The Elephant Man Mistakes Remo for Romulus and Kills Him

The Elephant Man’s killing of Remo is a death caused by mistaken identity, not a deliberate attack on the brother he meant to confront. Alice Gould reconstructs how the Elephant Man mistook the peaceful twin for Rómulo and killed him by repeatedly dropping his great weight onto him. The solution turns the brothers’ resemblance, the Elephant Man’s fear of Rómulo, and the physical evidence into a single explanation of the death.

The twins and the pattern of protection

Rómulo and Remo were so alike that doctors and patients generally distinguished them by temperament. Rómulo was boisterous, tireless, and remarkably agile; Remo was peaceful and solitary. That difference mattered more than appearance to anyone trying to understand how the killing happened: an attacker who could not catch the swift, combative Rómulo might encounter Remo without provoking flight or resistance.

Alice Gould also describes a recurring scene involving Rómulo, the Elephant Man, and a young woman. Rómulo sat beside her for hours, spoke to her tenderly, and guarded her from the giant; the Elephant Man, who feared Rómulo, kept his distance. Alice says she had seen this scene daily. It establishes a stable pattern of fear and protection against which the sudden violence of the day can be measured.

The change that triggered the mistake

On the day of the killing, the Elephant Man stood up. His clumsiness caused him to stumble slightly, frightening Rómulo. Rómulo responded as if he were under attack: he crouched, bared his teeth, made small bounding movements, growled, and feinted with his claws. The Elephant Man, frightened in turn, backed away sideways so that he would not be attacked from behind. The exchange shows how readily the giant’s awkward movement could alarm Rómulo, and how strongly the Elephant Man feared the younger man’s speed and aggression.

After the excursion that morning, Rómulo was alert to the danger and walked behind the Elephant Man. The giant suddenly found Remo beside him and confused him with his brother. For Alice, the substitution explains the otherwise crucial difference between the brothers: Rómulo would have had reason to evade the giant, but Remo had no reason to flee him. The Elephant Man could therefore catch Remo where he could never have caught the agile Rómulo.

The killing and the physical evidence

Alice’s reconstruction is bluntly physical. The Elephant Man lifted Remo onto his back as if he were a bundle, then let himself fall on him. He repeated the movement until his 160-kilogram body crushed Remo. The method resembles the action of an elephant, making the giant’s weight—not a knife or a calculated plan—the decisive instrument of death.

When Commissioner Ruiz de Pablos asks whether she saw the killing, Alice does not answer directly. Instead, she points to traces that can be examined: scratches and bites on the Elephant Man’s face, which she attributes to Rómulo’s attacks from behind; blades of grass on the back of the giant’s clothes, consistent with his falling to the ground; and the dead man’s blood on his trousers. The evidence gives her account material anchors while leaving a distinction between what she witnessed and what she inferred.

Recognition and resolution

The subsequent questioning supports the reconstruction. Rómulo had blood under his fingernails and said that he fled because he was terrified after seeing the fat man kill a boy. The Elephant Man had blood, mucus, and excrement on the seat of his trousers. Norberto Machimbarrena’s account was decisive: believing that he was speaking to his superiors in Naval Intelligence, he described the events as Alice had imagined them. After brief readings from the medical histories of the two men, the commissioner’s inquiry treated the cases as solved.

The resolution depends on fitting behavior to bodily capacity rather than treating the twins as interchangeable. The Elephant Man’s fear of Rómulo explains the defensive encounter; the brothers’ differing temperaments explain why Remo remained within reach; and the bodily traces corroborate the manner of death. What first appears to be an attack on one twin becomes, in Alice’s account, a fatal error produced by resemblance and the giant’s confusion.