Thanks for this,
@Jella, as I was planning on asking you to expand on your experience with these types of money bags.
You mentioned handmade and that set off the bells that were already ringing in my mind, as I recognize that type of craftsmanship.
As I might have mentioned previously, I met and married a Swiss man in the late ‘80’s. My husband, who would have been the same age as our UID, was a self-described ‘small farmer boy’ who grew up lower middle class on a small farm in the Swiss Jura.
As a youth my husband was determined to break what he felt was his preordained future as a small town fromager and set out to see the world. Amidst his first several years of travel he acquired a unique skillset that allowed him to open a boutique shop in Berkeley CA, which was were we met.
I remember meeting his mother when he took me to what remained of the family farm in Les Ponts-de-Martel. Out of early necessity, my belle-mère was prolific with the needle, creating her family’s clothing, and later she crafted for pleasure. She made many little gifts for her grandchildren, and early on for me she sewed a little velvet and satin jewelry pouch that shares similarities with the one found with Malibu John Doe.
In my final (hopefully) long-winded opus, I want to just pull some threads together to paint a very broad picture of who this Doe might have been, and what could have happened to cause his death. Let me say that 99% of these ideas were brought up much earlier in the thread by other Sleuthers, so I am just building my observations on your insights and other people’s ideas.
In my opinion, and by what supporting evidence I can glean from the photos, the earliest and simplest version of the Doe’s identity and the events leading to his demise holds the most water.
I believe that our UID was a Swiss citizen who came from a relatively modest background. His social class has been deduced from the clothing he was wearing, jeans and T-shirts that were made in Spain and Portugal and available from any of the shops in the industrial malls along Swiss autoroutes. He was not banker, but possibly a functionary or skilled laborer with middle class sensibilities. It should be noted that was he not dressed as a long route backpacker, as his new white Adidas and trendy bomber type jacket attest. He was did not need to sleep rough, and likely stayed at inexpensive hotels, or even hostels.
Much has been made of his supposed “other” ethnicity. I’m not sorry to say that he looks no different than many Swiss or French or Northern Italian people I’ve encountered. I see typical Caucasian features on a young man with dark hair. As you’ve noted prolonged exposure in water causes sloughing of the skin, the epidermis actually peeling away from the dermis. Perhaps this is why the hair appears longer and darker on the head and upper body. As I noted earlier, the skin and hair on the decedent’s abdomen do not, to my eye, show the same degree of deterioration.
Back to the origin theory: For whatever reason, Malibu John Doe set out from his home and family, probably traveling solo for all or most of his journey. We know from Jella’s experience that one can only get the Swiss coins found in his possession by being in the country itself. Could he have originated in a neighboring county and made his currency exchange in Switzerland? Yes, but why? The CHF was not particularly strong in 1985, the USD was more than twice in exchange. Sticking with simplest, this Doe left his home alone, probably from one of the smaller Swiss villages with a considerable amount of native currency.
If, as Jella tells us, Swiss citizens did not regularly choose the U.S. as a vacation destination, any number of reasons could have brought him to the Southern California coastline. He could have been passing through on his way somewhere else. It’s possible he had a skill set that made him highly employable in the U.S., say, California creameries seeking master cheese-makers. He could have received an advance to travel, or had been well paid for work on a previous project. Perhaps he was carrying his savings in cash as he was considering immigration to Canada, or less likely the U.S.
In truth, we really don’t know what his plans were, or even if he was staying close to where his body was found. In my opinion, Malibu John Doe did not fall off a pier or commit suicide. The most likely scenario was that he taken by force by persons unknown to the then-deserted area of beach where his body was eventually found, at some point assaulted and robbed, and his death was the result of those crimes. I believe that he died on, or close by the shoreline. was a high probability that the perpetrators were armed.
Here is what I think is the supporting evidence for that scenario. Why not suicide? While it’s true that suicide is often an impulsive act and there are never any absolutes, I don’t think that the Doe killed himself because he was found with that large amount of cash. He had plans for that money, and already traveled quite a distance carrying it. He had taken precautions and good care of it until his death.
Any savvy traveler knows to keep valuables separately on your person and in any bags or packs you carry. Pickpockets are a scourge in crowded European cities, so men know not to carry their wallets or valuables in back pants pockets. MJD probably had his wallet in his left front jeans pocket and had taken the extra step of securing it to his belt loop with a light chain. Wallet chains have come and gone as a fashion statement, but there is no argument that even a lightweight chain could add a bit of security in terms of not losing one’s wallet during your regular activities. The security factor becomes questionable in the face of an armed robbery, even more so when the chain, worn outside the pocket appears to of a fine gold jewelry quality. In any regard, the gold chain and accompanying wallet did part of the job - picking them off could have been a decoy against thieves finding the bigger haul, the stuffed-to-bursting money bag reportedly found in the Doe’s right front jeans pocket.
We like the idea that the money pouch was either a purchased handicraft, but more likely, it was lovingly sewn by someone in MJD’s family. Maybe not explicitly for this trip, but purposed for the task. There are several commercial versions of devices one can employ to safeguard valuables while traveling. I’ve personally owned two of these three.
The first is an actual money belt. It is worn around the waist and under a layer of clothing. It doesn’t fit that much before it starts being bulky. The more practical is the waist or Fanny pack. Usually an item of derision as a non-fashion statement, nothing says “tourist” louder than these packs. They did have their time in the ‘80’s though, and I bought a folkloric one in Switzerland that I still wear today (cows and edelweiss lol). If our Doe did wear one of these in addition to the items in his pockets, this is possible where he had stashed his passport.
I believe that there is evidence that our Doe was using some version of the next two security devices, albeit homemade versions thereof. First is the so-called neck pouch, which is just what it sounds like. Commercially made ones consist of a satiny pouch that hangs about to mid-chest suspended by a narrow flat band that goes around the neck. I had one with a pouch large enough for little more than a passport and it wasn’t useful for long. It kept getting twisted up and eventually the strap broke. I believe that Malibu John Doe was wearing a homemade version of just such a pouch. The large plastic bag was probably not part of the original design, but possibly he had to improvise. Just with his “sock stash.” Yes, there are commercial versions of little zipper pockets that can be attached inside a sock. I think a possible explanation for the looped cloth attached to the sock is that MJD had at some point improvised a similar method to hide some of his valuables. It doesn’t look like any of that attached material was visible outside of his pants leg when his body was found, so perhaps it was disused at the time. It is possible that the Doe did have some belongings in the white bag, which were either stolen or eroded out from the action of waves and sand.
How it things might have ended for our Doe. To be continued…
