The Unsolved Mystery of Taman Shud

Unsolved Mystery
On December 1, 1948 at approximately 6:30 a.m. a lifeless body was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia. The man's head was propped against a seawall and his feet were stretched out toward the sea. It was obvious that he died quietly with no visible injuries. A search of his clothing produced few clues to his identity.
The man had no wallet or any identification on or near his person. His pockets contained a used bus ticket to St. Leonards in Glenleg, an unused rail ticket to Henley Beach, an aluminum comb, believed to be American, a pack of cheap Army Club brand cigarettes, a fourth a box of used matches and a half a pack of Juicy Fruit gum.
All labels from his clothing had been removed.
Originally, the man was identified as E.C. Johnson. On December 3, 1948 a man who identified himself as E.C. Johnson presented himself at the police station therefore the search continued for the true identity of the unknown man.

Who is that man?
An autopsy was performed and the conclusion was the man died from a fast acting and undectable poison. Digitalis was believed to be the culprit. Further examination revealed interesting genetic clues. His calves were very well developed and his first and last toes were wedge shaped. One doctor reported that it was as if he had the legs of a dancer or wore high heeled shoes.
His ears were remarkable due to the shape of the ear canals. His upper ear canal was larger and the bottom ear canal was smaller. Only about 2% of the population has this genetic trait.
For each clue that is found another mystery seems to unfold. The truth seems to become narrow and then wide again like a river that meanders on without an end in sight. Just when the answer seems close another mystery springs up unexpectedly.
The man was described as being close shaven, hazel eyes, light brown hair with some gray, broad shoulders, narrower waist and in great physical condition with a frame that measured 5'11" in height.
Under more scrutiny, the unknown man's clothing revealed a hidden pocket that contained a rolled up slip of paper with the words, "Tamam Shud" printed on it. One of the pockets had been repaired with a waxy orange thread that was very uncommon at that time. The cheap cigarettes pack actually contained 7 expensive brand of cigarettes leading some to believe that may be how he ingested the poison.
Tamam Shud is a Persian phrase translated to mean "the end" but it is believed that it was changed to Taman as a result of translation.

The Brown Suitcase
A brown suitcase was discovered at the Adelaide Railway Station that was checked on November 30, 1948, some time after 11:00 a.m. The mystery deepened as investigators discovered the unclaimed suitcase.
It contained a dressing gown in size 7, a couple pairs of slippers, underwear, pajamas, shaving items, an electricians screwdriver, a pair of light brown pants, a pair of scissors, a card of that strange waxy orange thread, and a stenciling brush that would have been used for stenciling boxes of cargo being shipped.
The labels had either been removed from all the clothing or T. Keane, Keane or Kean was written on the remaining labels. There was a Sailor named Thomas Keane but his friends who could identify him said the unknown man was not him. Speculation includes the thought that the case was planted to mislead investigators.
There was an article of clothing that is believed to have come from the U.S. as the featherstiching was done nowhere other than America.
"The End"


Unsolved Mystery
- The Voynich Manuscript - Decoded?
Who wrote the Voynich Manuscript? Intellects have been trying to solve the many mysteries of the manuscript for over a century - has it been cracked?
The Rubaiyat
Interesting to note is that a man who left his car unlocked discovered a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that had been placed on the back seat of his car. He thought it belonged to his brother in law. When he learned it was not - a closer inspection revealed a missing chunck of a page. It was the scrap of paper that was found in the dead Somerton man's hidden pocket.
The man asked not to be identified but turned the book in to the police.
Inside of this particular copy of the Rubaiyat there was a printed code and two phone numbers. One of the unlisted phone numbers belonged to a woman who had gifted a copy of this book of poetry to an Army Lieutenant named Alfred Boxall. For decades her name was kept out of the press as she requested not to be named. She was referred to as "Jestyn" because she signed the nickname in the book to Boxall.
Was the unknown man a former lover of Jestyn?
"Jestyn" was visibly shaken upon seeing the bust of the unknown dead man. It was noted she instantly turned very pale but denied knowing the identity of the man.Alf Boxall was found alive and well and his copy of the book was intact. Incidentally he was rumoured to be involved in the spy business.
Jestyn's true name was Teresa Powell. Powell told police her name was Teresa Johnson and that she was married to another man (Prestige Johnson). Many years later it was found that Teresa was not a nurse at that time and was not yet married.
Powell gave the book of poetry to Boxall in Sydney, Australia prior to his military departure overseas in 1945.
In 1946 a pregnant Teresa Powell moved to Victoria to live with her parents. She changed her surname to that of her husband in 1947. Some people speculate that the child was Boxall's and Powell didn't want him to learn of her connection to the unknown man.

The End?
The Somerton man has never been identified, unequivocally. The code has also never been broken.
There are interesting cases that are connected to the Somerton Man. Keith Waldemar Mangnoson believed he could identify the unknown man and planned to do so just before he and his two year old son disappeared. The two were found four days later on river bank. Clive, the two-year old son was deceased and lying on the bank next to his fatigued father who was suffering from exposure. The elder Mangnoson was examined and committed to a mental facility. The mother Roma Mangnoson told police she had been threatened and chased down by a man who concealed his face with a handkerchief while he threatened her and told her to stay away from the police. Roma collapsed and also required medical treatment following the ordeal.
In June, 1945, a 34 year old man named Joseph Saul Haim Marshall was discovered in Ashton park, Mosman, in Sydney. A copy of the seventh edition of "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," published in London by Methuen, was found on his deceased body. His death was blamed on suicide by poison.
In 2010 investigators discovered that only five editions of the Rubaiyat had been published by Methuen.
On 2011 a woman found an identification card issued in the name of H.C. Reynolds that she found with her father's estate. The ID card was issued on February 28, 1918 and has a compelling similarities to the Somerton man. Anthropologist Maciej Henneberg is convinced H.C. Reynolds is the Somerton Man due to a mole the same shape and size and in the same place as the photo.
A search was done of all the military records in the archives and they have failed to find any records of an H.C. Reynolds.
The Somerton man lies in an unmarked grave with all of his secrets inside.
The South Australian Police continue to investigate all new information. I would say the end of his story is far from being told.

"Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin." ~Ivan Pavlov
Comments
I really love this Hub. I Love mysteries such as these. Thank you
WEIRD!! I read this whole thing and I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Mob related maybe? And the clues left on the body were put their to throw investigators off.
The further victims may have been murdered to prevent them from figuring out the truth. What did the guy who ended up in a mental institution have to say and what about his wife? So strange.
Almost as strange as the Dyatlov Pass incident!
Came across this story by chance, but it was so interesting that I read word by word. Your writing made it very interesting. Thanks for the nice read!
Thanks for a little mystery this morning. I have never heard of this story before, I will have to look more into it.
Great read. I have never heard this before and I love a mystery. Thanks for sharing this strange story. Voted up
eew~I love a good mystery and this one's even real life. I am soo curious as to who this guy was. You did a great job keeping us on the edge of our seats with your great writing. How weird to hear that another hubber wrote about this.
What a well told tale of mystery and intrigue! I've never heard of the case but was so enthralled by the complexity, the twists and turns. Nice job. Voted up and more!
Kelly, very interesting mystery you have here. Mysteries are really worth the research. I'm writing about a cold case. There's so much intrigue with unsolved cases, but when you want to know who the offender is, it's very difficult when you know you can't solve the mystery!
What an intriguing mystery. You have a real knack for the investigative details, this is so well told. Before my poetry tutor died, he gave me a vintage 1930s pocket edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and told me to study it. I am going to look over it now. If you learn any new details, I hope you will share. I am hooked. :)
How very-very interesting, RealHousewife! Oh, and how I hate unsolved mysteries!
I wonder what had happened to the l-o-n-g arm of the law?
Excellent hub, absolutely engrossing!
RealHousewife, quite the hub. I would make a wild guess here and suggest that if most of us were to die under unknown circumstances, that if the police, or someone, were to investigate, that they would come up with all kinds of mysterious findings.
Awesome article. This is another one of those mysteries that I hope gets solved some day. Till then it will bother me like the others I read about.
Kelly.....YOU, have done a superb job with this fascinating and mysterious tale.....pulled me right in and "fixed" on your every sentence. I adore a good mystery, although sad, as in this particular case, I cannot help but want to know MORE now. Simply awesome work, Kelly.....you just keep getting better & better all the time......
Have a wonderful Easter. I am hoping to get back here "full-time" in the near future. I have missed all of you, so much.....Effer
This was a great story told by a master storyteller. You left me with wanting more.
This is very interesting and full of twists! Nice job Kelly! Up and shared.
JSMatthew~
Wow! This is a very interesting and very well-written hub. All the similarities in the several deaths are amazingly obvious that some well hidden organization is behind these deaths. I wonder if the truths will ever come out?
Voted up and interesting.
I had never heard of this case! But then, I rarely hear anything about the lands down under.
Perhaps the guy was raised by dingoes and finally made it to civilization only to run into a serial cigarette killer.
At least he had a pretty good book to read.
How INTERESTING! You should write a novel or a screenplay around this. I wonder if there is any DNA evidence to link him to Reynolds. Great stuff! Votes and shares!! :-)
Very interesting mystery story- that it is real, makes it more enthralling. Since you say there was a lot of information on this guy, I think you have done a wonderful job, with brevity and yet maintaining the tension of the unknown factor in the story. Had a good time reading it. Voted up.
Very interesting, RealHousewife; my mind was swimming in the ideas of time travel, space portals, secret agents, and dirty dealings. Perhaps I'll write a story based on this one day.
Gosh..never heard of him until now.
What a sad way to end....soul rest in peace!!
Voted up as interesting
Wow, this was fascinating...and mysterious.
Watson? Are you there? This calls for Sherlock Holmes for sure!
Nice mystery Kelly.
The Frog
Thanks for this, your hub fascinated me - what a mystery. I just want more clues so I can solve it. Intriguing isn't it, seemingly no family, no friends, no connections.
Labels cut of clothes and Taman Shud - so weird.
Yes, iin the 1967 our prime minister Harold Holt went swimming and was swept away in the surf - his body never recovered. Not much mystery attached although several ideas have surfaced. We do have a Harold Holt Swimming Pool - amusing but a bit heartless perhaps.
Amazing story, really grippingly told. Fascinating mystery. It's also incredibly tragic. Sharing, voting etc.
You found him! That guy owed me $40 dollars! I should have known he would do something to get out of paying me back! ARGH!
Mmmmm...where was Sherlock when we needed him. Seems to be a good area for mystery, such as that when the Aussie PM disappeared down that way in the 1960s; they never found his body or were sure how he died, or even why he went swimming in that dangerous surf. (Was it Harlold Holt?)
The trouble is, too, when these things aren't solved early, so much other information turns up, some real and much imagined or invented.
Very interesting story.
Bob
A mystery indeed such cases keeps one thinking for a while and you wrote it so well.
Very interesting and unusual hub. Voted up. Very sad too. Its rather baffling that his identity was not soon discovered after his death.
Hi, Kelly. This may be the coldest cold case I have read about in a long, long time. But you did make it very interesting, m'dear. By the way, 'tamam shud' is an Iranian/Persian phrase which you can find at the end of most of Omar Khayyam's works and it means ended or finished just as we say, 'the end.' Now that you are experienced, would you like to work on the Jack the Ripper case?
This is an absolutely fascinating story and has quite an ominous quality; people disappearing, threats, deaths. The book, the code, the poison. I was kept engaged and I'm still curious, I think I'm going to Google for more information. Thanks for sharing, I learned something new and fascinating.
Wow- this was so interesting! What an intriguing story. Now I'll always have this mystery on my mind. I hope it is solved one day.
Great Hub! Great research and terrific facts. It was a super read.
Okay, this is just weird. This is the second hub I have read about this guy, and I have never heard of him or his mystery. How strange that two Hubbers I follow would write about him in the same week!
Anyway, good job and thanks for the information. Good luck in that snowstorm.
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