The Somerton Man: A Body, a Code, and a Name 78 Years Later | No Trace Podcast #19

On 1 December 1948, a well-dressed man was found dead against the sea wall on Somerton beach, near Adelaide. Every label had been cut from his clothes. Hidden in his pocket was a scrap of paper with two Persian words: "Tamam shud" ("it is finished"). For 78 years, nobody could officially say who he was. In July 2026, police said their report to the coroner was nearly done. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Ld9... In No Trace Podcast #19, Julian and Claire follow the case from the evening witnesses on the beach to the autopsy that found no poison, the suitcase at Adelaide station, the coroner's inquest, the torn Rubaiyat and its unbroken five-line code, the nurse whose phone number was in the book, spy theories, the 2021 exhumation, and the DNA in a plaster cast that pointed to one name: Carl "Charles" Webb. CHAPTERS 00:00 Seven p.m. (intro) 01:29 The beach 02:47 The morning 04:31 A man in perfect health 06:05 No name 07:32 The suitcase 09:36 Tell us 10:17 The inquest 12:13 Tamam shud 13:29 The book in the car 15:01 The phone number 16:19 The soldier with the book 17:28 The grave 19:32 Was he a spy? 22:01 The code 23:23 The ears and the teeth 24:54 Hair in the plaster 26:18 Carl Webb 28:03 Still waiting 29:36 Who was he? SOURCES Coroner's inquest file, GRG 1/27 file 71/1949, State Records of South Australia ("But what poison? Mystery of the Somerton Man", archives.sa.gov.au) The Advertiser (Adelaide), "Body found on Beach", 2 Dec 1948 (Trove, National Library of Australia) Gerald Feltus, The Unknown Man (2010) ABC TV, Inside Story, "The Somerton Beach Mystery" (1978) Identifinders International / University of Adelaide press release, "The Somerton Man Identified" (26 Jul 2022) ABC News, "The Somerton Man has been named. What do we know about Carl 'Charles' Webb?" (2 Aug 2022) ABC News, "SA Police report to coroner into Somerton Man case complete 'very soon'" (5 Jul 2026) Popular Mechanics, "The Somerton Man Mystery Is Nearly Solved After 80 Years" (20 Aug 2026) J. Rehling, analysis of the Somerton Man letters (2014); D. Abbott et al., University of Adelaide (2009-2022) Carl Webb is the identification proposed by Prof. Derek Abbott and Colleen Fitzpatrick; as of October 2026 the South Australian coroner has not published a finding. Theories (spy, suicide, murder) are presented as theories. IMAGE CREDITS South Australia Police case photographs (public domain); State Library of South Australia / State Government Photographer (CC0); Edmund J. Sullivan's 1913 Rubaiyat illustrations (public domain); other photographs PD or CC-licensed as credited on screen, via Wikimedia Commons Quote cards reproduce text verbatim from the cited sources. AI-generated (Grok) where no real image exists, labelled on screen "Illustrative image". No AI image depicts a real person's face. Thumbnail and square image: AI-generated studio image of the hosts with a real police photograph from the case. Hosts Julian and Claire are AI-voiced characters (ElevenLabs). Script researched and written by No Trace History. Spy, lost soul, or something else? And what do you think the five lines of letters say? Tell us in the comments. We read every one. #SomertonMan #TamamShud #TrueCrime #History #Mystery #ColdCase #NoTraceHistory