Narrator (5:59)
December 1, 1948 was the first day of summer in Australia. In Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia, hot weather was rolling in. 16 year old apprentice horse jockey Neil Day and his 35 year old friend horse Horace Hori Patching got up early that day. It would be too hot for their horses to exercise later, so they went down to the beach shortly after sunrise to ride along the shore. As they were making their way across the sand, they noticed a man wearing a brown suit slumped against the seawall with his feet pointing toward the ocean. They figured he got drunk and spent the night there. But on the way back from their ride at around 6:30am Neil and Hori saw the man was still there in the exact same position. Horry dismounted and tried to wake the guy up by lifting one of his legs. And that's when he realized this man was dead, already cold and stiff with rigor mortis. Soon another beachgoer ran home and called the police. And by 6:45am Police Constable John Moss arrived on the scene. One of the first details he noticed was that the man's clothes were dry, which meant he couldn't have washed up from the sea. Not only that, but the man was wearing a lot of clothing for how hot it was that day. He had on a singlet, the Australian term for an undershirt, a white button down shirt over that, a brown wool pullover or cardigan, and a double breasted suit coat on the bottom. He wore jockey shorts or boxers, socks and brown trousers. Despite how many layers he had on, the man wasn't wearing a hat, which Constable Moss thought was strange. In 1948, it was etiquette for men to wear hats which were only removed indoors or or when greeting a lady on the street. All men wore them outside. As for the accessories he did have, the man wore brown lace up shoes, a red, white and blue tie, and there was a handkerchief in his pocket. But none of the clothes he was wearing had any tags. In fact, both his shirt and jacket appeared to have had the tags removed. And there was also something odd about the tie. The stripes were higher on the right hand side, which was how ties in the United States were made back then. The stripes on Australian ties usually went the other way. And the type of stitching on his coat was exclusively used in the US at the time. That meant it had come from America. But how did this man get his hands on it? Those details were interesting, but they still didn't explain who he. Constable Moss checked his pockets for any sign of his identity, but the man didn't have a wallet or any money on him. Still, there were a few other notable items, including a used bus ticket to Glenelg, just about two miles from the beach. Constable Moss wondered if he'd gotten off the train there recently. But there was also an unused train ticket to Henley beach, about eight miles away. It seemed like the man had plans to continue his travels before he died. Unfortunately, none of this pointed to his true identity. Still, the police didn't seem too worried about that just yet. They figured it was just a matter of time until family and friends came looking for him. Until then, the authorities needed to learn more about the man and how he Died. The man had no wounds, signs of trauma or blood on him when he was found, so performing an autopsy was the only way the authorities could find out what actually happened. The day after the body was discovered, on December 2, a pathologist named Dr. John Dwyer performed a postmortem exam. He estimated the man had been dead for about seven and a half hours by the time the jockey found him. Dr. Dwyer also guessed he was around 45 years old. He was 5ft 11, with gray eyes, strawberry blonde hair that was starting to gray, and an overall healthy physique. He had unusually large, tight calf muscles, like someone might get if they wore high heels frequently. This made people wonder if he worked on a cattle ranch wearing heeled cowboy boots. However, ballet dancing or riding a bike long distances could also explain it. Whoever he was, he seemed to care about his appearance. He was well groomed and had just trimmed his nails before he died. One of the Most important details Dr. Dwyer noticed was that the man was missing nine upper and nine lower teeth, mostly in the back of his mouth. Two of those were his lateral incisors, which go between the front teeth and the canines. But there wasn't an obvious gap in his mouth, which made Dr. Dwyer think he probably didn't lose those teeth. Chances were he never had them at all. That was a huge discovery. Just about 2% of people are born missing certain teeth. Because dental records are essential in identifying John and Jane does, this unique detail could help set the man apart. But that wasn't the only thing they learned from the autopsy. Dr. Dwyer noticed there was some unexplained blood in the man's stomach, along with the food that had been eaten about three to four hours before he died. His liver showed signs of damage, and several other organs, including his brain, were also reportedly swollen. But his heart appeared totally healthy and normal. Despite all that, Dr. Dwyer determined the immediate cause of death as heart failure. But he made it clear that he didn't think the man's heart failed naturally. There was no sign of underlying heart disease or a heart attack. Instead, the damage to his stomach and liver strongly suggested he'd taken some sort of drug or poison. The problem was tissue samples taken from the body. All tested negative for common poisons and drugs. Dr. Dwyer also noted that most poisons that lead to bleeding in the stomach would also cause violent vomiting. But the man hadn't vomited up his last meal. So either a fit, apparently healthy, middle aged man had died of an underlying condition that didn't appear to be at a terminal stage or or this was a homicide or a suicide using an undetectable rare poison. Dr. Dwyer's theory was certainly compelling, but it was almost impossible to prove. It also didn't help identify the victim, who quickly became known as the Somerton man in the media because he'd been found on Somerton beach that same day on December 2nd. They photographed and fingerprinted the body, and they embalmed him with formaldehyde so he wouldn't decompose further before an identification was made. However, there weren't any matches for the fingerprints in Adelaide or anywhere else. Local police even sent them to the FBI in Scotland Yard, but no good results turned up. And despite the promising lead on the dental records, those didn't return any matches either. Meanwhile, the photos were widely distributed in the hopes that somebody might recognize the victim. Through the rest of December and into January 1949, a few people did come forward. They thought they recognized the photos or knew of a missing person fitting the victim's description. However, all of those possible identifications ended up being ruled out by one mismatched trait or another. For example, police ruled out a missing man who is a woodcutter because there was no calluses on the submarton man's hands, which meant he couldn't have done hard manual labor. Investigators also spent time sending the fingerprints out to more law enforcement agencies and searching the area for the man's missing possessions, like his hat and wallet. Still, none of that led them any closer to getting answers. Until finally, on January 14, 1949, six weeks after the body was found, they learned something new. Like I mentioned earlier, there was a used bus ticket and unused train ticket in the victim's pocket. Because of that, the police went to the Adelaide Railway station to check for evidence. At the time, all train stations offered luggage storage. Sure enough, there was a suitcase in the cloakroom that had been dropped off on November 30, the day before he died, between 11am and noon. And it was still there. As soon as the police opened it, they felt sure it belonged to their victim. They it contained a card of brownish orange thread for mending clothes, which matched recent repairs on the Somerton man's clothing and the clothes inside would have fit him. Some of the underwear was the exact same size and style the Somerton man was found in. Unfortunately, the most important missing item, his wallet, which presumably contained his id, wasn't in the suitcase. However, there were three items with a possible name on them. A tie was marked T Keen, and the singlet and laundry bag were both marked Keen Though one had an E at the end and the other didn't. However, there were no missing canes that seemed to match the Somerton man's description, so police believe those items were either bought second hand or or deliberately mislabeled to help disguise the man's identity. Besides the clothing, the suitcase also contained some envelopes and airmail stickers used for writing letters to people overseas. This suggested the Somerton man was in touch with someone abroad. But maybe the most interesting thing they got from the suitcase was a hint about what the victim did for work. He had several tools, like a screwdriver, two pairs of scissors, a sheathed knife, a length of cord, pencils, and something called a stenciling brush. At the time, stenciling brushes were often used by sailors for stenciling important markings onto cargo crates. If the Somerton man worked at sea, that would fit with the idea that he traveled the world collecting clothing and mailing letters. On the other hand, none of the clothing in the suitcase matched what a sailor would wear during a voyage. After the suitcase was found, things settled back into a frustrating holding pattern. Over the next five months, from January to June of 1949, people kept coming forward with tips on the Somerton man's identity, but nothing stuck. Meanwhile, the Somerton man remained in the morgue, embalmed and refrigerated. The theory was that he most likely wasn't from South Australia and his family would probably want him buried closer to home. And while police still had his body, they figured they'd try a few more tactics to identify him. On June 7, just over six months after the Somerton man died, a plaster cast was made of his head and shoulders. Around this same time, the authorities also made one final Hail Mary. They called in Sir John Burton Cleland, a famous Australian scientist and pathologist. Cleland mostly agreed with the original autopsy's conclusions. He also felt like the most likely cause of death was suicide by undetectable poison. Although he was unable to find proof, though, he did find one new, very important detail. It would go on to define the case and mystify the world for decades to come.
