[38] Former South Australian Police detective Gerry Feltus (who dealt with the matter as a cold case) reports that the book was found "just after that man was found on the beach at Somerton". This article contains content provided by Twitter. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. x Tucked in his pockets were cigarettes, matches, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, a used bus ticket, an unused train ticket and two hair combs. [18] The body was then embalmed on 10 December 1948 after the police were unable to get a positive identification. Abbotts research was undertaken with American genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick. During their drinking session, the mystery man supposedly produced a military pension card bearing the name "Solomonson". Feltus believed Thomson knew the Somerton man's identity. The pathologist, Dr. Dwyer, concluded: "I am quite convinced the death could not have been natural the poison I suggested was a barbiturate or a soluble hypnotic". [32], On 6 June 1949, the body of two-year-old Clive Mangnoson was found in a sack in the Largs Bay sand hills, about 20 kilometres (12mi) up the coast from Somerton Park. In fact, all of the tags on his clothing had been deliberately removed. When no one came forward to identify Somerton man, authorities were left with only cryptic clues to guide them. There is no record of the Adelaide railway station's bathroom facilities being unavailable and no ticket in his pocket to suggest he visited the Public Baths, outside of the station. 14 March 1958: The coroner's inquest is continued. "It's an story that has captured the imagination of people across the state, and, indeed, across the world - but I believe that, finally, we may uncover some answers," South Australian Attorney General Ms Chapman said. If you're a professor at Adelaide University in Southern Australia, you do everything you can to solve it. "Somerton Beach Mystery Man", Transcript, Broadcast 15 May 2009. Scotland Yard was also asked to assist with the case, but could not offer any insights. ITTMTSAMSTGAB[29]. The mystery man's remains were exhumed by police last year in a bid to solve the case. [108][109], On 26 July 2022, Abbott announced that he and genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick had determined that the man was Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born on 16 November 1905, in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne. [113], The marriage was not a harmonious one, largely due to Carl's personality. The card, a document issued in the United States to foreign seamen during World War I, was given to Henneberg in October 2011 for comparison of the ID photograph to that of the Somerton man. [52] In an interview many years later, Paul Lawson, the technician who made the cast and was present when Thomson viewed it, noted that after looking at the bust she immediately looked away and would not look at it again. Egan was Robins granddaughter. The three sons would eventually work at the family bakery. Is climate change killing Australian wine? [14][18] On 22 November 1959 it was reported that one E.B. [6] The names were not released to the public until the 1980s as at the time they were "quite easily procurable by the ordinary individual" from a chemist without the need to give a reason for the purchase. Thomson's real name was considered important because it may be the decryption key for the purported code. Whether there was some social connection to Robins mother is still on the table for investigation, Abbott tells ABC, but may be one of those things well never know now.. Beyond the DNA results linking the Somerton Man to Webb, Abbott and Fitzpatrick found ample archival evidence supporting the identification. All Episodes Topics Blog Shop About Contact SUBMIT A LISTENER SEGUE . My feeling has always been that its been suicide, that Rubaiyat was known as a kind of suicide handbook, Bilsborow said. Copies of Rubaiyat, as well as the Talmud and Bible, were being compared to the code using computers to get a statistical base for letter frequencies. The body of a man found on a South Australian beach more than 70 years ago has been exhumed in the hope of solving one of the country's most intriguing mysteries. They then used archival records to search for individuals whose biographies mirrored what was known about the Somerton Man. [50], When she was shown the plaster cast bust of the dead man by DS Leane, Thomson said she could not identify the person depicted. 58. There was congestion in the second half of the duodenum. He married Eliza Amelia Morris Grace (died in 1946) in 1892 and opened a bakery in Springvale, Victoria. In November 2013, three of their relatives gave interviews to the Channel Nine current affairs program 60 Minutes. "Somerton Beach Mystery Man", Transcript, Broadcast 27 March 2009. 6:30am: Found dead by John Lyons and two men with a horse. [33], Cedric Stanton Hicks, professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, testified that of a group of drugs, variants of a drug in that group he called "number 1" and in particular "number 2" were extremely toxic in a relatively small oral dose that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to identify even if it had been suspected in the first instance. When police arrived, they found the man lying in the sand with his head resting on the sea wall, with his legs out in front of him, and his ankles crossed. The divorce was granted in April 1952. [63], In early January 1949, two people identified the body as that of 63-year-old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. WTBIMPANETP She said the news also turns on its head the theory in her documentary that Australian ballet dancer Robin Thomson was the son of Somerton man. A potential granddaughter's DNA is planned to be compared to the unknown man's to see if it is a match. [43], In 1978, following a request from ABC Television's journalist Stuart Littlemore, Department of Defence cryptographers analysed the handwritten text. The researchers hope to address these mysteries and more through archival and genetic research. The heart was of normal size, and normal in every way small vessels not commonly observed in the brain were easily discernible with congestion. A former ballet dancer. There is some uncertainty about the circumstances under which the book was found. On the night of November 30, 1948, two separate couples noticed a smartly dressed man lying on the sand, his head propped against a sea wall, according to Smithsonian magazines Mike Dash. Solving Australia's coldest case", "Maternal inheritance of human mitochondrial DNA", "Ubiquitinated Sperm Mitochondria, Selective Proteolysis, and the Regulation of Mitochondrial Inheritance in Mammalian Embryos", "Somerton man mystery 'solved' as DNA points to man's identity, professor claims", "Somerton Man face search suggests correct Charles Webb is in Swinburne football photo", "Somerton Man Charles Webb's true identity revealed in family photographs and divorce papers", "Carl 'Charles' Webb's prisoner-of-war brother bears resemblance to Somerton Man", "Somerton Man mystery 'solved' as Adelaide uni researcher names body on beach", "Somerton Man cold case: SA Attorney-General Vickie Chapman grants conditional approval to exhume body", "Der Somerton Man: Eine dokumentarische Fiktion in drei Dimensionen,", Archival newspaper articles on the Taman Shud Case, Reddit AMA interview with Taman Shud researcher Derek Abbott, SA Police Historical Society Oct 2007 Newsletter on the case, SA Police Historical Society October 2010 article on Jimmy Durham who worked in the case, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Somerton_Man&oldid=1151307234, Undeciphered historical codes and ciphers, Articles containing Persian-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2016, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from December 2015, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Articles with self-published sources from November 2018, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles needing cleanup from December 2022, Articles with sections that need to be turned into prose from December 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. [2] There has been intense speculation ever since regarding the identity of the victim, the cause of his death, and the events leading up to it. More photos, details and tidbits about. Dorothy described Carl as solitary, having few friends, living a quiet life and being in bed by 7pm each night, but also moody, violent and threatening, especially when facing defeat even over relatively trivial matters. 16 October 1912: Prosper Thomson is born in central Queensland. [25][26] Police believed that whoever removed the clothing tags either overlooked these three items or purposely left the "Keane" tags on the clothes, knowing Keane was not the dead man's name. CNN . Cookie Policy The coroner will be asked to confirm the identification. The next clue in the case surfaced in May 1949, when pathologist John Cleland reexamined the corpse and discovered a rolled-up piece of paper hidden in the mans pants pocket. A plaster bust of the so-called Somerton Man, Investigators have never been able to decipher the code found in the man's book, Who killed 'Little Red Riding Hood'? You may want to read Twitters cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. New DNA analysis suggests a body found on a beach in Australia in 1948 belongs to Carl Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne. Another theory concerns Boxall, who was reportedly involved in intelligence work during and immediately after World War II. In a later interview Lawson describes her behaviour as being very odd that day. 7 p.m.8 p.m.: Various witness sightings. [39] The timing is significant as the man is presumed, based on the suitcase, to have arrived in Adelaide the day before he was found on the beach. Beachgoers found the body lying against a seawall on Somerton Beach in Adelaide on 1 December, 1948. He had a clean-shaven face and appeared to be about 40 years old. [105], In December 2017, Abbott announced three "excellent" hairs "at the right development stage for extracting DNA" had been found on the plaster cast of the corpse, and had been submitted for analysis to the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide. 27 July: Sydney detectives locate and interview Boxall. The police believed that Clive had been dead for twenty-four hours when his body was found. [18] About the same time, Ina Harvey, the receptionist from the Strathmore Hotel opposite Adelaide railway station, revealed that a strange man had stayed in Room 21 or 23 for a few days around the time of the death, checking out on 30 November 1948. [32] The contents of the boy's stomach were sent to a government analyst for further examination. July 1948: "Prosper McTaggart Thomson, hire car proprietor, of Moseley Street, Glenelg" appears in Adelaide Local Court as defendant in a car sale dispute, dating from November 1947, establishing Prosper Thomson as active in Adelaide from 1947. Per a 1949 inquest report, a doctor who examined the Somerton Man's remains placed his time of death around 2 a.m. For 73 years, the identity of a well-dressed man found slumped by a sea wall of Somerton beach, south of Adelaide, in 1948 has been a mystery leaving room for theories featuring jilted lovers and cold war spies. Kate Thomson opposed the exhumation as being disrespectful to her brother. [91][92], An exhumation was carried out on 19 May 2021. Feltus said he was still contacted by people in Europe who believed the man was a missing relative but did not believe an exhumation and finding the man's family grouping would provide answers to relatives, as "during that period so many war criminals changed their names and came to different countries". Although the last character in this line of text looks like an "L", it is fairly clear on closer inspection of the image that this is formed from an "I" and the extension of the line used to delete or underline that line of text. Video, 00:02:36Who killed 'Little Red Riding Hood'? There was blood mixed with the food in the stomach. [8][10] A couple who saw him at around 7pm noted that they saw him extend his right arm to its fullest extent and then drop it limply. 'Somerton man' mystery is 'SOLVED': Extraordinary twist in Australia's most baffling death 70 years after he was found dead on a beach with a coded note in his pocket. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been to America or bought it from someone of similar size who had been.[16][28]. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. "I'm hoping, ashis name gets out there, there will be somebody that will have an old photo album in a garden shed somewhere.". There was congestion of the pharynx, and the gullet was covered with whitening of superficial layers of the mucosa with a patch of ulceration in the middle of it. As Hilary Whiteman reports for CNN, a new DNA analysis suggests the Somerton Man is Carl Charles Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne who vanished from the public record in April 1947. At least two sites relatively close to Adelaide were of interest to spies: the Radium Hill uranium mine and the Woomera Test Range, an Anglo-Australian military research facility. On 26 July 2022, Adelaide University professor Derek Abbott, in association with genealogist Colleen M. Fitzpatrick, claimed to have identified the man as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in 1905, based on genetic genealogy from DNA of the man's hair. A half-smoked cigarette was resting on his collar, and there was a line from a Persian poem in his pocket - but investigators had no idea who he was. His history and the autopsy findings suggest he committed suicide by poisoning himself.[113]. "It's a triangulation from two different, totally distant parts of the [family] tree," Prof Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. As a result of their conversations with Thomson, police suspected that Boxall was the dead man. [115] South Australia Police had not verified the result, but stated they were "cautiously optimistic that this may provide a breakthrough". Australian guilty in 'Claremont serial killings' case, Why science could free Australian 'serial killer', Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, Explosion derails train in Russian border region. | )[note 5] There is no evidence that Boxall had any contact with Jessica Thomson after 1945.[55]. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. While the mystery man's remains were exhumed last year by SA Police, Professor Abbott has in the meantime persisted with his own independent efforts to crack the case. The police had asked the public if anyone had a copy of the book with the last page missing, and a man came forward with the last page torn out. In July 1949, a local man came forward with a copy of The Rubiyt that hed found tossed into the back of his car around the time of the Somerton Mans death. The man was well-built, about 40 to 50 years old, 5. The identity and cause of death of the so-called Somerton man remain unknown. The Somerton man mystery began in the early hours of December 1, 1948, when beachgoers found a body lying on Somerton beach in Adelaide. [106] While much of the DNA is degraded, in February 2018, the University of Adelaide team obtained a high-definition analysis of the mitochondrial DNA from the hair sample from Somerton Man. 16 RACHEL EGAN'S DNA LINKED TO PROSPER THOMSON.. by peterbowes on May 31, 2021. It bore the phrase Tamm ShudPersian for its finished or its endedand was soon traced to The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym, a 12th-century book of Persian poetry popularized by an 1859 English translation. Mystery of Somerton man's identity solved after 73 years, researchers in Australia say Cryptic clues about man found on an Adelaide beach in 1948 spawned theories of jilted lovers and cold. Advertising Notice 18 May 1953: death of Horace Charles Reynolds, Tasmanian man born in 1900 and regarded by some investigators as the owner of the "H. C. Reynolds" ID card. Boxall was born in London on 16 April 1906, enlisted in the Australian Army on 12 January 1942 and was not discharged until 12 April 1948. Is British seaman's identity card clue to solving 63-year-old beach body mystery? Police suspect the calls may be a hoax and the caller may be the same person who also terrorised a woman in a nearby suburb who had recently lost her husband in tragic circumstances. He had no wallet, no cash, and no ID. [32], In 1949, the body of the unknown man was buried in Adelaide's West Terrace Cemetery, where the Salvation Army conducted the service. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? [68] Detectives from Victoria initially believed the man was from there because of the similarity of the laundry marks to those used by several dry-cleaning firms in Melbourne. When an employee looked inside the case he told Harvey he had found an object inside the case he described as looking like a "needle". His identity has never been determined, but there are several theories about his origin. More recently, links were also found to the grandparents of the man that Jo Thomson eventually married .". Now Australian scientists are close to solving the mystery By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Updated 10:42 PM EDT, Mon May 31, 2021 Link Copied! There is a . She appeared as if she was about to faint. This would be consistent with the copy of the Rubaiyat, which also focuses on the subject of death. [49] Feltus also stated that her family did not know of her connection with the case, and he agreed not to disclose her identity or anything that might reveal it. The torn-out fragment found in the Somerton Mans pocket perfectly matched a gap on the final page of the discarded copy. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. [98] Abbott believes an exhumation and an autosomal DNA test could link the Somerton man to a shortlist of surnames which, along with existing clues to the man's identity, would be the "final piece of the puzzle". "Now there's the historical work of actually digging further and finding out about the man's life and his circumstances and what might have exactly led to this particular situation," he said. | READ MORE. [51][56] Boxall was now working in the maintenance section at the Randwick Bus Depot (where he had worked before the war) and was unaware of any link between the dead man and himself. [8][83] Any further attempts to identify the body have been hampered by the embalming formaldehyde having destroyed much of the man's DNA. Early 1950: Prosper Thomson's divorce is finalised. Who killed 'Little Red Riding Hood'? [note 4] Thomson told police that, after the war ended, she had moved to Melbourne and married. The truth, however, is seemingly more mundane. [11] In 2009 to 2011, Derek Abbott's team concluded that it was most likely that each letter was the first letter of a word. A researcher in the case of the Somerton Man says he has solved the decades-old mystery, identifying the figure as a Melbourne-born electrical engineer. It was a concealed code and the cipher used was a Hill cipher. [50], It was determined the letter frequency of the message in the back of the Rubaiyat was considerably different from letters written down randomly; the frequency was to be further tested to determine if the alcohol level of the writer could alter random distribution. [16], In 1978, ABC-TV, in its documentary series Inside Story, produced a programme on the Tamm Shud case, titled "The Somerton Beach Mystery", where reporter Stuart Littlemore investigated the case, including interviewing Boxall, who could add no new information,[51] and Paul Lawson, who made the plaster cast of the body and who refused to answer a question about whether anyone had positively identified the body. Also written on the back cover was the phone number of young nurse later identified by Abbott as Jo Thomson who lived a five minute walk away from where the man was found dead. "There's lots of. The Somerton Man's fingerprints were sent around the world, but no one could identify him. [82], Former South Australian Chief Superintendent Len Brown, who worked on the case in the 1940s, stated that he believed that the man was from a country in the Warsaw Pact, which led to the police's inability to confirm the man's identity. Australian charged 32 years after gay hate killing. I may have solved the Somerton code, completely by accident! [31] Cleland, as the investigating pathologist, re-examined the body and made a number of discoveries. One of the biggest mysteries in modern Australian history may have finally been solved. Police checked incoming train records and believed the man had arrived at the Adelaide railway station by overnight train from either Melbourne,[29] Sydney or Port Augusta. One of the witnesses told the police she observed a man looking down at the sleeping man from the top of the steps that led to the beach. The man's body was found propped up against the seawall at Somerton Beach in Adelaide on December 1, 1948. The Tamm Shud case AKA the disappearance of the Somerton Man is arguably one of Australia's greatest true crime mysteries and was solved in July. Read about our approach to external linking. (Carls brother Roy also died in a prisoner-of-war camp the same year.) A smuggler. [45], An investigation had shown that the Somerton man's autopsy reports of 1948 and 1949 are now missing and the Barr Smith Library's collection of Cleland's notes do not contain anything on the case. While Henneberg found anatomical similarities in features such as the nose, lips and eyes, he believed they were not as reliable as the close similarity of the ear. And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand Both kidneys were congested, and the liver contained a great excess of blood in its vessels. No new findings are recorded and the inquest is ended with an. [110], Abbott claimed his DNA identification from strands of hair found in the plaster death mask made by South Australian Police in the late 1940s. This ticket is the first sold of only three issued between 6:15a.m. and 2 p.m. by the particular ticket clerk for the Henley Beach train. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or find something. I solved it when I was looking back at my old notes on the tamam shud code, which had a solution. We had all these grandiose ideas about him being Russian, American and European. Though the state coroner has yet to confirm the pairs findings, Abbott tells the Guardians Natasha May that as a scientist, he is confident in the accuracy of the analysis. This is just us drawing the dots. There has been persistent speculation that the dead man was a spy, due to the circumstances and historical context of his death. Mangnoson was born in Adelaide on 4 May 1914 and served as a Private in the Australian Army from 11 June 1941 until his discharge on 7 February 1945. Abbott, who has researched the Somerton Man for more than two decades, met his current wife, Rachel Egan, through the case. [47] When she was interviewed by police, Thomson said that she did not know the dead man or why he would have her phone number and choose to visit her suburb on the night of his death. Carolyn Bilsborow, a film-maker and director of the documentary Missing Pieces about Somerton man, said the news was incredibly exciting. [58], The News featured their story on its first page, giving more details of the dead man. By then, Dorothy had moved from Melbourne to Bute, a town 89 miles northeast of Adelaide. South Australia Police consulted their counterparts overseas and distributed information about the dead man internationally, in an effort to identify him. [27], Around the same time as the inquest, a tiny piece of rolled-up paper with the words "Tamm Shud" printed on it was found in a fob pocket sewn within the dead man's trouser pocket. She was 27 years old in 1948. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. In reply, Boxall says "no", and when asked if Harkness could have known, Boxall replies: "Not unless somebody else told her." ), Carl 'Charles' Webb's prisoner-of-war brother bears resemblance to Somerton Man https://t.co/c7KcGhtiuI. In December 1948, a man was found dead on Somerton Beach in a suburb of Adelaide. The poem's subject led police to theorise that the man had committed suicide by poison, although no other evidence corroborated the theory. A search concluded that no T. Keane was missing in any English-speaking country. The 5-foot-11, 40- to 50-year-old man carried no money or identification. Also inside were a shaving brush, shoe polish, a knife, scissors, a screwdriver and assorted attire, some of which was labeled with variants of the name T. I was convinced that he was from Europemaybe a displaced person after the Second World War [who] was here alone. [note 3]. Searches conducted by the US National Archives, the UK National Archives and the Australian War Memorial Research Centre have failed to find any records relating to H. C. Reynolds. The Somerton Man was a mysterious, unknown decedent, found on Somerton Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on December 1, 1948. The last mention of Webb in the historical record dates to April 1947, when he left his wife. "We can't say for sure, but we can speculate," he said. [89], Kate Thomson, the daughter of Jessica and Prosper Thomson, said that her mother was the woman interviewed by the police and that her mother had told her she had lied to them Jessica did know the identity of the Somerton man and his identity was also "known to a level higher than the police force". Despite repeated requests for an exhumation, the . Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, Body exhumed in hope of solving Australia mystery, Explosion derails train in Russian border region, Banana artwork in Seoul museum eaten by visitor, Donald Trump arrives in Scotland on golf visit, NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Indian 'killer' elephant relocated to tiger reserve, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion. My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.[44]. On December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found lying dead on the sand on Somerton Beach next to the neighborhood of Glenelg, about 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. And I would like to find out what happened to Dorothy," she told CNN. Abbott had attempted to contact the Thomson family, but upon finding both Jo Thomson and her son Robin Thomson dead, sought expert opinion which showed biological links between Robin and the Somerton man likely due to sharing the same rare dental and ear conditions, on top of the muscular calves which helped Thomson become a professional dancer. The case has long baffled detectives and amateur sleuths, and is regarded as one of Australia's most enduring mysteries because of strange clues linked to it, including a suspected code and a book of Persian poems. [49] Abbott also subsequently wrote to Rau in support of the Egans, saying that exhumation for DNA testing would be consistent with federal government policy of identifying soldiers in war graves, to bring closure to their families. And he was not a Russian agent, but rather a Melbourne-born electrical engineer. All rights reserved. [83], The South Australian Police Historical Society holds the plaster bust, which contains strands of the man's hair. Webb was then a 35-year-old instrument maker. Despite authorities public appeals and mounting media coverage of the mystery, no one was able to positively identify the Somerton Man. The man was well-built, about 40 to 50 years old, 1.8 metres tall, and had grey-blue eyes and gingery-brown hair that was greying at the sides. The case is also known after the Persian phrase tamm shud (Persian: ),[note 1] meaning "is over" or "is finished", which was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. VideoThe secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, LGBT troops take love for Eurovision to front line, Why an Indian comedian is challenging fake news rules. [113][116], Dorothy recalled one instance in March 1946 in which her husband apparently attempted suicide with an overdose of ether. South Australia Police have not confirmed the discovery but say they will comment soon. Last month Ms Chapman said the decision to exhume the body followed "intense public interest" in the case. Tragic End To Four-day Search For Father And Son, "BOXALL ALFRED: Service Number NX83331". Abbott also tracked down the Barbour waxed cotton of the period and found packaging variations. The Somerton Man had his prints taken a couple of days after he was found and a few weeks later they were forwarded to all the English speaking countries: Scotland Yard, The RCMP (Canada), the FBI, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, then the mammoth task of sending copies to every police station in Australia. [49] She suggested that her mother and the Somerton man may both have been spies, noting that Jessica Thomson taught English to migrants, was interested in communism, and could speak Russian, although she would not disclose to Kate where she had learned it or why.
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