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Posts tagged ‘prosper thomson’

Evidence shows Jessica Harkness wasn’t too bothered ….

“The Advertiser” 11 Dec 1948 Page 16: For sale: ‘Oak table with 4 chairs and Child’s playground”. Mrs Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg. (No contact number given.)

There are still plenty of people out there who believe Jessica Harkness and Prosper Thomson were somehow involved in the death of Carl Webb despite there being no evidence. It’s a road well-travelled. Been down there plenty of times meself.

The small coastal township of Glenelg would have been a HOTBED of gossip and intrigue in the days after Webb’s body was found lying beside the steps leading to the beach, looking like he’d just fallen asleep. A good-looking clean shaven man, well dressed, unmarked.

Stone. Cold. Dead.

Imagine. The local hotels, bakery, green grocer, bars, paper shop, pharmacies, cafes, restaurants, The regulars who used the same steps to reach the beach every day. Their theories, their questions. All of them asking .. who is he?

Webb’s body stored in the Adelaide morgue and subject to an unending stream of visitors who thought they knew him or were just curious, no doubt some Glenelg residents amongst them. All of them asking …. who is he?

And there’s Jessica, serene, high above the crisis, flogging off unwanted items in the classifieds ten days after the body was found.

Knowing who he was.

Then, three weeks later she was looking to pay cash for a bungalow and rent out Moseley St. (Advertiser 1 Jan, 1949 page 9)

thanks Clive for the heads up

 

Now we have Carl Webb, we have to start all over again.

“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

Banal: so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.

Oh, really?

~~

Carl Webb, electrical fitter / instrument maker, checked his suitcase into Adelaide Station’s luggage office on the 30th of November 1948, paying for a 24 hour lodgement. Then he bought two tickets to two beaches. The following morning he was found dead on one of them.

Coroner Cleland“Although he died during the night of the 30th November – 1st December, I cannot say where he died.”

Professor John Cleland“The lividity around the ears and neck was perhaps surprising in view of his position, but it was explainable. It would depend on how much the head was supported, it may have been slight, perhaps no more than one’s head supported on a pillow.”

Professor Sir Stanton Hicks” …. If it (the poison) had not been self-administered, and the body brought there (Somerton Beach), that would remove any doubts as to the time at which death took place, as well as any other difficulties.”

~~

Perhaps Webb was in Adelaide to see Prosper Thomson knowing he had a connection to Clinic Distributors and was using their Hindley Street address for his classifieds. That may have accounted for his purchase of the Henley Beach ticket.

He may have made a call from the station to determine if Prosper was there after finding the Clinic Distributors number in the phonebook. Or perhaps he was told the number by someone before arriving in Adelaide.

Perhaps he wrote it down before setting out.

~~

Littlemore: “Chief Inspector, you said there were two ‘phone numbers in – in the book.”

Brown: “Yes.”

Littlemore: “What about the other one.”

Brown: “The other one – er was of er – business premises and we were not able to trace or find any person that had -er spoken to the deceased person. Um – we were satisfied that er- this was just probably noted down in a – in a general way that any -er ordinary person would note the ‘phone number down.”

Littlemore: ” But not necessarily so satisfied about the first one.”

Brown: “No.”

~~

Perhaps Webb was in Adelaide to see Prosper Thomson knowing he had a connection to the Moseley Street address and was using the it for his classifieds. That may have accounted for his purchase of a Glenelg ticket.

Perhaps he was told the number by someone before arriving in Adelaide as finding a telephone number in a phonebook is almost impossible without knowing the name of the subscriber. Perhaps that’s when he wrote it down.

He may have made a call from the station to determine if Prosper was there.

And it’s beginning to look like he was.

 

New Mission: Carl Charles Webb.

There’s a scene in Sicario: Day of The Solodado where Josh Brolin realises a young girl he’s transporting has gone missing and he calls out his team of mercenaries to say that they have a new mission.

Same here with Carl Charles Webb, once known as The Somerton Man.

Himself

Webb was thought to have arrived in Adelaide in November 1948 carrying various tools in his suitcase that were perfectly suited for gaining entry to motor vehicles and starting them without using a key (see previous post).

He was later found to have had two tickets in his pocket that indicated that he had two destinations in mind after arriving, settling for Glenelg rather than Henley Beach.

At the time Prosper Thomson was using a Moseley Street Glenelg phone number in his business of buying and selling used cars and his girlfriend Jessica Harkness was living there with her young son, Robin, his father unknown. She had arrived in Adelaide from Melbourne pregnant the year Webb deserted his wife. They had also lived in Melbourne.

Webb deserted his wife Dorothy Jean (nee Robertson) in 1947 after a childless marriage lasting almost six years.  She then moved to Bute in South Australia, a town 144 kilometres distant from Adelaide.

Bute

It is not known if Webb visited Bute before lodging his one suitcase at Adelaide Station on November 30th and buying the tickets to Henley Beach and Glenelg as no train tickets were found on his body, similarly, no lodging stub for his suitcase was found either.

Webb was found dead on Somerton Beach a short distance from the Moseley Street address the following morning and the only signs of violence found on the body was an abrasion between the knuckles of his right hand. Any identification he might have carried was removed.

Three medical witnesses called to the inquest were of the opinion that his death was not natural. The coroner could not say where he died. The two Persian words printed on a slip of paper found in his pocket took six months for the police to translate. The book it was torn from was handed in after the inquest was adjourned and it was found to have Prosper Thomson’s Moseley Street phone number written on the back cover together with series of lines of capital letters which have yet to be deciphered.

The labels on some of his clothes were noted by the coroner as being ‘carefully removed’, which may indicate they were bought second-hand from a clothes dealer who removed them prior to sale.

In the month before Webb deserted his wife, Prosper Thomson was advertising for a partner for an Adelaide used car business as well as placing several wanted ads for weapons (rifles).

In the month after Webb deserted his wife Thomson was advertising for a building suitable as a workshop.

The police were of the strong opinion that Webb was known to Prosper’s girlfriend, Jessica Harkness. Prosper Thomson was never interviewed by the police and as a result it is not known if he too knew Carl Webb.

As of yet no photographs of Carl Charles Webb have been unearthed other than the one taken of his body and none of his sizeable family is on record as having recognised him from his image reproduced in the many newspaper reports printed over the past seventy years.

Newspapers published in every city and major town in the country.

It is also noted that despite Webb being of a suitable age and having a very strong physique, there is no record of him as having any war service, unlike his brother Roy who died in a POW camp in ‘43.

Roy Webb, born 1904.

Roy Webb’s Will was witnessed by his sister Freda KEANE and her husband Gerald Keane of East Brunswick, Victoria.

What we know about the Somerton Man, the Thomsons, the Egans and their DNA

“I was an accidental conception." Rachel Egan.

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Has Rachel Egan’s DNA finally ended Derek Abbott’s involvement in the Somerton Man Mystery?

Is Derek Abbott’s belief that his wife and their children are related to the man at the centre of one of the world's most intriguing mysteries dashed?

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Was the Somerton Man seriously unwell?

The discrepancies between the effects of Glycoside poisoning and the condition Dwyer found the Somerton Man to be in may have indicated he was not only seriously unwell but in need of regular medical assistance prior to his sudden and unexpected death.

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Implications stemming from Rachel Egan’s shared DNA and a word from Dr Carolyn Bilsborow.

It would be one thing to ask someone to move the body of a murdered man, another to dispose of the body of a suicide.

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34 Things folks know and things they don’t about the Somerton Man Murder Mystery..

Join the dots.

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24 Which of the Thomsons was responsible for Rachel’s DNA?

Family matters ..

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20 Why Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick chose her words very carefully.

'More recently, links were also found (in Derek Abbott's wife's DNA) to the grandparents of the man that Jo Thomson eventually married.' NYT 22 May 2021 in an article written by Alan Yuhas, influenced by the recent findings of renowned forensic genealogist Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick, pictured.

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17 Prosper Thomson’s Family Tree.

Commencing with the first born.

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