The Somerton Man

The Somerton Man

Brown suitcase

A brown suitcase found on 14 January 1949 in the Adelaide Railway Station brought a new twist into the case of Somerton Man, or rather brought even more questions than informations (if the suitcase if fact is linked to the Somerton Man).

- Brown suitcase

The suitcase dragged attention of Adelaide Railway Station because the label had been removed from it. The brown suitcase was checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 AM on 30 November 1948. In the case were a red checked dressing gown, a pair of slippers, four pairs of underpants, pyjamas, shaving items, a light brown pair of trousers with sand in the cuffs, an electrician’s screwdriver, a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument, a pair of scissors with sharpened points, and a stencilling brush (used on merchant ships for stencilling cargo).

Also in the suitcase was a thread card of Barbour brand orange waxed thread (not available in Australia) - it was the same as that used to repair the lining in a pocket of the trousers the Somerton Man was wearing. All identification marks on the clothes had been removed, but police found the name "T. Keane" on a tie, "Keane" on a laundry bag and "Kean" (without the last e) on a singlet, along with three dry-cleaning marks. Police believed that whoever removed the clothing tags purposefully left the Keane tags on the clothes, knowing Keane was not the dead man’s name, but later it was noted that the "Kean" tags were the only ones that could not have been removed without damaging the clothing itself.

Police investigation concluded that there was no T. Keane missing in any English-speaking country and a nation-wide circulation of the dry-cleaning marks also proved fruitless. In fact, all that could be garnered from the suitcase was that since a coat in the suitcase had a front gusset and feather-stitching, it could have been made only in the United States, as this was the only country that possessed the machinery for that stitch. Although mass-produced, the body work is done when the owner is fitted before it is completed. The coat had not been imported, indicating the man had been in the United States or bought the coat from someone of similar size who had been.