Australia Exhumes the Somerton Man, and His 70-Year Mystery
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
WRGOABABD - We recently got another baby another baby [David/damn]
WTBIMPANETP - Whether this baby is mine Prosper's Alf's nobody expected this pregnancy
MLIABOAIAQC - My life is all but over and I am quite certain
ITTMTSAMSGAB - It's time to move to [Sydney/somewhere] as Moseley St got another baby
Some possible context: Dead man knew JE from Sydney. They had something there. He moved in to the street behind her house and they continued their affair, she sneaking out to the house behind. He was dressed as he planned to move. Hop a train to someplace else. She hated his comings and goings, either wanting him to stay, or stay away. With her pregnancy, her desire to settle into her life, she was terrified by the prospect of him leaving, then just showing up again in future. She couldn't bear this upheaval again. After their last afternoon/night together, she discovered him in the kitchen of his house fully dressed, about to leave, but he was hesitating. She offered him a cup of tea/malted milk. Intended to send him a message, but not necessarily to kill him, she mixed some poison/rat poison into the drink from under the counter. After finishing the drink, he initially intended to head away from the coast toward the station, but feeling unwell, he decided to take a walk along the beach first. He entered the beach near where the street his house was on (street behind Moseley) came to the dunes. He made it a couple hundred meters from there to the east, and lay down where he was eventually found. Overcome by the poison, he died of a heart attack/arrhythmia. JE denied knowing him to avoid scandal about the baby and implication in his death.
It's funny that people want to add a spy element to this story. I didn't look at that but while I guess it is possible, it seems less likely than to simply be a relationship issue. So JE's comment that it was known "at a level higher than police" could refer to that unlikely possibility, or to how she was interviewed by agents after that (for whatever reasons they had an interest) and she confessed to them after they assured her they could bring no criminal charges and were only collecting intelligence. Or it could have simply been her attempt to exculpate herself by implying a story that suggested his death was "spy related".
This is the first time I'm hearing about this and it does seem fun to speculate, so I'll try to pitch in :D
Even though the initialisms might be just that, it's one of those things people do when they are just letting their mind wonder and just doodle or note down what they are thinking. but that wouldn't be consistent with striking through one of the sentences and starting it from scratch. that looks too premeditated, they would have just blanked the last 2 letters where they made a mistake and continue, and maybe not even that. -- the fact that this person removed the whole sentence and started again seems too specific to me.
But I'm 100% with you on the relationship aspect, these three people (JE, Alf, Dead man) would make sense, and a kid would probably mean bad things about them if it came out I guess.
Alternately as he's writing it down, through the act of putting it into an ordered form he realizes the thought needs additional qualification to reflect his idea, so strikes it and inserts the second line.
I get where you're coming from with the deliberateness, maybe like a todo list of set of instructions. But I just think this matches with the relationship part, and his sort of organized, but reaction/emotional personality. Why would a spy/operator write a secret code in some book of poetry, then chuck it in a car? Seems more like an act of passion. :p :) xx
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7913942
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