Reminds me of that mysterious Malaysian airline plane that went down. Turns out the pilot was just depressed and took everyone out with him
Somerton Man Charles Webb's true identity revealed in family photographs and divorce papers
linkStory with no happy ending
For the living relatives of Charles who've recently discovered their link to the bizarre case, there are other puzzling questions.
"It's quite incredible when you look at these photos and this guy obviously went missing, and nobody came forward," Stuart said.
Antero, looking at old photo albums with his own family, had the same reaction.
"Why didn't any of the siblings try and find out where he went? Did they know he'd gone to Adelaide and never came back?
"Or did he just go off and no-one knew where he was?"
And as they learn more about the life of their long-dead relative, there are sobering reminders that this is not a story with a happy ending.
Charles was one of six siblings who grew up and worked in the family bakery business in Springvale, Victoria.
It's thought that when the bakery closed down, he retrained as an electrical instrument maker.
In 1941, he married Dorothy Robertson, a pharmacist and chiropodist, and the couple moved into a flat in Bromby Street, South Yarra.
When Dorothy filed for divorce in 1951 on the grounds of desertion — presumably not knowing that her husband was lying dead in an Adelaide cemetery – she did not paint a flattering portrait of him.
In the divorce papers, she described Charles as violent, threatening and moody – a man with "no particular friends of his own" who was often in bed by 7pm.
"He has written many poems, most of them on the subject of death, which he claims to be his greatest desire," Dorothy said in the statement.
This seemingly ties in with the mysterious scrap of paper found in the Somerton Man's pocket, which turned out to be an excerpt from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, described as "poetry about death".
One day in March 1946, Dorothy came home to their flat to find Charles was unwell.
"This very much sounds like Charles was attempting suicide," said Carolyn Bilsborow, a University of South Australia lecturer who made a documentary about the Somerton Man case.
"This story turns out that it's not some wild spy drama. It's really a sad, tragic domestic situation."
In the days after Charles's overdose, Dorothy helped nurse him back to health, she said, "even hand-feeding him".
"But as soon as he was about again, he told me that I was a fool to help him get better. From then on, he became more violent."
Interventions by the police and Dorothy's parents were not enough to protect her.
In September 1946, after years of physical and verbal abuse, and threats against her life, Dorothy fled the flat and the marriage, "with only a few shillings to keep me going".
Charles moved out in 1947. Nobody knows for sure what drew him to Adelaide the following year.
But most of the experts interviewed for tonight's Australian Story agree on one thing: It's most likely that Charles took his own life on Somerton beach that summer night in 1948.
The doctor who carried out the post-mortem examination in 1949 found the stomach was deeply congested with blood, and that death had been caused by heart failure due to poisoning.
Professor Abbott, after years examining every aspect of the story, thinks Charles was in a very bad space mentally.
"In the end, when we look at the whole situation of the Somerton Man, it does appear to be a sad story," he said.
But his wife, Rachel Egan, finds some comfort in the fact that Charles now has a name and a family.
"It's been really heartwarming to learn that the family that may not have missed him when he went missing and when he died, are now reclaiming him," she said