Taman Shud Case
Unknown man’s position when he was first found
Who is this Unknown Man?
A body was found on the shore of Somerton Beach. The man was not breathing. He was wearing a nice suit—a very formal wear—which was totally bizarre. No one knew who he was; he had no form of identification.
He was not one of the reported missing people. There was no clue who he was and the investigators just simply theorised that he died of natural causes while he was near the shore of the beach. It’s been more than 65 years people investigated this body over and over again but no one knows the answer to this puzzle.
It was seven o’clock in the afternoon, 1948, when a married couple passed by this old man’s body. They thought he was just drunk and so ignored and passed by. There was another group of people who passed by just a few minutes after, but they also ignored him. The next day, when the married couple came out to the beach once again, they realised that it was the same man lying there in the same spot. Suspecting that something was wrong, the married couple called 911 immediately.
The body was sent to Royal Adelaide Hospital and was carefully examined. According to the police, the following materials were all found in this man’s pocket: “an unused train ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach, a bus ticket from Adelaide to Glenelg, a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, some Bryant & May matches, an aluminum comb, and a pack of Army Club cigarettes containing seven cigarettes of another, more expensive brand called Kensitas.”
The autopsy that the doctors did the next day told several things. The doctor claimed that this man’s foot was oddly twisted, making the doctors 
predict that he often wore formal shoes like shoes with heels. Also, his liver was swollen and his pupils were smaller than normal. Doctors all predicted that this man was poisoned, but there was no poisonous substance found in his body, which surprised both doctors and the police.
Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane continuously investigated through everything he could but there were barely any positive outcomes. There was a clueless note in one of the items that this man had with him. This note, after investigators tried to solve it, came to conclusion that it meant “finished” or “ended”. What could this possibly have meant? How did this poor, unknown man die?
Unknown code
Additional interesting information:
Items in the Suitcase
- Dressing gown and cord.
- Laundry bag with the name “Keane” written on it.
- One pair of scissors in a sheath.
- One knife in a sheath (apparently a cut down table knife).
- One stencil brush.
- Two singlets.
- Two pairs of underpants.
- One pair of trousers (with dry cleaning marks), with a 6d coin in the pocket.
- One sports coat.
- One coat shirt.
- One pair of pyjamas.
- One yellow coat shirt.
- One singlet bearing the name “Kean” (without an “e” on the end).
- One singlet with name torn out.
- One shirt, without name tag.
- Six handkerchiefs.
- One piece of light board.
- Eight large envelopes, one small envelope.
- Two coat hangers.
- One razor strap.
- One cigarette lighter.
- One razor.
- One shaving brush.
- One small screwdriver.
- One toothbrush.
- Toothpaste.
- One glass dish.
- One soap dish containing a hairpin.
- Three safety pins.
- One front and back collar stud.
- One brown button.
- One teaspoon.
- One broken pair of scissors.
- One card of tan thread.
- One tin of tan boot polish.
- Two airmail stickers.
- One scarf.
- One towel.
- An unspecified number of pencils, mostly Royal Sovereign brand. Three pencils were H.
