Barely Believable Coincidences That Really Happened

The Case Of Will And William West

The two men in this photo are named Will and William West, and they look like identical twins. In fact, they looked so similar that when Will first walked into a police station in 1903, a clerk thought they had seen him before—even though it was his first time there. Ironically, William was already in prison at the time. Looking at the photo of the two side by side, it’s easy to see why the clerk might have been confused

Could you tell them apart? Some people falsely claim this case led to the adoption of fingerprinting for identification. However, fingerprinting had already been in use for decades by then, and this case didn’t directly influence its adoption. Still, the story highlights the challenges of relying solely on physical appearance for identification, especially in the early days of law enforcement. It’s a fascinating glimpse into how far forensic science has come since the early 1900s.