And. Cookie Settings, Illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamondand Why the British Won't Give It Back. [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. They found that the Somerton Man belonged to haplogroup H4a1a1a, possessed by only 1% of Europeans. The theme of Rubaiyat is that one should live life to the fullest and have no regrets when it ends. AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), abc.net.au/news/somerton-man-identified-melbourne-born-engineer-researcher-says/101272182, Jock Zonfrillo remembered as an 'incredible chef' and icon of Australia's culinary landscape, Jock Zonfrillo, celebrated chef and judge on MasterChef Australia, dies aged 46, Major route into the Kokoda track appears to have been blockaded amid tour operator feud, Russian freight train derails after being hit by explosive device, governor says, Tony Abbott mounts attack on Voice after a spat with parliamentary committee, 'The worm goes global': Rita Ora wowed by Adelaide lobbyist's dancefloor moves, Female teacher admits sexual offences against teen student, fights 10 other charges, New Zealand PM in favour of country becoming a republic, US authorities 'auction' First Republic Bank after second biggest bank failure in history. Bilsborow said: Now that weve got his name, theres still so many questions. Inside his pocket were the printed words "Tamam Shud", which means "finished . Per a 1949 inquest report, a doctor who examined the Somerton Man's remains placed his time of death around 2 a.m. Is climate change killing Australian wine? Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? He had a sister who lived in Melbourne and was married to a man named Thomas Keanelikely the T. Keane whose name appears on the clothing in the Somerton Mans suitcase. In November 2013, three of their relatives gave interviews to the Channel Nine current affairs program 60 Minutes. "The fact he [Thomson] has a rare dental and ear condition matching the Somerton Man appears to be an extraordinary coincidence.". Australia Exhumes the Somerton Man, and His 70-Year Mystery This week the police disinterred a body, found on a beach in 1948, that has puzzled investigators for decades. Interestingly, the book contained several handwritten annotations, including a suspected code and the phone number of a nurse, Jessie Jo Thomson, who lived near the site where the body was discovered. "So, it's a triangulation from two different, totally distant parts of the tree, so that's very convincing.". "Together with the similarity of the ear characteristics, this mole, in a forensic case, would allow me to make a rare statement positively identifying the Somerton man. [42] The police agreed a decision that hampered later investigations. 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. 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. Carl moved out in 1947 and no official records revealing his subsequent whereabouts have been found as of 2022.[113][116]. [8][83] Any further attempts to identify the body have been hampered by the embalming formaldehyde having destroyed much of the man's DNA. [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. "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. This would be consistent with the copy of the Rubaiyat, which also focuses on the subject of death. [95] It was reported that the body was exhumed as part of Operation Persevere and Operation Persist, which are investigating historical unidentified remains in South Australia. Was he murdered? 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. [14][18] On 22 November 1959 it was reported that one E.B. [2], A number of possible identifications have been proposed over the years. However, the code's short length meant the investigators would require the exact edition of the book used. 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. A telephone number was also found in the back of the book,[41] belonging to a nurse named Jessica Ellen "Jo" Thomson (19212007) born Jessie Harkness in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, New South Wales who lived in Moseley St, Glenelg, about 400 metres (1,300ft) north of the location where the body was found. On December 1, 1948, the body of a man was found on Somerton beach. He had a clean-shaven face and appeared to be about 40 years old. The spot on Somerton beach, south of Adelaide, where the man was found on December 1, 1948. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or find something. [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. Theories abounded, including that the person - dubbed Somerton Man - was a spy. But to find out that hes Australian, from Victoria, and that he died, and no one obviously noticed he was missing, or no one followed up with the police that he was missingI find that particularly kind of tragic. Beyond the DNA results linking the Somerton Man to Webb, Abbott and Fitzpatrick found ample archival evidence supporting the identification. The South Australian Grandstand Bookmakers Association paid for the service to save the man from a pauper's burial. He said after using hairs from a plaster bust of the man to gather DNA evidence, researchers in Australia and America had further narrowed the search "to build out a family tree containing over 4,000 people". Abbotts research was undertaken with American genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick. [93] Police stated that the remains were in "reasonable" condition and were optimistic about the prospect of DNA recovery. 58. Somerton Man body-on-the-beach mystery solved as family secrets unravel | Australian Story ABC News In-depth 1.22M subscribers Subscribe 21K Share 1M views 2 months ago #AustralianStory. In a later interview Lawson describes her behaviour as being very odd that day. CNN . "[44] Boxall's army service record suggests that he served initially in the 4th Water Transport Company, before being seconded to the North Australia Observer Unit (NAOU) a special operations unit and that during his time with NAOU, Boxall rose rapidly in rank, being promoted from lance corporal to lieutenant within three months. He was a Russian spy. [86][needs update] Some independent researchers believe the ID card belonged to Horace Charles Reynolds, a Tasmanian man who died in 1953 and therefore could not have been the Somerton man. She nursed him back to health, only for him to scold her for it and become more violent. 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. 6:30am: Found dead by John Lyons and two men with a horse. 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.. A photograph of the scrap of paper was released to the press.[36]. 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. By 4 December, police had announced that the man's fingerprints were not on South Australian police records, forcing them to look further afield. Shortly afterwards she moved to Adelaide and was listed in telephone directories under the surname of her future husband, Prosper Thomson. In his pocket were bus and train tickets, chewing gum, some matches, two combs and a pack of cigarettes. According to ABC News, a wooden spatula and a brush were used to carefully exhume the remains, which were then placed in a new coffin before being taken away to a forensic science centre. The site at tamamshud.blogspot.com shows exactly how it was uncovered and gives the precise methodology so that anyone can test it for themselves. SA Police have been contacted for comment. [64] A third person, James Mack, also viewed the body, initially could not identify it, but an hour later he contacted police to claim it was Walsh. Adelaide's 73-Year-Old MysteryThe Somerton Man | Unsettling & Unsolved 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Police questioned a woman seen leaving the cemetery but she claimed she knew nothing of the man. [23] It was believed that the suitcase was owned by the man found on the beach. In 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, she had given it to an Australian Army lieutenant named Alf Boxall, who was serving at the time in the Water Transport Section of the Royal Australian Engineers. '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. Another couple who saw him from 7:30pm to 8pm, during which time the street lights had come on, recounted that they did not see him move during the half an hour in which he was in view, although they did have the impression that his position had changed. Scotland Yard was also asked to assist with the case, but could not offer any insights. 26 July 2022: Derek Abbott announces that his DNA analysis has identified the man as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in Melbourne in 1905. [49], Roma Egan, the widow of Jessica Thomson's son Robin, and Robin and Roma's daughter Rachel Egan, also appeared on 60 Minutes. [6] He was lying back with his head resting against the seawall, with his legs extended and his feet crossed. x Both kidneys were congested, and the liver contained a great excess of blood in its vessels. He said their investigations had also found a link to the name "TKeane" which was printed on the Somerton Man's tie. [103] However, Rachel Egan's DNA has been analysed and links were found to the grandparents of Prosper Thomson. Victoria detectives disproved all the claims and said that "other investigations" indicated it was unlikely that he was from Victoria. In December 1948, a man was found dead on Somerton Beach in a suburb of Adelaide. The ear shapes shared by both men were a "very good" match, although Henneberg also found what he called a "unique identifier"; a mole on the cheek that was the same shape and in the same position in both photographs. [76] The Mangnosons had been missing for four days. [99] In May 2009, Abbott consulted with dental experts who concluded that the Somerton Man had hypodontia (a rare genetic disorder) of both lateral incisors, a feature present in only 2% of the general population. The researchers hope to address these mysteries and more through archival and genetic research. [81], Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. [42] In his book on the case, Gerry Feltus stated that when he interviewed Thomson in 2002, he found that she was either being "evasive" or she "just did not wish to talk about it". 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. [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". 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. The text has not been deciphered or interpreted in a way that satisfies authorities on the case. Is British seaman's identity card clue to solving 63-year-old beach body mystery? Although it was a very common practice to use name tags, it was also common when buying secondhand clothing to remove the tags of the previous owners. [57] In the front of the copy of Rubaiyat that was given to Boxall, Jessica Harkness had signed herself "JEstyn" [sic] and written out verse 70: Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before Was there a connection with Jo, the nurse? Professor Abbott said Webb was born in Footscray on November 16,1905 to Richard August Webb (1866-1939) and Eliza Amelia Morris Grace (1871-1946). Australian charged 32 years after gay hate killing. This is just us drawing the dots. [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. Prof Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide said on Monday he believes the man found on 1 December 1948, was Carl Charles Webb, a 43-year-old electrical engineer from Melbourne. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. [100] The media have suggested that Robin Thomson, who was sixteen months old in 1948 and died in 2009, may have been a child of either Boxall or the Somerton man and passed off as Prosper Thomson's son. (Carls brother Roy also died in a prisoner-of-war camp the same year.) The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The man was well-built, about 40 to 50 years old, 5. "Sorry, The Unknown Man is (very probably) not H.C. Reynolds", "New twist in Somerton Man mystery as fresh claims emerge", "An immaculate corpse, a secret code and Australia's strangest cold case", "Somerton Man to be exhumed by police in attempt to solve mystery", "Somerton Man exhumation to be carried out in hope of solving decades-long mystery", "Complete remains of Somerton Man in 'reasonable condition' after exhumation", "Somerton man: Body exhumed in bid to solve Australian mystery". Now Australian scientists are close to solving the mystery", "Australia Exhumes the Somerton Man, and His 70-Year Mystery", "After 65 years, new picture could reveal Unknown Man's identity | News.com.au", "How the Somerton Man played cupid from the grave", "Who was the Somerton Man? Detective H. Strangway and Constable J. Moss are enquiring. With the original copy lost in the 1950s, researchers have been looking for a FitzGerald edition. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine "We can't say for sure, but we can speculate," he said. 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. And I think there is some truth to that., Authorities in Adelaide exhumed the Somerton Mans body last May and are currently conducting genetic testing on the remains. [31] The lack of success in determining the identity and cause of death of the man had led authorities to call it an "unparalleled mystery" and believe that the cause of death might never be known. The two daily Adelaide newspapers, The Advertiser and The News, covered the death in separate ways. Reflecting on the identification, Carolyn Bilsborow, a filmmaker who directed a 2018 documentary about the Somerton Man, tells the Guardian: We had all these grandiose ideas about him being Russian, American and European. In October 1941, he married Dorothy Jean Robertson, who is listed on the couples marriage certificate as a 21-year-old foot specialist. And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand They included a suitcase, more items of clothing with their labels removed, and incoherent writings believed to be a code. Professor Abbott also said there was a potential explanation as to why the Melbourne resident was in Adelaide. "[33] Despite these findings, he could not determine the cause of death of the unidentified man. [note 2] Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane, who led the initial investigation, often protected the privacy of witnesses in public statements by using pseudonyms;[14] Leane referred to the man who found the book by the pseudonym "Ronald Francis" and he has never been officially identified. And I would like to find out what happened to Dorothy," she told CNN. His history and the autopsy findings suggest he committed suicide by poisoning himself.[113]. Read about our approach to external linking. The identity and cause of death of the so-called Somerton man remain unknown. An Australian researcher claims to have solved a 73-year-old mystery by identifying a man found dead on a beach, CNN said in a report. The Somerton man mystery began in the early hours of December 1, 1948, when beachgoers found a body lying on Somerton beach in Adelaide. Dismissing the enigmatic figure as a drunk or a soundly sleeping beachgoer, the couples made no effort to approach him. [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. The Somerton Man case has been an enigma since his body was discovered in 1948. Now, Australian police say advances in DNA technology make exhumation worthwhile. [58], The News featured their story on its first page, giving more details of the dead man. 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. They then tracked down the man's living relatives, using their DNA to confirm his identity. However, in July 1949, Boxall was found in Sydney and the final page of his copy of Rubaiyat (reportedly a 1924 edition published in Sydney) was intact, with the words "Tamam Shud" still in place. [32], In addition to intense public interest in Australia during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the case also attracted international attention. He was put to rest in an Adelaide cemetery under a headstone reading only "the unknown man". She was 27 years old in 1948. [9][30] There is no record of the station's bathroom facilities being unavailable on the day he arrived. April 1947: Charles Webb leaves his wife Dorothy, whereupon she files for divorce. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. ITTMTSAMSTGAB[29]. Lawson's diary entry for that day names her as "Mrs Thompson" and states that she had a "nice figure" and was "very acceptable" (referring to the level of attractiveness) which allows the possibility of an affair with the Somerton man. Professor Abbott said the team had used popular genealogical DNA databases, like Ancestry.com, to find Mr Webb's distant relatives. He was fond of poetry and wrote several poems of his own, "most of them on the subject of death, which he claims to be his greatest desire", Dorothy stated. Johnson identified himself at a police station. [113] Earlier the ABC had published photos of Webb's brother, Roy Webb, claiming they resembled the Somerton Man. In fact, theres probably more questions than there were yesterday, when we didnt have his name. This article contains content provided by Twitter. All rights reserved. [43], In 1978, following a request from ABC Television's journalist Stuart Littlemore, Department of Defence cryptographers analysed the handwritten text. [63], In early January 1949, two people identified the body as that of 63-year-old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. In the case were a red checked dressing gown, a size-seven red felt pair of slippers, four pairs of underpants, pyjamas, shaving items, a light brown pair of trousers with sand in the cuffs, an electrician's screwdriver, a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument, a pair of scissors with sharpened points, a small square of zinc thought to have been used as a protective sheath for the knife and scissors, and a stencilling brush, as used by third officers on merchant ships for stencilling cargo.[24]. 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. In 1951, Dorothy was reportedly living in Bute, South Australia, 144km (89mi) from Adelaide. [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. What was unusual was that there were no spare socks found in the case, and no correspondence, although the police found pencils and unused letter stationery. 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. She said although it looked as if there was nobody alive now that would remember him, she hoped to turn to the archives to answer new questions the findings opened up. 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. Video, 00:02:36, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. The Thomsons and Alf Boxall are not mentioned. [32] Mangnoson believed that this situation could be related to her husband's attempt to identify the Somerton Man, believing him to be Carl Thompsen, who had worked with him in Renmark in 1939. This would be followed by a crackdown on Soviet espionage in Australia, which was revealed by intercepts of Soviet communications under the Venona project. [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. We had all these grandiose ideas about him being Russian, American and European. He added that there was sufficient DNA evidence to "definitively"disprove any links with his wife Rachel Egan, whose father ballet dancer Robin Thomson was believed to have potentially been a descendant of the Somerton Man. 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. Complete remains of Somerton Man in 'reasonable condition' after exhumation, Nurse driving home from shift among victims of triple-fatal crash involving allegedly stolen car, Lauren Cranston jailed for eight years over one of Australia's biggest tax frauds, 'They will forever know their dad was a hero': 1,000 mourners farewell slain NSW paramedic, Family of man shot dead by police question why they weren't called in to help, There are 11 First Nations MPs and senators. Although they commented between themselves that it was odd that he was not reacting to the mosquitoes, they had thought it more likely that he was drunk or asleep, and thus did not investigate further. Dubbed by authorities and the press as the Somerton Man, the man was found smartly dressed and slumped against a wall on a beach near Adelaide, Australia, in 1948, leading to a labyrinthine . Australia's Greatest Mystery The Somerton Man An unknown dead body on an Adelaide Beach in post-war Australia In 1948 an unknown nameless man washed up on Somerton Park Beach in Adelaide,. Its hard to see this as anything other than intentional, Fiona-Ellis Jones, host of The Somerton Man Mystery podcast, tells the Australian Broadcasting Companys (ABC) Bridget Judd. [107] However, mitochondrial DNA is only inherited through the maternal line, and therefore cannot be used to investigate a hereditary link between Rachel Egan, Abbott's wife, and the Somerton Man.