FACELESS MEN
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'All of this points in one direction and one direction only, the Somerton Man was assassinated but the question remains, by whom?'
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Is it too early to be talking about real suspects? I think not.
Over the years many people have been branded as suspects but based mainly on total guesswork, many are those who have leapt in with wild, unsubstantiated and poorly researched conclusions. Mostly they indicated a member of the nurses family or a serviceman or two because they had dubious service records and once served with Alf Boxall. Ludicrous.
We've taken a different approach. We have looked long and hard at the physical evidence and three other aspects as you will read.
The Evidence
I don't intend to list everything here because most will be very familiar with the various items that comprised the physical evidence, lists abound! We have the Somerton Man's body, we have his clothing and his possessions found with or on the body. There have been discussions regarding what he was wearing and when and whether or not the matches were with him on the beach or added later. An inconsistency in the pattern of the man's trousers is yet another example. Then, of course, we have the suitcase found later at the Adelaide Railway Station, it was filled with a variety of clothes, tools and personal items and, conveniently, a name tag or two. We must not forget the torn piece from a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the book from which, they say, it came.
So, what are the other aspects?
- A timeline
- The Inquest Documents, in particular, the findings thereof
- The Modus Operandi and yes, there is one.
The Timeline
This case has that many timelines, they seem to breed. The focus for this post is the timeline that relates to the period between the time at which the man was first seen on the beach, around 7.30 pm on 30th November, by Mr. Lyons and his good lady wife and a young Gordon Strapps and his lady friend, Olive Neill, and the time he was pronounced dead at the Hospital by Dr. Bennet. 9.40 am on the 1st of December 1948.
He was alive when observed by the Lyons' and by the young couple and not just because he was seen to move. (See next paragraph on The Inquest) The very last time he was seen by any witness was that evening around 8pm when the young couple left. Interestingly, a man wearing a coat and hat was seen by the couple leaning against a railing at the top of the steps leading down to the beach, he appeared to be watching the man. This man never came forward and was never identified.
No one apparently saw the Somerton man appear on the beach and no one saw him after 8 pm that night. The next time he was seen was the next morning, at around 6.30 am on the 1st of December. So far so good?
The Inquest Papers.
Lots of statements given and recorded in the inquest papers some of which were later contradicted in the Littlemore papers and most of which have been variously misinterpreted or outright condemned by those who weren't there at the time but it seemed to fit their storylines better to do just that.
The most important points raised in the inquest are to be found in the Inquest Findings, read it carefully:
The Coroner, Mr. Cleland, gives us the date and place of death. He cannot give tell us how he died or what the cause of death was. He made 4 very important points.
1. He died right there on the foreshore, not elsewhere
2. He died on the 1st December, not the previous evening. That tells us that the coroner accepted the evidence of Dr. Bennet, and the evidence puts the time of death no earlier than 8 hours before the time he examined the body which was 9.40 am on 1st December 1948. That means he died at between 1.30 am and 2 am that morning. That information, in turn, means that the potato that was found in the man's stomach would have been eaten between 12 midnight and the time of death Potato taking 1 hour to digest. There is an argument that says, dependent on the poison administered, he may have eaten a few hours earlier. The questions are: Where did he get the food from? Where was he when he ate it?
3. Mr. Cleland was unable to say how the man died
4. He was unable to say what caused his death
In 1994, Chief Justice of Victoria, John Haber Phillips, concluded that, from the evidence that the poison used was digitalis.
The Modus Operandi
Roughly translated, this describes a method of operation from which a pattern may be detected. How can we establish a Mous Operandi for the Somerton Man case?
Normally, an MO is discussed as it relates to references to previous cases. In a previous life, we would look for patterns in criminal behaviours, a burglar would always strike between 11pm and 11.30 pm, he would always choose a corner house in expensive suburbs, he would always break in via the ground floor window next to the rear door of the property etc. In this way, we could narrow down a list of suspects and sometimes even down to the actual perpetrator.
But, in the Somerton Man case, we have no previous similar offences to refer to, but do we? Maybe we should qualify that with these words, 'That we know of'.
If we look at cases for the following years, we will find quite a few examples and some we may never be able to trace.
I will give some examples in the next post when we look at various names but for now, the Modus Operandi for the Somerton Man case is as follows:
1. There was no readily identifiable cause of death
2. It looked like it could have been a suicide
3. There were physical objects and belongings but nothing that would identify the owner
4. Labels had been removed from the clothing the man was wearing at the time
5. His body was left in an open and public space
6. A possible clue lies with the torn piece of paper that was carefully folded up and found secreted in a hard to find waistband fob pocket of the trousers the man was wearing when his body was discovered. This piece was later matched to a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that was found months later about 2 kilometres away from the scene in the back seat of a parked car.
All of this points in one direction and one direction only, the Somerton Man was assassinated but the question remains, by whom?
More to follow including names.
In the case of the Timeline & Evidence, there is almost what you could describe as a man made 'mist' hanging over this case. It's good that you're carefully combing facts from fiction. The suitcase aside,there are 3 pieces of evidence that, in my mind, were deliberate attempts to confuse the investigation. 1. Why was the body left in full view of the public? 2. The "Tamam Shud" paper in his pocket waiting to be found. 3. His shoes, why so clean? A new pair he bought? Clive
ReplyDeleteYes, totally agree. Under each heading we can certainly list a long list of questions and questionable evidence. The body in full view is, in my estimation part of the MO, it was left there as a warning. The torn piece, was it left there deliberately or was it hidden there by SM? The shoes were to all accounts a good fit and in very good condition, could be quite new. Wonder what happened to the old ones? You tend to think that the super clean shoes are the mark of a military man perhaps. Not British thuugh if, as I believe, this man was either an emigre, a dissident or a defector. More likely a defector. I say that because if had been a dissident, he would have been well known. I doubt the agency involved would have put so much effort in to disposing of an annoying emigre.
ReplyDeleteI think this was well planned and engineered to get the maximum effect. The message being, no matter where you run to, we will find you.
And with the body being left 'on view to the public' so to speak, you can't help wondering just how much the authorities were aware of what was going on, were they powerless or did they give the nod knowing that 'Joe Public' via the press would never find out the truth? Clive
ReplyDeleteSome kind of deal perhaps? Maybe our man was a defector and should have been well looked after but wasn't?
ReplyDeletePerhaps 'they' ran into a problem and had to dump the body in a hurry? Before daylight hours? Clive
ReplyDeleteThe timeline is perplexing, a late meal and then 2 to 3 hours later he's dead. In my mind this is an assassination, he may have arrived in late from somewhere, any late trains? Hungry, needed a shower and shave, not able to chew because of his teeth so potato was his choice. That is where I think the Digitalis was delivered. He was meant to meet someone and handover the torn piece as ID. He may have had something of value with him and sadly we may never know what that was, e went off to his meeting, the exchange was always going to end in his demise, the other party didn't get what they wanted and enter the single barrel vapour gun, within seconds, he's dead.
ReplyDeleteThat Cleland said he died on the beach is sort of irrelevant. That's not a hard and fast fact, but rather indicates there is no eveidence to think otherwise - maybe I'm splitting hairs, but my point is I don't think Cleland necessarily meant that as certainly as it is being interprested...
ReplyDeleteDying on the 1st of December is incredibly problematic (and byet I think it's true). Other commetnors have frequently highlighted this makes his state at 7/8 pm on the 31st hard to explain given the toxins most likely used. And yet, I would have to agree that even taking into account any explanation anyone can come up with, we have to agree that the time of death estimated at the time wasn't massively incorrect. On the one hand, it seems to make a case for the person on the 31st not being the body on the 1st.....on the other hand, that seems one hell of a coincidence....as you point out, you also need to work into that the state of digesting the pasty (or whatever he ate) - which would suggest that was eaten quite late in the night if he died in the morning.....it's all rather odd
I have to say I have a bit of an issue with your MO. Isn't the MO the traits of the person commiting the crime, not the victim? While your "MO" describes the scene, it seems to relate to the victim not to someone who might have commisioned a crime - so I'm sort of struggling to understand it as an MO.
What Cleland stated were his findings, he found no evidence to the contrary and that is all we have to rely on. We can question the findings of any and all documents from any and all murder cases if we accept your premise. Realistically, it is what we have and it's a starting point. Cleland would have carefully considered his remarks, and he wouldn't have treated it lightly.
ReplyDeleteWe agree that he died on 1st December. Once that is set, we are able to work through the evidence of Dr. Bennet which in turn gives us an approximate time of death between 1.40 am and 2 am. Working back from that time to allow for digestion to take place puts the time of his last meal between 10 pm and 11 pm. That, as you rightly say, is problematical or I would prefer to say 'interesting'.
A good question regarding MO, normally MO means that we look at previous similar cases to find commonalities which can give us a clue to the identity of the person responsible. But this is no ordinary case, at the time, they had no previous cases, that we are aware of, that were similar. What we can do and in fact I did, was to use the benefit of later history. What cases followed the SM case that could fall into a similar category?
The MO in this case has similarities to later Soviet assassinations. Not just the scene but the methods employed or rather the outcomes. No real definitive conclusion on the exact type of poison used, a sudden and unexplained death, it looked like a suicide, and now we get to the pointers. No identification, labels removed, code page and torn piece.
So I agree, I could have presented the information a little differently in that we have two parts of the story, the MO and the pointers. But a 'hazy' MO can be part of an MO as it is, in my view, in this case. My view then is that this was a well planned and executed assassination that can be compared to other, later, assassinations carried out by the Soviets. I believe he was Russian or Eastern Bloc and a very recent arrival in Australia. Had he been assassinated by others, CIA, or MI6, the Russians would have been all over it exposing the dreadful crime by the devilish Western intelligence services. I think they did it, I think he was left in the open as a message, I think they missed the torn piece. The timing being so close to the Lapstone Conference you would have to consider that it could have been in some way connected. Leaving his body in the open would have sent a very clear message to anyone considering a defection for example.
But, this is all my view. Everyone is entitled to their own of course.