Unsolved Cases
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Thread Topic: Unsolved Cases
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Tamam Shud/Somerton Man
This is the case of Tamam Shud, the mystery of an unidentified man.
• “Tamam Shud” means “is over/is finished” was written on a piece of paper, which was found in the trousers of the unidentified man
• Found in Somerton Park, south of Adelaide, Australia
• His body was found in 1948, and he was estimated to be around 42 or 43 years old
• His last meal was a pastry
Excerpts from his Wikipedia page:
Following a public appeal by police, the book from which the page had been torn was located. On the inside back cover, detectives read through indentations left from previous handwriting – a local telephone number, another unidentified number, and text that resembled an encrypted message. The text has not been deciphered or interpreted in a way that satisfies authorities on the case.
Public interest in the case remains significant for several reasons: the death occurred at a time of heightened international tensions following the beginning of the Cold War; the apparent involvement of a secret code; the possible use of an undetectable poison; and the inability of authorities to identify the dead man.
South Australian Police consulted their counterparts overseas and distributed information about the dead man internationally, in an effort to identify him. International circulation of a photograph of the man and details of his fingerprints yielded no positive identification.
He was lying back with his head resting against the seawall, with his legs extended and his feet crossed. It was believed the man had died while sleeping. An unlit 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 aluminium comb that had been manufactured in the USA, a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, an Army Club cigarette packet which contained seven cigarettes of a different brand, Kensitas, and a quarter-full box of Bryant & May matches.
Another witness came forward in 1959 and reported to the police that he and three others had seen 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.
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.
He was dressed in a white shirt; a red, white and blue tie; brown trousers; socks and shoes; a brown knitted pullover and fashionable grey and brown double-breasted jacket of reportedly "American" tailoring. All labels on his clothes had been removed, and he had no hat (unusual for 1948) or wallet. He was clean-shaven[10] and carried no identification, which led police to believe he had committed suicide. Finally, his dental records were not able to be matched to any known person.
The autopsy also showed that the man's last meal was a pasty eaten three to four hours before death, but tests failed to reveal any foreign substance in the body. 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". Although poisoning remained a prime suspicion, the pasty was not believed to be the source.
On 14 January 1949, staff at the Adelaide railway station discovered a brown suitcase with its label removed, which had been checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 am on 30 November 1948. It was believed that the suitcase was owned by the man found on the beach. In the case were a red checked dressing gown; a size-seven, red felt pair of slippers; four pairs of underpants; pyjamas; shaving items; a light brown pair of trousers with sand in the cuffs; an electrician's screwdriver; a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument; a pair of scissors with sharpened points; a small square of zinc thought to have been used as a protective sheath for the knife and scissors; and a stencilling brush, as used by third officers on merchant ships for stencilling cargo.
Also in the suitcase was a thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread of "an unusual type" not available in Australia—it was the same as that used to repair the lining in a pocket of the trousers the dead man was wearing. All identification marks on the clothes had been removed but police found the name "T. Keane" on a tie, "Keane" on a laundry bag and "Kean" on a singlet, along with three dry-cleaning marks; 1171/7, 4393/7 and 3053/7. 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. With wartime rationing still enforced, clothing was difficult to acquire at that time. Although it was a very common practice to use name tags, it was also common when buying secondhand clothing to remove the tags of the previous owners. What was unusual was that there were no spare socks found in the case, and no correspondence, although the police found pencils and unused letter stationery.
A search concluded that no T. Keane was missing in any English-speaking country. A nationwide circulation of the dry-cleaning marks also proved fruitless. 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. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been to the United States or bought the coat from someone of similar size who had been.
Police checked incoming train records and believed the man had arrived at the Adelaide railway station by overnight train from either Melbourne, Sydney or Port Augusta. They speculated he had showered and shaved at the adjacent City Baths (there was no Baths ticket on his body) before returning to the train station to purchase a ticket for the 10:50 a.m. train to Henley Beach, which, for whatever reason, he missed or did not catch. He immediately checked his suitcase at the station cloak room before leaving the station and catching a city bus to Glenelg. Although named "City Baths", the centre was not a public bathing facility, but rather a public swimming pool. The railway station bathing facilities were adjacent to the station cloak room, which itself was adjacent to the station's southern exit onto North Terrace. The City Baths on King William St. were accessed from the station's northern exit via a lane way. There is no record of the station's bathroom facilities being unavailable on the day he arrived.
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[b]What do you think happened to the Somerton Man?
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