Amy, the mother.
That’s her front row left, two in.
Stuart Webb dates the photo no later than end of June 1929, the month Amy died.
Died aged 34 after a ‘long illness.’
Enlarge the pic and you’ll see a happy, healthy looking young woman.
Her daughter, also named Amy and aged 10 in 1929 is not with the other two youngsters or seriously ill mother in the family photograph.
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The Somerton Man .. 
FWIW the person looks very young, dressed in young girl’s clothes, and likely to be the daughter Amy b. 16 May 1918 (who is Doris Amy as you stated) https://tomsbytwo.com/2024/08/26/two-amys-and-two-charlies-number-two/
Emma two generations older has her arm around her which is fairly typical of that generation gap.
Mother: Amy Sarah Tomkinson b. 1895 m. 1917 d. June 1929
Probably not worth wasting any more time on their family as it won’t lead anywhere. DA made errors which led to him erroneously claiming Carl Webb was Somerton man. Upon checking closely the detail upon which he made his claim, plugging in Gerald Keane as Thomas Keane and DNA being too far removed in generations to correlate we now know Carl Webb isn’t Somerton man.
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Not so much as wasting time, numero uno, but posting some questionable and widely held beliefs might convince someone new to the game that all is not well .. Capiche?
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Maybe this is of interest to the new blood (and not so new). There could still be leads out there, eg flight manifests in collections from families of pilots who flew Pan Am. Anything is possible. 1948 Pan Am time tables have surfaced online and fares schedules.
In 1948 Pan Am flew San Francisco to Sydney. There were connecting flights to Melbourne as part of the Pan Am service which was ANA (Ansett). Later, in 1950 Pan Am operated a proving flight to Melbourne (Essendon Airport). They didn’t fly into Melbourne in 1948.
Routes of connecting Carriers Sydney to Melbourne is shown on the map and through fares were available ie ANA. Two aircraft were used to provide two services per week USA to Australia. Douglas DC4 N88951 Clipper Racer and Douglas DC4 N88952 Clipper Australia.
The Pan Am time tables 1 June 1948. Page 5 of the schedules. Depart San Francisco Tuesday and Saturday, arrive Sydney Friday and Tuesday. https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/asm0341/id/23609
The 1951 Pan Am time table gives details for their Sydney office https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/asm0341/id/225/rec/9
Sydney office for Pan Am was in Hotel Australia, Mezzanine Floor, Castlereagh St (near Martin Place). That would be a practical choice for accommodation near the Pan Am office for a through fare connection. If your luggage was being forwarded to Melbourne as a through flight you may need items in Sydney in your hotel, a new pair of trousers, a shirt, and a razor and strop. Perhaps a brand new small suitcase for the bits and bobs. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159318484079268&id=85907209267&set=a.116332719267&locale=hr_HR
Somerton man arrived in Adelaide from Melbourne on the Overland on Tuesday morning 30 November 1948. The Adelaide Express as it was known was overnight and left Spencer Street the previous evening Monday 29 November. Pan Am flights arrived in Sydney the previous week on Tuesday 23 November and Friday 26 November. The arrivals are shown in The Daily Telegraph newspaper Tuesday 23 November page 17 CLIPPER San Francisco, Mascot 6.30pm (Pan American) and Friday 26 November page 15 CLIPPER San Francisco, Mascot 6.30pm (Pan American). He had time to do some shopping in Sydney for items, a razor strop, trousers, shirt. ANA had a branch office at 4A Martin Place and a passenger terminal Cnr Clarence and Margaret Streets a short stroll from Hotel Australia. Pan Am office was in Hotel Australia. ANA had several daily flights Sydney to Melbourne.
A Friday 26 November arrival in Sydney puts him on a tight schedule. Hotel check out. Shopping for clothes Saturday morning. Book a flight to Melbourne for Saturday afternoon and have to receive instructions to proceed to Adelaide by the Overland once in Melbourne a day or so before boarding the Overland on Monday night. A Tuesday 23 November arrival in Sydney seems more likely.
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What if we skip Melbourne? The Overland has always just been speculation based on the fact he had a local train ticket and the suitcase was left at the station, which suggests that’s where the day started for him.
Assuming he came in on a train that morning, why does it have to be the Overland? A train came in from Broken Hill at 9:17 that morning. I think CM had a link to Broken Hill (with the Pruzinski speculation), but more to the point I was thinking what if he’s catching train Sydney->Broken Hill->Adelaide. It might simplify things if he doesn’t need to go to Melbourne.
NB: Don’t you think it’s peculiar that he has: (1) Henley Train Ticket; (2) St Leonards Bus Ticket; but *doesn’t* have (3) Inbound ticket from wherever he came; (4) Luggage stub. It’s not impossible to explain, but it certainly seems odd to me.
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The code shows a train line and level crossing X above the letter O to illustrate Overland. ML/ABO AIAQC Melbourne leave / Adelaide by Overland. Adelaide is a quiet city
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For what it’s worth: “Camperdown Chronicle” 6 Jun 1929, Page 2. Amy Webb died on 2 Jun 1929.
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Or Pan Am lost his luggage because they put it on the wrong flight, which would take a week to recover in those days. So with all he had was what he had on, he had to go up the street in Sydney and get himself some trousers, a shirt, a razor, a razor strop, etc, and a new case.
A more thorough search of US military records, newspapers, etc may open up a new lead, if Kean or Keane or Kean jr surfaces.
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No. 1: So, if PAA managed to lose his luggage, for a week or so. it would seem he had to travel to Adelaide asap? Otherwise, he would have stayed in Sydney for his luggage. Hence his selection of clothes found at the railway station.
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Seems to be so. What he wore was American clothes that were suited to a winter climate in the northern hemisphere ie USA such as the feather stitched jacket and was said to be overdressed on the beach for our climate. Evidence suggests he parted with his luggage and had to pick up some Australian clothing items and a suitcase in Sydney because all he had was on his back. The latches match other suitcases available in Australia at that time. Single centre lock with a square knob and two basic latches one each side. I’d say it’s Australian made and picked up from a department store in Sydney. It’s not a quality luggage item. It looks basic, like something you don’t really want but have to buy to make do in an emergency. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/296846437006?itmmeta=01JE34SWPYHNEX4W75BG1J7ZG3&hash=item451d6d2a8e:g:xFoAAOSwxlxmqc0h&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA4Mxmj%2BiGvOveHXEBClPb29iTDpoyfknbiqIDnu6fZe6%2FwAh%2BG78%2FNgsCghgVqmEeEp8wmy4ZO371Jgq8NU6BNzL67kvqA8C5aoq24rLNCnS9JXZEWvlSQeYjUrroybi7sZGoZAKgpYc2wLmTMHGWcciffkVvxgvSGudEtR2F1%2F2%2FiIbds%2FXqW3yU7vcRd3VGz6iLyyBU5mqNdJ1ifMCjwBJLrIhT4V%2BPYqAXbSzzFnnXrVNRah0kBrX1lEpK%2BcJDsefYGsMe0TgjzWDBoWyrGFNhTaArx61bGnf1PuhD4WN0%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8bL5-TwZA
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Sounds good, but what about the elephant in the room – the one with no spare socks?
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So, arriving in Australia, at the beginning of Summer, why did he wear clothing that would have been more relevant to the cooler months? I wonder if he was, in some way, susceptible to feeling cold? As for the socks, perhaps he intended to purchase socks later on that day, he was more focused on his reason for visiting Adelaide than mundane items i.e. socks.
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Pretty cold on the tarmac at San Francisco 11:30pm on Saturday night 20 November 1948 boarding the DC4 to Australia, 9 degrees C. I don’t think you’d want to be in summer shorts.
https://weatherspark.com/h/d/145212/1948/11/20/Historical-Weather-on-Saturday-November-20-1948-at-San-Francisco-International-Airport-California-United-States#Figures-Temperature
10 hours later you’re in Honolulu on Sunday 21 November 1948 with a six hour layover 9:30am to 3:30pm and do a bit of sightseeing. Maximum temp 27 degrees C when you are leaving so moderate temperature until then
Arrive in Sydney Tuesday 23 November 1948 at 6:30pm. Make your way through Customs and to Hotel Australia in Castlereagh St to be there about 7pm. It’s cool 17 degrees C. You’d want your jacket on.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18100884
They’ve lost your luggage for you and the Pan Am desk clerk says it will take a week to recover it, so you have to head up the street in Sydney in the morning when the shops open and find yourself some clothes and a cheap school case before you can board your next flight to Melbourne which was a through flight that you paid for before you left San Francisco. Pan Am placed stickers on their through flights, so when you checked your school case in at the Pan Am airport desk in Sydney to head for Melbourne, you had a nice round Pan Am sticker on your case which Detective Brown indicated by circular motion of his hand in the Stuart Littlemore interview at 6min 10secs and which the coppers kindly scraped off for you in Adelaide so nobody would know where you came from.
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The Barbour thread spool .. ?
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And if he kept his passport in the suitcase, that would have disappeared at the same time no doubt. Arriving at Sydney, by air, I wonder if customs would still have records for airline passengers or, just ship passengers?
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You keep your passport on you not in your luggage. In your jacket pocket. You need it for ID. You are going to leave the aircraft in Honolulu to go sightseeing and you need to reboard at 3:30pm
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If the Barbour thread spool had not been in the suitcase, am I correct in stating there would be no connection to the SM? It just seems to me to be very convenient the finding of the thread in the suitcase which, lo and behold, was same as used by the SM. And a receipt, found on the SM, just to reinforce the story.
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Yes Clive, you’d be correct .. that’s all the police required to confirm the bag belonged to SM.
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He had makeshift weapons. It’s thick thread to be used as a garrote. Barbour Flax Mill Paterson New Jersey USA. Barbour dynasty ended 1943 and before that there was a merger but the Barbour label was continued. Slip that garrote in your jacket pocket and it looks innocent.
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Well, you could say that the suitcase connection was hanging by a ‘thread’ and, you wouldn’t be wrong. Seems strange that no photo(s) of the exterior of the suitcase have been shown, could be, as No.1 states, a ripped off sticker(s) may have been all too obvious.
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Seems even stranger that the police felt it unnecessary to have Durham fingerprint anything in the case either .. not that there was a shortage of items that would have held clear prints. What’s more, when you realise how many senior police were connected to the case you would expect some of them to remark on this failure to properly investigate the ownership of the suitcase. Feltus didn’t mention it only saying that ‘at some stage’ the case and contents were appropriated by Prof Cleland for examination, which was when the Barbour thread match was made. Durham looked to have plenty of time to do his fingerprinting. Some fine folks thought it looked like a cover up at the highest level and every policeman involved at the time did as he was ordered to.
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No other explanation is possible
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Have a look at the Stuart Littlemore video at 6min 10secs mark and you will see the outside of the suitcase
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Perhaps the senior police officers involved in this case were fully aware that the suitcase and its contents were not finger printed, because it was a police ‘prop’? (You would think that Prof Cleland would have asked if fingerprints had been taken.) Second hand clothes, envelopes, pencils, ties etc all thrown together to create a mystery as to who/what the SM was about? Also, they made sure there was a possible link by adding a Barbour thread and pair of jocks, plus the luggage receipt in his possession.
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No luggage receipt in his possession, just the stub kept at the left luggage office..
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Ok, point taken. I wondered if they ever wrote the name of the luggage owner on the reverse of the tag? I don’t suppose they did.
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If you’re a Pan Am fan you can get onboard again in 2025
“Pan Am represents elegance and sophistication and our goal is to emphasize Pan Am’s rich history by combining a modern in-flight experience,” Craig Carter, CEO of Pan American World Airways
https://www.forbes.com/sites/irenelevine/2024/07/06/new-pan-am-soars-reviving-the-golden-age-of-air-travel/ https://www.cntraveler.com/story/pan-am-private-jet-journey
Pan Am warned passengers in their brochures that using ink pens could result in ink squirting on their clothes due to difference in cabin pressure and atmospheric pressure. Pan Am offered passengers pencils. Being Pan Am pencils they were blue.
In Somerton man’s collection of case items we find a nice blue pencil the same colour blue as the Pan Am pencils
https://www.bonanza.com/items/like/1618220099/Vintage-1950-Blue-Pan-American-Airlines-Set-Of-2-Used-Pencils-No-2-No-3-Lead
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Detective Brown only displays three pencils out of the suitcase for Stuart Littlemore. Somerton man video Part 1 at 7min 7 secs. The purple, the green and the grey
In the photo of the suitcase items, we see those three that Stuart Littlemore saw, and we also see two other pencils.
The blue pencil which is the Pan Am colours. There is also an orangey-red pencil. Australian National Airways ANA was red or orangey-red including their postcards, and ANA flew the Sydney to Melbourne route https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/334056334478
Somerton man had collected a couple of extra pencils on his flights and Detective Brown didn’t show them. But there they are with the other items in the suitcase items photo.
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So, Det. Brown was ensuring that no quick thinking individual could link the Blue/Orange-Reddish pencils to airline connection. Either, Det. Brown knew all about the airline connection, or it was just a coincidence that those two particular pencils were kept in the suitcase. It would seem that Littlemore was ‘lead’ astray?
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Pencils as complimentary gifts had the name of the airline on them. They are promo items. If Stuart Littlemore had picked up the blue pencil and seen Pan Am on it, it’s game over. So they were going to make sure he didn’t.
By pushing the ship story in their charade, they were steering everyone’s thinking away from airlines.
For the suitcase items photo, flip the pencils over so the printing on them is facing down, throw some neckties over them to partly hide them and nobody will notice they are there. Strangely, nobody had noticed them until now.
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Using two airlines and a train, from the USA to Adelaide in 1948 must have been pretty expensive, when those times were tough. There must have been a very good incentive/reason for an individual to have made that trip-was it all about a lost love perhaps or, was a criminal/political element in play?
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Americans liked the dressy cordovan colour shoes (burgundy). They weren’t blokey enough for Aussie men who wore black or brown. “No brown in town” and certainly “no brown after six”. But you can get away with cordovan at night, so you’ve got a pair of day and night shoes with cordovan.
Your cordovan Bostonian Stockbridge shoes are looking a tad scuffed, and you know what that says about you. You wear oxfords and not derby shoes to look a cut above. They’ve lost your luggage. You’re up the street in Sydney shopping to get by and you are not going to find cordovan shoe polish because Aussie blokes don’t wear cordovan shoes in 1948. You can get by with dark tan at a pinch, so you buy a tin of Kiwi dark tan polish. Which we see as one of your suitcase items Somerton man
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/176645937328?_skw=cordovan+shoe+polish&epid=1600836927&itmmeta=01JE9XKN86PBVQT49ZA955A5VG&hash=item2920eb18b0:g:4AMAAOSwnv9nGyo1&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKnplAyHMSDvPljlQU7GYblPsjbDvbT6lnPdHWHgAgEgQnakmGpAtrijI2PjbDicXpmpPRJ37TXkba%2BC0TJ2G31oIL1FIz90xMjoOgZ9TeeinMJftUb1E%2BTisSa82hsjGLx56GqNLZMNEH3FgVzGDMBO0IC3V%2ByOtxQETU1DqxisyJhPkvxWvnUgJrZyoT3%2BJEvQMS6igGQJkKytrFpV4V71cLEhPYTllS%2BH5C%2FJMGxzBExtJ5XxnS7%2BHP0GRVmXXEQ%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6LUzr3yZA
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