The Tamám Shud Case, also known as the Mystery of the Somerton Man, is a cold case that remains unsolved to this day. In 1948, the body of an unidentified man was found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia. The man was in his late 40s and had no identification on him, and efforts to identify him or determine the cause of his death were unsuccessful.
The case became known as the Tamam Shud Case after a small book of Persian poetry, called the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," was found in the man's pocket. The words "Tamam Shud," which mean "ended" or "finished" in Persian, were written on the cover of the book. This led investigators to believe that the man may have been involved in espionage or some other covert activity.
Over the years, numerous theories have been proposed about the Tamam Shud Case, but none have been able to conclusively solve the mystery. The case remains one of the most intriguing and perplexing cold cases in Australian history.
On the morning of 1 December 1948, the Somerton Man was discovered lying on Somerton Park Beach near Glenelg, South Australia, by John Lyons and two men with a horse. The man's death was initially believed to be a suicide, as he had no identification and was found with an unlit cigarette on his collar. An autopsy was conducted, and the pathologist estimated the time of death to be around 2 a.m. on 1 December.
In January 1949, the brown suitcase belonging to the man was found at the Adelaide railway station. In June of the same year, a piece of paper bearing the inscription "Tamám Shud" was found in a concealed pocket of the man's clothing. A coroner's inquest was held on 17 and 21 June.
On 22 July, a man handed in a copy of the Rubaiyat that he had found on 30 November (or possibly a week or two earlier) containing an unlisted phone number and a mysterious inscription. The police later matched the "Tamám Shud" paper to the book. The unlisted phone number was traced to a woman living in Glenelg, Jessica Thomson (previously Harkness). Her behavior was described as odd during the encounter. She requested that her real name be withheld, but gave the name Jessica Thomson to the police.
The original Rubaiyat was lost at some point in the 1950s. Horace Charles Reynolds, a Tasmanian man born in 1900, died in 1953. Some investigators believe he may have been the owner of the "H. C. Reynolds" identification card found on the Somerton Man.
Reconstruction of the last hours of the Somerton Man before his death:
On the morning of November 30, 1948, the Somerton Man arrived in Adelaide by train. He purchased a ticket for the 10:50 am train to Henley Beach, but never ended up using it. There is no explanation for what he did during the hours between 8:30 am and 10:50 am. It is not known if he visited the Public Baths outside of the railway station or if the bathroom facilities at the station were unavailable.
At some point between 11:00 am and 11:15 am, the Somerton Man checked a brown suitcase into the railway station cloak room. Afterwards, he purchased a 7d bus ticket on a bus that left from the south side of North Terrace in front of the Strathmore Hotel, opposite the railway station. It is unclear when exactly he boarded the bus, as his ticket was the sixth of nine sold between the railway station and South Terrace. However, he only had a fifteen-minute window from the earliest time he could have checked his suitcase, which was located around sixty meters from the bus stop.
The bus terminated at Somerton Park at 11:44 am, and it is believed that the Somerton Man got off at Glenelg, a short distance from the St. Leonard's hotel. This stop is located less than a kilometer north of the Moseley Street address of Jessica Thomson, which was itself 400 meters from where the body was found.
In the evening between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm, there were various witness sightings of the Somerton Man. It is estimated that he ate a pasty sometime between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm. The estimated time of his death is 2:00 am on December 1, based on a "quick opinion" on the state of rigor mortis while the ambulance was in transit. However, as the suspected cause of death was suicide and no attempt was made to accurately determine the time of death, this estimate is probably inaccurate. The effects of poisons on the progression of rigor mortis could have caused the estimated time to be off.
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