A documentary called Three Identical Strangers was released on June 29th, 2018. The triplets that were strangers; Bobby Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland. At first when they were reunited at 19, their story was known as a happy coincidence, but once they did more research they soon came to find their story would evolve into a dark tale of deception and inhumanity.

The documentary was directed by British filmmaker Tim Wardle and tracked how the triplets randomly found one another in 1980 and instantly were brought to all media platforms at the time. The triplets quickly discovered how much they shared in common. They all grew up loving things such as marlboro cigarettes, wrestling, and the same type of women. The trio formed a bond so fast it was almost as they weren’t raised in separate adoptive homes. They moved into an apartment together in New York City, later opening a restaurant called Triplet’s, which attracted thousands of tourists.

Slowly problems started with mental illness and in 1995, Galland committed suicide. As the other two were beginning to get curious with their background, they researched the adoption agency and found out a psychologist, Dr. Peter Neubauer, paired with the Louise Wise adoption agency. Neubauer was setting out to answer the question of nature vs. nurture. His experiment was to purposely separated twins and triplets at birth and secretly observe the children through home visits. The parents were told the visits were standard, but unfortunately were lied to.

Kellman, Shafran, and Galland were part of the study and were specifically placed in a blue-collar, middle-class, and a wealthy home. When Kellman and Shafran found out this information they were shocked, they had been treated like lab rats for many of years. Shafran stated that they were human beings, nothing less and they shouldn’t have been victims to this inhumane study.

Though their participation in the documentary has led to the stirring of painful memories, it has also led to tangible movement in the case. And it’s given the two brother a reason to spend more time together and work harder on their relationship.