Some said he was ‘immaculately dressed’.
Maybe not.
Who sorts through their shirts first thing in the morning and decides to wear the one with a tear near the collar and a bloodstain next to it?
The records show SM had a yellow Pelaco shirt and another business shirt in his suitcase – why did he not choose one of them? Does the fact that he didn’t mean he put it on clean and the bloodstain was fresh on November 30th? If so, how come nobody found any bloodstains on his pullover or coat, his singlet?
Then we have the abrasions between the knuckles of his right hand – punching someone does that sometimes as anybody who knows, knows.
Lyons thought he looked drunk on the evening of November 30. Maybe he was and later that night got up looking for trouble .. and found it.
Where was the fight? Who did he fight? Who re-dressed him? Who changed his trousers from striped to plain? Who carried him to the steps? Who witnessed the whole thing and who might have covered it up with the dumped Rubaiyat and TS slip jammed into his fob pocket? Somebody familiar with the book perhaps?
….. Who said it was over?
Note: pic is not of original shirt.
The Somerton Man .. 
Overdressed for the beach is what he was.
In 1900 he would have looked ok on the beach. They wore suits. But not in 1948
As for immaculate, no. Tidy, yes.
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could it be that one the dudes that carried him to the beach was Carl Webb?
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Or any of the Webbs. My understanding of the DNA stuff DA has been involved with is that they’ve narrowed the hair down to a male in an approximate generation in the Webb tree – and then gone looking for a missing link and found Carl.
If where you’re going is that the hair might have come from someone who carried him, then I’d say all the Webbs are back in the picture, no tjust Charlie
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Funny ain’t it how patho. Barb Dwyer, after having given a pretty fair account of himself at the inquest and then some after additional probing from the Coroner re maks and scars etc., done completely overlooked the almighty blood stain on SM’s shirt. Shoulda bin had up for deliberate omission y’d reckon.
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Good one, Peter. Sharp observation also that the bloodstain was probably fresh.
I suspect that there were two victims though, and that it was companion Mr. Striped Pants who was carried towards the Pier together with the Rubaiyat.
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There is no technical measurement of a blood stain on his shirt in his pathology report. Maybe he had a spot on his back he scratched. It happens to many people. Perhaps the mozzies got him after all that was what amazed witnesses that the mozzies didn’t irritate him to move his hands.
Pete showing the wrong image is misleading and then you get people referencing your wrong image as the SM shirt. You should at least append your images with “Reconstruction”. Honesty is the best way to avoid criticism. I think I have mentioned this before.
Time of death is also important they estimated around 2am to 3 am (7am minus 4 or 5 hours) and potato not consumed in his stomach. So he ate a pastie at 2am? Could he buy a midnight pastie at Somerton?
I still think he was killed/suicided with Strophanthus Kombe which was part of a medical kit for a WW1 soldier. He only needed about 5mg.
AI: During World War I, medical personnel in the German army were ordered by the ambulance corps to exclusively use ouabain solutions to treat heart failure“
There is a picure somewhere of this kit I found on Trove.
It could be a German relative gave him a WW1 souvenir. It is the sort of thing a relative might send to a German cousin in Australia. He seemed to be a collector of things from his suitcase. I’m certain the ampule in the kit woud be at least 5mg. Perhaps he added it to his pastie.
Australia hadn’t made their version of this drug until after 1945. It is unlikely he would have got it in a chemist before 1946 unless Dorothy was getting him heart medicine on the QT.
I believe it may have been used as a quickener for soldiers as well who were terrified to get them to run and fight. Potentially Australian athletes might have used such a drug to improve their sports performance – even cyclists and footballers.
“Yes, there have been instances where athletes have used ouabain. A study found that maximal exercise in 51 athletes led to an increase in heart rate and plasma lactate, and produced an 18-fold increase of a sodium pump inhibitor. This suggests that ouabain or similar substances may have been used by athletes or even African hunters to improve their performance.
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David, you’ve no doubt noted I mentioned at the bottom of the post that the image of a bloodstained shirt was not that of the original, yes? And to be serious, I don’t think Prof Cleland would have written such a comment if he was observing a mosquito bite bloodspot, add to that the mossie would have had to have an almighty proboscis to be able to penetrate SM’s coat, pullover and shirt, do you agree?.
As far as the pasty is concerned, you haven’t mentioned the possibility that he consumed it while inside a house, which ties in nicely with where he was found, a couple of hundred yards from 90a Moseley Street.
On the whole, I think my hypothetical links might withstand a little more pressure than yours, nevertheless it’s good of you to come by.
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You’re totally missing the point David. Please read back previous comments. The whole point is, that a tear with a bloodstain on one side only in the arch of the neck of the shirt was described twice in the accompanying notes but for some reason this possible means of poison administration was left out of the report to the coroner. This report to the coroner is not the pathology report, which is missing.
Also, first have a look in the mirror before criticising others about misleading pictures. You quite often call things facts when they are unproven and seem to have a major lack of understanding of the concept of evidence. Yet you continue to do so, even if several people have pointed it out to you.
You also totally misinterpret the study you cited of an academic area that is totally out of your intellectual range and expertise, which is highly irritating: it does not say the athletes used ouabain. I won’t even bother explaining but I suggest to stick to your own trade.
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Calypso .. current day knowledge of subtle poisoning methods may have been a little hard to come by in the late forties, particularly as Australia was just beginning to form a federal intelligence agency.
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Peter, they knew. For example, as you can see at the bottom of page 5 of Cleland’s report to the coroner, both the arrow poisons strophanthin (ouabain), curare and tubocurarine are discussed. Yet Cleland left out a bloodstained tear in the shirt he observed, and did not speak up during the CI either.
Similarly, Wolfsbane’s arrow poison aconitine would have been known to anybody familiar with the story of Cerberus, the namesake of several naval bases. Same goes for poisonous kris’ from the East Indies.
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Calypso, my reasoning is that Hicks etc knew well the effects of such exotic poisons but the local authorities had little knowledge of the means of their delivery.
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The only place you’d get a pasty at 2am is from Cowley’s Pie Cart which was in Franklin St outside the GPO. They traded until about 5am. You’d see people in evening wear there as well as street drunks lined up for their pie floater. Bugger all was open in Adelaide after 5:30pm in those days. That was the only place you got grub if you were hungry. So they took a pasty to the poor old spy in the lockup in Angas St just across Victoria Square before they bumped him off and dumped him on the beach just before dawn when all the street lights were out and they couldn’t be seen on the esplanade and sleepy old Adelaide was still all tucked up in bed. It was a new moon on 1 December 1948 and pitch black. Jess probably kept a lookout from the Childrens Home across the road on her night shift and flashed a torch if someone approached. They may have even parked in the Home carpark in case the milky went past, and so they didn’t look suspicious, and carted his body across the road in the dark to dump it. The tide was on the way out leaving no footprints. If he had been there all night he would have floated out to sea and been breakfast for the sharks. But he’s just a poor old man who couldn’t go on in life, he removed all trace of his identity, had only a zac to his name, and he committed suicide on a beach 30km long and X marks the spot almost on Jess’s doorstep and if you believe that was a coincidence, then pigs fly.
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Damn that’s deep! You’re a good commenter!
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He could have bought the pasty much earlier, got the munchies and scoffed it cold.
( I speak as an authority on the subject of eating food I couldn’t be arsed to reheat.)
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I’ll buy a pasty and stick the greasy bag in my pocket for 12 hours and when I go to the beach I’ll eat it before I top myself
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If you’re going to top yourself…would you give a flying phuque if the pasty was hot or cold?
He could have bought that pasty at anytime
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Cowleys wasn’t the only pie cart in Adelaide. Here’s an interesting article about the pie carts in Adelaide(from a decade earlier – but at least Cowleys at the GPO and Balfours at the Railways Station lasted until the late 1950s) . Has a bit of a segue about Cornish Pasties too…
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35115363
There may have been pie carts closer to Glenelg too – although I don’t think anyone has ever found any evidence of that.
It’s also worth remembering (as I think Sanders used to point out) that the pasty connection was quite vague “….potatos and vegetables – maybe from a pasty” (or similar).
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Don’t forget he was a bakers’ son, he could have made his own pasty.
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With his camp oven on the beach
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Duh..because in your universe a pasty HAS to be eaten hot! I like you…you’re a funny guy!
🙂
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Strophanthus Kombe was known about during WW2.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/235980370?searchTerm=%22Strophanthus%20kombe%22
and before
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3467008?searchTerm=%22Strophanthus%20kombe%22
It was the drug proposed as Carl’s killer or digitalis.
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I’m sure your Borg crystal ball can tell you all about Calypso and her subsea level realm.
To work in the service of life and the living
In search of the answers to questions unknown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing
Part of beginning to understand …
Be careful not to get poked by my trident.
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Note to DM = Hurwood couldn’t spell Strophanthus or drive a VW Kombi in his present state for that matter.
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Now you see it, now you don’t. aye Calypso
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In my view, striped duds, meat pies and Holden utes ain’t gonna put this baby to bed any time soon; leastwise not before some of us come to the end of our tether. There’s gotta be shit we’ve not flushed out as yet, frinstance ‘useless’ junk what Adelaide hierarchy selfishly kept from the press. Good stuff amongst it too, like pill bottles, matches & bumpers collected and dutifully bagged by Det. Sgt. Harry Strangway’s local Glenelg suits.This occurred in the six weeks prior to the case being taken over by R. L. Leane’s HQ cuff & collar boys, leaving we latter day saints F… Hall to hang our slim hopes on.
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Wassa #
The main point being, as me & Bobby discussed awhile ago at the alternate site, was that pastie vegetables comprised turnip not potato and they weren’t designed to be eaten hot, ask any cornish ‘patsy’ and they’ll swear to it..Not that it means f….Hall now but there was a pie cart near St. Vinnies and probably other hubs along Glenelg beach til late on summer evenings, even a mobile fish’n chip (there’s your potato) van doing the rounds ala Mr. Whippy (later) in them days.
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