About this episode Dive into the chilling enigma of the Somerton Man, a mysterious case that has puzzled investigators for decades. This episode explores every angle, suspect, and theory behind the unidentified man's death, unraveling clues and dead ends that keep the mystery alive. Join us as we piece together the evidence with a detective's relentless curiosity, revealing why this case continues to captivate and baffle the world.
0:00 At six-thirty in the morning on December first, 1948, a man was found on Somerton Beach in South Australia, propped against the sea wall.0:11 He was dead, but he looked like he was just resting.0:15 Last week, you and I looked at the empty frames hanging in the Gardner Museum, placeholders for stolen art.0:24 This case file is about a different kind of empty space: a man without a name, a life without a record.0:33 The police couldn't identify him.0:35 Not then, and not for seventy-three years.0:39 The file just called him the Somerton Man.0:42 The scene on the beach was… pristine.0:46 Too pristine.0:47 He wore a suit and tie, shoes polished.0:50 No signs of violence.0:52 In his pockets were a train ticket he never used, chewing gum, and a pack of cigarettes.0:59 But there was no wallet.1:01 No money.1:02 No identification of any kind.1:04 And here's the first detail that always gets me.1:08 The labels from his suit, his tie, his shirt — all of them had been carefully, precisely, cut away.1:16 Someone didn't want him to be known.1:19 The coroner's report was just as clean, and just as frustrating.1:25 He was in peak physical condition.1:28 The cause of death was likely heart failure, probably from a poison that was fast-acting and untraceable.1:36 But the autopsy found nothing.1:39 No poison.1:40 No answers.1:40 Just a body.1:41 The case went cold for months.1:44 Then, the pathologist, going over the evidence one more time, felt something in the man’s trousers.1:52 A tiny fob pocket, sewn into a larger pocket.1:56 It was a secret.1:57 And inside that secret pocket was a tiny, tightly rolled scrap of paper.2:03 On it were two printed words: "Tamam Shud." It's a Persian phrase.2:09 It means "it is ended," or "finished." They’re the last words from a book of poems, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.2:18 So police put out a call for anyone who might have a copy of this book with the last page torn out.2:26 And a man came forward.2:28 He said that around the time of the death, he found a rare edition of the Rubaiyat tossed into the back of his car.2:38 The final page, with the words "Tamam Shud," was gone.2:42 The police matched the scrap of paper from the dead man's pocket to the tear in the book.2:50 It was a perfect fit.2:52 And in the back of that book, faintly written in pencil, was a phone number… and five lines of what looked like a code.3:01 The number led them to a nurse, Jessica Thomson.3:05 She lived just a short walk from where the body was found.3:10 When detectives showed her a plaster cast of the man's face, she was visibly shocked.3:17 One officer said she looked as if she was about to faint.3:22 But she denied everything.3:24 She denied knowing him, or having any idea why he would have her number.3:30 For the rest of her life, she refused to speak about it.3:35 The code was never broken.3:37 The identity remained a blank.3:40 Was he a spy, passing secrets in the dawn of the Cold War?3:44 A lover she had rejected?3:46 Every theory was a dead end.3:49 For decades, that’s where the file stopped.3:52 But in 2021, the body was exhumed.3:55 Researchers managed to get a viable DNA sample from hairs that had been trapped in the original plaster death mask.4:05 And using forensic genealogy, they built a family tree.4:09 In July of 2022, they found him.4:12 His name was Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne.4:18 So, the case is solved.4:20 Right?4:20 Not for me.4:21 We have a name, but that name only creates MORE questions.4:26 Why did Carl Webb, a man with a wife in Melbourne, travel to Adelaide under a presumed identity?4:34 Why did he have a book with a secret code and a nurse's phone number?4:40 Why did he die on that beach?4:42 Knowing his name isn't the end of the story.4:46 It's the beginning of a completely new one.
