Sommerton Man: Found Dead on a Beach in 1948 - Will Science Solve the Great Mystery?

An unidentified man died alone on a beach in 1948, sparking imagination and screenplay.

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The children know the man whose portrait hangs over their door as Mr. S. or Mr. Sommerton.

But his real name remains a mystery here Over 70 years, when he was found dead on a beach in Australia. He was wearing a brown suit and a half-smoked cigarette had fallen on his lapel.

The children consider themselves distant relatives, but could simply be a stranger whose story once fascinated their father for over a decade.

Derek Abbott, a professor at the University of Adelaide, first heard about Sommerton's Man in 1995. exhumation of the body in order to be examined by experts and through his DNA to determine his identity.

The exhumation finally took place last month, in the city cemetery, where the mysterious dead man was buried in 1949. His tombstone read: "the unknown man".

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A painting of Sommerton's husband by local artist Greg O'Leary hangs in the family's children's room.CNNi

A little closer to his grave, South Australian Police Chief Des Bray told reporters that his exhumation meant much more than just closing the case of one of Australia's most mysterious cases. Among them is Abbott's wife. , Rachel Egan, whom the teacher met when he sent her a letter explaining why she thought she might be the man's granddaughter.

After just one dinner, during which death and DNA monopolized the discussion, the couple decided to get married. Today they have three children, an 8-year-old girl and two six-year-old twins. The whole family is looking forward to learning the true identity of Mr. S.

The man was found lying on his back in the sand, with his head and shoulders resting on a breakwater at Sommerton Beach, southwest of Adelaide, on 1η December 1948.

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Derek Abbott and Rachel Egan met during the first search for the unknown man.

He was impeccably dressed polished shoes and it seemed completely out of place on a beach when the first walkers started their day with a walk.

He was found by two trained riders, but many also told police they had seen someone with a similar description lying there the night before. One of them said he saw him shake his hand, so he did not think to call the police.

The examination of the corpse gave birth to more questions rather than gave answers. There were no signs of violence, almost all the labels on the clothes were cut off and he did not have an ID.

Η autopsy he could not determine the cause of death, but three witness doctors testified that he was not a physicist. Detectives said he may have taken a poison so rare that it could kill quickly and then disappear without a trace. However, no poison was found in his body.

Government chemical analyst Robert Cowan, who examined the samples from the pile, considers the immediate cause of death to be heart attack. "But I can not say what caused it."

Sommerton's husband was fit, about 40 to 50 years old, and was 1,80 tall with gray-blue eyes and brown hair with gray temples. Physician John Cleland noted: "His were clean."

He even analyzed the shape of his foot, with some speculating that he may have been a dancer. Still others thought he was involved in the illicit trade, was a sailor, or even a spy. As to its origin, some considered him to look European, especially British. His hair was combed backwards, without parting.

He may have looked like a Briton, but his coat was typically American, according to a tailor who was asked to examine the garment. "Either he went to America or he bought the clothes from someone who had gone there. "These clothes are not imported."

The story of the "unknown man" made headlines in Australia and New Zealand. His fingerprints and photograph were sent all over the world, such as England, the USA and the English-speaking countries of Africa.

A 1949 letter, signed by the FBI Director John Edgar Hoover, confirms that his fingerprints were not matched in the files of the American service.

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Expert Daniel Voshart made a visual representation of the mysterious man.CNNi

Meanwhile, several people showed up to claim the body, but all the stories fell apart. For example, a man claimed to be a pipe smoker named "McLean", but police said his hands were too much. gently to belong to a worker and in addition there was no evidence that he had ever smoked a pipe.

The corpse was embalmed to give the police more time to recognize him and a plaster helmet - or death mask- made from his face, as a natural reminder of who he was.

Without further details, the inspectors decided to allow his burial in June 1949. Prior to the burial of Sommerton's husband, various facts had emerged - all of which, however, had led to a dead end.

For example, some Tickets found on him led to the conclusion that the day before he died he had taken the train to Adelaide Railway Station from an unknown location, before handing a suitcase to the station's luggage compartment.

He also bought a train ticket to Henley Beach, near Somerton Beach, but never used it. Instead he arrived at the beach by bus. Police found his suitcase at the station, containing the same characteristic orange thread that had been used to repair his trousers. He did not reveal his name in the suitcase then.

Then, in April, came the Revelation.

Cleland, the physician, re-examined his clothes and found a hidden pocket containing a wrapped piece of paper printed with the words Tamam Shud, which means "the end" or "finished" in Persian.

These are the last words of the poem The Rubaiyat of 11th-century Iranian scholar Omar Qayam, and were torn from a book that was later handed over to police.

An unnamed man said he found it thrown in his car on November 30, a day before Sommerton's death. He had no other information to give to the police.

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The sequence of letters was impossible to decipher.CNNi

Detective Leonard Brown analyzes: "The poem itself simply means that we know what this world has to offer us, but we do not know what the other world has to offer, and while we are on this earth we must enjoy life to the fullest and when the time comes. to move forward, to move forward without any remorse. "According to Cleland, the words supported his conclusion that the man had taken poison" with suicidal intent ". So far, the book is the strongest evidence of the man's identity. contained two important elements. The first was a telephone number written on the back of the book. It belonged to a woman who lived in a suburb near Adelaide, Glenelg. According to reports, when the woman saw the dummy of the man's face, she was terrified, but denied that she knew him. Next to the phone number was a misspelled code which, decades later, attracted the interest of Abbott, who set it as a puzzle. engineering students in 2009. They speculated that it might be a secret war code, reinforcing the scenario that Sommerton's husband was a spy. However, their investigation led nowhere. Analyzing the letters, they decided that the code did not meet the requirements of a war message. The first letters of some English were more likely, for example some places the man had visited or horses he had bet on, says Abbott. Drawing a gap in the code, the teacher and police located the phone number and looked for the woman in which once belonged. But Joe Thompson was also dead. Abbott then looked for her son, Robin Thompson, a dancer. When he learned that he too had died, he looked for a relative. He found the Thomson's daughter, Rachel Egan, his current wife.

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Unable to identify the man, police made a "death mask" from his face.

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Adopted at an early age, Egan was unaware of her possible connection to Sommerton's husband. One of Abbott's theories is that Sommerton's husband is Robin's father, but his mother told police she did not recognize him because In the meantime he had met someone else and did not want to complicate matters. DNA tests performed to compare Egan's genetic material with that of the hairs trapped in the plaster of the unknown man's the test, Egan thought the two might be related. Now, she is not very sure. Mr. S.'s DNA remains are now in an Adelaide laboratory with experts looking for the most efficient way to analyze them. The process is complicated due to the long time they have left on the ground and the suffering they have suffered.

The first time DNA analysis was used to elucidate a crime was in United Kingdom in the 1980s, about 30 years after the death of Sommerton's husband, and since then technology has evolved significantly.

"We've gone from requiring a fairly large amount of biological material, a fairly large amount, to being able to have a result from a quantity of DNA that you can't even see with the naked eye," says Lindsay Wilson-Wilde. the director of the laboratory where Mr. S.'s DNA remains are located. DNA. Australia alone has three DNA law enforcement databases, one of which, that of the National Crime Investigation, contains over 1,2 million DNA profiles. Last year, the Australian Federal Police launched the National Unknown and Missing Persons DNA Program to try to identify about 500 unknown bodies.

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Joe Thompson and her son Robin, Rachel Egan's father, in a 1948 photograph.CNNi

If Sommerton's husband's DNA matches, then the authorities will try to look for relatives alive.

This process however can take from a few months to two years.

Abbott and his wife do not believe that DNA will reveal that Mr. S. was a sailor, spy, or any of the other imaginative theories surrounding his identity. This explains several things, for example, why no one showed up to recognize him, "says Abbott, who estimates that the clothes may have been second-hand, which is why the labels were cut, as people then tended to write the names. Egan has already decided to move the board from the playroom to Abbott's office, where it will remain as a reminder of the mystery that united them. She does not have to look at them every day.

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The children of Derek Abbott and Rachel Egan call Somerton's husband Mr. S. or Mr. SommertonCNNi

Scientists may soon find that he has no biological connection to the family. The family has also discussed the possibility of science revealing something they do not want to know. However, he says, this would give them a new mystery to solve. "Back in 1948, times were very different." , says Egan. "So, if he is involved in a war crime, or something else horrible, maybe we can unfold the causes and try to understand why he did what he did."

The Somerton man died alone on a beach in 1948. Now Australian scientists are close to solving the mystery, by Hilary Whiteman, CNN