Unexplained Mysteries

Tamon Shud

This mystery is my favourite kind - a mysterious death! Ohh! I love them, though I know that's a horrible thing to say. This mystery even happened in my own country: Australia, much like Katz 2 and Fredrick Valentich. This case takes place on Somerton beach in Adelaide in 1948, where the body was found.The man was never identified.  He was dressed in a suit with all the labels deliberately cut off, suggesting that someone was trying to obfuscate his identity.  Early attempts to determine who he was were unsuccessful, as dental records resulted in no matches, and his personal items — cigarettes, a pack of Juicy Fruit, and some change — were otherwise not unique to him. The police managed to come up with a few possible identities, each eventually proven wrong.  (At one point, police determined that the body was that of one E.C. Johnson — only to have the real Mr. Johnson walk into the police station a few days later.)    Not knowing who the man was, how he got to the beach, or how he died, officials turned to an autopsy.  The results were consistent with poisoning, as examiners found congestion throughout the brain and body, blood in the man’s stomach and liver, an extremely enlarged spleen, etc.   Clear cut poisoning — except that no poisons were found in the man’s system. And come on this was 1948! I doubt they had the type of drugs or poisoning that could go undetected.

So, naturally, in time, the case grew cold.

That was until a suitcase, checked into a nearby train station the night the mystery man died, turned up.  Again, all labels were removed — except for a few which ascribed ownership to a “T. Kean[e],” spelled in various ways (e.g. “Kean” or “T. Keane”).   A sailor by the name of Thomas Keane had recently gone missing, but those who knew him stated that the body could not be his.    Again the trail had gone cold.

Here is where things get weird (and I mean fun).

In the summer of 1949, inspectors found a concealed pocket inside the man’s trousers.  In the pocket was a piece of paper, which read “Taman Shud,” which means “ending” in Persian.    Officials from the public library identified the paper as coming from a version of a collection of poetry called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.  After circulating copies of the piece of paper (and the name of the book it came from) in the press, the police gained what they hoped would be a key clue: the book from which the paper came.   The relevant copy of The Rubaiyat was in the back seat of an unlocked car the night before the mystery man’s death.   In the front was a phone number.  In the back of the book were coded markings which have not been able to be deciphered as yet:

MRGOABABD

MTBIMPANETP

MLIABOAIAQC

ITTMTSAMSTGAB

The number belonged to a nurse who said she had given it to a man named Boxall during the Second World War. Upon seeing a plaster cast of the dead man she identified him as Boxall. This appeared to solve the mystery of who the man was, until Boxall was discovered alive with his copy of the book undamaged. Coincidentally the woman who identified the man lived in Glenelg – the last town visited by the dead man before he travelled by bus to his final destination. The woman asked police not to record her name as she was married and wanted to avoid scandal – they foolishly complied and her identity is now also unknown.

Unfortunately, the identity of the mystery man remains unknown, as does the meaning, if any, of the cipher.  Even the cause of death is not certain.  Researchers are still enamoured with the case and there are current attempts to crack it.