On December 2, 1948, the Australian newspaper Advertiser published a short note: “Yesterday morning, a human body was found on Somerton Beach next to a boarding school for disabled children. The alleged deceased is Mr. Johnson, 45 years old, who lives in Arthur Street, Payneham."
It would seem that the discovery of the deceased is an ordinary event in the police crime reports. But it so happened that the criminal case of the "Somerton man" turned into a "capercaillie", moreover, stuffed with solid riddles.
Corpse on the beach
The very next day after the publication, an angry Mr. Jones appeared at the police station and, shaking his driver's license, began to prove that he was more alive than dead. They readily believed him, especially since the detectives had only a description of the corpse's appearance at their disposal, and he did not have any documents to establish his identity.
So, on the beach, a corpse of a man of 40-45 years old, of European appearance, 180 centimeters in height was found. Brown eyes, reddish hair with gray at the temples. There are no special signs on the clean-shaven face.
The toes with developed calf muscles formed a wedge shape, which testified to the love of the deceased for the sharp-toed shoes, which he was wearing at the time of death.
Promotional video:
He was dressed quite exquisitely: a white shirt with a red and blue tie, brown trousers, a double-breasted jacket. But there was no hat, which at that time was an obligatory part of the attire for honorable gentlemen.
And here's another curious detail - all the labels on the clothes were carefully cut off. In their pockets, they found an unused ticket for a commuter train ride from Adelaide railway station to Henley Beach station, located 10 kilometers from the city, as well as a validated bus ticket to a stop in Gpenelga, a suburb of Adelaide. Besides, there was a half-empty pack of chewing gum, an started pack of cigarettes and a box of matches.
Presumably, the man landed at a stop a kilometer from the place where his body was found. There were also witnesses, an elderly married couple, who performed an evening exercise along the embankment. Yes, about half-past seven they saw a man lying on the sand, jerking his arms and legs.
Such a scene was familiar to the area, in which bar-goers sipped their liquor, thus bringing themselves to life. Therefore, the couple decided not to call the police and continued their walk.
In general, the incident would have looked like a banal accident due to drinking, if not for several buts at once. The first appeared after a pathologist performed an autopsy of the body of the deceased.
Reason not established
Dr. Dwyer, having established that the death of the unknown occurred around two o'clock in the morning, further in the act of examining the remains stated: “The mucous membrane of the esophagus is covered with a shallow bloom of a whitish hue, with ulcerative inflammation approximately in the middle, inflammation of the duodenum and kidneys. Unnaturally enlarged spleen, signs of acute gastritis. The last food of the deceased was a pie, eaten three to four hours before death."
This was followed by the assumption of Aesculapius: "I am absolutely convinced that this man died an unnatural death, and barbiturates or a solution of sleeping pills could be used as a poison, but the cake was not a source of poison."
Another curious point is that there are no signs of cardiovascular disease. There is no reason for the cardiac arrest either. But then why didn't they do a blood test, which could reveal the presence of poison in the body? Or if it was done, why did the veteran professional Dr. Dwyer keep silent about the research results, getting away with only an unsubstantiated assumption?
Looking ahead, I note that half a century later, the Australian police, who decided to reopen the investigation of the case, sadly stated that Dr. Dwyer had already died, and all the materials of the criminal case had disappeared, including the autopsy report.
But for now, let's go back to those days. Then the detectives also faced a fiasco. No fingerprints of the "Somerton Dead" were found in any database. Requests to various states, as well as the publication of a posthumous photograph of a man in Australian newspapers, gave nothing.
However, the family of the woodcutter Robert Walsh contacted the police, who allegedly recognized their relative in the deceased. But when examining the embalmed body, the spouse did not identify her husband, citing the absence of scars on the body, as well as the inappropriate foot size.
Meanwhile, a new mysterious incident happened. On January 14, 1949, Adelaide Railway Station lockers found a suitcase that had expired during a check of the lockers.
In order to establish the identity of the owner, it was opened. Nothing special - the luggage of an ordinary traveler: dressing gown, slippers, a pair of underwear, shaving accessories, men's trousers, a tie.
But here's the curious thing - as in the case of the “Somertonian deceased,” all the labels from the clothes were cut off. However, there was only one clue: on the inside of the tie, the name and surname, most likely of the owner, were written with a chemical pencil. Keene.
The mystery seemed to be partially solved, since the sailor Thomas Keane was indeed listed in the police database as missing. But his friends, who were presented with a posthumous photograph of a corpse found on the beach for identification, unanimously declared that it was not Tom.
Further investigation of the case was entrusted to investigator Cleland, who expressed the following version. Since the shoes of the deceased were well cleaned, it can be assumed that he did not walk in dusty Adelaide and its suburbs, but died elsewhere, after which his body was transported to the beach.
But then what about the testimony of a married couple who saw exactly a man moving on the beach, and six hours before the officially established time of death?
With all the unknowns
Equation with all unknowns. This is how the situation around the investigation of the case could be called. The identity of the deceased, the cause of his death, and if we accept the version of the murder, then the motives remained unknown.
By the way, one more curious detail: for some reason, an important investigative measure is not mentioned in all police reports. Since "Mr. Nobody" could not fly to the beach on the wings, then most likely he got there by bus. So the driver and even more so the conductor could remember the passenger. If he arrived by taxi, is it quite possible that his image was imprinted in the driver's memory?
In the meantime, another mystery appeared in the case. The investigator decided to once again, more closely, examine the clothes of the deceased. And in a secret pocket of his trousers, he found a piece of paper, more precisely, a page from a book on which the mysterious phrase "Tamam Shud" was printed.
However, the philologists who were attracted as experts easily identified the literary identity of the find: the last page from Omar Khayyam's poetry collection Rubai.
Again, through the press, the police tried to find the owner of the book. And again it turned out that the detectives will finally be able to lift the veil of secrecy. The doctor who came to the police showed the collection without the last page and explained that he had found the book in the back seat of a car parked in Glenelg on the morning of November 30 last year. Who planted it, he has no idea.
Another oddity - on the inside of the back cover of the book, five words, consisting of a meaningless set of letters, were inscribed by hand, as well as a telephone number. The subscriber was quickly installed - the device was in the apartment of the nurse Jessica Powell, who lived again in Glenelg.
When talking to the police, the woman said that during the war she had met a certain Lieutenant Boxom and had really given her boyfriend the Rubai collection.
Major Boxom was not difficult to find either, but he produced a volume with the whole last page. And then the best cryptographers who tried to decipher the gibberish admitted their fiasco.
In general, the body of "Mr. Nobody", after removing the death mask from his face, was buried as an unknown. But to this day there are amateurs to penetrate the secret of the "Somertonian dead", putting forward various versions: from pretentiously arranged suicide to the elimination of a Soviet agent who penetrated the secret of the Woomer test site.
Sergey Uranov
