Two identical twin sisters known for their long, public battle with anorexia have died in a house fire in Australia.
According to Australia's Herald Sun, Clare and Rachel Wallmeyer, 42, were found by fire officials in the living room of their home in Geelong, about 47 miles southwest of Melbourne, on Monday night.
One of the twins reportedly perished in the fire, while the other succumbed to her injuries at a hospital the following morning.
Gary Coombes, acting inspector of Geelong police, told the Geelong Advertiser that the fire was being treated "as non-suspicious," but that the cause was still being investigated.
The twins' death was a tragic end to two lives that had long been fraught with pain.
In 2004, the sisters appeared on Australian TV to talk about the anorexia which had plagued them from early adolescence and had turned both of them into living skeletons.
The sisters shocked viewers by admitting to taking at least 20 laxatives daily to lose weight and consuming no more than a slice of watermelon, coffee and a Diet Coke in a given day.
Clare, who like her sister, was a compulsive long-distance runner, spoke of how she had endured 38 stress fractures and explained that her bone density was similar to that of a 100-year-old person. Clare also said that she, then 34, had never menstruated.
Over the years, the inseparable sisters publicly said that anorexia would likely kill them. According to the Sun, they once even made a pact to waste away to just 55 pounds.
“I think most people have accepted that we won’t live through this and we don’t want to live with it,” said Rachel in 2004. She weighed about 71 pounds at the time, according to New York Daily News.
Reports say the Wallmeyer twins had also attempted suicide in the past and had prophesied that they would die together.
“If I died, Clare wouldn't live a minute past me and I'd do the same for her," Rachel once said, according to the Sun.
The twins, who reportedly had never held a job or ever been in love, had a history of criminal offenses and drug abuse.
According to reports, Rachel was charged in 2010 with the attempted murder of her sister after she was caught by police strangling Clare in their apartment. The charges, however, were eventually dropped.
During a now-ominous interview with Australia's "60 Minutes" in 2004, the sisters had said that they were comforted knowing that they would die as one.
“Clare’s the only person that remains by my side. And at least we’ll die together,” said Rachel.
“Being with Rachel...makes it somewhat easier to die,” Clare added.
When the Wallmeyer family heard of the twins' passing, they said they were devastated, but admitted that their early deaths had long been accepted as an inevitability.
"Mom's really struggling. We loved them," older brother Mark Wallmeyer told the Herald Sun. "It was always going to happen, but you're never happy when family dies."
For more on the Wallmeyer twins' death, watch this Sky News video which was posted by the Herald Sun: