Shallow Inlet skeleton mystery solved

Shallow Inlet

31 July

The State Coroner, Judge John Cain has now delivered his finding on the identity of the human remains found at Shallow Inlet in 1929 and 2017. You can read the official and full history of this mystery in the Coroner’s Report of 27 July, 2023. It outlines the initial tragic events of 1928, subsequent investigations into human remains found at Shallow Inlet, and the final DNA breakthrough evidence revealed in 2023 … almost a century later.

The report begins with the following background …

1. On 15 January 1929, a jawbone was discovered on the beach at Shallow Inlet, Sandy Point. Eighty-eight years later, on Christmas Day 2017, a snorkeler swimming in the waters at Shallow Inlet, discovered a human skull. Subsequent investigations by search and rescue teams found the complete skeleton buried in the sand near where the snorkeler had discovered the skull. The skeleton discovered did not include a jawbone.
2. Following extensive work by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) in conjunction with the Court the jawbone and skeleton have been identified as the remains of Christopher Luke Moore, a First World War veteran who went swimming at Waratah Bay and drowned on 30 December 1928.
3. Mr Moore’s identity was confirmed by DNA comparison. This is the first time that Forensic Genetic Genealogy has been used to assist confirming identity in a coronial finding in Victoria.