Somerton Man Mystery: Was The Plaster Bust "Repaired"?

 

I took this photograph during a visit to Thebarton Police Barracks in November 2022. It has always puzzled me; something just didn't seem right, and I could never quite put my finger on it.

One thing that stood out was the brightness of it, not just white, but a bright white in comparison to the many other images of the bust.

But first, let's review the information surrounding the bust and the taking of hair samples from it.

In the case of the Somerton Man, his plaster bust was made in 1949, and it’s now known that the bust was left unprotected for years, decades in fact. During that time, it suffered visible insect damage, meaning bugs had access to it. That tells us the bust was exposed to uncontrolled environments, like storage rooms, display areas, or labs, where contamination could easily happen. It has long been known that this valuable piece of evidence was moved from place to place, and no care was taken of it as you would hope.

This is a serious problem because a single 50 mm hair, without a root, taken from the bust was later used to extract DNA for identifying the man. But if the bust was open to insects, dust, and human contact over the years, that hair might not have belonged to the Somerton Man at all — or may have been contaminated by other people’s DNA.

Further, when you read through the article prepared by Professor Abbot in the March 2023 IEEE Spectrum Magazine, while he makes specific mention of where, when and by whom the early samples of hair were taken from the bust, he does not mention where, when or by whom the 50mm rootless hair sample that was used to make the claim that the man was Carl Webb, was taken. It remains an unknown. 

https://spectrum.ieee.org/somerton-man

Was The Plaster Bust "Repaired"?

On reviewing many earlier photographs of the plaster bust and comparing them to the one shown at the head of this post, a few anomalies cropped up. Here are some comparison images:

This first image compares a 2021 ABC TV image with the one at the \head of this post, which was taken at Thebarton Police Barracks in Adelaide in November 2022:

Image Comparison 1.

You'll notice a difference in the angles and in colouration, the latter could be simply due to lighting, and that should not be dismissed. There could be another reason, of course, but let's look at the same image as above, but I've marked up some unusual differences:

Image Comparison 2 & 3

2.

3.

In this marked-up comparison, you can see that the photograph taken in 2021 shows a definite 'line' as indicated by the group of 3 arrows. Further, the single arrow points to what appears to be a difference in the hairline across the brow; the 2022 photograph appears to show the hair being 'flatter' as opposed to the 'Quiff' in the 2021 photograph.

Here's another photograph, this was found on an Adelaide University web page, the name of the image file is Our Bust3

https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/File:OurBust3.jpeg

The hair in the photograph above is quite flat, there is no 'quiff' and no sign of a 'line' as per the earlier Image Comparison 2.

Finally, below is a photograph of the bust taken in 1975, here you should be able to see that there is a distinct wave or 'Quiff' at the front of the man's hair is quite noticeable, his hair does not appear to be flat.

As an aside, in this final image, you can clearly see that the man's right ear tapers into the side of his jaw line; it is not a 'square' cut into the side of his head as will be seen in the full face, post-autopsy photograph shown below:

SUMMARY

In summary, the comparison images above appear to show some distinct differences. The hairstyles look different, there is an odd line that shows up in the ABC TV photograph of the bust, and the hairline across the man's brow does not match the 2022 photograph.

The question is, are these real differences caused by a 'repair' or are they the result of lighting and different angled views? The one that challenges me most is the flat hair style versus the 'distinct 'Quiff or wave at the front of the man/'s Hair. Could it mean that there was more than one cast made of the bust? Could it be that these issues have contributed to the delay in the issuing of the Inquest results?