THE RECORD (Troy, New York) 29 May 03 Turtle, sisters in national spotlight (Robert Cristo)
Poestenkill: Two sisters may soon be on their way to visit late-night television king David Letterman and share with millions across the country the two-headed turtle they recently discovered in their backyard pond.
Producers from Late Night with David Letterman called 9-year-old Gabrielle Pascarell and her sister, Dominique, 6, earlier this week to see if they would be interested in appearing on the nightly CBS talk show.
"At first they didn't know who Letterman was, but once we told her about all the important people who are on the show, and that it was national, they were pretty excited," said the girls' father, Robert Pascarell, from his sprawling home on Weatherwax Road.
Since discovering the two-headed, half-dollar sized painted turtle last week, the Pascarell family has been contacted by CNN and the syndicated television show Ripley's Believe or Not, and has also already done at least 11 interviews with radio stations across the country and in Canada.
"It's pretty cool, but I think it's a little weird that all these people want to talk with me about it," laughed Gabriel, a second-grader at Sacred Heart School in Troy. "I have no idea who he is or what he (Letterman) does and I'm a little nervous, but I'll definitely do it."
The girls were thrust into the national spotlight only two weeks ago when, on a typical Sunday afternoon of fishing, a tiny object resembling a rock floated by.
The two worked frantically to pull in their amazing discovery with a Crayola container Dominique ran back to retrieve from the house.
Once captured, the two wide-eyed little girls and their parents were astonished to find a rare accident of nature was living in a manmade, 18-foot-deep pond.
Officials from the state Department of Environmental Conservation were called by the family, but have yet to get a look at the girls' new pet, which is kept in a 20-gallon tank.
According to DEC Wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone, "developmental anomalies" such as these are rather common in animals like snakes and even cows, but he cannot recall hearing any reports of a two-headed turtle in New York state.
Cases of double-headed turtles have been well documented throughout the world since the 18th century, however.
Turtle, sisters in national spotlight