THE POISONED MAN: THE TIMELINE REVIEWED

THE POISONED MAN

These are the two images of the man from the 1949 Inquest papers.  those with photographic experience will notice the colouration changes over the face, for example in the full face you will note a darker patch just beneath the hairline and similar changes in shade in the profile image from the forehead down to the chin.

Not for the squeamish but there are basically two ways that a skull cap/top can be removed to access the brain. One is to cut the skin just below the hairline then use a small saw to remove the top of the skull. In this case, following the removal, the skull top is placed back roughly in position and the skin is stitched back along the forehead. The other method is to cut the skin and peel it forward over the face that cut is higher and behind the hairline and then replace it, it is a somewhat tidier way of completing the exercise. Of the Post Mortems I have attended, the vast majority used the first method. Looking at these images I suggest that was used on the Somerton Man and that the resultant changes to the image were to cover the presence of unsightly stitches.

THE TIMELINE & EVENTS

(Byron your input will be valuable again!)

As per our previous posts on this subject, we know the following:

1. The estimated time of death was approximately 2 am on December 1st 1948

2. According to pathology,  the food contents, nominated as potato, in his stomach had been there for between  3 and 4 hours.

3. That puts the time of his meal at between 10pm and 11 pm on 30th November

4. He had a partially smoked cigarette resting between his cheek and the lapel of his coat, it had been smoked over the halfway mark and had apparently self-extinguished. 

5. We know that a cigarette takes approximately 5 minutes to smoke fully and it takes one minute to self extinguish if not being puffed.

6. We know the man was a moderate smoker according to the evidence, there were nicotine stains on his fingers

7. We know he had a cigarette packet, Army Club brand, in his belongings when found

8. This Army Club Packet contained 7 Kensitas cigarettes. 

9. The partially smoked cigarette was never checked against the contents of the packet and neither was it tested for any noxious substances.

10. As an aside, which may or may not be of significance, cigarettes at that time were rationed.

11. We know that there was lividity on the back of the man's neck:

Livor mortis starts in 20–30 minutes, but is usually not observable by the human eye until two hours after death. The size of the patches increases in the next three to six hours, with maximum lividity occurring between eight and twelve hours after death. The blood pools into the interstitial tissues of the body. The intensity of the color depends upon the amount of reduced haemoglobin in the blood. The discoloration does not occur in the areas of the body that are in contact with the ground or another object, in which capillaries are compressed

12. This lividity strongly suggests that the man was lying flat at the time of death, he had been dead for at least 8 hours when this condition was noted by the certifying Doctor so it was close to its maximum extent.

Some Thoughts and Questions

1. If the man had eaten between 10 pm and 11 pm, where did he get the potato from and what form was it in? It would seem that he may have been somewhere other than the beach at that time. Potato is not something you would carry around with you, seated at a table perhaps, but seated with your head against a sea wall? Unlikely I think.

2. Given that the man was lying flat when he died, how did that cigarette get to be on the lapel of his coat when he was found with his head and shoulders resting against the sea wall? If he was placed there, after he died, and it is looking increasingly likely that he was,  It's difficult to imagine a situation where that could have happened accidentally. The cigarette would have fallen off his coat one would think.

3. As per point 2. That cigarette could have been placed there by another, it could well have been the last cigarette the man smoked but someone placed it there for a reason. One such reason would be to have people believe that where he was found was where he died.

4. The presence of lividity poses a question and an answer. If the man was moved by others and amongst those others was a person with any medical knowledge, that person would have known that the lividity would have given the game away. That was not the case, whoever it was that played a part in the moving of the body, did not appear to have any medical knowledge.

5. As for the matches, the Coroner having questioned the witnesses, believed there was a packet of matches in the man's possession.

6. The search of the area did not reveal any other cigarette butts nor dead matches, not even the one used to light the man's last cigarette.

7. The questions are straightforward:

• We do not know for certain which poison was used, given that our timeline is correct, of the suspected poisons, how long would each take to cause the man's death?
• The food was in the stomach for 3 to 4 hours, could the poison have been in the food? 
• Could the food have been taken either before or after the poison was administered? 
• Was there a hard to detect poison that could have been delivered by the cigarette? (Not at all certain that if someone had poisoned him, that they would have left a deadly cigarette with the body)
• Was the 'hard to detect' poison Tetraethyl Lead? A substance reportedly used by the CIA to eliminate people quickly whilst leaving no trace?

IMPORTANT NOTE: TETRAETHYL LEAD POISONING

Regarding hard to trace poisons, amongst the notes that were released in the late 40s were those discussing Project MK ULTRA and Project MK DELTA. They dealt with the use of mind control techniques and drugs. One section of the notes went on to deal with 'How to murder someone without leaving any visible marks'. Amongst other things, such as Rivea Corymbosa seeds, these notes described a high octane fuel additive called 'tetraethyl lead' which when dropped on the skin kills very quickly without leaving an obvious trace. Could this be the reason for high levels of lead in the samples of hair taken from the man?  Exposure to high levels of Xrays was another method under consideration.

A CONCLUSION OF SORTS

From all of this, my thoughts at this stage are that part of the answer is that the man died elsewhere that night, labels and other items that might have helped identify him were removed at that location. He was transported to the beach by others and placed against the sea wall with care being taken not to disturb the ground around him and to put in place the partially smoked cigarette. He could have been lowered from the top of the small sea wall onto the sand beneath. I think this exercise occurred sometime after 2 am and before 4.30 am whilst it was still dark. Sunrise in Adelaide on December 1st, 1948 was 4.55 am.

He was a big man and I suggest that two strong people would have been needed to carry him down to the beach, probably from the back of a car, he would have either been carried down the steps or just to one side and out of camera shot, there was a pathway leading down to the beach.

The photo below was taken in 1948, I have removed two people in the pic., you can clearly see the Home and the pathway down to the beach. The steps by which the SOmerton Man was found is out of camera shot to the right of this image.

Any thoughts?