Tamám Shud The Mystery Of Australia's Unknown Man

On 1 December 1948, a man’s body was found on the beach of an Adelaide suburb. Who he was and how he died have remained a mystery for nearly 70 years, despite a trail of bizarre and tantalising clues. ROY BAINTON re-opens Australia’s weirdest cold case file. 

- Roy Bainton

I remember walking through Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia, back in the early 1960s.The mainly residential seaside suburb is home to Somerton Park Beach, and whilst enjoying a cold beer there that hot day, I had no idea that this was the location of what remains the most perplexing mystery in Australia’s criminal cold case files: the enduring enigma of the ‘Somerton Man’, or as they refer to him down under, the ‘Unknown Man’.

In an age of high-tech CSI, DNA and advanced forensic science, we like to think we’re pretty clever when it comes to solving murder cases.There’s usually a clear motive, and a list of potential suspects soon builds up. Was it the wife/husband? Was there a girlfriend/boyfriend? A mugger? A robber? The starting point is usually the identification of the victim.Yet what happens when absolutely no one knows whose body it is? The ‘Somerton Man’ case is a mystery laden with curious clues, hints and false leads, none of which provide an explanation or a conclusion, even after all this time.

THE BIG SLEEP