Revisiting the Somerton Man’s Fingerprint Form.
I bought brought this subject up about twelve years ago during my research whilst writing The Bookmaker from Rabaul (available Amazon) and lately there has been a resurgence of interest in the Somerton Man’s fingerprint form – namely because it was not dated or signed off.
1/ Understandingly there is no surname.
2/ and no Christian names.
3/ There is no mention of the police station or prison where the prints were taken as the body was in the morgue at the time. Nevertheless it could have been noted.
4/ No date to show when the prints were obtained.
5/ No signature of the officer / individual who took the prints.
6/ No rank of any such officer.
7/ No identity number of any such officer.
The fingerprints were obtained on Friday December 3 by ‘Police Photographer and Fingerprint Expert Patrick James Durham who was stationed in Adelaide and who was accompanied on this occasion by Mounted Constable Knight’. Knight said at the time ‘That is the body of the man found dead on the beach at Somerton on the 1st of December 1948.’ (Feltus)
If Durham was indeed a ‘fingerprint expert’ then he would have been very familiar with the importance of filling out all the available details on the forms, particularly the date the job was done and the identity of the individual responsible for doing it.
There has been no explanation as to why he did not.
An invigorating read.
The Somerton Man .. 
@druid .. maybe you could ask GC why he failed to fully read Gordon Strapp’s deposition, why he failed to unearth PC Moss’s newspaper interview, why he failed to notice the pattern evident in the code .. but I bet money you won’t.
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Just put up GC’s ‘fingerprint card’ post and thanks for the link. Of particular interest to me was a thread comment addressed to me ‘pooh’ requesting that due to a display of ignorance on my part re fingerprint taking, I might provide full credentials of my former police service. Also a bit of piffle about my ignorance of tides and weather on Sydney Harbour foreshores. Can’t recall if I replied but what I do recall is checking out Christopher Gordon Cramer’s immigration file, there being nothing at all regarding claimed experience in homicide investigation prior to arrival on Australia’s sunny shores in 1977. What a blast.
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Peteb: sure looks like our oxygen supply has been cut off and to make matters worse, Gordon’s latest alter ego identity @Druid is intent on disrupting well meaning on line comment across the board. If the runt has any guts he’ll try it on over here or CM.
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Maybe a little amendment to the post is in order.
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Might be appropriate to change the name from GC’s finger print Card which be a misnomer that describes the type used in US. Yank FP cards in ’48 were of much stiffer texture and of smaller dimension; whereas Australian states used an A4 sized approx. sheet and so SM’s prints were taken on a finger print form .and not a card.
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sorted
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The shoddy nature of the “investigation”, right from the get go, is beyond belief. Was this typical of an SAPOL investigation of the time? Were they always this lackadaisical, or did they just reserve it all for SM!
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Marry that thought to the reported fact that not only did the coroner rule he didn’t die where he was found but later on a ‘reliable’ witness told the police he saw a well-dressed man carrying a man along the Somerton Beach foreshore. A man doesn’t have to be Einstein to figure out things are crook in Rookwood.
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The Bookmaker from Rabaul
A man of your talent could write a book on:
The Loans affair, also called the Khemlani affair, was a political scandal involving the Whitlam government of Australia in 1975
There’s more to it than what people know and who started it all and brought down a government is right there in Adelaide as well
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Yes. There be no doubting that by the time Mr. Gordon Cramer mentioned his incomplete FP card [sic] in late 2004, such facts were already old news. Such details was known to early players Feltus, Abbott, Bowes and Deveson that the detail deficient set had originally been in the possession of SM’s undertaker Laurie Elliott. Of course Johnny come lately’s likes of moi were still in the dark and therefore make no claims on the document or its contents.
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2014 more like it; GC being relatively new to the game by then.
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Perhaps the unknown finger prints were Durham’s own?
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Or more likely a practice run on long since dismounted const. Alf Knight who happened to be a mate of the Leane brothers.
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