Did he die by suicide? 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. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? Read about our approach to external linking. This is just us drawing the dots. The only problem is that the body is six feet under and seven decades old. The actual reveal is quite impressive; it is very clear coding. It was noted that the movement seen by witnesses at 7 p.m. could have been the last convulsion preceding death. [77] The two were found by Neil McRae[note 7] of Largs Bay, who claimed he had seen the location of the two in a dream the night before. Carls oldest sister Freda Grace was married to Thomas Gerald Keane. [81], Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. Now, Australian police say advances in DNA technology make exhumation worthwhile. Also in the suitcase was a thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread of "an unusual type" not available in Australiait was the same as that used to repair the lining in a pocket of the trousers the dead man was wearing. Some observers cited the code found on his copy of The Rubiyt, as well as the apparent attempts to mask his identity, as evidence that he was a Russian spy. [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. [11][12] Witnesses said the body was in the same position when the police viewed it. [103] However, Rachel Egan's DNA has been analysed and links were found to the grandparents of Prosper Thomson. Beachgoers found the body lying against a seawall on Somerton Beach in Adelaide on 1 December, 1948. Abbott and Rachel married in 2010 and they have three children. [110], Abbott's research indicates Webb enjoyed betting on horses, thus the coded messages could be horse names. [89], Kate Thomson, the daughter of Jessica and Prosper Thomson, said that her mother was the woman interviewed by the police and that her mother had told her she had lied to them Jessica did know the identity of the Somerton man and his identity was also "known to a level higher than the police force". 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. One newspaper article refers to the book being found about a week or two before the body was found. [32] Soon after being interviewed by police over her harassment, Mangnoson collapsed and required medical treatment. She was 27 years old in 1948. [95] It was reported that the body was exhumed as part of Operation Persevere and Operation Persist, which are investigating historical unidentified remains in South Australia. Abbotts research was undertaken with American genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick. A photograph of the scrap of paper was released to the press.[36]. We still dont know who he is, or what he was doing. [113], The marriage was not a harmonious one, largely due to Carl's personality. Mangnoson was born in Adelaide on 4 May 1914 and served as a Private in the Australian Army from 11 June 1941 until his discharge on 7 February 1945. [110] Through investigative genetic genealogy, matches were found for descendants of two distant cousins of Webb, both on the paternal and on the maternal side. Derek Abbott, a physicist and electronic engineer at the University of Adelaide, and Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic genealogist who specializes in using DNA to solve cold cases, identified the Somerton Man using hairs caught in his death mask. [98] His investigations have led to questions concerning the assumptions police had made on the case. [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". It has been one of the most interesting cases in Australias history. | Read about our approach to external linking. A half-smoked cigarette was resting on his collar, and there was a line from a Persian poem in his pocket - but investigators had no idea who he was. [73] By 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. She said that she had received a letter from Boxall and had replied, telling him that she was now married. On December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found lying dead on the sand on Somerton Beach next to the neighborhood of Glenelg, about 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. Researchers now say the man is Carl Charles Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne. The next clue in the case surfaced in May 1949, when pathologist John Cleland reexamined the corpse and discovered a rolled-up piece of paper hidden in the mans pants pocket. Feltus believed Thomson knew the Somerton man's identity. Just trying to put together a paper trail of who he was, or might have been. He had a sister who lived in Melbourne and was married to a man named Thomas Keanelikely the T. Keane whose name appears on the clothing in the Somerton Mans suitcase. [note 3]. (modern). South Australia Police consulted their counterparts overseas and distributed information about the dead man internationally, in an effort to identify him. And so he was buried in Adelaide cemetery in 1949 with a tombstone reading: "Here lies the unknown man who was found at Somerton Beach.". However, a bus conductor named Leslie Francis Wytkin (or Wytkins) handed in a copy of the. 1951: Dorothy Webb reported to be living in Bute, South Australia. Red spy or red herring: Was the Somerton Man a Russian agent, or is there an Irish link? For decades, authorities, academics and the public alike have traded theories about the identity of the mysterious Somerton Man, whose body was found on a beach outside of Adelaide, Australia, on December 1, 1948. 2023 BBC. He had no money or identification on him, the labels in his clothing were cut off, and his minimal possessions yielded no clues. Professor Abbott said Webb was born in Footscray on November 16,1905 to Richard August Webb (1866-1939) and Eliza Amelia Morris Grace (1871-1946). Feltus in 2010 claimed he was given permission by Thomson's family to disclose her names and that of her husband, Prosper Thomson. A police report was made by Detective Don O'Doherty. [38] The book was missing the words "Tamm Shud" on the last page, which had a blank reverse, and microscopic tests indicated that the piece of paper was from the page torn from the book. 16 November 1905: Carl "Charles" Webb born in Footscray, Melbourne, Victoria. Born in 1946, Robin enjoyed a career as a dancer with the Australian Ballet Company. An inquest into the man's death, conducted by coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland, commenced a few days following the discovery of the body but was adjourned until 17 June 1949. In addition, witness statements have disappeared from the police file over the years.[8]. "Somerton Beach Mystery Man", Transcript, Broadcast 27 March 2009. The 40-year mystery of the missing farmer's wife, Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Air strikes pound Sudan capital as truce extended. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. South Australia Police have not confirmed the discovery but say they will comment soon. [23] It was believed that the suitcase was owned by the man found on the beach. "[82] Phillips supported his conclusion by pointing out that 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". (A spool of thread in the suitcase matched the orange stitches used to repair the mans clothing.) A potential granddaughter's DNA is planned to be compared to the unknown man's to see if it is a match. VideoThe secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, LGBT troops take love for Eurovision to front line, Why an Indian comedian is challenging fake news rules. In fact, theres probably more questions than there were yesterday, when we didnt have his name. In September 1946, Dorothy fled from her husband, following years of physical and verbal abuse. Early 1947: Harkness moves to a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, and changes her surname to Thomson, the name of her future husband. [76] The Mangnosons had been missing for four days. He noted that the man's shoes were remarkably clean and appeared to have been recently polished, rather than in the condition expected of a man who had apparently been wandering around Glenelg all day. "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. [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. Hicks noted the only "fact" not found in relation to the body was evidence of vomiting. In 1948, the body of a well-dressed man was found slumped on an Australian beach. To view this content choose accept and continue. [68] Detectives from Victoria initially believed the man was from there because of the similarity of the laundry marks to those used by several dry-cleaning firms in Melbourne. (The drugs were later publicly identified as digitalis and ouabain, both cardenolide-type cardiac glycosides.) [9][30] There is no record of the station's bathroom facilities being unavailable on the day he arrived. Abbott, who has researched the Somerton Man for more than two decades, met his current wife, Rachel Egan, through the case. He was put to rest in an Adelaide cemetery under a headstone reading only "the unknown man". [67], By early February 1949, there had been eight different "positive" identifications of the body,[68] including two Darwin men who thought the body was of a friend of theirs,[69] and others who thought it was a missing station worker, a worker on a steamship[70] or a Swedish man. 14 March 1958: The coroner's inquest is continued. The tree included about 4,000 people when that happened.. Derek Abbott was able to analyse the Somerton Man's DNA using hairs preserved when authorities made a plaster model of his face. There is some uncertainty about the circumstances under which the book was found. When police arrived, they found the man lying in the sand with his head resting on the sea wall, with his legs out in front of him, and his ankles crossed. Code experts were called in at the time to decipher the lines, but were unsuccessful,[42] and amateurs also attempted to crack the code. All that could be garnered from the suitcase was that the front gusset and featherstitching on a coat found in the case indicated it had been manufactured in the United States. One of the biggest mysteries in modern Australian history may have finally been solved. [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. One of the witnesses told the police she observed a man looking down at the sleeping man from the top of the steps that led to the beach. Carl moved out in 1947 and no official records revealing his subsequent whereabouts have been found as of 2022.[113][116]. The man was well-dressed and had no obvious injuries, but an autopsy . They suggested that the Somerton man was Robin's father and, therefore, Rachel's grandfather. [42] In his book on the case, Gerry Feltus stated that when he interviewed Thomson in 2002, he found that she was either being "evasive" or she "just did not wish to talk about it".
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