Twin’s murder charge dropped

A murder charge against Alexandria Duval was dropped Wednesday when a judge concluded that she did not intend to kill her identical twin when their SUV plunged over a 200-foot cliff on the Hana Highway.

Maui District Judge Blaine Kobayashi found no probable cause for charges in the death of Anastasia Duval, 37, after a preliminary hearing that involved questioning of witnesses.

“Judge Kobayashi understood the factual and legal circumstances,” defense attorney Todd Eddins said afterward. “He got it right. This was a tragic accident. It was not a crime.”

Duval, still wearing an orange Maui Community Correctional Center jumpsuit, declined an interview upon her release. A bail bondsman posted $4,000 bail for three traffic citations.

Duval had been arrested and jailed on a charge of second-degree murder, accused of deliberately causing her sister’s death by driving through a rock wall and over the cliff.

Witnesses had said the sisters were arguing in a parked Ford Explorer on May 29 when the driver accelerated, made a hard left turn and crashed through a rock wall, then went over the cliff, landing on the rocky shoreline. A witness had said the passenger was pulling the driver’s hair and steering wheel before the crash. Probable cause documents said the vehicle’s air bag control module shows the driver didn’t try to brake.

Anastasia Duval was pronounced dead at the scene. Alexandria Duval was hospitalized in critical condition but appeared in court Monday with her arm in a sling.

“She is grateful that the court ruled as it did,” Eddins said. “However, she is still traumatized by the events of that day.”

The twins had always lived together, played together and worked together, operating what once were two of the hottest yoga studios in the Palm Beach, Fla., area. They called the business Twin Power Yoga.

But after a reality TV project fell through, the two descended into a cross-country spiral of business failures, debts, arguments and drunken run-ins with the law that culminated in last week’s crash.

Leslie McMichael, who became the sisters’ spiritual adviser after meeting them at a Kabala center in Florida, said they were a vibrant pair.

“They were beautiful twins with so much life. They were so funny. They were such a machine together that people would stop and watch them,” she said.

The twins had been fighting and drinking earlier on the day of the crash, Federico Bailey, Anastasia Duval’s boyfriend, told the Maui News. The sisters’ relationship involved distrust and constant fighting but also love, he said.

“When they drink, their personalities change,” Bailey said.

Before they changed their names from Alison and Ann Dadow, the twins ran Twin Power studios from 2008 to 2014. Brett Borders, a former student of theirs, said they held the best yoga classes he has ever taken.

“They were very good at picking and training yoga instructors,” he said. “They were very consistent. The best teachers around.”

The sisters were living large, with fancy cars, before they suddenly closed the studios and bolted town, leaving behind bewildered customers and friends, and many debts. Employees and vendors complained they hadn’t been paid, and customers’ memberships were rendered worthless.

McMichael said their downfall began after they were approached by reality television producers who wanted to feature them on a show.

They had outgrown one of their studios, in well-to-do Palm Beach Gardens, but instead of annexing a neighboring storefront as planned, they were persuaded by the producers to lease space on the priciest, trendiest street in West Palm Beach, McMichael said.

They were banking on the TV income to make it work, but then the show fell through and they were stuck with a lease they couldn’t afford, she said.

“They had set up their lives around” the show, McMichael said. “When it didn’t happen, they were in too much debt.”

The sisters moved to Utah and opened a yoga studio in the high-end ski town of Park City in 2014. They had several run-ins with the police during the two years they lived in the state, and faced charges including drunken driving, intoxication and leaving the scene of an accident.

In January 2014, they were kicked out of a restaurant when their drinking got out of hand, according to police. Officers said the twins fought with each other and with police who arrived after their car slid into a ditch.

The twins legally changed their names in Utah in 2014 to write a book together, according to court documents. Both women filed for bankruptcy at about the same time and reported around $150,000 in debts each, including two 2013 Porsche Boxsters.

Looking for a new start, they moved to Maui in December and planned to open yoga studios, according to Alexandria Duval’s attorney. But they were soon charged with disorderly conduct and terroristic threatening over a Christmas Eve incident.

Their rowdy behavior doesn’t tell the twins’ full story, said McMichael, the spiritual adviser.

Referring to them by their previous names, she described Alison (later Alexandria) Duval as outgoing with a “big, dominant personality” and a tendency to drink too much sometimes, and called Ann (Anastasia) Duval “the sweetest, kindest, most level-headed person you would ever meet.”

McMichael said the pair, whose mother had died when they were 5, always lived together and put their relationship ahead of their boyfriends.

“They realized that love was not in their future because they were so co-dependent,” she said. “I would joke that the only people who would understand them were a pair of male twins who would understand that they needed to be together.”

Associated Press writers Terry Spencer, Lindsay Whitehurst and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher contributed to this report. Spencer reported from West Palm Beach and Whitehurst reported from Salt Lake City. AP researcher Rhonda Shafner, Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Susan Essoyan and freelancer Wendy Osher on Maui also contributed.