Gordon Cramer, responding to a comment about beards I left back in June on his Tamam Shud site, replied:-
“[…] I do wonder about the clean shaven image of him that was published originally, given his supposed movements he would have been without a shave for 18 hours or more before his departure yet no 5 o’clock shadow or stubble..”
The Somerton Man checked his suitcase (containing a razor and razor strop) into Adelaide Railway Station cloak room between 11.00am and noon (and he then bought a bus ticket sometime after 11:15am), while his time of death was estimated next morning as probably having been about 2am that same night: so to be precise, it seems likely that he wouldn’t have shaved for at least 15 hours.
All the same I do agree that Gordon has a point here: the Somerton Man’s perfectly clean-shaven appearance in the police photos doesn’t really square with the generally accepted timeline – 15 hours is too long to not get some kind of “5 o’clock shadow”.
Just to remind you, here’s what he looked like (once Jimmy Durham had managed to wrestle a shirt and tie onto the body):-
Timing discrepancies like this are problematic for all Tamam Shud theories, because they’re not really a matter of opinion: facial hair is controlled by physical rules, which aren’t normally bypassed. So what could explain the Somerton Man’s apparent clean-shaven-ness?
Never having grown a beard myself, I was surprised today to find out that facial hair doesn’t ‘just grow’ (i.e. continuously and mechanically): rather, it follows a set of growth rules. In a page on beard length in a beard-products-selling website, I discovered that human hair has three distinct phases: anagen, catagen, and telogen.
The anagen phase (for head hair) lasts anywhere from two to six years, and since this is the growth phase, we can say with confidence that no man’s beard can ever grow longer than it is at six years old. Now, a man’s genetics determines how long his beard’s growth phase is. […]
During the second phase (catagen), your hair stops growing. It embeds in your skin, and sort of sits there for a few months. During the final phase (telogen), a new hair starts growing in the follicle and pushes out the old hair, causing you to shed it.
The upshot for the Somerton Man, I think, is that if his facial hair didn’t obviously grow during the last 15+ hours of his life (and don’t take my word for it, click through above to the high-res images for yourself), it seems most likely to me that his facial hair – i.e. moustache and beard – wasn’t in the anagen (growth) phase, but was instead in the later catagen or telogen phases. That is, I believe this supports the idea that he had recently shaved off a long-standing (or do I mean “long-hanging”?) and therefore possibly quite substantial moustache and beard. (Hence the question: might one of the two combs in his suitcase have actually been a beard comb?)
Of course, the major alternatives to this scenario are (a) that he shaved again later in the day (problem: his razor was still in the suitcase), (b) someone else shaved him while alive (but in Glenelg?), or (c) someone else shaved him just after he had died (possible, but this does seem just a little bit unlikely – a dead guy is a dead guy, right?).
Personally, I’m running with the whole “luxurious beard” theory, but feel free to disagree. 🙂
The three phases for hair growth happen to individual hairs at various times, not to all hair at once. So while a portion of his hairs would not have been growing or were actively shedding, most would have been in the growth phase.
My beard only needs shaving once a week. I don’t get five o clock shadow
Jessie: can you stop posting here, Aunty? People will think you’re a troll. 🙂
I see you didn’t get the Trout Memo. John Symonds was not the first Romeo spy. What if there was a way to test if the Somerton man was a lover agent and cold war Super Hero?
xplor: perhaps proving what side he was on would be a better starting point. 😉
Rosebud: ah, but what proportion was that portion? Is there a forensic beard specialist in the house?
PS: the only forensic beard analysis I’ve seen to date was on Tycho Brahe’s beard – http://www.ips-planetarium.org/?page=a_jacobsen2001 – which wasn’t looking at the growth phases at all.
There’s a myth about hair growing after death but here is an interesting aspect:
So why do myths persist about stubble growing on dead men’s chins and fingernails lengthening? While such observations are false, they do have a biological basis. It is not that the fingernails are growing, but that the skin around them retracts as it becomes dehydrated, making them appear longer. When preparing a body, funeral directors will sometimes moisturise the fingertips to counteract this.
‘The skin on a dead man’s chin also dries out. As it does so it pulls back towards the skull, making stubble appear more prominent. Goosebumps caused by the contraction of the hair muscles can add to the effect.’
you’ll find a litle more on this story here:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130526-do-your-nails-grow-after-death
Not sure that it helps that much but it may.
Nick, regarding the timeline. Reviewing the various train arrivals times and a guess at the arrival of different buses from intra and interstate, my estimation was that he may have had a shave at around 9 a.m. before getting a breakfast and then dropping off his case if indeed he was the one that placed it there. There is no record of any staff from the cafeteria having been interviewed, Another point of interest is that the suitcase was left at the railway station for 5 days after first being seen by the Police.
Your scenario would have different timings I would agree.
Luckily, our hair follicles do not synchronize their growth phases.
If so, all our hair would fall out at the same time.
Normally 80-90% of the hair follicles are in anagen (growth) phase, while 1–2% are in catagen (regressive) and 10–20% in telogen (hairless, resting) phase. The distribution is more or less random which ensures that our hair density remains almost constant. In animals with distinctive summer and winter pelage or moulting birds, things of course look different, but to our case, those growth phases are irrelevant.
As Gordon correctly stated, hair and nails appear to grow after death as the body usually shrinks, but there might be exceptions in very wet conditions which cause the body to swell. Still I do not suppose that this matters a lot here.
Beard growth speed does vary from person to person due to genetic and hormonal reasons, so I do not dare to guess when he must have had his last shave. Almost certainly less than 24h I’d say and probably less than 12h but I am an Ecologist not a forensic expert. Someone skilled should be able to narrow the timeframe considerably.
I also guess it is highly unlikely that some sort of make-up could have been applied to make the corpse look more lifelike for the photo. He was dressed up but that surely would have gone too far.
Hi Nick, If the SM was already living in Adelaide then the train times go out of the window? What if he went to the station, had a shave, then a couple of hours later stowed his suitcase in the left luggage office and caught the bus outside the Strathmore? Is there a way of doctoring the photos of the SM to show a beard, I’m thinking of the photos before autopsy and after as in Gerry’s book.
He had old suntan marks on his legs, shave a beard off and you get the opposite
Wouldn’t he just have been shaved after death? Undertakers routinely shave facial hair when preparing a corpse for a funeral, embalming or whatever else (e.g. being dressed by a policeman and photographed after death for ID purposes).
SirHubert: as I understand it, the photos were taken very early on, long before any undertakers came close to the body. The account of Jimmy Durham wrestling a shirt on didn’t mention anything about shaving his facial hair.
Pete: that’s a good point. Maybe he had only a lightweight gingery beard, rather than a full-on pirate captain number?
Clive: these are all possible, but I was calculating the least amount of time it could have been. It might be fun to photoshop in a beard. 🙂
Nick: actually, according to the sworn deposition of PC Moss who first saw the body on the beach, he summoned an ambulance which took the body to Adelaide hospital where the man was pronounced dead and then taken to the City Morgue. From the 1949 Coroner’s statement which I’ve just looked through on Derek Abbott’s site.
SirHubert: thanks for that, I shall clearly have to check through the whole sequence and get everything completely locked down. 😐
Re: Rosebud: I’m not a forensic specialist, but from the numbers for the different phases, I would expect close to 90% would be in the anagen phase.
24-72 months anagen vs 3-4 (a few months) of catagen and maybe a month in telogen
arsantiqua: interesting figures, but based on what?
I don’t know if looking at growth studies in healthy men is the best idea, namely because he was apparently very ill. I also want to point out the heavy genetic variation of facial hair patterns in european men makes it harder for us to know the pattern and degree of stubble missing. That said, he could have stopped somewhere for a shave in the afternoon right? Failing all that we are left with him being shaved before being placed on the beach.
On another note can anyone find images of the items being given out at the hospital vs the luggage?
Plenty of images of the suitcase and contents but none from the Hospital thus far. Here’s a link to a magazine, Foy’s in house, it has a page devoted to Adelaide and charities. May give some further insights:
https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/21262/269396_UDS2010852-100.pdf?sequence=3
Nick – Can you please give us more info on the whole Reddit business with DA? What site to we go to if we want to participate and ask questions???
nickpelling: The numbers are based on what you provided:
“The anagen phase (for head hair) lasts anywhere from two to six years”. I.e 24-72 months.
“During the second phase (catagen), your hair stops growing. It embeds in your skin, and sort of sits there for a few months.” I gave that 2-3 months (a few) with one more month for the telogen portion based on my beard growth (that is, about how long it would take to push out an already dead hair. give it twice the time and we are still in the ballpark.)
I just realized that there is a differentiation between head hair (top of scalp) and beard as described in your link. I would still expect that some large percentage of hair would be in the anagen phase. Even 20% should give some evidence of beard growth.
T Anderson: You are right in terms of the variablility of growth. My numbers are based on the numbers from the website provided, and I suspect that, at best, they can only provide an average.
Sir Hubert, Not wishing to sound ghoulish but my recollections of post mortems and mortuary procedures was that the body was examined for any suspicious marks or signs of violence then the hair on the head was combed through and any dust etc was noted and saved, the same for shoes and socks. The body had clothing removed carefully taking care to note and save any unusual aspects or items during the process. The clothing was thoroughly searched contents etc noted and itemised.
The reporting officer took part in this process but we also had a Coroners officer who had control of the entire process. In the UK at that time if it was a suspicious death then there was a senior, experienced officer and SOCO who organised and carried out this process which was double checked by the surgeon. Photographs were sometimes taken during the process.
Of note in the SM case is that we don’t have images of the 1 inch boil like scar on the upper arm, the scar on the inside of the elbow, the 3 small scars on the inside of the left wrist and the scratches between the fingers of the left hand. One would think these images would have been kept by the Coroners Office. I have some images of the appearance of a small pox vaccination at various time intervals, it has a boil like appearance
The PM was carried out without the body being washed. After the PM the reporting officer and Coroners officer may well have washed the body but in some locations, a City Morgue for example, there was a mortuary attendant whose role it was to make the body ‘presentable’ for ID purposes and quite possibly that person may have shaved the subject. ready for an ID or, as you rightly suggested, for photographs.
Part of the process is continuity and so there would have been a notation by the attendant saying that he had the body identified to him by….. and that he then washed/shaved that body prior to the photographs being taken and that the photographs were of the person he had worked on.
I understand that when a death occurred that was suspected of being related to an intelligence or security matter, specialists were called in immediately that this was discovered with the process and investigation being handed over to those specialists.
It is noteworthy that all Police Officers are required to sign the Official Secrets Act and that the obligation remains in place even after service has been completed.
Hope this makes sense and apologies to all for any discomfort that may have been caused.
Why not suppose the man had very little facial hair and slow hair growth? This is my very case; I still shave, but not as frequently as other people do. I don’t see why he couldn’t have been anomalous in this regard.
But an extra beard comb would make a lot of sense, indeed.
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Gordon: Sometime during your described mortuary handling process, fingerprinting would also have been completed. Jim Durham said that he did this during the photo session on day 2, so that would have been post post mortem which is interesting. Constable Knight, the slab man would have needed to be on his guard against confusing your SM/2 with the very similarly proportioned Wolff Cohen. The big German alien Jew logged in at about the same time as the Sapol John Doe and ended up keeping that worthy company for ten days…PS You’ll be pleased to hear, I was eventually able to enhance the Durham prints sufficiently to do some cursory elimination comparisons.
Dorothy Dix: Pre loved auto salesman could be an educated guess, for Robin’s post ballet vocation, though I’ll fess up and say that I’m thinking that info may have come from the old Smithsonian site. Run by that clued up feller Mike Daish, who also gave us the doctored SM fingerprint card as I seem to recall.