Identity of Somerton Man, an Adelaide mystery from 1948, revealed in 2022 but side aspects unsolved

The body of Somerton Man, found on the Adelaide beach on December 1, 1948, was identified in 2022.
Image courtey Australian Story, Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Somerton Man, the source of one of Australia's biggest mysteries, was identified in 2022 through an international DNA tracking project as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer born in Melbourne in 1905. But other aspects around his death remained to be solved.

Previously, nothing is known about the man found dead, slumped against a seawall, on Adelaide’s Somerton Beach on December 1, 1948. The coronial cause of death was unnatural causes, probably from an unknown poison.

He was well-built, clean shaven and dressed in a suit and tie. The Somerton Man's suitcase was found with several references to the name Keane.

Nothing identified him but a phone number and words from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, an 11th century book of Persian poems, are the clues that kept code breakers, theorists and investigators busy.  A tightly-rolled piece of paper, torn from a page of the Rubáiyát, with the words “Tamam Shud” (meaning “the end” or “finished”) were found in a secret pocket in the waistband of Somerton Man’s pants.

A Somerton chemist found a copy of the Rubáiyát book thrown through the open window of his car parked outside his home, on the night of November 30, 1948. When the book’s back page of the book was treated with iodine during a coronial inquest, five lines of code appeared.

The code remains unbroken but it set off deeper theories such as those of Gordon Cramer, a former British detective with links to former intelligence officers, who believed micro writing hidden within the letters of the five lines of code appeared to refer to the de Havilland Venom — a British post-war jet, still on the drawing board at the time.

He saw Somerton Man’s death coinciding with the start of the Cold War and, according to Mr Cramer, the visit to Adelaide of high-ranking British officials and weapons trials at Woomera — the later site of nuclear testing.

The other clue found in the Rubáiyát book was the unlisted phone number of nurse Jessica Thomson, who lived in Moseley Street, Somerton Park, five minutes’ walk from where Somerton Man was found.

Thomson identified the body as Alf Boxall, to whom she said she had given a copy of the Rubáiyát. But Boxall came forward, with his copy of the Rubáiyát intact.

But the family of Jessica Thomson, who died in 2007, told the 60 Minutes programme in 2013 that she may have been a Russian Soviet spy who had a son with Somerton Man, also a Soviet spy and double agent. They also believe Jessica Thomson played a part in his murder.

Jessica Thomson also had a son, Robin, to another man. Robin’s wife Roma Egan and their daughter, Rachel, claimed Robin was the son of the Somerton Man and Jessica Thomson.

They backed bids by Adelaide University physicist and Somerton Man expert professor Derek Abbott to exhume the Somerton Man's body from his West Terrace Cemetery grave to make a DNA check. South Australian police announced they would exhume the body in 2021 to apply the latest in DNA technology.

Abbott met and married Robin’s daughter Rachel while investigating the mystery. They have children who were potentially the Somerton Man's great grandchildren but this was discounted by the 2022 identity reveal.