Police photographed The Somerton Man
straight after people found the body on the beach.
straight after people found the body on the beach.
Slumped against a wall on Somerton Beach Adelaide, on 1st Dec 1948, was a man’s body. On the shiny stretch of sand, surf and sun, his hair was fair and his eyes grey. He was in a brown suit, with a clean-shaven face and seemed to be c40. He had a cigarette on his lapel and his legs were crossed.
Newspaper articles appeared on the front page.
ABC News showed the identity and cause of death of the “Somerton Man” remained a mystery ever since 1948. Was he a Cold War Russian spy? Perhaps he killed himself when told he could not see his lover and baby son?
Two young jockeys were riding horses along the beach. They saw the man, but continued along for a couple of ks south towards Brighton. When they came back he was still in the same place, clearly dead. A third man, on the beach at the same time, contacted police.
Post-WW2 it was not uncommon for police to find bodies on the beach. But there was something that differentiated this death from other deaths eg by suicide or alcohol. The man had not washed ashore and his clothes, all of which had their labels removed, were dry. All they found were combs, cigarettes and matches, used bus ticket to the area, an unused train ticket and chewing gum.
A post-mortem discovered the “Unknown Man”/Somerton Man had a badly enlarged spleen and internal bleeding in the stomach and liver. Since the coroner found no indication of violence, he was compelled to find that death probably resulted from poison.
In Jan 1949 a suitcase holding lots of ordinary domestic items was found in Adelaide Railway Station's cloakroom. The suitcase had been booked in the day before Somerton Man’s body was discovered, and police suspected it was his. In it were clothes and a waxed thread not sold in Australia, the same kind used to repair the unidentified man’s trousers. "Keane" and "Kean" were the only words found on items in a suitcase; all the other clothes had their tags removed.
Intriguing evidence was found 4 months after the death. A pathologist re-examining the body found a slip of paper in the man’s pocket, saying Tamam Shud. These words, torn from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam poetry book, were translated from Persian as “it is finished”.
![]()
Police found a suitcase in Adelaide Railway Station's cloakroom, Jan 1949
![]()
A slip of paper in the dead man’s pocket, saying Tamam Shud
Then the book revealed other clues: a sequence of letters, believed to be a code, and two telephone numbers. One phone number belonged to a nurse called Jessie Thomson and she too lived close to where the Somerton’s Man’s body was found! When she spoke to police in July 1949, she told them she HAD owned the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book, but denied knowing the Somerton Man. The police showed her a plaster bust of Somerton Man, but never revealed why she behaved strangely when she saw it.
The original coronial inquest left the case unsolved. SA Attorney-General recently approved an exhumation order because the case still generated intense public interest, and today’s available technology is WAY ahead of the techniques available back in 1948. Now (in May 2021) police are exhuming the Somerton Man from his grave in the Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery. Under the combined expertise of SA Police and Forensic Science S.A, this exhumation might develop a DNA profile and solve the VERY cold case. But even if the DNA is in perfect condition, who will it be compared to?
![]()
The tomb of The Unknown Man,In Jan 1949 a suitcase holding lots of ordinary domestic items was found in Adelaide Railway Station's cloakroom. The suitcase had been booked in the day before Somerton Man’s body was discovered, and police suspected it was his. In it were clothes and a waxed thread not sold in Australia, the same kind used to repair the unidentified man’s trousers. "Keane" and "Kean" were the only words found on items in a suitcase; all the other clothes had their tags removed.
Intriguing evidence was found 4 months after the death. A pathologist re-examining the body found a slip of paper in the man’s pocket, saying Tamam Shud. These words, torn from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam poetry book, were translated from Persian as “it is finished”.
Was it placed by the Somerton Man, the day before he died?
Shortly after the first Coronial Inquest concluded, police appealed to the public to find the book with the missing Persian words. Coming forward was the chemist John Freeman, who lived near where Somerton Man was found. His brother-in-law had been reading the poetry and when they drove to their destination, the book went into the glovebox. Mr Freeman went out to his car and pulled out the book. And, on the last page, where the Tamam Shud would have been, the words were missing. He contacted his brother-in-law who denied knowing about the book.
Then the book revealed other clues: a sequence of letters, believed to be a code, and two telephone numbers. One phone number belonged to a nurse called Jessie Thomson and she too lived close to where the Somerton’s Man’s body was found! When she spoke to police in July 1949, she told them she HAD owned the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book, but denied knowing the Somerton Man. The police showed her a plaster bust of Somerton Man, but never revealed why she behaved strangely when she saw it.
The original coronial inquest left the case unsolved. SA Attorney-General recently approved an exhumation order because the case still generated intense public interest, and today’s available technology is WAY ahead of the techniques available back in 1948. Now (in May 2021) police are exhuming the Somerton Man from his grave in the Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery. Under the combined expertise of SA Police and Forensic Science S.A, this exhumation might develop a DNA profile and solve the VERY cold case. But even if the DNA is in perfect condition, who will it be compared to?
West Terrace Cemetery Adelaide
Adelaide Uni researcher Prof. Derek Abbott warned about the prospects of an identification. He noted that finding a match would be difficult, given that Somerton Man had been embalmed in formaldehyde to preserve his body. And because researchers may need up to 800,000 DNA markers.
SA Police opened their inquiry with the Major Crime Investigation Branch. Genetic testing on Somerton Man’s hair revealed only that the man’s mother had European ancestry. Jessie Thomson died in 2007, six years before her link to the investigation was made public. Rumours whirled that her son, ballet dancer Robin Thomson (died 2009), was the biological son of the Unknown Man. In 2013, Jessie’s daughter said her mother knew the identity of Somerton Man but wouldn’t say anything.
Now that 1] the exhumation has been achieved and now that 2] the key players are dead, the truth may be revealed.