For a general renewal process $N$ (allowing delay, defect and multiple simultaneous arrivals) the independence of the first renewal epochs of the marked processes got from $N$ by Bernoulli $0$/$1$ thinning is characterized. This independence is well-known to hold true in the case of homogeneous Poisson processes; by way of corollary one obtains the interesting observation that, when coupled with some minimal extra conditions, it in fact already identifies them. The proof is analytic in character.