The Engineer Who Had No Death Record

Name: The Engineer Who Had No Death Record
Genre: Documentary

A proposed name closes the identity hunt, but the poison, the poetry book and the dead man's final hours remain beyond proof.

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Transcript

A man's clothing labels had been removed, and he carried no hat or wallet.
December 1st, 1948, his body lay at Somerton Park beach near Adelaide.
Police were contacted at 6:30 a.m. about the body.
Witnesses had watched a motionless man there the previous evening.
From 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., a couple watched him without seeing movement;
they thought he was asleep and did not investigate.
The pathologist placed death around 2 a.m. on December 1st.
The autopsy found liver and spleen congestion. Tests found no foreign substance.
The coroner found probable glucoside poisoning, but not if self-administered.
A label-less suitcase surfaced at Adelaide station January 14th, 1949.
Its thread matched his repaired trousers. Contents held no personal material.
Months later, a hidden pocket held “tamám shud,” meaning “it is finished.”
A witness saw the man extend his right arm fully, then drop it limply.
Researchers built a family tree, about 4,000 people.
Hairs caught in a plaster cast of the man's face later supplied DNA evidence.
2022, researchers proposed Carl “Charles” Webb, an electrical engineer.
The proposed candidate was a person with no death record.
After the body's 2021 exhumation, South Australia Police hadn't verified identity.
Identifying the Somerton man as Carl Webb did not solve how and why he died.
If Webb was the man, what ended his life…

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