According to a big story in today’s (24 Jan Apr 2021) Adelaide Advertiser (a huge thanks to all the people who passed it my way, very much appreciated!), an application by South Australian Police last month to exhume the Somerton Man has just been approved by Attorney-General Vickie Chapman. The plan is to extract a full DNA profile, use familial DNA matches to determine his identity, and to determine his exact cause of death.
SAPOL are funding the whole process, which will be run by its Major Crimes detectives “as part of Operation Persevere” (identifying human remains in SA) and “in tandem with Operation Persist” (cold cases in SA). The exhumation itself “will be conducted using Forensic Science SA (FSSA) scientific staff and the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority”, so doubtless we will be hearing more from FSSA director Dr Linzi Wilson-Wilde along the way.
Pros and Cons
OK: on the one hand, the whole familial DNA aspect of the Somerton Man case is fascinating, and there can be few people who wouldn’t be at least a little interested to know how it plays out. Perhaps investigators will also be able to conclusively determine both his cause of death and even (say, from his hair) much of what he was doing in his final weeks and months.
But on the other hand, even though the Somerton Man (almost certainly) died from a (probably ingested) poison, was he murdered, was it suicide, was it misadventure, or just an accident? We really don’t know: I can’t help but feel that past proposals for this exhumation have looked more like DNA fishing trips than anything else.
Either way, given that tens of documentary teams are doubtless already speaking to SAPOL (if they can manage to make themselves understood through all their pitching drool), we can probably expect this next phase to be well-documented and publicly visible.
All the same, even though some may think this whole enterprise will prove to be “Bloodlines Detectives” territory (please don’t say “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, *sigh*), I personally can’t help but suspect the overwhelming bulk of the work will prove to be closer to “Long Lost Family”. Put Davina and Nicky on a plane now, you know it makes sense. 😉
Not Yet An Endgame
Having spent several years looking at so many unclear, uncertain and occasionally paradoxical aspects of the evidence (and claims) swirling around the Somerton Man case, my strong suspicion is that this is not yet the endgame phase. Even if our mysterious man’s DNA does yield an identity (and of course it may well stubbornly hold on to its secrets for a while longer), it may well take a great amount of effort to reconstruct the man’s life.
People hate to admit it, but the nice neat records which genealogists rely so heavily upon are skewed towards the middle classes. For example, documentation about the early years of Jo Thomson (the nurse whose Glenelg phone number was connected to the Somerton Man) isn’t absent because she was a woman of mystery, but rather because she was born to a poor family.
To my eyes, the suitcase clothes linked to the Somerton Man seem like a charity shop ragtag bag, as if he was down on his uppers. Hence it would be utterly unsurprising to me if he had been living in hostels, picking up only occasional work, flying under every institutional radar: which, as far as genealogical evidence goes, would be roughly the worst case scenario for making any progress.
But however this all plays out, it’s an interesting new chapter in a long-running story. We’ll have to be patient while all the machinery turns, sure – but the cogs and gears are now moving.
Daniel Keane of ABC news posted a lengthy along usual lines story on history of the case and the related exhumation approval news of this morning VN time. We missed it due to an eight hour power down.
Is there anything significant in the wording that it was SAPOL’s request that was agreed to? Is that distinct from DA’s request? Does it suggest SAPOL have new evidence to warrant further investigation?
Nick, I have waited over 7 years for this to happen. It’s about damn time. Should have been done long ago. Any source for more info? Thank you.
Bumpkin: the Advertiser article is behind a paywall, but there’s a bit via ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-24/mysterious-somerton-man-to-be-exhumed-by-sa-police/100092750
Tamara Bunke: reading between the lines, I suspect SAPOL put this forward independently of Derek Abbott’s efforts; and that they were able to raise the cash by raiding the budgets of both Operation Persevere and Operation Persist.
I very much doubt they have any new information, but my guess would be that the Somerton Man mystery is an itch they’ve long wanted to scratch, and familial DNA might just be the matchstick to do it. 😉
“…And to determine his exact cause of death” – how is that possible decades since? Unless one was shot or stubbed which is clearly visible.
“SAPOL are funding the whole process” – the prospects look to me no brighter than when the Russian Investigative Committee re-opens the case of the Dyatlov Pass.
“(24 Jan 2021)” – typo here, should be April instead (I think).
Tamara,
SM was buried in a dry sandy soil locality in the cemetery with the intention that he would be exhumed some time in the future. In other words, SAPOL at the time half expected that SM would be exhumed. They must have had reasons.
I must say that this is all unquestionably the result of my constantly spamming every available internet site with the identity of Jestyn as one murdering bitch called Jessie Ellen Harkness. This Soviet whorenychka Jewess fucked her way around Australian intelligence (admittedly not an onerous task) with the gallon drum of Boxall’s sump oil she stole from his wife’s garage while he was off fighting for the Emperor-King. [Bla bla bla] dirty, stinking termagant [bla bla bla] by her tits [bla bla bla] pissed on [bla bla bla] patient zero [bla bla bla] AIDS epidemic [bla bla bla] Ghanaian baboons in 1946 at Taronga Zoo [bla bla bla].
[Edited by moderator, I think I left all the important stuff in]
Happy to be first onto ABC’s news of course. This morning early I was watching the new Covid era ‘pay to play Anzac Day’ gala event and thought I saw ex Sgt. Lawson on parade, if so he’d surely be one of the oldest digger in attendance. I’m sure he’ll be told of the SM dig and asked his thoughts on the chap who sat for him in ’48.
PS: Today’s AWM sponsored service including the popular Kamal Ataturk stiff upper lip message to grieving Anzac widows and mums of 1921, may not have been so popular with those attending similar centenary services elswhere for those millions of Armenians killed on his orders that very year. Wake up Australia!
Byron Deveson: my suspicion is that they suspected someone might well come forward to claim the body within a few years. Of course, that didn’t happen but… here we are in 2021.
Anton Alipov: I should perhaps have said physical cause of death. I’d agree that this may well prove impossible, but it would be a strange modern exhumation that didn’t even attempt to do this, given the uncertainty in the original autopsies and inquests.
Though SAPOL are funding the exhumation, the actual DNA extraction will be done by FSSA, a body that reports directly to the Attorney-General. So I’m optimistic that at least this part of the whole process will work out better than the 17th Dyatlov Pass Investigative Committee. 😉
Typo fixed, thanks! 🙂
Menstral Janet: We meet at long Iast. I always thought you might have been a Thomson, as in Jessie MuirThomson nee Mcfarlane’s daugthter whose father George died about the time of Janet’s birth. I’m probably wrong but nice to have you back on board and still puting dirt on mum’s neighborhood near namesake.
Interested to get the name of GC’s Anzac Day floral arrangement which I’ve never seen displayed before. It’s certainly not a Flanders Field 11/11/1918 armistice day red poppy, nor the blue Dardenelles rosemary bloom which has connections to WW1’s 1915 Gallipoli debacle. The shape does however resemble a forget-me-not associated with the Armenian genocide commemorations which were actually held yesterday of which Joe Biden commented on. There being no text with the post apart from the inset 106 number, I’m obviously missing some coded message.
I’ll hazard a guess that he was once in the cavalry, was an emigre to America and took part in WWII as an American, but had declined to return with his unit from Australia when the war ended. I’d also suggest he’d been one of the deserters registered by an American carrier when it left Australia.
I wouldn’t bet my shirt, but perhaps a euro or two.
D.N. O’Donovan: Not the first time you’ve put the above notion out, under D.N. by-line and W-O-W, though you’ve never given reasons or responded to questions as to why we should entertain such an off beat SM type set. Some time back I took the challenge and set out to track down your rough riding, seafaring Yankee with possible emigre antecedants. I actually had some luck in tracking down such a fellow who claimed US Navy service in the war and was on the retired list. He hit the S.A. scene in mid ’48 having arrived from Singapore, signed up with Port Pirie Yatch Sqn., got into the S.A. polo club social rounds and had himself a fine old time, whilst touting his US naval attache credentials. But nothing so good lasts forever and booze became his eventual downfall, with a high range drunken driving charge landing him a hefty fine & loss of licence in February 1949…That’s of course when I put the SM numbers together and was found wanting, coming to the realisation that your TF 38 deserter theory wouldn’t fit my man’s date line. …I’m happy to lay off for a Euro or two with you though we both seem to be a horse short for the West Terrace cup.
Over the way at Big Tooty we find Redacted back on the hustings for HMV, now suggesting that poor (but not out of pocket) Derek Abbott is in for disappointment re SM matching genes with Robin Thomson. So say I for all that, adding if I may be so direct, the lengths some fellas will go for a piece of fluff. Y’man has also put in a bit on Tibor Kaldor, suggesting that if SM is exhumed, than the fake Tibor Kaldor also merits his own day in the sun, just to confirm what HMV has hinted at quite confidently in past ramblings regarding the West Terrace body switch scenario. I just checked on interment details, which informs that Tibor is in a shared plot at the Terrace and that his time ran out in 1999; so the chap above might have words to say on being disturbed.
john sanders: I think I’ll leave body-swaps to late night movies on cable channels, if that’s ok with you.
Depends on how well SM was preserved, but I’m thinking that if upon examination the remains in question turn out to be relatively intact, height difference might dispell doubts about his having been switched with Tibor. One other thing that comes to mind, though once again it would depend on preservation technique, is that if the plumbing is shown to be intact to accord with autopsy confirmation, than Mr.Kaldor’s would fall short by the skin of his sheath.
it’s an interesting development, but I can’t help but think it will cause more mystery than it solves. Middle class skews aside, I can see it raising questions like “Oh it’s him, WTF was he doing in Australia?”. And of course the heavy conspiracy theorists won’t believe any conclusions an exhumation might reach. I would’ve thought the fact SAPol is pushing for it would be a bit of a thorn for most conspiracies (even if we believe “this was high level….even higher than the police”, you would think that being the case SAPol would’ve somewhere along the way have been told at some level “leave this one be”)….
But we could be proved wrong.
2c
milongal: once the forensic genealogists etc have figured out a family tree and (hopefully) a name, a lot of stuff will surely bubble up to the surface quickly. At that point, could SAPOL even be able to keep a lid on it all, even if they wanted to? Personally, I somewhat doubt it, but we’ll see. The FSSA people seem to be optimistic that they’ll get to work before too long, so might that be the sound of a mini-digger I hear in the distance?
….Seventy two years is indeed a decent enough interval so as not to be caught out by any stuff (literally) bubbling to the surface. For anyone having experience in the body snatching game, one must really be prepared for a shock, even after a score or more years under the sod. There’s nothing compares with the the odor of well aged human remains be they well mouldered or still in the process, though each to their own preference of course. Particularly hard on the sinuses and sickening is when one what’s been buried in a nylon body bag and upon being raised to the surface, said bag breaks open, spilling poor copus delecti’s mortal remains thus emitting it’s foulness for all to inhale and bide for when their turn to offend comes around.
I guess Ms. Chapman would be feeling pretty nonchalant, confident and even smug about giving Derek Abbott an affirmative uplifting decision. By confident, I mean that she seems not to be in the same quandry as the preceeding A.G. who couldn’t move during his term of office for fear that the Rau – Keane link in his own antecedants might prove embarrassing. In checking Vickie’s Kingscote baciground there’s narry a Keane or a Mikkelsen to be seen, nothing remotely Irish or German which can’t be said for poor John Rau. All she needs is to insure is that when the big day comes, Des Bray and his SAFCOL volunteers are given proper directions on where to go and what they might be likely to find ie., A ‘Foo was here’ plaque two feet down.
Suspicious types have been lingering in the vicinity of SM’s plot lately, some even placing floral tributes on long abandoned grave stones (see 9 TV) bearing faded names like Keane in it’s many forms and those well tendered such as that of Mira Divina the American ballerina from 1936. Unconfirmed sources say a suspicious geek with snow white unruly locks, flowing white beard and a red maple leaf badge on his lapel was ejected much to the old codger’s chagrin. He had come under the guise of an official card carrying AfIO office bearer, assigned to protect and defend the ‘Unknown Man’ grave from possible desecration by GRU illegals. However the presence of probe tynes from a bulging electronic scientific device protruding from beneath a spotless scientist’s dust coat could not fool security. PS – I find the above rumour to be just so; though not totally out of the question mind.
No need to get our collective balls or twats in knots good people; we might get a few hints from to-day’s uplifting event “operation match box” according to someone in the know which makes some sense by the looks of the debris they raised from beneath the sod. According to the scientific lass Anne Coxup? results from a combination of tests will take some time, plus there’s the usual period of no touchee mandatory quarantine in case of sub terrainean nasties. She wasn’t so specific on how long, so maybe we won’t get much in the way of detail to digest until well into Junenif we’re plurry lucky or well into next year if we’re plurry not.
Peteb: Sorry to disappoint re your take on the reverse courtage ceremonial event which was intended to provide a media friendly show of respect for the sadly departed. Todays Ikea style affair is of course a waxed and buffed composite pulpwood replica. Made to order for the upheaval of which remains most likely comprised bits and pieces of the plot’s three previous non complient tenants. The attached anodised fake brass plaque comlete with it’s identical ‘unknown Man’ motif seems somewgat ominous with respect to any heartfelt confidence of the desired outcome I fear. Your agent 4711 is to be commended for his dilligence notwithstanding.