Taman Shud Case
Encyclopedia
The Taman Shud Case,While the words that end The Rubaiyat are "Tamam Shud", it has always been referred to as "Taman Shud" in the media, presumably due to a spelling error that persisted. In Persian "tamam" is a noun that means "the end". "shud" is an auxiliary verb indicating past tense, so "tamam shud" means "ended" or "finished". also known as the "Mystery of the Somerton Man", is an unsolved case revolving around an unidentified man found dead at 6:30 a.m., 1 December 1948, on Somerton
beach in Adelaide, Australia.
Considered "one of Australia's most profound mysteries", the case has been the subject of intense speculation over the years regarding the identity of the victim, the events leading up to his death and the cause of death. Public interest in the case remains significant due to a number of factors, the death occurring at a time of heightened tensions during the Cold War
, the use of an undetectable poison, lack of identification, the possibility of unrequited love and the involvement of a secret code in a very rare book.
While scrutiny of the case has been mainly centred in Australia, there has also been international coverage.
, the man, of "Britisher" (sic) appearance, was thought to be aged about 40–45 and in top physical condition. He was 180 centimetres (5 ft 11in) tall, with hazel eyes, fair to gingery coloured hair, slightly grey around the temples, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, hands and nails that showed no signs of manual labour, big and little toes that met in a wedge shape, like those of a dancer or someone who wore boots with pointed toes, and pronounced high calf muscles like that of a ballet dancer, although this is also a dominant genetic trait and a trait often developed by middle and long-distance runners.The taxidermist who made the plaster cast testified at the inquest that he assumed the Somerton man had been in the habit of wearing high-heeled pointed shoes as both physical traits were found predominantly in women. Police had earlier investigated if he had been a stockman in Queensland based on the same traits. See page 7 of the Coronial Inquest He was dressed in "quality clothing", a white shirt, red and blue tie, brown trousers, socks and shoes and, although it had been a hot day and very warm night, a brown knitted pullover and fashionable European grey and brown double-breasted coat. All labels on his clothes were missing, and he had no hat (unusual for 1948, and especially so for someone wearing a suit). Clean-shaven and with no distinguishing marks, he carried no identification, which led police to believe he committed suicide. His teeth did not match the dental records of any known person.
When police arrived, they noted no disturbance to the body and that the man's left arm was in a straight position and the right arm was bent double. An unlit cigarette was behind his ear and a half-smoked cigarette was on the right collar of his coat held in position by his cheek. A search of his pockets revealed a used bus ticket from the city to St. Leonards in Glenelg
, an unused second-class rail ticket from the city to Henley Beach
, a narrow aluminum American comb, a half-full packet of Juicy Fruit
chewing gum, an Army Club
cigarette packet containing Kensitas
cigarettes (a different brand exclusively sold in Britain) and a quarter full box of Bryant & May matches
. The bus stop for which the ticket was used was around 1100 metres (3,608.9 ft) north of the body's location.
Witnesses came forward to declare that on the evening of 30 November, they had seen an individual resembling the dead man in the same spot near the Crippled Children's Home where the corpse was later found. A couple who saw him around 7 p.m. noted that they saw him extend his right arm to its fullest extent and then drop it limply. Another couple who saw him from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., 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 of them, although they did have the impression that his position had changed. Although it was commented between themselves that he must be dead because he was not reacting to the mosquitoes, they had thought that he was drunk or asleep, and thus did not investigate further.
When the body was discovered at 6:30 a.m. the next day it was lying in the position that witnesses had observed the previous day.
eaten three to four hours before death, tests failed to reveal any foreign substance. 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". Although poisoning remained a prime suspicion, the pasty was not believed to be the source of the poison. Other than that, the coroner was unable to reach a conclusion on the man’s identity, cause of death or whether the man seen alive at Somerton Beach on the evening of 30 November was the same man, as nobody had seen his face while he was alive. Scotland Yard
was called in to assist with the case but with little result and a photograph of the man and details of his fingerprints were widely circulated throughout the world but no positive identification was made.
Owing to the body remaining unidentified, it was embalmed on 10 December 1948, the first time in the memory of the police that such a situation had occurred.
The two daily Adelaide newspapers, The Advertiser and The News
, covered the death in separate ways. The Advertiser, a morning broadsheet, first mentioned the case in a small article on page three of its 2 December 1948 edition. Entitled "Body found on Beach", it read:
The News, an afternoon tabloid, featured their story of the man on its first page, giving more details of the dead man.
On 3 December, E.C. Johnson was no longer believed to be the missing man as he had walked into a police station to identify himself. That same day, The News published a photograph of the dead man on its front page, leading to further calls from members of the public about the possible identity of the dead man. By the fourth of December, police had announced that the man's fingerprints were not on South Australian police records, forcing them to look further afield. On 5 December, The Advertiser reported that police were searching through military records after a man claimed to have drank with a man resembling the dead man at a hotel in Glenelg
on 13 November. During their drinking session, the mystery man supposedly produced a military pension card bearing the name "Solomonson".
There were a number of possible identifications of the body made, including one in early January 1949 when two people identified the body as that of 63 year old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. A third person, James Mack, also viewed the body, was initially unable to identify it, but an hour later he contacted police to claim it was Robert Walsh. Mack stated that the reason he did not confirm this at the viewing was a difference in the colour of the hair. Walsh had left Adelaide several months earlier to buy sheep in Queensland but had failed to return at Christmas as planned. Police were sceptical, believing Walsh to be too old to be the dead man. However, the police did state that the body was consistent with that of a man who had been a wood cutter, although the state of the man's hands indicated he had not cut wood for at least 18 months. Any thoughts that a positive identification had been made were quashed however when Mrs Elizabeth Thompson, one of the people who had earlier positively identified the body as Mr Walsh, retracted her statement after a second viewing of the body, where the absence of a particular scar on the body, as well as the size of the dead man's legs, led her to realise the body was not Mr Walsh.
By early February 1949, there had been eight different "positive" identifications of the body, including two Darwin
men who thought the body was of a friend of theirs, a missing stablehand, a worker on a steamship and a Swedish man. Victorian
detectives initially believed the man was Victorian due to the similarity of the laundry marks to those used by several dry-cleaning firms in Melbourne. Following publication of the man's photograph in Victoria, twenty eight people claimed they knew his identity. Victorian detectives disproved all the claims and stated that "other investigations" indicated it was now unlikely that he was a Victorian.
In November 1953, police announced they had recently received the 251st "solution" to the identity of the body from members of the public who claimed to have met or known him. However, they further stated that the "only clue of any value" remains the clothing the man wore.
A new twist in the case occurred on 14 January 1949, when staff at Adelaide Railway Station
discovered a brown suitcase with its label removed that had been checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 a.m. on 30 November 1948. In the case there was 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 cuff
s, an electrician's screwdriver, a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument, a pair of scissors with sharpened points and a stencilling
brush, as used by third officers
on merchant ships for stencilling cargo.
Also in the suitcase was a thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread, "an unusual type" not available in Australia, that was the same as that used to repair lining in a pocket of the trousers the dead man was wearing. 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" (without the last e) on a singlet
, along with three dry-cleaning marks; 1171/7, 4393/7 and 3053/7. Police believed that whoever removed the clothing tags purposefully left the Keane tags on the clothes, knowing Keane was not the dead man's name.
Initially, the clothes were traced to a local sailor, Tom Keane. As Keane could not be located, some of his shipmates viewed the body at the morgue, and stated categorically that the corpse was not that of Keane, nor did the clothes belong to the missing sailor. A search concluded that there was no other T. Keane missing in any English-speaking country and a nation-wide circulation of the dry-cleaning marks also proved fruitless. In fact, all that could be garnered from the suitcase was that since a coat in the suitcase had a front gusset
and featherstitch
ing, it could have been made only in the United States, as this was the only country that possessed the machinery for that stitch. Although mass produced, the body work is done when the owner is fitted before it is completed. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been in the United States or bought the coat from someone of similar size who had been.
Police checked incoming train records and believed the man had arrived by overnight train from either Melbourne, Sydney or Port Augusta
. They believed he then showered and shaved at the adjacent City Baths before returning to the train station to purchase a ticket for the 10:50 a.m. train to Henley Beach, which, for whatever reason, he missed or did not catch. After returning from the city baths, he checked in his suitcase at the station cloak room before catching a bus to Glenelg. Professor Derek Abbott
, who studied the case, believes that the man may have purchased the train ticket before showering. The railway station's own public facilities were closed that day and discovering this and then having to walk to the adjacent city baths to shower would have added up to 30 minutes to the time he would have expected to take, which could explain why he missed the Henley Beach train and took the next available bus.Although named the City Baths, the centre was not a public bathing
facility but a public swimming pool. The railway station bathing facilities were adjacent the station cloak room, which itself was adjacent the stations southern exit onto North Terrace. The City Baths on King William St.
were accessed from the stations northern exit via a lane way.
re-examined the body and made a number of discoveries. Cleland noted that the man's shoes were remarkably clean and appeared to have been recently polished, rather than the state expected of the shoes of a man who had apparently been wandering around Glenelg all day. He added that this evidence fit in with the theory that the body may have been brought to Somerton beach after the man's death, accounting for the lack of evidence of vomiting and convulsions, the two main effects of poison.
Thomas Cleland speculated that as none of the witnesses could positively identify the man they saw the previous night as being the same person discovered the next morning, there remained the possibility the man had died elsewhere and had been dumped. He stressed that this was purely speculation as all the witnesses believed it was "definitely the same person" as the body was in the same place and lying in the same distinctive position. He also found there was no evidence as to who the deceased was.
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. He gave the coroner a piece of paper with the names of the two drugs which was entered as Exhibit C.18. 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. He noted the only "fact" not found in relation to the body was evidence of vomiting. He then stated its absence was not unknown but that he could not make a "frank conclusion" without it. Hicks stated that if death had occurred seven hours after the man was last seen to move, it would imply a massive dose that could still have been undetectable. It was noted that the movement seen by witnesses at 7 p.m. could have been the last convulsion preceding death.
Early in the inquiry, Cleland stated "I would be prepared to find that he died from poison, that the poison was probably a glucoside
and that it was not accidentally administered; but I cannot say whether it was administered by the deceased himself or by some other person." Despite these findings, he was unable to determine the cause of death of the Somerton Man.
The lack of success in determining the identity and cause of death of the Somerton Man had led authorities to call it an "unparalleled mystery" and believe that the cause of death may never be known.
An editorial called the case "one of Australia's most profound mysteries" and noted that if he died by poison so rare and obscure it could not be identified by toxicology experts, then surely the culprit's advanced knowledge of toxic substances pointed to something more serious than a mere domestic poisoning.
of Omar Khayyam
. The theme of these poems are that one should live life to the full and have no regrets when it ended. The paper was blank on the reverse and police conducted an Australia wide search to find a copy of the book that had a similar blank reverse but were unsuccessful. A photograph of the scrap of paper was sent to interstate police and released to the public, leading a man to reveal he had found a very rare first edition copy of Edward FitzGerald's
translation of The Rubaiyat, published by Whitcombe and Tombs
in New Zealand,This particular edition of the Rubaiyat has a different translation compared to other FitzGerald translations. in the back seat of his unlocked car in Glenelg on the night of 30 November 1948. He had known nothing of the book's connection to the case until he saw an article in the previous day's newspaper. This man's identity and profession were suppressed by the court as were the reasons for the suppression although it is now known he was a doctor.
The poem's subject led police to theorise that the man had committed suicide by poison, although there was no other evidence to back the theory. The book was missing the words "Tamam 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.
The Rubaiyat's last verse, immediately before "Tamam Shud", is
This Whitcombe and Tombs first edition uses the 1859 FitzGerald translation that has the phrase And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass. FitzGerald's 1868 revised translation replaced this with And when Yourself with silver Foot shall pass. In 1872 he again revised this to And when like her, oh Sáki, you shall pass.The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Comparison of translations It should be noted that all translations of the The Rubaiyat are paraphrased rather than direct translations and reflect the specific translator's own style.
In the back of the book were faint pencil markings of five lines of capital letters with the second struck out. The strike out is now considered significant with its similarity to the fourth line possibly indicating a mistake and thus, possible proof the letters are code:
In the book (see image right), it is unclear if the first two sentences begin with an "M" or "W", but they are widely believed to be the letter W, because of the distinctive difference when compared to the stricken letter M. There appears to be a deleted or underline line of text that reads "MLIAOI". 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. Also, the other "Ls" have a curve to the bottom part of the character. 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. Initially, the letters were thought to be words in a foreign language before it was realised it was a code. Code experts were called in at the time to decipher the lines but were unsuccessful. When the code was analysed by the Australian Department of Defence in 1978, they made the following statements about the code:
Also found in the back of the book was an unlisted telephone number belonging to a former nurse living in Moseley St, Glenelg which was around 800 metres (2,624.7 ft) north of the location where the body was found. The woman said that while she was working at Royal North Shore Hospital
in Sydney during World War II she owned a copy of The Rubaiyat but in 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, had given it to an army lieutenant named Alfred Boxall who was serving in the Water Transport Section of the Australian Army
.
According to media reports the woman stated that after the war she had moved to Melbourne and married. Later she had received a letter from Boxall, but had told him she was now married.The media usually refer to the woman as "married" or "recently married" and her statements as reported suggest this. However the woman's marital status was never clarified. The telephone number was in her own name and unlinked to a husband. In 1948, a phone number would never have been issued in a married woman's name unless her husband did not live with her. It is possible she may have been engaged soon after the incident. Jestyn's son was born in July 1947 and it is now known that Jestyn married the child's claimed father in May 1950. It is also known he had previously married in 1936 and it is speculated that they had been waiting for his divorce to finalise, a process that could take many years at that time. She added that in late 1948 a mystery man had asked her next door neighbour about her. Shown the plaster cast bust of the dead man, the woman was unable to identify it as Boxall.
Police believed that Boxall was the dead man until they found Boxall alive with his copy of The Rubaiyat, complete with "Tamam Shud" on the last page. Boxall was now working in the maintenance section at the Randwick
Bus Depot (where he had worked prior to the war) and was unaware of any link between the dead man and him.
In the front of the copy of the Rubaiyat that was given to Boxall, the woman had written out verse 70:
The woman now lived in Glenelg
but denied all knowledge of the dead man or why he would choose to visit her suburb on the night of his death. She also asked that as she was now married she would prefer not to have her name recorded to save her from potential embarrassment of being linked to the dead man and Boxall. The police agreed, leaving subsequent investigations without the benefit of the case's best lead. In a TV program on the case, in the section where Boxall was interviewed, her name was given in a voice-over as Jestyn, apparently obtained from the signature Jestyn that followed the verse written in the front of the book, but this was covered over when the book was displayed in the program. This was possibly a "pet" nickname she used. Researchers re-investigating the case attempted to track down Jestyn and found she had died in 2007. Her real name is considered important as the possibility exists it may be the decryption key for the code. In a video interview, Paul Lawson (who made the body cast) refers to her as 'Mrs Thompson.'
The fact that the man died in Adelaide, the nearest capital city to Woomera
, a top-secret missile launching and intelligence gathering site, heightened this speculation. It was also recalled that one possible location from which the man may have traveled to Adelaide was Port Augusta
, a town relatively close to Woomera.
Additionally, in April 1947 the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service, as part of Operation Venona
, discovered that there had been top secret material leaked from Australia’s Department of External Affairs
to the Soviet embassy in Canberra. This led to a 1948 U.S. ban on the transfer of all classified information to Australia.
As a response, the Australian government announced that it would establish a national secret security service (which became the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO)).
Following the inquest, a plaster cast was made of the man's head and shoulders, and he was then buried at Adelaide's West Terrace Cemetery
. The Salvation Army
conducted the service and The South Australian Grandstand Bookmakers Association paid for the service to save the man from a pauper's burial.
Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. Police questioned a woman seen leaving the cemetery but she claimed she knew nothing of the man. About the same time, the receptionist from the Strathmore Hotel, opposite Adelaide Railway Station, revealed that a strange man had stayed in Room 21 around the time of the death, checking out on 30 November 1948. She recalled that cleaners found a black medical case and a hypodermic syringe in the room.
On 22 November 1959 it was reported that an E.B. Collins, an inmate of New Zealand's Wanganui Prison, claimed to know the identity of the dead man.
There have been numerous unsuccessful attempts in the 60 years since its discovery to crack the code found at the rear of the book, including efforts by military and naval intelligence, mathematicians, astrologers and amateur code crackers. While no answer has been accepted as correct, a leading theory is that the code indicates the initial letters of words. In 2004, retired detective Gerry Feltus suggested in a Sunday Mail article the final line "ITTMTSAMSTGAB" could start "It's Time To Move To South Australia Moseley Street..." (the former nurse lived in Moseley Street which is the main road through Glenelg).
In 1978 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
produced a programme on the Taman Shud case, entitled The Somerton Beach Mystery, where reporter Stuart Littlemore
investigated the case, including interviewing Boxall, who could add no new information on the case, 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.
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
." Phillips supported his conclusion by pointing to the fact the organs were engorged, consistent with digitalis, the lack of evidence of natural disease and "the absence of anything seen macroscopically which could account for the death". Three months prior to the death of the man, on 16 August 1948, an overdose of digitalis was reported as the cause of death for United States Assistant Treasury Secretary Harry Dexter White
. He had been accused of Soviet espionage under Operation Venona
.
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 East European Communist Bloc, which led to the police's inability to confirm the man's identity.
The case is still considered "open" at the South Australian Major Crime Task Force and the bust, still containing hair fibres of the man is in the possession of the South Australian Police Historical Society. Any further attempts to correctly identify the body have been hampered by the fact that the formaldehyde
used to embalm the body has destroyed much of the DNA
and other key evidence no longer exists, such as the brown suitcase, which was destroyed in 1986, and many statements, which have disappeared from the police file over the years.
sand hills, about twenty kilometres down the coast from Somerton. Lying next to him was his unconscious father, Keith Waldemar Mangnoson, who was taken to a hospital in a very weak condition, suffering from exposure, and following a medical examination, was transferred to a mental hospital.
The Mangnosons had been missing for four days, and it was believed that Clive had been dead for twenty four hours when his body was found. The two were found by Mr Neil McRae of Largs Bay, who claimed he had seen the location of the two in a dream the night before.
Like Somerton Man, the coroner could not determine the young Mangnoson's cause of death, although it was believed it was not natural causes. The contents of the boy's stomach were sent to a government analyst for further examination.
Following the death, the boy's mother Mrs Roma Mangnoson reported being terrorised by a masked man, who, while driving a battered cream car, almost ran her down outside her home in Cheapside Street, Largs North
. Mrs Mangnoson stated that "the car stopped and a man with a khaki handkerchief over his face told her to 'keep away from the police or else'". Additionally a similar looking man had been recently seen lurking around the house.
Mrs Mangnoson believed that this situation was 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.
J.M.Gower, secretary of the Largs North Progress Association received anonymous phone calls threatening that Mrs. Mangnoson would meet with an accident if he interfered while A. H. Curtis, the acting mayor of Port Adelaide received three anonymous phone calls threatening "an accident" if he "stuck his nose into the Mangnoson affair". 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.
Soon after being interviewed by police over her harassment, Mrs Mangnoson collapsed and required medical treatment.
man named Joseph (George) Saul Haim Marshall was found dead in Mosman
, Sydney with an open copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam on his chest. His death is believed to be a suicide by poisoning.
Coincidentally, it is some two months after Marshall's death that Jestyn gives Alfred Boxall a copy of the Rubaiyat, in Clifton Gardens. Clifton Gardens is only one kilometre south of Mosman. Joseph Marshall was the brother of the famous barrister
and Chief Minister of Singapore David Saul Marshall
. An inquest was held for Joseph Marshall on 15 August 1945; Gwenneth Dorothy Graham testified at the inquest and was found dead 13 days later face down, naked, in a bath with her wrists slit.
team led by Professor Derek Abbott
began an attempt to solve the case through cracking the code and proposing to exhume the body to test for DNA.
Abbott's investigations have led to questions concerning the assumptions police had made on the case. Police had believed that the Kensitas brand cigarettes in the Army Club packet was due to the common practice at the time of buying cheap cigarettes and putting them in a packet belonging to a more expensive brand (Australia was still under wartime rationing). However, a check of government gazettes of the day indicated that Kensitas were actually the expensive brand, which opens the possibility (never investigated) that the source of the poison may have been in the cigarettes that were possibly substituted for the victim's own without his knowledge. Abbott also tracked down the Barbour
waxed cotton
of the period and found packaging variations. This may provide clues to the country where it may have been purchased.
Decryption of the "code" has been started from scratch. It has been determined that the letter frequency is considerably different from letters written down randomly, the frequency is to be further tested to determine if the alcohol level of the writer could alter random distribution. The format of the code also appears to follow the quatrain
format of the Rubaiyat supporting the theory that the code is a One-time pad
encryption
algorithm
. To this end copies of the Rubaiyat (also the Talmud
and Bible) are being compared to the code using computers to get a statistical base for letter frequencies although the code being so short may require the exact edition of the book used. With the original copy lost in the 1960s, researchers have been looking for a FitzGerald edition without success.
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. Maciej Henneberg, Professor of Anatomy
at the University of Adelaide
, examined images of the Somerton man's ears and found that the cymba (upper ear hollow) is larger than his cavum (lower ear hollow), a feature possessed by only 1–2% of the caucasian
population. In May 2009, Professor Derek Abbott consulted with dental experts who conclude that the Somerton Man had anodontia
(a rare genetic disorder) of both lateral incisor
s, a feature present in only 2% of the general population. In June 2010, Abbott obtained a photograph of Jestyn's son that clearly showed his ears and teeth. The photograph shows that the son not only had a larger cymba than his cavum, but also anodontia. The chance that this is a coincidence has been estimated as between 1 in 10,000,000 and 1 in 20,000,000.
The media has suggested that Jestyn's son, who was 16-months old in 1948 and died in 2009, may have been a love child of either Alf Boxall or the Somerton Man and passed off as her husband's. DNA testing would confirm or eliminate this speculation. In a current affairs program on the efforts of the team, retired detective Gerry Feltus, who worked on the case for many years, admitted that he knew the identity of the mystery woman but, wanting to protect the woman's privacy, refused to disclose it.
Abbott believes an exhumation and DNA
test could link the Somerton man to a short list of extant family surnames which, along with existing clues to the mans identity would be the "final piece of the puzzle." However, in October 2011, Attorney General John Rau
refused permission to exhume the body stating; "There needs to be public interest reasons that go well beyond public curiosity or broad scientific interest." Feltus said he was still contacted by people in Europe who believed the man was a missing relative but didn't believe an exhumation and finding the man's family grouping would provide answers to relatives, "during that period so many war criminals changed their names and came to different countries."
As one journalist wrote in 1949, alluding to the line in The Rubaiyat, "the Somerton Man seems to have made certain that the glass would be empty, save for speculation."
she had recently found in her fathers possessions. The card, a document issued in the United States
to foreign seamen
during WWI
was given to biological anthropologist
Maciej Henneberg in October 2011 for comparison of the ID photograph to that of the Somerton man. Using the international identification standard Martin's technique, Henneberg found anatomical similarities in features such as the nose, lips and eyes, but noted the difference in age between the photographs. However, the ears, a rare shape possessed by only 1–2% of the caucasian population, do not change with age and were a "very good" match. 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.
, the UK National Archives and the Australian War Memorial
Research Centre have failed to find any records relating to H.C. Reynolds. The South Australia Police
Major Crime Branch, who still have the case listed as open, will investigate the new information.
Somerton Park, South Australia
Somerton Park is a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia. The mainly residential seaside suburb is home to the Somerton Park Beach, and also to Sacred Heart College.Somerton Park Post Office opened on 1 July 1947 and closed in 1988.-References:...
beach in Adelaide, Australia.
Considered "one of Australia's most profound mysteries", the case has been the subject of intense speculation over the years regarding the identity of the victim, the events leading up to his death and the cause of death. Public interest in the case remains significant due to a number of factors, the death occurring at a time of heightened tensions during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the use of an undetectable poison, lack of identification, the possibility of unrequited love and the involvement of a secret code in a very rare book.
While scrutiny of the case has been mainly centred in Australia, there has also been international coverage.
Victim
According to the pathologist Sir John Burton ClelandJohn Burton Cleland
Sir John Burton Cleland CBE was a renowned Australian naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist and ornithologist.-Early Life and education:...
, the man, of "Britisher" (sic) appearance, was thought to be aged about 40–45 and in top physical condition. He was 180 centimetres (5 ft 11in) tall, with hazel eyes, fair to gingery coloured hair, slightly grey around the temples, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, hands and nails that showed no signs of manual labour, big and little toes that met in a wedge shape, like those of a dancer or someone who wore boots with pointed toes, and pronounced high calf muscles like that of a ballet dancer, although this is also a dominant genetic trait and a trait often developed by middle and long-distance runners.The taxidermist who made the plaster cast testified at the inquest that he assumed the Somerton man had been in the habit of wearing high-heeled pointed shoes as both physical traits were found predominantly in women. Police had earlier investigated if he had been a stockman in Queensland based on the same traits. See page 7 of the Coronial Inquest He was dressed in "quality clothing", a white shirt, red and blue tie, brown trousers, socks and shoes and, although it had been a hot day and very warm night, a brown knitted pullover and fashionable European grey and brown double-breasted coat. All labels on his clothes were missing, and he had no hat (unusual for 1948, and especially so for someone wearing a suit). Clean-shaven and with no distinguishing marks, he carried no identification, which led police to believe he committed suicide. His teeth did not match the dental records of any known person.
When police arrived, they noted no disturbance to the body and that the man's left arm was in a straight position and the right arm was bent double. An unlit cigarette was behind his ear and a half-smoked cigarette was on the right collar of his coat held in position by his cheek. A search of his pockets revealed a used bus ticket from the city to St. Leonards in Glenelg
Glenelg, South Australia
Glenelg is a popular beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a popular tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants.Established in 1836, it is...
, an unused second-class rail ticket from the city to Henley Beach
Henley Beach, South Australia
Henley Beach is a seaside suburb of Adelaide in the City of Charles Sturt local government area , South Australia.-External links:*...
, a narrow aluminum American comb, a half-full packet of Juicy Fruit
Juicy Fruit
Juicy Fruit is a brand of chewing gum made by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, a U.S. company that since 2008 has been a subsidiary of the privately-held Mars, Incorporated. It was introduced in 1893, and in the 21st century the brand name is recognized by 99 percent of Americans, with total sales in...
chewing gum, an Army Club
Army Club (cigarette)
Army Club was a brand of cigarette distributed by Cavanders Ltd of London that was established in 1775.Advertising campaigns for this brand adopted the themes of nostalgia of wartime camaraderie and male culture....
cigarette packet containing Kensitas
Club (cigarette)
Club , is a brand of cigarette distributed by Gallaher tobacco and available only in the United Kingdom.Club comes in a distinct blue packaging with club written on it and a lion's head on the packet....
cigarettes (a different brand exclusively sold in Britain) and a quarter full box of Bryant & May matches
Bryant and May
For the Bryant and May series of crime mystery books, see the author Christopher Fowler.Bryant and May was a United Kingdom company created in the mid-nineteenth century specifically to make matches. Their original Bryant and May Factory was located in Bow, London...
. The bus stop for which the ticket was used was around 1100 metres (3,608.9 ft) north of the body's location.
Witnesses came forward to declare that on the evening of 30 November, they had seen an individual resembling the dead man in the same spot near the Crippled Children's Home where the corpse was later found. A couple who saw him around 7 p.m. noted that they saw him extend his right arm to its fullest extent and then drop it limply. Another couple who saw him from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., 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 of them, although they did have the impression that his position had changed. Although it was commented between themselves that he must be dead because he was not reacting to the mosquitoes, they had thought that he was drunk or asleep, and thus did not investigate further.
When the body was discovered at 6:30 a.m. the next day it was lying in the position that witnesses had observed the previous day.
Autopsy
An autopsy was held and found that the time of death was around 2 a.m. on 1 December."The heart was of normal size, and normal in every way ...small vessels not commonly observed in the brain were easily discernible with congestion. 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. The stomach was deeply congested...There was congestion in the 2nd half of the duodenum. There was blood mixed with the food in the stomach. Both kidneys were congested, and the liver contained a great excess of blood in its vessels. ...The spleen was strikingly large ... about 3 times normal size ... there was destruction of the centre of the liver lobules revealed under the microscope. ... acute gastritis hemorrhage, extensive congestion of the liver and spleen, and the congestion to the brain."However, besides the revelation that the man's last meal was a pasty
Pasty
A pasty , sometimes known as a pastie or British pasty in the United States, is a filled pastry case, associated in particular with Cornwall in Great Britain. It is made by placing the uncooked filling on a flat pastry circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge at the side or top...
eaten three to four hours before death, tests failed to reveal any foreign substance. 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". Although poisoning remained a prime suspicion, the pasty was not believed to be the source of the poison. Other than that, the coroner was unable to reach a conclusion on the man’s identity, cause of death or whether the man seen alive at Somerton Beach on the evening of 30 November was the same man, as nobody had seen his face while he was alive. Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
was called in to assist with the case but with little result and a photograph of the man and details of his fingerprints were widely circulated throughout the world but no positive identification was made.
Owing to the body remaining unidentified, it was embalmed on 10 December 1948, the first time in the memory of the police that such a situation had occurred.
Media reaction
The News (Adelaide)
The News was an afternoon daily tabloid newspaper in the city of Adelaide, South Australia.The newspaper was established in 1869 as the Evening Journal. In 1933, a controlling stake was taken by The Advertiser, controlled by the Herald and Weekly Times. HWT sold off The News in 1949, and Sir Keith...
, covered the death in separate ways. The Advertiser, a morning broadsheet, first mentioned the case in a small article on page three of its 2 December 1948 edition. Entitled "Body found on Beach", it read:
"A body, believed to be of E.C. Johnson, about 45, of Arthur St, PaynehamPayneham, South AustraliaPayneham is a suburb of Adelaide in the City of Norwood Payneham St Peters. It is part of a string of suburbs in Adelaide's north-east with a high proportion of Adelaide's Italian-Australian and French-Australian residents, many of whom can be traced back to the large-scale migration following the...
, was found on Somerton Beach, opposite the Crippled Children's Home yesterday morning. The discovery was made by Mr J. Lyons, of Whyte Rd, Somerton. Detective H. Strangway and Constable J. Moss are enquiring."
The News, an afternoon tabloid, featured their story of the man on its first page, giving more details of the dead man.
Identifying the body
Glenelg, South Australia
Glenelg is a popular beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a popular tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants.Established in 1836, it is...
on 13 November. During their drinking session, the mystery man supposedly produced a military pension card bearing the name "Solomonson".
There were a number of possible identifications of the body made, including one in early January 1949 when two people identified the body as that of 63 year old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. A third person, James Mack, also viewed the body, was initially unable to identify it, but an hour later he contacted police to claim it was Robert Walsh. Mack stated that the reason he did not confirm this at the viewing was a difference in the colour of the hair. Walsh had left Adelaide several months earlier to buy sheep in Queensland but had failed to return at Christmas as planned. Police were sceptical, believing Walsh to be too old to be the dead man. However, the police did state that the body was consistent with that of a man who had been a wood cutter, although the state of the man's hands indicated he had not cut wood for at least 18 months. Any thoughts that a positive identification had been made were quashed however when Mrs Elizabeth Thompson, one of the people who had earlier positively identified the body as Mr Walsh, retracted her statement after a second viewing of the body, where the absence of a particular scar on the body, as well as the size of the dead man's legs, led her to realise the body was not Mr Walsh.
By early February 1949, there had been eight different "positive" identifications of the body, including two Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
men who thought the body was of a friend of theirs, a missing stablehand, a worker on a steamship and a Swedish man. Victorian
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
detectives initially believed the man was Victorian due to the similarity of the laundry marks to those used by several dry-cleaning firms in Melbourne. Following publication of the man's photograph in Victoria, twenty eight people claimed they knew his identity. Victorian detectives disproved all the claims and stated that "other investigations" indicated it was now unlikely that he was a Victorian.
In November 1953, police announced they had recently received the 251st "solution" to the identity of the body from members of the public who claimed to have met or known him. However, they further stated that the "only clue of any value" remains the clothing the man wore.
The brown suitcase
Adelaide Railway Station
Adelaide Railway Station is the central terminus of the Adelaide Metro railway system. It is at on the north side of North Terrace, west of Parliament House. The Adelaide Casino is in part of the building that is no longer required for the station....
discovered a brown suitcase with its label removed that had been checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 a.m. on 30 November 1948. In the case there was 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 cuff
Cuff
A cuff is an extra layer of fabric at the lower edge of the sleeve of a garment covering the arms. In US usage the word may also refer to the end of the leg of a pair of trousers...
s, an electrician's screwdriver, a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument, a pair of scissors with sharpened points and a stencilling
Stencil
A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...
brush, as used by third officers
Third Mate
A Third Mate or Third Officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The third mate is a watchstander and customarily the ship's safety officer and fourth-in-command...
on merchant ships for stencilling cargo.
Also in the suitcase was a thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread, "an unusual type" not available in Australia, that was the same as that used to repair lining in a pocket of the trousers the dead man was wearing. 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" (without the last e) on a singlet
Vest
A vest is a garment covering the upper body. The term has different meanings around the world:Waistcoat :. This is called a waistcoat in the UK and many Commonwealth countries, or a vest in the US and Canada. It is often worn as part of formal attire, or as the third piece of a lounge...
, along with three dry-cleaning marks; 1171/7, 4393/7 and 3053/7. Police believed that whoever removed the clothing tags purposefully left the Keane tags on the clothes, knowing Keane was not the dead man's name.
Initially, the clothes were traced to a local sailor, Tom Keane. As Keane could not be located, some of his shipmates viewed the body at the morgue, and stated categorically that the corpse was not that of Keane, nor did the clothes belong to the missing sailor. A search concluded that there was no other T. Keane missing in any English-speaking country and a nation-wide circulation of the dry-cleaning marks also proved fruitless. In fact, all that could be garnered from the suitcase was that since a coat in the suitcase had a front gusset
Gusset
In sewing, a gusset is a triangular or rhomboid piece of fabric inserted into a seam to add breadth or reduce stress from tight-fitting clothing...
and featherstitch
Featherstitch
Featherstitch or feather stitch and Cretan stitch or faggoting stitch are embroidery techniques made of open, looped stitches worked alternately to the right and left of a central rib...
ing, it could have been made only in the United States, as this was the only country that possessed the machinery for that stitch. Although mass produced, the body work is done when the owner is fitted before it is completed. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been in the United States or bought the coat from someone of similar size who had been.
Police checked incoming train records and believed the man had arrived by overnight train from either Melbourne, Sydney or Port Augusta
Port Augusta, South Australia
-Electricity generation:Electricity is generated at the Playford B and Northern power stations from brown coal mined at Leigh Creek, 250 km to the north...
. They believed he then showered and shaved at the adjacent City Baths before returning to the train station to purchase a ticket for the 10:50 a.m. train to Henley Beach, which, for whatever reason, he missed or did not catch. After returning from the city baths, he checked in his suitcase at the station cloak room before catching a bus to Glenelg. Professor Derek Abbott
Derek Abbott
Derek Abbott is a physicist and electronic engineer. He is a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Australia...
, who studied the case, believes that the man may have purchased the train ticket before showering. The railway station's own public facilities were closed that day and discovering this and then having to walk to the adjacent city baths to shower would have added up to 30 minutes to the time he would have expected to take, which could explain why he missed the Henley Beach train and took the next available bus.Although named the City Baths, the centre was not a public bathing
Public bathing
Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...
facility but a public swimming pool. The railway station bathing facilities were adjacent the station cloak room, which itself was adjacent the stations southern exit onto North Terrace. The City Baths on King William St.
King William Street, Adelaide
King William Street is the part of a major arterial road that traverses the CBD and centre of Adelaide . It was named by the Street Naming Committee on 23 May 1837 after King William IV, the then reigning monarch, who died within a month...
were accessed from the stations northern exit via a lane way.
Inquest
A coronial inquest, conducted by coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland, into the death commenced a few days after the body was found but was adjourned until 17 June 1949. The investigating pathologist Sir John Burton ClelandJohn Burton Cleland
Sir John Burton Cleland CBE was a renowned Australian naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist and ornithologist.-Early Life and education:...
re-examined the body and made a number of discoveries. Cleland noted that the man's shoes were remarkably clean and appeared to have been recently polished, rather than the state expected of the shoes of a man who had apparently been wandering around Glenelg all day. He added that this evidence fit in with the theory that the body may have been brought to Somerton beach after the man's death, accounting for the lack of evidence of vomiting and convulsions, the two main effects of poison.
Thomas Cleland speculated that as none of the witnesses could positively identify the man they saw the previous night as being the same person discovered the next morning, there remained the possibility the man had died elsewhere and had been dumped. He stressed that this was purely speculation as all the witnesses believed it was "definitely the same person" as the body was in the same place and lying in the same distinctive position. He also found there was no evidence as to who the deceased was.
Cedric Stanton Hicks
Cedric Stanton Hicks
Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks was an Australian Professor of Human Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide. During World War II Hicks founded the Australian Army Catering Corps and served as its commander from 1943...
, Professor of Physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
and Pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
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. He gave the coroner a piece of paper with the names of the two drugs which was entered as Exhibit C.18. 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
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
without the need to give a reason for the purchase. He noted the only "fact" not found in relation to the body was evidence of vomiting. He then stated its absence was not unknown but that he could not make a "frank conclusion" without it. Hicks stated that if death had occurred seven hours after the man was last seen to move, it would imply a massive dose that could still have been undetectable. It was noted that the movement seen by witnesses at 7 p.m. could have been the last convulsion preceding death.
Early in the inquiry, Cleland stated "I would be prepared to find that he died from poison, that the poison was probably a glucoside
Glucoside
A glucoside is a glycoside that is derived from glucose. Glucosides are common in plants, but rare in animals. Glucose is produced when a glucoside is hydrolysed by purely chemical means, or decomposed by fermentation or enzymes....
and that it was not accidentally administered; but I cannot say whether it was administered by the deceased himself or by some other person." Despite these findings, he was unable to determine the cause of death of the Somerton Man.
The lack of success in determining the identity and cause of death of the Somerton Man had led authorities to call it an "unparalleled mystery" and believe that the cause of death may never be known.
An editorial called the case "one of Australia's most profound mysteries" and noted that if he died by poison so rare and obscure it could not be identified by toxicology experts, then surely the culprit's advanced knowledge of toxic substances pointed to something more serious than a mere domestic poisoning.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Around the same time as the Inquest, a tiny piece of rolled-up paper with the words "Tamam Shud" printed on it was found deep in a fob pocket sewn within the dead man's trouser pocket. The paper had been neatly trimmed around the two words. Public library officials called in to translate the text identified it as a phrase meaning "ended" or "finished" found on the last page of a collection of poems called The RubaiyatRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám , a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer...
of Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....
. The theme of these poems are that one should live life to the full and have no regrets when it ended. The paper was blank on the reverse and police conducted an Australia wide search to find a copy of the book that had a similar blank reverse but were unsuccessful. A photograph of the scrap of paper was sent to interstate police and released to the public, leading a man to reveal he had found a very rare first edition copy of Edward FitzGerald's
Edward FitzGerald (poet)
Edward FitzGerald was an English writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The spelling of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen...
translation of The Rubaiyat, published by Whitcombe and Tombs
Whitcoulls
Whitcoulls is a major national bookstore chain in New Zealand, formerly known as Whitcombe & Tombs. It has 62 stores nationally. Whitcombe & Tombs was founded in 1888, and Coulls Somerville Wilkie in 1871. The companies merged in 1971 to form Whitcoulls...
in New Zealand,This particular edition of the Rubaiyat has a different translation compared to other FitzGerald translations. in the back seat of his unlocked car in Glenelg on the night of 30 November 1948. He had known nothing of the book's connection to the case until he saw an article in the previous day's newspaper. This man's identity and profession were suppressed by the court as were the reasons for the suppression although it is now known he was a doctor.
The poem's subject led police to theorise that the man had committed suicide by poison, although there was no other evidence to back the theory. The book was missing the words "Tamam 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.
The Rubaiyat's last verse, immediately before "Tamam Shud", is
- And when thyself with shining foot shall pass
- Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the grass
- And in your joyous Errand reach the Spot
- Where I made One – turn down an empty Glass!
This Whitcombe and Tombs first edition uses the 1859 FitzGerald translation that has the phrase And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass. FitzGerald's 1868 revised translation replaced this with And when Yourself with silver Foot shall pass. In 1872 he again revised this to And when like her, oh Sáki, you shall pass.The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Comparison of translations It should be noted that all translations of the The Rubaiyat are paraphrased rather than direct translations and reflect the specific translator's own style.
- WRGOABABD
MLIAOI- WTBIMPANETP
- MLIABOAIAQC
- ITTMTSAMSTGAB
In the book (see image right), it is unclear if the first two sentences begin with an "M" or "W", but they are widely believed to be the letter W, because of the distinctive difference when compared to the stricken letter M. There appears to be a deleted or underline line of text that reads "MLIAOI". 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. Also, the other "Ls" have a curve to the bottom part of the character. 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. Initially, the letters were thought to be words in a foreign language before it was realised it was a code. Code experts were called in at the time to decipher the lines but were unsuccessful. When the code was analysed by the Australian Department of Defence in 1978, they made the following statements about the code:
- There are insufficient symbols to provide a pattern.
- The symbols could be a complex substitute code or the meaningless response to a disturbed mind.
- It is not possible to provide a satisfactory answer.
Also found in the back of the book was an unlisted telephone number belonging to a former nurse living in Moseley St, Glenelg which was around 800 metres (2,624.7 ft) north of the location where the body was found. The woman said that while she was working at Royal North Shore Hospital
Royal North Shore Hospital
The Royal North Shore Hospital is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located in St Leonards. It serves as a teaching hospital for Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and has approximately 740 beds. It is the referral hospital for Northern Sydney and the Central...
in Sydney during World War II she owned a copy of The Rubaiyat but in 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, had given it to an army lieutenant named Alfred Boxall who was serving in the Water Transport Section of the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
.
According to media reports the woman stated that after the war she had moved to Melbourne and married. Later she had received a letter from Boxall, but had told him she was now married.The media usually refer to the woman as "married" or "recently married" and her statements as reported suggest this. However the woman's marital status was never clarified. The telephone number was in her own name and unlinked to a husband. In 1948, a phone number would never have been issued in a married woman's name unless her husband did not live with her. It is possible she may have been engaged soon after the incident. Jestyn's son was born in July 1947 and it is now known that Jestyn married the child's claimed father in May 1950. It is also known he had previously married in 1936 and it is speculated that they had been waiting for his divorce to finalise, a process that could take many years at that time. She added that in late 1948 a mystery man had asked her next door neighbour about her. Shown the plaster cast bust of the dead man, the woman was unable to identify it as Boxall.
Police believed that Boxall was the dead man until they found Boxall alive with his copy of The Rubaiyat, complete with "Tamam Shud" on the last page. Boxall was now working in the maintenance section at the Randwick
Randwick, New South Wales
Randwick is a suburb in south-eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Randwick is located 6 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Randwick...
Bus Depot (where he had worked prior to the war) and was unaware of any link between the dead man and him.
In the front of the copy of the Rubaiyat that was given to Boxall, the woman had written out verse 70:
- Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
- I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
- And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
- My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.
The woman now lived in Glenelg
Glenelg, South Australia
Glenelg is a popular beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a popular tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants.Established in 1836, it is...
but denied all knowledge of the dead man or why he would choose to visit her suburb on the night of his death. She also asked that as she was now married she would prefer not to have her name recorded to save her from potential embarrassment of being linked to the dead man and Boxall. The police agreed, leaving subsequent investigations without the benefit of the case's best lead. In a TV program on the case, in the section where Boxall was interviewed, her name was given in a voice-over as Jestyn, apparently obtained from the signature Jestyn that followed the verse written in the front of the book, but this was covered over when the book was displayed in the program. This was possibly a "pet" nickname she used. Researchers re-investigating the case attempted to track down Jestyn and found she had died in 2007. Her real name is considered important as the possibility exists it may be the decryption key for the code. In a video interview, Paul Lawson (who made the body cast) refers to her as 'Mrs Thompson.'
Spy theory
Rumours began circulating that Boxall was involved in military intelligence during the War, adding to the speculation that the dead man was a Soviet spy poisoned by enemies unknown. In a 1978 television interview with Boxall, the interviewer states, "Mr Boxall, you had been working, hadn't you, in an intelligence unit, before you met this young woman [Jestyn]. Did you talk to her about that at all?" In reply he stated "No", and when asked if she could have known, Boxall replied "not unless somebody else told her". When the interviewer went on to suggest that there was a spy connection, Boxall replied after a pause, "It's quite a melodramatic thesis, isn't it?"The fact that the man died in Adelaide, the nearest capital city to Woomera
Woomera, South Australia
The town, or village, of Woomera is located in the south east corner of the Woomera Prohibited Area ; colloquially known as the Woomera Rocket Range...
, a top-secret missile launching and intelligence gathering site, heightened this speculation. It was also recalled that one possible location from which the man may have traveled to Adelaide was Port Augusta
Port Augusta, South Australia
-Electricity generation:Electricity is generated at the Playford B and Northern power stations from brown coal mined at Leigh Creek, 250 km to the north...
, a town relatively close to Woomera.
Additionally, in April 1947 the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service, as part of Operation Venona
Venona project
The VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...
, discovered that there had been top secret material leaked from Australia’s Department of External Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is a department of the government of Australia charged with advancing the interests of Australia and its citizens internationally...
to the Soviet embassy in Canberra. This led to a 1948 U.S. ban on the transfer of all classified information to Australia.
As a response, the Australian government announced that it would establish a national secret security service (which became the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...
(ASIO)).
Post inquest
West Terrace Cemetery
The West Terrace Cemetery is South Australia’s oldest cemetery, first appearing on Colonel William Light’s 1837 plan of Adelaide. The 27.6 hectare site is located in the south-west corner of the Adelaide central business district, between West Terrace, Anzac Highway, Sir Donald Bradman Drive and...
. The Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
conducted the service and The South Australian Grandstand Bookmakers Association paid for the service to save the man from a pauper's burial.
Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. Police questioned a woman seen leaving the cemetery but she claimed she knew nothing of the man. About the same time, the receptionist from the Strathmore Hotel, opposite Adelaide Railway Station, revealed that a strange man had stayed in Room 21 around the time of the death, checking out on 30 November 1948. She recalled that cleaners found a black medical case and a hypodermic syringe in the room.
On 22 November 1959 it was reported that an E.B. Collins, an inmate of New Zealand's Wanganui Prison, claimed to know the identity of the dead man.
There have been numerous unsuccessful attempts in the 60 years since its discovery to crack the code found at the rear of the book, including efforts by military and naval intelligence, mathematicians, astrologers and amateur code crackers. While no answer has been accepted as correct, a leading theory is that the code indicates the initial letters of words. In 2004, retired detective Gerry Feltus suggested in a Sunday Mail article the final line "ITTMTSAMSTGAB" could start "It's Time To Move To South Australia Moseley Street..." (the former nurse lived in Moseley Street which is the main road through Glenelg).
In 1978 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
produced a programme on the Taman Shud case, entitled The Somerton Beach Mystery, where reporter Stuart Littlemore
Stuart Littlemore
Stuart Littlemore QC is an Australian barrister and former journalist and television presenter. He is best known for his time as writer and host of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch program, which he presented from its inception in 1989 to 1997...
investigated the case, including interviewing Boxall, who could add no new information on the case, 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.
In 1994 John Harber Phillips
John Harber Phillips
John Harber Phillips, AC, QC was an Australian barrister and an author. He was a judge and also a Chief Justice of Victoria. He was the legal counsel who defended Lindy Chamberlain on a charge of murdering her baby Azaria. His skills as counsel were described as being that of a "very elegant...
, 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
Digoxin toxicity
Digoxin toxicity is a poisoning that occurs when excess doses of digoxin are consumed acutely or over an extended period. The classic features of digoxin toxicity are nonspecific: fatigue, blurred vision, change in color vision Digoxin toxicity is a poisoning that occurs when excess doses of...
." Phillips supported his conclusion by pointing to the fact the organs were engorged, consistent with digitalis, the lack of evidence of natural disease and "the absence of anything seen macroscopically which could account for the death". Three months prior to the death of the man, on 16 August 1948, an overdose of digitalis was reported as the cause of death for United States Assistant Treasury Secretary Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
. He had been accused of Soviet espionage under Operation Venona
Venona project
The VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...
.
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 East European Communist Bloc, which led to the police's inability to confirm the man's identity.
The case is still considered "open" at the South Australian Major Crime Task Force and the bust, still containing hair fibres of the man is in the possession of the South Australian Police Historical Society. Any further attempts to correctly identify the body have been hampered by the fact that the formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
used to embalm the body has destroyed much of the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
and other key evidence no longer exists, such as the brown suitcase, which was destroyed in 1986, and many statements, which have disappeared from the police file over the years.
Possible link to Mangnoson case
On 6 June 1949, the body of two year-old Clive Mangnoson was found in a sack in the Largs BayLargs Bay, South Australia
Largs Bay is a north-western suburb of Adelaide 16km from the CBD, on the LeFevre Peninsula, in the state of South Australia, Australia and falls under the City of Port Adelaide Enfield. It is adjacent to Largs North and Semaphore, Exeter and Peterhead. The post code for Largs Bay is 5016...
sand hills, about twenty kilometres down the coast from Somerton. Lying next to him was his unconscious father, Keith Waldemar Mangnoson, who was taken to a hospital in a very weak condition, suffering from exposure, and following a medical examination, was transferred to a mental hospital.
The Mangnosons had been missing for four days, and it was believed that Clive had been dead for twenty four hours when his body was found. The two were found by Mr Neil McRae of Largs Bay, who claimed he had seen the location of the two in a dream the night before.
Like Somerton Man, the coroner could not determine the young Mangnoson's cause of death, although it was believed it was not natural causes. The contents of the boy's stomach were sent to a government analyst for further examination.
Following the death, the boy's mother Mrs Roma Mangnoson reported being terrorised by a masked man, who, while driving a battered cream car, almost ran her down outside her home in Cheapside Street, Largs North
Largs North, South Australia
Largs North is a north-western suburb of Adelaide 17 km from the CBD, on the LeFevre Peninsula, in the state of South Australia, Australia and falls under the City of Port Adelaide Enfield. It is adjacent to Largs Bay and Taperoo. The post code for Largs North is 5016...
. Mrs Mangnoson stated that "the car stopped and a man with a khaki handkerchief over his face told her to 'keep away from the police or else'". Additionally a similar looking man had been recently seen lurking around the house.
Mrs Mangnoson believed that this situation was related to her husband's attempt to identify the Somerton Man, believing him to be Carl Thompsen, who had worked with him in Renmark
Renmark, South Australia
Renmark is a town in South Australia's rural Riverland area, and is located 254 km northeast of Adelaide, on the banks of the River Murray. The Sturt Highway between Adelaide and Sydney runs through the town; Renmark is the last major town encountered in South Australia when driving this route. It...
in 1939.
J.M.Gower, secretary of the Largs North Progress Association received anonymous phone calls threatening that Mrs. Mangnoson would meet with an accident if he interfered while A. H. Curtis, the acting mayor of Port Adelaide received three anonymous phone calls threatening "an accident" if he "stuck his nose into the Mangnoson affair". 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.
Soon after being interviewed by police over her harassment, Mrs Mangnoson collapsed and required medical treatment.
Possible link to Marshall case
In June 1945, three years prior to the death of the Somerton Man, a 34 year old SingaporeanSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
man named Joseph (George) Saul Haim Marshall was found dead in Mosman
Mosman, New South Wales
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...
, Sydney with an open copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam on his chest. His death is believed to be a suicide by poisoning.
Coincidentally, it is some two months after Marshall's death that Jestyn gives Alfred Boxall a copy of the Rubaiyat, in Clifton Gardens. Clifton Gardens is only one kilometre south of Mosman. Joseph Marshall was the brother of the famous barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
and Chief Minister of Singapore David Saul Marshall
David Saul Marshall
David Saul Marshall was the leader of the Singapore Labour Front and became the first Chief Minister of Singapore in 1955....
. An inquest was held for Joseph Marshall on 15 August 1945; Gwenneth Dorothy Graham testified at the inquest and was found dead 13 days later face down, naked, in a bath with her wrists slit.
Timeline
- 1921 Jestyn is born in Marrickville, New South WalesMarrickville, New South WalesMarrickville, a suburb of Sydney's Inner West is located 7 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the state of New South Wales, Australia and is the largest suburb in the Marrickville Council local government area...
. - 3 June 1945: "George" Joseph Saul Haim Marshall is found dead from poisoning in Mosman, Sydney. A copy of Omar Khayyam was found open next to his body. Mosman is situated between St. Leonard's where Jestyn lived and Clifton Gardens where she met Boxall two months later.
- 1945 August: Jestyn gives Alf Boxall an inscribed copy of the Rubaiyat over drinks at the Clifton Gardens Hotel, Sydney.
- 1947: Jestyn's son is born.
- 30 November 1948. 8:30 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.: The Somerton Man is presumed to have arrived in Adelaide by train. He buys a ticket for the 10:50 a.m. train to Henley Beach but did not use it. This ticket was the first sold of only three issued between 6:15 a.m. and 2 p.m. by this particular ticket clerk for a Henley Beach train.
- Between 11:00 a.m. and 12noon: Checks a brown suitcase into the train station cloak room.
- after 11:15 a.m.: Buys a 7d bus ticket on a bus that departed at 11:15 a.m. from the south side of North TceNorth Terrace, AdelaideNorth Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of the city of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east-west, along the northern edge of the CBD.-North Side of North Terrace:...
(in front of the Strathmore Hotel) opposite the railway station. He may have boarded at a later time elsewhere in the city as his ticket was the sixth of nine sold between the railway station and South TceSouth Terrace, AdelaideSouth Terrace is a street on the south side of the city centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It runs from Anzac Highway and connects to Glen Osmond Road. King William Street ends at South Terrace. It is the southern edge of the city centre, and is bounded by parklands to the south,...
however, he only had a 15-minute window from the earliest time he could have checked his suitcase (the luggage room was around 60 metres from the bus stop). It is not known which stop he alighted at. The bus stopped at St. Leonard's, a bus stop named after the nearby hotel. This stop is located less than 1 kilometres (3,280.8 ft) from the Moseley St address of Jestyn, which was itself from 300mtr to 1 km from where the body was found depending on where on Moseley st she lived. - 7 p.m.-8 p.m.: Various witness sightings.
- 10 p.m.-11 p.m.: Estimated time he had eaten the pasty based on time of death.
- 1 December, 2 a.m.: Estimated time of death. The time was estimated by a "quick opinion" on the state of rigor mortisRigor mortisRigor mortis is one of the recognizable signs of death that is caused by a chemical change in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate...
while the ambulance was in transit. As a suspected suicide no attempt to determine the correct time was made. As poisons affect the progression of rigor, 2 a.m. is probably inaccurate. - 6:30 a.m.: Found dead by John Lyons and two men with a horse.
- 14 January 1949: Adelaide Railway Station finds the brown suitcase belonging to the man.
- 6 June: The dead body of Clive Mangnoson is found 20 km away from Somerton by Neil McRae.
- 6–14 June: The piece of paper bearing the inscription "Tamám Shud" is found in a concealed fob pocket.
- 22 July: A man hands in the copy of the Rubaiyat he had found on 30 November containing the secret code. Police later match the "Tamám Shud" paper to the book.
- 26 July: The unlisted phone number is traced to "Jestyn" in Glenelg. Shown the plaster cast by Paul Lawson, "Jestyn" could not confirm or exclude that the man was Alf Boxall. Lawson's diary entry for that day uses the name "Mrs Thompson" and stated that she had a "nice figure" and is "very acceptable" (referring to the level of beauty) which allows the possibility of an affair with the Somerton man. She was 27 years old in 1948. In a later interview Lawson described her behaviour as being very odd that day. Also she appeared as if she was about to faint. The following day Sydney detectives interview Alf Boxall. "Jestyn" requests that her real name be withheld because she didn't want her husband to know she knew Alf Boxall.
- 1950 May: Jestyn is married.
- 1950s: The Rubaiyat is lost.
- 14 March 1958: The Coronial Inquest is continued. The book, Jestyn and Alf Boxall are mysteriously not mentioned at all. No new findings are recorded and the inquest is ended with an adjournment sine dieAdjournment sine dieAdjournment sine die means "without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing". To adjourn an assembly sine die is to adjourn it for an indefinite period...
. - 1986: The Somerton Man's brown suitcase and contents are destroyed as "no longer required".
- 1994: The Chief Justice of Victoria, John Harber PhillipsJohn Harber PhillipsJohn Harber Phillips, AC, QC was an Australian barrister and an author. He was a judge and also a Chief Justice of Victoria. He was the legal counsel who defended Lindy Chamberlain on a charge of murdering her baby Azaria. His skills as counsel were described as being that of a "very elegant...
, studies the evidence and concludes that poisoning was due to digitalisDigitalisDigitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials that are commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent reviews of phylogenetic research have placed it in the much enlarged family...
. - 17 August 1995: Alf Boxall dies.
- 2007: Jestyn dies.
- 2009: Jestyn's son dies.
- 19 March 2009: It is noticed by an investigator that rocks have been placed at the foot of the Somerton Man's grave in the Jewish tradition. The rocks point to evidence of Jewish visitors to the grave. A Jewish connection was considered very early in the investigation but was rejected as the body was uncircumcised.
Current attempt to solve the case
In March 2009 a University of AdelaideUniversity of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
team led by Professor Derek Abbott
Derek Abbott
Derek Abbott is a physicist and electronic engineer. He is a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Australia...
began an attempt to solve the case through cracking the code and proposing to exhume the body to test for DNA.
Abbott's investigations have led to questions concerning the assumptions police had made on the case. Police had believed that the Kensitas brand cigarettes in the Army Club packet was due to the common practice at the time of buying cheap cigarettes and putting them in a packet belonging to a more expensive brand (Australia was still under wartime rationing). However, a check of government gazettes of the day indicated that Kensitas were actually the expensive brand, which opens the possibility (never investigated) that the source of the poison may have been in the cigarettes that were possibly substituted for the victim's own without his knowledge. Abbott also tracked down the Barbour
J. Barbour & Sons
J. Barbour & Sons Ltd is a British clothing manufacturer and importer, founded in South Shields, best known for making waterproof and outdoor clothing...
waxed cotton
Waxed cotton
Waxed cotton is as the name suggests, is cotton impregnated with a paraffin based wax, woven into a cloth. Widely used from the mid-19th century to the mid-1950s, the product which originated in the sailing industry in Scotland, became widely used by many to make themselves waterproof...
of the period and found packaging variations. This may provide clues to the country where it may have been purchased.
Decryption of the "code" has been started from scratch. It has been determined that the letter frequency is considerably different from letters written down randomly, the frequency is to be further tested to determine if the alcohol level of the writer could alter random distribution. The format of the code also appears to follow the quatrain
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
format of the Rubaiyat supporting the theory that the code is a One-time pad
One-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad is a type of encryption, which has been proven to be impossible to crack if used correctly. Each bit or character from the plaintext is encrypted by a modular addition with a bit or character from a secret random key of the same length as the plaintext, resulting...
encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
. To this end copies of the Rubaiyat (also the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and Bible) are being compared to the code using computers to get a statistical base for letter frequencies although the code being so short may require the exact edition of the book used. With the original copy lost in the 1960s, researchers have been looking for a FitzGerald edition without success.
Barr Smith Library
The Barr Smith Library is the main library of the University of Adelaide, situated in the centre of the North Terrace campus. The library was named in honour of Robert Barr Smith who donated £9000 to buy books...
's collection of Cleland's notes do not contain anything on the case. Maciej Henneberg, Professor of Anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
at the University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
, examined images of the Somerton man's ears and found that the cymba (upper ear hollow) is larger than his cavum (lower ear hollow), a feature possessed by only 1–2% of the caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
population. In May 2009, Professor Derek Abbott consulted with dental experts who conclude that the Somerton Man had anodontia
Anodontia
In dentistry, anodontia, also called anodontia vera, is a rare genetic disorder characterized by the congenital absence of all primary or permanent teeth. It is associated with the group of skin and nerve syndromes called the ectodermal dysplasias...
(a rare genetic disorder) of both lateral incisor
Incisor
Incisors are the first kind of tooth in heterodont mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and mandible below.-Function:...
s, a feature present in only 2% of the general population. In June 2010, Abbott obtained a photograph of Jestyn's son that clearly showed his ears and teeth. The photograph shows that the son not only had a larger cymba than his cavum, but also anodontia. The chance that this is a coincidence has been estimated as between 1 in 10,000,000 and 1 in 20,000,000.
The media has suggested that Jestyn's son, who was 16-months old in 1948 and died in 2009, may have been a love child of either Alf Boxall or the Somerton Man and passed off as her husband's. DNA testing would confirm or eliminate this speculation. In a current affairs program on the efforts of the team, retired detective Gerry Feltus, who worked on the case for many years, admitted that he knew the identity of the mystery woman but, wanting to protect the woman's privacy, refused to disclose it.
Abbott believes an exhumation and DNA
Genealogical DNA test
A genealogical DNA test examines the nucleotides at specific locations on a person's DNA for genetic genealogy purposes. The test results are not meant to have any informative medical value and do not determine specific genetic diseases or disorders ; they are intended only to give genealogical...
test could link the Somerton man to a short list of extant family surnames which, along with existing clues to the mans identity would be the "final piece of the puzzle." However, in October 2011, Attorney General John Rau
John Rau
John Robert Rau , Australian politician, is the current South Australian Deputy Premier and Attorney-General. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the House of Assembly seat of Enfield since 2002.-Legal career:...
refused permission to exhume the body stating; "There needs to be public interest reasons that go well beyond public curiosity or broad scientific interest." Feltus said he was still contacted by people in Europe who believed the man was a missing relative but didn't believe an exhumation and finding the man's family grouping would provide answers to relatives, "during that period so many war criminals changed their names and came to different countries."
As one journalist wrote in 1949, alluding to the line in The Rubaiyat, "the Somerton Man seems to have made certain that the glass would be empty, save for speculation."
Possible identification
Following media attention surrounding the publication of The Unknown Man by retired detective Gerry Feltus, an Adelaide woman contacted the media about an identification cardIdentity document
An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...
she had recently found in her fathers possessions. The card, a document issued in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to foreign seamen
Seaman
Seaman is one of the lowest ranks in a Navy. In the Commonwealth it is the lowest rank in the Navy, followed by Able Seaman and Leading Seaman, and followed by the Petty Officer ranks....
during WWI
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
was given to biological anthropologist
Biological anthropology
Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...
Maciej Henneberg in October 2011 for comparison of the ID photograph to that of the Somerton man. Using the international identification standard Martin's technique, Henneberg found anatomical similarities in features such as the nose, lips and eyes, but noted the difference in age between the photographs. However, the ears, a rare shape possessed by only 1–2% of the caucasian population, do not change with age and were a "very good" match. 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.
"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 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. Searches conducted by the US National Archives
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
, the UK National Archives and the Australian War Memorial
Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
Research Centre have failed to find any records relating to H.C. Reynolds. The South Australia Police
South Australia Police
The South Australia Police is the police force of the Australian state of South Australia. It is an agency of the Government of South Australia within the South Australian Department of Justice.-History:...
Major Crime Branch, who still have the case listed as open, will investigate the new information.
The Somerton Man in popular culture
- Stephen KingStephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
alludes to the case heavily in his novel The Colorado KidThe Colorado KidThe Colorado Kid is a mystery novel written by Stephen King for the Hard Case Crime imprint, published in 2005. The book was issued in one paperback-only edition by the specialty crime and mystery publishing house. The third-person narrative concerns the investigation of the body of an...
which in turn inspired the series HavenHaven (TV series)Haven is a supernatural drama television series loosely based on the Stephen King novel The Colorado Kid. The show, filmed on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, Canada, is an American/Canadian co-production. The one-hour drama premiered on July 9, 2010, on Syfy...
. - There is a reference to this death in the novel Hill of Grace by Stephen Orr (ISBN 1-86254-648-7).
See also
- List of unsolved murders and deaths
- The Colorado KidThe Colorado KidThe Colorado Kid is a mystery novel written by Stephen King for the Hard Case Crime imprint, published in 2005. The book was issued in one paperback-only edition by the specialty crime and mystery publishing house. The third-person narrative concerns the investigation of the body of an...
- Ricky McCormick murder notes
Taman Shud case
- Ruth Balint, "The Somerton Man: An unsolved history," Cultural Studies Review, Vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 159–78, 2010.
- Ruth Balint, "Der Somerton Man: Eine dokumentarische Fiktion in drei Dimensionen," Book Chapter in Goofy History: Fehler machen Geschichte, (Ed. Butis Butis) Böhlau Verlag, pp. 264–279, 2009, ISBN 978 3 412 204426 6.
- Thomas Erskine Cleland, Inquest into the Death of a Body Located at Somerton on 1.12.48, South Australian State Archives, GX/0A/0000/1016/0B, 1949.
- Omar KhayyamOmar KhayyámOmar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....
, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: First and Fifth Editions, translated by Edward FitzGeraldEdward FitzGerald (poet)Edward FitzGerald was an English writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The spelling of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen...
Courier Dover Publications, 1990, ISBN 0 4862 646 7X. - Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, Infobase Publishing, 2009, ISBN 0 8160 7818 1.
- Gerald Michael Feltus, The Unknown Man, Klemzig, South Australia, 2010, ISBN 978 0 646 54476 2.
- John Harber PhillipsJohn Harber PhillipsJohn Harber Phillips, AC, QC was an Australian barrister and an author. He was a judge and also a Chief Justice of Victoria. He was the legal counsel who defended Lindy Chamberlain on a charge of murdering her baby Azaria. His skills as counsel were described as being that of a "very elegant...
, "Phillips' brief," Criminal Law Journal, Vol. 18, pp. 108–110, 1994. - John Pinkney, Great Australian Mysteries: Unsolved, Unexplained, Unknown, Five Mile Press, Rowville, Victoria, 2003. ISBN 1 7412 402 47.
Royal North Shore Hospital
- Geoffrey Sherington, Royal North Shore Hospital, 1888–1988 : A Century of Caring, Horwitz Grahame, Sydney, 1988, ISBN 0 7255 210 4X.
- Margaret Rice, The Close of an Era: A History of Nursing at the Royal North Shore Hospital, 1887–1987, St. Leonard's, N.S.W: Royal North Shore Hospital Graduate Nurses Association, 1988, ISBN 0 9593811 4 7.
- Roger Vanderfield, Royal North Shore Hospital: Service in War and Peace, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2001.
Life of Alf Boxall
- Robyn Coghlan, Connections From London to the Antipodes: The Family of John Boxall and Sarah Hugkulstone, Acme Publishing Co., Hawker, ACT, 2008, ISBN 978 0 646 50443 8.
- Daniel Connell, The War at Home: Australia 1939–1949, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Crow's Nest, NSW, 1988, ISBN 0 642 53054 8.
- Richard Walker, Curtin's Cowboys: Australia's Secret Bush Commandos, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1986, ISBN 0 8686 176 52.
Videos
- Stateline Report 2009: Taman Shud Case (Part 1)
- Stateline Report 2009: Taman Shud Case (Part 2)
- Somerton Beach Mystery: Part 1/3
- Somerton Beach Mystery: Part 2/3
- Somerton Beach Mystery: Part 3/3
- Taman Shud Code Investigation (2009)
- Taman Shud Code Investigation (2010)
External links
- Archival newspaper articles on the Taman Shud Case
- The Unknown Man – A Suspicious Death at Somerton Beach – Book written by Gerry Feltus
- ABC Online: Taman Shud Case
- Adelaide Advertiser article
- Reference to the West Terrace Cemetery gravesite
- SA Police History Oct 2007 Newsletter on the case
- SA Police online journal article on the case
- SA Police historical society article on Jimmy Durham who worked in the case
- Taman Shud timeline
- List of people connected to the Taman Shud Case
- Facts about the Somerton man
- Secondary source material on the Taman Shud Case
- ABC Stateline transcript on Taman Shud case
- World Search for a Rare Copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
- Smithsonian Blog Article: The Body on Somerset Beach