Somerton Man: The Mystery Given a Name After 70 Years

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: The war is over and the cold War is beginning and suddenly everyone is looking over their shoulder for spies.

So when a well-dressed man turned up dead on an Adelaide beach with no id, no wallet, and every label carefully removed from his clothing,

naturally people started asking questions.

[00:00:19] Adam Cox: You said his death looked like poisoning.

[00:00:22] Kyle Risi: However, the toxicology test found absolutely nothing.

But then the police find a book inside it was a phone number of a mysterious woman who lived just 400 metres from where his body was found.

[00:00:36] Adam Cox: She definitely knows him,

[00:00:38] Kyle Risi: Inside the book, they find five lines of letters. It was a secret code.

[00:00:42] Adam Cox: You're insinuating he is a spy. But in Adelaide,

[00:00:45] Kyle Risi: But adam, just 300 miles north was one of the most secretive weapon testing ranges in the western world.

For decades, the summits of man looked like one of those mysteries that just would never be solved.

Was the Summerton Man, a secret spy or just a lonely heartbroken man who lost the desire to go on.

bloody hell.

[00:01:33] Kyle Risi: welcome to the Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:42] Adam Cox: We explore strange, true stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and remarkable people.

[00:01:50] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:01:52] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the Chief Canteen Stew compliance auditor for this week.

[00:01:58] Kyle Risi: Stu Compliance.

[00:01:59] Adam Cox: Yeah. I obviously conduct audits on our stew, working out the origins without asking forbidden questions. Um, I look at the ladle sampling.

I make sure the ingredients are all up to scratch. Mm-hmm. Um, Yeah, it makes sure the stew is fit for consumption for our audience members.

[00:02:15] Kyle Risi: So we need to make sure that Sue isn't, when she's firing people, that She's like quarantining them to the back room to be turned into stew. That's your job to make, to keep Sue in check. Basically,

[00:02:26] Adam Cox: the animals, once they die in the circus uhhuh, they get turned into stew. Oh,

[00:02:30] Kyle Risi: okay. So that's allowed if you die by natural causes, fine.

[00:02:33] Adam Cox: Uh, not always by natural causes.

[00:02:37] Kyle Risi: Oh God.

[00:02:37] Adam Cox: There's a lot of accidents.

[00:02:39] Kyle Risi: Uh, That's true actually. Guys, if you are new to the show and you wanna support us, then the absolute best way to support the show and to enjoy exclusive perks is to join us over a Patreon, because signing up will get you access to next week's episode a whole seven days before anyone else.

[00:02:55] Adam Cox: And for as little as $5 a month, you can become a fellow freak of the show, which will unlock our entire back catalogue, including our classic episodes.

[00:03:04] Kyle Risi: Every week we say this, we forget to look at what the damn episodes are. Adam, that is your line in the script. It is your job to go through and see what those special episodes are.

I can't remember.

[00:03:16] Adam Cox: Eh,

[00:03:17] Kyle Risi: guys, let's be honest though. The real reason to sign up as a certified freak and a big top team member is that you get exclusive, access to our compendium key chain. And that is so we can always be there dangling

[00:03:31] Adam Cox: near

[00:03:31] Kyle Risi: your

[00:03:32] Adam Cox: crotch.

[00:03:33] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:36] Adam Cox: That was dirtier than normal.

[00:03:37] Kyle Risi: That was something else.

[00:03:38] Adam Cox: And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favourite podcast app and leave us a review. 'cause your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:03:47] Kyle Risi: Yes, Adam, that's the housekeeping out the way.

[00:03:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. We

[00:03:50] Kyle Risi: did what we need to do with the producers insist that we do, but

[00:03:54] Adam Cox: did the duties.

[00:03:55] Kyle Risi: did the dirties. Today on the compendia Madam, we're diving into an assembly. Coded clues, cold beaches and answers that somehow make everything stranger.

[00:04:06] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:04:07] Kyle Risi: Adam, today our story has taken us back to the year of 1948. A country I think is fair to say we don't pay enough attention to on this podcast, but also I think it's the country. I would say we love the most

[00:04:21] Adam Cox: Italy.

[00:04:22] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:04:23] Adam Cox: Oh,

[00:04:23] Kyle Risi: oh, yeah. I mean, that's a very close, yeah. Okay. That's number one. So the second best country that we love the most, let me give you a clue. If America gave us the king of pop, then this country gave us the queen of pop.

[00:04:40] Adam Cox: Oh, so we're talking about Australia then.

[00:04:42] Kyle Risi: Australia baby. Yes. Adelaide. To be precise. Adam, which we haven't been to, and after researching this episode, who was actually suggested by Robin Linda from Brockville, Ontario in Canada.

I think it's fair to say that I'm second guessing whether or not we actually want to visit this city, ever, because Adelaide is actually known Adam as the city of murders.

[00:05:06] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:05:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Over the years, there've been some really, unsettling, very gruesome, high profile killings. For example, between 1979 and 1983, the city was shook by what they called the family murders, where five young men were abducted, tortured, sexually assaulted, and murdered by a group known as the family.

[00:05:25] Adam Cox: I mean, is it actually a family? 'cause that's a weird Sunday afternoon.

[00:05:29] Kyle Risi: Like it gives you, mob vibes. But when you think like mob in Australia, you you can't take them seriously without adorable accent. Do you know what I mean? So, Ooh, you're gonna kill me. Are you gonna stab me? Yeah. No, they have stabbed me and they have killed me. Not only will Australia kill you, the people can kill you too, especially in Adelaide.

But also between 1976 and 1979, the Truro murders shook the city where a couple of guys, Christopher War and James Miller killed several women and girls dumping their body around the city.

But Adam, more horrifyingly though the Snowtown murders between 1992 and 1999 when a series of acid filled barrels started turning up around the outskirts of the city, containing the remains of 11 people targeted as undesirables.

[00:06:17] Adam Cox: That feels like three episodes we should be covering anyway.

[00:06:19] Kyle Risi: It does, doesn't it? This is the perfect excuse to go back to the country. We second best love.

Now, while today's story isn't a gruesome one, it is probably the most fascinating story I have ever brought to the compendium with a 70-year-old enduring mystery at the exact heart of it.

Now, to set the stage for you, Adam, on the 30th of November, 1948, just as the sun was disappearing over Summerton Beach in Adelaide, a couple were taking an evening stroll across the sand when they noticed a man sitting against the sea wall.

Ordinarily they wouldn't have thought twice about this, but this man looked at a place for a start. He wasn't dressed in the 1940s equivalent of Billabong broad shorts and thongs, sporting like a surfboard and a mini beach side barbecue next to him.

[00:07:10] Adam Cox: So if he wasn't wearing that, then what were Australians wearing back then?

[00:07:13] Kyle Risi: I dunno. What was the 1940s kind of beach etiquette attire for Australians?

Probably nothing. I mean, Australians are nice to look at, so I hope it was nothing.

[00:07:25] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:07:26] Kyle Risi: Basically, Adam, he was dressed in a smart brown suit. He was clean shaven, his hair was neatly combed. for a well put together guy. They thought it's strange that he was idly sitting within a small swarm of mosquitoes that were buzzing around him with barely any motivation to just bat them away.

[00:07:42] Adam Cox: So he is happy to be like, what? Bitten?

[00:07:45] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I dunno if he was happy, but I don't think like he had the motivation to just be like, get the fuck outta here.

[00:07:50] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:07:51] Kyle Risi: And so as they passed, he did attempt to lift his arm slightly before dropping it back down. Almost like a half arse greeting, or perhaps Adam, a call for help, because the next morning, that same man was found dead in the exact same spot, in the exact same position.

And what baffled investigators was that he seemed to be perfectly healthy and so to simply die like this just felt really suspicious.

But the strangest thing was that no matter how hard the police tried, they'd never been able to identify who he was.

He didn't have a wallet on him, no personal items that could identify him and Adam, they just assumed that someone would eventually come forward and report him missing.

But Adam, in the years and decades have followed. Nobody did.

This didn't stop the police from trying. They did try their best to piece together what they could from the clues that were left behind. But with each new thread, investigators were honestly just left even more baffled than they were before.

Because amongst the clues, police had found a scroll embedded, almost hidden inside his pockets.

This tiny scrap of paper had a single word printed on it, which led the cops to a mysterious book, which led them to a mysterious woman, which led them to a mysterious code.

And so to the world following this story, this looked like a case of espionage involving an international ring of Cold War spies. Something Adam that quite literally feels like it was lifted straight out of an Agatha Christie novel.

[00:09:21] Adam Cox: I'm, that's a lot to take in.

[00:09:22] Kyle Risi: It is. It is such an enduring mystery. But Adam, the point is, for more than 70 years, the mystery has endured and this man has become known simply as the mysterious summerton man.

[00:09:34] Adam Cox: So he was sitting on the edge of a sea wall, And then next day he's dead.

[00:09:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Adam Cox: Still on the sea wall.

[00:09:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Same position. He hadn't moved all night.

[00:09:41] Adam Cox: He wasn't bitten by one of the mosquitoes, was he?

[00:09:43] Kyle Risi: Maybe. I'm sure he was. He's a human, a tasty Australian.

[00:09:46] Adam Cox: But what I meant was, it didn't have an allergic reaction.

[00:09:49] Kyle Risi: Mm. Doesn't look like it. He was completely healthy. So I'm assuming you haven't heard of this story before?

[00:09:53] Adam Cox: No, never.

[00:09:54] Kyle Risi: It is literally one of the most Famous Australian stories. I have heard of the story before, but only in that vague way where I knew he was a man who mysteriously turned up dead on Australian beach.

And over the years, a tonne of theories have been floated around that ranged from him being a criminal, perhaps a smuggler from a foreign country.

But of course, the most enduring theory was that he was a spy eliminated with a poison so clever that had left no trace.

[00:10:17] Adam Cox: Oh, was it the Russians?

[00:10:18] Kyle Risi: That's what they thought.

[00:10:19] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:10:20] Kyle Risi: But also based on the mysterious woman at the heart of the story, people have theorised that the summit to man was just a heartbroken lover who lost the will to carry on.

[00:10:30] Adam Cox: I mean, it's quite sad actually.

[00:10:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it is. And we'll go into the story and you'll see that possibly that might be true.

But the question was did he kill himself or did he quite literally die from a broken heart? And now we have covered stories like this before. Jennifer Fairgate, for example, who was mysteriously found dead in a hotel room in Oslo.

We also have, of course, the episode that, we did recently, the body in room 10 46 about the man found dead, locked inside his hotel room under really bizarre circumstances.

And of course, Adam for decades, just like those cases, this looked like a mystery that would never be solved.

And how do we feel about mysteries that don't have a tie up in the end?

[00:11:06] Adam Cox: Really disappointing.

[00:11:07] Kyle Risi: It's so disappointing.

But Adam, that wasn't until 2022, when basically an amateur researcher with a deep obsession with his story thinks that he might have finally cracked this 70-year-old mystery that has puzzled Australia

[00:11:19] Adam Cox: thinks he cracked it or did he crack it?

[00:11:22] Kyle Risi: I would say it's almost certain that he cracked it. But this potential cracking of the story is a story within itself.

It is just amazing how he did it. And so, Adam, today on the compendium, I'm gonna tell you the story of the Summerton man.

[00:11:34] Adam Cox: Okay, I'm ready.

[00:11:35] Kyle Risi: So today We'll look at how this unidentified man on this Adelaide beach became one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century.

Why so many people believe that he may have been a spy, and how modern DNA testing may have finally revealed his name.

But also what I found really interesting about the story, Adam, is that while it's almost certainly solved the conspiracy theories around the story still refuse to go away.

And I think this is something that speaks to our appetite for industry. Like the evidence is there, but people have refused to accept the explanation.

And I think it's because the most likely answer, in many cases, is the most sim and people wanted it something really extravagant.

[00:12:12] Adam Cox: I reckon he was bit by something literally that's what I'm calling it right now.

[00:12:17] Kyle Risi: Adam. The story is filled with so many twists.

[00:12:19] Adam Cox: There can be

[00:12:20] Kyle Risi: twists, twist after twist,

[00:12:21] Adam Cox: after twist. But if he is like bitten by a snake,

[00:12:23] Kyle Risi: been by

[00:12:24] Adam Cox: a

[00:12:25] Kyle Risi: mosquito? No, it was bitten by a snake. Oh, what a twist. No, it was a red back spider. Ooh. Didn't see that coming.

[00:12:31] Adam Cox: It was an old lady.

[00:12:34] Kyle Risi: But anyway, Adam, are you ready for this Agatha Christie esque mystery.

[00:12:39] Adam Cox: Okay. I've got my, inspector's cap on. My McGonal.

[00:12:42] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. McGonal, my

[00:12:43] Adam Cox: mcgon my mechanical

[00:12:45] Kyle Risi: funny. Are you even trying to say,

[00:12:46] Adam Cox: what's that? Like one eye glass

[00:12:48] Kyle Risi: thing. Oh, monocle.

[00:12:49] Adam Cox: Yeah. I got my monocle.

[00:12:50] Kyle Risi: You are such a stupid bitch.

[00:12:52] Adam Cox: And I got my notepad and pen.

[00:12:54] Kyle Risi: Okay, good. I'm ready. That's all we need.

So our story starts on the 30th 1948, when around 7:00 PM a couple were walking along the beach at summits and park just outside Adelaide.

And as they walked their notes, the man sitting propped up against the sea wall next to a staircase leading up to the promenade above, he stood out on accounts of how well he was dressed and presented, He was basically in a smart brown suit.

As they passed, the man seemed to raise his arm briefly as if he was like halfheartedly, waving back at them. The couple, honestly, they just assumed Adam that he was drunk, notably because he was sitting within a small swarm of mosquitoes and didn't really make any attempt to bat them away.

Kind of alluded to this in the intro.

[00:13:31] Adam Cox: Wait, he's not already dead, is he?

[00:13:33] Kyle Risi: No, no, he's alive.

[00:13:34] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:13:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And so they kind of giggled to themselves and then they carried on the following morning though, on the 1st of December, two jockeys were taking the horse out when they two saw the man,

He was in the same position as the couple had found him the evening before, but at this time, gave the jockey's cause to be concerned because he seemed to be staring blankly ahead.

His mouth was his jar, from what they could tell, the colour had drained from his face as they took a closer look. Their suspicions were confirmed. Adam, he was dead,

[00:14:02] Adam Cox: but he's still sitting upright.

[00:14:03] Kyle Risi: He was found with his head up against the seawall.

[00:14:06] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:14:06] Kyle Risi: And there was notably an unsmoked cigarettes that seemed to have fallen from his mouth onto the lapel of his jackets, which saw, tells you that he had died suddenly and unexpectedly, right?

Mm-hmm.

After the cops were called at around mid-morning, the man's body was transported to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where the coroner determined that he likely died around two o'clock that morning.

Now, initially, before seeing the man, the coroner assumed that maybe he was just an age vagabond or homeless man, perhaps a drunk, but seeing his body is very clear that it was the opposite of what he assumed he was, like I said, well dressed, clean shaven. He even had freshly trimmed fingernails. In fact, his shoes had appeared to have been recently polished almost to a mirror shine.

Not the kind of man you would expect to turn up dead on a beach, right?

[00:14:52] Adam Cox: No, I don't. Someone with well cut nails. Absolutely not.

[00:14:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. No, it, I mean, you laugh and you, you say that sarcastically, but it doesn't sound like he was in a fit of depression. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

He was described as looking around maybe his mid forties, fairly good, looking around five foot 11. He had grey eyes and reddish brown hair.

However, the thing that stood out the most was that his toe seemed to be bunched up together, and his calf muscles appeared to be fairly high and pronounced

Adam to the coroner that suggested perhaps that maybe he was someone who was a ballet dancer.

[00:15:27] Adam Cox: I was gonna say, or like war high heels.

[00:15:29] Kyle Risi: Yes, that's exactly what they said. But I left that out. 'cause I thought it took away from the seriousness of it. But the fact that you laughed, I just, now I've said it, but yes.

[00:15:38] Adam Cox: Wow. So when they stripped him, they're like, man, my guy's calf muscles.

[00:15:41] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. On top of this, Adam 16 of his teeth were missing.

[00:15:46] Adam Cox: Oh, that's a lot.

[00:15:46] Kyle Risi: It is a lot.

But not because they'd fallen out or been removed. He appeared to have a rare genetic developmental condition known as hypo donia, which is where one or more of your teeth fail to develop properly.

Mm-hmm. So it's like from childhood.

But this wasn't the only rare genetic trait that he had.

He also had an unusual ear structure where the upper hollow of his ear, was significantly larger than the lower one. So that's unusual.

But both of these were fairly rare genetic traits with like less than 2% of the population having either one of these.

So to have both was very unusual.

Now, because he didn't have any idea on him, the coroner figured that this would be the clue to identifying who this man was if no one came forward.

[00:16:28] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:28] Kyle Risi: Among the items found on him were two travel tickets. One used bus ticket stub from Adelaide to Summerton.

So coming in and the other was an unused ticket stub from Adelaide to Henley Beach, which is a nearby town.

So it is fair to say that he had no intention of going to summit and to die if he had plans to move on.

[00:16:48] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:16:48] Kyle Risi: But for someone who was travelling, the lack of any personal luggage, like a change of clothes, money or even a wallet, this was really baffling to the cops.

On his person, though, they did find a few other items.

The first was a comb, which appeared to have been made in the USA, but also a pack of juicy fruit gum. Again, typical of a brand that you would find in America.

So the question was, was he a tourist? The idea was only reinforced by the jacket that he was wearing, which also seemed to be American.

It was unlikely to be imported by an Australian retailer since it seemed to be specifically tailored for him. Right. Based on the stitching, the way it fitted in.

[00:17:25] Adam Cox: I see. So he must be a man with some decent money or whatever like that. Yeah. Like well dressed, can tailor his own suits.

[00:17:31] Kyle Risi: Exactly. However, haircuts and the way that it was styled suggested that he was actually British. Either way, it seemed clear he was a very well travelled foreigner.

[00:17:41] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:42] Kyle Risi: Now, they wondered if maybe his other clothing might have any clues to his identity. 'cause at the time, it was very common for people to have their names or initials sewn into their labels of their clothing, which was usually used to identify your items when you're at the lats or the dry cleaners, et cetera.

When they checked his clothing, there was evidence that his clothing did have these laundry labels in his clothes, but they'd all been removed. And Adam removed very carefully not hacked out, but they were methodically kind of removed with a stitching being very carefully unpicked

[00:18:13] Adam Cox: rather than just like cut it out.

Yeah. This is what happened with Jennifer Fairgate. Am I right saying her labels were removed in her clothing?

[00:18:20] Kyle Risi: Also, the guy in room 1 0 46. Right?

[00:18:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. And so that is again, thinking like spies.

[00:18:27] Kyle Risi: Yes. Exactly. Another thing they notice about his clothing was that his trouser pockets appear to have been repaired using a very thick wax orange coloured thread. Now, after examining the man's body, the coroner tries to determine how he might have died.

Initially, he presumed it was a heart attack or some kind of aneurysm. They would take him out very quickly considering on how he was found. Right. With the cigarette unsmoked on his lapel.

But on final inspection, his heart, Adam, was fine, and his brain showed no sign of haemorrhaging. They then checked his other organs. They did find that he had an enlarged spleen and an excess of blood in his liver, kidneys, and his stomach.

Now, to the coroner, this indicates that he might have been poisoned. However, there's no evidence that he had vomited or convulsed, which would've supported this theory of a poisoning.

But still, they ran toxicology tests just to be sure. And when they came back, they were completely negative.

In the end, Adam, his death was basically ruled inconclusive.

[00:19:24] Adam Cox: So is that the only reason you could have that kind of internal bleeding then?

[00:19:28] Kyle Risi: There might be another, reason, but they haven't determined it. I mean, the most likely reason for that would be a poisoning. it could be that the poisoning was undetectable by their tests.

[00:19:37] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:37] Kyle Risi: Either way, the way that he died to them was not natural. And so by extension, they didn't believe it was an accident, but it was still a mystery.

And this is where one of the avenues into this conspiracy opens up, because one of the more mysterious things they find among his items was a pack of cigarettes, specifically a brand called Army Club Cigarettes.

They're very, very cheap. However, the actual cigarettes inside had been replaced with much more expensive brand of cigarettes called.

This is unusual because it's usually the other way around, right? People will buy cheap cigarettes and place them into a more expensive box. It's like a, a status thing, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:20:15] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:20:15] Kyle Risi: The ladies love it and the boys are like, Hmm, check out this guy

[00:20:18] Adam Cox: Yeah. But is that again, a bit of a red herring because he perhaps just got some other cigarettes and they, he could fit more into this box

[00:20:26] Kyle Risi: Possibly.

Either way, there was now a dead man and the investigators needed to try and locate his necks of kin. Although with no id, the cops decided to publish his photo in the newspaper hoping that someone might recognise him. But alas Adam, nobody came forward to conclusively identify him.

[00:20:41] Adam Cox: Would that be a dead photo of him?

[00:20:43] Kyle Risi: Was his corpse, yeah.

[00:20:44] Adam Cox: Wow. Would they do that? Yeah. That's the only way to identify him, right? But yeah.

[00:20:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. When you Google the Summerton man, that is the photo that floats around is his dead body is bust.

[00:20:53] Adam Cox: Oh, wow.

[00:20:53] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Now, Adam, after about a month of no luck, the investigators were more and more convinced that he must have had at least some luggage with him, but perhaps maybe it was lost or stolen.

And so they start appealing to anyone who may have noticed any abandoned luggage at maybe some nearby hotels or stations or anywhere. Maybe someone might have dropped off a bag.

Adam. Amazingly, three days after this, someone from the Adelaide Railway station contacts the cops saying that they had found a dark brown suitcase that had been abandoned in one of their luggage store cupboards.

According to the ticket that was attached to the suitcase, it was checked in around about 11:00 AM on the 30th of November, the day before the Summerton man was found dead on that beach.

Inside investigators find a couple of handkerchiefs, a pair of scissors, a small knife, and some toiletries.

But amongst those things, they also find apo of orange wax thread.

[00:21:44] Adam Cox: Ah, so this is how they can link it to him.

[00:21:47] Kyle Risi: Exactly. It's the same thread that was used to mend the tyranny pockets.

So not only does this prove the suitcase was him, it also reinforced the theory that he was American because the brand of thread. Could only be bought in America at the time.

[00:21:59] Adam Cox: Okay. So some of the clues are coming together.

[00:22:01] Kyle Risi: Yes. But they also find something to suggest that he may have been in the Navy, because inside his case was a stencil brush, the kind that you would usually use to kind of paint labels on like cargo on a ship.

[00:22:13] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:22:14] Kyle Risi: So was he a naval officer? Possibly.

But they also find something that contradicted this because they also find a set of drafting pencils that are typically used by an engineer.

And so who was this? Man?

[00:22:26] Adam Cox: It's quite an odd collection of items in this suitcase.

[00:22:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Very strange, isn't it?

again, The clothes in these suitcase also had their laundry labels removed, methodically removed.

[00:22:36] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:22:37] Kyle Risi: Except for three items. And on those labels, they all had the same name on them.

[00:22:41] Adam Cox: What was that?

[00:22:42] Kyle Risi: T Keen, so K-E-A-N-E. So was this T Keen? Was that his name?

It seems like it.

And so the cops check missing person records for anyone by that name.

But Adam, when nothing turns up, they decide to extend that search to other countries because there's this insinuation that maybe he might be a foreigner.

They extended the search to the uk, Canada and the us. But again, nothing turns up. So it's weird. It's mysterious, isn't it?

[00:23:06] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like I, I still find it odd that someone's going through all that sort of trouble to try and master their identity, remove labels. Like he must be under some kind of operation. It feels like it.

[00:23:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It does feel like it. Doesn't it? And so by April, the police are basically at a loss.

Next they decide to invite a pathologist from the University of Adelaide to review the case, his autopsy, and of course the close. And some of his personal effects.

And to everybody's amazement, he finds something.

Tucked away inside one of his pockets is a tiny rolled up scrap of paper. Almost like a scroll. It's really tightly wrapped up. It was so well hidden and embedded in his trouser pocket, Adam, that the pathologist had to use tiny tweezers to extract it.

[00:23:48] Adam Cox: How small is this then?

[00:23:49] Kyle Risi: It was maybe about that big. So a couple inches.

[00:23:53] Adam Cox: Right. Okay.

[00:23:54] Kyle Risi: On the scrapper paper were just two words. Teman should,

it wasn't handwritten. It was printed basically. And it looked like it'd been ripped from a page in a book.

One of the investigators eventually recognised the language as Persian, and from there they were able to link it back to a book by a 12th century poet, a guy called Amman Kayna titled the Rubaiyat,

[00:24:15] Adam Cox: how were they able to do that?

[00:24:17] Kyle Risi: Well, it's a very popular book, ran about that time. If you were into poetry, you would've known this book.

As a work it's a collection of poems that celebrates kind of the good life, like eating, drinking, love, making, while not putting too much stock into the hereafter.

and The words to moon should, that he ripped out this book are actually the last two words of the physical book.

Even in translated copies, they're normally left untranslated because it's such an iconic line in this book and it's probably why someone was able to recognise it. And the words actually, Adam mean it is finished.

And so the way the scrap of paper had been treated, like literally rolled up carefully and tightly and then seemingly deliberately hidden in his sh trousers indicates to the cops that perhaps this was a suicide.

[00:24:58] Adam Cox: Yeah. It feels that way, right? Yeah. Like, why else would he be holding that? Like it's something over and therefore he can now die. I don't know.

[00:25:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Now, because of, as we've already said, this kind of spy espionage kind of thread to the story. Mm-hmm. A lot of people might think that it might be an indicator to maybe his organisation mm-hmm. That he'd finished his mission.

[00:25:18] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

[00:25:19] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:20] Adam Cox: But it's so odd that he had tightly rolled that and put it into his trousers,

[00:25:23] Kyle Risi: very odd. And for it to be so hidden.

[00:25:25] Adam Cox: Did he want that to be found?

[00:25:27] Kyle Risi: Who knows, but they almost didn't.

[00:25:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:30] Kyle Risi: Adam eventually, six months passed, the cops are so no closer to understanding what had happened or who he was, but now they have to literally start thinking about putting this guy to rest.

Before they did this, they did decide to have him embalmed in case they ever needed to excuse his body.

As well as this, they bring in a guy called Paul Lawson to make a plaster cast off his head and shoulders just to use basically if anyone came forward to report him missing and they could then bring out this cast to kind of say, is this him?

[00:25:55] Adam Cox: How often do they do that kind of thing.

[00:25:57] Kyle Risi: I think it's quite a regular thing that they would do, especially in, unidentified cases. 'cause you have to, you can't just keep the body on ice.

[00:26:03] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's smart. I didn't realise they did that.

[00:26:05] Kyle Risi: When that was all done, the Summerton man was then buried at West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide on the 14th of June, 1949.

And his tombstone basically read Adam.

He lies the unknown man who was found at Summerton Beach.

It is really sad, isn't it? It is a sad case, regardless of how you look at it. This guy who's just been found randomly dead on the speech.

[00:26:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. And like, especially if he's from America. Mm-hmm. Like does his family know

[00:26:29] Kyle Risi: exactly

[00:26:30] Adam Cox: All this sort of stuff.

[00:26:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It is so sad. And so the cops keep quietly working in the background. They start to wonder if they might be able to track down the actual book that the piece of paper was actually torn from.

They send out another public plea. The cops also call around all the local libraries to check their copies of the Rubaiyat, to see maybe if the final word of the book had actually been torn out.

Adam, a month later in July, 1949, a man who the cops refer to as Ronald walks into the Adelaide Police Station to report that he in fact had the exact copy of the  Rubaiyat that the cops were looking for.

[00:27:04] Adam Cox: What are the chances of that?

[00:27:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it is wild.

[00:27:07] Adam Cox: It feels like, I dunno, if I was the police, I was thinking what are the chances of actually solving this And they obviously do all this work to try and do that, but I would be like, they must not be expecting much in return.

[00:27:18] Kyle Risi: I don't think so. But I think with every new clue that comes, they get more determined to go, what's next? Mm-hmm. Like, where does this lead.

Now? Apparently, the day before the Summerton Man was found, Ronald had actually parked his car up on Mosley Street while visiting Summerton Beach.

He remembers it being super hot that day because he deliberately left his windows down to stop the car from getting too hot.

When he came back, the book was on his car seat. Someone had basically just thrown it through the window.

[00:27:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:45] Kyle Risi: He keeps the book. He doesn't think twice about it until he reads the update in the paper and then he remembered that he had it.

When the cops flipped to the last page, the last page had been torn out and the scrapper paper perfectly matched the tear. It was the same book.

[00:28:01] Adam Cox: So we are thinking that the Summerton man ripped that out, threw it into the car before he then went to kill himself.

[00:28:07] Kyle Risi: Kill himself or, or die before

[00:28:09] Adam Cox: he die.

[00:28:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. We don't know. They do also notice something very unusual because written in pencil in the book was a telephone number belonging to a nurse who lived 400 metres away from where the Summerton man was found dead.

[00:28:22] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:28:23] Kyle Risi: At the time, the cops didn't reveal the woman's name, only referring to her as Justin. So Justin with a an E and a Y.

[00:28:32] Adam Cox: Why that name?

[00:28:33] Kyle Risi: I dunno.

[00:28:34] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:28:34] Kyle Risi: It's not her real name. She specifically requested there were cops to keep her name out of this.

[00:28:38] Adam Cox: Oh, but why would she do that?

[00:28:39] Kyle Risi: Exactly. At the time she had a young son, round about one years old. Literally, the cops suspected that maybe she and the Summerton man might have been involved romantically, possibly her 1-year-old son was the mysterious Somerton Man's. Right.

She's also come down to the station where they show her the plaster cast Adam.

She's visibly shaken. One of the police officers later commented that she was so completely taken aback to the point of giving the appearance that she was about to faint.

[00:29:07] Adam Cox: I don't know what accent that was.

[00:29:08] Kyle Risi: The Australian accent.

[00:29:10] Adam Cox: I know you tried

[00:29:11] Kyle Risi: my, should I say it more seriously or should we keep that in? It

[00:29:17] Adam Cox: is very nasally.

[00:29:19] Kyle Risi: I've got a cold, I've got sinus issue this week. Sorry, Australians.

But drawing it back to more serious notes, like she completely denies knowing who he was. Right. And the cops. However, based on her initial reaction, they do not buy this. Especially when she refuses to look at the bus anymore.

[00:29:35] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:35] Kyle Risi: But the question is, Adam, if she didn't know him, then how on earth did her phone number get inside that book?

[00:29:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. Someone's written that down and if she's refusing to look at him, that's just strange.

[00:29:47] Kyle Risi: It sounds so bizarre, isn't it? '

[00:29:48] Adam Cox: cause you'd go like, oh, I don't know that person, or I do know that person.

[00:29:52] Kyle Risi: The cops there keep pressing her. Eventually she confesses that the Rubaiyat was actually her favourite book, and she tells the cops that during the war she had given a copy of that same book to a man that she had met while she was working as a nurse in Sydney.

His name was Lieutenant Alfred Boxell of the Australian Army.

[00:30:10] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:30:10] Kyle Risi: So she doesn't elaborate on what their relationship was, but the cops think that maybe he was an old flame and that this was the Summerton man.

[00:30:18] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:30:18] Kyle Risi: But when the cops look into Alfred Boxell, they find him both alive and well

[00:30:24] Adam Cox: and a different person.

[00:30:25] Kyle Risi: On top of that, he still had the original copy of the  Rubaiyat that Justin had given him.

[00:30:30] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:30:30] Kyle Risi: The final page, of course, was still intact, but also Justin had signed her name on the front page along with a hand written line of poetry in the book.

[00:30:38] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:39] Kyle Risi: And so for the cops, this was just another dead end. But for some reason the cops couldn't shake this idea that she didn't know the summons a man. Especially considering her reaction after seeing the bust.

[00:30:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. Oh, it's a bit odd, right? she seems suspicious. And it's odd that she had a copy of that book where she gave it to someone else.

[00:30:55] Kyle Risi: And she's very shaky about it. But also remember her number was in the book and she also lived 400 metres from where this guy was found.

[00:31:00] Adam Cox: And she can't explain what any of that is about.

[00:31:03] Kyle Risi: No. So it couldn't just be a coincidence.

[00:31:05] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:06] Kyle Risi: So following this, the cops noticed that inside the Rubaiyat was something else. It had originally been written in pencil and it had either faded or someone had tried to rub it out. And so to determine what it said, they send it off to be analysed they are able to make out that it contained five rows of uppercase letters with some of those letters being crossed out.

It was a code.

[00:31:27] Adam Cox: Ah, I see. So it's not anything that they could easily like decipher, you know, it's not a sentence or anything like that. No, it's a bunch of letters.

[00:31:34] Kyle Risi: That's right. And so they really wanna crack it. And so they send the book off to the naval intelligence team to see if they can crack it again.

They also appeal to the public.

On top of this, they recruit students, journalists, teachers, mathematicians, even amateur Codebreakers.

And Adam, in the end, not a single person is able to solve this code.

[00:31:53] Adam Cox: Maybe it's just a word search.

[00:31:54] Kyle Risi: It could be, that's what I thought was someone maybe doing the, the crossword in the Sunday paper or whatever, and they're writing down some kind of letters just to kind of see if they can rule out some certain things.

[00:32:04] Adam Cox: But why would it be in this book? '

[00:32:06] Kyle Risi: cause it was to hand, do you know what I mean? Often on a Sunday afternoon, you've got your paper, you've got your books. Do you know what I mean?

[00:32:11] Adam Cox: Yeah. But you'd write, you'd do that. You'd doodle on the newspaper. You wouldn't doodle in a separate book.

[00:32:16] Kyle Risi: But for some reason I think that it could just be as benign. Has been that potential solutions for a crossword.

[00:32:22] Adam Cox: Who would write in a book that isn't like to someone or anything like that?

[00:32:26] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, books are journeys, aren't they? Like you write down notes in them. Can you put your thoughts down on them? You dedicate them to people,

[00:32:32] Adam Cox: not if it's someone else's, like someone else's work. You just don't just doodle in their book,

[00:32:37] Kyle Risi: fine, we can argue about this another time. We disagree.

But either way, no one can solve this code.

Like they have no idea what it might be.

And so Adam eventually, 10 years go by and the cops eventually give up. They stop working on this case and at the time, this story was literally everywhere.

The cops had shared a fair amount with the public being very careful not to obviously name any names like Justin and Roland, just to protect their identities.

It was normally at their request, but the public were really enthralled with the story. And so it was really frustrating that nobody managed to crack this code.

And so naturally, with so much interest and no answers, all sorts of theories start swelling around.

[00:33:16] Adam Cox: Right. Okay.

[00:33:18] Kyle Risi: Probably the most prominent theory was that espionage was at the centre of it all.

Remember, it wasn't long since World War II had ended after this of course we know the world sort of entered into the Cold War, which resulted in the USA establishing various counterintelligence programmes across the world in a project known as the Verona Project.

This of course included intelligence network being set up across Australia. And it's actually through this project that the Americans helped set up that Australian actually uncovered that the Australian Communist Party, which had previously been banned in the 1940s was still operating but operating underground.

And even worse, Adam, they had managed to infiltrate the government and were funnelling classified information back to the Soviet Union.

[00:33:58] Adam Cox: Oh, really?

[00:33:59] Kyle Risi: It's through this project that Australia was able to actually crack this. And so it was this gross act of espionage that made it critical for Australia to establish their security intelligence organisation.

Like America calls it, the CIA, we call ours MI six, Australia calls theirs the A SIO, and basically it's to track down spies and Soviet agents operating within the country.

[00:34:21] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:34:22] Kyle Risi: So by the time this mystery of the sum man was doing the rounds speculation, leaning into this idea that the summited man was probably likely a spy based on this.

It sort of fits in this Agatha Christie sort of way. Do you know what I mean? I

[00:34:34] Adam Cox: feel at the moment it feels that way. Yeah. But I, I'm getting the sense that you're gonna pull the rug and actually it's something completely different.

[00:34:42] Kyle Risi: Well, there's a lot of twists in the story and it's quite winding.

I love it so much.

But also the other elements that kind of feed into this idea that it might be espionage is that it seems like this guy went to some effort to hide his identity by meticulously cutting out his labels. Right. He also seemed to have been a foreigner, likely American. Was he an American agent?

Perhaps a British agent, on accounts of his haircuts.

Also, the strange torn out page from the  Rubaiyat and the five rows of letters felt all like a coded message. And of course, don't forget Justin, who seemed to be really shaken by the sight of him.

Why Adam? Those are the questions that people wanted to know. And so as a natural theory, it did feel very plausible. And even to us today, right? Like I can understand like back in the 1940s when it was the climate of espionage and the Cold War and stuff, you would lean into that.

But even to us today, it feels very much like that

[00:35:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. Maybe it's because of some of the other stories that we've covered. Mm-hmm. It kind of, there's some similarities there, but yeah, I'm getting the sense he's not gonna be a spy, Sophie is a secret agent or spy from America or the uk. What's he doing in Adelaide?

[00:35:44] Kyle Risi: Adelaide of all places. I know, right?

[00:35:46] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:47] Kyle Risi: Well, at the time it wouldn't have actually been strange to find a secret agent there because 300 miles north of Adelaide was a joint air force complex between Australia and the United Kingdom called ura.

At the time, it was literally Adam, the largest land-based test range amongst Western allied countries. It's huge. The complex itself was incredibly secretive. And it's because they were testing weapons like missiles, rockets, and eventually nuclear weapons.

[00:36:13] Adam Cox: Is this before area 51?

[00:36:15] Kyle Risi: Uh, I think it's round about the same time.

But this area was huge.

And so for Cold War espionage activity, if anything, Adelaide was primed for spying activity.

The insinuation here was that if the sums of man was a spy, maybe his death was a way to dispose him, right?

Maybe he had served his purpose or that he had done something bad perhaps maybe he had defected and was maybe starting to work for the Soviets.

But it is also possible, he was a Soviet mole who wanted to defect. And so they killed him before he could potentially escape.

[00:36:45] Adam Cox: So he is like a double agent.

[00:36:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. We touched on this earlier, but remember how the coroner thought that maybe he might have been poisoned? there was the strange situation where they found that unsmoked cigarette on his lapel and discovered that he had cheap cigarettes with him.

But inside they had been replaced with more expensive ones.

Like we said, it's not unusual to put cheap cigarettes in a more expensive packets for like status or whatever, but the situation is completely the opposite.

Was someone sent to exterminate him and did they poison him with poison cigarettes? That's the question that we kind of wanna explore here.

[00:37:18] Adam Cox: They must have tested the cigarettes though, right?

[00:37:20] Kyle Risi: the toxicology report didn't find any poisoning system, but indicators like the large spleen and blood in his organs were typical markers of poison.

And again, we are dealing with cold war governments at this point and so was the poison potentially undetectable?

We know today, of course, that the Russians have an knack for poisoning their adversaries, right? Mm-hmm. Like just back in 2018, both Sergei and his daughter, I think it's yulia Skal were poisoned by the KGB in Salisbury here in the uk.

[00:37:46] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:46] Kyle Risi: Sergei was a former Russian military intelligence officer who'd been spying on Russia on I think like behalf of MI six. When this was discovered. The KGB targeted them both with nerve agents called Novi chalk.

Do you know how they poisoned them? Do you remember this?

[00:38:01] Adam Cox: I, I know the incident and I know the Russians denied it. And then eventually, I'm sure recently they were like, no, it definitely was the Russians. I can't remember how what they, how the poison was transferred

[00:38:11] Kyle Risi: amazingly. 'cause you only need the tiniest amount. They had someone to walk down their street, walk up to the door to pretend to be delivering something, and then with a hanky chief smear it on the door handle.

[00:38:21] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:38:22] Kyle Risi: And then when of course they got home or they left the house and they touched the door handle, they were then infected and then would only be a few hours before they essentially collapsed.

[00:38:30] Adam Cox: That's horrendous

[00:38:30] Kyle Risi: Isn't it? It's crazy. And remember, the Americans aren't above this either because during the Cold War, the CIA famously tod the idea of assassinating Fidel Castro by poisoning his cigars.

[00:38:41] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:42] Kyle Risi: And so the theory is really not that farfetched.

So back in the summer to man's timeline, a few options were floated around of what the poison might have been And after speaking to a few experts, they pointed the finger at a substance called Stren, which some indigenous tribes in West Africa actually used to make poison arrows.

You only need a minuscule amount for it to kill you. And because of its rare nature, western pathology wouldn't have factored its markers into their toxicology tests.

Mm-hmm.

And so the question is, was his cigarettes laced with something very similar?

But if that is true, Adam, the question is what did Justin and the Rubaiyat have to do with all of this?

[00:39:21] Adam Cox: That, I don't know.

[00:39:23] Kyle Risi: It's so weird, isn't it? Mm-hmm. What is the situation and the story?

Well, we do now have a possible answer to this because in 2014, a British detective named Gordon Kramer decided to take a look at the copy of the original Rubaiyat the coded message right inside the pencil lines are some of the letters. He thought that he could make out some interesting markings.

He sent it off to be analysed under UV light. And sure enough, within the strokes of the larger letters was micro writing.

[00:39:53] Adam Cox: Hang on a minute.

So people have been looking at this book, 'cause it's the exact same book, that he's been able to send off.

Mm-hmm. So people have been looking at this throughout the years, and it's only about 50, 60 odd years later that someone's able to see this minuscule writing.

[00:40:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it's within the strokes of the actual letters themselves. It's so tiny.

[00:40:11] Adam Cox: How did they even do that?

[00:40:12] Kyle Risi: Who knows? That's

[00:40:13] Adam Cox: spy stuff.

[00:40:14] Kyle Risi: It is. And basically they work out that it's spelled out the word venom X 4 6 2 1.

[00:40:23] Adam Cox: So that's a poison. Yeah,

[00:40:24] Kyle Risi: no, sounds like gibberish. Sounds like a poison. Turns out that it was the name of a British fighter jet developed in the late 1940s and was being tested at the URA Air Force Base just 300 miles north of Adelaide.

Here's the kicker. He also decided to examine the copy of the  Rubaiyat that Justin had given to Alfred Boxell.

[00:40:45] Adam Cox: Oh yeah.

[00:40:45] Kyle Risi: That one contained, remember a handwritten note from Justin to Alfred. Right. It too contained micro writing within the large letters, although they were unable to pinpoint exactly what it said, but they could definitely see telltale markers of Michael writing within those letters as well.

[00:41:00] Adam Cox: I'm still trying to picture what that looks like.

[00:41:02] Kyle Risi: So if you look at that queue letter, you can see there's some very clear markings that look like writing inside the stroke of the queue.

[00:41:09] Adam Cox: Oh wow. Like, yeah, on first glance you would just think it's like the graphite not touching the, paper properly, right? Yes. It's just kind of a bit sketchy. and I guess they're only able to, identify this with technology that's, I guess been developed since the forties.

[00:41:25] Kyle Risi: They were using a UV light.

[00:41:27] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:27] Kyle Risi: As far as I'm aware.

[00:41:28] Adam Cox: Wow. But yeah, you can make out a like tiny little letters. How do you even write that small though?

[00:41:34] Kyle Risi: Exactly. That's crazy, isn't it?

[00:41:36] Adam Cox: So this Justine lady, she must be somehow connected to the spy world.

[00:41:40] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah, for sure. And so for Gordon Kramer, he believes that this was evidence of some sort of spying ring involving Alfred, Justine, and the Summerton man.

Mm-hmm. Potentially sending coded messages hidden within his books about what was being tested at that airbase.

[00:41:54] Adam Cox: Yes.

[00:41:55] Kyle Risi: it's so plain for us to see, right?

[00:41:57] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. Now, in hindsight it's obvious,

[00:42:00] Kyle Risi: but like if that is true, there is just too much of a coincidence for the summits and man to have this copy of the  Rubaiyat with Justine's number in it, and for it to contain a cryptic clue. And for the copy of Justin's  Rubaiyat that she gave to Alfred, a lieutenant in the Army, to also contain evidence of micro writing, even though they were unable to establish exactly what it said.

[00:42:20] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:21] Kyle Risi: in 2013, so this was a year before Gordon Kramer discovered the micro writing in both books. probably the thing that spurred him to look closer at these books.

Justine's adult daughter, a woman called Kate, said in an interview that her mother could speak Russian.

[00:42:37] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:42:38] Kyle Risi: And according to Kate, Justine admitted that she had lied to the police about the Summerton man, but she then refused to tell her daughter anything more on the subject.

So it sounds very suspicious and very ominous, doesn't it?

[00:42:52] Adam Cox: So she's a double agent,

[00:42:53] Kyle Risi: It sounds like that's what this is getting at.

[00:42:55] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:55] Kyle Risi: Now, I don't know if I believe Justin's daughter, Kate is saying, because a little bit more is gonna come before this happens.

And so it makes me wonder whether or not she's just trying to jump in onto the story and capitalise on it a bit. Because at this point Justin is dead.

[00:43:09] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. So she's trying to Jimmy herself into this history.

[00:43:12] Kyle Risi: Possibly. I'm not saying she is, but Adam, what do you think in this story so far?

[00:43:16] Adam Cox: well, I'm back to thinking it's spies.

[00:43:20] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:20] Adam Cox: Because of the tiny micro writing.

Otherwise it's just some weird I don't know, an affair, but it feels like there's something dodgy going on.

[00:43:28] Kyle Risi: It does, isn't it,

Adam? Our story needs a resolution, doesn't

[00:43:31] Adam Cox: it? It does Kyle.

[00:43:32] Kyle Risi: And it just so happens that we have one.

[00:43:35] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:43:35] Kyle Risi: And honestly for me, this is just as fascinating as the mystery at the story of the Sumter Man.

And it all starts with a guy called Derek Abbott who first heard about the Sumter Man in 1995.

And at the time, Derek was working as an electrical engineer professor at the Adelaide University.

And ever since he's been really intrigued by the story. But in 2007 when revisiting the story, he's really surprised to discover that the strange code of message had never been cracked.

This is not to suggest that Derek is under any illusion and that he thinks that he can be the one to crack it.

Like they literally got some of the best codebreakers in the world who tried and failed. But he thinks that maybe people are being too hung up on the code rather than exploring other avenues.

For him, he felt like the answer might lie in who Justine actually was.

[00:44:23] Adam Cox: Well, yeah, clearly she's got something to do with this.

[00:44:25] Kyle Risi: Yes. And remember, Justin wasn't her real name and people often forgot that.

At the time and at her request, she had asked police to keep her name anonymous, which the police respected.

[00:44:35] Adam Cox: But equally, that's odd in itself because at the moment they're not saying that she's the criminal or connected to the murder.

[00:44:41] Kyle Risi: You could argue that.

But at the same time, remember Ronald who actually found the Rubaiyat in his car, he also requested that his name not appear in the papers as well.

it might be in the case files, just not in the public stuff when they were appealing to the public.

[00:44:53] Adam Cox: Sure.

[00:44:54] Kyle Risi: So basically Derek sets out to find out who she was. He manages to track down the detective who works on the original case, a guy called Jerry Felts.

And by a stroke of luck, Adam, this guy remembers her name and her name was Jessica Thompson.

Now sadly, Derek tried to track her down, but then that's when he discovered that she was dead. So this was like in 2007, a few years before Kate came out and said that her mother could speak Russian.

But through her relatives in particular Jessica's daughter Kate, he was able to find out a bit more about her background.

He discovered that in the late 1940s, Jessica was dating a man called Prosper Thompson. And in 1947, Jessica had given birth to a baby boy that she called Robin.

She had always maintained that Prosper was Robin's father. But Derek had a theory based on how shaken up Jessica was after seeing the Sumter man's plaster bust . And the fact that he was found 400 metres from her house and that her number was in the book that maybe Prosper wasn't Robin's father.

[00:45:56] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:45:57] Kyle Risi: Maybe Robin's father was the summon man, right?

And so Derek asked Jessica's relatives if they had any photos of Robin Straight away several things stand out.

Remember I mentioned that the coroner described as Someon man as having this unusual ear structure where the upper hollow was significantly larger than the lower hollow uhhuh.

Well, this is basically genetic and it affects roughly 2% of people.

On top of that, the summits and man also has something called hyper, where one or more of the teeth fail to develop properly.

Again, another rare genetic trait.

So these are rare, right? But super rare to have them together.

[00:46:31] Adam Cox: so I guess you are about to tell me that Robin, the kid had both of these traits.

[00:46:36] Kyle Risi: Robin Thompson had both of these genetic traits.

[00:46:39] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:46:40] Kyle Risi: But there was something else.

The coroner also noted how the Sumin man had very high calf muscles that were particularly pronounced.

[00:46:50] Adam Cox: Yep.

[00:46:50] Kyle Risi: Which he then deduced that he was likely a ballet dancer.

[00:46:54] Adam Cox: That's not another genetic thing, is it?

[00:46:55] Kyle Risi: Well, turns out that Robin was a professional ballet dancer at the Australian Ballet Company.

So people say this could be just a coincidence, but being a ballet dancer doesn't give you high calf muscles.

The fact that you have a genetic advantage of having high calf muscles means that you could be great as a ballet dancer.

It's the same as swimming. Elite swimmers don't develop long torsos arms and flexible joints. They start with the genetic advantage, which allows 'em to optimise for hydrodynamics in speed and buoyancy in the water.

Right. So this is not to say that the summits and man was a ballet dancer, but he certainly had the physicality to be one if you wanted to be.

[00:47:32] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:47:33] Kyle Risi: So it seems like, based on this, there was definitely a connection between Jessica and the Summerton man, right?

[00:47:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. So she didn't want to look at his bust because I guess Yeah, she, her secret would be outright.

[00:47:48] Kyle Risi: So she, that she was like, maybe they were being agents together, but then they also brought a child together.

[00:47:53] Adam Cox: Yeah. And also perhaps she was visibly upset because she loved him or at one point in time.

[00:47:58] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. She was also involved with Prosper at the time.

So was she then having an affair? Mm-hmm. Was she like thinking, if they find out that actually the summon man is Robin's father, will prosper, still wanna marry me.

[00:48:11] Adam Cox: But the fact that she didn't want to look at the bus makes me feel like, yeah, she did want people to find out that their relationship and she was actually pretty upset that he had perhaps died.

[00:48:21] Kyle Risi: could be all those things.

So it seems like at this point, it's very likely that Jessica knew the summon man's real name and that she likely had a son with him.

[00:48:28] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:28] Kyle Risi: So while Robin was working as a ballet dancer for the Australian Ballet Company, he actually met a woman called Roma and eventually she fell pregnant and gave birth to a daughter that they named Rachel Egan.

Sadly, Robin and Roma, they decided to put Rachel up for adoption and so she never really knew her parents growing up.

One day when Rachel was at university, she received a call from her social worker telling her that her biological mother Roma had made contact and she wanted to know if she was willing to meet her.

Rachel, of course, she agrees. They meet, they get super close, and after a few years Rachel decided to move to Brisbane to be near Roma to kind of develop that relationship.

And finally connecting with Roma and finding out about her father Robin. She finally understood why throughout her life she was always drawn to the arts, particularly ballet.

[00:49:14] Adam Cox: Did she have high calf muscles as

[00:49:16] Kyle Risi: well? She did. So, Yeah, it's a genetic thing that was passed down.

[00:49:18] Adam Cox: What about the ear thing and the teeth?

[00:49:20] Kyle Risi: doesn't seem that she had those. Mm-hmm. Like, but it's certainly something that people want to know.

[00:49:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:26] Kyle Risi: So a few years after this, Rachel gets another surprise when she receives a letter from Derek Abbott telling that he believed that she may have played a part in one of the most enduring mysteries in Australian history.

Rachel knew, of course, the story of the summon man very well. So it's a really massive shock when Derek tells her that he might actually be her grandfather and asked whether or not she was willing to provide a DNA sample so that they could basically put to rest the 70-year-old mystery.

[00:49:53] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:53] Kyle Risi: Rachel agrees to meet Derek in Brisbane.

When she talks about this moment, the thing that stands out is that Derek is very interested in her ears and her teeth.

[00:50:02] Adam Cox: So when he meets her, just can't stop looking inside her mouth and around her ears.

[00:50:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Now manosphere boys be on alert because this might be a tactic to get a chick in bed because she's so flattered by this. They get on so well that by the end of that very same day, Derek proposes to Rachel and she says, yes.

[00:50:21] Adam Cox: What?

[00:50:22] Kyle Risi: I know. I know. She's like, oh, you really like my ears?

[00:50:26] Adam Cox: What?

[00:50:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they hit it off and they get, engaged at the end of that day,

[00:50:30] Adam Cox: but they've spent like eight hours with each other, max or something.

[00:50:33] Kyle Risi: I know. Isn't that just crazy?

[00:50:34] Adam Cox: Wow. But they say that you can fall in love at first sight.

[00:50:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they do. That's clearly what's happened here. And I think they finally get married in like 2010.

They are still married today, as far as I can tell. They have three kids together.

[00:50:45] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:50:46] Kyle Risi: But of course, the mystery of whether or not Rachel was related to the sum man. Was still on the agenda. In fact, Rachel jokes years later that Derek only married her for a DNA.

[00:50:56] Adam Cox: Yeah, that sounds about right.

[00:50:58] Kyle Risi: Which in a sort of way, that is exactly why people get married.

[00:51:01] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true. And he wants to be connected to the Summerton case.

[00:51:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So like, he's been doing this for 15 years, so he's really invested.

Right?

[00:51:07] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:51:08] Kyle Risi: the issue was that even though Rachel agreed to give a DNA sample so they could finally put the storage to rest, the problem was getting a DNA sample from the Summerton man himself.

Because over the years, Derek had petitioned numerous times to have the Summerton man exhumed.

But every single time the local governments had always said no.

And so by complete chance in 2015 while inspecting the summer to man's plaster cast, he noticed that there were hairs still embedded in the plaster cast.

[00:51:37] Adam Cox: Ah,

[00:51:37] Kyle Risi: however, when he went to go have these tested, there wasn't enough DNA material to produce a conclusive result.

And so in that moment, Adam, it felt like he had married Rachel for absolutely nothing.

[00:51:48] Adam Cox: Well, I'm sure they fell in love.

[00:51:51] Kyle Risi: I don't believe so. To get married after like eight hours or get engaged after eight hours. I think he had an agenda. He was just like, if I marry her, I have a legal right to a DNA. And so like, he's like, dammit, did it all for nothing.

But no, you are right. They did marry for love,

[00:52:07] Adam Cox: but I don't think this is gonna stop him or deter him. He's gonna find a way.

[00:52:11] Kyle Risi: But at this moment in time, it felt like there was now no chance of getting to the bottom of this mystery.

And so he's had a start grappling with this idea and coming to terms with that fact. But of course, Adam, as if the story didn't have enough twists.

I'm gonna throw another one in there for you,

[00:52:24] Adam Cox: Uhhuh,

[00:52:24] Kyle Risi: because in 2021, the Australian government changed their mind and they launched a new national programme in an effort to put names to unidentified remains across the country, which means that the summons of man can now finally be exhumed

[00:52:38] Adam Cox: us the now agreed trip. How many cases are they trying to like solve then?

[00:52:41] Kyle Risi: A lot. but the issue was that back in the 1940s, the decision was made to deliberately embalm the sums man. Right. The idea was that maybe someone come forward, they can exum him, they can identify him if they ever needed to.

This basically meant that destroyed much of the kind of usable DNA in his body. Oh,

[00:52:56] Adam Cox: Does embalming do that?

[00:52:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah, after quite a long time. And this is something that Derek never really considered. Like he's been pushing to get them to exhume the body, but he was like, oh, they embalmed him.

[00:53:04] Adam Cox: So there's no way like inside his bones or the

[00:53:07] Kyle Risi: possibly. Yes. So they were going to try, but all he could do at this moment in time was just hope and wait.

[00:53:12] Adam Cox: Sure.

[00:53:13] Kyle Risi: But at the same time, this was also now in the hands of the Australian government. He had put in so much time and effort over the last 15 years he had gotten this far.

He felt that if the results did come back and Rachel was related to the summon man, all the glory was gonna go to the Australian government. And he just did not want that.

[00:53:31] Adam Cox: So he did marry Rachel for her DNA.

[00:53:36] Kyle Risi: Basically he wanted to be the person to identify the summon man. Right. In a weird way, yes. He married her. But in a way this kind of connects him even closer together. 'cause he was the one to be able to solve their family mystery now.

[00:53:47] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true.

[00:53:48] Kyle Risi: And so, by 2022, Derek reached out to a woman called Colleen Fitzpatrick. She's a forensic scientist who previously worked at nasa

she ran a DNA John and Jane Doe project, which works to identify unknown human remains using forensic genetic genealogy.

Mm-hmm.

Basically, you would put DNA profiles of unidentified people through various open source DNA platforms to see if you can link to any of their identities.

And so Derek decides to send Colleen one of the hair samples that he had gotten from the plaster cast.

He knows, of course, that there's probably not enough genetic material, but maybe the technology has advanced enough over the years that they might be able to get something

She does. And Colleen was able to extract enough material to get a usable DNA profile.

Adam, we have the results.

[00:54:35] Adam Cox: Okay. I feel like we need a drum roll.

[00:54:37] Kyle Risi: Do you think, shall I put one in? I'll put one in in post, Adam, the results show that Rachel was not related to the summer. Oh,

[00:54:46] Adam Cox: it feels like a game show.

But how is that possible considering everything else has happened? Like, you know, with spiritual

[00:54:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah. The, the genetic markers, right. The affinity for ballet. Like, was this all just a incredible coincidence? He had three, basically the, the legs mm-hmm.

The ears and the teeth, which I think are actually three very important things when you're looking for a man. Legs, ears, and teeth.

And what are the chances of having someone else 400 metres away having that same genetic markers.

[00:55:13] Adam Cox: So that is just a weird coincidence.

[00:55:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam, this is not to say that they didn't find a match to someone else.

[00:55:21] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:55:21] Kyle Risi: Because there was a DNA sample in the database that almost perfectly matched to a relative of the actual Summon man.

The Summerton Man's actual name was

[00:55:31] Adam Cox: Oh was it like t was it T Keen?

[00:55:34] Kyle Risi: No, it was Carl Charles Webb.

[00:55:35] Adam Cox: Who's that

[00:55:36] Kyle Risi: exactly? He was basically reported missing 19 months before the Summerton Man's body was found in 1948.

[00:55:44] Adam Cox: So the Summerton man is this Charles Webb dude.

[00:55:47] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:47] Adam Cox: Then what about, who was the guy, the name in the Summerton's labels days?

[00:55:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Why he is walking around with some other guy's clothes.

[00:55:53] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:55:54] Kyle Risi: Well we do know that too because T Keen was Carl Charles Webb's brother-in-law. So his clothes, they were likely hand-me-downs.

[00:56:02] Adam Cox: Okay. So that explains his clothing. Then who is still Charles Webb?

[00:56:06] Kyle Risi: Well, when Derrick connects to Carl Webb guy's living relatives, they make it very clear that he wasn't this international man of mystery that we thought he was.

[00:56:16] Adam Cox: Oh,

[00:56:17] Kyle Risi: he was literally just a regular engineer.

He was born in 1905, which would've made him 43 at the time of his death.

[00:56:24] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:24] Kyle Risi: Adam, he was from Melbourne.

[00:56:26] Adam Cox: Oh, so he's Australian this whole time.

[00:56:28] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah. With a British

[00:56:29] Adam Cox: haircut.

[00:56:30] Kyle Risi: In 1941, about seven years before he was found dead, he married a woman called Dorothy Robertson.

The fairytale very quickly fell apart and he started being very abusive. He also seems to have suffered from like a chronic depression Dorothy describing him as being obviously abusive and a loner.

[00:56:47] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:47] Kyle Risi: It was at this point that she came home one day to find that he had tried to kill himself like in a fit of depression.

[00:56:53] Adam Cox: Oh, wow.

[00:56:54] Kyle Risi: It was after this that he just simply vanished one day in April, 1947. And so there was a period of 19 months where he was literally just awol. Like what he was doing in this time is a complete mystery.

But of course, as we know, in November, 1948, he turns up dead on Summerton Beach.

Eventually though, in 1951, Dorothy Fast for divorce, citing that he basically just deserted her, she eventually dies, never knowing what had actually happened to him.

[00:57:22] Adam Cox: Oh, wow. That's quite sad then.

[00:57:23] Kyle Risi: It's so sad.

[00:57:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like she continued looking for him. Yeah. And stuff like that. So he was depressed on his own for almost two years. But then how did he die?

[00:57:34] Kyle Risi: Well, that's the thing we don't know. We still don't know that,

[00:57:37] Adam Cox: Hey, you promised answers.

[00:57:39] Kyle Risi: I promised answers about who he was.

So it's really incredible how this fancy and mystery of who he was took a whole different direction to what it actually was from a strange, heartbroken man who is rejected by his lover to be in a full-blown spy.

And all this was down to the climate of the time that the story had unfolded.

Remember, the war just ended, the world just entered into the Cold War in which Australia amazingly played a really pivotal part.

The idea of communist spies being all over the country. It's not difficult to see how these fantasies in these mysteries of who he was would end up navigating the story down those paths.

[00:58:15] Adam Cox: Okay. So there's a bit of a bias or conscious bias in people's minds about what's happening at the time, that still doesn't explain the writing in the book. It doesn't, the connection to Justine. Yeah. And the micro handwriting

[00:58:26] Kyle Risi: doesn't,

[00:58:26] Adam Cox: do we have answers for that? do we definitely know he's Carl Charles Webb,

[00:58:30] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, this is one of the reasons why the story still has all these conspiracy theories around it, right?

Because it doesn't definitively answer those questions.

[00:58:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:58:38] Kyle Risi: here's the thing, right? Even though we can likely say the story of the S Man has been finally cracked, it doesn't seem like the world is ready to accept this mundane explanation of who he is. 'Cause it categorically does not answer some of those other enduring questions.

For instance, why was Jessica's phone number in her copy of her book,

[00:58:56] Adam Cox: Uhhuh,

[00:58:56] Kyle Risi: why was she so agitated on seeing the plaster cast?

What was this code all about? But also the micro writing, likely linking to military aircraft being tested in URA 300 miles away.

But also, if you go further, it's just so incredibly unlikely that Carl Webb, the Summitter man, and Robin, and by extension Rachel, all share the same very rare combination of genetic markers.

So much so that it has, like I said, spurred other conspiracy theories. Was this basically a coverup?

Because Paul Lawson, he's the guy who created the original plaster cast of the Sumter Man.

[00:59:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:35] Kyle Risi: He basically says that's not the summon man's skull.

[00:59:38] Adam Cox: What?

[00:59:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He believes it was tampered with potentially even being swapped out basically to prevent his true identity from being revealed.

That's what he is saying. And I think a lot of people would subscribe to that because it doesn't answer those really crucial questions.

He holds firm on this notion that the Summerton man was a spy, and so many people still get that.

[00:59:58] Adam Cox: or could this Carl Charles Webbs became a spy, or like he was depressed, but you said he was an engineer.

Could he been working full Air Force or whatever 'cause of, I dunno, for this Benni plane or something like that? Yeah, maybe there is still a connection there.

But it is still top secret.

[01:00:13] Kyle Risi: It could be possibly, I mean that book itself, right? The ruby, the new surpass on spy messages, it seems like that is the case. 'cause it just seems so bizarre in the story.

[01:00:22] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:23] Kyle Risi: But also, Adam, I don't have the answers for you on that. Like we can keep speculating but we don't have the answers definitively.

The DNA has shown that he's this Carl web guy and the suitcase itself remember did have a few of the things that an engineer might have, and that was the drafting pencils and engineer might use.

[01:00:41] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true.

[01:00:43] Kyle Risi: And like his brother-in-law was this T King guy,

[01:00:46] Adam Cox: so that, okay. So maybe his identity is still correct. I

[01:00:51] Kyle Risi: consider this as well. The Rubaiyat was a very popular book at the time. It did a lot of the rounds,

[01:00:56] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:57] Kyle Risi: And so is it that unusual for multiple people to have that same copy of the book at the same time?

Could it be that code was just used by someone to try and solve crossword in the Sunday puzzle?

Could it be that the police considering the climate of the time, the weirdness around this case that they looked at Justine's behaviour and they read into it a bit too much and that became fundamental to the law of the story.

[01:01:21] Adam Cox: And is the micro handwriting actually micro handwriting and we are looking at something that's not actually there?

[01:01:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Could it be that it's not there? Yeah.

[01:01:28] Adam Cox: Ugh.

[01:01:29] Kyle Risi: But I do also wonder how Derek feels in this moment. Right. just, it's clearly not the answer he was searching for.

[01:01:34] Adam Cox: Yeah. He just got married to Rachel

[01:01:35] Kyle Risi: for nothing.

[01:01:36] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:01:37] Kyle Risi: Although there is still satisfaction getting to the bottom of it, I guess. In a way there's a Constellation prize there.

The summon man. however, was not Rachel's grandfather. But I think a big portion of his life, 15 years at least. He probably got used to the idea that the summon man was his wife's relative. So I guess there must be a degree of disappointment there.

[01:01:55] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I guess at this point he is married her now.

[01:01:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Got three kids, can't abandon them now.

[01:02:00] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:02:00] Kyle Risi: Kind of like the sum man did.

[01:02:01] Adam Cox: I've grown quite fond of her.

[01:02:04] Kyle Risi: However, there is a more positive note.

The news of the summits man being Carl Webb does bring some closure to his actual family. At least they now know what happened to him.

[01:02:12] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:13] Kyle Risi: It's a small consolation, but in the process, they are in a nice way now connects to one of the most enduring stories over like the last 100 years. Right. So that is pretty cool. Carl Webb's, great-great grand nephew and niece Stewart and Christie Webb, they always knew about this family member who suddenly disappeared.

They were shown photos of him growing up. So now to finally have a resolution, like that's a big thing for the family. Hmm.

Sadly though, for them, he wasn't a cool kind of secret spy or a secret agent. There was no secret code. And probably the weird circumstances around Jessica Thompson was, like I said, maybe a situation where the cops were kind of just fishing for an explanation in a place where maybe there just wasn't one.

[01:02:53] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:53] Kyle Risi: The reality was that Carl Webb was just a regular person. He was troubled, he was flawed, who ended up in an unfortunate situation

[01:03:01] Adam Cox: and maybe just died of natural causes that we couldn't identify back then.

[01:03:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Possibly. Strange.

And Adam, that is the story of the summits and man,

[01:03:09] Adam Cox: you built this up to be such an amazing story. We'll find out. And you know what, I've been left feeling disappointed.

[01:03:17] Kyle Risi: Okay.

But the thing is though, we do have a solution, but wouldn't you agree that getting to this, no matter how mundane it was, was really cool. What a crazy story. The

[01:03:27] Adam Cox: journey was fascinating.

[01:03:29] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[01:03:29] Adam Cox: The ending was like the end of a trilogy or something.

[01:03:34] Kyle Risi: But it is true, like not every great mystery needs a dramatic ta do you know what I mean? Sometimes it's the simplest explanation, like I said, the very beginning.

[01:03:44] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's pretty, pretty wild how there was like, I guess all this conspiracy, I guess if, to be honest, if Derek wasn't still investigating this mm-hmm. Which still would be none the wiser, right?

[01:03:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's true. It would still be an enduring story. So I, which I think I would be happy with.

[01:03:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. I blame Derek,

[01:04:00] Kyle Risi: him and his proposing after one day. Who does that?

[01:04:03] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:04:03] Kyle Risi: Uh, do you fancy doing some shout outs?

[01:04:06] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

So this is the part of the show where we remind you that the compendium is not just a podcast.

It is for reasons that remain legally and spiritually unclear. a regulated place of work. We're a circus who is hiring.

[01:04:18] Kyle Risi: Yes. So guys, make sure you head over to the Compendium podcast or click the link in this show notes. You can browse our growing collection of bizarre circus roles which you can apply for.

And tell us exactly what your day-to-day position entails.

[01:04:31] Adam Cox: Yes. And we want the details. We want exactly what your role involves. What are your duties? What incidents have you had to deal with? Who's underperforming all your KPIs, all that sort of stuff.

[01:04:41] Kyle Risi: This week's standout performance review is from

Martin, no claims. Puty foot. Is that his name?

[01:04:48] Adam Cox: No claims.

[01:04:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I think he's put that in brackets.

[01:04:51] Adam Cox: Okay.

[01:04:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Martin, no claims. Puty Foot. Who is our stilt insurance underwriter.

[01:04:56] Adam Cox: Okay. Yeah.

[01:04:56] Kyle Risi: He basically assesses, acceptable wobbles uhhuh prices stilts based on ambition.

[01:05:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:05:02] Kyle Risi: And denies claims caused by dramatic dismount or confidence beyond policy limits.

[01:05:09] Adam Cox: I see.

[01:05:10] Kyle Risi: He conducts onsite wobble audits, reviews gravity incidents and issues coverage with suspiciously specific exclusions.

He required to remain calm while someone explains that they weren't even doing anything from very high up.

[01:05:28] Adam Cox: he says that he checks all stilt claims properly, including height, wobble, weather conditions. And whether the person involved has recently said, nah, I'll be fine,

because statistics show they never will be. It's true. He's got strong experience in this area because his cousin Dean once tried stilts at a village fate and fell directly into the tombo.

He won a bottle of advocate that lost all trust in pavements watching his shameful and frankly embarrassing calamity. That to be fair, I saw coming makes him feel like he's the best person for the job.

[01:06:05] Kyle Risi: Wow.

[01:06:05] Adam Cox: And so last week he rejected a claim from a clown man who said his stilts betrayed him and reviewing the evidence, it turned out he had tried to moonwalk on gravel.

Don't do that.

[01:06:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:06:17] Adam Cox: The claim has been denied. And once again, all culpability towards the compendium was absolved another win.

[01:06:23] Kyle Risi: Oh, good.

[01:06:24] Adam Cox: He's also investigated a clown who fell into a buffet and claimed emotional damage again, to protect the compendium. We managed to bribe that buffet to ensure a counterclaim.

[01:06:32] Kyle Risi: The buffet. He issued a counter claim the buffet would like to sue. In response,

[01:06:36] Adam Cox: the Devil X, you managed to have a conversation with them, how he says, we promised to never disrespect the buffet by allowing guests to plate up using Hello Kitty paper plates every day.

[01:06:45] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay.

Yeah. God, that is disrespectful. You can't have like a, a marvellous buffet and like dish it up on a cut a kitty plate.

[01:06:51] Adam Cox: And then for his KPI assessment, he says that he remains calm, fair, and only slightly scared of tall people. Which is not to say that is the reason why he rejects so many claims. But, he's also saying that it's not the reason that he, he says, I feel I have my fear of the tall, well and truly controlled, and the likelihood of saying that's not covered, mate is extremely high, which has saved the compendium a fortune in payouts.

So for that, he says he wants a raise and a kazoo.

All these people that want kazoos,

[01:07:22] Kyle Risi: Maybe that should be the next thing that we send out as much.

[01:07:25] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:07:25] Kyle Risi: Get some, uh, compendium. Kazoos.

[01:07:27] Adam Cox: Let's look into it.

[01:07:28] Kyle Risi: Let's do it. That was good. I.

So guys, if you wanna be featured in a future episode, head over to the Compendium podcast, click jobs in the footer, or click jobs in the show notes, pick your role and send us your application.

We will read the best one on a future episode.

[01:07:45] Adam Cox: And now shall we run the outro?

[01:07:46] Kyle Risi: I'm ready for the outro. Yeah.

And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

[01:07:55] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favour and follow us on your favourite podcast app.

It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

[01:08:05] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon.

And as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:08:12] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then you can join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next.

[01:08:21] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember Adam, not every mystery gets a grand reveal.

[01:08:27] Adam Cox: It should do that.

[01:08:29] Kyle Risi: See you next time. See you.