The Somerton Man Carl Webb’s WWII Death Poems Staged in His Eternal Shadow-Show “Tamám Shud”: A Lasting J. C. Williamsonian Suicide Mystery Play Still Staging, Now Featuring Us, from the Somerton Beach in Australia Since Its Opening on Nov. 30, 1948

This 2024 updated report follows two essays I shared previously on the Somerton Man case, one titled Tamám Shud: How the Somerton Man’s Last Dance for a Lasting Life Was Decoded — Omar Khayyam Center Research Report (Oct. 2021) and a blog post, titled Doubting the New Somerton Man Findings: Do 0.01% Error Chances Actually Matter in Science? (August 10, 2022).

In the earlier publication, I reported my solution to the Somerton Man’s code as a suicide contemplation and plotting note rendered in Arabic transliteration, styled after the Tamám Shud example (which was also transliterated, in that case from Persian, a language that still uses Arabic alphabet, the word Tamám being an Arabic word also used in Persian). At that earlier time, in that report published in October 2021, before the later announcement (on July 26, 2022) about the identity of the Somerton Man as Carl (Charles or Charlie) Webb, I tried to interpret the code/poem in the context of what was known then about the Somerton Man case.

For example, at that time there was nothing known about the Somerton man having been married to a Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb, a pharmacist and chiropodist at the time; so, the references I discovered in the coded poem to a lady filling a cup of poison in a suicide plot (assisted or not), or having a trope regarding a “footworker” saqi (someone who serves wine on foot, where the notion of “sāq” in Persian or Arabic comes from) would have been implied to be likely related metaphorically to Jessica Harkness Thomson, a trained nurse who had been for a long while regarded as someone somehow related to the Somerton man.

My 2021 report discussed two topics. One was that of deciphering the so-called Somerton Man code as a transliteration from Arabic, and the second, an initial effort in interpreting the code’s meaning as a suicide contemplation and plotting note in the narrative context of what was known at that time about the Somerton Man case. In the report, I stated: “Although important insights can be gained into TSM’s identity in light of the findings reported …, the focus of this effort is mainly on the code itself, explaining how it was deciphered and what it means. The Somerton Man case is much wider and more complex than the code itself, of course, and the purpose here is not to delve too deeply into the wider aspects of the story beyond possible hints the code’s deciphering can offer to all those interested regarding the identity of the person and the nature of the events surrounding his death.”

I then shared my hope that “the new information would help narrow down and focus the efforts underway by specialists in analyzing his DNA and physical remains in favor of bringing a closure to this case. There is still much to be learned and discovered about TSM, so this [Oct. 2021] report can hopefully be another new beginning toward resting the case in a fruitful way.”

Therefore, my primary focus in that earlier report was the code itself, essentially sharing a finding about its being a transliteration from Arabic. I also stated in the report at the time that even if a code or poem (that is moreover meant to be a suicide note) was written without any hidden ciphering effort, the very nature of the poem opened its meaning to different interpretations. Even Khayyam’s poems, read and translated countless times over the past nine centuries, have left readers wondering what one or another trope or metaphor, or a quatrain, could mean. For similar reasons, anticipating new findings about the life and the identity of the Somerton man especially in light of official investigations about him following his body’s exhumation in 2019, I expected to be in need of reinterpreting the suicide poem/code considering new findings when such investigations were concluded.

It happens that on July 26, 2022, the team of Derek Abbott, a University of Adelaide professor in Australia, and Colleen Fitzpatrick, a previously NASA employed scientist turned a DNA analyst based in the U.S., shared their new unofficial findings about the identity of the Somerton Man as Carl Webb. However, the official investigation by the Australian authorities in SAPOL and the SA Coroner’s office is still ongoing (now close to three years past TSM’s exhumation in May 2021 and close to two years following the unofficial findings report in July 2022), and it will be as a result of their independent examinations in consultation perhaps with the unofficial team and other involved investigators that they will be able to finally confirm the identity of the Somerton man officially as being (or not) Carl Webb.

Meanwhile, on August 10, 2022, soon after the July 2022 unofficial findings were announced, I posted on the OKCIR blog my doubts surrounding the way the unofficial team conducted and reported their new findings. In the post, not denying the possibility that the Somerton man may indeed be found to be Carl Webb, I offered scenarios for both options of such a confirmation or lack thereof, to highlight the need for a more evidential and less rushed interpretive judgment about how the past data and information about the Somerton man could be reconciled, or not, with the new findings.

In this 2024 report that follows, my purpose is to update the earlier findings reported in the above publications in the context of the new findings announced about the identity of the Somerton Man. In the process I will address some relevant observations made by other online researchers while providing plausible answers to their questions surrounding the Somerton man. Meanwhile, I will also comment on why the Somerton Man case has continued to remain unsolved in the views of many, despite significant data and variety of interpretations that have accumulated over the decades about the case including the important findings reported by the unofficial team in 2022 regarding the identity of the Somerton Man as Carl Webb.

This report is organized into the following sections.

In the rest of this introduction, I will share some basic facts about the Somerton Man case for those readers not familiar with it.

I will then offer in Section I a narrative of Carl Webb’s story in which the central role played by the J. C. Williamson Ltd. entertainment industry in his life is taken into consideration. To make the narrative easily readable and not cluttered with references, I will refrain from adding the references in that section, doing so instead in a later section of the report presenting the chronological events pertaining to the case.

In Section II, I will go over my 2021 report of deciphering the Somerton Man’s code again while updating it considering the 2022 unofficial findings and my updated interpretations of the case. I will share my basic finding that the Somerton Man code is a transliteration from Arabic, serving as a suicide contemplation and plotting note in the form of what we may now call a “death poem” styled as a quatrain, trying to emulate, in Arabic, the Tamám Shud transliteration style that ends FitzGerald’s “free translation” of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. Step by step I will show how Tamám Shud offers the key for solving the Somerton Man code. I will additionally discuss how Carl Webb’s construction of the code as a transliteration may have been aided by someone familiar with languages, pointing to the great likelihood of that person being Tibor Kaldor. However, I will also show, drawing on two interesting examples shared by Gerald Feltus in his book Unknown Man (2010/2011), that one really does not have to be an Arab, nor know Arabic (or Persian) extensively, to write a passage transliterated from Arabic, since it can be done simply by consulting a dictionary that includes phonetic transliterations and/or by asking someone who knows the language to substitute the transliterated words for a word or passage written originally in English.

I will then offer in Section III a detailed chronology of Carl Webb’s life and personal troubles in the broader public issues context of his times, tracing the previously offered (in Section I) narrative. I will now include whatever reference links and sources that can be offered to support the narrative.

I will end the report with a few concluding remarks regarding what the expression “Tamám Shud” could have signified for the Somerton man, Carl Webb.

In Appendix I, I will share the texts of the letters submitted to and received from the offices of the honorable chief justices of the states of Victoria and South Australia, to which I have made references in the main text of the report.

In Appendix II, I will share a chat session I had with ChatGPT about the code in 2023, further illustrating my deciphering of the Somerton Man code as a suicide note poem transliterated from Arabic.

Please note again that the effort that follows is based on the unofficial 2022 findings reporting the identity of the Somerton Man as Carl Webb. If the official investigation verifiably concludes in a definitive rejection of that identification, then the interpretive aspects of the suicide note decoding will have to be updated again in an alternatively confirmed information environment for the identity of the Somerton Man. But, even if that becomes necessary, the basic decrypting of the Somerton Man code as I have discovered will remain valid, while only its interpretation will require a new making in the context of the new identity to be discovered for the Somerton Man.

I am most inclined at the present, based also on new evidence found since the announcement of the 2022 unofficial team’s DNA analysis results, that Carl Webb is the person who has been referred to as the Somerton man during the past seven plus decades. In fact, in the absence of a reliable DNA analysis that is convincing to SAPOL’s or the Coroner’s official team of investigators, my finding of the Arabic transliteration nature of the Somerton Man code as the spiritual DNA of his mystery plot can better help convince the still unconverted that the Somerton Man may well have been Carl Webb.

With apologies in advance for the length of this report, I have tried to organize it as best as I can with sectional links included in the table of contents presented at the beginning of the post. I will try to accompany the long text with images and variously paused audiovisual clips drawn on others’ efforts, including a relevant documentary on the history of theater in Australia, as well a link to a well-researched documentary titled “Missing Pieces: The Curious Case of the Somerton Man”) (especially documenting the possible relation of the life of Jessica Harkness Thomson to the Somerton Man) produced through the Australian International Pictures by researcher and film-maker Dr. Carolyn Bilsborow.

For the interest of those not familiar with the Somerton Man case I will now briefly comment in the rest of this introduction on its background, using some basic material I shared in my initial report in Oct. 2021.

The Somerton Man (TSM) or ‘Tamám Shud’ case has over the past seven plus decades gained such global fame, raised so much curiosity, attracted so much attention, and been so widely reported, archived, and documented in the media, that it hardly needs an introduction.

It suffices here to say that on December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found dead neatly dressed up and lying down on the ground with legs crossed on the Somerton Park beach, located south of Adelaide in South Australia, Australia, without any specific personal identifications on him.

Among what was found on and eventually from him (aside from a suitcase of belongings he had left in a train station before his death, with some clothing labels removed as was the case for those he was wearing) was a small scrap of paper rolled and deeply hidden in the fob pocket of his pants on which was printed ‘Tamám Shud’ (a transliteration of two words that together mean in Persian “it’s finished,” “it ended,” or “it’s done”).

The rolled-up piece was later found as having been torn from the last page of a first edition copy of Edward FitzGerald’s free translations of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. The small book from which the ‘Tamám Shud’ piece was torn was itself found later by someone in his car and handed in to the investigators. The booklet had been apparently tossed in from an open window of the car reportedly sometime around the time TSM died.

The details of the case are vast, and variously shared or reported in different sources. Its basics can be found on the page for the Somerton Man case also known as the “Tamám Shud case” (now retitled there as “Somerton Man”) here. Nowadays endless blogs and audiovisual material (such as those on YouTube and podcasts) can be found online by searching for the case (for example see the first of the Somerton Case lecture series by Prof. Derek Abbott here, with another section and other clips and interviews also available, presented a long while before recent findings). Extensive archival materials and interviews about, and documentary and news coverage of, the case have also been made available widely online (see for instance here and the resources gathered here). Books and other reports have also been published on the subject, such as the example here by Gerry Feltus, a detective sharing details of the case, widely considered to be offering the most detailed and evidential account of the case by the time it was written (2010/2011).

I had not been able to read Feltus’s book at the time of writing my Oct. 2021 report due to its being out of print. However, fortunately I found access to an ebook version later and also for the purpose of writing this report and became aware of the significance of his well-researched book, including certain passages therein that in fact offer good examples for how a non-Arab, and non-Arabic speaking Western author, could play with the idea of transliteration from Persian and Arabic to make a point in his book. This is in fact what FitzGerald had done when signing off his Rubaiyat, although by that time he had acquainted himself with Persian to some extent by way of his friend and mentor, Edward Byles Cowell, a professor with expertise in many languages including Persian.

Clearly, any new findings about TSM, such as those being shared in this updated report, owe much to decades of efforts made by various investigators, authors, experts, academics, and those in the broader public, who have spent much time to solving the puzzle.

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A portrayal of where and how the Somerton Man was found on the beach in the Somerton Park in Adelaide. This is not the actual location of the beach where his body was found; it is just a dramatization.

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The interest about the case became so enduring that, following continued failures to identify TSM, his body was exhumed on May 19, 2021, for deeper DNA analysis (for further news and information see for example here). The official DNA analysis investigation and work on the final Coroner’s report on the case is still underway at the time of publication of this report, aiming to find answers that can shed final light on the identity and the story of the deceased man.

As a sociologist, I had not paid much attention to the Somerton Man case until 2021, despite my research in Khayyami studies, hermeneutics (analysis of texts to understand their authors’ purpose in writing them), and more broadly the sociological imagination, which is a subfield in sociology exploring how personal troubles and broader public issues interrelate. However, following the official exhumation of TSM’s body in May 2021 and given the associations of the case with Omar Khayyam and his poetry and the renewed official and personal efforts made by many over the decades to exhume the deceased’s body to identify him in order to bring closure and peace to those who may be his descendants, I decided to devote some time to help with solving the case by way of deciphering the coded message found on the copy of the Rubaiyat edition associated with TSM.

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The Mask of the Somerton Man and Its Maker Paul F. Lawson

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Following an initially unsuccessful attempt at deciphering the code by considering any interest TSM may have had in mapping the differences between the various editions of Edward FitzGerald’s translation with one another, I solved the basic structure and meanings of the code as a transliteration from Arabic and reported the findings in an OKCIR research report published in October 1, 2021, about 9 months before the July 2022 finding announcement by the unofficial team regarding the possible identity of TSM as Carl Webb.

Since the following updated 2024 report will also draw on another suicide that took place in Adelaide, South Australia, about two weeks after the Somerton man’s body was found on the Somerton beach, I also share here a brief note in that regard.

On August 26, 1940, a man named Tibor Kaldor, self-described as an academic Dr. and teacher of languages, of Jewish heritage, arrived in Australia on the ship HTM Dunera, eventually taking residence on The Avenue 10, Windsor, and working later as a process worker at a location in walking distance from Bromby St. where Carl Webb lived. He was almost the same age (b. 1904) as Carl Webb, having been born in Kaposvar, a city in southwest Hungary. He spoke German, English, and was reportedly trained academically in “many languages.” Being academically trained in languages offers an opportunity to learn the basic protocols of language transliteration.

On Dec. 14, 1948, that is, two weeks following when the Somerton man’s body was found in Adelaide, Tibor Kaldor was found dead in a hotel in Adelaide. He had been staying there for 4 days already. He left a suicide note dated Dec. 13, 1948, and his body was later cremated. He had been living in Australia for several years and his application for naturalization in Australia had been approved, so he had been already naturalized. In his applications, he stated his prior occupation as “Teacher of Languages.” In other documents, he is referred to as Dr. Tibor Kaldor. I will introduce further details about him drawing on the findings of other researchers online. Below, the only photograph remaining from him is provided.

In this report, I will show that much of the new findings about the identity of the Somerton man as Carl Webb not only confirms in significant ways my October 2021 deciphering of the Somerton Man code, but also, the code, interpreted in the narrative environment of new findings, can actually help bring to a meaningful closure the Somerton Man case, even helping solve the mystery of the suicide of Tibor Kaldor that took place in Adelaide shortly after the death of the Somerton man, Carl Webb.

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Dr. Tibor Kaldor, “trained in many languages”

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The Grave of The Somerton Man, Before His Body Was Exhumed on May 19, 2021

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I. A “J. C. Williamsonian Suicide Mystery Play” Narrative In the Sociological Imagination, Incorporating Relevant Aspects of Other Narratives

The sociological imagination is a term that was originally coined by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in his pathbreaking and highly influential work The Sociological Imagination, published in 1959. Therein, he advocated a mode of inquiry in sociology centering on the idea that social life can be best understood by exploring how personal troubles and public issues inter-relate. In what follows I will offer a narrative explanation of the Somerton man case in the sociological imagination, one in which the central role played by the J. C. Williamson Ltd. entertainment industry in the life of the Somerton man Carl Webb is taken into consideration.

1. J. C. Williamson Ltd. as the Elephant in the Room of the Somerton Man Case

The expression “The elephant in the room” is used when there is an important piece of fact or clue readily present on the scene but those observing the scene simply do not notice it and/or its significance. Such an explanatory dilemma, in other words, has more to do with the ways of our seeing things.

The puzzle may have had to do originally with uncovering the elephant in the first place. However, even when uncovered, we may fail to see its significance mainly due to the lenses we are ourselves wearing, seeing something in fragments, be it the elephant itself, or the elephant as part of the contextual scene in which it is found.

So, to be “objective” about the case, we need to also see ourselves as part of the scene as well, and include ourselves in the object we are trying to study and be objective about, realizing that our own lenses also determine what it is we claim to have found and seen.

We know that Carl Webb was employed at least part-time during 1920s and 1930s (before its closing in 1939 due to the death of his father) in his father’s bakery. But Webb’s (extended) family business was not limited to baking. His brother-in-law, Gerald (Thomas) Keane was employed as a Chief Mechanist in J. C. Williamson Ltd., an international entertainment company based in Australia, in association with which he was known to have traveled (at times with the Ballet Russe), since about 1920 and into at least early 1940s, that is, for twenty plus years period.

J. C. Williamson Ltd. (JCW) was a major employer, not only of artists and performers, but also of technicians and engineers who had to construct and run elaborate stage settings across Australia and abroad. In those days, live theater was a dominant entertainment form and industry in Australia and the world (later to be replaced by the rising film industry and Hollywood).

Skills needed for lighting, painting, and carpentry work, were in demand and essential to the backstage theater work. Keane was evidently noted for having been in the “theater trade,” and especially in its “construction” matters as a Chief Mechanist, which, given the nature of this art must be in reference to the infrastructural design and construction needs of elaborate entertainment stage settings. Keane even encouraged his young sons to engage in amateur comedy plays for charity, beside his own singing and artistic involvements in public gatherings, along with those by Freda Webb, Carl’s sister, going back to their wedding ceremonies. Even sound recordings exist of a Carl Webb’s relative singing and playing music about the experience of folks having gone through WWII.

Why have we not taken seriously this other even more significant second “family business” as a source of employment for Carl Webb, during 1920s and 1930s, besides his involvement in the bakery? Lead found in the Somerton man’s hair during autopsy can also be in the painting and construction material used in staging elaborate theater performances. Zinc and its material can also be used in stage constructions. Among the items Carl Webb tried to sell in his last years, were carpentry tools beside his electrical fitter instruments. Entertainment stage design also requires electrical fitting and instrument making. Being involved in that side of his (extended) family business, Carl may not have even been formally on the books of his Keane family source of income, but involved enough with them, for the “Keane” name to be found in his traveling suitcase.

Yet, we have not taken seriously the second “family business” link as an employment opportunity Carl may have had, accompanying Gerald (Jerry) Keane in his travels, or helping him with his JCW projects as its Chief Mechanist. In fact, Carl Webb’s technical education and skills would have been of most use to his brother-in-law, Gerald Keane, skills that no one else in their extended family seemed to have possessed, given Carl’s education. The released divorce files of Carl Webb’s wife have now established that Carl was employed in a company called Red Point Tool Co., in Prahan, during the first half of 1940s. But researchers have all been wondering where he worked before then, and it seems plausible to consider that Gerald Keane could have been not just a brother-in-law, but an employer of Carl Webb in his “theatre company” business, as much as Carl’s father was his employer at their family bakery business. This can explain the clues linking his work to the Keane family.

Exposure to J. C. Williamson Ltd., along with travels with singers and ballet dancers, including those of Ballet Russe, even as a backstage technician, or even as a regular front- or backstage regular audience accompanying his brother-in-law, could have complemented Carl Webb’s exposure to the world of arts, singing, music, poetry, and theater performance and play plots. Even if not technically involved, being so close to the Keane’s family obviously, for many years, exposed him to the entertainment industry in direct and practical ways. His engineering skills and interests could have developed while paying close attention to the details of such creative performances and their stage setting requirements. His being interested in poetry and the arts may have then had its source in such exposure to the J. C. Williamson Ltd. related arts and entertainment opportunities during a long period from the 1920s through to his later adult years to the late 1930s.

We have tended to ignore the elephant in the room, that is J. C. Williamson Ltd., and Keane being on its Melbourne staff for nearly two decades—a second “family business” simply ignored and its explanatory value not pursued. In fact, the discontinuity of employment in his father’s bakery following its sale (due to his father’s old age and death) in 1939, accompanied by the interruptions caused to the entertainment industry due to the outbreak of a new world war, amid deaths in the Webb and Keane families in the early 1940s, may explain well the interruption in Carl Webb’s income prospects through the bakery and the JCW, and his seeking a new job with the Red Point Tool Co. This may also explain his distancing in daily contact with the Keane’s as they also grieved their family illnesses and losses in late 1930s and early 1940s, not to mention Carl’s own physical ailments and mental illness that worsened during his ill-fated marriage to Dorothy Jean Robertson.

In order to solve the Somerton man case, therefore, it is not sufficient just to see the elephant in the room, but also be able to reintegrate all its parts, including ourselves, and to make sure we see the whole, connecting all the relevant dots, and recognizing that we ourselves are, as observers, parts of the observed, since it may be our own lack of attention to the significance of the entertainment related second family business that has prevented our solving mysteries of the case.

In the rest of this section, I will share a narrative for the Somerton Man case that takes as its central element the role J. C. Williamson Ltd. entertainment industry played in the life and death of Carl Webb. To make the narrative flowing without distractions, I will refrain from populating it with references to other researchers’ contributions. Such references, however, will be shared to the extent possible in a following section of this report devoted to the chronological telling of the case.

2. Carl Webb Growing Up in His Own Family Setting, Being the Youngest Child and Son of a Baker

Carl Webb was born on November 16, 1905 (registered in 1906) in Australia as the youngest of six siblings to parents that included a first-generation German immigrant father and an Australian citizen mother. His father became in time established in his community as a baker, his public reputation being obviously important for his business success, having successfully survived a lawsuit early on challenging his baking practice allegedly not following bread weight standards. He died in 1939 publicly respected for his service, and for being community and charity oriented, as noted in local newspapers.

The story of personal troubles in the Webb family needs to be understood in the broader public context of a first-generation migrant from Germany (his father) trying to build his family (marrying an Australian wife) and career (mainly and eventually as a baker) in Australia during a devastating historical period marked by two world wars in which Germany was increasingly regarded as the villain (also from an Australian point of view), losing both wars.

Migrants from a German heritage had to painfully negotiate and deal, one way or another, with the binary contradictions of loyalty to their new motherland and a sense of belonging to and identification with their German heritage, and this duality may be in some ways more personally felt and in other ways somewhat alleviated given the mother’s being an Australia-born citizen, in the context of a half-migrant parenthood. It is a tough position to be in, socially, politically, culturally, and psychologically, given the two public poles are in constant war with one another amid wider wars and especially since one’s personal ethnic identity is on the villain-perceived side of the two world wars.

Being half-German, therefore, was an important aspect of the Webb family children’s master identity formation since birth and needs to be taken into consideration seriously in any explanatory account for the Somerton man case. It should therefore not be surprising to find signs of psychological trauma, in its broadest sense (not necessarily always clinical, but that being possible too if certain personal conditions are also met), in such recent migrant identity formation, variations therein withstanding depending on gender, age, and unique personal traits.

Carl’s father was young enough to face recruitment drives and anti-German sentiments related to WWI but did not live to experience the full scale of WWII anti-German sentiments. Carl’s oldest brother, Russel Richard (b. 1894) would have had to face WWI recruitment and anti-German sentiments, but that was at a time past his teen years. Freda (b. 1896), Gladys (b. 1898) and Doris (b. 1901), would have been less subject to male-role expectations, being also more or less too young for WWI or mid adult for WWII. Roy (b. 1904) and Carl (b. 1905), however, were both young/old enough to experience anti-German WWI sentiments as young teenagers, and as recruitment age anti-German sentiments in WWII, Roy being a year older and closest to Carl as a sibling. Roy did not apparently have the educational interests or talents of becoming a skilled “electrical fitter” or “instrument maker” which could have allowed him to be exempt from army recruitment, if applicable. There is no reason to believe Roy wished to avoid recruitment, however, and being newly married in 1933 he joined the war and died as a POW in 1943.

In the case of Carl, however, his educational talents and skills as a “instrument maker” and “electrical fitter” would have put him in an exempt category for WWII recruitment, apart from any health issues he may have suffered from exempting him from the same; he did not need a quick marriage to make him exempt, but it is possible to consider that as a matter of caution he may have considered trying a hasty marriage of convenience without having built a solid mutual relationship in advance with the bride, just as WWII was deepening.

Carl was, in a way, the “whiz-kid” of the family, bright enough to gain a scholarship and good grades in a technical school. Whether such factors, or any later physical or mental illnesses, or lack of interest or will, were responsible, he did not join WWII recruitment to fight abroad. His case among all his siblings, therefore, is unique.

Carl probably faced not only anti-German sentiments for longer periods in primary and high school environments, likely subject to bullying behavior of his classmates during an impressionable and sensitive age period, somewhat even noticeable in his grim face and marginal group sitting posture in his football team photo, but had a variety of options to choose from, whether to join WWII or not in one capacity or another. Especially for WWII, he had to do so in the context of his close sibling (Roy) or relatives (such as Russell Jack Keane, Freda Keane’s son during the war, or older brother Russell’s sons soon after) joining the army; Roy and a nephew (Freda and Gerald Keane’s son) eventually lost their lives in the process. So, Carl clearly stood out as being different from other siblings in the above senses. Another consideration that made his growing up different, also related to his educational talents and career path, was that he spent more time on his education, this having possibly contributed to one of the reasons why he married later than other siblings and doing so at an older age.

Overall, then, Carl’s family lived through a time marked by two horrible world wars during both of which Germany lost as a villain. Amid such a social, political, cultural, and social psychological context, the family members could have had various options in trying to negotiate, psychologically and socio-politically, the duality of their half German and local Australian roots: 1) to be neutrally apolitical, which would be difficult in times wars fully break out, and for a baker’s family dependent so much on public reputation to make a living; 2) to be pro-German in the wars, which would have made life much more miserable for them in the same public context living in Australia; 3) to be patriotic Australian and anti-German in the wars for which evidence exists; or 4) to be critical of war and of Germany from a Left-oriented point of view, identifying also with another German tradition, i.e., socialism and communism, an ideology that at the time was in its ascendancy, promising a better life that had not yet fully tested the challenge of the Cold War and its own future failures.

The enlisting by and loss of life in the war against Germany of one of Carl Webb’s brothers (Roy) and his nephew (Russell Jack Keane, a son of Gerald and Freda Keane), suggests that as a family they maintained a patriotic Australian position against Germany in the wars, but perhaps from different ideological points of view. There is evidence for believing that one of Carl Webb’s sisters, Gladys May Scott (b. 1898, 7 years Carl’s senior) was Left-oriented, suggesting that even Carl Webb may have had similar Left leaning tendencies.

During WWI Carl had been a young 9-13-year-old boy, and may have endured bullying or negative remarks at school due to his (half) German heritage. His bullied experience may have also been shared by Roy, a year older than him (and not for their oldest brother, many years older than both). In the case of Roy, his response was enlistment to prove his patriotism. In the case of Carl Webb, however, the reaction may have been different. His educational degree and skills offered him a chance to be exempt from active war recruitment, contributing his role, at least nominally, as an electrical engineering and instrument making capable man during the early 1940s being employed at Red Point Tool Co., in Prahran. Such a job could have justified, beside his newly married status as a husband, his public status and image as a working engineer deserving to be exempt from the war; but this does not necessarily mean he had chosen the job at heart, nor that he had been occupied in the same kind of job previously, applying his technical skills the same way (more on this later).

It appears that Carl had an artist’s and poet’s sensitive character and disposition, being reclusive and introverted in nature and that may have also caused his being less social than others, having fewer friends and acquaintances beyond those he met at school or work. The outbreaks of the two world wars during his lifetime, wars in which he, as a German migrant father’s son, was deeply invested and challenged psychologically, may have caused deeper wounds and questions about matters of life and death in his feelings and mind.

Being the youngest child of a large family of six siblings, can shape character traits and the social environment and opportunities in which the youngest child grows up. Carl Webb was enrolled in a technical college (Swinburne) majoring in engineering and sciences useful in practical employment settings. His grades suggest that he did well (except in one course), receiving scholarship. It appears that he continued his education sufficiently to become an electrical fitter/engineer and instrument maker. During the 1920s his time was split studying in school, working in his father’s bakery, which may even explain his larger hands and strong physique having also participated in cycling and football during which he was at least twice injured.

But we should not lose sight of the important fact that Carl’s oldest sister (by eight years), Freda, having married as early as 1915 to Gerald Thomas (Jerry) Keane, provided an alternative environment that shaped Carl’s artistic talents and skills growing up.

3. Carl Webb amid His Extended Entertaining family Headed by His Brother-In-Law, Gerald Thomas (Jerry) Keane, a J. C. Williamson Ltd. Employed Chief Mechanist

Keane’s family was a Catholic household that was deeply involved in the arts, particularly of music, singing, and even drama. Gerald Keane, since before 1920s, became a “theatre employee” and in time a Chief Mechanist, serving on the staff of the famous and internationally active J. C. Williamson Ltd., traveling with the Ballet Russe, among others. J. C. Williamson’s headquarters moved from Sydney to Melbourne around the same time Keane became most active in it.

He was reportedly involved in the “construction” side of the company activities, which most likely meant not building buildings but design and construction of the technical infrastructure of theatrical performances, such as stage and backstage preparations needed to support the plays. Besides, Gerald Keane had his own singing talents and may have had a hand in some performances himself. As a staff member, he must have been involved closely enough to provide opportunities for hiring others, and that could have included hiring Carl Webb, formally or not, as an electrical fitter and technically skilled staff, able to help with the technical and physical aspects of stage design and construction. If you are a Chief Mechanist at a major entertainment industry, and for its stage “construction” work you need to find technical assistants, would it not make sense to draw on the talents and skills of a bright young relative, Carl Webb, being educated for the task and increasingly ready at hand to join your team, even if working informally off-the-books for him? Why would an electrical fitter and instrument fitter have a set of carpentry tools to sell toward the end of his life?

Gerald Keane may have even encouraged a young 15-year-old Carl Webb in 1920 to pursue an education and career in engineering so as to help him in his work as a Chief Mechanist at J. C. Williamson Ltd., so why would he deprive himself of such a family resource in his stage construction and technical needs. There is evidence that Gerald Keane encouraged his own sons to be involved in comedy drama projects for charity. Such opportunities could have been extended, in his technical capacity, to Carl Webb. That may explain why we find in Carl’s suitcase in 1948 ties and other belongings marked by Keane’s name (whether belonging to the father, or symbolically, to his son), suggesting that the contents were common material he carried with him during his employment as a technical staff with J. C. Williamson. In fact, the suitcase itself (or one like it) may have been used during his travels with Gerald Keane to help with backstage technician work for J. C. Williamson entertainments, including those, say, with Ballet Russes. The suitcase was found to be missing a label outside it, and it is possible that the label could have been related to J. C. Williamson staff involvements of its owner, if not one for a new suitcase whose label Carl removed to hide traces to his identity in his last mystery play act.

What all this means is that the Keane’s entertainment-oriented preoccupations and job opportunities provided an important, equally available, second channel in which Carl Webb could be employed (formally or not) in his extended family work, while at the same time exposing him to the arts, of songs, dancing, and poetry, for which he provided technical assistance, or saw others do the same in theater back stage work managed by Gerald Keane. Carl seems quite happy and entertaining, in fact, in the group photo found by his family members, in which another member of J. C. Williamson actor (Hickey or Harry Taylor) is present, the photo likely taken by Gerald Keane himself.

Therefore, there was not one (bakery), but two (bakery and entertainment industry via Gerald Keane’s link to J. C. Williamson) major family sources of employment and income available to Carl, the youngest sibling of the family. Older siblings and their families had influences on Carl, providing opportunities that only he, being the family’s youngest and “smart kid” with the technical skills, could perform. If for self-serving and even self-defeating reasons some folks try to bring the “electrical engineering” aspect of Carl Webb’s identity to the center of attention, disregarding the “ballet connection” (standing for the role played by the J. C. Williamson entertainment industry) as a marginal issue, this does not mean that such a connection goes away on its own accord.

The skills of an engineering kind allowed Carl to deal with matters of detail. His creative talents and character could have also been developed because of exposure to the arts, the theatre and the entertainment industry by way of Keane’s family. These could have provided Carl Webb later a fertile ground, sadly, for imaginative plots for his suicide, when he found his death due to deteriorating health reasons, physical and/or mental conditions, and marital problems, inevitable.

During the 1920s and 1930s Carl had his father’s bakery and Keane’s involvement in entertainment business to rely on for income as a bachelor. Youngest siblings in a family, especially a large family, tend to find things already set up for them. Carl’s father’s bakery provided ready employment setting during the 1920s and 1930s, allowing him to continue his education further than others in the extended family, by attending night school, and having an active life in football and cycling, activities to which his strong calf muscles, large hands, and physique generally can be traced, ones that could have also caused or exacerbated injuries and physical health problems related to his feet, issues that similarly led to the crippling of his older brother Russel in 1946 before his death in 1949. But Carl’s strong physic could have also had their origins in the backstage technical work he was involved in, accompanying Gerald Keane, to whom links can be readily found in his traveling suitcase.

But Keane’s family provided Carl another opportunity, in addition to whatever else he was involved in, to become interested in the arts, and cultivate his artistic and even poetic sensibilities, despite working on the technical margins of setting up the stage and backstage infrastructures, rather than becoming engage in the arts themselves. Seeing his nephews try their hands and talents in theater and comedy plays would not have escaped the attention of an artist at heart doing the staging and technical stage set-up works, while thinking that he could even do better on the stages he helped mechanically build and maintain. Carl must have also been encouraged, as part of his schooling, to design and perform personal plays of his own (as encouraged in Australian schools in those times, for which a YouTube clip in this post provides entertaining classroom evidence). So, he may have grown up thinking of the plays he could himself design and perform. And, as we shall see, he indeed tragically proved that to be the case.

If he traveled as a technical staff member with his brother-in-law Gerald Keane in his J. C. Williamson career travels with Ballet Russes or similar art groups, this would have allowed him to gain an appreciation of public exposure and artistic performances, meeting others from different cultures, including those from Russia, France, or other background. If he was Left leaning, this could have offered him an opportunity to appreciate socialism from an artistic point of view, and share in the still untested hopes the other German ideology spreading around the world was generating, despite its shortcomings then or later to emerge.

Many of the Ballet Russes performances engaged with orientalist tropes of life, love, and death, and this could have impacted his sense of what alternative ways he could live and make a living. Reading Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (in Fitzgerald’s “free” translation) would have interested him, opening his views to cross-cultural themes and philosophical approaches to matters of life and death in a world that seemed to be moving from one world war to another, wars that were not just public issues but intimately implicated his family’s life in tragically personal ways. If he did earn a living from J. C. Williamson as Gerald Keane’s Melbourne-based technical staff, formally or not, offering also support for stage design and technical set ups for local and domestic Australia events, this would have provided him another source of income to rely on, especially during the 1930s and before WWII began.

4. Carl Webb’s Marriage to Dorothy Jean Robertson, Being Now Newly Employed at Red Point Tools Co.

Carl’s getting married in 1941 as a 36-year-old man, assuming that he must have come to know Dorothy Jean Robertson for a short while beforehand, since she was still young and 21 (but not too different in age from a Jessica Harkness of even a year younger age, we should keep in mind), must have been a rather swift decision.

Those who have used Robertson’s young age as a sign of Carl Webb’s womanizing need to explain why they did not do the same when Jessica Harkness was implicated in the story of his life. Besides, if one puts himself in the shoes of a man marrying relatively late in life, one who additionally feels he may not live longer for one or another health reason but wished to fulfill the desire of his family to leave an offspring (when his father died in 1939), it would make sense to marry a younger spouse who could be young enough to survive their children’s growing up if and when the husband died. This can explain why his expectations of the marriage and new family he was forming was more traditional, rather than based primarily on intimacy. During those times, the likelihood of surviving past 60s was not as much as it is today, and we should keep in mind that most of Carl’s siblings ended up dying in their 50s or younger, except for Freda who died in her late 60s.

Facing the death of his father in 1939 and his mother becoming a widow, herself already showing signs of illness and aging then, Carl must have likely been encouraged (or even pressured) to marry soon before his mother too passed away, given he was the only sibling not yet married then. As I will note shortly, had he begun to experience physical health problems resulting from repeated football injuries or even deeper genetic connective tissue anomalies befallen his family (his older brother Russell later to become disabled and to die in 1949, and two other sisters died in mid 1950s, his brother Roy having died in the war overseas not having been tested for foot illnesses his siblings, or even a nephew suffered from, as noted in his military records regarding vascular symptoms, to which I will return), he may have already been seeing doctors or those who could treat the ailments and pains relating to problems with his feet.

He may have even met the young Dorothy Jean Robertson, who was already a pharmacist and chiropodist, in such treatment settings—her brother-in-law, that is, the husband of her sister, Phyllis, being involved in mechanical solutions for foot injuries, which must have been increasingly needed due to war injured returning home. If Carl was already inclined to be reclusive, depressed, and even wishing to end his life as expressed in the poems he was writing on his own, or poetry he was reading on the side, such as the Rubaiyat, facing family pressures to get married may have held a different challenge for him.

Having an engineer’s practical mind, he may have thought that to raise a child when he was already 36, afflicted with painful physical ailments and prospects of ending his life at some point, it would make sense for him to marry someone much younger than himself. So, the choice of a young bride would have seemed reasonable, someone who was not too different in age from Jessica Harkness. And we already know the Somerton Man at death must have been a mid 40s year old—so, there is really no basis to single out the matter of age as if the new findings diverge drastically with material already at hand in the case.

But marrying a young bride of 21 age still implied differences in age between himself and her that involved considerable differences of views, tastes, and character. Besides, being likely Left-oriented, he may have developed a different sense of priorities in life, and what to expect from marriage, being sensitive to class related issues having grown up a baker’s boy, going to bed early and working hard in his family business.

So, given that Dorothy Jean Robertson was a chiropodist and a related pharmacist (which was not yet a licensed profession at the time, though being a pharmacist as well implied she had gone through some training and licensing, including the ability to fill medicine), offers some ideas about how Carl and Dorothy could have met. Clearly, since she did not seem to be (as evident from her filed divorce papers against Carl Webb) too much fond of poetry, their meeting must have had more traditional reasons of forming a family to raise children, or as a convenience marriage to avoid draft (if needed), beside (to whatever extent) falling in love. Being so young, she may not have even seen him involved in the Keane family entertainment business, and by the time of their marriage, he had been, perhaps for marriage reasons, decided to have more of a conventional engineering job at Red Point Tools Co.; this can explain why his new wife does not say anything about his Keane-related activities previously, not even knowing their address, judging from the divorce papers filed or pursued. She seems to have been not interacting with Freda and Gerald Keane family, so must have known little about their entertainment-related work and life, and any role Carl may have played in that context.

Based on his autopsy results, and even evident in his youth football team photo, Carl Webb had unusually big hands, but also unusual foot features, including smaller feet size and wedged toes (not necessarily a strength) and pronounced high calf muscles. Autopsy reports note his shoe size 8 as being normal, but it seems that it is rather small for a well-built man of nearly 6 feet height. The toes shape could have been a result of playing football and wearing its shoes, or even trying dancing (as experienced in his travels with Gerald Keane in during JCW tours), especially if he had previously used improperly fitting shoes that had a lasting negative impact on his feet’s health. There is ample evidence in Trove regarding warnings about misfitting shoes during that era, causing crippling results, especially when used in prolonged way in sport activities; even his older brother Russel’s foot problems may have been partly caused by the sub-standard shoes they used to wear while growing up, as may be displayed in the younger Carl Webb’s feet in the school’s football team photo. The shape of his toes was odd enough to draw the attention of Paul Lawson.

In Trove we find a story of his injury “again” while playing football. Even years earlier, we find a report of “minor” injuries to his knee. All this means two things. One is that he was prone to foot injury for some reason, and second, the injuries themselves may have left its impact on his feet/legs in a long-lasting (perhaps even crippling) way. The unusually pronounced calf muscles may have been a result of earlier activities such as cycling, football playing, etc., but may have also been a result of the way his legs compensated for weakness in his feet/toes. Carl Webb may have suffered from connective tissue illness, which can be very painful and cause lasting health problems for a patient, both physical and mental. It has been suggested that the condition may result in enlarged spleen in some cases.  It has been also found that a note on the doctor reports for Charles Richard Webb, a son of Carl Webb’s oldest brother, Russell, who was enlisted, serving in the army, about his having “varicose veins” as a young man. We do not know whether problems from which Carl Webb’s body suffered ran in the family, but many of his male (and some female) relatives died in the younger ages, as noted earlier. Even his father was reported to have had foot problems. Carl’s mother actually lost her biological father (reportedly having Morris as last name) before even her being born, taking on the last name of his stepfather, Grace. Carl’s may be just sports- or work-related problems, but it is worth keeping them in mind in light of other issues.

Even when dying on the beach, attentions were drawn to TSM’s feet and legs, their positions, and their stiffness (which may have been, besides being obviously due to his death, also partly the result of prior health and mobility issues; the illness now referred to as MPAN, as I will discuss later, lists rigid muscles as an important symptom of its worsening signs). Changing of tickets when arriving at Adelaide may have had something to do with problems with walking. A diagnosis of increasing problems with mobility and expected quality of life issues may have played a part in any decision he made to end his life, apart from other reasons that could have motivated him to do so, especially in terms of its timing. Hearing that his older brother Russell had just become disabled in 1946 could have in fact shocked him deeply enough to avoid the same faith, resulting in Carl Webb’s first suicide attempt.

Although it is most likely that Carl’s exemption from military recruitment was based on his education and degree as a technician, it is also possible that his physical health issues played a part as well. But not enlisting also implied social consequences for him, mentally as well perhaps, in finding his relatives and cohorts go to war, some close to him dying, and his being seen publicly as not involved the same way. Reportedly, conscription was introduced in 1942 in Australia, making it mandatory for 18-35-year-olds and also single men aged 35-45. So, Carl Webb’s hurriedly getting married that late in age with a young woman may have been another way for him to exempt himself from conscription, just in case existing excuses were deemed insufficient for avoiding draft.

Carl’s not marrying earlier may have also had something to do with the physical mobility problems he faced, and the limitations such problems set on his job and productivity. Although high levels of lead found in his hair during autopsy may have been a result of his work in Red Point Tool Co. or even thereafter (after leaving his job), perhaps working as a process worker in the same plant Tibor Kaldor worked, it is possible that he had even been exposed to lead in his earlier involvements, as an electrical fitter and instrument maker, in J C Williamson backstage entertainment projects. It is possible to consider that Carl’s going to bed early at 7 pm had to do, partly at least—apart from any pains he suffered from habits he may have carried on from his work as a baker—with difficulties with standing for long time and enduring feet muscle pains. But it is also possible that the pattern was a result of pain medications he was taking, offered by his wife Dorothy, first in kindness perhaps, but, possibly later in revenge for his rejecting her or to quiet him down if and when fights broke out.

It is even possible that when he arrived in Adelaide on Nov. 30, 1948, he may have been in too much pain to carry his suitcase which could have also served as part of his plot for that day. However, for his plot reasons, leaving it in the luggage storage room to be discovered later must have been a more prudent option for his plot, which explains why he had gotten rid of its ticket assuring that no passer-by would find it and fetch it from the train station before investigators arrived.

In fact, as noted earlier, walking difficulties may even explain why he decided not to take the train that day, instead opting for the more convenient bus trip to where he wished to go. In the meantime, Dorothy may have been instrumental in finding him medicine, on or off the counter, for pain relief. Aside from the pills, she (having been trained as a pharmacist, and having access to drugs by way of her job) could have “filled for him” other drugs that in low dosage offered relief but in high enough dosage could have proven deadly, some of which he kept for use in his final act. He may have even learned from her the details about poison use that could be known only to a trained pharmacist.

5. The Webb vs. Webb Divorce Files, Obtained by the Author from the Office of the Chief Justice of Victoria

The unofficial team of Derek Abbott and Colleen Fitzpatrick, who originally must have had access to the affidavit in Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb’s (DJW) divorce file, did not share in a transparent way the actual text of what they had read and were reporting on. So, for a long while other researchers did not have a full picture of what was in the files.

On October 2, 2022, I submitted a letter directly to the offices of the Honorable Chief Justice Anne Ferguson of the Supreme Court of Victoria, urging her offices to kindly authorize the full disclosure of Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb’s divorce files. I posted then the text of the letter and following exchanges here on Cipher Mysteries, which are copied also below in Appendix I. We were fortunate to receive two pdf files, one titled Dorothy Webb Affidavit and another pdf file titled (not previously known) Webb v Webb divorce including all the correspondence processed for her application for divorce in June 1951 culminating in the granting of divorce in 1952 (I immediately shared both files for the first time online). What was not included, of the existence of which we became informed by way of reading the two divorce files, was the documents related to a maintenance order application she had filed in March 1947 against Carl Webb in the Court of Petty Sessions at Prahran.

The divorce documents clearly reveal that, after their marriage on Oct. 4, 1941, the marital relations of Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Webb deteriorated rapidly. Divorce filings, especially when done by only one of the two sides, can be illuminating yet also one-sided. Evidence has been shared about a trend at the time involving legal aids helping craft divorce applications in a way that only justified their client’s action. Biases in such filings can be made not just on what is stated, and how, but also on what is not stated about the events transpired, being absent in the narratives.

Dorothy’s filings appear to suggest that she believed Carl Webb was still alive, having only deserted their marriage. However, the files require careful reading and analysis to understand what transpired between the two following their marriage in 1941. For this purpose, we should read not just the lines, but also between the lines, so to speak, of her affidavit and what is shared in the second set of records.

In what follows, I will argue that the files, when read carefully, suggest that Dorothy Jean Robertson, when filing for divorce in 1951, may have already known Carl Webb had died.

To begin with, reading Dorothy’s divorce papers filed in 1951, we become aware that what she was filing at the time was the second legal action she had taken against Carl Webb. So, chronologically speaking, we should be first considering her important first action, one that had a direct impact on Carl Webb’s life when he was still alive.

In clause 17 of her affidavit, Dorothy states that in March 1947 she took maintenance proceedings against Carl Webb in the Court of Petty Session at Prahran such that on the 1st day of May 1947 an order was delivered to Carl Webb to pay her 1.10.0. pounds weekly for her maintenance. In the (later) divorce file, she adds (p. 14, clause 3) that the earlier order had not been complied with since June 1947. This means that only one month’s maintenance had been paid, for May 1947. She herself noted that she believed Carl had left his flat on Bromby street in April 1947. On page 15 of the second (pdf) file, she notes (clause 5) that she knew at the time the summons was delivered, Carl was working at a machine shop in Prahran, adding that she was told by her solicitor that Carl had left his job.

Reading the page 21 of the pdf file, clause 3, makes it clear that the machine shop referred to was Red Point Tool Co. in Prahran. A legal firm staff notes there that when he visited the company on August 22, 1951, he was told that Carl Webb had left his employment with that firm “about 3 or 4 years ago.” This means, Carl had left the company sometime between about August 22, 1947, to August 22, 1948, no one at the company having seen him since. “3 to 4 years ago” is not necessarily an exact month by month indication, but in terms of the year. That is, the legal team member most likely meant to say that Carl had left that job sometime in 1947 or 1948. Since there is a year difference between the two options, it seems clear that those who informed him were not sure exactly about the month when he left, but just the year he left.

Given that Carl clearly did not intend to pay the maintenance dues, it is most likely that the very first one on May 1 was paid not by Carl Webb directly but taken out of his paycheck for April, when he had been at some point still employed there. Of course, it is possible to speculate differently, that he paid for May, and was still employed there until August. But, reasonably, given he left his residence in April 1947, we can safely suppose that when he received the summons in April 1947, he decided to abruptly leave his job, and move out of his residence, the first maintenance due paid on his behalf from his last paycheck on May 1st, but no more, since he was no longer employed there and had a paycheck forthcoming. In the second pdf file, p. 21, clause 3, it confirms that “… service of the Summons for maintenance was effected on the Respondent in April 1947” at his job. So, we should have no doubt that Carl Webb knew sometime in April 1947 Dorothy had taken summons action against him regarding the maintenance order.

The date April 1947 is a significant date. Before that, she had seen Carl Webb last on September 13, 1946, when she left for good their common residence on Bromby St. She stated in her divorce papers that she never saw him after 1946 but was aware that he was still residing there until April 1947, but he moved from that location at that time (affidavit, clause 5). Carl would not have known that she took maintenance action against him until April 1947.

If we suppose that Dorothy had become more concerned about her own safety because of her maintenance action becoming known to Carl Webb, the date of such an elevation in safety concern would be April 1947. If, as a result of such an elevated concern she considered being away from Victoria, let us suppose that would be the date a change would have needed to take place in her domicile. Note that at that time, she may not have needed to assume Carl would end his job, nor his residence, and go to parts unknown. She could have assumed that given he lived in the state of Victoria, moving to another state would be an option to consider for her own safety.

Dorothy filed her affidavit on June 29, 1951, not in Victoria but in South Australia. We later learned that at or around that time she had become pregnant with Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer, both having found themselves meeting in Bute, South Australia. Since she had not been formally divorced from Carl Webb, she could not marry Lockyer, and the timing of the 1951 must have been due to her desiring to marry Lockyer who had presumably fathered her yet unborn baby.

In the Webb vs. Webb divorce files, she began by stating “Dorothy Jean Webb of Bute in the State of South Australia ….” So, on one hand, she was filing this from Bute (or, more accurately, from Kadina, about 20 minutes’ drive away from Bute, presumably given the latter was too small a town to process it) in South Australia in 1951; on the other hand, since the marriage with Webb had commenced in the state of Victoria and had to be annulled there, she had to show she met the domicile requirements for doing so, one of which was that she must have been continuously domiciled in Victoria for a certain period before filing for divorce. This was apart from a desertion period requirement that she also had to have met. We should then assume that even though she later (as explained below) said she had been domiciled in Victoria before filing the affidavit, she must have been for one or another practical reason still staying in Bute at the time in 1951, the practical reason being, now we know, likely being her pregnancy.

In her divorce affidavit, in clauses 3 and 4, Dorothy stated two things. One, in clause 3, that Carl deserted her continuously “during three years and upwards.” Second, in clause 4, she stated, “I am and have been for two years and upwards domiciled in the State of Victoria.” The reason for these important early clauses was apparently to establish her fulfillment of legal requirements at the time for filing for divorce. In Trove, we can read that in 1954, generally around that time, the divorce filing requirements were that the desertion period should be at least 3 years if the husband was domiciled in Victoria (which Carl was), and for the wife to be domiciled in Victoria at least for 12 months.

The affidavit was filed on June 29, 1951. Their matrimonial (intimate) relations ended in January 1946, according to Dorothy, and she says she left their residence on Bromby St. on September 13, 1946 (affidavit, clause 9). Dorothy clearly sets the latter as the time of desertion (which followed her filing a maintenance order against him in Prahran in March 1947, it being given to him at work in April 1947, as considered previously). So, from April 1947 to June 29, 1951, we clearly have 3 years plus about 2-3 months (“three years upwards”) period of desertion. So, we clearly see that the timing of filing for her divorce coincides exactly with the time required for meeting the first condition of her divorce filing. Therefore, counting from April 1947, she could have been simply waiting for April 1951 to begin her affidavit preparation in consultation with her lawyers, allowing for 2-3 months for the preparations. And it happens that also her pregnancy commenced around that time, perhaps in anticipation of divorce from Webb going through, so she could marry Lockyer.

As for the domicile requirement, in clause 4, all she had to say, based on the requirements at the time, is that she was and had been domiciled in Victoria for one year (12 months). She could have even said two years to make it a stronger statement, there being no need at all for that “and upwards.” In fact, had she never left Victoria following the separation, all she could have said was “I am and have been continuously domiciled in Victoria, where I was born and married.” Clearly, she says previously in the affidavit that she was born in Victoria, and obviously married and residing in Victoria. Had she been continuously living in Victoria after separation, any of the above statements could have sufficed. However, oddly, she stated in a specific way in clause 4 “two years and upwards” such that it suggests she indeed had left Victoria after separation (since, before, she was obviously living there during marriage), then returning to Victoria, even though she was filing her divorce action in Kadina near Bute, SA, at the time (June 29, 1951). There is no other way to explain the specific period she offers in clause 4 to prove her meeting the second requirement for filing her divorce.

Let us say Dorothy left soon after filing the maintenance order in March 1947, or just before or after that, such as April 1947. Let us suppose that the reason she left the state was concern for her safety, one that would be elevated because of her filing for maintenance order being received by Carl in April 1947. So, let us suppose for safety reasons, she moved to Bute, in SA, thinking that she would be living there from now on to receive her maintenance dues there, still feeling unsafe in Victoria. And let us say that is where she met Lockyer, her future husband, and father of a child to be still born. However, given the period she said she had again been domiciled in Victoria (“two years and upwards”), for some reason, we find that she suddenly felt safe again living (or declaring to be living) in Victoria in 1949 (about six months after Carl’s death on Nov. 30, 1948). Why?

For the domicile in Victoria requirement, counting back from June 29, 1951, two and plus years would be several months (but less than a year) before June 29, 1949. This clearly means she decided to be domiciled again in Victoria more likely after Nov. 30, 1948—it could be before that, about 4 months (but not to make it a year, since from Dec. 1 to June 29 is 7 months), but more likely after that date, if the elevated safety issue was of concern. So, let’s say, still she had business that she had started while living in or around Bute (for example in Kadina, about 22 minutes’ drive away, where she filed for divorce), but then she decided to be formally domiciled in Victoria, realizing that at some point, which must have been at least three years of desertion past April 1947, she could file for divorce. So, there is a reasonable basis for considering that she left Victoria following separation after March/April 1947 but returned to her domicile in Victoria most likely sometime after Dec. 1948.

A reasonable question that arises from her clause 4, then, is: Did Dorothy, formally admitting it or not, know Carl Webb had died when she filed for divorce in 1951?

Interestingly, in her file she does not at all state why she was residing in SA/Bute and filing her divorce files from there, although we may assume that while being domiciled in Victoria again now, she was seeing Lockyer and was pregnant, preferring to be in Bute. Given all she said about matters of threat and safety living with Carl during their marriage, it would have been relevant for her to have a clause saying, “I left for Bute because I was fearful of my safety, and that is why I am filing for divorce from here.” She did not have to say anything about that, of course, but the silence is meaningful. Also, we should keep in mind that her saying nothing in the divorce files about Lockyer, and her being pregnant with his child, firmly offers an example that she was not forthcoming with all the details about what had transpired in her life, but only with what was sufficient for her divorce claim against Carl Webb.

Dorothy also chose to say absolutely nothing about her prospective intention to marry Lockyer, being pregnant with him. Of course, one would not expect her to state those, but we know now that was the case. It seems the silence was important because had she stated the reason she left for Bute, it being a matter of safety, she would have had to then explain why her domicile was back to Victoria sometime in 1949, if she still was concerned about safety, assuming that he was still around in Victoria. Remaining silent on offering the safety issue as a reason for moving to Bute, therefore, saved her the trouble of not meeting the domicile requirement for divorce starting in 1951.

So, let us go over the above again, briefly. To begin her divorce proceedings, Dorothy had to meet two conditions. First, she could not have started it any time before April 1947, and she filed it on June 29, 1951; so that condition was met. Second, she had to show she was domiciled in Victoria at least 12 months before the June 1951 filing. If she still had elevated safety concerns since April 1947, assuming Carl Webb was alive, she could have stated the 12 months, or even two year domicile in Victoria period. However, the specific phrasing of “two and upwards” period suggests that she had been feeling safe declaring her residence in Victoria since sometime in 1949.

Of course, in the above we have supposed her moving to another state was in response to elevated safety considerations. But, supposing that as having been a consideration, Dorothy must have considered leaving her domicile in Victoria after her September 1946 departure from their joint residence, March-April 1947 or soon after being a plausible date for moving out of the state, given that her maintenance order was delivered to Carl in April 1947. Yet, we find that she did not wait until, say, April 1950 to declare her residency in Victoria for the practical reason of meeting the minimal 12-month period requirement of having a domicile in Victoria. She had already felt safe, again supposing that safety was an issue, to do so sometime in 1949.

Why the above considerations are, even hypothetically, important? Because, knowing whether Carl Webb was alive or not to be able to respond to divorce filings could have an impact on how her affidavit was written. If she knew he had died, it would have certainly meant that Carl would not be able to respond or take any action to defend himself on one or another of the claims made in her affidavit. She could have included and excluded whatever she liked in and from her affidavit, not being concerned that a responding Carl Webb would challenge one or another of her claims or assertions in her affidavit. Of course, again, the above considerations are hypothetical, but they cannot be reasonably ruled out as a possibility.

Dorothy paints a clearly negative picture of Carl Webb in her divorce file, as if his behavior was innate and not also a response to events that happened during their marriage since 1941. However, we can assume that such negativity or negative impression of him in her mind did not exist from the beginning of their marriage but evolved over time. Obviously, they must have been at least sufficiently fond of each other to be married in 1941.

Carl’s father had died in 1939, and his mother’s health began breaking down soon after their marriage. Also, WWII broke out affecting Carl Webb’s life more than hers, as he had brothers and nephews to be called in, while she had a sister only. Dorothy speaks of her becoming involved in Carl’s mother’s care, herself becoming ill as a result, but what is missing from her divorce filing are what Carl’s family went through during the period her marriage with Carl broke down.

She has absolutely nothing to say about Carl losing her brother Roy or nephew Russel (Keane) to war within a few months of each other, nor does she (admittedly later on) mention anything about the health condition of Carl’s older brother Russell, who become disabled, unable to work, sometime soon after the time Carl reportedly (told by her) made his first attempt at ending his life privately at home. She does not mention anything about his mother’s passing in 1946 either. She may not have even known about some of these events given her alienation and separation from Carl, but the lack of such knowledge should be factored in when considering the portrait she draws of her estranged husband over several years, as if his depression was something innate and having nothing to do with what was happening in his life.

Dorothy portrays him as having a quiet life, being rational and charming at times, but going to bed early in depressed mood, having problems—not mentioning anything about the wider events  happening in his life. She reports his swearing at her such things as “bitch” that implied in his view she may have had affairs or been inclined to have one at a time when he was facing family losses. Of course, she would not confirm or deny or even discuss such a topic, but her report of his changed attitude toward him portrays his behavior as having nothing to do with her own behavior.

Based on Dorothy’s own account, it would be entirely unfair to characterize his behavior toward her as having been sexually aggressive; in fact, her portraits convey the opposite to be true, giving a sense that he was not interested in having intimate relations with her at least from sometime into their marriage, and when they did, Dorothy’s expressions are not negative, but affectionate. Her comments about his sleeping early cannot be interpreted in any other way, giving the impression that she felt he had become less interested in having intimate relations with her, and this bothered her.

She reports on his mental and behavioral issues and portrays him as being rude to her, at times not speaking to her, being verbally and at times physically abusive (but not sexually so), being a bad loser in games, gambling (apparently in an inexperienced and losing way) in horse racing (while implying that the friends she was inviting were also involved in gambling but she was not judgmental about their involvement), not taking care of his ailing mother (saying she was instead involved for a while, before she herself got sick), also suggesting his not being interested in their marital affairs. Clearly, she was dissatisfied with her marital situation and Carl’s behavior and one can understand her feelings, as a young married woman, to expect more from her husband. But, unfortunately, especially given that she claimed to be a health professional, it is surprising that she did not mention any of the physical, mental, and life-changing family losses her husband was going through at the time, explaining at least partly why he expected more understanding and empathy, when he had basically given up on any hopes of living a normal life. She does not explain why they, or he, had painkillers in the house to be used by him in his first suicide attempt.

It is likely that Carl’s age difference with her following their marriage could have played a part in his realizing that they did not share the same concerns or degrees of empathy. If he was so much in pain physically, becoming deeply depressed affecting his mental health as well, perhaps, within a married context, he expected emotional help from his wife for support during hard times. Obviously, he must have been depressed and desperate enough to try take his own life by way of overdosing on phenobarbital tablets at home, likely provided to him by her as a (presumably) pharmacy licensed chiropodist, from which he was saved by Dorothy, she states. She never states that his behavior may have had to do with any shortcomings on her own part, such as any habitually cruel behavior she may have had during their marriage, as well, a behavior we are now suspect as having been present even then, given habits do not form overnight. We know that she was later accused by her future husband G. A. Lockyer of such behavior, not challenging or contesting his charges, therefore being confirmed in a court of law.

In any case, taking the 40 pills itself worsened his health condition. Apparently, he was so desperate even upon being saved by Dorothy at home that he wished not to be saved again and even threatening her if he recovered. To Dorothy, such a threat from a mentally and physically suffering man could have been regarded as a serious enough reason to consider separating from him on her own. But for Carl, it could have been a sad learning experience that the next time he tries, he better plan it such that he would not be revived.

Dorothy reports that Carl had already himself expressed, as early as Jan. 1946, a desire for separation due to incompatibility. By then, he had already been struck by the multiple pressures of mental depression as a result of sudden loss of relatives amid a world war, and likely also of debilitating physical health. He was in pain. He tried his first suicide attempt at home using painkiller pills, but it did not work, given her intervention. His ads in the paper selling things in Feb. 1942 and ending in May 1947 (a month after his formal separation from Dorothy), are basically actions of a man deteriorating in physical and mental health. It indicates an increasing lack of interest in life.

Golf is easier to play for a man suffering from foot problems (than football, if one does not have to walk and instead use the golf cart). His “almost new” tennis racquet indicates he could not play tennis at all, or for a brief while, and sold next. The same with his billiard cue and case, losing interest by 1946. Then, in 1947, he sells his most important (in terms of potential income-generation) tools, engineers’ and, interestingly, carpenters’ tools, useful perhaps in constructing temporary and makeshift stages for entertainment purposes. This is the behavior of a man who is not trying to find a new auto deal, to become a partner for a Thomson looking for lucrative new business, to engage in domestic or international espionage, to get rich in horse racing, and so on. These are signs of someone who has decided to die and was selling his things, so that he could prepare for his next attempt at suicide, more planned out, finding a light traveling suitcase sufficient for the basics needed for and before his final departure to be sufficient for the purpose.

Having sold his shaving equipment, we can also assume he may have decided to grow a beard, which could, post April 1947, help him disguise himself, trying to stay away from those pursuing his summons enactment. As pointed out by other researchers, the possibility that the Somerton Man must have grown a beard by the time he arrived in Adelaide on Nov. 30, 1948, shaving it off that morning before his eventful day, explains the drops of blood found on TSM’s collar during his autopsy.

Knowing Carl Webb’s mental illness and state of mind following their separation, having failed to accept his offers of settlement and failing to renegotiate it, Dorothy Jean Robertson, a trained nurse to some extent, as claimed, found it reasonable to file her summons against him, to be served beginning in May 1947. Did she realize in doing so she was pressuring an already sad and suicidal man to make another attempt? Were all the marital troubles they faced to be blamed only on him? Did she offer any reason in the divorce files that the failure was mutual, also due to, at least differences not blamable on just one side?

Of course her filing did not intend to reveal such shortcomings on her side, but, given the publicity received later about TSM in Australia, especially in South Australia, where she also lived, given her distant relative(s) lived near TSM’s death site, and another relative was in fact involved in investigating TSM case (Dr. John Barkley Bennett), as also pointed out John Sanders at Cipher Mysteries, and given the discrepancies in the chronology of her divorce filings as I explained above, should we still believe that at the time of filing her divorce from Carl Webb she thought he was still living?

Recently, our attention was drawn by Pat at Cipher Mysteries to a passage in an article published in 2010 by Professor Ruth Balint of the University of New South Wales, Australia, titled “The Somerton Man: An Unsolved History.” I had previously read that article and even had marked the passage, but that was before the recent material was learned about Dorothy Jean Robertson. In the passage, drawing on material found filed by detective Gerald Feltus (who aided her in her research), Balint writes,

“‘Between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. yesterday police headquarters received 49 phone calls from people stating that they possessed copies of the “Rubaiyat”’, an article on the front page of the Adelaide daily The Advertiser stated on 27 July 1949, the day after the story about the discovery of the scrap of paper on the dead man was printed.  One woman, trying to locate her missing husband, an electrician by trade, told police he had a copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and could ‘quote nearly all the poetry in this book and was very conversant with same’. (p. 173)

It has been speculated that the above reference could be perhaps in relation to a Dorothy Jean Robertson looking for her missing husband past July 27, 1949, about 8 months after TSM was found dead in Adelaide.

Unfortunately, no further details about the above is given in the article, nor could be obtained from Dr. Balint, who seems to have not been interested in responding to inquiries made in its regard. Nor has Gerald Feltus been reachable to provide further file material on the interesting citation. But the details given certainly match the basic facts of the Dorothy Jean Robertson and Carl Webb, in the sense of identifying the latter as an electrician, being interested in Khayyam to the extent of having a copy of the Rubaiyat and even knowing it by heart. And the citation goes back to 2010 when nothing really could have been known about a Carl Webb as having been an electrical engineer.

The above reference did not generate further traction among researchers, perhaps because it did not fit their narratives, or for other reasons. But the reference is actually very interesting and important for several reasons.

First, let us suppose this lady was indeed Dorothy Jean Robertson, looking for her husband Carl Webb, who had gone to places unknown. This would mean:

1-She must have come to know following her inquiry past July 27, 1949, that Carl Webb had died (if TSM was Carl Webb). As I noted above, Dorothy for some reason felt safe enough sometime in 1949 to change her domicile back to Victoria, and the Balint reference fits well with the circumstances described.

2-Since she must have found out about TSM’s death, then, her framing her divorce from him in 1951 must have been done with the false pretense that she did not know he had died, and this would have been known to her own immediate family (such as her father, whom she cites as a source in her divorce papers); if that was the case, she, and even her family, would have been legally liable for not revealing their knowledge of Carl Webb’s death in Nov. 1948. In other words, legally, not just she, but even her father (cited as a witness in the divorce files), would have been implicated in the false pretense that they did not know if Carl Webb had died.

Note that in the above interpretive option, we have a lady who discovers TSM was her missing husband, Carl Webb, but for mysterious reasons prefers not to reveal it to the police. Why this is important to note is that, given the mysterious code found on the back of the Rubaiyat, she may have felt somehow its deciphering would implicate her (and her father/family) in TSM’s demise.

Second, let us suppose that the lady was Dorothy Jean Robertson, but having visited the corpse of the Somerton man, she realized he was not his missing husband. This would also mean she had not necessarily lied about not knowing Carl Webb had died, but this would also mean that TSM is not Carl Webb, undermining the truth of all the recent findings about TSM as having been Carl Webb.

In other words, those who suppose Dorothy did/could not lie in her divorce filings about not knowing about her husband’s whereabouts, and that she was the person referenced in Balint article, would prove that TSM is not Carl Webb.

Third, let us suppose that the lady referenced in Balint’s article was not Dorothy Jean Robertson and (given she must not have positively identified TSM as being her missing husband, since the mystery continued regarding his identity), this would then interestingly mean that around that time there had been an engineer missing who had been interested in Khayyam’s poetry, knowing it by heart. So, we cannot claim there was only one, and only one, missing person of such a background and interest having gone missing, without any evidence having yet been found as to who he was, given he was presumed not to be Carl Webb. Could he have been one related to one of those 4000 samples found by the unofficial team whose DNA matched the averaged DNA profile supplied by Astrea? Could he have been an Astrea DNA profile eligible candidate, but not represented in the 4000-member list, simply because we cannot assume Ancestry or online DNA databases exhaustively include all folks descending from people who lived and died at that time?

It may be tempting to consider that, if the lady referred to above was Dorothy Jean Robertson, she may not have recognized Carl Webb in either the mask made off him by Lawson, or the deteriorated body of him in the morgue. However, the autopsy photos of the Somerton man had been well made soon after his death, so just looking at it in the pictures should have left her with no doubt that it was her husband, if the Somerton man was Carl Webb.

So, no matter how we look at it, the referenced passage in Dr. Balint’s article is indeed interpretively significant, if we wish to not let our preferred narratives decide whether we pay attention to its implication or not.

Based on the above, I am inclined to believe that Dorothy Jean Robertson, at the time of filing for divorce from Carl Webb in 1951, had already become aware that he had died, and so did her immediate family. The circumstances of Carl Webb’s death on the beach, involving deep mysteries involving an undecipherable code (one that at that time could not have been assumed to remain undecipherable for decades), offered troubling implications for her and her family, whether justified or not. His being discovered as being Carl Webb, given the stories of fights reported in her and Carl’s household, could have implicated them in his death, and the undecipherable code may have been found to be a note implicating her (and by extension her family) in his death.

Besides, she could not rule out the possibility that the truths of TSM being Carl Webb could be revealed soon, so she had to go on record portraying their mutual marriage background in such a way that would have justified her having been a victim, having nothing to do with his troubles and eventual suicide. Her divorce file affidavit can therefore be regarded as a preventive measure, filed legally, in anticipation of a possibility that Carl’s identity could be revealed in the near (or more distant) future.

The filing, of course, also served the practical needs of her getting divorced legally from Carl Webb to make her marriage to Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer possible, given she had become already pregnant. However, the story of what transpired between her and her new husband, itself resulted in more troubles for her, and for her immediate family.

6. The Implications of the Full Lockyer vs. Lockyer Divorce Files, Obtained by the Author from the Office of the Chief Justice of South Australia

The unearthing of two pages of the Lockyer vs. Lockyer Divorce File in 2022, and its complete file in Oct. 2023 as a result of my appeal to the Honorable Chief Justice Kourakis of South Australia and his kind assistance by way of the Acting Chief Justice Mark Livesey of South Australia and their offices to release all available material on the case, as brief as the proceedings of the divorce proved to be, are highly significant, the silences therein being as important as what is stated in the case file.

Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer who had married Dorothy Jean Robertson (interestingly, in the divorce file only referred to as Dorothy Jean Webb, a divorced person, and not by her Robertson last name) in 1952, following her giving birth to their still born son in 1951, filed for divorce against her in 1955, accusing her of “habitual cruelty.”

She was at the time undergoing surgery for adhesion and appendectomy, perhaps involving complications resulting from her still-birth a few years earlier; but she is reported as having recovered and released from the hospital. However, the court proceedings followed their due course, her lawyers filing present on her behalf, and affirming her choice not to defend herself against the charges, leading the court to rule in his favor, affirming that she had committed habitual cruelty toward her new husband, Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer.

Unfortunately, the file does not offer any details regarding the nature of her “habitual cruelty” and research material on such charges point to a variety of reasons that could have fallen under the term. However, the fact that just a few years following her own detailed charges of habitual cruelty (not labeled as such then) against Carl Webb in 1951, a court proceeding in which obviously Webb was not present to defend himself, she herself is accused of the same in a court of law and decides not to defend herself is very important, despite (or even because of) the lack of details.

Her silence may as well be interpreted as her not wishing to reveal the details of what her new husband was accusing her of, and Lockyer’s own decision not to write down the details may also be regarded as meaningful, as if they both mutually understood she had done something wrong that it was better not to be revealed in writing in a court of law.

Lockyer obviously knew of Dorothy as having been a divorcee (from Carl Webb), so he must have known and discussed matters having to do with her earlier marriage. Being both living in South Australia, and likely even frequenting Adelaide, their knowledge of the Somerton Man case would seem to be considered a near certainty. If TSM was Carl Webb, and she suspected that his mysterious code, one which no one could decipher at the time, could have implicated her upon revelation for acts that would parallel her new husband’s court approved charges of her “habitual cruelty” to Carl Webb as well, then it would have been prudent for her (and Lockyer, as a last act of kindness, perhaps) to remain silent on the charges and not to defend herself.

What happened to Dorothy Jean Robertson following her divorce from Lockyer in 1955 is unknown. While her sister’s (Phyllis Robertson, married to James or Jim Crick) notes on their parent’s death certificates suggest DJR lived on to ages of 59 (when their mother died in 1980) and 68 (when their father John Comber Robertson died in 1989) and, according to some sources (of the unofficial team), dying in 1990s in New South Wales, virtually no records of her death, grave stone, or cremation, or what she did after 1955 has been found. For all practical purposes, it seems that Dorothy Jean Robertson herself went missing to places unknown after 1955. The fact that her sister reports her as living with the above age details somewhat parallels Carl Webb’s family reporting him as being alive in mid 1950s, following the death of one of his sisters and as part of her will execution procedures.

The Lockyer vs. Lockyer divorce file, however, reveals clues that may point to the possibility of her having died sometime in 1955 following her release from the hospital in April, and before November when the divorce decision became absolute. On the last day of the decision’s deadline to become absolute, on page 17 of the file, an entry is made as follows:

““I, Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer, the abovenamed plaintiff hereby request that an Order Absolute shall be issued in this action. To the best of my knowledge information and belief this action has not abated by reason of the death of the above-named defendant.” Dated the 3 day of November 1955 (signed by Lockyer), stamp dated 3, Nov. 1955

While the entry may be read as Lockyer affirming that the court decision should follow the procedure of being absolute because, according to his sources, DJR was still alive, it is possible to consider an alternative interpretation that he was reporting her death as of that time, his entry serving to remind the court that the divorce should not be abated because of her death.

The reason is that according to UK based Australian legal procedures, if a divorce’s Decree Nisi has already been approved when both parties are alive, which was indeed the case, if one dies during the following period (in this case, having been shortened to 3 from 6 months), the divorce case is not abated or cancelled, because the Decree Nisi had already been issued. For this reason, the court simply can name the decision absolute, without having to investigate and confirm whether a party to the divorce has indeed died, since it would make no difference, legally, as far as the final divorce decision is concerned.

There are several factors that make the possibility of DJR’s death in 1955 plausible, apart from the important note by Lockyer quoted above. In his will following his death in 1989, dated presumably before DJR has been regarded as dead in 1990s, her father John Comber Robertson mentions only and only her daughter Phyllis, bequeathing his inheritance to her only, or to her husband James Crick (in case Phyllis died before her father). Dorothy was not listed as present on the event of death of any of her parents (happening before 1990s), Phyllis listing her as living, her corresponding age given.

If DJR had been alienated from her family (or disowned by them as some researchers have suggested) since 1955 and was still living, Phyllis may have simply assumed she was living, giving her age, without knowing whether she was still living (after all even in mid 1950s Carl Webb’s family thought he was still alive). We should keep in mind that the claim that Phyllis sent burial funds for a deceased Dorothy Jean Robertson sometime in 1990s is a three-step hearsay, Dr. Abbott reporting what he had heard not from Phyllis herself but from a relative of hers, that Phyllis had told the relative what had happened. Since the relative could not provide concrete information about the exact death date, nor a grave or cremation information, about DJR, in my view there is not a solid basis to assuming that the relative himself or herself knew whether what had been reported by Phyllis Robertson/Crick was indeed true in its details.

The lack of information provided about Dorothy Jean Robertson, available but not shared or simply unknown, can itself be interpretively significant. Her family—having witnessed that she filed her divorce from Carl Webb (following years of troubled marriage with him) accusing him of habitual cruelty (not labeled as such at the time) while being herself accused of the same a few years later, in the context of a lasting mystery of a Somerton man found dead on the beach and poisoned with a mysterious note remaining undeciphered—could have been concerned that even they may be implicated in DJR’s life events. So, it would not be unrealistic to consider that her family may have decided to minimize any public exposure about her life or death in 1955, or in later decades, if she lived on to die in the 1990s.

Whether Dorothy Jean Robertson died in 1955 or lived on in hiding (for all practical purposes), cannot yet be ascertained at the time of this writing. Lockyer may have asked to include that clause, given Dorothy Jean had been hospitalized at that time. But what is clear is that had she known the Somerton Man to be Carl Webb, given the mystery of the case and his not being known and his code undeciphered, she would have felt condemned to a life lived in fear of being accused for having been “habitually cruel” to Carl Webb as well, since it would have become known that she knew she had died but did not reveal her knowledge in her divorce filing against Carl Webb, in effect having lied under oath. So, both she, and likely her immediate relatives, had an interest in keeping her whereabouts in secret and away from public scrutiny, not revealing much about her life, including whether she died in 1955 or sometime in the 1990s. Researchers have noted the possibility of DJR having been disowned by her family, but I think it is equally or even more plausible to consider that her family were protecting her whereabouts not just for her, but even for their own, sake, since her behavior had implicated them also legally in what had happened to Carl Webb.

We have had living family members of Carl Webb coming forward to introduce themselves as his relatives, and being open to discuss his life with others. However, we have yet to have anyone from the extended family of Dorothy Jean Robertson to come forward to shed light on her whereabouts. This does not mean necessarily that they know more than already reported, but the lack of information itself about the only sister of Phyllis Robertson (Crick) is itself interpretatively significant in relation to the life and death of the Somerton man, Carl Webb.

7. Judging Fairly, Based on Available Evidence, What Transpired in the Marriage of Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson

One of the strangest episodes of the Somerton case may be how the unofficial team of Derek Abbott and Colleen Fitzpatrick handled the announcement of their findings in a rushed way in July 2022.

It is understandable that according to their own methods and preferences, they wished to share their findings as soon as possible with the public about the life of the Somerton man, having discovered him to be Carl Webb. But it would be fair to expect that they, as scientists and forensically inclined or trained experts, handle their data with care, in such a way that would allow the public to judge their conclusions in a way that would be fair even to Carl Webb who had been identified as the Somerton man after more than seven decades. After all, his living relatives had helped them confirm their case, so why not be as careful as possible with revealing details about his life that would be fair even to his living relatives.

The announcements of their mask-hair based DNA investigations were accompanied by their reports of having read the affidavit of Dorothy Jean Robertson’s divorce application filed in 1951, including her narrative of what had transpired between her and Carl Webb during their marriage culminating in their separation in 1947, and his subsequent disappearance. Obviously, based on their own reported findings, Carl Webb had been the Somerton man, meaning that he had died in Nov. 1948. Yet, Dorothy Jean Robertson’s divorce affidavit, filed in 1951, was treated by our scientists as if her version of what had transpired between her and Carl Webb was sufficient to pass judgments on Carl Webb, his character, and what had transpired between them. Of course, from physicists who deal more with inanimate objects one would not expect such a sensitivity to sharing information about their research “objects”; but, still, they also regard themselves as forensic specialists, often dealing with matters of life and death, in the DNA analyses they conduct.

What made the unofficial team’s approach remarkably strange was that they did not even share a copy of what they must have themselves read, that is Dorothy’s affidavit, with the public, making the public feel being ever grateful for hearing bits and pieces only from the two in the team, in various interviews, at times contradicting one another, or even themselves, as far as some details or dates go, across the interviews shared on. Apparently, their assumption had been that others would simply have to take for granted that what they shared was truthful 99.99%, even 100%, of the time—which is at odds with the expectations we have of claimed scientists to be normally obliged as a matter of procedure to publish their evidence and data for all so readers can themselves judge the accuracy of their readings and interpretations of their source material. Sporadic online interviews seemed to be sufficient for them in fulfilling that purpose.

So, for a long while, we did not even have the text of Dorothy Jean Robertson’s affidavit to read for ourselves, even though the unofficial team must have had it and decided not to share it with others. It was as a result of frustrations felt by many of such circumstances that I appealed to the honorable chief justice of Victoria to share with us the files, and her office kindly responded by sharing the affidavit and even another file, both of which I immediately shared online, leading to our knowledge, among many other facts, of where Carl Webb had been employed during his marriage with Dorothy Jean Robertson.

I have already shared details of the files and some of my reflections on their contents in the previous two sections, the files themselves being available, as linked previously, for reading by all. My purpose in this section, drawing on what I have already shared in the previous two sections, is to go over the material again with the specific question in mind of whether and how what transpired between Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson during their troubled marriage can be judged fairly, based on the source material available to us so far.

In 2023, having learned that new information had been uncovered independently by others about the Lockyer vs. Lockyer divorce, I contacted the office of the honorable chief justice of South Australia, hoping to obtain as much more information as possible about the case, especially given the accusations of “habitual cruelty” filed and approved, in a court of law, against Dorothy Jean Robertson in its proceedings. I, along with many, wished to obtain more information about the details of the case, to read any affidavits or other relevant reports, so that we could also judge for ourselves what transpired.

As reported earlier, we were kindly offered whatever that exists on that case by the offices contacted, and it became clear that there were no details existing about the matter of habitual cruelty, nor was there any affidavit submitted in the case by any party concerned. It also became clear that both sides had been represented and were alive, having had a chance to offer details and to defend any charges made against them. Yet, no further details were exchanged except those already reported (in its entirety by me, who obtained the complete files and shared their contents on Cipher Mysteries, the files themselves not having been allowed to be shared publicly due to routine legal procedures in place).

While the charge of “habitual cruelty” against Dorothy Jean Robertson had been made by Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer, she chose not to defend herself through her representatives, and the court formally concluded the case in favor of G. A. Lockyer, granting his application for divorce.

So, now we have full details of both Webb vs. Webb and Lockyer vs. Lockyer divorce cases at hand, to be able to judge, as fairly as it is possible, what transpired in each relevant case, our focus being on the marital troubles of Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson.

The truth of what transpired in a contentious marital dispute is not something simply given for us to choose from but must be based on the full extent of whatever material we have at hand. Matters of divorce are contentious affairs and to decide who is right or wrong we have established a court system that make it possible for both sides to offer their sides of the story, so that judges and/or juries can, as best as they can, arrive at a balanced and truthful judgment about each case.

Below, I will try to compare the two cases and offer some thoughts so that we can be as fair as possible in considering the contributions and limitations of the records at hand toward understanding each case. The honorable chief justices of Victoria and South Australia have kindly shared with us whatever documents exist in the two cases, and the least we can do is, treat our evaluation as best as we cannot base on any a priori preferences or sympathies we may have for one side or gender or another, but based on the material at hand.

The most important differences between the two cases, if we believe that indeed the Somerton man was Carl Webb, is that in the Webb vs. Webb case we do NOT have a representation of both sides in the court, but only one, whereas in the Lockyer vs. Lockyer case we do have documented representation of BOTH sides (through their representatives) in the case.

Divorce cases are highly contentious and of course we expect each side to present its best argument and evidence, leaving out material that may not favor their case. Researchers have cited articles which explain how divorce filings and affidavits were deliberately written during those times (and perhaps even today, as one would expect) to present the best cases against the opposing party. However, it is the purpose and function of a court process to hear both sides, so that the truth of what has transpired can become known through the exchange of views of all parties, not just one side.

Whether Dorothy Jean Robertson actually knew Carl Webb had demised at the time she filed her divorce in 1951, we may not fully know, but as I have argued and reasoned in the previous two sections, there are indications that she may have known that to be the case (given the chronology of her state residence records, and also what has been reported in Gerald Feltus’s files, and given she and Lockyer were living in South Australia at the time, with the news about the Somerton man all over the papers). But, regarding these as being speculative, for those who believe the Somerton man was Carl Webb, there should remain no doubt that the reason he did not offer his side of the story in the Webb vs. Webb case was NOT because he did not wish to do so, but because he had died in 1948. So, the Webb vs. Webb decision was made entirely based on the claims of one side, rather than being the result of an exchange of views and claims.

In the Lockyer vs. Lockyer case, however, the opposite is the case. In this case, both sides were alive (ill or not) and were represented in the court, as acknowledged by the court. Robertson had every chance to offer even a more detailed (compared to that submitted in Webb vs. Webb case) affidavit or rebuttal to Lockyer, but she chose not to do so. In my view, even such a silence is highly significant, and speaks more than a thousand words. She consented with the decision of the court to declare her accused of being habitually cruel toward Lockyer and this was a formal court decision made in a case where both parties had a chance to exchange their stories and claims.

Even considering DJ Robertson’s narrative about Carl Webb at its face value, we can still learn a lot about several aspects of their troubled marital interactions, if we try to read not just the lines but also between the lines of her narrative.

We must first assume that they started off at a sufficiently amiable level of friendship to be married to each other, despite their age differences.

One of the unfair judgments that was quickly passed about Carl Webb given the rushed and hearsay nature of the way the unofficial team broke the news about the story of their affair, was that he must have been a womanizer to marry such a younger lady. The narrative of such an accusation in a court of law could be unpacked well, if folks were not rushing into judgments about Carl Webb, when looking for their media attention.

The same folks who advanced such an accusation had not said the same thing about any possible relation the Somerton man (presumably also known to have been in his early or mid 40s) with Jessica Harkness, who was known as having been born in 1921, in fact a year younger than Dorothy Jean Robetrston. Not only the Somerton man had not been accused of such womanizing, but his purported picture had been hoisted in living rooms alongside Jestyn, the latter having been even speculated as having been interested in relating to Boxall, not even considering George Thomson, admittedly younger than both other men. But now, the rushed hearsay-based reports of the unofficial team became a basis for judging Carl Webb as having been a womanizer, marrying a much younger lady, when nothing of the sort of judgments had passed about him in relation to Jestyn, at lease as negatively.

But then, Dorothy Jean Robertson’s own account, generally negative about Carl Webb, does not itself arrive at the same conclusion of a man after having a relation with her purely or mainly on sexual terms. If anything, Robertson sounds as if complaining that he was too aloof and not interested, and some of her resentments of him may have in fact been due to the absence of such a desire on his part to be more intimate with her. She speaks critically of his going to bed too early, being a contemplative type interested in “death poetry” and dying. And yet she found him at times charming, remembering having had their last intimacy in Jan. 1946, in a way that was not dismissive, but affectionate, at the time having discussed his desire for separation then, about which she wished to discuss more later. In any case, there is nothing in Robertson’s own account that portrays Carl Webb as having been a womanizer or sexually aggressive toward her. In contrast, we find Robertson actually later marrying someone, Lockyer, known, even as reported in newspapers, for having been unfaithful in a previous marriage, and engaged in other vices, intending to marry him in 1951, a relation to also fail in just a few years, resulting, ironically, in his filing for divorce against her, charging her of habitual cruelty, and proving it in a court of law.

Robertson’s story about physical violence in the final years of her marriage to Carl Webb is of course sad to read about and nothing justifies violence in any marital interaction, from either side. But, according to Robertson’s account, when the fights happened, she also resorted to throwing things at him. Were there cases also, not reported, that she initiated throwing things at him? Details such as that we will never know. She herself states that he offered her a monetary settlement upon separation, and she asked for more at first, to include some furniture. He disagreed. She later decided just the monetary offer was enough, but by that time he had also changed his mind.

Quarrels about monetary arrangement between two sides in a marriage is something we can best judge when knowing the details, going back to the beginning of the marriage. The differences about who works and how much and how incomes are shared and expenses covered, are matters that can best be explained and judged when both sides are present, including how unexpected events such as the illness of Carl’s mother, passing of his brother and nephew, and other illnesses Carl himself may have suffered from, physical or mental, could have implicated the arrangements previously made. But when the other side of the story is not there to tell his side of the story, we cannot take for granted, in any court of law, when we know retrospectively that a party could not have shared his side because he was dead, that one side’s claims are entirely true.

Robertson herself portrays Carl Webb as a mentally troubled man who wished more to die than to live. She claims having been a health professional, a chiropodist, and a pharmacist, at the very least trained to be empathetic to the other. But she has absolutely nothing to say about the losses Carl was experiencing at the time, his mother’s story cited mostly to justify her own interests of having become ill in turn, rather than at least suggesting Carl may have been too sad about the losses he was suffering in his family. She shares her story about how she found him having tried to take his life at home, trying to revive him, and in the meantime reporting his resisting to be revived, threatening her in turn, which tells more of his own desperate state of mind than anything else. Having separated from him, however, she found it justifiable to take him to court, knowing that she was dealing with a man who wished more to die than to live. Did she expect that the Carl Webb she knew would keep on living and sending her a paycheck each month, rather than making another attempt at his life just to make a statement in revenge? In any case, ultimately, we know who ended up dying and living at the time, and her portrayal of Carl Webb as being someone depressed enough to make an attempt at his life did prove to be true.

Nobody is perfect, including Dorothy Jean Robertson and Carl Webb. We will never know all sides of the story of what transpired between them, but based on the existing material and records, many verifiably court-judged, in one case both having had a chance to offer their sides of the story, and in another only one side being present due to the other side having died (not because he chose not to defend himself), as objective observers we cannot in fairness rule in judgment in favor of Dorothy Jean Robertson’s behavior in marital affairs.

In studies of family violence, we find that matters of cruelty, or abuse, are more than merely physical. Sociologists are fully aware and sensitive to behaviorally subtle “micro-aggressions” that can involve deeply hurtful and abusive emotional harm on the relationship. Simple gestures can lead to major fights. Violence and abuse are not just physical but can be emotional and verbal as well. It is in fact the latter kinds that end up resulting in the physical harms. To be fair judges, we need to consider all aspects of marital problems, and not take a priori positions in favor of one gender or another, simple because there is a broader pattern at work in our lives or cultures. Each case need to be studied and judged on its own terms, and more than seventy decades past, with little evidence available or partial evident made public, at times purely based on hearsay, it would be unfair to pass rushed judgments about one side or another.

Dorothy Jean Robertson’s account about Carl Webb is full of micro-aggressive judgments passed about his character. She portrays him as a horse-race gambling man, without offering any proof than his having tried some, being a allegedly sore loser at it; those he had quarreled at home, presumably Dorothy’s friend, must have also been gambling, but she does not refer to them negatively. She reports him as being aggressive toward her guests, but she does not give a full account of how such quarrels began, since we obviously do not know of his side of the story. His being poetically inclined is a liability for her, and she expresses her own interest in going to cinemas during a time he must have been hearing or worrying about his brother and nephew at war. His being contemplative about matters of life and death, writing poetry about them, is portrayed as sign of an ill character, rather than someone who thinks about the problem amid a world war hit home, taking his family away one by one. In a married life, a partner may expect the other, especially trained in health professions, to be more empathetic about such issues, including helping him take care of his mother without complaints. Admittedly, there was an age difference between them, and role expectations varied of course, especially when there is a major age difference between partners. She was entitled to her own views and preferences as a younger partner in the marriage. But, she knew his age before marrying him, as well, and if he misjudged her, she could have also misjudged him, starting a rushed marriage.

As a baker’s boy turned engineer, perhaps working a boring job in Red Point Tools Co. than enjoying his extended-family Keane’ receding entertainment life joyfulness, where he could prank players in family photos, he may also have his own contemplative preferences as a lifestyle. Social interactions are not always win-lose games, not even win-win, but can also have lose-lose outcomes. Some of the blame may not even be fair to put on either of the two sides’ shoulders, living in difficult times. He may have expected a married life resulting in offspring that could be raised by her younger wife while he had long gone (given folks died earlier, even naturally, then), soon realizing that their marriage was in trouble, ending his hopes of having children with her; and the same perhaps in reverse could be the case for her. Neither of them had predicted that Carl Webb would face so many losses in his family. She may have also been disappointed in the marriage not going her way—both failing in some regards than others.

But, we cannot fairly judge a divorce retrospectively when we know, if we believe so, that one side had already died and could not share his side of the tale when it came to a divorce proceeding.

8. Carl Webb, Jessica Harkness, and Their Common Interests in Khayyam’s Poetry

There was one activity that had kept Carl Webb sane mentally, and that was poetry, both reading and writing some himself. The described “mood swings” in his behavior, as relayed in her divorce filing report by Dorothy Jean Robertson, seems to be a sign of depression. Bipolarity, if present, is a source of mental illness pain, but it has also been associated with high degrees of creativity since it motivates the person to think outside boxes.

Reading and writing poetry was Carl’s way of keeping himself sane, since he experienced deep senses of emptiness and depression about life and existence. This can explain why he was so much drawn to Omar Khayyam’s poetry which, even though Fitzgerald’s “free” translations, offers a sense and way of dealing with human suffering by way of enjoying the here and now, to the extent possible. Poetry offered Carl an escape, but also offered him a way of preparing for what he found himself increasingly thinking about, having suicidal thoughts more often as he aged into his 40s amid worsening familial, social, and global conditions.

In contrast, the much younger Dorothy Jean Robertson’s portrayals of Carl Webb’s interests in poetry, as relayed in her divorce papers, sound condescending and not appreciative of the maturity of attention Carl Webb seemed to have been paying to them especially in the context of the matters of life and death befallen to the world, his country and cultural heritage, and most tangibly his own family, members of whom were dying. Her lack of empathy when referring to his interest in “death poetry” and his interest in writing poetry himself, sentiments that one would expect to be regarded as an asset in a romantic new husband or a lifelong friend, rather than a liability indicative of his spiritual shortcomings, parallels the absence of any empathy toward the losses her husband had suffered (recently of his father, then mother, and then brother and nephew). If she claimed she did not even know about such losses (except for his mother’s condition, mentioned in the divorce fall), that would just speak to the minimal and limited extent she had come to know of her husband, yet claiming to be able to judge his character and state of mind.

For this reason, Carl’s attraction to another friendship in which he would feel appreciated for his interest in the arts, in Khayyam, the Rubaiyat, and even his own poetry, when considering the parallel interests Jessica Harkness seems to have had, becomes more meaningful. From what we know of Jessica Harkness, she was also deeply interested in Khayyam’s poetry, offering it as gift to others, including prospective potential suitors, and even jotting down a verse for them. Even when asked by others about her views on Khayyam, she characterized them as “love poems” and not “death poems.” In the interviews made by Dr. Carolyn Bilsborow in her documentary “Missing Pieces: The Curious Case of the Somerton Man” (linked at the end of this post), Jestyn’s family members portray her as having been philosophically and socially reflective, interested in having intellectual conversations with writers, while having grown up in a poor family and having developed a Left orientation in politics. It is understandable that she would even be interested in the arts of dancing performed by the Ballet Russes, or the orientalist tropes used therein, explaining why she would later support her son to become a ballet dancer and even perform movements played by Russian dancers visiting Australia.

The interest Carl had in poetry in the past may have even brought him into contact with others with same interest, by way of going to poetry readings. Perhaps it was through them, or even a Jessica Harkness, a nurse (who could have been known by or of Dorothy even, given their medical training), that he learned about Omar Khayyam’s poetry. He found the poems speaking to his questions about life and death. Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (in FitzGerald’s translation) had been widely popular and covered widely in newspapers. Having lost hope of interest in his marital life and his wife due to incompatibility, and having separated from DJR, and contemplating suicide again, he may have found reception in Jessica Harkness, resulting in a brief affair with her in mid. 1946, following his informing Dorothy of his wish to separate.

Regarding Khayyam’s poetry, we should keep in mind an important issue that made his poetry particularly attractive to Left-oriented folks then, and it is so even today. In Edward FitzGerald’s “free translations” of the “Rubaiyat,” Khayyam is portrayed as a “freethinker,” implying (wrongly) that to be so meant that he had to be anti-religious, a heretic, or a Moslem gone rogue, against his religion or religion in general. The fact is that the careful study of Khayyam’s own primary works can in no way whatsoever result in believing that he was anti-religious, a non-believer in Islam, or a faithless man, but that, within his theological worldview, he thought like a freethinker, being creative and open-minded and even critical about the meaning of religious teachings. It has been a fabricated worldview of the best that has assumed a thinker from the East must be anti-religious to be a freethinker.

But that is not the point I wish to make here. The point is that Khayyam’s intellect and poetry had been popularized and received not only in the West, but also in the Soviet Union, as it is even the same today in the West and Russia today, in terms of its secularized inclinations and worldview. For this reason, Jessica Harkness, Carl Webb, and Tibor Kaldor, being Left-oriented and poetry or literary inclined, would have found in Khayyam an Orientalized refuge of their own materialist outlook that would have served as a common interest bringing them together. In any case, the young Jestyn’s being free-spirited and interested in Khayyam, and in having parallel affairs, may have also been an expression of her Left orientation, as a way of rebelling against traditional norms set for women, trying to claim her own freedom in interactions with others, learning in due course, given the outcome of her pregnancy, that she had to be careful with exercising such freedom.

Jestyn may have had affairs with others, including with a “George” Thomson (who seemed at the time unavailable as a prospective husband since he was himself married). If she had a brief affair with Carl Webb, resulting in an intended or accidental conception, upon becoming pregnant, Carl could have believed that she had his child, while she may have thought the same or otherwise, given other affairs in which she was involved. So, even she may not have been sure, if she had other affairs, including with Thomson, less likely with Boxall. The impossibility of the situation must have struck both Carl and Jestyn as a shock. She may have even known of Carl’s depression leading to suicide, and the brief affair may have been a way of bringing hope to him. But, she found herself suddenly confronting a pregnancy without material support structure in place, resulting in her becoming suicidal herself, abruptly returning home.

Jestyn, meanwhile, being depressed about the accidental pregnancy, and likely knowing of Carl’s emotional state and life troubles, was not planning to reestablish connections with him, being also aware of his physical and mental health situation. Having gone back homes, she was found by Prosper “George” Thomson planning a suicide herself (ready to jump off a bridge), but deciding to leave with him. He took an interest in her as well, knowing she needed support in raising a child, and did in time what Jestyn knew Carl Webb could not, given his illness and depression: divorce his wife and marry Jestyn and support her in raising her/their children. In later years, Jestyn told family and friends how grateful she was of Thomson supporting and marrying her when she was expecting to have a child not his own.

Meanwhile, Carl’s suicidal thoughts facing health issues, family losses, marital failure, and so on, which had previously brought him to making an (unsuccessful) suicide attempt in the privacy of his home (by taking forty tablets of phenobarbital likely “filled” and prescribed by her to alleviate physical pains related to his foot injuries), evolved to the idea of doing so in public and in revenge, following receiving summons notices in April 1947 from his separated wife.

Carl Webb decided to leave his job, his dwelling, and go in hiding while planning his last act. He may have left for Cottesloe, WA, a beach area, for a time (wherein his family a few years later thought he may still be living), and it must have been there that he finalized his final suicide plot, writing a poem that later served, in a coded way, as his poetic suicide note.  It must have been there that he received the suntan noted in his autopsy report in late 1948, perhaps writing his suicide note poem, with a shirt on, lying on the beach and observing the ocean waves.

As part of his plan, Carl wished to see for the last time Jestyn and for the first and last time her son, one he thought was his. The suicide note poem he wrote served, in a nutshell, to explain, why and how he wanted to take his life. It said something about his being found poisoned, foaming, a symptom that he thought may even (later) be contrasted metaphorically with the eternal foaming of sea waves on the beach. The poem told something about his medical troubles, debilitating suffering, and perhaps even what he thought to be a terminal illness, feeling he was medically condemned to die any ways. It served as a way of giving him the courage needed to take his own life, as if going to war with himself, making himself ready to assault his body, as if in his own war against his own life.

The poem portrayed his chiropodist wife as a server of the poison, like a Saqi of a Khayyam poem but in this case serving the “wine” of death, “filling” the cup of his poison as if filing a prescription as a pharmacist, for having poisoned his life maritally and perhaps literally in terms of pills served to quiet him down, when they lived together. It ended with a curse of her “getting lost” once the poison taking was finished. Angry at Dorothy, he thought by codifying his suicide note poem, and dying in public, he would make her wonder forever whether he had implicated her in his death in revenge, so, if the code remained a mystery, she would have lived a life of fear of being found responsible for his death.

To code his “death poem” as a cipher, he had the idea of doing so in the example of the expression “Tamám Shud” ending the copy of his Rubaiyat, meaning “it ended.” The expression served well as the name of his last playing act. But, to render the poem as a transliteration in Persian or Arabic, he needed help. He was attracted to the idea of rendering the code in Arabic translation for another personal reason. It would be in tribute to his brother Roy, who had been buried in the still Arabic-alphabet using Malaya. That idea complemented well his broader idea of turning his final departure as a public suicide mystery play, where he would turn his passing into an event through which the world would never forget the passing not just of him, but all of his family, amid a creative plot, with a suitcase of items each symbolizing a piece of his family’s life, and the events of his last day meticulously engineered having the idea of contributing to the best of the J.C. Williamsonian theatrical tradition, toward which the memory of his own family, especially his brother-in-law, Gerald (Jerry) Keane, would be remembered forever.

As a young student at Swinborne, he had also been encouraged, among other students, to make and play his own personal plays. Now, the tragic thought of doing so for his own end of life story seemed like a feasible plan to pursue.

9. Carl Webb Codes His Poetic Suicide Note with the Help of Tibor Kaldor

During poetry meetings in the area during early 1940s, Carl Webb may have also met a recent migrant to Australia, Dr. Tibor Kaldor.

Born in Hungary as a Jewish man, he had been trained academically in languages, knowing German, French, English, and Italian. Being Jewish, he must have also known Hebrew, and perhaps being also familiar with Arabic, as part of his academic training leading to a doctorate in languages. He was reportedly an expert in languages, who may have even helped read German codes while still back in Europe, becoming familiar with the art intimately. He was advertising in papers as a teacher of German and languages to earn a living, and during such classes teaching English to new migrants, he may have even met Jessica Harkness, who herself (as reported by her daughter in a BBC interview) taught migrants, likely of Russian origin, learning some Russian herself. Perhaps, the mask she was shown of the Somerton Man must have shocked her sincerely, not because of its resemblance to Carl Webb necessarily, but to its inadvertent resemblance to Tibor Kaldor.

As reported by other researchers, Kaldor lived in a place on 10 The Avenue, Windsor, 20 minutes tram ride from Bromby street, his place of work being a walking distance from where Carl Webb lived. He worked as a process worker in Mayor’s Manufacturing, run by Jewish owners known to be associated with Australian communists. Kaldor himself was Left leaning as well, which can explain why he so sincerely cared for the hotel maid tasked with cleaning up after him after his own suicide in Dec. 1948. Kaldor’s being Left leaning can also explain his having been regarded as “dangerous” and deported from the UK to Australia, and in fact it may have been him also that Jessica Harkness had in mind when she speculated that higher ups in security must have known “him”; however, it is also possible Carl Webb himself had been known to authorities as a Left leaning person (like his older sister, or because of her having been booked at one time for occupying empty lots in the company of her friends). However, it would be wrong to assume being Left leaning equated being a spy, though in the political culture of time, even Jessica’s daughter later thought her mother could have been a spy, even though she happened to be a Left orientation in her views and politics. Being a man of literature and teacher of languages, Kaldor was also interested in poetry, going to poetry reading meetings in the area, where he and Carl Webb, and perhaps even Jestyn, met each other.

Carl and Tibor could have become friends (following Carl’s departure from his home following Dorothy’s issuing summons for him in April 1947), sharing the difficulties each had faced in their lives, finding in the poetry of Omar Khayyam a common interest as well, one that dealt with matters of life and death, and meaning of existence. Dr. Kaldor also, given the prejudice and hardships endured both in the past and during his troubled trip to Australia on Dunera, had contemplated ending his life. So, this gave them both a common topic of interest to discuss. Carl Webb, separated from Dorothy in April 1947, found himself in Cottesloe, WA, but also temporarily lodging at Tibor Kaldor’s place when in Melbourne. Kaldor found him miserable in health, and learned he had tried ending his life before, and may do it again.

Back in June 1945, they had read in the news about someone, who ended up being known as George Marshall, taking his own life in Sydney, with a copy of the Rubaiyat turned to its last page found on his chest, days after he had died. In fact, there had been many such Rubaiyat-propped suicides reported in the newspapers, but this one had just happened recently, giving Carl Webb some new ideas about how he could plan his end of life with the instrument of a Khayyam poem or poem book, not as previously tried at home, but in public, like George Marshall did.

But he did not wish to be found dead many days after death, like Marshall, but to be found soon by others, investigated, and buried soon afterwards. Tragically, Carl and Tibor also learned about the woman friend of George Marshall who 2 weeks later took her own life in her bathtub as well, Marshall having cared for her to mail her some funds before his suicide act. But, the idea of plotting his departure in a way that could bring some troubles for his separated wife whom he blamed for habitual cruelty committed against him, gave Carl Webb some ideas of plotting his suicide note in a particular way that both damned Dorothy forever, yet indirectly expressed  love for a son he thought he had fathered with Jessica Harkness, the Khayyam-like quatrain structure of the note being itself a tribute to Jestyn for an unfulfilled love affair that came too late for them to share in a long-term way.

Oddly and interestingly, back in June 1941, newspapers had reported the suicide case of a person named Webb, whose body had been found on the Somerton beach. The report read,

“An Inquest into the death of Frederick Alexander Webb, storekeeper, of Moseley street, Glenelg, was adjourned by the Acting City Coroner (Mr. G. Ziesing) yesterday until 10 a.m. tomorrow. Webb’s body was found on the beach at Somerton on June 4. Dr S. Krantz of North Terrace said that he had formed the opinion that death was due to drowning. There were extensive wounds on the right arm which could have been caused by a shark. In the body were found 2.8 grains of a drug group which included veronal. The actual dose was five grains although the body could absorb quantities of the drug and leave no trace. …”

This may have struck Carl Webb at the time as interesting, if he read about it in newspapers: a Webb, dying on the Somerton Beach, having taken drugs for suicide, with no trace of its use left, if taken in the right dosage. Veronal is another name for Barbital. So, Carl Webb could have read an article about another Webb found dead on the Somerton beach in 1941, likely having taken his own life using Veronal or Barbital, some grains of which could be ingested and leave no trace, at least as claimed in the newspaper he could have been reading. Of course, he must have thought dying on the beach would be better than in the waters.

Carl Webb’s skills in attending to details as an engineer, and his exposure to the arts, performance, and entertainment as a stage technician, as well as to performing arts and dances, by way of involvement with J. C. Williamson, gave him the creative idea of plotting his own solitary dance of death by suicide in a way that could set public puzzles for others to solve, forever. After all, he had been himself interested in puzzles and solved bridge or other puzzles in newspapers. Online researchers have pointed to the example of weekly Cryptogram puzzles in newspapers, which must have drawn the attention of Carl Webb, the puzzle-solver and puzzle-setter. Having lost his dear ones to war and age, Carl thought that his performance can also provide a way for others to remember him, and his family’s story.

Being poetic, he thought how a Khayyam who died centuries before was still remembered, so widely and lastingly, by way of his poetry. So, why can’t Carl try the same? Easy puzzles will be solved and forgotten soon (such as what George Marshall did). Instead, Carl thought he should plot his own suicide in a way that would pose an enduring mystery, and by associating with Khayyam’s poetry, he could tap into a long-lasting and global audience’s curiosity. He could turn his last act into a suicide mystery plot, as if planning, staging, and performing a J. C. Williamsonian shadow-show.

Having read his Rubaiyat and knowing it by heart, he even thought his life and his family’s troubles illustrated well Khayyam’s characterizations of the fate of humanity as phantom figures that just come and go without a trace; but, in contrast, he could also note that folks like Khayyam did live on in human spirit and unlike Phantom Figures, lived on eternally across generations. After all, Marshall had tried to do the same, but his plot’s puzzle proved too easy to solve. Being poetically inclined, especially interested in death poetry, and solving puzzles publicly, Carl decided to plot his departure publicly as well this last time and do it so carefully that it could turn into an eternally shadow-showing J. C. Williamsonian suicide mystery plot, enduring across future generations like the waves he had observed eternally foaming and coming to shore in Cottesloe.

He knew the newspaper cryptograms were still easy to solve, given their expected rules and used languages. Knowing about the last phrase ending the Rubaiyat, Tamám Shud, being a transliteration from Persian using Arabic alphabets, he told himself that it also looks like a cryptogram (TAMAM SHUD), somewhat not knowing it is a transliteration from Persian, would wonder what it is and what it means. It is like a cryptogram, but a special kind that uses another language as its letter substitution mechanism. So, anyone who tries to solve it must learn the meaning of the substituted letters in another language, just like TAMAM SHUD. To do so, they must acquaint themselves with other cultures, and this could also serve as a tribute to his brother Roy, who was buried in Malaya, Malayan at the time being an Arabic alphabet using language.

For “Tamám Shud” the solver should substitute ت for T, ا for A, م for M, ش for SH, و for U (even if not written), and د for D. So, the solver must transliterate TAMAM SHUD to تمام شد  and knowing what it means, solve the cryptogram as meaning “it is finished,” “it is done.”

So, Carl told himself, why not do the same with the “death poem” (a term he had heard uttered, mockingly, by Dorothy about his genuine interests in poetry and in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat) he had written, writing it, which was basically his suicide note, as a transliteration from Persian. Not knowing Persian himself, however, he asked Tibor Kaldor’s help in transliterating the suicide note/poem he had written, serving as a way of preparing himself for his last day.

Kaldor told him he did not know Persian enough, but he was familiar enough with Arabic. As a language teacher and expert in many languages, likely fluent in Hebrew, he additionally had experience and training in deciphering intelligence codes back in Europe and London, he told Carl. Germans and Russians used Arabic for code-writing, as American used native American code talkers for passing on messages. Australians had just begun to become familiar with transliteration by way of the Malayan language, which had begun transitioning from Arabic to Roman letters, and someone had even tried to translate the Rubaiyat into Malay recently.

But Australian intelligence was not into using Arabic for their signals and code writing as much as Germans and Russians had been, so they would have a harder time figuring out the Arabic transliterated nature of the code. Here, Kaldor would not be writing an intelligence code, but helping his friend, Carl Webb, with transliterating his “death poem” into a Tamám Shud styled code, transliterated from not Persian but Arabic into Roman letters. Using a simple English-Arabic, or even German-Arabic, dictionary including the phonetic would be sufficient to do the job, and in fact they could obtain such dictionaries easily in local bookstores or in public libraries.

Carl Webb shared with Tibor Kaldor a poem he had written. It read something like:

Webb! Foam, father, eternally,
While medically condemned! Ready!
Fill for dad, O footcare Saqi!
Done with poison, get lost lady!

Kaldor asked why this poem? Carl Webb told him, the foam will have a double meaning, since he was planning to enact his plot on a beach, with waves forever foaming, as if in a lasting anger, also mirroring the symptoms he expected to have from the poisoning.

First, Carl said, he planned to use poison for suicide, and was expecting that, given his health issues, he would be foaming in public, like the first time he tried before. He wished poetically to use the symptom as a sign of expressing his anger and foaming, eternally, at the life conditions that had led him to take his own life, at a time when he could be raising his son as a father, the son he believed to be his with Jestyn. He was going to choose the spot as the Somerton beach, where he would be close to the house of the mother of his baby son, and near a disabled children’s hospital that symbolized his own troubles with foot pains when growing up, and for the same reason he had shared his dream and wish, with Jessica, of his/their son becoming a ballet dancer when he grew up, speaking highly of the dancing skills of those he had seen perform while he accompanied (or helped) his brother-in-law Gerald (Jerry) Keane in various J. C. Williamson Ltd. performances.

He wanted to convey the notion that he had fathered a son somehow in the poem, and do it twice, for emphasis, so decoders would have no doubt that he meant to convey the notion of his being a father in the poem. He said he was going to be trying to see his child for the first and last time by visiting Jestyn at her house before proceeding with his plan on the beach. The poem then conveys the notion of an eternally foaming father, not able to raise his newborn son and have a loving marriage with Jestyn with whom he shared much more, both being Left-oriented, and loving Khayyam’s poetry.

But, the foam can have a second meaning, Carl said.  He planned to die on a beach, with the sea waves foaming toward him, remembering an Irish poem and song he had heard, a lullaby (shared many times in the Australian newspapers):

Kaldor then asked about the second line of the code. Carl told him that the poem says something about why his suicide, as a father, was inevitable for him, because of the irreversibility of his physical illnesses, some resulting from his first suicide attempt, not to mention all the mental and emotional suffering he had endured in his family, and his failed marriage. So, the notion of “medically condemned” could help convey that notion. Also, “Ready!” conveyed the expression of his poem as an instrument preparing him to die, as if going to war with himself, a war he had to wage, assaulting his own body. Kaldor said he is familiar with that expression, given the codes he had written in a war context.

About the third line of the poem, Carl told Tibor that he wished to use the metaphor of the Saqi, the wine-server, for the poison intake, and given he had acquired it from (now) his separated wife, both literally as well as the emotional suffering he had endured in their failed marriage, he’d use Saqi as the metaphor (negatively implied) of the cup-bearer, or cup-filler, also conveying the notion of “filling” a prescription, since she happened to be a chiropody pharmacist.

As for the fourth line, Carl told Tibor that the idea of “it’s done” parallels the notion of “ended” and Tamám Shud, in this case, the line referring to poison. So, the second word in that line was about poison, since in a suicide note it makes sense to give a hint of how one did it. The last phrase of the last line, though, Carl said, implied cursing at his separated wife, who, despite knowing his life’s troubles and suicidal condition had filed the summons to receive money from him.

Carl asked Tibor Kaldor to transliterate his suicide plot poem in the Tamám Shud style, but since Tibor did not know Persian well, it would still be fine if it is a transliteration from Arabic. He told him to write the transliterated code such that it would not be too obvious what it means, setting a difficult puzzle for others to solve. Kaldor, being familiar only with Arabic, but well-trained in transliteration and intelligence code writing, tried to fulfill Carl’s wish.

He avoided using articles such as “al-” in the code, since that would immediately give a sense to others that it was written in Arabic. Besides, this was not meant to be a literal transliteration, but one that was just enough to convey the basic ideas of Carl’s poem. Also, unlike TAMAM SHUD, where non-written vowels (the first A, and the U) are included, he would limit the transliteration only to the written letters and phonetics. Academically trained and familiar with Arabic, Kaldor knew that anyone familiar with Arabic could reconstruct the code and solve the cipher based on the written letters. This would also make the code more like a cryptogram as a series of seemingly odd letters.

So, Tibor proceeded as follows, using the last page of Carl’s copy of the Rubaiyat as his notepad:

The first line he transliterated as و رغو اب ابد rendered in Roman letters as “W RGO AB ABD” (meaning Webb! Foam, daddy, eternally) in Arabic. Webb’s name is a name, so W remains as W. It would be understood that that it must be the first letter of a name, since the poem would not normally start with an “and” which W could also stand for, although in Khayyam’s poem translation there were many cases of first lines starting with “And.”

Going to the second line, he by mistake missed the second line of Carl’s poem, starting to transliterate its third line itself. But he soon realized his mistake, so crosses it out, and proceeded with the second line of Carl’s poem.

The second line he transliterated as و طبى مدان عتد “W TBI MDAN ETD” (meaning “While Medically Condemned! Ready!). There is no P in Arabic alphabet, but Kaldor told him that if he changes the line to W TBI MPAN ETP, it can still convey the same meaning, but more specifically offer an abbreviation of the illness MPA or MPAN, a type of connective tissue disease, that Carl told Tibor he had been diagnosed with and was suffering from. In that case ETP also could be a reference to Eventually Terminal Patient, which well expressed his medical troubles at the time. Tibor told him that anyone knowing Arabic and learning that the code uses TAMAM SHUD’s transliteration style using Arabic alphabets as its substitution key, would realize that that P does not exist in Arabic alphabet, so the large D’s are either D’s or, if P’s, they must be intended as an abbreviation of a medical illness term, given the reference to medical in the line.

Regarding the third line, Kaldor told Webb that the notion of Saqi actually means in Arabic or Persian, “server on foot,” a reference to the person serving wine while walking around serving, on foot. In this case, he can use a Turkish expression Aiaqci, which commonly conveys the meaning of Saqi, but also a foot worker, or footcare worker/specialist, or someone trained in treating feet, i.e., a chiropodist, which happened to be the profession of Dorothy. This also allowed for further hiding the notion of Saqi/Saki in the transliteration as a code, since stating it directly would immediately tell others about the poem nature of the code, depriving the code of its mystery and puzzle-setting nature.

So, Kaldor transliterated the third line of Carl’s poem as  ملى اب و اياقچى MLI AB O AIAQC (Fill for dad O footcare Saqi). Kaldor told him that he would convey a double meaning of the word Saqi by putting two lines above the words on that line, the cross over O signifying the O in the O Saqi expression. Carl also thought the X could signify the location of his suicide on the slopes of the beach, and drew some wavy lines on the bottom to express the notion of the waves foaming and reaching the shore eternally.

Finally, for the last line of Carl’s poem, Tibor transliterated it as اتتمت سام ست غاب or ITTMT SAM ST GAB (meaning, Poisoning done, lady, get lost), ending with Carl Webb’s curse.

Tibor was writing down the transliterated code, of Carl’s poem, on the last page of Carl’s Rubaiyat copy, where Carl had written the phone number of Jestyn, whom he planned to call when he arrived in Adelaide, planning to go to see his son once before dying on the beach nearby in Somerton. Kaldor used capitalizations for the code, some of which resemble the capitalizations he had used in his application for migration to Australia.

Carl had learned that Jestyn’s house is nearby the “Crippled Children’s Home,” (in terms used at the time) so he thought it would be meaningful to die in front of it, implying his own troubles with the crippling of his feet and related suffering.

While Carl Webb and Tibor Kaldor had these conversations, the poem which Kaldor helped transliterate looking like an intelligence code in the style of Tamám Shud was just a creative but sad way of thinking about suicide on the part of Carl Webb. Kaldor may not have expected that what Carl Webb wrote and planned as a plot in his “death poem” would come true soon. So, having become closer to Webb as a friend while Carl stayed at his place sometimes when in Melbourne following separation from Dorothy, he found himself in the rather odd and sad situation of reading, in early Dec. 1948, that someone had been found on the Somerton beach on Dec. 1, realizing that if the copy of Carl’s Rubaiyat is ever found after being identified, it is going to be revealed forensically that it is his hand-writing, getting him into trouble and ruining his already troubled life.

So, to make sure, he took the train to Adelaide, lodging in a hotel nearby. Overwhelmed with grief, and finding that police and others, increasingly widely, were searching for the cause of the mysterious Somerton Man’s death, he decided to take his own life. Carl had been seen with him while residing at his place in Windsor, even though Carl made every precaution to remain hidden for legal reasons, so he found it inevitable at the time that the police may sooner or later find out about the identity of Carl Webb, and his association with him, and by way of the code being in his hand-writing on the back of the pamphlet, sooner or later suspect that he may have had something to do with his death.

As a new migrant to Australia with his own wartime and family tragedies experienced, even though his naturalization papers had just been accepted, Tibor Kaldor found that it was best for him to do the same and end his life, an idea that he had contemplated even before he left for Adelaide, for which he had taken the pills with him, pills that had been prescribed for him due to other ailments he had had with his thyroid. Besides, he did not wish to reveal the identity of Carl Webb before his own death, out of respect for what he knew had been Carl’s deliberate plan of ending his life as a suicide mystery shadow-show. So, he remained silent in revealing any information about the identity of Carl Webb before taking his own life.

10. Carl Webb’s Suicide on November 30, 1948, and Thereafter

Carl Webb had arrived at Adelaide to visit his son for the first and last time by visiting Jessica Thomson, still having somewhat of a grudge against the man who would end up being the child’s father and Jestyn’s husband. But he could not find fault with Jestyn or even her prospective husband, George, and their marriage also assured him that his presumed son would have a place to grow up. His plan was to have on his clothes at death no identifications, nor any in his suitcase he would leave in the train station (which he assumed would eventually be traced and found). His plot’s puzzle required that, but still he made sure there were left enough clues for others to be able to wonder and discover who he was.

He left the Keane marked labels there, various items in the suitcase, or even what he was wearing, or even smoking, as memorabilia associated with one or another member of his family. Everything in that suite case was a stage prop for his final suicide mystery play performance. It was a suitcase of memories, poetically arranged with things inside, and others missing, each being a clue to be publicly solved forever by generational waves of sleuths puzzling over their meanings; even the absent socks were meant to draw attention to something (his foot troubles while growing up, for instance).

Most importantly, he tore the “Tamám Shud” from his Rubaiyat booklet and put it in his fob pocket so that it could not be easily found on his body when dead; it would serve as a key to deciphering his code, and even as a symbolic “ticket” to his suicide mystery play. He got rid of the suitcase storage ticket also to prevent passerby robbers finding his body to use it to fetch his suitcase, which was an important and in fact central part of his mystery shadow-show. He tossed the booklet, as a nod to Prosper Thomson, a car dealer, through the open window of a nearby car, expecting it to be found by a stranger and reported to the police when the mystery of his death become known and the Tamám Shud slip in his fob pocket found. If he did not wish for it to be found, he could have simply trashed it, like some other items he got rid of, not planning to use it as a prop to make the puzzle of his plot more difficult to solve.

But a part of his last plot was not entirely dependent on him, even though he had planned it to happen. Not having been able to see Jestyn and his son and having eaten a pastie in a nearby shop in the memory of his father’s bakery who had been known for making the best pasties in town, he administered the poison (most likely digitalis) and layed on the beach for his final departure.

Dorothy Jean Webb, having separated from Carl Webb, tried to stay away for a while, fearing that he may find and threaten her. But she did not hear from him again, and suspected that he had deserted her for good, or ended his own life, about which she must have learned reading the newspapers in Adelaide, South Australia, and elsewhere.

Carl Webb’s family thought Carl had gone into hiding following Dorothy’s first filings seeking payments from him. So, they did not think he could have died, necessarily, and did not until mid 1950s when many of his family members themselves died. Even when his sister died in mid 1950s, his family thought he could be alive, having lived in Cottesloe for a while, as he was reported still alive and his whereabouts inquired about for collecting inheritance left from his sister.

However, assuming they knew he had been the Somerton Man was their Carl Webb, they may have decided not to come forward for two reasons. First, because he had already died and this would not change anything. Second, they thought how Carl ended his life on the beach may have been a deliberate act to set up a mystery, so they did not wish to say something that would undermine his mystery play. They already knew that Carl had a few years earlier tried to end his own life at home using pills supplied by Dorothy, and even themselves, not being in touch with her, may have suspected that she had something to do with his death. So, even Dorothy may have in time herself learned that TSM was her Carl Webb and decided not to come forward to reveal his identity for similar reasons, more so in fear of being implicated in his death as a pharmacist with access to drugs.

Did Dorothy know, when submitting her “husband desertion” notice and filing for divorce that Carl Webb had died? It is most likely that she did, but pretended that she had not, since revealing it would raise suspicion about her having had something to do with his death, by intention or not, by way of aiding with provision of drugs that served as poison. She already had reported him suicidal to the police before, and that he had threatened her life, and doing so again would not be a wise decision, given he had died, and the revelation would only add more to the troubles she endured in that marriage, implicating herself in his death.

So, she wrote her divorce application in the way she did, pretending that she did not know where he was. This served both as a way of preemptively exonerating herself in case later TSM’s identity was learned, and as a way of offering a narrative that would justify her decision to separate as a victim in a relationship with an aloof or abusive husband, rather than one in which she herself played a part through her own habitual cruelty. She still did not show any empathy in her divorce file for what Carl Webb had gone through in terms of his physical health and family losses, even though she could not prevent herself from admitting that Carl Webb had a quiet life, being interested in poetry, and charming at times. We should also keep in mind that Carl’s oldest brother also died in 1949, two of his sisters in mid 1950s, and Freda in mid 1960s.

So, as far as Carl’s close family is concerned, there were enough reasons for them to just let things be, not knowing whether he had died, and let others solve the identity puzzle, and if that happened, they would simply deny they could tell the body belonged to their relative. Why did not others outside the family come forward, old students, co-workers, footy players, etc.? First, many friends of his age from school or possible work also went through the war experience, some having died, moved, or perhaps unable to read about or recognize him in the papers, despite the spreading news and fame of the case. If Webb’s work was limited to the bakery, and to Keane’s backstage technical work in J. C. Williamson, there may not have been lots of interaction with coworkers in large employment settings for people, if they also survived wartime tragedies and personal aging, to recognize him. He may have grown a beard in his final years, as noted by researchers of the case, so in his perfectly shaved state in the autopsy photo, he may not have been recognizable by many.

Paul Lawson had made the mask six months after TSM’s death. Even the actual photo of TSM six months past does not look like the more reliable photo taken soon after his body was found, a photo that is more realistic and expressive of how TSM looked like. So, Lawson made a mask of a face and body significantly deteriorated after six months, and the mask does not at all look like the early autopsy picture of TSM. It looks more like Tibor Kaldor, even though we know that cannot be possible, given he was cremated soon after his suicide. So, Jestyn could not have really recognized TSM in that mask, even though she could have told him by his famous early photo. Her shock, in my view, was simply that of just confronting a human mask under the drape and perhaps thinking it looked more like Tibor Kaldor (whom she also knew).

In any case, I don’t think the existence of the mask would have offered a reliable opportunity for people to recognize TSM as Carl Webb, if they visited the mask in later years or decades. The problem with the mask is not at all Lawson’s fault. He did the best he could, having been asked so late in the process to make it based on a significantly deteriorated body. But the mask served to provide hairs that were claimed to be those of the Somerton Man and reliable bases, decades later, for identifying his genetic footprint, opening a different chapter of research for tracing his identity.

Meanwhile, Jessica Thomson, perhaps also believing, like Carl Webb, that her son’s father could be his (if she had affair with George Thomson or others, one of whom may have even been named McMahon, one she used as a middle name for her son Robin, around the same time), decided to remain silent on revealing his identity, also realizing that TSM must have had a reason for setting up his departure’s theater as such, thereby respecting his wishes.

Knowing Carl Webb, his poetic orientation and love for the Rubaiyat, she had also been familiar with his involvement as a technical stage designer and builder/carpenter/staff, by way of the Keanes’s and the J C Williamson Ltd. So, she tried to pass on a taste of the arts to her son, Robin, encouraging and supporting him to become a well-known ballet dancer in Australia. She knew how much Carl Webb suffered from his feet and body ailments, was artistically natured, and wishing even to have become a ballet dancer.

So, she encouraged their presumed son to become a ballet dancer as a tribute to the memory of her brief love affair with Carl, respecting his memory occasionally by anonymously placing now and then (among others who did the same) a bouquet of flowers on his unnamed grave. And she remained fateful to Carl’s eternal puzzle staged on the Somerton beach, taking the secret with her to her own grave in 2007. She must have even kept the secret from her son, Robin, who died in 2009.

11. Explaining the New Puzzle of Dorothy Jean Robertson’s Whereabouts Post-1955

Ever since the unofficial identification of the Somerton man as Carl (Charles) Webb, a new mystery has gradually emerged about the life and times of his ex-wife, Dorothy Jean Robertson.

What transpired before 1955 has by now more or less become known, but since her reported release from a hospital in 1955 following her divorce from Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer around the same time, no record of her whereabouts has been found. In the death records of her and her sister’s parents, 1980 for their mother and 1989 for their father, only her sister Phyllis has signed as present, while giving her sister’s age in both documents, respectively as 59 and 68.

The unofficial team has reported hearing from a relative of Phyllis that Dorothy died sometime in 1990s in New South Wales, her sister having been requested to contribute to her burial costs. But that report was shared second-hand by a relative of Phyllis, since the latter herself died in 2012. In his will, their father, John Comber Robertson, names only Phyllis, in case of her death earlier than her father, her husband James Crick being the next in line. There is no mention at all of Dorothy Jean Robertson in his will, which is dated 21st of March 1980, which means he wrote the will around the time his wife (Dorothy and Phyllis’s mother) had died, and when Phyllis reported her sister as being aged 59 (born in 1920, so about correct). So, even as early as 1980, Dorothy’s father had nothing to add regarding her in his will.

As related earlier in this report, from an entry in Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer’s divorce files, it may be implied that in the best of his knowledge Dorothy Jean Robertson had died following the Decree Nisi had already been issued. However, the clause could also be interpreted differently. I think there would have been absolutely no reason for Lockyer to enter that clause, had she continued to live. However, given she had been to a hospital following surgery complications, it would be plausible to consider entering such a clause justifiable, as the court may have wished to ascertain from Lockyer that an apparent lack of communication by Dorothy Jean Robertson, if that had been the case, was not due to her having passed away.

In any case, there are indications that Dorothy Jean Robertson survived the 1950s and lived on to die, reportedly based on third-hand hearsay, sometime in the 1990s. But the lack of any information about her past 1955 has puzzled many folks researching the case.

I think, within a narrative in which the Somerton man is definitively identified as having been Carl Webb, along with accepting the possibility that Dorothy Jean Robertson knew (starting from her divorce filed in 1951) that Carl Webb had died, having been the Somerton Man, the puzzle or mystery of her whereabout following her hospital release and divorce from Lockyer can be reasonably explained.

Supposing the above, Carl Webb’s having plotted his end of life story and suicide as he did so publicly—with the mystery of his identity continuing for decades, his life’s tale remaining unknown, his cause of death by poisoning being treated as homicide or assisted suicide, and the undeciphered code remaining unsolved for decades such that even Dorothy could not know what it meant, presuming that Carl may have possibly implicated her, right or wrong, in his death—all the above basically condemned her to a life of living in hiding, and her immediate family of protecting her whereabouts as much as they could, unless they had to say so, for legal reasons, such as Phyllis having to declare her as living in 1980 and 1980 on their parents’ death records. But even her father was compelled to keep her out of her will, given the continued risk in her becoming implicated in Carl’s Webb once his identity was revealed and his end-of-life story known, and his mysteriously coded suicide note was decoded.

Since her immediate family must have also known who the Somerton man was, to protect Dorothy they had to also inevitably implicate themselves in not revealing the identity of the Somerton man, in order to protect their daughter/sister, given the wide, national, and international scope the Somerton man’s mysterious identity and death had increasingly become over the decades. They lived for decades fearing for the worst outcome, that is, for the Somerton man coming to be known as Carl Webb, and then they had to explain why all this time they had not come forward to identify him, in effect implicating themselves in obstructing knowledge about the case.

If the woman reported in Gerald Feltus’s files as having been searching for her “electrical engineer” husband (who knew the Rubaiyat by heart), was indeed Dorothy Jean Robertson, this means she must have known all along that the Somerton man was Carl Webb, having lied in her divorce filing in 1951, implicating her father and sister, if used as witnesses, in her constructed divorce narrative. It would then not be far-fetched to consider that Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer may have come to learn the true story of what had transpired in her previous marriage to Carl Webb, judging her as not having been honest, and even habitually cruel in marital affairs, deciding to file for divorce. Their keeping the details of their divorce private, and Dorothy not defending herself in the divorce case to avoid details of her behavior to become legally recorded in the court of law, was deemed by her to be a safer strategy to pursue, especially at the time when she was herself experiencing medical problems.

The outcome of her divorce from Lockyer must have also hit hard her parents and sister’s lives, practically being forced to implicate themselves in her life troubles, just to protect her. So, they had to keep low about her life, protect the information about her whereabouts as much as they could, and even purposely avoid sharing any details about Dorothy with other family members down the line, to avoid implicating them also inadvertently in the Dorothy/Carl story and the decades-long effort they were making to keep Dorothy’s life and whereabouts away from public records. It is even possible that John Comber Robertson may have used his prior military contacts as a way of maintaining Dorothy’s life events confidential.

The highly visible public tale of Carl Webb’s life is the flip side of the coin of the mystery of Dorothy Jean Robertson life. Solving one side’s mystery, we have had no choice to solve the mystery of the other side. The researchers who have for months tried to learn what happened to Dorothy Jean Robertson post-1955 must realize that not finding any trace of her is itself an important research finding. Realizing the significance of their NOT finding any information about Dorothy Jean Robertson is itself a key to the solution of the rest of the Somerton man case and in fact reasonably confirms as evidence the tale of life and death of Carl Webb as well.

Carl Webb ends the last line of his poetic suicide note with the “get lost” curse for the lady having served her poison, figuratively or not. It appears that the engineer and instrument maker knew precisely what that meant and why he expressed it. He knew that his deeply mysterious end of life suicide mystery plot will leave no choice for Dorothy Jean Robertson but to go into hiding for decades, until the rest of her life. I believe that the mysterious disappearance of Dorothy Jean Webb past 1955, most likely her whereabouts having been protected by her immediate family members for decades until all passed away, is itself strong evidence for the Somerton man having been Carl Webb, the extremely public nature of one and the odd absence of the other in public records being simply two sides of the same tale’s coin.

There are two researcher findings at Cipher Mysteries that have suggest to me a strong element of intentional withholding of information regarding the record of Dorothy Jean Robertson post-1955. On one hand, researcher Pat, who became a legend in leaving no stones unturned in looking for Trove and other information in the case, has found (to this date) nothing about DJR’s whereabouts post-1955, other than the indirect references we have had on her parents’ death records, and hearsay material shared by the unofficial team, ones that I shared above, and have not yet proven reliable. Pat may find her not finding a trace of DJR post-1955 disappointing, but I think the lack of such information itself is interpretively significant, and an important contribution. Although the lack of some information may be because some death records in NSW may still be subject to publication restriction dates, but still, on grave or cemetery records, one must be able to find something about DJR, no matter when since 1955 to 2000 (or even later). But nothing has been unearthed, and we owe to Pat’s trying and finding nothing the credit, even though she herself may interpret her findings (or lack thereof) differently and disagree with my assessment above.

John Sanders, also at Cipher Mysteries, has drawn our attention many times to the fact that Dr. John Barkley Bennett, one of the investigators in the TSM case soon after his suicide, was a relative of the Robertsons (a cousin of DJR). He has interpreted such a coincidence as a sign that TSM could not have been Carl Webb, since otherwise, how could a relative of DJR not recognize him. Sanders has himself expressed uneasiness with how Bennett behaved at the time, resigning his internship soon thereafter (ibid.), was away from some official meetings. However, I think John Sanders’ observation can also be interpreted the opposite way, in terms of the presence of an element implicating DJR’s family, not necessarily in Carl Webb’s death itself, but as a way of obstructing or misinforming the proper identification of TSM’s identity as having been Carl Webb. Otherwise, there seems to be absolutely no way Dr. Bennett could have not noticed TSM as being Carl Webb (if we assume to be the case), a man who had been married to (and separated from) his cousin DJR.

Given the mystery of Dorothy Jean Robertson’s whereabouts that actually continues to this day in terms of even her living family not having shared, or frankly not even knowing, more specific information about her whereabouts, I think there is a strong indication that we are dealing here with DJR’s having gone to places unknown as being the flip side of the Somerton man’s worldwide fame and public media presence. Given what I have shared in this report, I think such an unusual lack of information about DJR post-1955 is itself strong evidence for the Somerton man as having been Carl Webb.

12. Why No One Identified the Somerton Man for a Long While

Most of those in his own (and extended) family who knew Carl Webb, died by mid-1950s, when they assumed he had gone to places unknown as a result of his marital problems and the summons issued by his wife Dorothy Jean Robertson against him in April 1947. So, the siblings were protecting him and assumed he was living elsewhere by the time they themselves died (two sisters in mid 1950s and Freda in mid 1960s). But, even if Freda knew he had died, she could have been aware (given her being married to Gerald Keane, who himself died before her) of the entertainment nature of what Carl Webb’s last act, given that they may have even learned, before his departure in 1947 or around then soon afterwards, that he had tried to end his life before and will likely do the same again, but in a different, publicly more visible, way. Freda may have even known of the play nature of his final plot. Not sharing the details with younger members of family may have been a way of protecting the death wish plans of Carl Webb.

In the case of Dorothy Jean Robertson and her family, as explained earlier, Carl Webb’s mystery play and its undecipherable code, and uncertainties surrounding how he died, served as a legal threat all their lives, and this was not limited just to DJR, but to her parents, and her sister. So, there is no reason to assume that they would have willingly come forward to claim him and explain what happened, since they were afraid of implicating themselves in his death, not knowing what the code was saying and claiming about Dorothy Jean Robertson, someone who had by mid-1950s been accused of and confirmed for having been habitually cruel in her marriage with Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer, and retrospectively that could have led to others questioning her narrative in her application for divorce against Carl Webb a few years earlier. She could have been suspected of having lied about not knowing he had died when she filed her divorce papers against him in 1951 in his absence, something she had to do to be able to marry her new husband with whose child (to be stillborn) she was pregnant.

Of people Carl Webb knew from the town or places in which he had lived or worked, many may have already perished due to old age or to war. But we have sufficient indications to believe that Carl Webb may have been wearing a beard ever since he sold his shaving equipment, and during his illness and first suicide, around the time he suffered family losses. Later, he could have used the beard as a way of remaining incognito, following the April 1947 summons issued against him, and he could have been wearing the same when he arrived in Adelaide on Nov. 30, 1948, before shaving and grooming himself that morning for his last act. So, even if the ticket sellers or the bus driver had paid attention, they may not have recognized the man found dead on the Somerton man beach the next day, because he had shaved and changed his appearance.

The closest persons aware of his mystery play around that time were Tibor Kaldor and Jessica Harkness Thomson. Kaldor, as explained earlier, took his own life in Adelaide in grief over the enactment of Carl Webb’s plan, and understandably, in respect for the mystery play nature of the plot, whose code he had himself helped transliterate, did not reveal Carl Webb’s identity in his own suicide note. And Jessica Thomson also respecting Carl Webb’s wishes, remained faithful to the mystery of his plot to her last day, not revealing to anyone, even to Robin, the identity of the Somerton man being Carl Webb. But Gerald Feltus, interviewing her, was left without a doubt that she knew of the Somerton man’s identity. She could have been one of those who left flowers at the grave of the Somerton man for years, and took his secret to grave in 2007.

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II. Revisiting OKCIR’S 2021 Solution to the Somerton Man’s Code in Light of the New Findings

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In this 2024 update to my 2021 report on the Somerton Man case in light of the July 2022 unofficial findings about his identity, I have argued that, if Carl “Charles” (or “Charlie”) Webb is officially confirmed as having been the Somerton Man, framing the story of his life as having been artistically and poetically inclined while using his technical education and engineering skills during the 1930s as a stage technical assistant to his brother-in-law Gerald (Jerry) Keane who had been working as a Chief Mechanist at the J.C. Williamson Ltd. theater industry, can much more reliably and comprehensively explain all the events that preceded and followed his death on Nov. 30, 1948, in Adelaide, South Australia.

However, note, and this is very important, that considering employment, formal or not, via his brother-in-law Gerald (Thomas) “Jerry” Keane is not even at all necessary for a similar interpretive conclusion. Keane was definitively and majorly employed as a Chief Mechanist for about 20 years since 1920 in J.C. Williamson, offering Carl Webb since age 15 an important entertainment industry exposure beside his involvement as a baker’s assistance in his father’s bakery. So, Carl Webb must have been significantly influenced by the entertainment spirit running through his extended family on a continual basis, and it should not be surprising to find him being the only playful prankster in his recently discovered extended family photo, as shared by his relative Stuart Webb online.

The Keanes, by way of his sister Freda’s husband, began their married life in singing and dancing, other sisters joining them, and their next generation, their children, developed and performed amateur comedy plays for charity, Gerald Keane and his J. C. Williamson network supporting them in their stage settings and management. Musical clips have survived on CDs from Carl Webb’s family members, as Cipher Mysteries researcher David Morgan has found, the lyrics drawing on a wide range of topics including family experiences related to WWII. The family photo that includes Carl Webb shows his being happy amid such an entertainment-oriented family.

I have argued that being employed in Red Point Tool Co. was just a brief, reluctantly engaged in, late-in-life phase in Carl Webb’s life, one that he must have tried as part of a rushed, likely family pressured, marital plan that proved a failure during a period he endured family losses and deteriorating physical and mental health as well. To be married, he needed to have a formal job past his two family business involvements, so he became employed, for the first time, formally speaking, in an engineering firm. Therefore, that specific employment has a much lower interpretive value for understanding the Somerton Man case than his more passionate technical and family involvement from the heart in the logistics and activities of his kin in the J.C. Williamson entertainment industry, apart from the happy working days he must have contributed also to his father’s bakery business.

In this report, I have shown that my deciphering the Somerton Man code in 2021, nine months before the July 2022 unofficially reported findings, verifiably anticipated the latter in several remarkable ways, although my interpretations then were naturally shaped by the extent of knowledge known about the case at that time. At the time the only female to be considered in the Somerton man’s life was Jessica (Harkness) Thomson (also known as Jestyn), so naturally that narrative environment shaped my interpretation of his deciphered code as a poetic suicide note. However, now that we know of the significant role Carl Webb’s wife Dorothy Jean Robertson also played in the final years of his life, the deciphered code is even more helpful in understanding his story, and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are even more easily fitting in place.

However, still, the 2021 deciphering successfully anticipated his life’s story, inclination toward suicide, his poetic spirit, his having used poison in his last act, his playfulness with the metaphor of the Saqi (footworker serving wine) as a pun on his wife’s work as a chiropodist and pharmacist, metaphorically or for real having “filled” his (marital) life with poison (as if filling a prescription), in his view, resulting in likely mutually hurtful marital interactions.

I have further shown that not only Carl Webb’s life story, properly framed and interpreted, can confirm the basic findings I reported in 2021 about the nature and meaning of his poetic code, but also my deciphering offers a more effective and reliable window to explaining the seemingly contradictory details of the rest of the case, even shedding light on other tragic suicide mystery by Tibor Kaldor, and on the mysterious disappearance of Dorothy Jean Robertson post-1955.

We have therefore discovered that not just that mysterious writing on the back of his Rubaiyat, but everything Carl Webb did, carried (or not, even though expected to, such as the absent socks, missing suitcase storage ticket, and so on), and even ate, were poetic tropes or “codes” left to be deciphered by generations to come amid an eternally continuing suicide mystery play through which not just his troubled marriage, but everyone in his family would be “remembered forever.” As such, what he did that day served as the best newspaper death notice anyone could write for someone, “to be remembered forever,” November 30, 1948 being in effect a book of his “death poems” full of tropes, metaphors, and codes, to be deciphered in the years and decades to come.

Carl Webb was an unconventional poet and playwright from Australia, a baker’s boy gone electrical fitter and instrument maker, with likely involvements as a stage technician in J. C. Williamson Ltd. by way of his brother-in-law Gerald “Jerry” Keane serving as its Chief Mechanist.

And he also died acting his last dance in his own suicide mystery play, doing so, dressed up for his play’s opening night on Nov. 30, 1948, not having or needing even a penny in his pocket for his eternal play’s stage setting, having stored a suitcase safely elsewhere full of symbolic object poems telling the tales of his and his family’s life memories, sharing never ending cipher mysteries for generations of world sleuths to pore over to solve, becoming themselves phantom figures in his shadow-show, riding the eternally foaming waves of his tragic and troubled life and death mystery play.

Australia has a choice when continually attending Carl Web’s lasting J. C. Williamsonian eternal play, its opening having been staged on that eventful day. A variety of narratives have been proposed, of what now appears to have been a tale of two artists who through their tragic brushes with death were telling us a sad tale about themselves and their loved ones, one of half-German and another of Jewish heritage, following the end of WWII. Together, they were trying to tell a common folks’ story, the story of “unknown” folks populating in billions all world history, as seemingly unimportant phantom figures, still foaming in eternal waves of anger, like those coming to the shore on the Somerton beach each day and night, about their families lost, nameless victims of wars.

For more than seven decades, through his tragic, yet lasting theatrical and poetic art, using his life as a brush, like others doing the same today, in protest of wars today, Carl Webb, the Somerton man, and his friend Tibor Kaldor, have been appealing to us to help end all wars, not just in Australia, not just in the West, not just in Middle East, but everywhere. That is why they appealed to Omar Khayyam to tell their story, since they wished to frame their death as an expression of a human tragedy.

Justice is not a cherished value in Australia only, nor just in the West. Respecting “native’s rights” should not be just cherished, half-heartedly or not, in Australia, but also in the Middle East, when for decades, since 1948, natives there have also been subjected to loss of their homeland, and more recently to genocidal wars, as acknowledged and warned by the United Nations.

If we find it important to search for the identity of an “unknown man” found on a beach in Australia for decades, why should we not be as concerned about the unknown boys or girls, men, and women, who die unknown on the beaches of Gaza, crushed under the food packaged thrown at them in pity? Why not also search for the “unknown girl” on beaches where settlers unfathomably wish to build their future mansions? Why history only begins on the day one side suffers losses amid a decades-long conflict? In what scientific spirit claiming and true university, or court of justice, can it be proven that a chain of causes, including those of human conflict, only begins half-way in the chain?

You cannot be proud of your native peoples’ rights inside your state or national borders and assume you can enjoy peace forever when others don’t have the same rights elsewhere. Humanity is one, as the Persian poet Sa’di told us; an injury to one is an injury to all, as you say in the West; and the “all” can never be limited to the West.

Justice and happiness are desired outcomes for all humanity. Carl Webb’s suitcase and secret code and lost life and his last day and night, all made into an art form, were meant to make us aware that wars are not just about weapons, profits, wins and losses, but about real folks, ordinary folks, unknown adults, and children, and infants, without any name, just phantom figures, whether dying on a beach in Somerton, or the same elsewhere.

Carl Webb tried to give a voice to those he knew, his brother, his nephew, his baker parents, the Keane’s family, those he loved like Jestyn and the son he believed he had with her but could not see on that last day, and those he believed had harmed him emotionally, resulting in a mutually painful and hurtful marriage. Such personal stories may seem mundane to some, but they express the story of what billions of ordinary folks go through in the world every day, those whose lives do not end up on the front pages of the media, for decades, or even a single hour.

Carl Webb, through his tragic art, broke that pattern, showing that the lives of unknown folks matter, whether found dead on the beach, or still buried under the rubbles. Through his art, the Somerton man made global the story of unknown folks who in billions come and go but their life’s tales never end up in historical records.

Carl Webb showed, through his tragic poetry staged on the Somerton beach, that unknown folks do count in history, that they deserve to draw our attentions worldwide, that they deserve to be known and reburied with respect, given their names back.

We can perhaps now see that Carl Webb’s “Tamám Shud” may not have been just a reference to his personal troubles ending in his suicide, but also a sarcastic, bitter, and eternally foaming remark—like the waves endlessly coming to the shore on the Somerton beach—about the public issue of a devastating war that had come to an end, taking his loved ones with it, his ‘death poems’ staged in his lasting suicide mystery play serving to fulfill his wish that the memories of his family and of his own death would be remembered forever.

Carl Webb was saying,

Well, yes, the world war ended, but so did my brother Roy’s life; so did my nephew John Russel’s life; our half-German family went through another hell being associated with the atrocities of a Germany we ourselves fought against yet bullied for and ostracized as children growing up. I was pressured to school for and at the end work in a line of job I was depressed about, and finally, as part of a family-pressured rushed into a marriage, both of us ending up feeling miserable with each other, her treating me in a habitually cruel way, poisoning our lives, with me reacting in kind, hating myself, all of it making me feel I have no better wish than to end my own life. I tried it once privately, but I’ve decided to try again in my own amateur theatrical way, publicly, as a one-man show way in Adelaide, amid an entertainment industry I enjoyed being involved in through my extended Keane family. I will call my last show, “Tamám Shud.” At least my end-of-life mystery plot can now be staged forever, like the waves forever arriving at the Somerton beach, reminding future generations that we existed, that we were not just phantom figures, faceless folks, who just come and go, but real ordinary folks, trying to live an ordinary life, to have ordinary families and kids, hoping that one day we can say to all wars, “Tamám Shud.”

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Appendix I: Letters Submitted to and Received from the Honorable Chief Judges of the Supreme Courts of Victoria and South Australia

A. Letter to the Honorable Chief Justice Ferguson of Victoria, Australia, and Replies Exchanged

From: Mohammad Tamdgidi
Sent: Sunday, 2 October 2022 12:15 PM
To: Viv Mahy
Subject: A Request Regarding the Somerton Man Case

October 2, 2022

Supreme Court of Victoria

(By way of Viv Mahy, Executive Associate to
The Hon. Chief Justice Ferguson)

The Honorable Chief Justice Ferguson,

My name is Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D. I am a sociologist residing in the United States, having been previously an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and being presently an independent scholar, author, and director of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research (https://www.okcir.com).

I have recently been conducting research on the Somerton Man case in Australia, having authored “Tamám Shud: How the Somerton Man’s Last Dance for a Lasting Life Was Decoded — Omar Khayyam Center Research Report” (Okcir Press, 2021, see https://www.okcir.com/product/tamam-shud-how-the-somerton-mans-last-dance-for-a-lasting-life-was-decoded-omar-khayyam-center-research-report/ an updated blog report recently, titled: “Doubting the New Somerton Man Findings: Do 0.01% Error Chances Actually Matter in Science?” (see https://www.okcir.com/doubting-the-new-somerton-man-findings-do-0-01-error-chances-actually-matter-in-science/).

I am writing this letter to request from you, by way of this letter and further explanations to follow, to kindly consider authorizing the release for research purposes—in the interest of fairness to all divorce parties, their descendants, researchers, and an international interested public at large—all the filing papers and documents related to the application filed in 1951 (granted in 1952) by Mrs. Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb to divorce her husband Carl (Charles or Charlie) Webb in Melbourne, Victoria, on the grounds, in her view at the time of filing, of his desertion.

As you are aware in light of recent findings about the Somerton Man case, the Somerton Man has been reported by an unofficial team of researchers to have been Carl Webb. South Australian officials are still in the process of investigating the case and the newly reported findings. Therefore, if the recent findings are confirmed to be true, at the time Mrs. Webb filed her application, apparently unbeknownst to her, her husband Carl Webb had passed away on Dec. 1, 1948.

The state of affairs that has arisen as a result of selective disclosure recently of Dorothy Webb’s divorce file in a limited fashion to some and not all has become increasingly unfair not only to the divorce parties and their descendants, but also to the majority of researchers and public at large who have no access to the actual documents and texts.

It appears from the public comments of the unofficial team members that they, or those in contact with them, including perhaps some in the media, have had access to the documents. It is not known what has prevented them from disclosing the entire documents and texts, and this may be a result of restrictions placed on making the file contents directly available to the public. But this has also apparently not prevented them to disclose some material selectively, resulting unfortunately in often second-hand and impromptu comments by pundits giving interviews on public air, disclosing some but perhaps not all aspects of Mrs. Dorothy Jean Webb’s divorce application texts. At times, the quotations from her text have been in fact inconsistent and contradictory with one another, and it is not clear what have been disclosed have been accurately reported or not. We do not even know if there are other pieces of information in the texts that have, for one reason or another, not been disclosed, resulting in biased evaluation and assessment of her reasons and motives for divorce, or of her portrayal of Carl Webb’s life and character during a difficult period of his life when he had lost many relatives to old age or war, suffering from illness, leading perhaps to his suicide in Nov. 1948. Wild speculations have circulated around as a result of partial and limited disclosure of her file contents, such that the judgments passed can no longer be reversed or clarified without full disclosure of all her application contents.

The limited disclosure of Mrs. Webb’s divorce file to some, but not to all the interested, has led to the situation where judgments are being made of her and her husband’s private lives without any way for independent researchers to verify for themselves in a reliable and accurate way what transpired. Mr. Carl Webb, if confirmed to be the Somerton Man, was not even alive to defend himself and to respond to her characterizations of his character and conduct. Conversely, also others not having full access to her texts have characterized her intentions as biased and unfair, or even criminally motivated, resulting in the further deepening of the puzzles surrounding this seventy-four-year mystery. Unfortunately, at a time when new findings about the identity of the Somerton Man are supposed to help resolve the case, a procedurally selective and limited disclosure about her divorce filing has resulted in unnecessary creation of new puzzles and misunderstandings about the case.

Although the divorce filing by Mrs. Webb falls in a period that requires specific application to your offices for disclosure, researchers and interested public not residing in Australia do not have the possibility of effectively filing the forms required. Besides, even its disclosure to other persons such as myself selectively—while restrictions remain in place on the disclosure of the file contents—will not help clarify and correct any misreporting already done, since it will place restrictions on even what I can disclose to others regarding one or another aspect of the case. In fact, unfortunately, such disclosure restrictions, if they have been placed on others previously, have not apparently prevented their selective leaking to the public, at the cost of distorting what Mrs. Webb had to say about her own or her husband’s lives and conduct during their troubled marriage commencing in 1941.

Therefore, I respectfully ask your honorable offices to consider this request for public disclosure of all the divorce filings of Mrs. Dorothy Jean Webb, so that all can independently access them on whichever archival site your offices choose or is customary for the purpose. If doing this, as a one-time action, requires someone to pay for fees, I would be glad to pay any reasonable fees to do so, as directed. Having seen the forms, I am afraid I do not reside in Australia to file the Affidavit required, and the questions asked for the purpose are not, in my view, directly relevant for this case, given the request I am making is for a public disclosure of the documents and file contents.

Specifically, I am requesting your consideration for public disclosure of all the divorce records filed by Mrs. Dorothy Jean Webb in 1951 and its conclusion in 1952 with the granting of divorce. The case file has reportedly included a text 7-8 pages long, about which recently some information has become public selectively and second-handedly without the possibility of independent verification. But there may be more text unknown to independent researchers. The individuals involved are Carl (Charles or Charlie) Webb (birth C. Registration number 3146 / 1906) born in Nov. 1905, and Dorothy Jean Robertson (birth C. Registration number 17944 / 1920). They were married in Oct. 1941 Registration number 16701. The divorce was officially granted in 1952 (Dorothy Jean Webb, nee Robertson, instituted divorce proceedings in 1951 on the grounds of her husband Carl Webb’s desertion). The newspaper ad accompanying her divorce filing was as follows:

From The Age 5 October 1951: “To CARL WEBB, formerly of Bromby-street, South Yarra, but now of parts unknown. —Take notice that your wife, DOROTHY JEAN WEBB has instituted DIVORCE proceedings against you on the ground of desertion, and that unless you enter an appearance in the Prothonotary’s Office of the Supreme Court at Melbourne on or before the 29th day of October, 1951, the case may proceed in your absence, and you may be ordered to pay costs.” (Advertising (1951, October 5). The Age (Melbourne, Vic.: 1854 – 1954), p. 15. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205334969)

The Honorable Chief Justice Ferguson,

Given the limited information available, public access to the actual records is important for proper and truthful research and understanding of what transpired in this long unsolved case in Australia, and in the interest of fairness to both parties of the divorce Dorothy Jean Webb and Carl Webb, all their descendants (dead or living), and independent researchers.

I greatly appreciate your time in reading this letter and in your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology (ret.)
UMass Boston
Editor, Human Architecture
Research Director at OKCIR:
Omar Khayyam Center
for Integrative Research in Utopia,
Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

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Sharokine Haddad,
A/Deputy Registrar –
Principal Registry, Deputy Prothonotary

Dear Sharokine Haddad,

I am immensely grateful for your reply and for accommodating this release to the public of the divorce files. Please convey to the Honorable Chief Justice Ferguson, and Viv Mahy my appreciation of their attention to this matter and public request in the interest of truth, fairness, and justice regarding the Somerton Man case.

In the course of this research I have come to know the exemplary extent in which Australia is serious and accommodating about sharing its historical archives in the interest of public learning and scientific research.

Given the reasoning I had shared in my request letter, I am understanding your reply as implying that I can responsibly share the two files with other researches publicly by providing a link to the files stored on my research center website. It is best that the documents themselves be shared rather than my quoting from them, to avoid any further misunderstanding and misquoting.

If I am not correct in the above understanding, please let me know. Otherwise, I will assume it will be ok to share them responsibly with others.

Best regards,

Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology (ret.)
UMass Boston
Editor, Human Architecture
Research Director at OKCIR:
Omar Khayyam Center
for Integrative Research in Utopia,
Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

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From: Supreme Court-Divorce Enquiries

Subject: RE: A Request Regarding the Somerton Man Case

Date: October 13, 2022 at 6:22:48 PM EDT

To: ‘Mohammad Tamdgidi

Dear Mr Tamdgidi,

Thank you for your email.

I will be sure to relay your appreciation to The Honourable Chief Justice and Viv Mahy.

I can confirm you can responsibly share the file with your fellow researchers, I appreciate you checking in.

Kind regards,

Sharokine Haddad

A/Deputy Registrar – Principal Registry, Deputy Prothonotary

Supreme Court of Victoria

…

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B. Letter to the Honorable Chris Kourakis, Chief Justice of South Australia, Australia, and Replies Exchanged

From: Mohammad Tamdgidi
Sent: Friday, 28 July 2023 3:54 PM
To: CAA:PM Supreme Court Chief Justice’s Chambers (CAA)
Subject: A Request Regarding the Somerton Man Case
Friday, July 28, 2023

The Honorable Chris Kourakis, Chief Justice of South Australia

Courts Administration Authority of South Australia

The Honorable Chief Justice Chris Kourakis,

My name is Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D. I am a sociologist residing in the United States, having been previously an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and being presently an independent scholar, author, and director of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research.

I have recently been conducting research on the Somerton Man case in Australia, having authored “Tamám Shud: How the Somerton Man’s Last Dance for a Lasting Life Was Decoded — Omar Khayyam Center Research Report” (Okcir Press, 2021, see …etc and an updated blog report recently, titled: “Doubting the New Somerton Man Findings: Do 0.01% Error Chances Actually Matter in Science?”.

As you are aware, significant progress has been made recently (subject still to official evaluation) regarding the possible identification of the Somerton Man as Carl (Charles or Charlie) Webb, who had been in later years of his life married to Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb. In Oct. 2022, I contacted the offices of the Honorable Chief Justice Ferguson of Victoria, regarding the possibility of release to the public of all the divorce files related to the filing of Dorothy Jean Webb in 1952. Prior to that only second-hand knowledge had been made available about her divorce application. However, Chief Justice Ferguson and her offices with the kind assistance of Ms. Sharokine Haddad, Deputy Registrar, who is copied to this email, graciously released to me (for public release, which was done) all of the Webb vs. Webb divorce application files, significantly aiding research on what transpired in the last years of Carl Webb’s life. I immediately posted them at my research center website and shared them with other researchers at the time. For your information, the files are available here https://www.okcir.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Webb-v-Webb-divorce-file_.pdf and here https://www.okcir.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Dorothy-Webb-Affidavit.pdf.

Recently I contacted the offices of Chief Justice Ferguson again, regarding a new development in the case, involving a divorce file application filed by Mr. Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer against Mrs. Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Lockyer, just a few years following her divorce application against Carl Webb. In this second divorce file, to the brief extent already available publicly here https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/GFMQ-H4B/dorothy-jean-robertson-1920-1990 she is herself accused of “habitual cruelty” as grounds for divorce, copies of which I attach to this letter. I was again kindly helped by the Chief Justice Ferguson’s office by being directed to a site to file for release of the files. I did apply, however, it resulted in failure due to the fact that I was filing the request in the wrong state, and should have instead filed it in South Australia, where the divorce application had been filed. Also it has become known to me that the divorce application Lockyer vs. Lockyer, closed in 1955, falls in the 100 year restriction period following closure as observed by the courts in South Australia for release of public records.

By way of this emailed letter, I am appealing to your office to kindly consider the possibility of authorizing the release for research purposes—in the interest of fairness to all divorce parties, their descendants, researchers, and an international interested public at large—all the filed papers and documents related to the divorce application concluded in 1955 by Mr. Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer against Mrs. Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Lockyer in South Australia.

Although the basic conclusion of the application’s closure has been released to the public, the knowledge of the details of the case can offer a more balanced view of the broader Somerton Man case, and the relation of Dorothy Jean Robertson with Carl Webb, since behavioral issues that affected the divorce application on her part could be also relevant to what transpired in her subsequent marriage to and divorce from Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer.

As shown in the cover page of the application attached, I think the case file number is 474 of 1955, South Australia’s Supreme Court, Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer (Plaintiff) and Dorothy Jean Lockyer (Defendant). The decision was granted, apparently without Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Lockyer’s contesting the charges of her “habitual cruelty” on Thursday, Nov. 3, 1955. They had been married on Dec. 22, 1952, and there are records indicating that they had had a stillborn child in 1951, whose hospital records have also been publicly released. The problem that is outstanding is that the details of the divorce has not been released, so I am requesting your offices to kindly consider releasing the rest of the file to the public now, rather than delaying such a possibility due to the 100 year rule. Dorothy Jean Robertson (b. 1920) is not known to have had any children, and her whereabout subsequent to her divorce from Lockyer is unknown. Her family have reported that she died sometime in the 1990s (see https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/GFMQ-H4B/dorothy-jean-robertson-1920-1990). Lockyer (b. 1918) died in 1976 (https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LVZS-5QC/geoffrey-arthur-lockyer-1918-1976). They had a stillborn child in 1951, and no other children.

The reason for this urgency is that, given the new findings reported in the Somerton Man case, and the release of helpful information about his troubled marriage to Dorothy Jean Robertson, judgments are being made about both Carl Webb’s and Dorothy Jean Robertson’s character and behavior in married life. It would be rather impractical and unreasonable for the public, both in Australia and worldwide interested in the case, to await another 30+ years to know more about what transpired in Dorothy Jean Robertson’s marriage to Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer, especially of what the charges of “habitual cruelty” on her part actually consisted. Knowledge of the details can provide a more balanced and even ground in fairness for judging Carl Webb’s life and death as well.

A problem that has gripped research in the Somerton Man case has been the lack of balanced accessibility of information in a fair way to all those concerned and researching the case. Some have had more access than others, and have proceeded to make and share often rushed judgments about the Somerton Man and the case, without offering the same information to others in a transparent way so that all can objectively draw their own conclusions. Your kind consideration and assistance in releasing the material to the public, whether by way of responding to my request or independently, will greatly aid research in the case. I cannot thank enough Chief Justice Ferguson’s offices for their release of the earlier divorce case files, significantly aiding researches and broader public in Australia and worldwide in understanding what transpired back then. I only wish to bring to your attention that your kind consideration of taking a similar action in this second closely related divorce case can also significantly advance research on this matter.

As a sociologist advancing the sociological imagination, which suggests social life can best be understood by way of exploring how personal troubles and public issues interrelate, I became interested in the Somerton Man case recently because it offers important lessons for understanding our lives in a social context. Personally, I also became interested because I thought I could help others find their lost relatives in this case. My wife … happens to be an infant adoptee from Greece, her birth and orphanage name having been … , who tried to find her birth mother when she grew up and in fact succeeded in finding … living in a mountain village decades ago, when I also had a chance also to meet her kind person. The finding greatly inspired and still inspires me. I was attracted to the Somerton Man case, because I thought perhaps I could also contribute to others finding their relatives surrounding the case.

It seems that much progress has been made in the Somerton Man case recently, though I also prefer to await official reports and evaluations about the recent findings. However, unfortunately, rush to judgments may lead to a one-sided evaluation of the Somerton Man’s character, since the accusations Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Webb made in her divorce application against him could not be countered given he had died in 1948. It would be unfair that after seven decades and his body’s exhumation, he is put back to rest without having made a balanced and fair judgment about his life and death. In her filing, Dorothy Jean Robertson said nothing at all, nothing, about the losses he had endured in his family at the time due to his parents’ death due to old age or his brother and nephew’s death in WWII, a lack of empathy that failed to adequately explain why his mental and physical health were deteriorating so rapidly amid a failing marriage, leading to suicide attempts. The lack of empathy of even mentioning such losses was telling perhaps also of the dynamics of their relationship during the failed marriage. She was accusing Carl Webb of behavioral cruelty for all practical purpose, yet she herself became accused of the same in a second marriage/divorce not long after her first divorce filing. Habits are not formed overnight. It would be unfair to Carl Webb (or even to her given the charges made against her), already being judged based on Robertson’s one-sided divorce filing, for the details of the second divorce filed against her by Lockyer are not released for another 30+ years.

Therefore, I respectfully ask your honorable office to consider this request for public disclosure of the complete divorce filings of Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer against Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Lockyer, granted in 1955. If doing this, as a one-time action, requires someone to pay for fees, I would be glad to pay any reasonable fees to do so, as directed. I already paid a fee for this matter recently, but unfortunately it was directed to the wrong state in Australia. I attach a copy of the application I filed and the letter I received as a result of that filing. I would be glad to pay any fees again, if necessary. In that case, I would honor any decision regarding the extent of the release, whether it would be only to me for research purposes, or to make it accessible freely to the public, as I did with the Webb vs. Webb divorce files, kindly released by the offices of the Chief Justice Ferguson. I am copying Ms. Haddad to this email, so that she learns also of the result of my recent inquiry. I thank her again for her kind assistance previously in directing me to others to apply for the files, and for letting me know that I could make a request again regarding this matter, if and when needed. It was my mistake in filing the recent request in the wrong state—an error that is due to my unfamiliarity with Australia, and not a result of any error on others’ part.

The Honorable Chief Justice Chris Kourakis,

Given the limited information available, timely public access to the actual records is important for proper and truthful research and understanding of what transpired in this long unsolved case in Australia, and in the interest of fairness to both parties of the divorce Geoffrey Arthur Lockyer and Dorothy Jean (Robertson) Lockyer, and by implication the life and death of Carl (Charles) Webb (likely) aka the Somerton Man, all their descendants (dead or living), and independent researchers.

I greatly appreciate your time in reading this letter and in your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology (ret.)
UMass Boston
Editor, Human Architecture
Research Director at OKCIR:
Omar Khayyam Center
for Integrative Research in Utopia,
Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

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From: “CAA:PM Supreme Court Livesey J’s Chambers (CAA)”
Subject: FW: A Request Regarding the Somerton Man Case
Date: August 1, 2023 at 12:53:32 AM EDT
To: Mohammad Tamdgidi

Dear Sir

I refer to your email to the Chief Justice dated 28 July 2023.

As the Chief Justice is currently overseas, this response was directed to the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Mark Livesey, who is the President of the Court of Appeal.

The Acting Chief Justice grants you permission to access the file upon payment of the relevant fees.

I invite you to contact the Deputy Registrar, Mr Todd Wierenga, who is copied into this email, to organise inspection and/or access to the material.

Information on applicable fees can be found on the Courts Administration Authority website CAA Home – CAA (courts.sa.gov.au).

Kind regards
Kaylie Inglis
Judicial Assistant to the Hon Justice Livesey
Court of Appeal
Supreme Court of South Australia

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From: Mohammad Tamdgidi
Subject: Re: A Request Regarding the Somerton Man Case
Date: August 1, 2023 at 1:39:12 AM EDT
To: “CAA:PM Supreme Court Livesey J’s Chambers (CAA)”

Dear Ms. Kaylie Inglis and Deputy Registrar, Mr. Todd Wierenga,

I thank you for your reply and notification, and also sincerely appreciate the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Mark Livesey, for kindly agreeing to grant me access to the requested files on behalf of Chief Justice Chris Kourakis’s office.

I will be glad to pay the fees, so would like to hereby kindly request from Deputy Registrar, Mr. Todd Wierenga, to contact me via my same email address in order to organize the inspection and/or access to the material following my payment of the fees.

Being unfamiliar with the fee category and the amount after visiting the linked site you provided, I will just await further details from Mr. Wierenga so that I can fill out any forms needed and process the fee payment.

I appreciate again your reply and would like to thank Ms. Sharokine Haddad (copied) again for her assistance in this matter.

Looking forward,

Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology (ret.)
UMass Boston
Editor, Human Architecture
Research Director at OKCIR:
Omar Khayyam Center
for Integrative Research in Utopia,
Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

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The Cover Jacket of the OKCIR Report, Published on Oct. 1, 2021, Months Before the July 2022 Unofficial Findings, Where the Basic Nature of the Somerton Man Code as a Poetic Suicide Note Rendered in Arabic Transliteration Was Revealed In Detail for the First Time Since 1948.

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Appendix II. A Chat with ChatGPT Conducted in 2023, Illustrating and Further Confirming the Decoding, Also AI Peer Reviewed by Claude.ai

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The Documentary “Missing Pieces: The Curious Case of the Somerton Man” Created by Dr. Carolyn Bilsborow, Wherein Important Information From the Family or  Friends of  Jessica (Harkness) “Jo” or “Jestyn” Thomson are Shared.

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Jessica (Harkness) Thomson, holding Robin Thomson

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Robin Thomson, Ballet Dancer, Son of Jessica Thomson, Considered as Having Been the Somerton Man’s Son

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Carl (Charlie) Webb Being Playful in Family Photo (Photo Courtesy of Stuart Webb)

Carl Webb Family Photo c. 1929 (Photo Courtesy of Stuart Webb)

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Carl Webb Below Left in Swinburne School 16 year old Football Team Photo

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16 year old Carl (Charles or Charlie) Webb in Swinburne Football Team Photo

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