[77] The two were found by Neil McRae[note 7] of Largs Bay, who claimed he had seen the location of the two in a dream the night before. [20] Although named "City Baths", the centre was not a public bathing facility, but rather a public swimming pool. When presented with the Somerton Mans death mask, Thomson appeared completely taken aback, to the point of giving the appearance she was about to faint, according to Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane. But after more than 70 years, a researcher says he's solved the mystery - Somerton Man was Carl Webb. [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. Thomson's real name was considered important because it may be the decryption key for the purported code. Tragic End To Four-day Search For Father And Son, "BOXALL ALFRED: Service Number NX83331". 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. 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. They then tracked down the man's living relatives, using their DNA to confirm his identity. 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. [75], Following the death, the boy's mother, Roma Mangnoson, reported having been threatened by a masked man who, while driving a battered cream car, almost ran her down outside her home in Cheapside Street, Largs North. Mystery of Somerton man's identity solved after 73 years, researchers Still, she denied knowing the man, and authorities didnt press her on the issue. [38] The book was missing the words "Tamm Shud" on the last page, which had a blank reverse, and microscopic tests indicated that the piece of paper was from the page torn from the book. A potential granddaughter's DNA is planned to be compared to the unknown man's to see if it is a match. [63], In early January 1949, two people identified the body as that of 63-year-old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? C.I.B. Following a public appeal by police, the copy of Rubaiyat from which the page had been torn was located. The actual reveal is quite impressive; it is very clear coding. ), Others posited that the Somerton Man was a former professional ballet dancer, drawing on the coroners comment that his calf muscles were high and well developed, such as found in women, and suggestion that he had been in the habit of wearing high-heeled and pointed shoes., Perhaps the most convincing theory centered on Thomsons son Robin, whose distinctive ears and teeth closely resembled the Somerton Mans. A month after his death, police found a suitcase believed to belong to him at the Adelaide Railway Station. [27] A nationwide circulation of the dry-cleaning marks also proved fruitless. He was the youngest of six siblings and married Dorothy Robertson, known as Doff Webb. Theories abounded, including that the person - dubbed Somerton Man - was a spy. 2023 BBC. 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. He was put to rest in an Adelaide cemetery under a headstone reading only "the unknown man". The man was found lying in the sand across from the Crippled Children's Home, which was on the corner of The Esplanade and Bickford Terrace. Its possible that [Webb] came to this state to try and find her, Abbott tells CNN. He had a clean-shaven face and appeared to be about 40 years old. [49], Roma Egan, the widow of Jessica Thomson's son Robin, and Robin and Roma's daughter Rachel Egan, also appeared on 60 Minutes. 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. "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. The Somerton Man was an unidentified man whose body was found on 1 December 1948 on the beach at Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. [B]ut I cannot say whether it was administered by the deceased himself or by some other person.. One newspaper article refers to the book being found about a week or two before the body was found. A suicide note perhaps? He was slumped against a seawall, dressed in a suit and tie. Mystery of Somerton man's identity solved after 73 years, researchers in Australia say This week Prof Derek Abbott of the University of Adelaide claimed to have identified Somerton man as. 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. 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. [note 3]. 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. 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. Walsh had left Adelaide several months earlier to buy sheep in Queensland but had failed to return at Christmas as planned. acute gastritis hemorrhage, extensive congestion of the liver and spleen, and the congestion to the brain. Australia's Greatest Mystery The Somerton Man - Medium [114], Forensic Science South Australia, who were still investigating, declined to comment on Abbott's findings. Processing the results could reportedly take up to a year. The tags on his suit had been cut off, and forensic examiners suspected he had been poisoned. 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. The Somerton Man's fingerprints were sent around the world, but no one could identify him. Its much more than identifying the Somerton man as Carl Webb, its also solving the mystery of how and why he died that may take years.. A day after meeting each other, Abbott and Egan decided to wed. People have said that possibly Derek married me for my DNA,Egan joked to ABC in 2019. In November 2013, three of their relatives gave interviews to the Channel Nine current affairs program 60 Minutes. On December 1, 1948, the body of a man was found on Somerton beach. 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. 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. 58. [67], By early February 1949, there had been eight different "positive" identifications of the body,[68] including two Darwin men who thought the body was of a friend of theirs,[69] and others who thought it was a missing station worker, a worker on a steamship[70] or a Swedish man. WRGOABABD ][88], Prosper Thomson died in 1995 and Jessica Thomson died in 2007. "[33] Despite these findings, he could not determine the cause of death of the unidentified man. The two daily Adelaide newspapers, The Advertiser and The News, covered the death in separate ways. We can't say for certain say that this is the reason he came, but it seems logical., Records showed that Webb enjoyed reading and writing poetry, as well as betting on horse races. 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. Titled "Body found on Beach", it read: A body, believed to be of E.C. "[86], The ID card, numbered 58757, was issued in the United States on 28 February 1918 to H. C. Reynolds, giving his nationality as "British" and age as 18. Now Australian scientists are close to solving the mystery By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Updated 10:42 PM EDT, Mon May 31, 2021 Link Copied! [44], In 2004, retired detective Gerry Feltus suggested in a Sunday Mail article that the final line "ITTMTSAMSTGAB" could stand for the initials of "It's Time To Move To South Australia Moseley Street" (Jessica Thomson lived in Moseley Street which is the main road through Glenelg). The Somerton Man has been exhumed what happens now? Experts were unable to pinpoint a cause of death, but three medical witnesses who testified during the inquest agreed that the death was not natural., There was no indication of violence, and I am compelled to the finding that death resulted from poison, city coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland concluded. Per a 1949 inquest report, a doctor who examined the Somerton Man's remains placed his time of death around 2 a.m. Police arrived on the scene the following morning after receiving reports of a dead body on Somerton Beach. "The fact he [Thomson] has a rare dental and ear condition matching the Somerton Man appears to be an extraordinary coincidence.". The spot on Somerton beach, south of Adelaide, where the man was found on December 1, 1948. [83] Other key evidence no longer exists, such as the brown suitcase, which was destroyed in 1986. Privacy Statement [113], The marriage was not a harmonious one, largely due to Carl's personality. The Somerton Man was a mysterious, unknown decedent, found on Somerton Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on December 1, 1948. [14], According to the pathologist, John Burton Cleland, the man was of "Britisher" appearance and thought to be aged about 4045; he was in "top physical condition". 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. In June 2010, Abbott obtained a photograph of Jessica Thomson's eldest son Robin, which clearly showed that he like the unknown man had not only a larger cymba than cavum but also hypodontia. [14], After the inquest, a plaster cast was made of the man's head and shoulders. Somerton Man's death: Unearthed records a step closer to solving [13], Another witness came forward in 1959 and reported to the police that he and three others had seen a well-dressed man carrying another man on his shoulders along Somerton Park beach the night before the body was found. Somerton man mystery 'solved' as DNA points to man's identity The 40-year mystery of the missing farmer's wife, Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Air strikes pound Sudan capital as truce extended. However, the code's short length meant the investigators would require the exact edition of the book used. Abbott and Fitzpatrick have been unable to locate a photograph of Webb, but ABCs Opie reports that an image of Webbs brother Roy, who died as a prisoner of war in Malaya during World War II, bears a striking resemblance to the Somerton Man. 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. [50] The team concluded that it was most likely that each letter was the first letter of a word. 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. "We can't say for sure, but we can speculate," he said. They may or may not have been cohabiting. August 1945: Jessica Harkness gives Alf Boxall an inscribed copy of. [81], Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. [42] The police agreed a decision that hampered later investigations. [93] Police stated that the remains were in "reasonable" condition and were optimistic about the prospect of DNA recovery. Officer in Charge, No. 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. [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. 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. 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. Somerton man: Body exhumed in bid to solve Australian mystery [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. Webb was born in 1905 but was later identified as a person with no death record, Abbott said. "ekkir ennan mann?". [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. She was 27 years old in 1948. Freda Grace and Carl lived a 20-minute drive away from each other. In all this soup and ocean of DNA cousins, we were able to connect one of them to Carls father and one of them to Carls mother, Fitzpatrick tells the Times. For decades, authorities, academics and the public alike have traded theories about the identity of the mysterious Somerton Man, whose body was found on a beach outside of Adelaide, Australia, on December 1, 1948. In fact, all of the tags on his clothing had been deliberately removed. The Somerton Man - Mystery Solved? - Apple Podcasts Johnson identified himself at a police station. [113] In 1941, he married Dorothy "Doff" Robertson, a pharmacist and chiropodist. The hauntingly intriguing case of the Somerton Man has baffled researchers for decades. [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. 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. The Thomsons and Alf Boxall are not mentioned. One of the biggest mysteries in modern Australian history may have finally been solved. 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. 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. Beyond the DNA results linking the Somerton Man to Webb, Abbott and Fitzpatrick found ample archival evidence supporting the identification. It has been one of the most interesting cases in Australias history. [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. Somerton Man: One of Australia's greatest mysteries solved | news.com There is also an "X" above the last "O" in the code, and it is not known if this is significant to the code or not. I was convinced that he was from Europe maybe a displaced person after the second world war [who] was here alone., 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 missing I find that particularly kind of tragic.. The only problem is that the body is six feet under and seven decades old. Just trying to put together a paper trail of who he was, or might have been. May 1950: Jessica and Prosper Thomson are married. 1951: Dorothy Webb reported to be living in Bute, South Australia. The truth, however, is seemingly more mundane. Advertising Notice Somerton Man Identified Through DNA, Researchers Say - New York Times [44], In 1994, John Harber Phillips, Chief Justice of Victoria and Chairman of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, reviewed the case to determine the cause of death and concluded that, "There seems little doubt it was digitalis. Terms of Use Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or find something. [6] He was lying back with his head resting against the seawall, with his legs extended and his feet crossed. South Australia Police have not confirmed the discovery but say they will comment soon. [24] All identification marks on the clothes had been removed but police found the name "T. Keane" on a tie, "Keane" on a laundry bag and "Kean" on a singlet, along with three dry-cleaning marks; 1171/7, 4393/7 and 3053/7. If you're a professor at Adelaide University in Southern Australia, you do everything you can to solve it. The case of the Somerton Man In 1948, the body of an unidentified man was found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia. 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. The man's body was found propped up against the seawall at Somerton Beach in Adelaide on December 1, 1948. [21], An autopsy was conducted, and the pathologist estimated the time of death at around 2 am on 1 December.[15]. "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. [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. 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". 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. Did you talk to her about that at all?" Initial investigations and a coronial inquest left the case unsolved. The Somerton Man code was actually cracked in late June 2020.
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