Why are we waiting?
According to SAPOL’s Media and Public Engagements Section (123) in an email to me dated 1/12/23, I was advised as follows:
1/ The DNA work on the Somerton Man’s remains was recently completed.
2/ An analysis of these results will be reported to the State Coroner in the final (SAPOL) report.
3/ Completed Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Odontology reports will also be reported to the State Coroner in the final (SAPOL) report.
4/ Together with the results of some outstanding forensic analysis which will be completed soon.
5/ The final (SAPOL) report will be made available to the State Coroner in early 2024.
https://www.courts.sa.gov.au/court-decisions/coroners-findings/
17 Comments
Post a comment
The Somerton Man .. 
They have come to realise that they can’t complete their fraud as originally planned.
LikeLike
Perhaps they are attempting to identify the body by searching DNA databases world-wide, which isn’t good news for those who believe he is Carl Webb.
LikeLike
All I can think is that, between SAPOL’s email to you and ‘early’ 2024, something came to light that threw a spanner in the works. And, the longer the delay, in the Coroner’s findings, the more people will suspect the truth is being manipulated by the authorities.
LikeLike
There is nothing to link DNA from wherever you get it, to the body on the beach. You just don’t know where the body on the beach ended up, and given everything else that has happened it ain’t in that grave. For all we know it was dumped down the back of the cemetery on day one. What’s more GC’s dental chart isn’t worth diddly squat. It’s not marked as “from dead man on Somerton beach” we don’t even know if it was from dead man on Somerton beach, it has no file reference for a morgue file, it’s not signed by anyone, not dated, and even being used in a court as evidence it can’t be validated and so it isn’t worth a pinch of poop. In fact you can bet London to a brick that the bloke in the grave doesn’t match the dental chart and so it’s “hell what do we do now”. You could mix up a few bodies to completely remove any trace. Good luck linking anything to the man on Somerton beach to prove who he was.
LikeLike
There is also the note by Cleland of a bloodstain on SM’s shirt, something not mentioned at the inquest.
LikeLike
Pete…Apart from SM, there were another 21 sets of unidentified bones, either dug up or held in storage. I’m not aware of any results for these ‘others’ being announced over the last 3 years either. As for Coopers, Thomas Cooper’s first brewery began 1850 at 104 George Street Norwood. By early1950’s the house became the residence of Don Dunstan local MP and later S.A. Premier (Labour). By coincidence Det. Len Brown also lived in George Street, not far from Dunstan at “Coopers House”. Len’s son Richard Dutton Brown (b. 1949) was made a Magistrate by age 30 (1979). He later came before the courts himself, charged with underage sex (case eventually dropped due to uncertainty of victims ages). He died 17 months later / cancer. There’s alot more brewing in Adelaide, and more to explore while your waiting on the Coroners findings.
LikeLike
Ruth, was there ever any records kept of the disposal of unidentified bodies in SA back in the 40’s ?
LikeLike
During the State Wards Inquiry (I had a role in) Commissioner Ted Mullighan was able to access records for Institutionalised children, dating back decades. While many entries were short on detail, or ‘absent’ (vanished) it demonstrates at least, that historical records are kept / still exist. I’m not a researcher. I’m a witness to the blind eye of Police afforded to my father who had access to S.A.’s Mental Institutions, Hospitals, Children’s Homes, the Morgue and Adelaide University from late 50’s on. In return he was mentored. He also had a side line, body parts for medical students. What starts out one way changes over time, evolves into worse. I think we’d all agree that doctors must learn somehow, thus required medical cadavers during a time when families didn’t willingly hand over their deceased loved ones for dissection…to benefit science. So bodies that went unclaimed, unidentified or deemed vagrants and left to the State for disposal, may have ended up medical cadavers or buried in unmarked graves. It would seem none received the same attention as SM, but I’d expect cemeteries would have a duty to record every burial, including those unidentified / buried by the State. It’s been reported that Australia wide, over 800 unidentified sets of human remains lie in storage awaiting DNA testing. I’m sure University teaching methods have changed greatly since, and donating ones body to medical science is more acceptable these days. I’m not a witness for SM (born 1955) however I ‘did’ witness enough in later years, to know South Australia needs it’s unsavoury past examined. Also the fact that so many sets of unidentified human remains have been held in storage and kept secret for so long is problematic, particularly for families of ‘missing persons’. Some researchers would really help.
LikeLike
Thanks Ruth. I’m wondering whether Webb, a known barbiturate and ether addict, shared the morgue with SM and given the conditions at the time with regard to cleanliness and general access to the cold storage facility, there may have been some cross contamination, particularly with Lawson and his detective watchers coming and going on a regular basis, opening and closing both interior and exterior doors while he was working on SM with wet plaster.
Who knows what was floating about in the breeze, like strands of hair and dust. There are similar contamination concerns with the table Lawson was using while working on the bust. Perhaps the bloodstain Cleland saw on SM’s shirt was from an unclean trolly as there was no wounding on the corpse that could explain it.
LikeLike
I wonder who got his estate money. The full sum of sixpence.
Or who applied for Letters of Administration for that sixpence because he had no Last Will and Testament
Public Trustee SA perhaps
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/dreadful-the-sad-fate-of-australias-unclaimed-dead-bodies/xrgmyo6ag
But I doubt if you will find anything there about disposal of his body or what happened to his sixpence. Succession Duties death tax could be two pence from that sixpence depending what else he owned
LikeLike
I agree. It’d be good to know if Salvation Army Chaplain Webb figured anywhere within Charles Webbs family genealogy as well. I’m also open to the idea SM might’ve sought shelter via Salvation Army boarding facility, robbed or simply thought to be near enough dead, to be cleaned up and dumped on the beach. Better to avoid attention from Police If money’s gone missing and death’s inevitable. In a sense, SM ended up a medical cadaver ‘as a thing of study’ anyway, and possibly only due to media interest and publicity, requiring SM to be respectfully buried / his grave acknowledged and maintained. So more about ‘appearances’ I’d say. . I know that in the late 50’s, we (our father, myself & 2 older siblings) had to wait outside the morgue for the man with the key. Then two large bags were taken from the car boot… inside. During the body transfer, the single outside light bulb was turned off. Inside there was a large raised steel table with a mix of naked bodies, male and female, young and old, all piled one on top of the other. There was no care or dignity given to the dead that I saw, so I doubt things were done any better in 1948. I’d rather I wasn’t exposed to such grim sights obviously. To our father it was a ‘normal’ and necessary process and for us, an education.
LikeLike
Then we have George Webb, the footballer who died on June 13 1949 and who occupied a morgue slab before the inquest commenced on June 17. 1949.
LikeLike
I thought JS had a Webb who was in the morgue even later (but I thought that was a George too, so maybe I got wires crossed).
I think the delays could mean one of a couple of things:
a) Nothing. The cops aren’t as interested in this stuff as us, so there’s no real urgency to publish results and they’ll get to it when they get to it
b) They got results and it wasn’t Webb. Initially the view is that they’ll release it (as per your email), but then someone sort of says “given all the Webb stuff floating around, we need a pretty solid ID” (ie “It isn’t Webb, but still unknown” won’t fly.
Personally I’d lean toward (a) *but* I’ll concede the whole saga (not just in the 40s/50s, even more recently as different AG have had different opinions on whether an exhumation was justified/appropriate).
In any event, an official ID won’t really stop the speculation about the ID – as per No1 above “..but we don’t know the body in the grave was the body on the beach…”.
LikeLike
It’s the seeming lack of curiosity from the Australian news media that gets me. Are there no investigative journalists down there asking what the bleedin hold up is?
LikeLike
I’m sure there are quite a few journalists interested in this investigation but, then you think of how the media controls what it publishes/broadcasts etc. The authorities are, I think, stalling for time, in the hope that Joe Public and others will soon move on to other things.
LikeLike
Speaking for Joe Public, not bloody likely.
LikeLike
Only when it’s in the medias interest, I agree. Does the FOIA actually work in any country? Or, is it just a sop to keep the peasants quiet?
LikeLike