Somerton Man expert Prof Derek Abbott on what we know about Carl Charles Webb

SA Police has spoken out after an Adelaide professor said he’d cracked the identity of the Somerton Man. Here’s everything we know about him.

Carl Webb was likely a bit of a loner, travelling to South Australia in a bid to win back his wife who he had recently separated from, Somerton Man case expert Derek Abbott says.

The University of Adelaide professor announced late last night he, with the help of an American DNA expert, had solved the 74-year-old mystery of the Somerton Man – identifying him as Carl ‘Charles’ Webb – born on November 16, 1905, in Footscray, Victoria, to Richard August Webb and Eliza Amelia Morris Grace.

He worked as an electrical engineer and instrument maker.

Prof Abbott says he will now work with police to convince the Coroner of his DNA findings, and officially declare the man’s identity through state records.

SA Police on Wednesday said it was still actively investigating the coronial matter.

“We are heartened of the recent development in that case, and are cautiously optimistic that this may provide a breakthrough,” SAPOL said in a statement. “We look forward to the outcome of further DNA work to confirm the identification, which will ultimately be determined by the Coroner.”

Police and anthropologists exhumed the Somerton Man’s remains in May last year in a bid to extract DNA and identify him. There has since been no new information on the identification procress of using DNA from his remains.

The body of Mr Webb was found slumped against a wall at Somerton Beach on December 1, in 1948 – but for more than seven decades his identity was a mystery.

Adding to the intrigue was a portion of page found in his fob pocket, which read “Tamam Shud” – meaning “finished”. It was ripped out of an edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a Persian poetry book, which was later found thrown into a car at Glenelg.

The book contained the imprint of a mysterious code.

Theories of his identity included that he was a spy or a gangster.

“(Carl) did have an interest in poetry, he actually wrote poetry himself, so he’s the sort of guy you wouldn’t be surprised if he had a Rubaiyat on him,” Prof Abbott said.

Mr Webb was living in South Yarra in Melbourne in the 40s, and was an instrument maker.

“He was born Carl Webb, but he didn’t like using the name Carl so he went by Charles Webb, so that’s the name everyone knew him by,” he said.

The Somerton Man has been identified as Carl Webb.

The Rubaiyat.

Contents of bag linked to the Somerton Man, discovered a few months after his death.

“He had a pair of scissors and a knife in his suitcase that looked like they had been especially ground down to a fine point … being an instrument maker he would have access to a workshop with a grinding wheel and equipment you'd need to do that, so that kind of fits.”

His reasons for being in SA may have been to track down his wife Dorothy Webb.

“It looks like when his wife left him in 1947 she moved to South Australia, we don’t know, but this could be the possible reason why he rocked up in SA.”

The forensic assessment has been conducted by Prof Abbott since 50 hairs were retrieved from the SA Police museum in 2011.

“We honed in on his name way back in March, because we started building out a family tree based on the Somerton Man’s DNA back in February and by March we had this name Carl Webb,” Prof Abbott told The Advertiser.

A family tree of 4000 names led Prof Abbott and Identifinder International researcher Colleen Fitzpatrick to the two men, both with no record of death.

“This was all building out from a distant cousin on his father’s side, so what I then did, I built the tree down to try and find distant cousins on his mother’s side that might be alive today and may have had their DNA done on these genealogical DNA website,” he said.

“I managed to find one, tested it against the Somerton Man and bang, it was a really good match, it was like a first cousin three times removed.”

Prof Abbott is adamant his findings are correct, with more than 99 per cent accuracy, he says.

Prof Abbott spoke to SA Police to alert them of his discovery on Tuesday evening.

SA Police are the leading agency in a new bid to identify the Somerton Man through DNA following the exhumation of his remains at the West Tce Cemetary in May last year.

“I was pleasantly surprised when I rang him (police) that they weren’t upset or anything they were actually very sweet and basically were happy that I’d done it, so that was really good,” Prof Abbott said.

“They said it’s really the Coroner that has to see a report and that evidence of the man’s name and it’s the Coroner that makes that final legal determination.

“I’ll probably work together with the cops to get a bit of a report together for the Coroner and we’ll take it from there.”

But when contacted by The Advertiser, a spokesperson for the State Coroner said: “the information regarding Somerton Man reported today in news media has not been provided to the State Coroner or SA Police”.

“SAPOL understands that it will be provided with Prof Abbott’s information.

“SAPOL and Forensic Science SA are undertaking DNA work on the remains of the Somerton Man, this work is not yet complete.

“Once that work is complete a brief will be submitted to the State Coroner, who will assess whether the remains of the Somerton Man may be formally identified.”

Prof Abbott, who met his wife Rachel Egan on his ongoing quest to discover the man’s identity, said finding Somerton Man’s true name was just the beginning.

“The story doesn’t really end now here, in a sense it’s more the beginning of the story because it’s from here we have the name, and now we can reconstruct the history with more research,” he said.

“I’m hoping the public can help with that, I’m sure someone will find something in their garden shed somewhere.”

DID YOU KNOW CARL CHARLES WEBB? Email reporter Dixie Sulda here.

Originally published as Somerton Man expert Prof Derek Abbott on what we know about Carl Charles Webb