** The Taman Shud Case: ** (Longer, but VERY interesting!!) The Taman Shud Case is a mystery in a mystery wrapped in a mystery put in a box made of mystery and then mailed to a mystery house. It is such a mystery that the investigative prowess of Sherlock Holms, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Nicholas Cage as Ben Gates combined could not solve this case. On December 1, 1948 in Adelaid, Australia the body of an unidentified man was discovered on Somerton Beach. The man was in peak physical condition and very well dressed. All the labels in his clothing had been removed. In his pockets was a railway ticket. He unfortunately missed his train. He carried no identification and his dental records did not match any known person. The autopsy revealed that his last meal was a pasty that he had eaten three to four hours prior to his death and that is all. Tests searching for foreign substances came back negative, but investigators were convinced that the man had been poisoned. A month later police discovered a brown suitcase at Adelaide Railway station. The brown suitcase had its label removed just like the unidentified man’s clothing. Inside were clothes also with the labels removed. Among the more peculiar items in the bag were a stenciling brush, electrician’s screwdriver, and a pair of scissors normally used for stenciling. Unfortunately, investigators learned nothing of significance from the suitcase other than being able to trace a jacket contained within to an American retailer. (Picture 2) In June of 1949 investigators had the body reexamined and discovered a secret pocket in the man’s clothing that contained a scrap of paper with the words “Taman Shud” printed on it. Upon a closer inspection of the paper it was discovered that the scrap came from a collection of poems entitled The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This discovery led to a media blitz in an attempt to find the book the page was torn from. The campaign was successful as a man stepped forward with a rare first edition copy of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat, which he said he found in the back seat of his car the night before the unidentified man’s body was found. In the back of the book scrawled out faintly in pencil was a code written as thus: (Picture 3) Also written in the book was the phone number of a former nurse who while serving in World War II gave a copy of The Rubaiyat to an army officer named Alfred Boxall. Boxall was found alive with his copy of The Rubaiyat still intact, though, and both parties denied any connection to the unidentified dead man. Much speculation has been made on the case ranging from connections to other unsolved murder cases in the area, to the theory that the man was a spy working for a foreign government. Today the case remains unsolved and will perhaps always remain that way. - Eldiablo
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 20:25:19 +0000
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