By James Simons-
Australian criminologists and forensic scientists from Murdoch University may have helped to unravel the mystery after they ran new tests, which suggested the man spent most of his life in Australia. Scientists unravelled the decades-old mystery of an unknown man’s body found floating in the North Sea, dubbed ‘The Gentleman’ by investigators.
The murder case has been puzzled police since 1994 after his body was found off the coast of Heligoland, a German archipelago. The body showed signs of trauma and was weighed down by cast iron cobbler’s feet.
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The mystery man was subsequently known as ‘Gentleman’ due to the middle-class clothing he was found in, which included a wool tie, British-made loafers, French-made trousers and a long-sleeve blue dress shirt.
At the time of finding his body, German authorities determined he was between 45 and 50-years-old, and stood at 6ft 5in. In the 1990s, Investigators determined he was between 45 and 50 years old.
Now, 28 years later, criminologists and forensic scientists in Perth made a breakthrough after they ran new tests, which revealed he had spent most of his life in Australia, using the principle of ‘you are what you eat’.
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The discovery marks the last day of National Missing Persons Week, which aims to profile and raise awareness about long-term missing persons in Australia.
Scientists made the discovery by following the principle of “you are what you eat”, performing an isotope ratio analysis of The Gentleman’s bones.
Differences in climate, soil and human activity across the globe change the isotopic compositions of food, water and even dust — reflected in the isotopic compositions of human tissue.
Analysis showed the man likely spent most of his life in Australia.
Researchers from overseas universities were also able to get a DNA profile of the man.
There is hope it could match DNA being collected as part of Missing Persons Week, which has rallied Australians to come forward for testing to help solve some of the nation’s cold cases.
Unbelievable
Brendan Chapman, one of the directors of Murdoch University’s Cold Case Review team, said it was an unbelievable discovery.
“What are the chances that from this small collection of universities working on this case, one would be from the country where the man originated?” he said.
He said police had not previously looked in that direction.
“Without that they didn’t know where to direct their inquires and in fact they were probably looking mostly around Europe because that’s obviously where he went missing,” he said.
“What that can now allow the German investigators to do is to focus their further efforts on Australia and they’re able to now use their international networks to work with Australian law enforcement.”
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