Episode 5: The Somerton Man / The Taman Shud Case

The Somerton Man

December 1st 1948, Somerton park beach, Adelaide, South Australia. The body of an unidentified man is found sitting on the beach. He was lying with his head against the beach wall, his legs extended and his feet crossed. A position that looks quite similar to someone sleeping. He had on his person a unused second-class rail ticket, Adelaide to Henley Beach, a suburb of Adelaide. A bus ticket that may not have been used, a US-manufactured aluminium comb, a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum ( a American brand, i didn’t find out if it was also sold in Australia), A Army Club cigarette packet (British brand), containing seven cigarettes of a different brand, Kensitas (Scottish) and a quarter full box of Bryant and May matches (British). A few witnesses had seen the Somerton Man the evening before. A couple had seen the Somerton man at 7 PM and they saw him extend his right arm to its fullest and then drop it limply. John Lyons went with his wife on a walk on the beach when he saw The Somerton Man sitting against the beach wall. This was around 7PM. At 6.50 AM the next morning John went for an early morning swim, he met a friend and together they noticed a group of men gathered around the Somerton Man. John affirmed that the Somerton Man was dead, so he went home to call the police. The Somerton Man was taken in an ambulance to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Pathologist John Burton Cleland described the man a such:

The man was of "Britisher" appearance and thought to be aged about 40–45; he was in "top physical condition". He was:

180 centimetres (5 ft 11 in) tall, with grey eyes, fair to ginger-coloured hair, slightly grey around the temples, 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.

The Somerton Man was dressed in a white shirt; red, white and blue tie; brown trousers; socks and shoes; a brown knitted pullover and fashionable grey and brown double breasted jacket of “American” tailoring. His clothes had no labels, he did not carry a hat and no wallet. The labels and the hat comment is a product of that time. Clothes were quite expensive and not as mass produced as they are today. Clothes obviously had labels on them and most people had their own name written on these labels. Men at the time wore a hat everywhere, so the Somerton Man not having a hat was a strange thing. An autopsy was conducted and the pathologist estimated the following:

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. His stomach was deeply congested... There was congestion in the second 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 congestion to the brain.

The time of death was estimated at around 2 AM December First, and I believe this was done by checking the Rigor Mortis of the man’s ears. The pathologist concludes:

“I am quite convinced the death could not have been natural ... the poison I suggested was a barbiturate or a soluble hypnotic". The body was embalmed on 10 December. This is a practice when police are unable to get a positive identification. This was the first time such action was needed.

At the Adelaide railway station, on 14 january 1949, staff found a brown suitcase. It was checked in after 11 AM on 30 November 1948. The suitcase had no labels on them, this is a bit strange. Labels at that time were glued or pasted onto the case, removing them was not simpel, you needed a lot of time to soak the label with a sponge. The suitcase contained the following: Red checked dressing gown, red felt slippers, four pairs of undergarments, pyjamas, four pairs of socks, shaving kit, light brown trousers with sand in the cuffs, a screwdriver, a cut down table knife, a stencilling brush, a pair of scissors, a sewing kit containing orange Barbour’s waxed thread, two ties, three pencils, six handkerchiefs, six pence in coins, a button, a tin of brown shoe polish, a scarf, a cigarette lighter, eight large envelopes and one small envelope, one piece of light cord, one shirt without a name tag, one yellow coat shirt, two airmail stickers, one eraser, one front collar stud, one back collar stud and a toothbrush and paste. A stencilling brush is an instrument used by officers on merchant ships, for stencilling cargo. The orange waxed thread is very important and links this suitcase to the Somerton Man. It is not available in Australia and is the same thread that was used to repair the lining in one of the pockets of the pants that the Somerton Man was wearing. There was also the name Keane that was found on a tie, a laundry bag and on a singlet, however a search for Keane concluded no one by that name was missing in any English-speaking country.

An inquest was done a few days after the discovery of the body and a few new discoveries were made. It is noted that the Somerton Man’s shoes were clean and appeared to have been polished recently, this evidence fits the theory that the body may have been brought to Somerton Park beach after his death. There was no evidence of vomiting and convulsions, two main reactions to poison. Around the same time of the inquest, a tiny piece of rolled-up paper was found in one of the Somerton Man’s pants pockets. On the paper was printed the words “ Taman Shud”, translated from Persian this means “ended” or “finished”. These words can be found on the last page of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translated poetry book. Obviously this is a huge clue so police started looking for the book with this piece torn out. Ronald Francis (pseudonym) found the book and turned it into the police. Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane used pseudonyms for public statements, to protect the witness’s privacy, so “Ronald Francis” has never been officially identified. There are multiple stories of how the book was found, one says that the book was found “just after that man was found on the beach at somerton”. Another says the book was found in an unlocked car parked in Jetty Road, Glenelg and even then either in the rear floor well or on the back seat. In that book there were faint indentations, as if someone wrote something down and used the book as a hard surface to put the paper on. A code. A code that has not been cracked to this day.

A phone number was also found inside the book. The phone number of Jessica Thomson. A nurse living in Moseley st, Glenelg, about 400 meters away from where the Somerton Man was found. Thomson has always denied knowing who the Somerton Man was, but after her death her daughter went on Channel Nine’s 60 minutes saying she believed her mother knew the dead man. When shown the plaster cast that had been taken of the Somerton man, Jessica claimed not to know him, but the Detective Leane described her reaction as completely taken aback, to the point of giving the appearance that she was about to faint.

The Somerton Man was buried in Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery. His burial was attended by the Salvation Army, reporters and police. The body has been exhumed very recently, on 19 May 2021. Police are trying to obtain DNA for further analysis. No results are known at the time but we will keep you up to date.

Some theories of who the Somerton man is. Supposedly he was an Australian Army lieutenant named Alf Boxall, he had given his copy of the Rubaiyat to Jessica Thomson during World War II. However Boxall was found in July 1949 in Sydney and the final page of his copy of the Rubaiyat was still intact. There is also a theory that the Somerton Man was a spy. The man was supposedly american, had american and british effects on him, 2 locations close to Adelaide were of interest to spies and his death coincided with a reorganisation of Australian security agencies. Apparently Alf Boxall was involved in intelligence work. The newspaper The Advertiser gave the possible identification as E.C. Johnson. The day after this was printed Johnson identified himself at a police station. He is supposedly a 63 year old wood cutter Robert Walsh, or a missing station worker. He could also be a Swedish man. He could be H.C. Reynolds, a military ID with photo, issued in the US, to a British man was compared to the Somerton Man and had a close resemblance. However searches of the US National Archives, The UK National Archives and Australian War Memorial Research Centre have failed to find any records. Some independent researchers believe the ID card belonged to Horace Charles Reynolds, but he died in 1953 so he can’t be the Somerton Man.