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Derek Abbott, from the University of Adelaide, says the body of a man found on one of the city's beaches in 1948 belonged to Carl "Charles" Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in Melbourne in 1905. Last May, South Australia police responded to Abbott's calls to exhume the Somerton man's body and experts at Forensic Science SA started work to try to find the best way to analyze his DNA. But in the end, Abbott, a professor in the Adelaide University School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, claims it was strands of the man's hair trapped in a...

On 1 December, 1948, the man’s body was found on Somerton Beach in South Australia with the circumstances of his death remaining an open police investigation. The Somerton man was first found by passers-by who noticed him slumped against a seawall. The cause of death remains unknown and many theories have been advanced over his identity, ranging from a jilted lover to a Cold War spy. An initial police investigation and coronial inquest left the matter unresolved, with the case particularly mystifying because of a number of items found with the body. They included a suitcase, items of clothing with...