WWhodunnitCLUB
1948 · Adelaide, South Australia · 2 min read

The Somerton Man

A stranger on a beach, a scrap of Persian poetry, and a code nobody has cracked.

Early one December morning in 1948, a well-dressed man was found dead on Somerton Park beach, propped against the sea wall. He carried no identification. The labels had been removed from his clothes. Doctors suspected poison but could find none.

The puzzle

Months later, a tiny rolled-up slip of paper was found in a hidden fob pocket of his trousers. It bore two printed words: Tamám Shud, "it is ended", the closing words of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The number belonged to a nurse who lived close to the beach. She told police she did not know the man. The letters have defeated codebreakers ever since.

What happened next

For seven decades the man was nameless, and theories piled up: a spy, a jilted lover, a smuggler. In 2021 his body was exhumed, and in 2022 researchers announced that DNA genealogy had identified him as Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne.

A name answered one question and raised others. Why was he in Adelaide? Who removed the labels? What do the pencilled letters say? And how did he die?

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