Sharon and Chris are separate people

[dcfan01]

I know this question is pretty well settled, but after having more time to think I realize we have more proof that Sharon and Chris are definitely one and the same than merely the FBI's fingerprint analysis.

Way way back many moons ago we were shown a scene in which Gin and Vodka were waiting in a Jazz Bar and were eventually approached by a waiter that turns out to be Vermouth. Gin scolds Vermouth for this stating his concern that someone might notice the "Famous Actress Chris Vinyard" working as a waiter in a Jazz Bar which would lead to awkward questions.

This scene confirms Vermouth's current public persona is Chris Vinyard, and yet during her confrontation with Conan and the FBI she both recognizes Jodie as the little girl from 20 years ago, and also remembers Ran saving her life while she was disguised as the "Silver Haired Man" in New York. Her severe emotional response to Ran's actions during that incident precludes any possibility of her being simply told about that incident after the fact. Not even she is that good an actress.

So basically what this proves is that the current Vermouth, confirmed by Gin himself to be Chris Vinyard, is the same Vermouth met by both Ran in New York AND Jodie 20 years ago in her family home. The only way for this current Vermouth to have been at both sites. The only way she could remember both missions, is for Sharon and Chris to be the same person.

I also had some time to think about this.. I re-read all the replies, and decided that only in this thread I will try to defend the theory I proposed.
Just to be clear, I don't think this is a viable theory anymore, but I will keep "defending" it until I find concrete evidence to prove it wrong.
I think that the only evidence right now is the fingerprint investigation, and it isn't even shown..
What I mean is, I believe Jodie's word, it may as well be noted as a fact, but I don't believe in her mind..
She was tricked countless times: Akai's death, Rena's reincorporation plan, Scar Akai, Vermouth read all of her moves, she didn't realize conan tricks in the hospital, etc.

Spoiler: response to Citan

There is another scenario:
The key here is Vermouth's public persona. The New York case occurred 1 year prior to Current Timeline, when Sharon was still alive. I think it wouldn't be weird for Chris to have taken over the name Vermouth even before that.
If that was true, then Shinichi and Ran really did help Chris back then.
About Jodie, Vermouth didn't recognize her at first sight (Yet she did know conan=shinichi).. Jodie had to tell her that she was the little girl from 20 years ago.. So Chris probably just heard of her.
In this context, Chris response "I looked for you desperately" can be read in 3 different ways (as I said before):
1)She heard the story about this missing girl (loose end) from Sharon, and wanted to fix it.
2)She was given the mission to find this girl by the BO.
3)Chris wanted Jodie to keep thinking that she and Sharon are the same person.
About the Mystery Train confession to Yukiko, it can also be explained:
1)Sharon died at some point in the past, and Chris had to impersonate her because it was convinient somehow to the BO.
2)Chris wanted Yukiko to keep thinking that She and Sharon are the same person.

Having said that, outside from here, any new comment/idea/thought I post will be based on the knowleadge that Chris=Sharon=Vermouth.

[Citan]

My response to your response below :

Spoiler:

I also considered that. The problem with your theory is the assumption that Vermouth would actually WANT people to think Chris was Sharon when everything she's done to date shows the reverse is true. Vermouth has done everything she could to publicly establish that Sharon is dead and gone. Why would she then compromise that by ensuring that three people most dangerous to her think Sharon is alive? What's the point? To create confusion? She might fool Yukiko, but she wouldn't fool Shinichi for long. Then you have Jodie. By letting her think she's Sharon all Chris has done is made sure her worst enemy stays fixated on destroying her. Surely the better plan is to cast doubt on Jodie's investigation by showing that the Vermouth she seeks is already dead and gone? For what purpose would she want Jodie to remain fixated on her? Obviously not to kill her or she would have done that during the Sherry incident. So what other reason is there? Pity? That only makes sense if this Vermouth is the same one who killed Jodie's parents which your theory says she isn't. Sorry, but Vermouth's behavior just doesn't make sense to me unless she really is Sharon.

[dcfan01]

Well, that is a good point.. her behavior is indeed very odd, and I have to admit, I spent a lot of time thinking about that..
But don't forget that there are a lot of things that we don't know.
For example:
-What happend less than a year ago that forced Sharon's "death"?.

Spoiler: Sharon's death

If Chris = Sharon, why did she choose to work as a public figure again? eventually she will have to start wearing aging makeup again, and she will have to repeat her story again, while if she chose to be a normal person, she woldn't need any excuse..
If all she needed was the fame to get close to the important people, then why did she "kill" Sharon? Just to buy a couple of years of no-makeup?? Also, why keep Chris hidden until Sharon's death? that is part of what raised Jodie's doubts..
So, I guess that the biggest thing against the Sharon=Chris=Vermouth theory is the purpose..
This is a plan that started 20 years ago..

-What does the BO know about Vermouth?

Spoiler: BO and Vermouth

From Vermouth's point of view (Before Sharon's death), there are 2 sets of people that she has to answer to:
The public and the BO.. What I mean by that is that before conan and Jodie appeared, her world was bipolar, there were only two sides to be on, so this fake family story could only be aimed at one of them.. either it is indeed to fool the public for some vague reason, or it is to fool the BO. Now, it would be extremely difficult to fool the BO for 20 years, with all the mistrust involved in such organization, specially if you're in contact with the boss, whose only known characteristic is to be careful. That leaves one other option: the story is real.

Not knowing the answer to those questions (and many others) I can only guess:
One explanation would be that there is really no contradiction.. it is just 2 different people acting 2 different ways..
Sharon had a way of doing things, while chris has her own playbook.. that would explain some of the contradictions in Vermouth's behavior..
To further answer your question, I think that being Sharon's daughter and a part of the BO is enough reason for Jodie to be fixated on Chris.. Chris actually wins two things from saying that she is Sharon:
1)Put Jodie and the FBI off the trail (for future investigations)
2)Keep her from investigating further into Sharon's death and who knows what else.

About Yukiko, once she told Vermouth about this, Vermouth realised that she is in the loop with conan and the FBI, she couldn't tell her a different story..
If you want to go even further into that, we can analyze two different conversations of Sharon/Chris with Yukiko.
- in NY case (Golden Apple II) Sharon tells Yukiko about her dead husband, her daughter, and her parents.
- in Mystery Train case, Chris tells Yukiko that she and Sharon are the same person.
There are 2 differences in these dialogs:
1- Dialog 1 was initiated by Sharon, Yukiko didn't ask anything and Sharon just started talking; while dialog 2 was initiated by Yukiko, she told Chris what she knew and Chris Just followed along.
2- In dialog 1 Sharon had no reason to lie.. Yukiko is just an old friend that she doesn't frequent anymore; while in dialog 2 Yukiko is now an enemy who is trying to get on her way.
Conclusion: At least one of the dialogs is a lie.

There is something else I want to add that goes beyond this theory:
Yukiko seems to doubt that Sharon could be a bad person; she finally accepts it, but it bothers her..
In that line of thought goes this analogy by akai (ch434 "Rotten Apple"):
[About the codename Rotten Apple] "That's the codename I've given you" "The famous actress Sharon that bathed in the limelight was, the golden apple of the stage" "Your beauty is the same as before, but..." "Inside you've become a wilted, rotten apple."
It might have something to do with the translation, but it seems to describe two different times in Vermouth's lifeline (before, become) and describes only the second one as rotten in the inside.

[Akai Shuuichi]

I also had some time to think about this.. I re-read all the replies, and decided that only in this thread I will try to defend the theory I proposed.
Just to be clear, I don't think this is a viable theory anymore, but I will keep "defending" it until I find concrete evidence to prove it wrong.

I don't know if you will consider this "concrete evidence" or not. But remember in the confrontation how Yukiko said she was surprised to hear that Sharon had conflicts with that computer programmer(sorry forgot the name), and there was a background image of Sharon and the programmer arguing, it won't make sense if there was any link b/w Sharon and the programmer except if Sharon is really=Chris=Vermouth. Hope it's convincing .

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

My comments in red

Just to make things more clear, I made a timeline of everything I could think is related to Vermouth:

EDIT: added references: in green the facts, in orange the conjectures.
CT=Current Timeline

30 years ago:
-Souhei Dejima borrowed Atsushi Miyano's inherited house.
That was the last time he saw him. (ch 423)
But the other people in Souhei's house did see Atsushi when he visited approx. 10 years later with Elena and a 4-5 year old Akemi in tow.

25+ years ago:
-Atsushi Miyano meets Elena Miyano (since 20 years prior to CT they have a 5 y/o daughter. ch423)

20+ years ago:
Jodie's Father, an FBI agent was investigating Vermouth and kept a secret file about her.
(These are Jodie's words ch433)

20 years ago:
-Vermouth kills Jodie's father ch433
-Her face from back then is the same as now ch433 (Yet Chris was suppoused to be 9 y/o, since she is 29 in CT ch239)
-Jodie was 7-8 y/o (since she is 28 in CT ch270)
-Jodie keeps her father's glasses with Vermouth fingerprints ch433
-Yukiko was 17 (Since she is 27 in CT source:Conan Drill)
-Atsushi and Elena Miyano were married and had a 5 y/o daughter (Akemi) (ch 423)
Around 20 years ago:
-Yukiko starts her carreer as an acrtress, while still being in high school ch414
-Sharon and Yukiko studied disguising techniques together, under the tutelage of Toichi Kuroba ch351
-It is a safe assumption that Sharon was 29 and started using aging makeup from here on.
Sharon’s age isn’t known, but 29 would be a lower limit because that would put Sharon’s age of maternity at 19.
-They became close friends ch351

18 years ago:
-Birth of Shijo since she is 18 in CT (source:conan drill)
-Shijo's parents are developing the Silver Bullet experiment
-Elena Miyano taped some words for shijo to hear and gave the tapes to Akemi(7)

11+ years ago:
Sharon said to Yukiko that she stopped seeing her daughter 10 years ago (that is in the golden apple case 1 year prior to CT ch351)
Everything in this timeframe is from when she still met with Chris
-Sharon had a made up husband and a daughter (ch 351)
-Sharon won an Oscar (ch 351)
-Sharon's husband died (ch 351)
-Sharon said to yukiko she taught Chris(<18) how to disguise (ch 351)

Around 11 years ago:
-Sharon stopped seeing Chris (ch 351)

10 years ago:
-Yukiko(27) meets with kuroba toichi, her former disguising mentor ch573

8 years ago:
-death of Toichi Kuroba ch156

5 years ago:
-Akai infiltrates the BO ch599
-Sherry was already working as a high ranked scientist for the BO ch599

2+ years ago:
-Sharon had a quarrel with Itakura Suguru on a filmset, and since then they aren't in good terms ch823
Yukiko's information is based on rumors and she doesn't give a time reference, but she said that Sharon had to change her voice over the phone, what implies that she was already on bad terms
Or she doesn’t want Itakura to know her interest in the program because she wants to keep her cover…

2 years ago:
-Akai is given the codename Rye and is called to meet Gin, and at the same time, is discovered by the BO ch599
-Tequila shows up at the office of computer graphics designer/games system engineer Itakura Suguru to say
he was interested in the particular “system program” Itakura stopped developing one year ago. ch380

1 year ago:
-Sharon invites Yukiko and Shinichi to her new show "Golden Apple" in NY. ch350
-Vermouth disguises as a serial killer in order to lure Akai out, but fails to kill him
instead, she is saved by Shinichi and Ran. ch354
-Suguru Itakura is given a forced one year deadline to finish the program Tequila was interested in one year ago. ch380.

Less than 1 year ago:
-Sharon dies and Chris appears in public for the first time. ch344
-Yukiko attends the funeral ch344.
-Jodie also attends, and starts suspecting Chris after seeing her for the first time. ch433
-Jodie compares Chris' fingerprints with sharon's and they match perfectly, together with those vermouth left in her father's glasses ch433

Current timeline:
-Vermouth admits to Yukiko that "It's actually quite tough, pretending that it's not just your face, but everything about you that's aging too" ch823
-Haibara finds 4 tapes her mother gave to akemi with messages for her birthdays 1 to 20 ch425

First of all we can deduce that since the tapes contained messages for Shijo's years 1 to 20, Elena should have recorded them while Shijo was < 1, probably while she was pregnant. She knew by that time that she would have to leave Akemi and Shijo, and therefore taped those messages.
This means that the messages are 18 years old, and so is the Silver Bullet project. By that time, Vermouth's aging had already stopped..

What is difficult to know is if Vermouth's aging goes on par with Sharon's and then stops, or if her aging stopped before Sharon, and Sharon is just another personality she created..
I'm inclined to think that Vermouth was Sharon until the age of 29(most likely 20 years ago), when (for some reason) she stopped aging.
The problem with the timing is that Chris is 29 now and would be 9 twenty years ago. It would be difficult for a movie star to come out with a husband and a family of ~10 years, without knowing that she would need to create them in advance. Presuming Sharon had no family, she wouldn’t know in advance she needed to act like she had any, which is a problem.
Additionally, Sharon was already acting 20 years ago; Yukiko said Sharon was learning disguise for a similar reason, Yukiko’s reason being that she wanted to develop a spy character (35-1). That means Vermouth has at least a little popularity, and some fans will have taken interest in her history, so she has no security through obscurity…


This event might have been related to Jodie's father investigation, leaving her no choice but to kill him while that investigation was still secret.
That would also imply that Jodie’s father’s investigation took place in less than a year, which is fast (but not impossible.)
It is also 20 years ago that Atsushi Miyano had a serious matter to discuss with Souhei Degima his (only?) friend; so serious that he stayed overnight with his family waiting for him.
It could be that he wanted to let his friend know that he wasn’t coming back and to settle affairs about the house. Perhaps he realized a year or two in advance the project he was working on (silver bullet) was going to force him to "leave".

Having stopped aging, Vermouth realised that she would eventualy need a way to look older, thus started learning disguise techniques from Kuroba Toichi.
For some reason she also needed a family, so she created it. She kept talking to everyone she knew as Sharon about her husband and daughter (At one point she told Yukiko how her daughter begged her for some disguising lessons). Everything was fine, until at some point, 9 years after that (almost 11 years before current timeline) she started to tell people that her husband died, and that she doesn't consider Chris her daughter anymore.
If you follow Chris’s age, At ~10 years ago she is now old enough for an adult to disguise as: 19
All we know is that before that she won an Oscar, but even if that might have raised interest in her family, she was already a well known actress, so I think there has to be other reason for this development.

The last story we know about Sharon is that she had a clash with Suguru Itakura in a film set, then her intervention in the NY case and finally, her death lees than a year ago.
Once again, a family member is killed without reason.. you could argue that it would allow Chris to show herself without makeup, and sice Chris and Sharon can't appear anywhere together, it was convinient to "kill" her, BUT, given Vermouth disguising skills, it wouldn't be impossible to disguise someone as Sharon and show Chris together with her..
Also, "Kill" a very famous person just for the convinience of not wearing makeup? I don't think so..
I don’t think the requirement for constant latex is a bad explanation for discontinuing a disguise...
There has to be another reason, just like before..

What I expect from the next BO arc is some kind of story that binds together these 3 holes in Vermouth's life:
20 years ago, when she (probably) stopped aging
11 years ago, when she "killed" her husband and separated Sharon from Chris
There is no sure date for Sharon’s husband’s death. Putting flowers on a grave is not restricted to the year the husband was killed. Also, I do not think it was absolutely implied that the (made-up) Chris in disguise as husband incident is the one that prompted the split between Sharon and Chris.
1 year ago, when she "killed" Sharon and made Chris a public figure.
together with the silver bullet experiment and Jodie's father investigation.

[dcfan01]

@Akai:

I don't know if you will consider this "concrete evidence" or not. But remember in the confrontation how Yukiko said she was surprised to hear that Sharon had conflicts with that computer programmer(sorry forgot the name), and there was a background image of Sharon and the programmer arguing, it won't make sense if there was any link b/w Sharon and the programmer except if Sharon is really=Chris=Vermouth. Hope it's convincing .

Sharon (and Yukiko) knew Itakura because he was a famous CG Designer, and worked on movies.
Sharon and Itakura had a serious fight and the cause (or the time) of this fight was not revealed, but since Itakura quit being a CG designer 3 years ago, and the BO approach was 2 years ago, I don't think the cause has anything to do with the BO.
Also, Sharon wouldn't blow her 20+ y/o cover over this, or allow the possibility of one of her coworkers overhearing this matter.. (They did gossip on the fight)

About how the BO contacted him:
There are several ways for the BO to know of Itakura..
Don't forget that Chris also works in the film industry, so it wouldn't be impossible for her to know him.
Even Ran, that has no relation with any of this, recognised him (ch377)
The person who first contacted him from the BO was Tequila (We don't know if he was under Vermouth's orders)
and he asked for an unknown system program that Itakura has been working on in the past.

Anyway, there are several ways for the BO to know of Itakura, and the cause for the fight is not specified and rather not BO related.

@Check:

My comments in red

Thanks for taking the time to review it, all your comments on the timeline are correct..
About the theory comments, I will take this point to my advantage on my former theory that initiated this topic :

What is difficult to know is if Vermouth's aging goes on par with Sharon's and then stops, or if her aging stopped before Sharon, and Sharon is just another personality she created..
I'm inclined to think that Vermouth was Sharon until the age of 29(most likely 20 years ago), when (for some reason) she stopped aging.
The problem with the timing is that Chris is 29 now and would be 9 twenty years ago. It would be difficult for a movie star to come out with a husband and a family of ~10 years, without knowing that she would need to create them in advance. Presuming Sharon had no family, she wouldn’t know in advance she needed to act like she had any, which is a problem.
Additionally, Sharon was already acting 20 years ago; Yukiko said Sharon was learning disguise for a similar reason, Yukiko’s reason being that she wanted to develop a spy character (35-1). That means Vermouth has at least a little popularity, and some fans will have taken interest in her history, so she has no security through obscurity…

And finally, I don't think that not wearing makeup (or a latex mask) is enough of a reason for "killing" Sharon..
I know it can be one of the advantages of that, but I don't think it is her real reason..
I really don't think she would kill Sharon, a 20 y/o cover, just to avoid using a mask for two years at most.
She was Ok with the mask for 20 years, and suddenly it becomes an inconvinience..

I would continue writing on this topic, but the post is long enough..

[Citan]

Think of it this way. Would YOU want to wear a mask every day for the rest of your life? I know I sure wouldn't. And as far as Vermouth's decision to switch identities. It didn't "suddenly" become an inconvenience to wear a mask. Vermouth had been preparing to kill off Sharon for 20 years. Probably ever since she stopped aging. She learned disguise techniques to cover her non-aging and then invented a fictional daughter as a future alias. However she couldn't just immediately kill off Sharon. In order to conviningly masquerade as her own "Daughter", Vermouth had to wait until "Chris" turned old enough for her to switch identities using her real face. Then and ONLY then could she kill off Sharon. This was a plan that took years to pull off. She didn't just go "I'm sick of a mask. I'm Chris now" like you're suggesting.

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

@Chek:

My comments in red

Thanks for taking the time to review it, all your comments on the timeline are correct..
About the theory comments, I will take this point to my advantage on my former theory that initiated this topic :

I prefer the third option, the one that lets Sharon anticipate Chris more than 20 years ago and allows her to be Chris and Sharon. Vermouth is also Sharon's mother, who was not an actress at all. She took up stage as Sharon to gain techniques to hide her non-aging. Not yet possessing her superb disguise skills, Vermouth had to kill her Sharon's mom self immediately after her debut to avoid double timing in the limelight. If you average 20-25 years between generations, then Sharon's mother's death should be about 45-50 years ago, which conveniently is just a little later than the start date of the APTX/Silver Bullet/Dream drug project....

What is difficult to know is if Vermouth's aging goes on par with Sharon's and then stops, or if her aging stopped before Sharon, and Sharon is just another personality she created..
I'm inclined to think that Vermouth was Sharon until the age of 29(most likely 20 years ago), when (for some reason) she stopped aging.
The problem with the timing is that Chris is 29 now and would be 9 twenty years ago. It would be difficult for a movie star to come out with a husband and a family of ~10 years, without knowing that she would need to create them in advance. Presuming Sharon had no family, she wouldn’t know in advance she needed to act like she had any, which is a problem.
Additionally, Sharon was already acting 20 years ago; Yukiko said Sharon was learning disguise for a similar reason, Yukiko’s reason being that she wanted to develop a spy character (35-1). That means Vermouth has at least a little popularity, and some fans will have taken interest in her history, so she has no security through obscurity…

And finally, I don't think that not wearing makeup (or a latex mask) is enough of a reason for "killing" Sharon..
I know it can be one of the advantages of that, but I don't think it is her real reason..
I really don't think she would kill Sharon, a 20 y/o cover, just to avoid using a mask for two years at most.
She was Ok with the mask for 20 years, and suddenly it becomes an inconvinience..

I would continue writing on this topic, but the post is long enough..

Why would she have to use a mask for young Sharon's face? Ordinary makeup would do. You can simulate small wrinkles without any latex. We know she used ordinary makeup for Sharon right up until Sharon was "killed"... unless you can put latex on latex and then tear off only one layer, something not even Kaitou Kid has done, she couldn't disguise as Radish Redwood in the NYC case.

The problem for her was that she was going have to start using latex if Sharon got any older and more wrinkly.

[dcfan01]

I prefer the third option, the one that lets Sharon anticipate Chris more than 20 years ago and allows her to be Chris and Sharon. Vermouth is also Sharon's mother, who was not an actress at all. She took up stage as Sharon to gain techniques to hide her non-aging. Not yet possessing her superb disguise skills, Vermouth had to kill her Sharon's mom self immediately after her debut to avoid double timing in the limelight. If you average 20-25 years between generations, then Sharon's mother's death should be about 45-50 years ago, which conveniently is just a little later than the start date of the APTX/Silver Bullet/Dream drug project....

Chris is now 29 y/o.
If she "was born" when Sharon was 20-21 (Which isn't really the lowest limit, but maybe the lowest reasonable?), it would mean that Sharon was born 49-50 years ago.. so vermouth had to be 29 by that time, and the project should have given some kind of result within a year..
This result might be possible with today's technology, but back then (1950's?) I assume it would have been impossible, since there were no computers, or other electronic devices.. communication in general was a lot slower.
But maybe this is too real to the DC World.. (Ethan Hondou sent text messages to the boss when Eisuke was a kid..)

Why would she have to use a mask for young Sharon's face? Ordinary makeup would do. You can simulate small wrinkles without any latex. We know she used ordinary makeup for Sharon right up until Sharon was "killed"... unless you can put latex on latex and then tear off only one layer, something not even Kaitou Kid has done, she couldn't disguise as Radish Redwood in the NYC case.

The problem for her was that she was going have to start using latex if Sharon got any older and more wrinkly.

I knew she was only using makeup.. when you mentioned the latex mask, I didn't understand that you meant she would have to use it in the future..
That is a little more convincing.. but it is not enough. She didn't need to kill her, a retirement would've been enough.. Plus, nowadays, famous people don't have wrinkles anymore until they die (or at least until they come off the screen)... It wouldn't be difficult for Sharon to use makeup to make it seem as if she had a face-lifting surgery.

EDIT:
@Citan:
I didn't see your comment before..
I don't think that Sharon suddenly decided to turn into Chris, in the spur of the momment.. I was actually criticising that idea.. as in "If she was fine with it for 20 years, why change it now?"
I also said that in my opinion, it is a very complicated plan, and the purpose (at least what we know) is too simple and too dangerous. If someone really investigated Sharon (like a reporter, a fan, or even a rival), it wouldn't take him an hour to realise that her family doesn't exist..

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

I prefer the third option, the one that lets Sharon anticipate Chris more than 20 years ago and allows her to be Chris and Sharon. Vermouth is also Sharon's mother, who was not an actress at all. She took up stage as Sharon to gain techniques to hide her non-aging. Not yet possessing her superb disguise skills, Vermouth had to kill her Sharon's mom self immediately after her debut to avoid double timing in the limelight. If you average 20-25 years between generations, then Sharon's mother's death should be about 45-50 years ago, which conveniently is just a little later than the start date of the APTX/Silver Bullet/Dream drug project....

Chris is now 29 y/o.
If she "was born" when Sharon was 20-21 (Which isn't really the lowest limit, but maybe the lowest reasonable?), it would mean that Sharon was born 49-50 years ago.. so vermouth had to be 29 by that time, and the project should have given some kind of result within a year..
This result might be possible with today's technology, but back then (1950's?) I assume it would have been impossible, since there were no computers, or other electronic devices.. communication in general was a lot slower.
But maybe this is too real to the DC World.. (Ethan Hondou sent text messages to the boss when Eisuke was a kid..)

I think you missed my logic. I'm saying Vermouth is in her seventies to eighties right now. When she was in her early twenties about 50 years ago doing whatever she was doing, some experimental drug happened to her. She stopped aging. Realizing her condition (maybe with some research help), she trained for the stage and debuted as Sharon Vineyard to gain the makeup skills needed to hide the condition. She killed her old self immediately after she debuted because she couldn't handle double-timing with the press and fans watching. That worked out because Sharon's mom wasn't an actress and thus probably not that famous, and fire is a great way to fake a death. (something Akai used 50 years later)
Whatever happened to Vermouth didn't work anymore though, or maybe what happened to her was accident that couldn't be replicated. The Boss of the Black Organization, or whoever would become the boss set out a plan to research whatever happened to Vermouth and replicate it. There wasn't a lot of progress on the project until the Miyanos came in 20 years later. Vermouth turned out not to be too keen on the Miyanos, especially since they were studying her, and perhaps Vermouth was disillusioned with the goal of the Black Org. Her feelings carried over to their daughter who started trying to complete the project after they died. This naturally explains why Haibara is familiar with Vermouth.

If you are wondering about the lack of computers in this explanation, the computer related part of the main projects may not have started until more recently since major computer advancements to biology, chemistry, artificial intelligence, etc started ~30 years ago (more like 20 years ago when Gosho first brought up Itakura...).

Nowadays, famous people don't have wrinkles anymore until they die...

The magic of photoshop certainly hides many of those in press photos these days, but I'm afraid I've seen enough candid photos to know this is entirely wrong, especially for stars in their 50s.

[dcfan01]

I think you missed my logic. I'm saying Vermouth is in her seventies to eighties right now. When she was in her early twenties about 50 years ago doing whatever she was doing, some experimental drug happened to her. She stopped aging. Realizing her condition (maybe with some research help), she trained for the stage and debuted as Sharon Vineyard to gain the makeup skills needed to hide the condition. She killed her old self immediately after she debuted because she couldn't handle double-timing with the press and fans watching. That worked out because Sharon's mom wasn't an actress and thus probably not that famous, and fire is a great way to fake a death. (something Akai used 50 years later)
Whatever happened to Vermouth didn't work anymore though, or maybe what happened to her was accident that couldn't be replicated. The Boss of the Black Organization, or whoever would become the boss set out a plan to research whatever happened to Vermouth and replicate it. There wasn't a lot of progress on the project until the Miyanos came in 20 years later. Vermouth turned out not to be too keen on the Miyanos, especially since they were studying her, and perhaps Vermouth was disillusioned with the goal of the Black Org. Her feelings carried over to their daughter who started trying to complete the project after they died. This naturally explains why Haibara is familiar with Vermouth.

If you are wondering about the lack of computers in this explanation, the computer related part of the main projects may not have started until more recently since major computer advancements to biology, chemistry, artificial intelligence, etc started ~30 years ago (more like 20 years ago when Gosho first brought up Itakura...).

Now I've got it. You're saying that the APTX/whatever project came as a result of Vermouth's accident and not the other way around..
It's very interesting, and even though there is no evidence whatsoever, it would explain Vermouth's feelings towards the Miyanos and her relationship with the boss.
About the science, even though there were no computers, we are talking about World War II times, where all those experiments with people happened.. (I don't think Gosho would ever go there though)

[sstimson]

About the science, even though there were no computers, we are talking about World War II times, where all those experiments with people happened.. (I don't think Gosho would ever go there though)

Slightly off topic but according to Wikipedia the first electronic computer was

The first electronic digital computers were developed between 1940 and 1945. Originally they were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).[1] In this era mechanical analog computers were used for military applications.

as WW2 was between 1939 to 1945, THERE WERE computers available.

There are several suggestions (not in manga) that the two were different people, and if one wish to know more, one just need ask for them, but since some are already in different threads, for now, I will not go into them.

[Patrick]

This may seem rather silly, given all the details explained in this post, but I was re-reading the NY case and Sharon said something about Chris that really shook me: "I haven't seen her for almost 10 years...All I know is she was hanging out with a bad crowd..." (ch 351 p3).
Now, this is a clear reference to the BO and I wonder, why on earth would Sharon Vineyard know anything about them if she wasn't actually Vermouth/Chris? I mean, if anything, those guys are secretive to the bone, to the point they burn buildings to erase any track that might lead to them. I don't see them just letting their agent's moms to know they're a bad crowd. So I think this was just Vermouth's usual teasing and a small but rather logic proof as to what we're debating here.

[DevilsClaw1991]

I haven't read all the posts so I'm not sure someone already mentioned it.
For me it's the most logical explanation regarding the Sharon/Chris topic.

There was only ever ONE Chris/Sharon.

In episode 345 Jodie asks her why she doesn't age. I don't remember her answer correctly but she was hinting at something mysterious. So it makes even more sense that she looked the same when she killed Jodie's father. She didn't know how to diguise back then. It was just the way she looked (natural beauty ).
After a few years she joined the diguise course and through her new skills she developed a new image: "Chris"
Her alter Ego Sharon was "killed" in the process.

[dcfan01]

@sstimson: in 1950 there were 5 electronic digital computers in use worlwide (2 in the US and 3 in Great Britain). Also, their processing power was of 100 khz, wich is 10,000 times slower than today's regular cellphone. Nevertheless, there were several scientific advances before the era of microchips, so it is not that important of a factor..

This may seem rather silly, given all the details explained in this post, but I was re-reading the NY case and Sharon said something about Chris that really shook me: "I haven't seen her for almost 10 years...All I know is she was hanging out with a bad crowd..." (ch 351 p3).
Now, this is a clear reference to the BO and I wonder, why on earth would Sharon Vineyard know anything about them if she wasn't actually Vermouth/Chris? I mean, if anything, those guys are secretive to the bone, to the point they burn buildings to erase any track that might lead to them. I don't see them just letting their agent's moms to know they're a bad crowd. So I think this was just Vermouth's usual teasing and a small but rather logic proof as to what we're debating here.

First of all, even if they are separate people, they both work/worked for the BO. (Someone had to kill Jodie's father)
Secondly, what you should really focus on is the 10 years.. why 10 years??
If you are living a double life, and lying about your personality, you should be consistent with everything you say..
You can't just throw a date like that out of the blue, nor should you "invent" events that are not necessary, like separating from your daughter. So, my point is that something happened 11 years ago that forced sharon/chris to start selling that story.

I haven't read all the posts so I'm not sure someone already mentioned it.
For me it's the most logical explanation regarding the Sharon/Chris topic.

There was only ever ONE Chris/Sharon.

In episode 345 Jodie asks her why she doesn't age. I don't remember her answer correctly but she was hinting at something mysterious. So it makes even more sense that she looked the same when she killed Jodie's father. She didn't know how to diguise back then. It was just the way she looked (natural beauty ).
After a few years she joined the diguise course and through her new skills she developed a new image: "Chris"
Her alter Ego Sharon was "killed" in the process.

Of course that is the most logical, consistent explanation, because that is what Gosho told us until now. But you are just avoiding the non-aging issue.. this is not a supernatural manga, so this things don't happen just because it is how it is.. and until Gosho decides to tell us how is it that vermouth managed to stop aging, we will keep thinking of different "solutions" or possible paths; one of which is this.