After more than 70 years, a researcher says he has ‘solved’ the mystery and that ‘Somerton Man’ was Carl Webb. He claims he was not a Russian agent, but an electrical engineer born in Melbourne
In 1948, the body of a well-dressed man was found on a beach in Australia, as “BBC News” writes. A half-smoked cigarette rested on his collar and in his pocket was a verse from a Persian poem, but investigators had no idea who it was. There were many theories, among which, that the person, who was named “Somerton Man”he was a spy.
After more than 70 years, a researcher says he has ‘solved’ the mystery and that ‘Somerton Man’ was Carl Webb. He claims he was not a Russian agent, but an electrical engineer born in Melbourne.
South Australian police have not confirmed the discovery but say they will comment shortly. Holidaymakers found the body lying on Adelaide’s Somerton Beach on December 1, 1948. The man was dressed in a suit and tie and appeared to be in his 40s or 50s. In his pocket were bus and train tickets, chewing gum, some matches, two combs and a pack of cigarettes. He had no wallet, no cash, no ID. The tags on his suit had been cut off and coroners suspected he had been poisoned.
However, there were other strange finds which troubled the authorities such as a suitcase, clothes with tags removed and incoherent writings believed to be code. He was also holding a torn piece of paper with the words ‘Tamam Shud’, meaning ‘finished’, printed in Farsi. The fingerprints of ‘Somerton Man’ were sent around the world, but no one could identify him. So he was buried in Adelaide Cemetery in 1949 with a tombstone that read: “Here lies the unknown man found on Somerton Beach”.
The remains of the mystery man were exhumed by police last year in an attempt to solve the case. However, a professor at the University of Adelaide had his own mission to “solve” the mystery. THE Derek Abbott was able to analyze the ‘Somerton Man’s’ DNA using hairs, preserved when authorities made a plaster cast of his face. He collaborated with the famous American criminologist, Colleen Fitzpatrick, which specializes in unsolved cases, to create a family tree using DNA. And out of 4000 names, the couple narrowed it down to one, Carl Webb. They then tracked down the man’s living relatives, using their DNA to confirm his identity.
According to the professor, Webb was born in 1905 in a suburb of Melbourne. He was the youngest of six siblings and married Dorothy Robertson, known as Doff Webb. That probably brought him to Adelaide, the professor said. “We have evidence that he had separated from his wife and that she had moved to South Australia. So, possibly, he had come to track her down“, the professor told ABC.
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