Somerton man mystery 'solved' as DNA points to man's identity Shortly afterwards she moved to Adelaide and was listed in telephone directories under the surname of her future husband, Prosper Thomson. If the book was found one or two weeks before, it suggests that the man had visited previously or had been in Adelaide for a longer period. They then tracked down the man's living relatives, using their DNA to confirm his identity. In October 1951, three years after the Somerton Mans death, Dorothy placed a notice in the Age newspaper stating that she had begun divorce proceedings against Webb on the grounds of desertion. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? In September 1946, Dorothy fled from her husband, following years of physical and verbal abuse. When Thomson was taken by authorities to visit a death mask of Somerton mans face, the taxidermist present, Paul Lawson, told ABCs Australian Story last year it was obvious she knew the man. In 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, she had given it to an Australian Army lieutenant named Alf Boxall, who was serving at the time in the Water Transport Section of the Royal Australian Engineers. The Somerton Man code was actually cracked in late June 2020. [14][18] On 22 November 1959 it was reported that one E.B. There is a . Lawson's diary entry for that day names her as "Mrs Thompson" and states that she had a "nice figure" and was "very acceptable" (referring to the level of attractiveness) which allows the possibility of an affair with the Somerton man. Copies of Rubaiyat, as well as the Talmud and Bible, were being compared to the code using computers to get a statistical base for letter frequencies. [41] In the back of the book were faint indentations representing five lines of text, in capital letters. The truth, however, is seemingly more mundane. Thomson's real name was considered important because it may be the decryption key for the purported code. In the book, it is unclear whether the first line begins with an "M" or "W", but it is widely believed to be the letter W, owing to the distinctive difference when compared to the stricken letter M. There appears to be a deleted or underlined line of text that reads "MLIAOI". Inside his pocket were the printed words "Tamam Shud", which means "finished . MLIAOI "Somerton Man mystery 'solved': Professor identifies man found on beach in 1948" from news.com.au 28 February 1918: H. C. Reynolds identity card issued. It bore the phrase Tamm ShudPersian for its finished or its endedand was soon traced to The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym, a 12th-century book of Persian poetry popularized by an 1859 English translation. What was his cause of death? Both kidneys were congested, and the liver contained a great excess of blood in its vessels. [52] In an interview many years later, Paul Lawson, the technician who made the cast and was present when Thomson viewed it, noted that after looking at the bust she immediately looked away and would not look at it again. Its hard to see this as anything other than intentional, Fiona-Ellis Jones, host of The Somerton Man Mystery podcast, tells the Australian Broadcasting Companys (ABC) Bridget Judd. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been to America or bought it from someone of similar size who had been.[16][28]. Carolyn Bilsborow, a film-maker and director of the documentary Missing Pieces about Somerton man, said the news was incredibly exciting. Still no picture to compare my reconstruction too though.Brilliant work by @derek_abbott60 and @Identifinders https://t.co/KrCkrZdYPg pic.twitter.com/vOllqL73g1. [47] When she was interviewed by police, Thomson said that she did not know the dead man or why he would have her phone number and choose to visit her suburb on the night of his death. "So When That Angel of the Darker Drink", Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, "World War II Nominal Roll, "Boxall, Alfred", "List of facts on the Taman Shud Case that are often misreported", "Somerton Man identified as Melbourne electrical engineer, researcher says", "Seven-decade mystery of Somerton Man solved", "Professor's 15-year search for answers seeks to crack the secret code to the death of the 'Somerton man' found on an Adelaide beach", Unidentified Body Found at Somerton Beach, South Australia, on 1st December 1948, "Unsolved Death from 1948: The Somerton Man (The Taman Shud Case)", 'Unparalleled Mystery' Of Somerton Body Case, Curious aspects of unsolved beach mystery, Army Officer Sought to Help Solve Somerton Body Case, Unbreakable: Somerton Man's poetic mystery, "Computational linguistic analysis of the Tamam Shud Cipher", "No Sydney Clue to Dead Man Found at Somerton, S.A.", A Body, A Secret Pocket and a Mysterious Code, 30-Year-Old Death Riddle Probed In New Series, "Jessica Thomson's reaction to the dead man's bust", Somerton body said to be that of wood cutter, Somerton Body may be that of station hand. Last month Ms Chapman said the decision to exhume the body followed "intense public interest" in the case. The pathologist, Dr. Dwyer, concluded: "I am quite convinced the death could not have been natural the poison I suggested was a barbiturate or a soluble hypnotic". Police questioned a woman seen leaving the cemetery but she claimed she knew nothing of the man. According to ABC News, a wooden spatula and a brush were used to carefully exhume the remains, which were then placed in a new coffin before being taken away to a forensic science centre. A jacket and tie with their tags cut off, unused train and bus tickets and a scrap of paper with the printed words tamm shud, meaning finished in Persian. Astonishing Legends. [83] Other key evidence no longer exists, such as the brown suitcase, which was destroyed in 1986. [25][26] Police believed that whoever removed the clothing tags either overlooked these three items or purposely left the "Keane" tags on the clothes, knowing Keane was not the dead man's name. "Somerton Beach Mystery Man", Transcript, Broadcast 15 May 2009. Between 11:00a.m. and 11:15a.m: Checks a brown suitcase into the railway station cloak room. He said their investigations had also found a link to the name "TKeane" which was printed on the Somerton Man's tie. In. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. In November 2013, three of their relatives gave interviews to the Channel Nine current affairs program 60 Minutes. Solving the Somerton Man mystery, Australia's most baffling - CNET To view this content choose accept and continue. In 2019, ABC's Radio National released a six-part series titled, This page was last edited on 23 April 2023, at 05:58. ), Others posited that the Somerton Man was a former professional ballet dancer, drawing on the coroners comment that his calf muscles were high and well developed, such as found in women, and suggestion that he had been in the habit of wearing high-heeled and pointed shoes., Perhaps the most convincing theory centered on Thomsons son Robin, whose distinctive ears and teeth closely resembled the Somerton Mans. Johnson identified himself at a police station. "[86], The ID card, numbered 58757, was issued in the United States on 28 February 1918 to H. C. Reynolds, giving his nationality as "British" and age as 18. New DNA analysis suggests a body found on a beach in Australia in 1948 belongs to Carl Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne. Researchers now say the man is Carl Charles Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne. Reflecting on the identification, Carolyn Bilsborow, a filmmaker who directed a 2018 documentary about the Somerton Man, tells the Guardian: We had all these grandiose ideas about him being Russian, American and European. It has been one of the most interesting cases in Australias history. [7], As one journalist wrote in June 1949, alluding to the line in Rubaiyat, "the Somerton Man seems to have made certain that the glass would be empty, save for speculation". They then used archival records to search for individuals whose biographies mirrored what was known about the Somerton Man. He said after using hairs from a plaster bust of the man to gather DNA evidence, researchers in Australia and America had further narrowed the search "to build out a family tree containing over 4,000 people". The last mention of Webb in the historical record dates to April 1947, when he left his wife. An Australian researcher claims to have solved a 73-year-old mystery by identifying a man found dead on a beach, CNN said in a report. 1 December 2 a.m.: Estimated time of death. Interestingly, the book contained several handwritten annotations, including a suspected code and the phone number of a nurse, Jessie Jo Thomson, who lived near the site where the body was discovered. [11] In 2009 to 2011, Derek Abbott's team concluded that it was most likely that each letter was the first letter of a word. [8][10] A couple who saw him at around 7pm noted that they saw him extend his right arm to its fullest extent and then drop it limply. stationed in Australia. With the original copy lost in the 1950s, researchers have been looking for a FitzGerald edition. Somerton Man identified as Melbourne electrical engineer, researcher says. In trying to solve the Somerton Man case, Abbott became part of it. [14], After the inquest, a plaster cast was made of the man's head and shoulders. [110], Carl "Charles" Webb was born on 16 November 1905, in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne,[110] the youngest of six children of Richard and Eliza. At least two sites relatively close to Adelaide were of interest to spies: the Radium Hill uranium mine and the Woomera Test Range, an Anglo-Australian military research facility. [51] According to Leane, he described her reaction upon seeing the cast as "completely taken aback, to the point of giving the appearance that she was about to faint". "I have spoken to them, except they're all of a generation well below him and so none of them knew himand have no photos in their old family albums or in their garden sheds, unfortunately," he said. The cryptographers reported that it would be impossible to provide "a satisfactory answer": if the text were an encrypted message, its brevity meant that it had "insufficient symbols" from which a clear meaning could be extracted, and the text could be the "meaningless" product of a "disturbed mind". [24] With wartime rationing still enforced, clothing was difficult to acquire at that time. [14] "Francis" had not considered that the book might be connected to the case until he had seen an article in the previous day's newspaper. [98] His investigations have led to questions concerning the assumptions police had made on the case. WRGOABABD In 1949, Jessica Thomson requested that police not keep a permanent record of her name or release her details to third parties, as it would be embarrassing and harmful to her reputation to be linked to such a case. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Authorities said if sufficient DNA evidence can be obtained, they will attempt to identify the man and where he came from. Or maybe a final goodbye to a lover.. (The drugs were later publicly identified as digitalis and ouabain, both cardenolide-type cardiac glycosides.) There has been persistent speculation that the dead man was a spy, due to the circumstances and historical context of his death. The Somerton Man was a mysterious, unknown decedent, found on Somerton Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on December 1, 1948.
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