An interesting case of twins born 2 minutes apart

Recently I was reading in post by Michel Ibarra on the FB Traditional Astrology Forum about the charts of twin sisters, one of whom was murdered. The birth times are Rodden rating AA and taken from their birth certificates, so they are probably reasonably accurate.

On 18 September 1966 Valerie Jean Percy was found beaten and stabbed to death in her bed in her family’s Kenilworth mansion. Her father was a presidential candidate at the time of her murder. According to their birth certificates Valerie was born on 10 December 1944 at 5:25 PM PWT in Oakland, CA, just 2 minutes before her twin sister Sharon was born. The two women have very similar birth charts, a significant difference being that Valerie’s Asc lies at 13 Gemini 39 whereas Valerie, born 2 minutes later, has her Asc in a different degree, namely, 14 Gemini 10. Valerie was murdered at 21.77 years of age. Sharon is still alive and has led a productive public life. Are there factors in their birth charts, or are there predictive techniques, that might explain the difference in their life courses?

Valerie’s natal chart. Her sister was born 2 minutes later.

I began by looking at the primary zodiacal directions (Placidus semi-arc, Naibod rate) for both women at age 21. For this purpose I used the natal chart which is at the midpoint of the two births, which were only 2 minutes apart.

The primary directions in effect during 1966 (the year of the murder) were:

Pz MC square natal Moon 7 Feb 1966 Age 21.161

Pz Mercury conjunct natal Sun 21 Apr 1966 Age 21.362

Pz Asc square natal MC 10 Aug 1966 Age 21.664

MURDER 18 Sep 1966 Age 21.77

Pz Saturn oppose natal Sun 1 Oct 1966 Age 21.807

Pz Chiron square natal Mars 6 Oct 1966 Age 21.820

Pz Chiron square natal Uranus 31 Dec 1966 Age 22.055

Because the Sun is hyleg in this chart, the primary direction of Saturn opposing the natal Sun in late September – early October of 1966 indicates the risk of death at this time and correlates closely with the murder of one of the twins on 18 September 1966.

Having noticed that the twins had their Ascendants in different degrees, I wondered whether a symbolic direction involving the Ascendant could distinguish why one twin experienced the zodiacal direction of Saturn to the natal Sun (hyleg) in September of 1966 and the other did not. My experience with charts that have such close birth times has been that Ascendant Arc symbolic directions often distinguish the two charts predictively.

As the Matrix Software site explains, the Ascendant arc method of directing a natal chart is calculated as follows: 

“The distance from the natal ascendant to the progressed ascendant (derived from a solar-arc directed MC) is measured. This arc is then applied to all planets in the natal chart in order to arrive at their directed positions, and all house cusps are either directed by the same arc or derived from the directed midheaven.”

If we compare the Ascendant-arc directions of the twins, we find the following:

Valerie has Asc-arc directed Mercury sesqui-square her Ascendant on 24 Sep 1966, within a week of the murder. If she were born just a few seconds before the time on her birth certificate, the perfection of this direction would be exact for the date of her death. Because she is born two minutes later than her sister, Sharon does not experience the Asc-arc direction of Mercury sesqui-square Asc until June of 1967, a full 9 months after the murder.

In comparing the Asc-arc directions for the twins, directed Mercury sesqui-square the natal Ascendant appears to be the distinguishing feature. Mercury rules the natal Ascendant and lies just inside the Placidus 8th cusp. In addition, Mercury conjoins the fixed star Facies, which is associated with violent death. Thus Valerie appears to be at greater risk of a violent death in September of 1966.

Another feature of the Placidus zodiacal directions is that in September of 1966 Sharon’s directed Sun is almost exactly trine (by primary direction) the 11th Placidus cusp of the house of the Good Daimon where Jupiter, the greater benefic, rejoices.