I’ve just had a nice email from Derek Abbott, who tells me that even though the recent documentary’s producer Wayne Groom was – for a long time – convinced that Ronald Francis was Dr Donald Buxton Hendrickson of 13 Pier-street etc etc, he is now no longer sure. Did someone come forward with a name? I now don’t know. Whatever happened to have been said or claimed at the Glenelg screening of the film, everyone involved now appears to be back-pedalling all the way off the end of Glenelg Pier. Which normally ends badly.
To be precise, the Hendrickson name first came up in 2011 when an online researcher (who had been working his way through a list of nearby doctors) ran it past Derek Abbott. Of course, because Dr Hendrickson died in 1979, Derek dismissed it as being incompatible with Gerry Feltus’s account: but as with all mildly-encrypted historical stories, there’s still plenty of room for substitution and adjustment, so who knows?
So now it looks like we may have had a false alarm here. Not sure. Really don’t know. Just thought I’d let you all know.
It seems we have been disseminating fake news for a wasted week, whence and by whom, we need not bother with, the patrolling down Pier Street to Seawall and back, was harmless enough; So now its off to Jetty Road (or Street) and on with the motley. Which reminds me; will somebody tell the Amigo crew that we’ve got a hot tip on a certain Franciscan chemist, doctor, dentist, businessman or SOVIET SPY suspect at (figures) 118.
Sooo….just to clarify, did the Hendrickson stuff come from the source that theDude wsa alluding to shortly after the doco, or have we somehow jumped the gun with old news and we’re still awaiting a story that end?
(@NP: Don’t suppose there’s a way the recent comment widget can be expanded (I realise it’s probably a 3rd party wordpress plugin that may not have much configurability). I don’t mean to take up more space ont he page, but it would be kinda nice if we could click on the header for ‘recent comments’ and get a slightly longer list (or something similar). Another idea might be to display the most recent comment from the 10 most recently modified threads, rather than 8 updates for the same thread, and 2 other lucky ones that sneak in. I do understand your hands are somewhat tied by the functionality provided in the plugin, but it never hurts to ask …).
Milongal: I have honestly no idea, and I’m not really sure anyone should believe any of the stories now floating in the ether. Is this the start of the final chapter or a resurgence of Tamam Trolls? Your guess is probably better than mine, sorry. 🙁
ohn, a possible person of interest worked (and lived?) at 118 Jetty road in 1948.
Frank L (Franis Lawrie) Smerdon, dental surgeon. Advertised June and July 1948. Surgery situated at 118 Jetty Road, Glenelg. Phone number X1809. See the Advertiser: 11th June 1948, 23rd July 1948, 10th September 1948 and 15th July 1949. From memory Misca and others researched the Smerdons three or four years ago. Family from Port Pirie from memory.
Francis Lawrie Smerdon b 7th October 1903 at Port Pirie, South Australia. Died 14th August 1988 South Australia. Wife: Kathleen Martha nee Hooper married 17th September 1932 at Glenelg.
Child: Celine Mary Smerdon born 30th November 1935 at Glenelg, died 31st July 1957 at Stirling, South Australia.
According to Stuart Littlemore’s interview notes, DS Leane was brought onboard the investigation about December 22, 1948 when he was assigned to find out the meaning of the words Tamam Shud.
According to GF’s the Unknown Man, Detective Brown was asked to find the meaning of the words Tamam Shud in June 1949.
Nick: When Hendrickson broke, we had posts that were misinformative and strangly repetitive, seemingly from one generally reliable source and one other that posed a series of baited Q & A’s on a linked thread. It all seemed rather too obvious a ruse to me, seeing that most chat on the new subject was moving nicely along, pretty pictures and all on the so called Hendrickson initiating site. One mostly well known for its sensationalism and unabashed factual inaccuracies, moreso of late, which is likely a precurser to similar scams.
Gordon: It took you three days to pull that Sec.79 1914 CCA stunt out of blue; Nothing even close to your specifying on an ‘Official Secrets Act’, nor one that would, in any case, require an officer of a state police force to put his good name to. Strangely enough the act itself was still being used in my day and I most certainly was cognisant of its implied provisions, non compliance penalties and effects. I was authorised to enforce it during my time ‘a serving of Her majesty the Queen’ in many a far flung part of Her empire. As usual your initial predictable self serving sermon to Milongal re Feltus signing of the non existant act, was a blind man’s bluff that you did not expect to come back and bite you. Try to have a good day yourself old cock; I won’t hold my breath waiting for your usual no fault withdrawal comment.
As a break from the BS inspired false lead on the Ron Francis hoax, may I suggest a surprisingly similar floater, as yet unidentified just a short run up the coast. On 20/3/39 police attended to a call out by local citizens to a body found floating in Port River. There they retrieved the badly decomposed remains of a fully clothed male from the estuary. With gingerish hair and fair skin, the attending, experienced physician, decided that the body had been immersed for at least seven days, though more likely ten, with it’s face subject to the effects sea life intrusion which would not assist with identification. The Snashall family came forward, though not without some reservations, to claim it as being lilely that of their teenaged son Ron (true). They had made their identification based on a scar, along with clothing only, but there was a big problem that could not be accounted for and so the coroner called it. Young Ron had been seen riding his bike (never recovered) by friends on a Friday evening, with the body being found less than three days later on Monday morning?…Anyhow you can follow it on trove as you wish, my memory, based on the newspaper stories being a little dated. As I recall, whilst the mystery went unresolved, the body was eventually released to the family for their disposal.
PC Moss swore under oath he didn’t find the Tamam Shud slip on the body. Detective Sergeant Leane swore under oath somebody else did.
Reason that I picked up on the Snashall case quite a good while back, was that our very own PCC Sutherland was first on the scene and later also assisting the coroner. Something strange about brother Howard, who spent time in gaol and died in ‘the Alice’, having a similar scar on the right thigh from memory. I’m pretty sure that young Ron’s family were part Aboriginal and a little uncertain of their own blood ties.
PC Moss swore under oath he didn’t find a box of Bryant and May matches on the body. Detective Segeant Leane swore under oath somebody else did.
Bowes really is out to flood the market with a heap of tired inaccurate disclosures made under the cover of a lawyer’s suggestive question/answer techniques, that would never be tolerated in a courtroom sitting. The target was an aged man with obvious failing faculties, who had not long to live and whose memory of events, three decades earlier was also excusably defective. What brash Pete’s agenda is, one never knows for sure, though we could anticipate a baited snide prompt, for effect; Followed by the totally predictable and pre drafted, insulting diatribe, aimed at who ever might dare to offer an intelligent, well meaning reply. That about right chump?…Go ahead and blow; we know it’s coming..
The body was of a well-developed man about mid-forty, broad shouldered with highly developed calves. Testing on hair particles found on his bust showed heavy metal traces. His feet were triangulated at the toes, wedge shaped. He had large, clean hands, tended fingernails, good clothes, unused international letter-cards in his suitcase. An American cigarette lighter in his pocket. An American coat on his back.
Male ballet dancers tend to be broad shouldered with highly developed calves. Ballet dancers are known to have heavy metal traces in their hair as a result of the make-up compounds they were known to use.
Ballet dancers are known to have ‘wedge-shaped feet.’
Members of The Ballet Russes Company were photographed on Bungan Beach (Sydney) in the late thirties, dancing in the sand. Some of the men in underwear and wearing shirts.
One of them went missing in 1939.
Just saying.
BYRON: Yes you were right on your dates, 2014/5. Some pretty heavy work was certainly put in by quite a number of folks including both Derick and yourself. I read up on all of that and I put Frank and his sons right on the bottom of my Francis suspect list, based of course on the old adage “If it….etc.” From the top of Jetty Road, around 118 down to about 23 to 25, turns out to be a trail of bitter tears for our inquirers and only some one with a death wish, would be keane enough to turn over that old rockpile again. Frankly it is no longer important one way or another from where I stand, being satisfied with my own reasoning behind the ROK and modest efforts to identify SM at some point . Thanks for your kind thoughts which are always appreciated.
DS Leane was an active Detective Segeant when he made his sworn statements
…but was he sober when he swore?…
@JS: LOL!
Incidentally I was going to have a rant re the Sermon, but decided that I hadn’t made any suggestion that questioned or challenged anyone’s integrity, honesty or work (in fact I think most of what the sermon was in response to had nothing to do with recent investigators, and merely offered a suggestion as to how the facts COULD have been misinterpreted – although I’ll admit I’m never certain what some remarks are in response to). I’m gradually learning not to fight by throwing barbs accross blogs for the hell of it (oops, gradually), and I learnt a long, long time ago that any opinion that doesn’t agree with the blogger on some other sites is either surpressed, ridiculed or shot down as an impossibility. Plus I tend to fall asleep during sermons…
(I was a little amused (or bemused?) at how ‘mutual respect’ (not necessarily my words) turned to ‘Eeyore’ about the same time Socrates was preaching)
Remind me again why the ‘Chemist/Doctor/whatever’ has to be a local? Is this just taking the literature at it’s most literal? Wouldn’t ‘A local businessman’ just as easily refer to someone local to the broader metropolitan area as someone specifically from Glenelg?
If local is more literal, then local to where? Jetty Rd where the Rubaiyat was found, or Bickford Tce where the body was found?
milongal: well, here’s the (first) definitive word on this local chemist for nearly 70 years…
http://ciphermysteries.com/2018/10/08/at-last-take-2-ronald-francis-was-chemist-john-freeman-of-24a-jetty-road-glenelg