The Abbott interview that never happened.
“I suspected right from the beginning of this case – because a lot of the spy theories came around in the ’40s. I thought, ‘That’s all very well, but it’s more likely to be something banal, really.’ And that’s what it turned out to be, all quite pedestrian.” Derek Abbott
We met in the UoA North Terrace Catering for lunch, I ordered a baguette and coffee, the Professor only wanted coffee. He let me pay. We found a table and after greeting a few students he knew, finally looked over and suggested I start away as he could only give me a few minutes, being between classes.
’Do you ever wonder why the police didn’t fingerprint anything in his suitcase?’
‘No need to, the thread was enough.’
’In your opinion, would you say that the second hand clothing business in Adelaide was quite robust in the years after the war?’
’Possibly.”
And was it customary for these second hand dealers to cut out any labels that indicated the articles had a previous owner in order to achieve a better price ?’
’Possibly.’
‘And for the previous owner to sell quite a few of his items at the same time?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Would you agree that if this was the case, the thread could have been parcelled up with the clothes?’
’You’re drawing a very fine line you know. Under what circumstances might that happen?’
’Say a man doesn’t come home from the war and his wife or mother bundles everything of his up into a suitcase and takes it to a dealer to get whatever she can for it. Do you agree that could have happened?’
Abbott hesitates.
’Possibly.’
’And whoever bought the clothes intended to wear them?’
’Probably.’
–
Now we have reasonable doubt.
This is a list of Jack Keane’s belongings as returned home after his death in WW2. We don’t know what happened to them.
The Somerton Man .. 
‘Possibly/Probably’ what kind of answers are these from a Professor? So, per the Professor, because the thread was in the suitcase, no need to do anything else with the other items in the suitcase, such as fingerprinting etc. What if there was no thread in the suitcase?
LikeLike
The interview never happened Clive, but I reckon the answers would have been about right. And that listing of Jack Keane’s clothes and possessions did not include a white tie.
LikeLike
Yeah, I gathered that! But, I can well imagine the Professor stating the thread found was all that was required.
LikeLike
The point of this pointless exercise is, if someone was to ask Abbott the very same questions, and knowing his professional evasive responses to such, we thought a non-committal fictional response, done on his behalf would expose a weakness we have long suspected in his varying positions with regard to the Somerton Man case.. and now we have been waiting over two years for the SA coroner to deliver.
LikeLike