00:00:00
Hello, Case File listeners. [music] As we enter Case Files 10th year, we've created a new run of special [music]
00:00:07
bonus content, Case File Archives, a series of releases revisiting the earliest years of the show, along with
00:00:15
previously unreleased premium episodes. This is completely additional content [music]
00:00:20
and will not replace new episodes. We will still be back in March with brand new cases and we'll be releasing
00:00:28
the same number of new episodes this year as we did last year. [music] Case File Archives is simply a way to
00:00:35
mark the 10th year, revisit some older episodes, and to offer previously subscriber exclusive episodes to the
00:00:42
wider audience for the first time. For the re-release episodes, we have fully edited, polished, re-recorded, and
00:00:49
freshly produced them from start to finish to match our current production [music] standards. They are not full
00:00:56
rewrites. Our aim isn't to reshape the cases or alter the original storytelling, but to preserve them as
00:01:03
they were first told, while giving them the level of production they didn't have
00:01:07
back [music] in 2016. Where appropriate, updates have been added, [music] but the core structure
00:01:14
remains faithful to the originals. Because of this, these episodes may sound a little different to our recent
00:01:22
work. Today's re-release is The Summitton Man, the second [music] case file episode
00:01:28
ever produced. In December 1948, the body of an unidentified man was [music] discovered
00:01:35
on Summitton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia. At first, it appeared he had simply
00:01:41
passed away in his sleep. But as detectives examined his belongings and retraced his final movements, they
00:01:48
uncovered a series of strange and unexplained [music] clues that only deepened the mystery.
00:01:55
Originally released in January 2016, the case has seen a significant [music] development since then, which has been
00:02:03
included in this re-release version. Thank you to everyone who has listened and [music] supported us over the years.
00:02:11
Now, here is the second episode from Case File Archives, [music] The Summit Man.
00:02:31
Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please
00:02:38
contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of
00:02:46
content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. [music]
00:02:56
On Wednesday, December 1, 1948, the body of a man was discovered along the seaw wall of Summerton Park Beach in
00:03:03
Adelaide, South Australia. [music] At first, police thought they were dealing with a straightforward matter,
00:03:09
[music] the natural death of an unknown man who needed to be identified. However, it soon became apparent that
00:03:17
the case was anything but [music] straightforward. The further police looked into it, the
00:03:23
deeper it went. Welcome to the mysterious [music] case of the Summitton man. The unknown individual discovered on
00:03:56
Summerton Park Beach would come to be known as the Summitton man. He was found with his head and shoulders leaning up
00:04:04
against the seaw wall, his legs outstretched along the sand, and his feet crossed. [music]
00:04:10
It looked like an uncomfortable position. When Case File originally released this
00:04:16
episode, the man's identity and cause of death remained a mystery. As with all unsolved cases, there were many theories
00:04:24
and a lot of speculation. The Summitton man had no identification on him. [music] In fact, even the labels
00:04:33
on the clothes he was wearing had been removed. He was found with a crumpled up piece of
00:04:39
paper featuring two words to mom should, which is Persian, meaning it is finished
00:04:45
or ended. [music] These words were later linked to a poetry book that contained what many
00:04:51
believed to be a secret code and the phone number of a woman who lived just 400 m from where the Summitton man was
00:04:59
found. While she said she had no idea who the man was, many [music] believed that she
00:05:06
was lying. In recent years, some questions in this case have been answered. But for a long
00:05:14
time, it seemed like an impossible mystery. There were only a few details known with any certainty. [music]
00:05:24
We know that the Summitton man arrived at Adelaide Railway Station one day before he died on Tuesday, November 30,
00:05:32
1948. Upon arriving at the station, he checked in a suitcase in the cloak room. The
00:05:39
suitcase was tagged and a receipt was given to the Summitton man. From a timestamp found on the suitcase's
00:05:46
[music] tag, it was determined that he checked it in somewhere around 11:00 a.m.
00:05:52
Police suspected that the Summitton man had likely traveled to Adelaide from another large city, as an unidentified
00:05:59
man walking around a small country town or regional area with a suitcase would have caught the attention of locals.
00:06:07
[music] The only train arriving from a big city at about that time was one from Melbourne. the capital of the
00:06:14
neighboring state of Victoria. After checking in his suitcase, the Summitton man bought another train
00:06:21
ticket to travel from Adelaide Station to Henley Beach, a coastal suburb in the west of the city. It was a one-way
00:06:30
secondass ticket, although nothing could really be summed from that as that line
00:06:35
had no first class and all tickets were classified as secondass. There were two departures to Henley
00:06:43
Beach around the time that the Summitton man checked in his suitcase. One was at
00:06:48
10:50 a.m. and the other left at 11:51 a.m. [music] But the Summitton man didn't catch
00:06:56
either of these as his [music] purchased ticket was found unused in his pocket after his death.
00:07:03
Instead of boarding a train, he walked across the road and bought a [music] bus ticket to Glenn Elg, another seaside
00:07:10
suburb about 8 km south of Henley Beach. The bus departed at 11:15 a.m. and dropped the Summitton man off a short
00:07:20
distance from where he was found dead. [music] It's thought that the Summitton man
00:07:25
probably purchased a train ticket to Henley Beach as it was the closest railway station to his intended
00:07:31
destination. However, perhaps after talking to someone or reading a map, he realized
00:07:37
that a bus would be a more direct and efficient route. He then [music] changed his plan and had no further use for the
00:07:45
train ticket. After jumping on board what would have been an old-fashioned double-decker bus,
00:07:51
he made the journey to Glennel, arriving at around lunchtime. What he did over the next few hours was
00:07:59
anyone's guess because there were no further sightings of the summit man until after 7:00 that evening
00:08:10
at 7:15 p.m. Just as the sun was starting to set, a well-known local businessman by the name of John Lions
00:08:18
went for a walk with his wife along Summitton Park Beach. As they walked, the couple [music] spotted the summit
00:08:25
man lying on the sand dressed in a suit with his head propped up against the seaw wall.
00:08:32
When John and his wife passed by, [music] the summit man raised his right arm up, then flopped it down again.
00:08:40
The couple [music] put the stranger's pose and demeanor down to him having had too much to drink. Assuming he just
00:08:47
needed to sleep it off, they continued on their way. Now, this was not a quiet, isolated
00:08:54
spot. It was a popular location with plenty of people who regularly used the beach and walked along the esplanard
00:09:02
above. The summit man was lying right next to a commonly used set [music] of stairs that led up to the esplanard.
00:09:11
At about 8:00 p.m. that night, [music] just as the light was turning to dusk, a young couple was strolling along the
00:09:18
esplanard. They sat down on a bench right next to the staircase by the Summitton man.
00:09:25
The couple noticed another unknown man in a hat standing at the top of the stairs who was looking down at the sand
00:09:32
below. This man was never identified nor seen or heard from again, [music] and it remains unknown whether he is
00:09:40
related to the case or if he was just another passer by. The young couple followed the man's line
00:09:47
of sight and saw the legs of summit man sprawled out on the sand. Their view of his head and upper body
00:09:55
was obscured by the staircase. The couple didn't see the summit man move, but they thought he might have
00:10:03
changed positions at one point. They later left without seeing anyone else. At about 6:00 the next morning,
00:10:15
Wednesday, December 1, two jockeyies were riding horses along the beach. They rode past the summer man, but like John
00:10:23
Lions and his wife, they believed he was just drunk and sleeping off a bender. However, when they rode back up the
00:10:31
beach passing him again, they realized that he hadn't moved at all. The man was in the exact same spot with
00:10:39
his head propped up against the seaw wall in an unnatural looking position. The two jockeyies approached the summit
00:10:48
man to see if he was all right. They discovered that he was dead. Now, at the same time, businessman John
00:10:57
Lions was actually back at the beach enjoying a morning swim with a friend. He noticed the jockeyies crowded around
00:11:05
the summit and man and realized it was the same person he'd seen the night before.
00:11:11
He rushed over to help and called the police. Officer John Moss arrived at 6:45 a.m.
00:11:20
He examined the scene and found a half-sm smoked cigarette that had fallen between the Summitton man's cheek and
00:11:26
collar. Yet, there were no burn marks on his face or clothing. The sand wasn't disturbed, his clothing
00:11:35
wasn't disheveled, and there was no debris or personal items scattered around at the beach.
00:11:41
Officer Moss determined there were no signs of violence at all. A check of the summit [music] man's
00:11:48
pockets found the unused train ticket, the bus ticket, and two combs, one aluminium and one plastic.
00:11:57
The aluminium comb was thought to be of American origin as there were none like it available in Australia at the time.
00:12:06
The Summitton man's pockets also contained a packet of Juicy Fruit Chewing gum, a box of Bryant and Maze
00:12:12
matches and a pack of cigarettes. The cigarette pack featured Army Club branding, but the cigarettes inside were
00:12:22
Cancerous Club. At the time, it was common for people to buy an expensive brand of cigarettes,
00:12:29
then keep the box and later fill it with cheaper cigarettes. Just an image thing, trying to look more
00:12:36
distinguished while giving yourself cancer. But the funny thing about the Summitton
00:12:42
man was that the cancerous cigarettes were the expensive ones, more expensive than the army club pack they were in.
00:12:51
This was seen as a sign of someone who might have been trying to keep a low profile.
00:12:57
An ambulance arrived to take the summer man's body to Royal Adelaide Hospital where a doctor pronounced him dead. The
00:13:05
time of death estimated by the doctor was no earlier than 2:00 a.m., but that was a very rough estimate. The methods
00:13:14
used to determine when death has occurred are far superior today. An autopsy was performed the next day.
00:13:26
The coroner's report described the Summitton man as a Caucasian male aged about 45 years old and weighing around
00:13:34
80 kg. [music] He was a well-built, strong man in excellent physical condition with the
00:13:40
classic V-shaped body of an athlete. His hands were smooth and uncaloused, indicating he hadn't worked in manual
00:13:48
labor, though they bore the yellow stains of a heavy smoker. His finger and toenails were well cared
00:13:56
for. The summit man had well-developed calf muscles with a bulge near the knee. The
00:14:04
coroner thought this was a sign that he may have been a professional dancer, a ballet performer, or similar.
00:14:11
He was missing about 16 teeth, but that wasn't uncommon at the time. His spleen was three times the size of a
00:14:20
normal one, which indicated [music] pre-existing illness rather than an overnight injury sustained at the time
00:14:26
of his death. This was evidence that the Summitton man may have already been in a weakened
00:14:32
physical state when he died. Enlarged spleens can be a result of many illnesses, including viral and bacterial
00:14:40
infections, inflammatory diseases, and even various cancers. The Summitton man's cause of death was
00:14:49
not immediately obvious, as there were no signs of foul play. It was initially believed he died of natural causes.
00:14:58
The police certainly weren't treating it as suspicious [music] and were convinced that it wouldn't be
00:15:03
long before a friend or relative came forward to identify the body. Sure enough, many people did come
00:15:11
forward to view the Summerton man, believing that he might have been a missing loved one, but no positive ID
00:15:17
was made. When he remained unidentified more than a week later on Friday, December 10, a
00:15:25
decision was made to imbalm and preserve the body in the hopes that in the coming
00:15:29
days or weeks, somebody would identify him. But no one ever did. By now, investigators were starting to
00:15:41
deviate from their initial belief that the Summerton man had died of natural causes.
00:15:47
He had a healthy heart with no sign of disease or a cardiac arrest. Yet something had caused it to stop beating.
00:15:56
[music] It was believed that this something was poison. The Summitton man's stomach, [music]
00:16:03
kidneys, and liver were congested with a large amount of congealed blood. Something that typically happens after
00:16:09
an individual is poisoned and not when they die naturally. Tissue samples were sent away for
00:16:16
testing with the coroner almost certain they would return positive for poison. Yet [music] nothing was detected.
00:16:26
Dr. Robert Cowan, [music] the chemist who tested for the presence of poisons, stated, "I found no common poison
00:16:33
present, and I do not think any common poison caused [music] death. If he did die from poison, I think it would be a
00:16:42
very rare poison. I mean something rarely used for suicidal or homicidal purposes.
00:16:51
There are poisons that excrete from the body quickly, leaving no trace. And although there was no sign that the
00:16:58
summit man had vomited, something that usually occurs in poisoning deaths, it was possible that he had vomited
00:17:05
elsewhere before making his way to the beach. To this day, it hasn't been definitively
00:17:11
proven that poison caused his death, but it hasn't been disproven either. Regardless, the coroner, medical
00:17:19
examiners, and police were now certain he hadn't died of natural causes. They just had to work out if his death
00:17:27
was [music] suicide or murder. >> [music] >> Detectives were assigned to the case.
00:17:39
While there were no signs of foul play when the Summitton man was found, something unusual was discovered after
00:17:46
his body was examined. All of the identifying tags on his clothing had been deliberately removed,
00:17:53
so it was impossible to see where the clothes had been made. Detectives had no idea whether the tags
00:18:00
had been removed by the Summitton man himself [music] or somebody else. They checked the Adelaide train station
00:18:08
to see if there was any unclaimed luggage, even though he had no luggage receipt on him amidst the public
00:18:14
transport tickets and other items on his person. >> [music] >> They found a suitcase that had been
00:18:20
checked in on November 30 at around the same time the summit man arrived in Adelaide and had been left abandoned.
00:18:29
Despite the missing receipt, detectives were certain that the suitcase belonged to the Summitton man. A piece of thread
00:18:37
inside it matched the suit he was wearing [music] and the clothing sizes were a match.
00:18:43
Inside the suitcase was a dressing gown, a laundry bag, a few singlets, some underpants, two ties, a pair of
00:18:50
slippers, a pair of trousers, a sports coat, a scarf, and a shirt. There were also some coat hangers,
00:18:59
handkerchiefs, envelopes, [music] a cigarette lighter, a toothbrush, a razor, a shaving brush, pencils, a
00:19:06
[music] towel, a stencil brush, and a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, and a knife.
00:19:13
Detectives found nothing significant or unusual. But there was one strange detail. The
00:19:22
suitcases identifying labels along with the labels from the clothing inside it had been removed.
00:19:29
Just a few tags remained. The laundry bag had the name Keen printed on the label. This name was also
00:19:38
found on one of the singlets while one of the ties featured the name Teen. This was their sole lead so far in
00:19:49
identifying the Summitton man. It was a matter of some concern that they still had no idea who he was despite sending
00:19:57
his photo and fingerprints to agencies across Australia and overseas. Extensive checks into individuals with
00:20:05
the surname Keen were conducted, but the name couldn't be matched to the Summitton man.
00:20:12
There were no known missing persons or other unaccounted for people with that name.
00:20:18
At the time, it was very common for people to buy secondhand garments as clothing had been rationed during World
00:20:25
War II. This meant it was very possible that the name belonged to the clothing's previous
00:20:31
owner and not the Summitton man at all. This seemed even more likely when taking
00:20:38
into consideration the fact that all of the other tags had been removed from his
00:20:42
clothing and from the suitcase, just leaving three items labeled with keen. If the Summitton man or somebody else
00:20:51
was trying to conceal his identity, the obvious thing to do would be to leave tags behind that bore a false name.
00:21:00
Another key detail was the Summerton man's missing luggage receipt. As the suitcase was found unlocked, it was
00:21:08
possible that somebody had taken the receipt, accessed the suitcase, and tampered with its contents,
00:21:15
maybe even removed a few labels. Detectives made inquiries into the Summitton man's clothing and found that
00:21:23
the jacket he was wearing when he died had been made in the United States of America.
00:21:29
His tie featured a certain print that pointed to it also being made in the United States.
00:21:35
This didn't mean that the Summitton man was American, but it was clear that some
00:21:40
of his clothing was. Unfortunately, the Summitton man suitcase and its contents no longer
00:21:46
exist as they were destroyed long ago in a police cleanout. Detectives didn't know who this man was,
00:21:55
where he came from, how he died, or if it was suicide or murder, and their job was made even harder because the
00:22:03
investigation had started on the back foot. With the summit man's death initially
00:22:08
treated as natural, crucial evidence might have been lost. In addition to all of this, crime
00:22:15
investigation techniques in 1948 were nowhere near the level of what we have today, with DNA evidence unheard of for
00:22:23
another 40 years or so. The detectives were essentially chasing their tails from the very start.
00:22:35
As the investigation continued into the early months of 1949, the Summitton man's body was starting to deteriorate.
00:22:44
Police decided to make a plaster cast of his head and upper body to use in their
00:22:48
investigation. The cast still exists today. [music] After it was made, the Summitton man was
00:22:56
buried at West Terrace Cemetery on Tuesday, June 14, 1949. A headstone was placed at his grave site
00:23:05
which reads, "Here lies the unknown man who was found at Summitton Beach 1st December 1948."
00:23:16
At around the same time as the Summitton man's burial, a piece of evidence was found that investigators originally
00:23:23
missed. A crumpled up piece of paper in the Summitton man's trousers printed with the words to mom should.
00:23:32
This Persian phrase means it is finished or ended. The piece of paper had been torn from a
00:23:40
book. Investigators got to work trying to find where these words could have been taken
00:23:46
from. They found that they were printed on the last page of a poetry book titled
00:23:52
Rubayat of Omar Cayam. Omar Cayam was a Persian poet, astronomer, philosopher and
00:24:00
mathematician who lived from 1048 to 1131. [clears throat] Rubiat of Omar Cayam is an English
00:24:08
translation of a selection of his poems completed by Edward Fitzgerald in the 1850s.
00:24:15
The translations are pretty subjective and others have different interpretations of the poems, but
00:24:21
Fitzgeralds are the most wellknown. The general theme throughout the book is one of seizing the day, living life to
00:24:29
the fullest, and dying without regret. Death is a common focus throughout. Investigators would eventually track
00:24:39
down the actual book the summit man tore the words from, but unfortunately not until a month after the inquest.
00:24:50
A coronial inquest into the summit man's death was held over two days on Friday,
00:24:56
June 17, and then again on Tuesday, June 21. The coroner concluded the identity of the deceased was quite
00:25:06
unknown, his death was not natural, and that it was almost certainly not accidental.
00:25:14
It was noted at the inquest how remarkably clean the Summitton man's shoes were, looking as though they had
00:25:20
been recently polished. That, along with his well-kept nails and general clean and tidy appearance, led
00:25:28
the coroner to believe he wasn't a vagrant or drifter. The inquest was adjourned to no fixed
00:25:35
date, meaning the case would remain open and continue to be investigated. If further information turned up, the
00:25:44
inquest could sit again. Poison was still thought to be the cause of death, and two poisons in particular
00:25:52
were named as possible culprits due to being untraceable. The names of these poisons weren't
00:25:59
released as they were easy to obtain at the time. The last thing police wanted was to publicize an easy, undetectable
00:26:07
way to kill someone. By now, the media had well and truly started to focus on the case following
00:26:18
their initial disinterest. A man dying of seemingly natural causes on the beach hadn't exactly been
00:26:26
headline grabbing. But as time went on, the mystery surrounding the summit man's
00:26:31
identity and the exact circumstances of his death captured the interest of the media and the public alike. I mean, who
00:26:40
doesn't like a good mystery? After detectives tied the words to mom should to Rubayat of Omar Cayam, they
00:26:49
made a public appeal asking if anyone had a copy of the book with a page or a piece of a page missing. [music]
00:26:57
Incredibly, on Friday, July 22, 1949, a man came forward with a copy that had a piece missing from the exact page where
00:27:06
those words would have been printed. It was a very rare edition of the book that was published in New Zealand in
00:27:13
1941. [music] The man said he'd found the book on the backseat of his open roof car and
00:27:20
had no idea how it had gotten there. It wasn't his, and he'd never seen it before. [music] His car had been parked
00:27:28
at Summitton Park Beach at around the time of the Summitton man's death. This suggested the Summitton man had
00:27:37
thrown the book into a random car. But why discard it this way instead of in a bin if he wanted to dispose of it?
00:27:45
[music] Did he want someone to find it? Was he being followed? And did that lead
00:27:50
to him needing to get rid of the book quickly? An expert in paper was consulted and
00:27:57
tests revealed that the crumpled up piece of paper in the summit man's possession was definitely from the same
00:28:04
book that had been handed in. The identity of the man who came forward with the book is unknown.
00:28:11
[music] He requested to remain anonymous and police respected those wishes. As if there weren't already enough
00:28:19
mysteries in this case. At the back of this particular copy of the Rubiat were five rows of handwritten
00:28:31
capital letters that appeared [music] to be some sort of code. The first line featured the letter W followed by a
00:28:38
space and then the letters R O A B A B D all written together. The second row had the letters M space
00:28:47
[music] L I A O I. This row had been crossed out. The third line read [music] WTB I M P A
00:28:58
N E Tp. Beneath it was a cross that had a long line through it. The fourth row was quite similar to the
00:29:07
second crossed out row with the [music] letters MLI [ __ ] space AI A QC. [music]
00:29:15
The fifth and final row read itts am tgab. A notable detail about the code was that
00:29:27
the second line had been crossed out before the writer then penned another line that was very similar to it. This
00:29:34
suggested that whatever they were writing was very deliberate and that a mistake had been made in one line.
00:29:42
The code was published in the news and amateur codereers from all over the country got to work on the mystery. Many
00:29:49
thought it may have been referencing something in the same book. Top military codereers were consulted,
00:29:56
[music] but no one has been able to crack it to this day. Some have posited that these lines may
00:30:03
not be a code at all, but instead a neemonic device to remind the writer of a certain poem or poems in the book.
00:30:11
Or maybe they reference something else altogether. [music] Perhaps whoever wrote it was
00:30:17
just using each letter to represent a word, a sort of shorthand, if you will. Whatever it was, it added even more
00:30:26
mystery and [music] confusion to the case. The supposed code led many people to believe the Summitton man was a spy or
00:30:34
some sort of secret agent involved in espionage. Jason Bourne, James Bond type stuff,
00:30:42
but we will get into that in a bit. First, we need to talk about two phone [music] numbers that were also written
00:30:48
down at the back of the book. The first number was for a local bank, while the second was found to belong to
00:30:58
a local woman named Jessica Thompson. Not only was Jessica Thompson local, she lived [music] just 400 m from where the
00:31:07
Summitton man was found. It was starting to look as though the Summitton man hadn't chosen to visit
00:31:14
Summitton Park Beach randomly. [music] He was there with a purpose. On Tuesday, July 26th, 1949, more than 7
00:31:24
months after the summer man was found, [music] police knocked on Jessica's door.
00:31:30
When they asked her about the Summitton man, she denied all knowledge of him. But when they went on to ask about the
00:31:38
Rubiart poetry book, Jessica surprised them by replying, [music] "Yes, that's my favorite book of
00:31:45
poetry." The police asked if Jessica owned a copy. She said she used to, but not
00:31:53
anymore. >> [music] >> She'd given her copy away 4 years earlier in 1945 to a military serviceman
00:32:00
she'd met in Sydney. His name was Alf Boxel. At this point, [music] the police thought they were a mere formality away
00:32:10
from identifying the summit man as Alf Boxel. They took Jessica Thompson to see the
00:32:16
plaster cast of the Summitton man and found her behavior to be odd. After first glancing at the plaster
00:32:24
cast, she couldn't look at it again. [music] Instead, staring at the floor. She gave only brief, simple answers to
00:32:32
police questions, replying with yes, no, or I don't know. At times, she looked like she was about
00:32:40
to faint. All of her body language seemed to [music] point to her knowing who the
00:32:45
summit man was. Jessica was married and had two children. a son called Robin and a
00:32:53
daughter named Kate. Robin was the oldest and it was unclear who his father was.
00:33:00
Jessica requested that her name not be released as she didn't want any embarrassment to come to her family due
00:33:07
to speculation that she might be linked to the Summerton man. The police agreed.
00:33:13
[music] So for many years she was only known in the public eye as the mystery [music]
00:33:18
woman or by her nickname Justin. Detectives went to work on the Alfox theory and were surprised to find him
00:33:30
alive and well in Sydney. Moreover, [music] he still had the copy of the Rubay art
00:33:35
that Jessica had given him. She had inscribed a short message in the book when she gave it to Alf and [music]
00:33:42
signed it Justin. This development put a puncture in the police's theory that Alf Boxel and the
00:33:49
Summitton man were one and the same. And because he still had Jessica's old copy
00:33:55
of Rubiart, [music] this meant that the Summitton man had owned a different copy
00:34:00
that had Jessica's phone number in it. So, [music] how did Jessica and Dalph Boxel meet? In 1945, Jessica was living
00:34:11
in Sydney and training to be a nurse at the Royal Northshore Hospital. She spent a few evenings at the Clifton
00:34:18
Gardens Hotel in Sydney, which was then frequented by military servicemen. Jessica was introduced to Alf by the
00:34:25
girlfriend of one of Alf's [music] friends. They spent a few nights together talking
00:34:31
and sharing [music] drinks before Alf was put back on active duty for the war. As a parting gift, Jessica gave him a
00:34:40
copy of her favorite book of poetry, Rubayat of Omar Cayam. Jessica [music] left Sydney soon after
00:34:47
that without completing her nursing exams. She moved to Melbourne for a brief period before settling in
00:34:53
Adelaide. Jessica would have become pregnant with Robin at around this time. Not long after this, she met her
00:35:02
husband. They had a daughter named Kate, and all four remained together as a family.
00:35:10
Remember when the Summitton man arrived in Adelaide? How the only train arrival from a major city was from Melbourne?
00:35:18
What if the Summitton man met Jessica in Melbourne where she gave him a copy of Rubiat as well?
00:35:24
Perhaps he then tried to track her down only to find out she'd moved to Adelaide, prompting him to travel there
00:35:31
in search of a former love. Whatever the case, it seemed possible that Jessica was lying to police and
00:35:40
knew who the Summitton man was. Her daughter [music] Kate has described Jessica as a woman with a very strong
00:35:47
dark side. Kate even believed her mother could have been a Russian spy after [music]
00:35:53
discovering that Jessica spoke Russian, but wouldn't say where or why she learned it.
00:35:59
This has led many followers of the Summit Man case to believe in the spy angle. A possible code, missing labels,
00:36:07
a mystery identity, an unexplained death, and Jessica's behavior seemed like compelling details pointing in this
00:36:14
direction. To top it all off, Jessica once remarked to her daughter that the Summitton man
00:36:21
was known to people at a much higher level than state police. All of this is detailed in a 2013 60
00:36:29
Minutes story, which we've linked in the episode notes. [music] There is another significant piece of
00:36:39
information that adds further weight to the spy angle. In 1946, a few hundred kilometers away
00:36:46
from Adelaide, Britain and Australia entered into a joint project of missile and nuclear rocket testing.
00:36:53
This was known as the WRA testing facility. Such a top secret project would provide
00:37:00
a reason for a Russian spy to be in Adelaide. Remember, this took place at the start
00:37:06
of the Cold War, and it's accepted that there were Soviet spies operating in Australia at around this time.
00:37:14
One person that might have been able to answer some of these questions was Jessica Thompson, but she kept her cards
00:37:20
very close to her chest. She seemed to know more about the case than she let on.
00:37:27
Jessica was interviewed by former South Australian detective Jerry Feltus, who took on the case and continued to
00:37:33
investigate it in his retirement. Detective Feltus described her as being evasive with her answers.
00:37:41
It also seemed as though every time the case received media attention and was back in the spotlight, Jessica would go
00:37:47
away on holiday or leave town. In addition to the world of spies and a theory about the Summitton man trying to
00:37:56
track down a former flame, there was another theory. At the time of the Summitton man's
00:38:02
death, World War II had just finished, but Europe remained in chaos. Millions had been displaced and the
00:38:10
Soviet Union was invading more of Eastern Europe, leading to a mass exodus of people looking to find a better life
00:38:17
elsewhere. Australia was a popular destination. Isolated from many other parts of the
00:38:25
world, it was considered a safe place to live, especially if nuclear war broke out.
00:38:31
Millions had been relocating to Australia, and 1948 was the peak period for the Australian government's
00:38:38
displaced person's immigration program. It certainly wasn't uncommon for migrants to create new identities as
00:38:46
part of a fresh start in a new homeland. Some believed that the Summerton man might have been one of many immigrants
00:38:54
flocking to Australia at this time, which could explain why no one was ever able to identify him.
00:39:01
Another possibility was that the Summitton man was a returning soldier suffering from PTSD who had subsequently
00:39:08
become estranged from his family. But of course, with so many questions and so few answers, each theory has its
00:39:17
own pros and cons. The big glaring con for every theory is the unexplained cause of death.
00:39:25
If the summited man was a displaced immigrant or returned soldier, why did he just die with no sign of health
00:39:32
issues? The same goes for the love angle. If Jessica was the summit man's former
00:39:39
lover, that would explain why he was in Adelaide, but not his death. Suicide is one possibility, but many
00:39:49
people have found themselves more drawn to the Jason Bourne James Bond path. It's easy to explain the summit man's
00:39:57
death if he was a Russian spy in Adelaide as part of a secret mission. If that was the case, another spy could
00:40:05
have killed him with an undetectable poison. But if the summit man was a spy, where
00:40:11
does that leave Jessica Thompson? Why was her phone number in his copy of the Rubiad?
00:40:18
By the way, the copy of that book involved in this case was destroyed along with the summer man suitcase, and
00:40:25
an identical copy has never been located. Another interesting detail some have noted is that Jessica Thompson's
00:40:34
favorite book was Howard's End by Emor. This novel is the story of a girl who has a son out of wedlock. Her family
00:40:43
tried to scare her lover off and in doing so accidentally killed him in an altercation that proved [music] fatal
00:40:50
due to his pre-existing heart condition. Could that have been Jessica's way of telling us what happened to the summer
00:40:58
man without telling us what happened? [music] Because there isn't enough mystery
00:41:06
surrounding this case. What about this? 3 years before the summer man case, a man named Joseph Soulheim Marshall was
00:41:15
found dead in Sydney's Ashton Park. His death was ruled to be a suicide by poison.
00:41:23
When his body was found, a copy of Rubiat of Omar Cayam was lying on his chest. As previously mentioned, Rubiat is a
00:41:33
popular book, but the copy found on Mr. Marshall was an extremely rare edition. Just like in the Summitton Man case,
00:41:43
there are two people thought to be experts on the Summitton Man case, and links to their work are provided in the
00:41:49
episode show notes. First is Jerry Feltus, a retired decorated detective who has investigated
00:41:56
the case for many years. He has cracked some tough ones, but even he wasn't able
00:42:01
to solve the Summit Man. He has written a book on the case titled The Unknown Man.
00:42:10
The second expert is Professor Derek Abbott from Adelaide University. He stumbled across the case in 2009 and
00:42:18
became fascinated, perhaps even obsessed by the case. Fun fact, the two experts in the case
00:42:26
don't get on. Jerry Feltus basically viewed Professor Rabbit as an amateur, a pest who should stick to teaching at
00:42:33
universities and leave crimesolving to law enforcement professionals. >> [music]
00:42:38
>> But it can't be denied that both have done excellent work. Professor Abbott has appeared on a Reddit ask me anything
00:42:45
forum and has lectures on YouTube about the case. Another fun fact, while researching the
00:42:53
case, Professor Abbott met Rachel Thompson, the daughter of Robin Thompson and granddaughter of Jessica [music]
00:42:59
Thompson. He married her and they now have three children together. >> [music] >> Professor Rabbit was convinced that the
00:43:08
Summerton man was Robin Thompson's father and Jessica Thompson's former possibly jilted lover who was tracking
00:43:15
her down at the time of his death. Professor Rabbit reached this conclusion after observing a feature on the year of
00:43:22
the Summerton man, which only appears in 1 to 2% of the population. Robin Thompson, who died in 2009, also
00:43:31
shared this feature. In the hopes of confirming his theory, [music] Professor Rabbit submitted two
00:43:38
requests to have the Summitton man's remains exumed for DNA testing. [music] His idea was to compare his wife
00:43:46
Rachel's DNA to that of the Summitton man to see if there was a familial link. Both of these requests were rejected.
00:43:54
[music] However, in 2022, more than 6 years after the original release of this episode, there was [music] a stunning
00:44:03
breakthrough in the case. After Professor Rabbit had been investigating the case for more than a
00:44:13
decade, South Australia's then attorney general, Vicky Chapman, agreed to have the Summitton man's remains exumed for
00:44:20
DNA testing. This occurred in May 2021. Meanwhile, Professor Rabbit had also recovered some hairs from the plaster
00:44:30
case police had made of the Summitton man's head and torso. These were sent away for DNA analysis as
00:44:37
well. Just over a year later, Professor Rabbit announced that the Summitton man had
00:44:44
finally been identified. Using investigative genetic genealogy, Professor Rabbit and American
00:44:52
genealogologist Colleen Fitzpatrick were able [music] to trace two of the Summitton man's cousins.
00:44:58
This ultimately led them to identify the Summitton man as a missing man named Carl Charles Webb.
00:45:07
Born in 1905 in Footsgay, an [music] inner city suburb of Melbourne, Carl Webb was the youngest son of German
00:45:14
immigrants. He grew up to become an electrical engineer and instrument maker. He took
00:45:21
pleasure in poetry and even wrote a few poems himself. They seemed to focus mostly on death,
00:45:28
[music] a similar theme to the poems in Rubayat of Cayam. Carl Webb also enjoyed betting on horse
00:45:36
races. Professor Abbott has speculated that the code in the book linked to the Summitton
00:45:42
man case could actually be referencing raceh horses. In 1941, [music] he married a pharmacist and corruptist
00:45:51
named Dorothy Robertson. According to Dorothy, their marriage was not an easy one due in large part to
00:45:59
Carl. He was a quiet and somewhat isolated man who didn't have many friends and preferred a quiet life spent mostly at
00:46:08
home. Sometimes he could be moody, even threatening and violent. Dorothy said that in March 1946, Carl
00:46:18
attempted suicide by overdosing on ether, a flammable liquid that used to be used as a recreational drug due to
00:46:25
its euphoric effects. Dorothy intervened and nursed Carl back to health, which angered him.
00:46:34
Carl became more violent following his suicide attempt, and in September 1946, Dorothy left him out of fear for her own
00:46:43
life. She said he'd been physically and verbally abusive for years and would later obtain a divorce in 1951, citing
00:46:52
desertion. [music] Carl initially stayed in the couple's South Yara home before leaving for
00:46:59
whereabouts unknown in 1947. Members of his family said he relocated to Perth on the other side of the
00:47:08
country, but they soon lost touch with him. There was no trace of Carl after 1947
00:47:15
with no recorded documentation about his movements or location. With most of Carl's family members who
00:47:23
knew him having passed away by the time he was finally identified, there was no one to ask about what had happened to
00:47:29
him or how they drifted apart. Professor Rabbit has speculated that if Carl Webb was the Summitton man, he may
00:47:38
have traveled to Adelaide in November 1948 in search of his wife Dorothy, who wound up living in South Australia a few
00:47:45
years later. Another interesting clue was the fact that Carl Webb's eldest sister married a
00:47:52
man with the surname Keane, the same name [music] found on some of the Summitton man's clothing.
00:47:59
Her adult son, John Keane, had lived just 20 minutes from Carl before being killed in 1943 at age 26 [music] while
00:48:08
serving with the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II. Some items found in his possession
00:48:15
indicated he'd spent [music] time in the United States, possibly during his air crew training.
00:48:21
These included American coins and [music] a map of Chicago. If Carl Webb took ownership of some
00:48:28
[music] of Jon's belongings, this would explain why his garments bore the name Keane and appeared to have been
00:48:35
manufactured in the USA. >> [music] >> Professor Rabbit was confident he'd finally, at least partially, solved one
00:48:43
of Australia's most enduring mysteries. While South Australia police did not officially confirm the Summitton man's
00:48:50
identity through their own forensic team, they released a comment [music] stating, "We are heartened by the recent
00:48:57
development in that case and are cautiously optimistic that this may provide a breakthrough. [music]
00:49:03
We look forward to the outcome of further DNA work to confirm the identification, which will ultimately be
00:49:09
determined [music] by the coroner. Despite Professor Abbott's long-held suspicion that the Summitton man had
00:49:17
fathered Jessica [music] Thompson's son, Robin, DNA testing ruled out any genetic
00:49:22
link between them. Carl Webb [music] was not the grandfather of Professor Abbott's wife,
00:49:28
Rachel, and any connection he may have had to Jessica Thompson is unknown. [music]
00:49:35
Some of the more thrilling theories about the case were ultimately ruled out, like the notion that the summit man
00:49:41
was a Russian spy killed while undertaking espionage. [music] But questions still remain, such as why
00:49:50
was Carl Webb so determined to obscure his identity? Why did he travel to Adelaide?
00:49:57
Did he intend [music] to leave hidden messages behind via a crumpled note and an abandoned copy of a poetry book?
00:50:04
And how exactly did he die? While we may never know these answers for sure, we're now closer to guessing
00:50:12
at [music] the truth. Whereas before there was only mystery.