Feb 4
The record of him as being an administrator of detectives - which is what Leane was before being seconded to the case - was hard to reconcile to him being given the overriding responsibility for investigating the unremarkable finding of an unidentified body on a local beach.
Reading through the Cipher Mysteries site can be an entertaining exercise, to a point.
What was it about Carl Webb that needed to be hidden?
That’s got to be the key question …
There is still some unfinished business ..
"I'm not sure we'll ever be absolutely certain (Carl Webb is the Somerton Man)" Dr. Xanthe Mallett.
We have a new development .. Two Webbs in the Adelaide morgue at the same time.
Dec 28
About 12 – morose, uninterested, eyes out of alignment, humourless.
About 20 – mischievous, good-humoured, happy.
He was violent, moody, wrote poetry about death, he was friendless, a wife-beater … his wife warned by the police that he could be dangerous…….
Dec 26
Though it would be nice to tidy them up.
If Carl Webb arrived in Adelaide from either Broken Hill or Melbourne to see either Prosper or Jessica Thomson he could only have learnt of their phone number prior to leaving.
And a bit of a chat with dude47 while he justifies his position .. Was Carl Webb a car thief?
Dec 16
Charles Richard Webb. Enlisted 1940 aged 23 (VX 45944)
Photograph of the man claimed by Derek Abbott to be Carl (Charles) ‘Charlie’ Webb (born 1905) taken prior to 1939 (the year his father died)
Never mind the 3 inches, I think the hair-do has it.
… and it’s more likely a cheeky young bloke would flap his hand over the head of an older relative in a family shot, not an older man.
The Somerton Man mystery, according to Professor Abbott is a mystery no more, a little tidying up here and there, a few more headlines and life should return to normal.
Except for just three small things.
The argument being sustained is that the relative distances between Charlie, Roy and the camera have both diminished Charlie’s height – him being further away – and increased Roy’s – him being closer, therefore making any height comparisons arbitrary in nature. This became apparent in a recent survey I undertook where most respondents judged Roy as being the taller of the two, including a senior detective I bailed up at the local police station.
However if we were to ask Charlie to please move closer by a couple of inches and Roy to move back an inch or two until he was level with Charlie then ask him to stand up straight for the camera I think we might be in a better position to judge between them with regard to their respective heights. And it’s cautionary to note here that Charlie has his hands on the shoulders of both of the old folks so he’s not standing back any great distance to begin with.
We know Roy was noticeably less than 5’9” from his enlistment photograph (below) so if we were able to shuffle both men around as per above my view is they would both appear to be the same height, meaning ‘Charlie’ at close to Roy’s height of less than 5’9” couldn’t possibly be the Somerton Man as he was measured at 5’11” – more than two inches taller (5.08 cms), a more than noticeable difference, particularly if you use the height gauge below and see the difference between the top of Roy’s head and what would be an inch below the 6’ mark.
It would appear that everybody may have got it wrong …
Mark-up courtesy of GC
Dec 10
From blond-haired to brown-haired tinged with red - From less than 5’9” to 5’11” - Who tagged this man as ‘Charlie’?
There has been some confusion about the tagging of the older couple in the photo as Grandpa and Grandma when some think they should have been tagged as mother and father. Well, it looks like everyone's right. They are the grandparents of the fair-haired man tagged as Charlie as he may be the fair-haired Charles Richard the son of their son Russell Richard , and they are the parents of Roy, Russell's brother. The photo may have been taken from Charles Richard’s album and not his uncle Carl’s, Roy’s brother. Confusing, ain't it?
Five foot nine inches beats five foot eleven inches - in other words, never run a survey thinking you'll get the result you want.
The Somerton Man 