The Taman Shud Case

In 1948 some beach people found a dead man on a beach in Australia he was well dressed with no signs of trauma and no identification since the police found out about the case he became known as "Somerton man". The man's possessions offered very few clues about him but in one of his pockets they found a paper that said "Taman Shud" in Persian "is finished". Today no one knows about the identity of the man, but there were many theories about him, after 70 years some researchers hope to know the identity of this man, but that same year (1948) some people noticed a man lying on a concrete disk on the same beach, he had his legs extended and his feet crossed, some thought he was very strange, he was also well dressed for a hot night on the beach, several people saw him with his arms crossed, drunk, trying to light a cigarette, others saw him with many mosquitoes on his face and they thought he was too drunk to remove them from his face, in a few words he was very drunk according to these people just as he was already dying but hours or days later some horse riders found him dead and they called the police. Even so, the body of the Somerton man was not identified, this clean-shaven man had not been shot, stabbed or injured according to the police.

Apparently he was wearing underpants, a man's shirt and another white shirt and a simple thin red tie, it is also said that he was wearing a complete brown formal dress, his shoes were polished, and one of his pockets was repaired with orange thread.

In that pocket, investigators found a train ticket to Henley Beach, and a bus ticket to North Glenelg, an American metal comb, Juicy fruit gum, cigarettes, and other items.

The man could be between 40 and 50 since he looked like an athlete, he had tanned forearms, and his toes were strangely destroyed, as if he had had very tight shoes, it is believed that he was apparently a dancer, the clothing tags were apparently cut and the investigators found nothing else.

At the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Dr. John Barkley Bennet was able to ascertain that the man did not die at 2 a.m., pantologist John Matthew Dwyer confirmed that the body did not move when he died, Dr. Dwyer noted several things out of place such as the pupils were small and had an unusual shape, blood was found in his stomach which led Dwyer to think that it could be an irritant poison, but the tests showed that it was not any type of poison, the investigators were put to weigh that he could having said digitalis or strophonin, two of the poisons that leave no trace in the body.

Attempts to identify him once again failed, neither the FBI or Scotland Yard managed to obtain the man's saved fingerprints, forensic doctors determined that this man may have died of heart failure, but even so there was no evidence.

At the Adelaide train station, this man's abandoned suitcase was found, and they found the same thread that he had sewn on his pants and inside it he had clothes with labels but still they had no clues.

But after waiting several months, the most disconcerting clue arrived, this clue took him back to the pocket of the man's pants where they found a letter in Persian that said "Tamab Shub" which means "it is finished" or "it has finished" but it was discovered that they were ripped from a New Zealand book.

All the police started looking for copies of the book but they found nothing until a man brought the copy of the book, the police happily went to see the last page of the book which was the one that talked about "Taman Shud" and apparently they ripped it out but that man confirmed not knowing anything about the poem.

The year before, two men were out for a drive when they saw the book and noticed that it was the same book the police were looking for.

Inside the book one of the detectives entered two unlisted phone numbers, the first phone number apparently no one had it anymore, but the second number belonged to a young nurse who lived in Somerton Beach.

The young woman was a little reluctant to talk to the police although she did admit to giving a copy to a man named Alfred Boxall. The police decided to go after the clue until they discovered that Boxall was alive and still had the copy that the young woman gave him.

The man claimed not to know the deceased, but the police noticed that he acted strangely when seeing the plaster cast of his face and almost passed out.

After this they found nothing else and decided to use a weak code with a black light and noticed a series of letters that said: W [or maybe M] RGOABABDWTBIMPANETP

MLIABO AIAIQC

ITTMTSAMSTGAB

None of the Australian Navy could decipher the code, in 1949 they found out the man from somerton, in 1958 the newspaper report that spoke of the case concluded that "It cannot be said who the deceased, I do not know or say how he died or What was his cause of death?

During these last years several theories arose; The first is that this man could have committed suicide after being rejected by the young Thomson, the second theory may be that the girl died in 2013, and that she had a son by the deceased man, being rejected it is believed that is why she decided to commit suicide.

Another theory is that it is believed that he was a spy who knew a lot of information, since the researchers were surprised with his death since they could kill him with a poison that is not found in the body.

Also the spy theory is widely believed because no one claimed his body and the confusing meaning of "Tamam Shud" is like something out of a spy novel.

Even so, strange clues were found about the man in the know, an ex-policeman who wrote a book about this case in 1950 found a witness who said he saw a man carrying another on his shoulder on November 30, 1948 at night .

Do you think it could be a friend helping? or was the killer to finish the job?

The daughters of this man decided to take the case, and it is believed that both he and his wife were involved in a Soviet espionage network.

In 2021 they decided to do DNA tests again on the deceased man with the exhumed body, but only time will tell what really happened to this man.

What do you think about this case? It can become very interesting, if you are interested in this case there is still much more to learn about it, it may be that there is a part two about it.