Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘detective canney’

It ain’t over until it’s over.

Put that saying down to Yogi Berra, yank baseball player, the same bloke who was responsible for “It’s like deja-vu all over again”

Well, the Carl Webb Mystery is far from over, never mind what people are saying, we still don’t know all the whys and wherefores. All we know is who he was. The whys are still orphans.

For instance – Jessica Harkness – she knew enough about Alf Boxall to suggest she’d done a fair bit of homework on him by the time Detective Canney rolled up to her front door to ask why her phone number was connected to Carl Webb whose body was found just a couple of hundred yards away from her home six months previously. Carried there in fact. Laid out. Stripped of ID. Not a penny in his pocket. A secret message hidden in a secret pocket. Sounds like something out of a Hollywood post-war thriller.

Then, in the company of three detectives and Paul Lawson she all but lost it when viewing his bust, but not too much as she gave the same one word answer to all their questions.

No. No. NO.

This lady had a secret buried so deep a roomful of experienced detectives couldn’t shake it out of her.

Same with Gerry Feltus when he interviewed her years later, same silence. The lady was stone. And for what? An out of work instrument maker over from Melbourne who repaired his clothing with industrial strength thread and carried a collection of paraphenalia that could open locked doors and start cars?

Then, getting back to Boxall, how come Jessica was able to give the police the whole boxful on him, as in where he worked, drank and lived when he told his interviewer (Littlemore) he never even knew what her last name was? And after looking at the video of that interview a hundred times the more I’m convinced Boxall didn’t even remember meeting her in the first place.

You want more?

Stuart Littlemore, Charles Wooley and Gerry Feltus all had the opportunity to ask if Jessica Harkness was also know as Jestyn. Wooley interviewed her daughter, Kate, Littlemore interviewed Boxall and Feltus spent an hour with the lady herself  .. and none of them asked the question. Now you’ve got everybody from Derek Abbott to Gordon Cramer referring to her as such. Jestyn this and Jestyn that like they have some inside information we don’t.

Meet the researcher who believes he's solved the 70-year-old mystery of 'Somerton Man' | The Independent

You’re nowhere near the end of it Professor.

Come to think of it, when the NSW police first rousted Boxall and he showed them the Jestyn Rubaiyat do you think they might have asked him the Jestyn question, or at least passed the information onto SAPOL so they could ‘continue with their local enquiries.’

No.

Never happened.

Where did he die? How did he die? Who was with him when he died? Who carried him from where he died to where he was found? Whose Rubaiyat was found in Freeman’s car? Who knew what Tamam Shud meant and why did they hide the slip of paper it was written on in his fob pocket? And finally, what influenced Jessica to keep silent all the way to her grave.

An out of work instrument maker over from Melbourne who repaired his clothing with industrial strength thread and carried a collection of paraphenalia that could open locked doors and start cars?

 

Yogi Berra was on the money.

Yogi Berra, Dead at 90: Remembering the Yankees Hero, Icon, and Wordsm | Vanity Fair

It ain’t over until its over.

 

 

 

Police Constable John Moss –

An in depth look at his character.

Read more

The Somerton Man inquest was closed for lack of new evidence despite the police having found more than enough.

Why was the coroner’s court denied the opportunity to subpoena new witnesses?

Read more

The Somerton Man’s suitcase and its forgotten fingerprints

The suitcase held a cornucopia of identifiable items fingerprint-wise but DS Leane preferred to adopt a different approach in his efforts to identify who owned it and instead took a few bits and pieces back to the station to be photographed and distributed to the press, hoping their publication would do the job for him.
How does that make sense?

Read more

33 Whatever happened to the Somerton Man’s brown knitted pullover?

Fifteen investigative and one coronial failure cannot be the result of incompetence, surely.

Read more

32 WHAT ALF BOXALL SAID ABOUT JESSICA IN 1978 .. ” even today, I don’t know what the girl’s surname was.”

.. taken from Stuart Littlemore's notes on the (60 Minutes) interview he had with Boxall

Read more

31 Jestyn: ‘her tremendous courage.’

The four interviews.

Read more

15 “In 2002 I had a lengthy conversation with Jessica Harkness.”

Why did the police re-interview Harkness in 1982, and why isn't anybody talking about it?

Read more

14 The seventy-year old secret of the Somerton code

The simplest of codes.
The letter A.
The position 7.
….. gives number 8

Read more

13 The Somerton Man’s mtDNA haplogroup ..

From Byron Deveson.

It is interesting that Clive sees a resemblance to SM in the Scots-Irish actor Stephen Boyd (AKA Millar) because SM’s mtDNA haplogroup is present at significant levels in Ireland. See:

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/mt-dna-h4/about/background

It appears that Scots-Irish were mercenaries in Finland in the 16th Century and that could explain the high incidence of the H4 haplogroup in Finland (and Iceland where it constitutes 9%?).

I am reminded that there was a large “tartan” scarf (shawl?) in SM’s suitcase. From memory the tartan looked like a military or an Irish tartan. Or even a Norwegian tartan. But the pattern is oblong and all genuine tartans appear to be square as a consequence of the weaving method.

Tweeds are often rectangular and SM’s “tartan” scarf appears to be a tweed, not a tartan. Unfortunately tweed patterns and colour were chosen for camouflage (hunting) and this is consistent with the appearance of the scarf/shawl in the black and white press photo.

Tweeds are often dun coloured to fit in with the Scottish landscape. A dark blue and green tweed such as the one from SM’s suitcase would be an exception from my vague memory of such things and this might be an overlooked clue. Dark green and blue suggests deep forest to me and, relying on dim memory, these are not abundant in Scotland or Ireland. I note that some estates had their own tweed pattern and some estates had private forests. The possible US belongings (comb, lighter and coat and chewing gum(?) from memory) bolster the case for SM being American and Scots-Irish DNA is concordant with US East Coast heritage.

I started building a family tree commencing with Robin Thomson’s likely forbears Tarleton Pleasants (1778-1836) and Tabitha nee Crew (1788-1819) but I found so much contradictory information that I gave up.

I started by assembling all the available material, regardless of the contradictions, with the intention of straightening it all out. But, I soon found that the descendants of this couple could not agree as to whom begat whom and when, so I didn’t stand a chance.

I pushed on in the hope that one of the descendant lines would show some connection to Australia, and some do. The Merryman family comes to mind. But, nothing crystallised and I decided that there was more than a thousand hours of research required and only a relatively small chance of success. So, there the Pleasants family tree rests.

Byron Deveson.

Scots-Irish actor Stephen Boyd (AKA Millar)

The Somerton Man

I just noticed that Stephen Boyd has a SM type ear and this is fairly rare. DA’s anatomist friend at the Uni says 1% prevalence, but I have yet to see one after years of furtively gazing at ears. It is a dangerous game – try it (furtively gazing at ears I mean). Byron D

12 The South Australian Telephone Directory Nov 47 .. Gordon Cramer and Pete Davidson PLEASE NOTE !!

Thomson J E Sister 90a Moseley Glnlg .... X3239

Read more

11 Why did Detective Sergeant Leane take 51 days to release news of finding the Tamam Shud slip?

Follow the headlines

Read more

10 DNA, mtDNA, genealogy,mass spectroscopy and nuclear related matters. Byron Deveson.

Comments by Byron Deveson and a word from Derek Abbott.

Read more

9 The Somerton Man and what may have ailed him. Byron Deveson.

One thousand one hundred and sixty words ... all technical.

Read more

8 What was he poisoned with? Cowan, Hicks and Cleland.

Remarks by James Cowan, Professor Sir Stanton Hicks and Coroner Cleland

Read more

7 WHERE DID HE DIE? Coroner Cleland, Professor Cleland and Professor Stanton Hicks.

Remarks by Coroner Cleland, Professor Cleland, Professor Sir Stanton Hicks, Detective Sergeant Don O'Doherty.

Read more

6 The question of lividity (and a final twist).

Remarks by Professor Cleland, PC Moss, Gerry Feltus, Dr John Dwyer, Coroner Cleland and Professor Sir Stanton Hicks

Read more

5 Remarks by Coroner Cleland

"I cannot say where he died."

Read more

4 Correspondence with Derek Abbott

"I hope you find this useful!"

Read more

3 The Somerton slideshow. Timing matters.

6:00 pm to 10:00 pm on the 30th of november 1948

Read more

2 The Tamam Shud test

sometimes you have to do the research yourself.

Read more

1 Start at the beginning

The Somerton slide-show.

Read more

%d bloggers like this: