The Somerton Man is a man whose body was found on December 1, 1948, on a beach in Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The case is also called "tamám shud," a Persian phrase meaning "It is over" or "It is finished." This phrase was found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the man's trousers. The paper had been torn from the last page of a copy of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a poetry book.
After police asked the public for help, the book was found. On the inside back cover, detectives saw marks left by handwriting. These included a local phone number, another unknown number, and text that looked like a secret message. The message has not been solved or explained in a way that satisfies investigators.
Since the beginning of the police investigation, the case has been called "one of Australia's most mysterious cases." Many people have guessed about the man's identity, how he died, and what happened before his death. Interest in the case remains high because the death happened during a time of global tension after World War II, the presence of a secret code, the possibility of a poison that was hard to detect, and the inability of authorities to identify the man.
On July 26, 2022, Professor Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide, along with genealogist Colleen M. Fitzpatrick, said the man was Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer born in 1905. This conclusion was based on DNA testing of the man's hair. South Australia Police and Forensic Science South Australia have not confirmed the result, but they hoped to do so.
Initial discovery and investigation
On 1 December 1948 at 6:30 am, the police were called after a couple found a man’s body on Somerton Park beach near Glenelg, about 11 km (7 miles) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. The man was found lying in the sand across from the Crippled Children’s Home, which was on the corner of The Esplanade and Bickford Terrace. He was lying back with his head resting against the seawall, his legs extended, and his feet crossed. It was believed the man had died while sleeping. A half-smoked cigarette was on the right collar of his coat. A search of his pockets revealed an unused second-class rail ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach; a bus ticket from the city that may not have been used; a narrow aluminum comb made in the US; a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum; an Army Club cigarette packet containing seven cigarettes of a different brand, Kensitas; and a quarter-full box of Bryant & May matches.
Witnesses said they saw a man resembling the dead man on the evening of 30 November lying on his back in the same spot where the body was later found. A couple who saw him around 7 pm noted that he extended his right arm fully and then let it drop limply. Another couple who saw him from 7:30 pm to 8 pm said they did not see him move during the half-hour he was in view, though they thought his position might have changed. They noted he did not react to mosquitoes and assumed he was drunk or asleep. One witness told the police she saw a man looking down at the sleeping man from the top of the steps leading to the beach. Witnesses said the body was in the same position when the police viewed it.
Another witness came forward in 1959 and told the police he and three others saw a well-dressed man carrying another man on his shoulders along Somerton Park beach the night before the body was found. A police report was made by Detective Don O’Doherty.
According to the pathologist, John Burton Cleland, the man appeared to be British and was about 40–45 years old. He was in excellent physical condition, 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall, with grey eyes, fair to ginger hair slightly grey at the temples, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, hands and nails showing no signs of manual labor, and toes shaped like a wedge. His calf muscles were large, similar to those of someone who wore boots or performed ballet.
He was dressed in a white shirt, a red, white, and blue tie, brown trousers, socks, and shoes, a brown knitted pullover, and a fashionable grey and brown double-breasted jacket of "American" tailoring. All labels on his clothes were removed, and he had no hat (unusual for 1948) or wallet. He was clean-shaven and carried no identification, leading police to believe he had committed suicide. His dental records did not match any known person.
An autopsy was conducted, and the pathologist estimated the time of death at around 2 am on 1 December. The heart was normal, but there was congestion in the brain, pharynx, and stomach. The stomach had blood mixed with food, and the liver and spleen were swollen with excess blood. The pathologist, John Dwyer, concluded the death could not have been natural and suggested poisoning with a barbiturate or hypnotic drug. The last meal was a pasty eaten three to four hours before death, but no foreign substance was found in the body. The coroner could not determine the man’s identity, cause of death, or whether the man seen alive on 30 November was the same person. The body was embalmed on 10 December 1948 after police could not identify him.
On 14 January 1949, staff at the Adelaide railway station found a brown suitcase with its label removed, checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 am on 30 November 1948. It was believed to belong to the man found on the beach. Inside were a red checked dressing gown, size-seven red felt slippers, four pairs of underpants, pyjamas, shaving items, brown trousers with sand in the cuffs, an electrician’s screwdriver, a table knife modified into a sharp instrument, scissors with sharpened points, a small square of zinc, and a stencilling brush. A thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread, not available in Australia, was found. It matched thread used to repair a pocket on the dead man’s trousers. The name "T. Keane" was found on a tie, "Keane" on a laundry bag, and "Kean" on a singlet, along with dry-cleaning marks. Police believed the tags were removed intentionally or accidentally. No spare socks or letters were found, only pencils and unused stationery.
A search found no missing person named T. Keane in any English-speaking country. Dry-cleaning marks were not matched to anyone. The suitcase’s coat had stitching indicating it was made in the United States. Police believed the man had arrived in Adelaide by train from Melbourne, Sydney, or Port Augusta, showered and shaved (though no ticket was found), and purchased a train ticket to Henley Beach, which he did not board. He checked his suitcase at the station and took a bus to Glenelg.
Post-inquest
In 1949, the body of an unknown man was buried in Adelaide's West Terrace Cemetery, where the Salvation Army held the funeral service. The South Australian Grandstand Bookmakers Association paid for the service to prevent a pauper's burial.
Years later, flowers began appearing on the grave. Police questioned a woman seen leaving the cemetery, but she said she did not know the man. Around the same time, Ina Harvey, a receptionist at the Strathmore Hotel near Adelaide railway station, said a strange man had stayed in Room 21 or 23 for a few days around the time of the death, checking out on 30 November 1948. She remembered he spoke English and carried a small black case, similar to one a musician or doctor might use. When an employee looked inside the case, he told Harvey he saw an object that looked like a "needle." In 1959, a man named E.B. Collins, an inmate in New Zealand's Whanganui Prison, claimed he knew the dead man's identity.
In 1978, ABC-TV's documentary series Inside Story made a program about the Tamám Shud case, titled "The Somerton Beach Mystery." Reporter Stuart Littlemore investigated the case, including interviews with Boxall, who could not provide new information, and Paul Lawson, who made a plaster cast of the body but refused to answer questions about whether the body had been positively identified.
In 1994, John Harber Phillips, a judge and medical expert, reviewed the case and concluded the man likely died from digitalis, a type of medication. He supported this by noting the man's organs were swollen, which matches effects of digitalis, and no other signs of disease were found.
Len Brown, a former police officer who worked on the case in the 1940s, believed the man might have been from a country in the Warsaw Pact, which made it hard for police to identify him.
The South Australian Police Historical Society keeps the plaster bust of the man's face, which has some of his hair. Attempts to identify the body have been difficult because formaldehyde used in embalming destroyed much of his DNA. Other evidence, like the brown suitcase, was destroyed in 1986. Police records also lack some witness statements.
Many people believe the man was a spy because of the time and place of his death. Two locations near Adelaide were of interest to spies: the Radium Hill uranium mine and the Woomera Test Range, a military research facility. His death also happened around the time Australian security agencies were reorganized, leading to the creation of ASIO, which later uncovered Soviet espionage through the Venona project.
Boxall, who worked in intelligence during and after World War II, was questioned about a possible connection to the dead man. He denied sharing his intelligence work with his wife, Jessica Harkness, and said she could not have known unless someone else told her. Boxall's military record shows he served in the 4th Water Transport Company and later joined a special operations unit, where he was promoted quickly.
In 2011, an Adelaide woman found an identification card for H. C. Reynolds in her father's belongings. The card, issued to foreign seamen in the U.S. during World War I, was given to a scientist for comparison with the Somerton man's face. The scientist found similarities in the man's nose, lips, eyes, and ears, as well as a mole on the cheek. He said these features could help identify the man in a forensic case. However, records about H. C. Reynolds could not be found in U.S., U.K., or Australian archives. Some researchers believe the card belonged to a man who died in 1953 and could not have been the Somerton man.
Prosper Thomson died in 1995, and his wife, Jessica Thomson, died in 2007. In 2013, their relatives appeared on a TV program, 60 Minutes. Kate Thomson, their daughter, said her mother had lied to police and knew the man's identity. She suggested her mother and the man might have been spies, as Jessica taught English, was interested in communism, and spoke Russian.
Roma Egan, the widow of Jessica Thomson's son, and their daughter, Rachel Egan, also appeared on the program. They claimed the Somerton man was Robin Thomson, their son, and Rachel's grandfather. They asked to exhume the body for DNA testing. A professor from the University of Adelaide supported the request, saying it would help identify soldiers in war graves. Kate Thomson opposed the exhumation, calling it disrespectful.
In 2011, the Attorney-General refused to exhume the body, saying there needed to be strong public interest reasons beyond curiosity. However, in 2019, Attorney-General Vickie Chapman approved the exhumation to extract DNA for analysis. Interested parties agreed to cover the costs.