Joined at the Skull in 1961, Lori and George Schappell Lived 62 Years as Separate People

They were born joined at the head in West Reading, Pennsylvania, on 18 September 1961. Doctors did not expect them to reach adulthood. Lori and George Schappell died on 7 April 2024 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. They were 62 — among the longest-lived craniopagus twins ever recorded, and for a time the world’s oldest living conjoined twins.

They shared roughly 30 percent of their brains and some of the blood vessels serving the frontal and parietal regions. Their skulls were fused at the sides of the forehead; they faced opposite directions. Surgical separation was never judged viable. George was born with spina bifida and could not walk. Lori, who was able-bodied, pushed him on an adapted wheeled stool.

What they refused to share was a single life. They kept distinct personalities, names, work and private space. Born Lori and Dori, they spent their first 24 years in an institution before moving into their own apartment. They arranged the rooms so each could have a door that was, in practice, theirs. Lori worked in a hospital laundry, dated, became engaged, and won bowling trophies. George built a career as a country singer, performed in the United States, Germany and Japan, won an L.A. Music Award for best new country artist in 1997, and took part in projects supporting people with disabilities. They appeared in documentaries, talk shows and an episode of Nip/Tuck. Asked whether they wanted to be separated, George once said: why fix what is not broken?

In 2007 Dori came out as a transgender man and took the name George (he had earlier performed as Reba). Guinness later noted them as the first same-sex conjoined twins to identify as different genders.

Specialists had first given them a year, then two or three, then, later, little chance past 30. They outlived those forecasts by decades. Their story was never only about a rare fusion of bone and vessel. It was about two people who insisted on work, travel, faith, romance and privacy — and who died as they had lived: together, and not the same person.

Sources

The New York Times, “Lori and George Schappell, Long-Surviving Conjoined Twins, Die at 62” (April 2024)
Associated Press, “Oldest living conjoined twins, Lori and George Schappell, die at 62”
Guinness World Records, “World’s oldest conjoined twins Lori and George die aged 62”
Leibensperger Funeral Homes obituary