WEBVTT - Season 06 Episode 22 Extra: Closing the Webb 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:15.360 Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.720 for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.520 and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.200 it into the previous show. In our last episode, two 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.400 More Names, we took a deep dive into the beguiling 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.720 mystery of the so called Summerton Man. Some of you 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.520 may recognize this story as a chapter taken from my book, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.680 and as many of you will know, there's been quite 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.640 a significant development at the story since I wrote it, 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:47.720 namely that the man appears to have finally been identified. However, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.959 rather than a mend the story, I thought it might 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.000 be better to have someone else a little more qualified 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.280 explain the latest developments, and so for this week's extra, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:03.640 we're going to do something different. Physicist and electronic engineer 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.120 Professor Derek Abbott of the University of Adelaide has perhaps 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.119 done more than anyone to help uncover the Summitton Man's identity. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.480 In July twenty twenty one, he made the stunning announcement that, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.400 thanks to his tireless work and that of genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick, 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:29.600 they had finally cracked the mystery that kind of leads 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.520 me to my first question, I suppose, which is when 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.560 did you first hear about the summriton Man mysteries? Is 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.760 something that you presumably weren't aware of before you went 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.800 to Australia. Correct. I had never heard about it, and 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.000 the first time I heard of it was about ninety five. 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:50.480 I just happened to me in a laundromatte watching my clothes, 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.280 was around and picked up one of those magazines that 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.000 they leave in there, and it was an article about 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:04.080 the top ten top ten unsolved mysteries in Australia, and 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.840 I think this was ranked as number two, but one 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:13.080 was the disappearance of Harold Holt and put it down. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.359 Never did anything with it until two thousand and seven, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:21.200 where I saw an extended newspaper article that gave a 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:28.000 lot of detail and even reprinted the so called summrton 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.160 Man's code that he had written on the back of 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:34.280 the poetry book. And so that's what got my interest up. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.640 At the beginning, I thought, Okay, I have no idea 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.320 whether this actually is even a code or not in 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.960 the first place, but let's see if I can set 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.120 this for a project for my students and the statistical 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.240 tests on the letters and see if we can determine 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.880 if it's a code or not. You say, your students, 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.880 what was your job at the time, Well, professor at 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:03.959 a at the University Badelaide and in the electrical engineering department, 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:12.120 and doing statistical analysis of data is something we do, 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:18.800 and you know, cryptosecurity and things as another thing we do. 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.520 So we know about codes. So I got my students 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.679 over the years to a set of many projects, to 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.920 various different students, and we looked at it over and 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.560 over again and compared it against all known World War 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:39.720 two type ciphers, and we were able to eliminate virtually 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:45.760 all of them. And it's looking like it isn't actually 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.960 a code. It just looks like the first letters of 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.520 words in the English language. We can say it's actually 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:58.000 English because we've tested it against other first letters of 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.120 words in other languages and English always comes out tops statistically. 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.160 So so that's what we think it is. And so 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.840 we think it's just something pedestrian that you know, it's 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.320 just an aide de memoir. It's just the first letters 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.520 of words. It could be anything. It could be, you know, 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:25.359 his horse betting strategy or trying to solve a puzzle 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:35.000 in a newspaper. Could we don't think it's anything anything conspiratorial, right, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:37.680 And was it actually written in the book or was 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.159 it sort of marked onto, sort of scored onto it. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.040 It was on the it was on the back cover, okay, 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.400 and it was very light. So it's unclear from the 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.680 old newspaper reports whether it was very lightly penciled or 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.719 whether it was just a press through from another page. 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.279 My guess it was just very very light pence all 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.400 and so yeah, so interesting. It's actually, you know, not 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.120 only is it not a code, but probably not relevant 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.640 to the specific book therefore, or the phone numbers that 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.720 were also found in the book, yes, there was some 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.400 right next to the circle colode bus some numbers. One 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.960 turned out to just be a local bank, and another 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:29.840 turned out to be a lady who had trained as 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.080 a nurse, who lived in fact five minutes away from 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.599 where the man was found dead, five minutes walk away. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.520 So joining the dots, the police thought, well, she must 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:46.200 know something about this guy, so knocked on her door 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:52.560 and so do you know have you seen this book before? 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.200 And she said yes, and they go a h, so 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.080 you know about the sky coundad On Beach and she goes, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.400 she back pedals and says, oh, no, no, I just 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:09.359 meant I've seen a Rubo yat Abmarkayam before, which is 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.040 what the book was, right, And so they dragged her 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:18.360 into see a plaster cast. So they had made off 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:24.680 the dead body, so it's a death mask. I ought 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.800 to add that this had happened about six months after 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.919 he had died. Yes, So they dragged her in to 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.440 have a look at the plaster cast, and apparently she 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:45.920 was quite evasive and very uncommunicative and behaved very strangely. 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.760 She just looked down at the floor for the whole 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:53.479 interview and didn't even look at the plaster cast, right, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:59.800 And so the police thought she knew something. But they 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.520 push her because you know, this wasn't classed as a homicide. 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.640 If you look at the police file, they always believed 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.960 it was actually a suicide. That was their, yeah, their 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:17.480 strong belief. And you know, if it was classed as 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.440 a homicide, you know they could put the heavies on 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.600 over but that was not the case here, and so 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.800 they just let her go. Right. So there's me with 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.800 the working on the code many years later, and the 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.360 circle code, and you know, at the beginning of my work, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.400 you know, I didn't really know if it was a 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.080 code or not. It hadn't come to any conclusions. So 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.240 I was thinking, well, if it is a code, maybe 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.520 I'm going to need some context. Maybe I need to 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.520 find out this lady's name. Perhaps her name is a 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.880 key to this code or something like that. So I 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.280 set about trying to find out who she was, because 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.840 her name was never published, but they did published sufficient 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.520 detail that the newspapers said, you know which hospital she 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 had trained in, the Royal Malls Shaw Hospital in Sydney, 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:11.880 and that she lived very close to where the man 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.800 was found dead and stuff like that. So using the 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.000 hospital records and electoral Royal records and stuff, I was 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.360 able to figure it out. It was like a huge 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:26.120 chicksaw puzzle, right, But yes, I found out and her 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.200 name was Joe Thompson. That's the name she went by, right, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.320 that comes from your work, So I didn't know that. Yes, 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.840 well it was known to police, but he you know, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.760 they had never let that out, right, And so it 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.840 was confirmed later by police that are alive who didn't 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.959 know her name, and they didn't confirm that, and so 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.760 She was born Jesse Harkness, but went by the name 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:01.040 Joe Thompson later in life spelled Jacob, which I believe 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.080 is a bit of a Scottish name, isn't it. And 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.319 her heritage, if you trace her family tree back, does 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.400 go back to Scotland in fact, right, So she was 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.320 also known as Jessica. Is that right? Jessin? Is that? 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.400 Because I've read that too. Well, she was born Jesse 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:23.920 Jesse Harkness was her maiden name, but then she changed 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.400 her first name. Well, she was known as Joe to 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.040 all her family and friends, right. I think it was 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.280 her husband that her husband to be that nicknamed her that. 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.120 On her gravestone, it doesn't say Jesse though, it says 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.400 Jessica because you know, it's descendants that put stuff on 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:48.360 gravestones and the person who is buried is never responsible 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.240 for it. The work you put into that finding out 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.720 her name, at this point you kind of becoming more 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.080 interesting to getting to the bottom of the mystery. How 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.600 does this sort of expand into Yeah, so I was 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.760 starting to after I found the context, you know, found 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.680 out this lady's name and found more context of the time, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:10.679 it is sort of drew me in I got really 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.000 interested in all the events of the time. I was 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.800 realizing more and more that this wasn't a code as 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.959 time went on, and so I thought, actually, the real 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.120 problem here is to identify the man, not the code. 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.120 The code is just a distraction. What would be really 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.559 interesting is to find out who he is is. Around 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.560 twenty ten, I in fact noticed that the plaster bust 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.160 which is in the Police Museum here actually has hairs 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.840 embedded in it because it was molded directly off the 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.320 dead body. And you can tell these are real hairs 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.679 that came off the body and aren't just something off 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.240 the mortary floor, because they're all standing on end all 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:56.480 information ripped directly off the body. So I thought, ah, 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.600 this is a potential source of DNA. So I got 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:04.000 some permission in twenty eleven to grab some hairs out 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:10.360 of the bus, which we did, and unfortunately the technology 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:15.080 of the time wasn't good enough to extract DNA from 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:20.600 a hair let alone hair that old. So anyway, we 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.880 bit the bullet and in two thousand and fifteen our 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.000 DNA lab at head Laid University had a go. We 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.480 selected the three best hair roots that we had and 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:36.080 tried to get some DNA out of them. It did 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.800 test positive for DNA, there was actually DNA there, so 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:45.160 that was encouraging, but we got absolutely virtually nothing out 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.240 of it. We got no sequence or all we were 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.160 able to get was what's called his maternal happler group, 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.880 and so we knew his mother's group was h and 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.800 that's all we knew. So it was a little bit disappointing, 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:04.080 but also exciting that at least there was viable DNA 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:09.440 in there. And so then in twenty and eighteen we 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:15.160 had another crack at the lab at the university and bingo, 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.920 we got the whole mitochondrial genome. That's all then from 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.360 the mother's side. Unfortunately, that's not the sort of DNA 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.920 you need to identify somebody. To identify somebody like this 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:34.199 where you don't have any comparison to compare the person with, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.320 what you need to do is upload on genealogical DNA 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.760 websites and find nearest cousins, you know, like ancestry dot 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:48.679 com and stuff like that. Now, those those websites people 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.560 may or may not know this. The DNA they use 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.199 is quite different to what police do. Police use quite 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:01.040 long strands of DNA long sequences roughly around to three markers, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.120 depending on what jurisdiction you're in. Usually it's around twenty 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:09.360 to twenty three. These DNA websites don't do that. They 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:15.160 use much shorter DNA markers, and they use anywhere between 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.400 half a million to two million of them. It's a 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:23.080 completely different ball game. It's the part of the DNA 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.040 that's inherited from both the mother and the father, So 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.800 the mitochondrial genome which we extracted was no good. We 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.560 needed the part of the DNA that's the mixture of 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:39.800 both parents, and these are called the autosomes. We only 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:46.559 got sixteen thousand of those, and which was a huge breakthrough, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.040 but not enough. It's a way below half a million, 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:54.199 which is what's really needed. So I tried my best 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.920 at seeing if I could make two with the sixteen thousand, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.160 and it just didn't work. It was a bit flop. 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.280 Now a word from our sponsor, better help. It can 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.760 be tough to train your brain to stay in problem 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.160 solving mode when faced with a challenge in life, but 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.240 when you learn how to find your own solutions, there's 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.720 no better feeling. A therapist can help you become a 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.400 better problem solver, making it easier to accomplish your goals, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.040 no matter how big or small. 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This time I used a lab 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.840 in the USA which had some latest cutting edge technology 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.520 for extracting DNA from hair, and so I took my 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.160 best hair root sent it off to them that I 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.400 had nervously saved up since two thousand and eleven, always 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:32.640 over ten years, and guess what, it was a big flop. 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:37.200 It didn't give us a sequence, and so I was mortified. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.840 This is my best hair root that I'd saved up. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.000 So then went to Plan B and sent them five 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.640 centimeters of hair shaft with no root and guess what 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:55.640 we got two million markers. Wow. Yeah, So what we're 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.360 able to do is were those two million markers were 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.160 able to upload it and mind his nearest cousins that 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.440 are alive today, and his top hit was a chap 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:12.880 in Victoria, Australia, which is a state next door to me, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:19.720 and the other closest matches were also in Victoria, so 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.360 straight off, this was not looking like a Russian spy 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.840 after all, or American or whatever. Another part of the 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:31.080 story is another twist of the whole story, which we 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:35.320 haven't gone into yet, is that Joe Thompson had a 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.880 son born out of Wedlocke who mysteriously had features that 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:45.200 looked rather like the Summerton Man, and one of the 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.640 theories was perhaps he's the Summitton Man. So what I 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:54.160 was able to do was compare the DNA of the 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:59.560 Summerton Man to his daughter that's alive, the daughter of 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.240 Joe Thompson's son, that is, who also I happened to 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.480 be married too. So that's another little twist. I don't 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.520 know if you've explained that to the audience here. No, 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.840 I haven't at all. So if you don't be able 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:13.400 to go into that a little bit, because I mean, 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.920 that is extraordinary, and yeah, my main question was, at 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.720 what point did you meet your wife in this sort 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.800 of journey of yours so to speak. I met my 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:27.960 wife around twenty ten. It was basically because Joe Thompson 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.600 had passed away two years before I found out who 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.800 she was, and then I thought, well, I should interview 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.600 her son, Robin, But he had passed away like literally 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.320 two months before I figured out how to contact him. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.960 So then I thought, well, does he have any descendants? 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.000 So I interviewed a daughter of his, Rachel, and we 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.760 hit it off and decided to get married the next day. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:57.000 So that's incredible. And then we really did get married 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.720 about three months later. So being married, obviously I had 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.119 her DNA on tap and so immediately that's the first 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.040 thing I did when we got the Summerton Man's two 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:14.080 million markers is compared it against my wife and guess what, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:21.280 absolute zero match. Not a single scary in the class 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.480 task as well? Was there not a story? I thought, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.840 I've read at some point that Joe Thompson had said 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.399 something at some point much later in her life in 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.240 relation to the man's identity. Was that a fabrication in 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.399 the paper, or had she alluded to knowing him at 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.359 some point. People always said they thought she'd knew something, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.680 but she never admitted it. I see, So what you've 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.120 probably been reading is probably people saying that I bet 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:53.399 she knew something. Yeah right, So yes, so we ruled 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.840 out my wife being related and hence her father, so 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:03.240 that was interesting. So yeah, so we eliminated that possibility. 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.040 And then we started looking at these nearest cousins that 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.200 were in Victoria. So the fact they were from Victoria, 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.920 Australia meant straight away that you know, these the top matches, 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.399 so you know, this guy's obviously not some Russian spy 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.800 or American or whatever. It kind of eliminated all the 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.800 fanciful theory straight away and just some ordinary bloke from 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:31.320 the state next door. So from the top match, what 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.800 we're able to do is and this is myself and 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:41.720 Colleen Fitzpatrick from America who's an expert genealogist. We worked 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.800 on this together and built out the family tree. And 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.919 because we were working in the dark, and you know, 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.879 we didn't know which which direction the tree would go 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.080 in and stuff like that, where to look in the tree, 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.800 we obviously just went ballistic and just built out the 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.879 tree too, like it was like at four thousand people 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.280 on it in the end. Wow. And then it seemed 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:14.560 this chap in Victoria connected to a family quite quickly 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:20.280 called Keene A K A N E. Right, And this 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:25.080 is quite significant because as we all know, the Summerton 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.679 man had the name Keene written on some items of 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:34.760 his clothing, written in India ink. And he even had 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.040 a laundry bag with the name Keen stenciled on it. Right, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.320 And laundry bags with stenciled names is a very sort 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.560 of World War two army type thing. So what's he 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.240 doing with these items with the name Keen on them? 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.160 So Colleen immediately said, oh, I bet he's a Keen, 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.080 because you know it is connecting to this Keene family. 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.080 And so she was part and pun very Keen on this. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.679 And we're looking at these Keens and we couldn't find 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.800 any of missing. They were all fine, they all were 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.199 well accounted for, and they had all had dates of 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:20.280 death way after nineteen forty eight. We're thinking back to 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.760 the drawing board and I was saying, I'm saying to Colleen, 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.040 you know, I think this whole Keen thing is a distraction. 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.240 It's a coincidence. You know, it's a common name. Okay, 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.320 so there's somebody on this family tree or four thousand 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.080 with the name Keen, and he happens to have that 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.119 name on his tie. You know, it could just be 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.439 a coincidence. And so I say to her, look, I 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.880 think we'd better move on. And so what we do 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.359 is we then find we then look at other people 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.679 on the tree that don't have dates of death right, 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.199 And that can happen for all kinds of reasons, you know, 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:02.800 birth deaths and marriage officers, particularly in the world from 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.399 World War two times, you know, can have information lost, 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.640 you know, or there could be some flood or something. 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.320 But it's a good place to start. So we did 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.760 find a couple of people close to this Keen family 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.639 that looked like they didn't have a date of birth. 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.840 One of them we were able to find a photo 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.640 four and Colleen was saying, hmm, this photo does look 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.240 a bit like the Summerton man. And I was saying 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.159 that it doesn't doesn't look like him to me, you know. 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:39.760 But there's a trouble with all fuzzy photos. You can 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.359 make them look like anything. You want really, And so 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:45.320 we had a bit of a disagreement over that, and 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.640 then another chat. A person of interest was a guy 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.400 who was born by the name Carl Webb in nineteen 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:58.280 o five but went by the name Charles Webb later 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.560 in life. You know, no, no date of death. Couldn't 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:06.159 find a photo on him, but we thought, well, we 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.679 ought to check this one as well. So what I 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.200 did was because the tree had been built out through 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:19.160 the Keen family, which was in fact by marriage, because 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.840 his sister Freedom had married a guy called Keene, what 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:27.400 we thought we should do is well, go away from 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.280 that side of the family tree and look at the 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:35.760 summer to Man's mother and tunnel her tree down and 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.760 find somebody on that side of the family that it 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.880 is alive today and test their DNA. And so we did, 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.280 and guess what it didn't match. It was a big 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:54.400 flot So there's another twist, and thought, oh my god, 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:59.600 what's gone wrong here? And here's the twist. The twist 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:05.080 is that the Sumrton Man's mother for Charles Webb's mother, 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:11.840 I should say, is didn't Her maiden name was Grace. 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:20.560 But we found out that her supposed father wasn't mister Grace. 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:25.119 It was another chap. Wow it was mister Morris, and 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:27.800 I don't think she ever knew herself who her real 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.720 dad was. Wow, how did you find that out? That 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:38.120 was interesting that there were some genealogists already on ancestry 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:40.879 dot Com who looked like they had figured this out 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:45.120 and so were by poking around on family trees there 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:48.439 had We saw that. And the interesting thing about this 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.679 was Colleen went straight for this. She said, Yep, this 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:56.159 is right, this is he's a Morris. And I'm actually skeptical. 0:24:56.600 --> 0:25:00.920 So it's me going, oh, I don't I'm not sure 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:05.880 there's enough evidence for this, because you know, it looks 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:09.600 like there's some suppositions here and things like that. So 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:13.440 what we did is we okay, well let's say it 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:19.280 is Morris. Then, so we tunneled down the mother's side 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:22.439 family tree, assuming the correct father now, and get this 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:26.600 part of the family tree correct, find an alive person 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:32.080 who was prepared to descendant, who was prepared to be tested. 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:35.640 So I rang them up Kenny. It was very helpful 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:40.560 and he agreed, and I think a couple of months 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:42.920 later his DNA came through and it was a match. 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:48.680 Bingo it's amazing. So get this. Not only did we 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.600 get this match, and so not only did it prove 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:56.440 straight away that hey, Charles Webb is the Summerton Man, 0:25:56.480 --> 0:25:59.120 because we've got to like a triangulation now from too 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:03.240 distant different parts of the family tree meeting point, so 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:07.359 it's a triangulation, but it also proves that his mother 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.400 was really a Morris all in one hit. Yeah. Then 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.960 what we did is usually with this sort of work, 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:19.880 one doesn't just do one confirmation. One looks for many. 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:22.600 So what we're able to then do is look to 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:26.600 see who else is on the database that's close to 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:30.520 our new chap that we had just found and see 0:26:30.560 --> 0:26:33.359 if they also matched as Summerton Man. And we found 0:26:33.359 --> 0:26:37.960 another one, so we found another triangulation point. And then 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:42.600 what I was able to do is contact close descendants 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:48.080 of Charles Webb. So I found a granddaughter of one 0:26:48.119 --> 0:26:55.720 of his sisters, and I also found a great grandson 0:26:55.800 --> 0:27:00.800 and great granddaughter of his eldest brother. And so got 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:04.399 all these people tested, and every time it was a 0:27:04.400 --> 0:27:09.320 fantastic match. And the amount of DNA overlap we're just 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:12.440 kept increasing and increasing as we've got you know, these 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:17.360 closer family relatives. It's just now completely beyond all reasonable 0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:22.400 doubt that you know, Charles Webb is the Summerson man. Yeah, 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:25.520 that's it's incredible. And I mean, how do these people 0:27:25.880 --> 0:27:28.000 how did they feel, I mean, firstly being approached, but 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:31.639 secondly sort of finding themselves now part of this story 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:34.280 in a way? Is it something? Because I guess the 0:27:34.280 --> 0:27:36.000 whole thing about the story of the sum To Man 0:27:36.080 --> 0:27:38.240 is there's the question, there's a sort of ethical question 0:27:38.240 --> 0:27:43.120 about whether this is maybe he wanted to die anonymously. 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:45.800