The time is estimated by a "quick opinion" on the state of. The torn-out fragment found in the Somerton Mans pocket perfectly matched a gap on the final page of the discarded copy. In trying to solve the Somerton Man case, Abbott became part of it. In 2019, ABC's Radio National released a six-part series titled, This page was last edited on 23 April 2023, at 05:58. This would explain why the Somerton Man was wearing clothes of US origin and with the name Keane on them: they could have been handed down to him from his brother-in-law or nephew. Were just saying this is what the DNA tells us, says Abbott to the New York Times Alan Yuhas. [74], Contemporary reports considered the connection with the death of a two-year-old boy six months later. 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". Officials declined to comment on the new findings, instead telling CNN they would respond when results from the testing are received., Solved! 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. Police arrived on the scene the following morning after receiving reports of a dead body on Somerton Beach. Or maybe a final goodbye to a lover.. They may or may not have been cohabiting. [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. "Somerton Beach Mystery Man", Transcript, Broadcast 15 May 2009. Speaking with ABCs Ben Cheshire and Susan Chenery in 2019, Abbott speculated that Robin was the Somerton Mans son; Thomson, he proposed, had failed to identify him because she was in a relationship with another man who would go on to be her husband, and she just didn't want this ghost from the past coming back to mess up her current existence.. 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.". 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). We can't say for certain say that this is the reason he came, but it seems logical., Records showed that Webb enjoyed reading and writing poetry, as well as betting on horse races. [2], A number of possible identifications have been proposed over the years. He was fond of poetry and wrote several poems of his own, "most of them on the subject of death, which he claims to be his greatest desire", Dorothy stated. 16 RACHEL EGAN'S DNA LINKED TO PROSPER THOMSON.. by peterbowes on May 31, 2021. On the night of November 30, 1948, two separate couples noticed a smartly dressed man lying on the sand, his head propped against a sea wall, according to Smithsonian magazines Mike Dash. [110], Abbott's research indicates Webb enjoyed betting on horses, thus the coded messages could be horse names. 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. [15] He was: 180 centimetres (5ft 11 in) tall, with grey eyes, fair to ginger-coloured hair,[16] slightly grey around the temples,[7] with broad shoulders and 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 consistent with people who regularly wore boots or shoes with high heels or performed ballet. Shown the plaster cast by Paul Lawson, she does not identify the man as Alf Boxall, or any other person. They then used archival records to search for individuals whose biographies mirrored what was known about the Somerton Man. Additionally a similar-looking man had been recently seen lurking around the house. My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.[44]. A jilted lover poisoned by his paramour. Hicks noted the only "fact" not found in relation to the body was evidence of vomiting. Webb was born in 1905 but was later identified as a person with no death record, Abbott said. When Littlemore suggests in the interview that there may have been an espionage connection to the dead man in Adelaide, Boxall replies: "It's quite a melodramatic thesis, isn't it? 15 January 1948: Boxall arrives back in Sydney from his last active duty and is discharged from the army in April 1948. He said their investigations had also found a link to the name "TKeane" which was printed on the Somerton Man's tie. This would be consistent with the copy of the Rubaiyat, which also focuses on the subject of death. In July 1947, Jessica "Jestyn" Harkness gave birth to her son Robin in Melbourne, at which point she was not married. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. They included a suitcase, items of clothing with their labels removed and incoherent writings believed to be a code. 1994: The Chief Justice of Victoria, John Harber Phillips, studies the evidence and concludes that poisoning was due to digitalis. They observed that the format of the code also appeared to follow the quatrain format of Rubaiyat, leading them to theorise that the code was a one-time pad encryption algorithm. A post-mortem ruled he had died from. A search concluded that no T. Keane was missing in any English-speaking country. 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. Derek Abbott was able to analyse the Somerton Man's DNA using hairs preserved when authorities made a plaster model of his face. On 26 July 2022, Adelaide University professor Derek Abbott, in association with genealogist Colleen M. Fitzpatrick, claimed to have identified the man as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in 1905, based on genetic genealogy from DNA of the man's hair. I may have solved the Somerton code, completely by accident! "It's a triangulation from two different, totally distant parts of the [family] tree," Prof Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [note 2] Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane, who led the initial investigation, often protected the privacy of witnesses in public statements by using pseudonyms;[14] Leane referred to the man who found the book by the pseudonym "Ronald Francis" and he has never been officially identified. Contrary to Abbotts initial suspicions, the new DNA survey showed no genetic ties between Egan and Webb, definitively proving that Robin was not Webbs son. Red spy or red herring: Was the Somerton Man a Russian agent, or is there an Irish link? Theories abounded, including that the person - dubbed Somerton Man - was a spy. "Sorry, The Unknown Man is (very probably) not H.C. Reynolds", "New twist in Somerton Man mystery as fresh claims emerge", "An immaculate corpse, a secret code and Australia's strangest cold case", "Somerton Man to be exhumed by police in attempt to solve mystery", "Somerton Man exhumation to be carried out in hope of solving decades-long mystery", "Complete remains of Somerton Man in 'reasonable condition' after exhumation", "Somerton man: Body exhumed in bid to solve Australian mystery". 2023 BBC. He also held a torn scrap of paper with the Farsi words Tamam Shud - meaning "it's finished" - printed on it. The Somerton man died alone on a beach in 1948. "[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. Accounts of conversations between Jessica Thomson and police suggest she told them that she was "married" or "recently married". The discovery was made by Mr J. Lyons, of Whyte Rd, Somerton. Beachgoers found the body lying against a seawall on Somerton Beach in Adelaide on 1 December, 1948. 26 July 2022: Derek Abbott announces that his DNA analysis has identified the man as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in Melbourne in 1905. The ear shapes shared by both men were a "very good" match, although Henneberg also found what he called a "unique identifier"; a mole on the cheek that was the same shape and in the same position in both photographs. DNA Could Identify Somerton Man Exhumed in Australia - New York Times A South Australian academics claims to have identified Somerton man as a 43-year-old electrical engineer from Melbourne could finally provide answers in one of Australias most infamous cold cases. Was there a connection with Jo, the nurse? In 1951, Dorothy was reportedly living in Bute, South Australia, 144km (89mi) from Adelaide. 6:30am: Found dead by John Lyons and two men with a horse. [9][30] There is no record of the station's bathroom facilities being unavailable on the day he arrived. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. A smuggler. His identity has never been determined, but there are several theories about his origin. (The DNA studied by Abbott and Fitzpatrick came from the Somerton Mans death mask, not his body, and was analyzed as part of a separate, parallel investigation.) 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. He said it had been thrown into the back of his car around the time of the incident. [35] Cleland remarked that if the body had been carried to its final resting place then "all the difficulties would disappear". Ive already been on Trove to see if theres any presence of Charles Webb coming up in the old newspapers. The theme of Rubaiyat is that one should live life to the fullest and have no regrets when it ends. Mystery of Somerton Man solved after 73 years as DNA finally identifies They found that the Somerton Man belonged to haplogroup H4a1a1a, possessed by only 1% of Europeans. The actual reveal is quite impressive; it is very clear coding. Feltus said he was still contacted by people in Europe who believed the man was a missing relative but did not believe an exhumation and finding the man's family grouping would provide answers to relatives, as "during that period so many war criminals changed their names and came to different countries". [14][18] On 22 November 1959 it was reported that one E.B. She said the news also turns on its head the theory in her documentary that Australian ballet dancer Robin Thomson was the son of Somerton man. Video, 00:02:36Who killed 'Little Red Riding Hood'? The three sons would eventually work at the family bakery. As a result of their conversations with Thomson, police suspected that Boxall was the dead man. "[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". [8][83] Any further attempts to identify the body have been hampered by the embalming formaldehyde having destroyed much of the man's DNA. With the original copy lost in the 1950s, researchers have been looking for a FitzGerald edition. To view this content choose accept and continue. | READ MORE. after 11:15am: Buys a 7d bus ticket on a bus that departed at 11:15a.m. from the south side of. "The technology available to us now is clearly light years ahead of the techniques available when this body was discovered in the late 1940s," Forensic Science South Australia's Assistant Director of Operations, Dr Anne Coxon, said. Is climate change killing Australian wine? Police begin work to exhume the body in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Video, 00:02:36, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. To narrow down the pool of potential candidates, Abbott and Fitzpatrick plugged the Somerton mans DNA into the genealogical research database GEDmatch. Some answers may come soon, some may take years, and some may never be answered, Abbott tells ABC. [6] 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. A suicide note perhaps? 16 October 1912: Prosper Thomson is born in central Queensland. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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. Australian charged 32 years after gay hate killing. The 5-foot-11, 40- to 50-year-old man carried no money or identification. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine ][88], Prosper Thomson died in 1995 and Jessica Thomson died in 2007. "Somerton Man mystery 'solved': Professor identifies man found on beach in 1948" from news.com.au "So it's not out of the question that these items of clothing he had with TKeane on them were just hand-me-downs from his brother-in-law.". The hauntingly intriguing case of the Somerton Man has baffled researchers for decades. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. 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. 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". Bilsborow says the theory that Somerton man was a Russian spy emerged in the 1970s at the time of the cold war, particularly fuelled by the writing in the copy of the Rubiyt they interpreted as code. Johns possessions included items which imply he resided in the US at some point, such as US coins and a map of Chicago. [14], According to the pathologist, John Burton Cleland, the man was of "Britisher" appearance and thought to be aged about 4045; he was in "top physical condition". One of the biggest mysteries in modern Australian history may have finally been solved. Feltus believed Thomson knew the Somerton man's identity. A month after his death, police found a suitcase believed to belong to him at the Adelaide Railway Station. Despite repeated requests for an exhumation, the . Between 11:00a.m. and 11:15a.m: Checks a brown suitcase into the railway station cloak room. WTBIMPANETP Somerton Man identified as Melbourne electrical engineer, researcher says. [65] Police were skeptical, believing Walsh to be too old to be the dead man. Egan was Robins granddaughter. [81], Years after the burial, flowers began appearing on the grave. "Marriage and a mystery: Somerton Man's romantic twist", "The Somerton man died alone on a beach in 1948. The Somerton Man was a mysterious, unknown decedent, found on Somerton Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on December 1, 1948. By 4 December, police had announced that the man's fingerprints were not on South Australian police records, forcing them to look further afield. The man was well-built, about 40 to 50 years old, 5. I solved it when I was looking back at my old notes on the tamam shud code, which had a solution. Somerton man mystery 'solved' as DNA points to man's identity [34], 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. [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. Also written on the back cover was the phone number of young nurse later identified by Abbott as Jo Thomson who lived a five minute walk away from where the man was found dead. [115] South Australia Police had not verified the result, but stated they were "cautiously optimistic that this may provide a breakthrough". Terms of Use So possibly, he had come to track her down," he told the ABC. [71] Following publication of the man's photograph in Victoria, twenty-eight people claimed to know his identity. 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. [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. In reply, Boxall says "no", and when asked if Harkness could have known, Boxall replies: "Not unless somebody else told her." [75], Following the death, the boy's mother, Roma Mangnoson, reported having been threatened by a masked man who, while driving a battered cream car, almost ran her down outside her home in Cheapside Street, Largs North.