Police time is the Australian summer of 1948–49. Identity time jumped to 2022.
Dates below prefer the inquest, police paper and the Abbott–Fitzpatrick announcement.
Timeline
- Body found
A man is found dead on Somerton Park beach. South Australia Police open an unidentified-person file.
- Railway suitcase
A case left at Adelaide Railway Station is linked to the dead man. It holds clothes and personal items, not a name that solves the file.
- Tamám Shud scrap
A torn phrase from a Rubaiyat is found in a fob pocket. The case acquires its English nickname.
- Glenelg Rubaiyat
A matching book is recovered, with the phrase gone, pencil markings and a telephone number that leads to Jessica Thomson.
- Inquest sits
Coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland hears pathologist John Burton Cleland and police. Cause of death is not settled. Identity is unknown.
- Plaster bust
A cast is made to aid identification. Hair in that plaster later becomes the DNA source.
- Inquest closed without name
The coronial file ends as it began: an unidentified man and an uncertain medical cause.
- Abbott’s public campaign
Derek Abbott and others press for exhumation and DNA. South Australia resists, then later permits further scientific work on existing exhibits.
- Exhumation and tests
The remains are exhumed for a modern identification attempt. Results are not at first a public name.
- Carl Webb announced
Abbott and Colleen Fitzpatrick name Carl Webb from bust-hair DNA and genealogy. Police say they are reviewing the claim. Cause of death stays open.
After 2022 the name-file thickens and the medical file does not.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.