Amnesia -- a John Doe story

[bixaorellana]

[font=[Times New Roman]Do you know this man?[/b][/font][/size]
He was found by the bins of a Burger King restaurant, with no clothes, no memories, nothing. Six years on, Benjaman Kyle is no nearer to answering the question that haunts him: who am I?
Click text above to read full Guardian.UK article. It seems incredible that this person has not been identified.

Around 6 a.m. on August 31, 2004, a man now living under the name Benjamin Kyle was discovered behind a Burger King in Richmond Hill, Georgia.
Kyle was badly beaten, unconscious, naked, and covered with red ant bites. He was assumed homeless and taken to a hospital for treatment. Officers who searched the scene found no clothes or wallet to identify the man.
When found, he had no memory of who he was, and did not even recognize his own face.
The text above is a precis of the Wikipedia article. Click text for full story.

Missing persons network with photos of Kyle:
www.doenetwork.org/cases/1007umga.html

[joanne28]

How strange that with all the publicity there hasn't been any identification from family members. I realize that all his family may be dead but still one would think co-workers or neighbours would recognize him or at least say he reminds them of so-and-so.

[bixaorellana]

Exactly! I wish I had the talent to write a speculative fiction book around this story. It's almost impossible to accept that he's been on a show with such a wide audience as Dr. Phil's, not to mention his fingerprints checked through the FBI.

On the one hand, you want the amateur sleuths to succeed in identifying him. By the same token, it's scary that official sources cannot.

[joanne28]

The fact that official sources can't identify him indicates that we're not at the "Big Brother is watching" stage of government that some paranoiac types think.

[bixaorellana]

As far as I know, your fingerprints would only be on file somewhere if you had either a criminal record or needed security clearance for some job.

The thing is, his looks are not uncommon, to the extent that he seems vaguely familar.

I don't know how far down anyone read in the Wikipedia article, but in the part about DNA testing, they use one of my favorite genealogical phrases -- "non-paternity event", which roughly translates as "your granpappy ain't your grandpappy".

[Deleted]

When one has such extreme amnesia, unless you're really rich or something, it might be better not to be identified. There are so many stories about people who have to go live with their "family" of complete strangers, probably staring at you all the time to see if you will react to something.

[spindrift]

Poor fellow. I looked at his picture because I know a family named 'Kyle'....I know that's just a coincidence of course.