SOMERTON MAN IDENTIFIED? "THERE IS NO PROOF THAT CARL WEBB IS THE SOMERTON MAN".Photographs CARL WEBB & SOMERTON MAN.....

 

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT LINKS CARL WEBB....

....Below is a photograph of Carl Webb:

CARL WEBB

The image above is of the man of whom Paul Lawson created the now famous plaster bust. By default, that means that this is a photograph of Carl Webb.

And the following photograph is the one taken by Jimmy Durham, Police photographer, on Thursday 2nd December 1948. It is of the man found on Somerton Beach, The Somerton Man:

 And this next image shows them side by side, the Somerton Man on the left and Carl Webb on the right:

SOMERTON MAN                                                                  CARL WEBB

According to the announcement made by Professor Abbott last week the DNA match he made was of the man in image 2 on the right, with a Melbourne man known as Carl Webb. I have no reason to doubt that, there is no apparent evidence to the contrary.

The challenge though stems from the man on the left, image 1., this is the photograph we know to be the Somerton Man. We have no DNA sample taken at the time from this man because that hadn't been discovered, and, judging by his physical facial features, he does not bear a great resemblance to the man on the right, image 2, Carl Webb. You could make an argument about the ears but to me, they differ in placement and angle, if you look closely the ears are higher set and the left ear is set closer to the head on the Webb image. There is a slight incline on the SM image.

The ears as shown on the profiles of both SM and Webb below, appear to be precisely the same even though according to Paul Lawson, the ears on the man of whom he made the bust, were in a very bad condition to the extent he couldn't make a mold of them. Here's the ear comparison via the profile images:

CARL WEBB                                      SOMERTON MAN

It's quite possible that the ear on the Webb profile was superimposed on to an image that showed the ear to be in a state of decomposition, you can see where the image on the left had been 'touched up ' quite a lot but probably for the sake of presentation. For that reason, we may not be seeing the profile as it was in reality.

THE FINAL PROOF OF IDENTITY WILL NOT BE FROM DNA...

Another 'courageous' statement. What you have seen here casts sufficient doubt on the claimed identity of the Somerton Man and there is a need if we are to be totally certain, to prove that the man in image 2 is the same man as shown in image 1. There is no DNA match available for that. But there is a way.

THE EVIDENCE FROM DR. DWYER

Those familiar with the case will know that it was Dr. Dwyer who performed the autopsy on the body of the Somerton Man and it was he who had the foresight to take a Dental chart of the man's teeth. It showed that there were 18 teeth missing. Quite a few, enough to make chewing difficult you would think, and perhaps that is why only soft food, potato, was found in the contents of the man's stomach. In fact, because of a difficulty in chewing, our man may have been mostly vegetarian.

It is the Dental chart alone that can either prove or disprove that the Somerton Man is or is not Carl Webb...

Here's the actual chart:

You can see that Dr.Dwyer has told us that the numbered teeth are the missing teeth. Back, chewing teeth, are mostly missing as are the upper two front incisors. 18 missing teeth in total, Dr. Dwyer saw no evidence of a dental plate being used.

The Police examination must provide the information, more than that, it must provide the physical evidence by way of showing the actual skull and teeth structure of the body currently being examined. 

If they cannot do that then there is no proof that Carl Webb is the Somerton Man.

To add a further complication, when I interviewed Paul Lawson, he was adamant that when he was asked by the Coroner to retrieve the skull of the man, he was shocked to find on removing the skin from the head, that the sewing up of the skin had been done very professionally, expertly. On inspecting the skull he found that it had been thoroughly cleaned, pristine was a word he used. There was no sign of any organic material. The skull had to have been removed in order to do that.

That leaves the possibility that the skull may have been removed and replaced. That being the case, then no one will be able to match the dental chart of the man exhumed with that of the one taken by Dr. Dwyer.

The bottom line is that if the physical evidence of the exhumed man's teeth is produced and the chart matches that taken by Dr.Dwyer, then we have confirmation that the exhumed man is the Somerton Man. It is then that the DNA will provide the final evidence on the question of whether the man was indeed Carl Webb.