now too. She believes that she is the reincarnation of her older sister, or she's at least 80% sure. And she strongly believes her father believed it, at the very least, even if he wasn't right, but her beliefs feel equally as open-minded as her father's, in the sense of not belonging to a singular school of thought, because she believes that Gillian is still with her. In some form, when she is at her lowest, she is convinced she even hears Gillian's voice, comforting her. There is also the very brief mention that John had voodoo dolls in his study,

seemingly backing up the claim that he had some rather strange items in that room. but she never heard any of the allegations that he touched Joanna or anyone else. And seemingly when the podcast presented these claims, it was totally news to her. So where does this leave us? It all kind of lies on what you believe about John Pollock. He wasn't the only person making these claims. Florence backed him up. Jennifer believes it to this day.

Television crews, reporters, and even Ian Stevenson were all convinced to some level that there was merit to the Pollock story. But was John Pollock simply a master manipulator dragging all of these people into his lies? Or was he a genuine believer in what happened that his dead girls really had come back to him and it was his duty to tell the world that when we die, we come back?

Variations of the belief of reincarnation are present through many cultures. But how it works exactly is obviously for debate, some believe that you have control in coming back, choosing it. Some believe that you enter a kind of waiting room after death until your next life is decided upon. Some believe that some are reincarnated while others are not. Others believe that your actions during your previous life affect the next life you are given. Maybe if the accusations about what John did to his granddaughter are true, then he may have gotten to experience reincarnation first hand, but it likely wouldn't

have been a positive one for him. Whatever the truth, it's hard not to see the Pollock story is a tragic one. This is a family who has suffered so much loss, misery, and have broken apart piece by piece. Maybe the belief that the twins are proof of something greater is just a small sliver of light that we can take from an otherwise dark tale. That's all for this entry into the tape library. As I said at the start of the episode, please do leave me your thoughts. This is one that can obviously get quite deep,

so please try and be respectful of one another if you do leave a comment below. I do really recommend the extra sensory podcast on this case. I love to see such a weird little piece of 40 in history get the big budget podcast treatment. So hopefully if it's done well, it can be the start of more of these type of things. I need an eight-part dragged out dramatic journalistic take on Sam the Sandown Clown right now. Originally, I was going to briefly tell this story in the Hexom Heads episode. Then after getting back into it, I thought it really deserved its own episode. So I planned it in for later in the year.

The initial episode that I had planned for the first of 2025 felt a bit heavy for the start of the year. So I thought, I know, I'll do that cute reincarnated twin story. Not sure how many times this has happened now. But as is often the case, what I thought was a tragic story with a positive ending, actually turned out to have a much darker underbelly. So here we are, off to what is going to be a fun year here on the tape library. If you don't want to miss out on future episodes, make sure you subscribe. And if you're watching the video version, then please do click like.

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and also very sorry that I missed you off the previous shoutouts. Dirt Nap, 69, 69, Lady Bet Noir, Adeline, Peter McCann, the Crimson Diem, George O'Harvey, Gallego, Depi Johnny, Dominic DeAngelis, Dean J. Daly, London, Grace, Simon Ulas, Kelly Cott, Megan Redding, and Alfredo Sandoval. The lead archivist Van Yell, Brian Baker,

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