The man who doesn't exist
July 15, 2010
Lost ... the unknown man who now calls himself Benjaman Kyle after he took on the initials of the Burger King outlet where he was found.
Lost ... the unknown man who now calls himself Benjaman Kyle after he took on the initials of the Burger King outlet where he was found.
He was found by the bins of a fast-food outlet in Georgia with no clothes, no memories, nothing. Six years on, he is no closer to answering the question that haunts him: who am I? Neil Forsyth reports.
At 5am on August 31, 2004, staff at a Burger King in Richmond Hill, near Savannah, Georgia, prepared for the day ahead. Ovens were turned on, the floor was mopped and a female employee carried a garbage bag from the restaurant, through an empty car park towards a small outbuilding that housed the restaurant's bins. She opened the gate and screamed. Behind the bins, wearing only underwear, lay the body of a man.
The identity of the man is a question that still has not been resolved. He was not dead; he was unconscious and would eventually come round in a nearby hospital. When he did, he could not remember how he had ended up beside the bins, but that was the least of his problems. It is easier to record what he did remember. He believed his birth date was August 29, 1948, thought he might have been called Benjaman and had a few blurred memories of Denver and Indianapolis. That was it.
Of the 56 years he said he had lived, he had enough memories to fill a day.
Unidentified and uninsured, he was an administrative nightmare for the hospitals and shelters he was sent to. They kept asking him the same question: ''What's your name?'' Finally he made one up. Benjaman Kyle. BK. Burger King.
It is 2010 and Benjaman Kyle is sitting in a Richmond Hill diner. He is articulate, witty and the only US citizen officially listed as missing despite his whereabouts being known. His identity is being sought by local police, the FBI, a US senator, DNA experts and a private investigator.
''And me,'' he says flatly. ''Don't forget me.'' Of the initial months after he was found, Kyle has few memories. One is of a conversation between doctors while he lay slipping in and out of consciousness. ''They were joking,'' he smiles. ''Calling me the Burger King John Doe. That's when I decided my name.'' When Kyle awoke, he had lost his sight because of cataracts. ''I didn't have insurance. I couldn't see more than a couple of feet,'' he says. After being bounced between hospitals in Savannah, 16 kilometres from Richmond Hill, Kyle ended up at the Grace House men's shelter, where he roomed with alcoholics and addicts, and was trapped by his blindness.
''You had to leave Grace House during the day,'' he says. ''All I could do was sit in the courtyard and wait for them to reopen.''
Nine months after he was found, a charity paid for Kyle's cataracts to be treated. With vision came the confidence for him to approach shelter staff with a new challenge, that of discovering his identity. ''I kept asking, 'Is anyone trying to find out who I am?' ''
Now at least physically sound, Kyle was sent to a health centre. Katherine Slater was a psychiatric nurse working there. She remembers a strange new patient who claimed not to know who he was. ''At first I just observed him,'' she says. ''I guess everyone was suspicious. But he was so sweet and clever that I couldn't find it in me to doubt him. After that I got angry because no one was helping him find out who he is.'' Kyle was fit to leave the centre, but his lack of a social security number made that impossible. Instead he began to work there, staying for free and paid a small wage for helping the patients. ''He worked his days off,'' Slater says. ''He had nothing else to do.'' In June 2007, she invited Kyle to move into a spare room in her house.
Together they started the search for Kyle's past. Slater alerted Georgia senator Jack Kingston who notified the FBI and began the tortuous process of gaining Kyle a social security number (he still does not have one, so cannot claim benefits). She also approached Richmond Hill police. Since Kyle was found stripped and unconscious, Slater was surprised to find they had not held a criminal investigation. One was instigated when Slater made contact three years after the event.
A local newspaper covered Kyle's story and this sparked media coverage, which peaked with an appearance on the Dr Phil TV show. Dr Phil McGraw's eponymous show attracts 7 million viewers and is endlessly repeated domestically and internationally. Kyle appeared and told his story in October 2008. As a result, his memories of Denver (mainly about its public transport) were dated to the 1980s, those of buying grilled cheese sandwiches at the Indianapolis State Fair for 25¢, to the '50s. The show received a barrage of tips and theories. Not a single one was of any worth.
''What can you say?'' Kyle says. ''I thought someone would recognise me.'' He feels he may have had brothers but has no other familial instincts: ''No family, kids, nothing like that.''
In the nearly two years since Dr Phil, Kyle and Slater have tried various angles. He says his DNA has been supplied to a genealogy specialist and his fingerprints are working their way through the FBI's system. He spends hours on the internet looking at public libraries in Denver and Indianapolis - because of his belief that he has been a lifelong reader - and he has been seeing a new psychologist. The rest of Kyle's life is spent doing odd jobs for Slater and others. ''I earn between $50 and $100 a month,'' he says. ''I hate taking people's charity but that's the reality of my situation.'' Slater, meanwhile, surfs missing-person websites and liaises with official bodies searching for Kyle's identity. Of the two of them, Kyle says, Slater is the optimist. ''I think all the obvious things have been tried,'' he says. ''More and more, I think that one day it's going to pop into my head. 'Pop!' it'll all come back.''
Kyle says he has no wish to become ''a famous nutcase who can't remember who he is''. His media outings are designed to spread coverage of his story in the hope of solving it, and when he meets people, he tends not to tell them his story. ''You get two reactions. They want to tell you their theories or they think you're mad. Neither is much fun for me.''
Kyle struggles with dates, and with the order of events, but he offers a steady, reasoned examination of the past six years. The problem is he claims to suffer from an extremely rare condition that attracts endless curiosity. When cases have arisen and the media has descended, the result has often been the same: a hoax.
Michael Kopelman, professor of neuropsychiatry at King's College London and an expert on retrograde amnesia, says there are two views on the type of memory loss Kyle claims to have, called focal retrograde amnesia, meaning new memories can still be formed. ''Many neuropsychologists believe it can be caused by neurological issues such as head injury, brain infection, dementia, lack of oxygen to the brain and certain types of strokes,'' Kopelman says. ''Or it can be caused by psychological reasons, or a combination of neurological followed by psychological.''
The most common psychological form of retrograde amnesia Kopelman encounters is known as the fugue state. ''People go wandering off,'' he says. ''Sometimes there's been a neurological issue in the past, but it can simply be a sudden precipitating stress, such as marital breakdown, financial problems or bereavement, often combined with depression or suicidal thoughts.''
When sufferers of the fugue state - recently blamed for Agatha Christie's 11-day disappearance in 1926 - are caught early, Kopelman usually sees recovery in days or weeks. However, there have been reported examples of sufferers undiagnosed for several years, who are much harder to treat.
Kopelman and his international peers debate the nature of these amnesias, often with mixed conclusions, and he acknowledges the significant element of hoax reporting. ''It occurs often,'' he says. Kopelman sees those who fake retrograde amnesia as acting out ''a form of ingrained psychological role play''.
Among the medical causes for retrograde amnesia there are neurological and psychological possibilities that would apply in Kyle's case. If he was found unconscious, perhaps as a result of a mugging, then a head injury is possible and none of the psychological triggers that might cause an extended fugue state can be ruled out, due to the lack of information about his life before 2004.
''Each case must be judged on its merits,'' Kopelman says. Kyle has no problem with the inherent doubt when dealing with stories such as his. ''Of course,'' he says readily. ''It sounds crazy, I know that. All I can say is I'm telling the truth.''
Not everyone is convinced. Websleuths.com is a website owned and run by a Utah woman, Tricia Griffith, who appears in the US media to talk about high-profile cases she investigates. Her site attracts 25,000 users a day, who put hundreds of hours into tracing cases of people they are unlikely ever to have met.
In 2007 Kyle became one of the site's most popular cases until, on April 3, Griffith posted an entry claiming she had evidence Kyle was not beaten and so was a fraud. She claimed Richmond Hill police had told a Websleuths member that Kyle was not unconscious when found and was able to talk but chose not to do so. Several members said Kyle and Slater had also been reluctant to provide his medical records because, they claimed, the hospital had asked for a prohibitive sum to release them. ''They wanted $800,'' Kyle says. ''I couldn't afford it.''
However, Harold Copus, an investigator with more than a decade of experience as an FBI case manager who was brought in by the Dr Phil show to look into Kyle's story, supports his version of events. ''I spoke to the paramedics, Burger King staff and responding police officers. Not only was Kyle unconscious when he was found, they thought he was dead.'' Copus confirms Kyle's fingerprints have been checked against the FBI's files on criminal and civil cases, the most comprehensive search possible. Kyle also co-operated with a linguist, who said a US Midwest background was likely. Copus also says expert medical opinion backs Kyle's story.
Griffith says she drew the conclusion she did based on Kyle's initial refusal to release his medical records and by advice she claims was given to a Websleuths member at Richmond Hill police station. The Richmond Hill Police Department and Kyle have not had a great relationship. Kyle and Slater believe a consensus was formed in the Burger King car park that he was homeless and that affected the police's attitude to looking into his case while it was warm.
I track down the officer whom the Websleuths member alleged had suggested that Kyle was conscious and unco-operative when found. I tell him I have quotes from Copus stating unequivocally that Kyle was not conscious when found. ''Not conscious, yes, sir,'' he replies hesitantly. ''Unable to speak,'' I clarify. ''Unable to speak, yes,'' he replies.
The police also tell me Kyle has voluntarily given them his fingerprints. Colleen Fitzpatrick, a DNA genealogist who has worked on Kyle's case since February last year, says Kyle has submitted DNA samples to her and to others. Her research points to two possible surnames: Davidson or Powell.
I ask Kyle about his medical records and a couple of days later he sends me a full copy of his records from an Atlanta psychologist, Jason King.
In August 2008, Kyle saw King, a specialist in psychological and neuropsychological evaluation. King examined Kyle extensively and reviewed all the medical records from the hospital since the day of his discovery; staff there have confirmed they supplied the records that same month. King's report makes fascinating, if uncomfortable, reading.
After he was discovered in 2004, Kyle had separate periods of catatonic psychosis in September 2004 and again in October 2004. He was ''diagnosed with schizophrenia'' and treated with antipsychotic medication from October 2004 to January 2005. The report reveals that when Kyle underwent an appendectomy operation, it was against his will, because he was deemed ''mentally incompetent to make medical decisions at this time''.
Having analysed Kyle's medical notes, King subjected him to 21 neuropsychology tests. His conclusion was definitive. Kyle has ''disassociative amnesia'', a ''manifestation of a psychiatric illness''.
This fits within Kopelman's definitions for psychologically driven retrograde amnesia. King says Kyle's behaviour ''is not suggestive of malingering'' and the final sentence of his report ends: ''To him, his lack of memory prior to 2004 is real.''
I ask Kyle whether his reluctance to release the medical reports is related to a fear of the stigma of schizophrenia. ''Maybe a little,'' he says, ''but also because I think my story and the records could be worth something one day. You've got to remember I have nothing, no pension, nothing.''
Does he mind his schizophrenic episodes being revealed? ''I don't know if I agree with that diagnosis, but there you go.'' When I mention the hospital records, Kyle insists they had asked for payment for the records but then provided them free to the Dr Phil show.
In Richmond Hill, Kyle and I drive to the site of the Burger King which closed three years ago.
''I came back a couple of times,'' Kyle says. ''Tried to speak to the staff. They looked like they were scared of me. They thought I was a bum.''
He tells of a recent session with a psychologist where it was suggested the memories he had of Indianapolis, which Kyle believes is his home town, may simply have come from a visit to the city. ''I won't accept it. I need to have a home town,'' he says. ''If I had a home town, then that's a start. As for people, I have to rely on them coming to me. And no one's come.''
THE CULPRIT
Dissociative amnesia is classified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as one of the dissociative disorders in which the functions of memory, identity, perception, or consciousness are separated (dissociated). Dissociative disorders are usually associated with trauma in the recent or distant past, or with an intense internal conflict that forces the mind to separate incompatible or unacceptable knowledge, information, or feelings. In dissociative amnesia, the continuity of the patient's memory is disrupted. Patients have episodes in which they forget vital personal information or events, usually connected with trauma or severe stress.
Source: Encyclopedia of Mental Disorder
Andreas Grassl
In 2005 the mysterious ''Piano Man'' was found on a beach by Kent police. He was soaking wet and wearing a suit. He refused to speak yet astounded staff at a psychiatric facility after he drew a grand piano, then proceeded to play one expertly. Four months later he was identified as German care worker Andreas Grassl. He eventually returned to his native Bavaria after a London newspaper claimed the incident was a hoax. His parents said their son had told them he had "no idea what happened to me. I just suddenly woke up and realised who I was".
Doug Bruce
The 2005 documentary Unknown White Male told the story of a man who walked into a Coney Island police station in 2003 and said he had just been on the subway but didn't know who he was. He had no ID but was eventually identified by a friend as Doug Bruce, an Englishman who had been a successful banker in Paris, and was studying in New York. Faced with evidence of his identity he did not deny that he was Bruce, but remains ''detached' from this fact. The filmmakers and subject deny the episode was a hoax. Stephen Frailey, from the School of Visual Arts where Bruce studied before and after the incident, said: "I watched people go up to Doug and say hello, people he knew, and he just looked blank. You could see it in his eyes. He was completely lost."
Agatha Christie
Crime writer Agatha Christie claimed to have suffered amnesia when she disappeared from her home in Berkshire, in 1926. She was found 11 days later in a Yorkshire hotel. She refused to talk about the period and does not mention it in her memoirs.
John Darwin
In 2007 Briton John Darwin claimed he had suffered amnesia when he turned up five years after he was presumed dead in a canoe mishap. He and his wife were later found guilty of faking his disappearance and of insurance fraud.
Guardian News & Media
July 15, 2010
Lost ... the unknown man who now calls himself Benjaman Kyle after he took on the initials of the Burger King outlet where he was found.
Lost ... the unknown man who now calls himself Benjaman Kyle after he took on the initials of the Burger King outlet where he was found.
He was found by the bins of a fast-food outlet in Georgia with no clothes, no memories, nothing. Six years on, he is no closer to answering the question that haunts him: who am I? Neil Forsyth reports.
At 5am on August 31, 2004, staff at a Burger King in Richmond Hill, near Savannah, Georgia, prepared for the day ahead. Ovens were turned on, the floor was mopped and a female employee carried a garbage bag from the restaurant, through an empty car park towards a small outbuilding that housed the restaurant's bins. She opened the gate and screamed. Behind the bins, wearing only underwear, lay the body of a man.
The identity of the man is a question that still has not been resolved. He was not dead; he was unconscious and would eventually come round in a nearby hospital. When he did, he could not remember how he had ended up beside the bins, but that was the least of his problems. It is easier to record what he did remember. He believed his birth date was August 29, 1948, thought he might have been called Benjaman and had a few blurred memories of Denver and Indianapolis. That was it.
Of the 56 years he said he had lived, he had enough memories to fill a day.
Unidentified and uninsured, he was an administrative nightmare for the hospitals and shelters he was sent to. They kept asking him the same question: ''What's your name?'' Finally he made one up. Benjaman Kyle. BK. Burger King.
It is 2010 and Benjaman Kyle is sitting in a Richmond Hill diner. He is articulate, witty and the only US citizen officially listed as missing despite his whereabouts being known. His identity is being sought by local police, the FBI, a US senator, DNA experts and a private investigator.
''And me,'' he says flatly. ''Don't forget me.'' Of the initial months after he was found, Kyle has few memories. One is of a conversation between doctors while he lay slipping in and out of consciousness. ''They were joking,'' he smiles. ''Calling me the Burger King John Doe. That's when I decided my name.'' When Kyle awoke, he had lost his sight because of cataracts. ''I didn't have insurance. I couldn't see more than a couple of feet,'' he says. After being bounced between hospitals in Savannah, 16 kilometres from Richmond Hill, Kyle ended up at the Grace House men's shelter, where he roomed with alcoholics and addicts, and was trapped by his blindness.
''You had to leave Grace House during the day,'' he says. ''All I could do was sit in the courtyard and wait for them to reopen.''
Nine months after he was found, a charity paid for Kyle's cataracts to be treated. With vision came the confidence for him to approach shelter staff with a new challenge, that of discovering his identity. ''I kept asking, 'Is anyone trying to find out who I am?' ''
Now at least physically sound, Kyle was sent to a health centre. Katherine Slater was a psychiatric nurse working there. She remembers a strange new patient who claimed not to know who he was. ''At first I just observed him,'' she says. ''I guess everyone was suspicious. But he was so sweet and clever that I couldn't find it in me to doubt him. After that I got angry because no one was helping him find out who he is.'' Kyle was fit to leave the centre, but his lack of a social security number made that impossible. Instead he began to work there, staying for free and paid a small wage for helping the patients. ''He worked his days off,'' Slater says. ''He had nothing else to do.'' In June 2007, she invited Kyle to move into a spare room in her house.
Together they started the search for Kyle's past. Slater alerted Georgia senator Jack Kingston who notified the FBI and began the tortuous process of gaining Kyle a social security number (he still does not have one, so cannot claim benefits). She also approached Richmond Hill police. Since Kyle was found stripped and unconscious, Slater was surprised to find they had not held a criminal investigation. One was instigated when Slater made contact three years after the event.
A local newspaper covered Kyle's story and this sparked media coverage, which peaked with an appearance on the Dr Phil TV show. Dr Phil McGraw's eponymous show attracts 7 million viewers and is endlessly repeated domestically and internationally. Kyle appeared and told his story in October 2008. As a result, his memories of Denver (mainly about its public transport) were dated to the 1980s, those of buying grilled cheese sandwiches at the Indianapolis State Fair for 25¢, to the '50s. The show received a barrage of tips and theories. Not a single one was of any worth.
''What can you say?'' Kyle says. ''I thought someone would recognise me.'' He feels he may have had brothers but has no other familial instincts: ''No family, kids, nothing like that.''
In the nearly two years since Dr Phil, Kyle and Slater have tried various angles. He says his DNA has been supplied to a genealogy specialist and his fingerprints are working their way through the FBI's system. He spends hours on the internet looking at public libraries in Denver and Indianapolis - because of his belief that he has been a lifelong reader - and he has been seeing a new psychologist. The rest of Kyle's life is spent doing odd jobs for Slater and others. ''I earn between $50 and $100 a month,'' he says. ''I hate taking people's charity but that's the reality of my situation.'' Slater, meanwhile, surfs missing-person websites and liaises with official bodies searching for Kyle's identity. Of the two of them, Kyle says, Slater is the optimist. ''I think all the obvious things have been tried,'' he says. ''More and more, I think that one day it's going to pop into my head. 'Pop!' it'll all come back.''
Kyle says he has no wish to become ''a famous nutcase who can't remember who he is''. His media outings are designed to spread coverage of his story in the hope of solving it, and when he meets people, he tends not to tell them his story. ''You get two reactions. They want to tell you their theories or they think you're mad. Neither is much fun for me.''
Kyle struggles with dates, and with the order of events, but he offers a steady, reasoned examination of the past six years. The problem is he claims to suffer from an extremely rare condition that attracts endless curiosity. When cases have arisen and the media has descended, the result has often been the same: a hoax.
Michael Kopelman, professor of neuropsychiatry at King's College London and an expert on retrograde amnesia, says there are two views on the type of memory loss Kyle claims to have, called focal retrograde amnesia, meaning new memories can still be formed. ''Many neuropsychologists believe it can be caused by neurological issues such as head injury, brain infection, dementia, lack of oxygen to the brain and certain types of strokes,'' Kopelman says. ''Or it can be caused by psychological reasons, or a combination of neurological followed by psychological.''
The most common psychological form of retrograde amnesia Kopelman encounters is known as the fugue state. ''People go wandering off,'' he says. ''Sometimes there's been a neurological issue in the past, but it can simply be a sudden precipitating stress, such as marital breakdown, financial problems or bereavement, often combined with depression or suicidal thoughts.''
When sufferers of the fugue state - recently blamed for Agatha Christie's 11-day disappearance in 1926 - are caught early, Kopelman usually sees recovery in days or weeks. However, there have been reported examples of sufferers undiagnosed for several years, who are much harder to treat.
Kopelman and his international peers debate the nature of these amnesias, often with mixed conclusions, and he acknowledges the significant element of hoax reporting. ''It occurs often,'' he says. Kopelman sees those who fake retrograde amnesia as acting out ''a form of ingrained psychological role play''.
Among the medical causes for retrograde amnesia there are neurological and psychological possibilities that would apply in Kyle's case. If he was found unconscious, perhaps as a result of a mugging, then a head injury is possible and none of the psychological triggers that might cause an extended fugue state can be ruled out, due to the lack of information about his life before 2004.
''Each case must be judged on its merits,'' Kopelman says. Kyle has no problem with the inherent doubt when dealing with stories such as his. ''Of course,'' he says readily. ''It sounds crazy, I know that. All I can say is I'm telling the truth.''
Not everyone is convinced. Websleuths.com is a website owned and run by a Utah woman, Tricia Griffith, who appears in the US media to talk about high-profile cases she investigates. Her site attracts 25,000 users a day, who put hundreds of hours into tracing cases of people they are unlikely ever to have met.
In 2007 Kyle became one of the site's most popular cases until, on April 3, Griffith posted an entry claiming she had evidence Kyle was not beaten and so was a fraud. She claimed Richmond Hill police had told a Websleuths member that Kyle was not unconscious when found and was able to talk but chose not to do so. Several members said Kyle and Slater had also been reluctant to provide his medical records because, they claimed, the hospital had asked for a prohibitive sum to release them. ''They wanted $800,'' Kyle says. ''I couldn't afford it.''
However, Harold Copus, an investigator with more than a decade of experience as an FBI case manager who was brought in by the Dr Phil show to look into Kyle's story, supports his version of events. ''I spoke to the paramedics, Burger King staff and responding police officers. Not only was Kyle unconscious when he was found, they thought he was dead.'' Copus confirms Kyle's fingerprints have been checked against the FBI's files on criminal and civil cases, the most comprehensive search possible. Kyle also co-operated with a linguist, who said a US Midwest background was likely. Copus also says expert medical opinion backs Kyle's story.
Griffith says she drew the conclusion she did based on Kyle's initial refusal to release his medical records and by advice she claims was given to a Websleuths member at Richmond Hill police station. The Richmond Hill Police Department and Kyle have not had a great relationship. Kyle and Slater believe a consensus was formed in the Burger King car park that he was homeless and that affected the police's attitude to looking into his case while it was warm.
I track down the officer whom the Websleuths member alleged had suggested that Kyle was conscious and unco-operative when found. I tell him I have quotes from Copus stating unequivocally that Kyle was not conscious when found. ''Not conscious, yes, sir,'' he replies hesitantly. ''Unable to speak,'' I clarify. ''Unable to speak, yes,'' he replies.
The police also tell me Kyle has voluntarily given them his fingerprints. Colleen Fitzpatrick, a DNA genealogist who has worked on Kyle's case since February last year, says Kyle has submitted DNA samples to her and to others. Her research points to two possible surnames: Davidson or Powell.
I ask Kyle about his medical records and a couple of days later he sends me a full copy of his records from an Atlanta psychologist, Jason King.
In August 2008, Kyle saw King, a specialist in psychological and neuropsychological evaluation. King examined Kyle extensively and reviewed all the medical records from the hospital since the day of his discovery; staff there have confirmed they supplied the records that same month. King's report makes fascinating, if uncomfortable, reading.
After he was discovered in 2004, Kyle had separate periods of catatonic psychosis in September 2004 and again in October 2004. He was ''diagnosed with schizophrenia'' and treated with antipsychotic medication from October 2004 to January 2005. The report reveals that when Kyle underwent an appendectomy operation, it was against his will, because he was deemed ''mentally incompetent to make medical decisions at this time''.
Having analysed Kyle's medical notes, King subjected him to 21 neuropsychology tests. His conclusion was definitive. Kyle has ''disassociative amnesia'', a ''manifestation of a psychiatric illness''.
This fits within Kopelman's definitions for psychologically driven retrograde amnesia. King says Kyle's behaviour ''is not suggestive of malingering'' and the final sentence of his report ends: ''To him, his lack of memory prior to 2004 is real.''
I ask Kyle whether his reluctance to release the medical reports is related to a fear of the stigma of schizophrenia. ''Maybe a little,'' he says, ''but also because I think my story and the records could be worth something one day. You've got to remember I have nothing, no pension, nothing.''
Does he mind his schizophrenic episodes being revealed? ''I don't know if I agree with that diagnosis, but there you go.'' When I mention the hospital records, Kyle insists they had asked for payment for the records but then provided them free to the Dr Phil show.
In Richmond Hill, Kyle and I drive to the site of the Burger King which closed three years ago.
''I came back a couple of times,'' Kyle says. ''Tried to speak to the staff. They looked like they were scared of me. They thought I was a bum.''
He tells of a recent session with a psychologist where it was suggested the memories he had of Indianapolis, which Kyle believes is his home town, may simply have come from a visit to the city. ''I won't accept it. I need to have a home town,'' he says. ''If I had a home town, then that's a start. As for people, I have to rely on them coming to me. And no one's come.''
THE CULPRIT
Dissociative amnesia is classified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as one of the dissociative disorders in which the functions of memory, identity, perception, or consciousness are separated (dissociated). Dissociative disorders are usually associated with trauma in the recent or distant past, or with an intense internal conflict that forces the mind to separate incompatible or unacceptable knowledge, information, or feelings. In dissociative amnesia, the continuity of the patient's memory is disrupted. Patients have episodes in which they forget vital personal information or events, usually connected with trauma or severe stress.
Source: Encyclopedia of Mental Disorder
Andreas Grassl
In 2005 the mysterious ''Piano Man'' was found on a beach by Kent police. He was soaking wet and wearing a suit. He refused to speak yet astounded staff at a psychiatric facility after he drew a grand piano, then proceeded to play one expertly. Four months later he was identified as German care worker Andreas Grassl. He eventually returned to his native Bavaria after a London newspaper claimed the incident was a hoax. His parents said their son had told them he had "no idea what happened to me. I just suddenly woke up and realised who I was".
Doug Bruce
The 2005 documentary Unknown White Male told the story of a man who walked into a Coney Island police station in 2003 and said he had just been on the subway but didn't know who he was. He had no ID but was eventually identified by a friend as Doug Bruce, an Englishman who had been a successful banker in Paris, and was studying in New York. Faced with evidence of his identity he did not deny that he was Bruce, but remains ''detached' from this fact. The filmmakers and subject deny the episode was a hoax. Stephen Frailey, from the School of Visual Arts where Bruce studied before and after the incident, said: "I watched people go up to Doug and say hello, people he knew, and he just looked blank. You could see it in his eyes. He was completely lost."
Agatha Christie
Crime writer Agatha Christie claimed to have suffered amnesia when she disappeared from her home in Berkshire, in 1926. She was found 11 days later in a Yorkshire hotel. She refused to talk about the period and does not mention it in her memoirs.
John Darwin
In 2007 Briton John Darwin claimed he had suffered amnesia when he turned up five years after he was presumed dead in a canoe mishap. He and his wife were later found guilty of faking his disappearance and of insurance fraud.
Guardian News & Media
