The children know the man whose portrait hangs above their playroom door as Mister S or Mister Somerton. His real name remains a mystery more than 70 years after he was found dead in a smart brown suit on an Australian beach, a half-smoked cigarette resting on his collar.
South Australian police are exhuming the body belonging to the Somerton Man.
More than 70 years after the bloke was discovered on a South Australian beach, the Tamám Shud case is still a complete mystery.
But authorities are confident new DNA testing could be undertaken to find out the identity of the body and have ordered for his bones to be brought to the surface.
Detective Superintendent Des Bray is hopeful this new direction in the case will get them a step closer to solving it.
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10 Following recovery of the remains Forensic Science SA will attempt to recover a DNA profile from the man, he said.
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The Somerton Man shortly after autopsy. If a DNA profile can be obtained, and subject the amount and quality of the DNA a forensic case meeting will be held to formulate the most appropriate DNA strategy which will then require considerable investigation work to have any chance of identifying the man or where he originated from, Bray said. He said technology available today is ahead of the techniques available to investigators who discovered the body in the 1940s. For years, the man s identity and circumstances of his death have been a mystery to locals and police hope this new development will lead to answers.
I’m a sucker for a good mystery.
Not only do I spend a lot of time watching documentaries about oft-investigated historical enigmas, or listening to podcasts about unsolved criminal cases, I like a good mystery at the heart of my fiction, too.
But the strange thing is, I don’t necessarily want to see them solved!
Somehow that would take away some of the interest for me. Better to let the imagination run wild, I say! There have been some great books based on history’s most confounding moments; examples of authors using a real-life event as a jumping-off point to tell a fascinating story.
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