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Monday, December 2, 2013

A December Mystery - Taman Shud

But first, my apologies to the Armchair Squid and the Cephalopod Coffeehouse. I was supposed to post about a book I read in November but traveling and the holiday got in my way. I promise to make up for it with December's post!

And now for our mystery...

On December 1, 1948, a man’s body was found on a beach in Australia. He had no identification,was dressed in a suit with the labels deliberately cut off, and apparently dies as a result of poison - except that no poisons were found in the man’s system.

The first clue to the man came when a suitcase was found at a nearby train station which had been checked in the same night the mystery man died. Unfortunately, all the items in the suitcase were without labels as well. The second clue discovered was a hidden pocket in the man's pants with a piece of paper which said "Tamam Shud" ( the phrase means "ending" in Persian -  in transliteration, the “n” became a second “m.”). A photo of the piece of paper was released to the public, which led a man to come forward and relate how he happened to find a very rare first edition copy of The Rubaiyat in a car the night before the mystery man was killed. On the back was a cipher (pictured above) and in the front a phone number belonging to a former nurse. She had a small child and was recently married and somehow convinced the police to keep her name secret. She claimed to have given the book to a man named Albert Boxall but when the police located Mr. Boxall, he showed them the book with the phrase “Tamam Shud” still intact.



To date, the identity of the mystery man remains unknown, as does the meaning, if any, of the cipher.  To read a full account of this case go here.



18 comments:

  1. What?!?! And it's all true too - just been to the wiki page about this. Yikes!! What a mystery!! I can't get my head round it - all these secret codes and more dead bodies turning up... and it could be a spy case or a crime of passion but why the codes!??! Thank you for this Marcy! Certainly got my brain cells churning this Monday! Take care
    x

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  2. All the tags cut off - someone really went to a lot of trouble to keep where the man shopped a secret.

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  3. How weird. It could make a great movie, especially if the mystery could be figured out.

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  4. Ooh, I love this kind of stuff. How bizarre and creepy.

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  5. ooh, love the new banner photo!

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  6. Ooh, that is so strange. Why does it excite me so? #paranormalmysteryjunkie

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  7. Quite the story here! I followed the link. Intriguing!

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  8. Hi, Marcy,

    How are you? Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I'm back from Colombia and in Florida… YAY…

    Heading home to the frozen tundra of Chicago in a few weeks. EEEK! But I need to be in the snow for Christmas.

    WOW… this is a very intriguing mystery… Thanks for sharing.

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  9. Wow! That is quite a story... and a mystery.

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  10. Wow, this is the kind of thing that fascinates me! So interesting and weird and puzzling.

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  11. Very intriguing and, well, creepy. Interesting tho!

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  12. First of all...WHAT'S UP?!?!?! Second of all, I have read about this before. Insane. I need to know the full story!

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    1. everyone would like to know the full story - here's a little more. http://tomsbytwo.com/

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  13. I love mysteries, but only those with all the answers at the ending. This one is too much of a mystery for me ... my brain hurts! lol

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  14. Oh heck, now I'm going to be puzzling over this all day.

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  15. I'm with Michael - we need Sherlock. I love mysteries, but I stink at solving them!

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  16. I read about this a couple of months ago. It's a pretty interesting case...!!! Congrats on working so diligently on your WIP!!

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