Somerton Man cold case: SA Attorney-General Vickie Chapman grants conditional approval to exhume body
The case for exhuming the mysterious Somerton Man — a case that has baffled the state for decades — is at a critical point, where leaving it too much longer risks losing crucial DNA.
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The case for exhuming the unknown Somerton Man from West Terrace Cemetery is at a critical point, where technology is well advanced and leaving it too much longer risked losing DNA, said Adelaide academic Derek Abbott.
Prof Abbott, a biomedical engineer with an interest in cryptology and a decade-long passion for discovering the identity of the man found on Somerton Beach 70 years ago, said to wait much longer risked further deterioration of the remains.
“The longer one leaves it, the more the body degrades and it gets more difficult, so the sooner one does it, the better the result will be,” said Prof Abbott, who in an odd twist married Rachel Egan, the possible granddaughter of the Somerton Man, who he contacted in the course of his research.
“One doesn’t want to go leaving this for too many more years,” he said.
SA Attorney-General, Vickie Chapman, has given fresh hope that the mystery would finally move forward by confirming she would approve a reasonable request for exhumation, providing taxpayer money was not used.
This contrasts with two previous knock-backs from the Labor attorney-general, John Rau, who said there was insufficient public interest and stakeholder support.
The Advertiser understands identification of the Somerton Man is an open case with SA Police’s Major Crime Unit which could, in theory, apply to the Attorney-General for the body to be exhumed for the purpose of identification. No approach has yet been made.
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A spokeswoman said the Attorney-General was more than happy to sign off on an exhumation requestion, providing a third party was willing to pay the exhumation costs.
“In principle, she is willing to do it,” she said.
The Advertiser reported in August last year that the Attorney-General would consider requests to exhume the body.
The “Somerton Man” was found on Somerton Beach in December 1948, propped against a seawall and with a half-smoked cigarette on his lapel.
He had been there for 12 hours or more and a man who saw him the previous evening thought he remembered seeing his arm move.
A scrap of paper found in a fob pocket was printed with the Persian words “Tamam Shud”, meaning “finished”.
The case, baffling and intriguing in equal measure, bubbled away for almost 60 years until a decade ago it was seized on by Prof Abbott.
Over time he has become more and more gripped as he chased down every lead.
And in an almost absurdist twist of fate, he married and has three young children with a woman who is quite possibly the dead man’s granddaughter.
Originally published as Somerton Man cold case: SA Attorney-General Vickie Chapman grants conditional approval to exhume body