The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Police find twins, 48, dead in mobile home Investigators continue to search for cause By JUSTIN BERTON The decomposed bodies of fraternal twins, age 48, were removed from a mobile home in the Adobe Wells park Jan 4. Gary and Gail Thomson were found dead after neighbors living in the quiet park complained of a rancid stench seeping from the two-bedroom mobile home. The cause of death is still undetermined, at least until a toxicology report is completed within the next six to eight weeks, a spokesperson at the county coroner's office said. Pills were found near the bodies, but police declined to comment on the nature of the drugs. "We have no idea why they died or what happened," said Capt. Steve Pigott of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. "Until the results from the autopsy come in, we can't make a conclusion." Four days after police made their discovery, unanswered UPS stickers dated the second week of December still clung to the front door of the mobile home. It was the mounting piles of mail, in fact, that clued neighbors to question whether the twins had gone on an unannounced vacation or, worse, had been the victims of foul play. Pigott said investigators concluded the last day the Thomsons took their mail from the mailbox was Dec. 6, nearly a full month before their bodies were discovered. Neighbors also noticed the garbage was not going out on trash day. Pigott added that foul play had been ruled out. There were no signs of struggle, forced entry or other suspicious circumstances, he said. Officers who forced their way into the home by breaking a front window found the two bodies on the floor of the rear bedroom just after 3 p.m. Pills were scattered around the bodies, Pigott said. He would not comment if the pills were prescription drugs, or if the twins carried lethal doses of suicide-related drugs. "From what we know right now, we can't come to any conclusions of what happened," Pigott said. Little was also known about the Thomsons, according to neighbors. The twins seldom fraternized with others in the park, said one neighbor who lived four homes away. "I knew them, but I wouldn't say I knew them," said Adobe Wells manager Dale Ferguson. "I saw them around, but they didn't talk much at all." Ferguson added the Thomsons were quiet and kept to themselves, revealing little about their lives to others who lived in the park. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 13, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.