In 1948, an unidentified man was found dead on an Australian beach with a scrap of paper reading "tamam shud" (meaning "finished" in Persian). His identity remained unknown for over 70 years.
On December 1, 1948, the body of a well-dressed man was found propped against a seawall on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia. All labels had been removed from his clothing, leaving no clues to his identity. The autopsy could not determine the cause of death, though poisoning was suspected.
A small piece of paper printed with the words "Tamam Shud" was found in a hidden pocket. It was torn from the final page of Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat." The source book was later found in a nearby car, with an undeciphered code and a phone number penciled on the back cover.
The phone number belonged to a nurse named Jessica "Jestyn" Thomson. She denied knowing the man, but her reaction seemed guarded, fueling suspicions of Cold War espionage connections.
The body was exhumed in 2021 for DNA analysis. In 2022, Professor Derek Abbott of the University of Adelaide announced the identification of the man as Carl Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne.
