| Benjaman Kyle | |
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Portrait of Kyle |
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| Residence | Savannah, GA United States |
Benjaman Kyle is the pseudonym adopted by a man who has retrograde amnesia, or possibly dissociative fugue. He was discovered unconscious on August 31, 2004, in Richmond Hill, Georgia[1][2] and is believed to be about 60 years old.[3] He is unable to obtain employment without a Social Security number.[4]
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Around 6:00 AM EST on August 31, 2004, a man now living under the name Benjaman Kyle was discovered behind a Burger King at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Highway 17 in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He was found by the managers of the restaurant, lying on the ground inside the stone wall enclosing the dumpsters, in a space between the dumpsters that is accessed by a walk-through used for trash disposal. The dumpster enclosure was behind the Burger King in an area hidden from view from all directions except from the restaurant parking lot. Prolonged exposure to the sun had left him sunburned.[1][2] 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. According to the manager, there were no weapons found at the scene. Paramedics reported that there were three depressions in his head, that may indicate blows by a blunt object. When found, he had no memory of who he was, and did not even recognize his own face.[1][2][5] He was legally blind with cataracts, indicating he may have been without medical care for some time before he was assaulted. Initially, he was known as BK because he was discovered on the premises of a Burger King. Since then, he has chosen to live under the name Benjaman Kyle and insists that his real first name is Benjaman.[6]
Kyle is Caucasian and appears to be in his 50s or 60s.[3] He is 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighs 240 pounds (110 kg).[1] He has graying hair with a receding hairline, and blue-green eyes.[3] He is of above average intelligence.[3]
Kyle was treated for schizophrenia between October 2004 and January 2005. In August 2008, Kyle was evaluated by neuropsychologist Dr. Jason A. King. King concluded that Kyle has dissociative amnesia, a form of mental illness.[7]
Kyle has memories of Indianapolis as a child, including the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, the Woolworth's on the Circle, and the Indiana Theater showing movies in Cinerama. He remembers Crown Hill Cemetery, though not its name; the Scottish Rite Cathedral; and the White River when "it was mostly just a dumping ground." He also remembers grilled cheese sandwiches for a quarter and glasses of milk for a nickel at the Indiana State Fair.
More specific memories place him in Indianapolis between at least 1954 and 1963. The earlier date is based on his recognition of the Fountain Square Theater,[8] but not the Granada Theater [9] in the Fountain Square area of town. The Granada closed in the mid 1950s. The later date is based on his recollections of a 2% retail sales tax that was enacted by the State of Indiana in 1963,[10] and that the popular WLS Chicago radio station disc jockey Dick Biondi left the station that year over management issues.
Kyle also has memories of the area around the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has detailed memories of the subscription the library has to Restaurants & Institutions. He also remembers the Round the Corner Restaurant on the Hill, and the Flatirons and The Fox Theater near the Boulder campus.[11] This places Kyle in the Denver-Boulder area in the late 1970s to early 1980s.[6] In an interview with Channel 7 News in Denver, Kyle reported having memories of the controversy surrounding the construction of mass transit in Denver, at a time when the city still had no financing to proceed. Although the mass transit system in Denver went into operation in 1994, public debate over the construction of the system dates back to about 1980, consistent with the time period of the other memories that Kyle has about Denver and Boulder.[12]
More specific memories of Boulder place Kyle there between 1976 and 1983. The earlier date is based on his memory that he arrived during the construction of the Pearl Street Mall in the downtown area, and shortly after the Big Thompson Canyon flood [13] that occurred on July 31-August 1, 1976. The later date is based on the year that the King Soopers grocery store chain merged with Kroger.
During an October 16, 2008 interview on the television show of Dr. Phil McGraw, he recollected some minor memories he has, such as having brothers, being 10 years older than Michael Jackson (giving him a possible birth date of August 29, 1948), being around restaurant equipment, and that he attended a Catholic School.[5] Through hypnosis, he has recalled a partial Social Security number 3X5-44-XXXX, consistent with numbers assigned in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana during the 1960s.
Benjaman Kyle has an unusually detailed knowledge of restaurant operation and food preparation equipment, leading to the belief that he may have once worked in these industries.
There have been major efforts to identify Kyle, but as of June 2009, none of them have been successful. These efforts have included:
As of July 2009, a search is being made by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for Kyle's Vietnam draft registration, based on his birth date and his physical characteristics. When the draft was first implemented on December 1, 1969, Kyle's possible birth date of August 29, 1948 would have given him a priority number of 61.[25] Because the highest draft number used that year was 195, were that his birthday, he would've been very likely called, though interviews with military investigators indicate that he almost certainly had never served. A search through lists of men who had draft exemptions is now underway.
Newspaper articles were published in the Boulder Daily Camera on July 5, 2009, and in the Denver Post on July 7, 2009.[6] Based on Kyle's memories of the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, it was hoped that someone would respond to the articles to identify him. As of September 2010, this has not happened.
Kyle has taken several DNA tests that offer clues to his origins. A genetic genealogy DNA test by Family Tree DNA produced a distant match with members of the Powell DNA Study.[26] Based on these results, in March 2010 an almost perfect DNA match was discovered in the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation database with a Davidson of Scottish ancestry, a grandson of Robert Holden Davidson (b. 1885 Logan, Utah, d. 1946 Chico, California). This Davidson's results are very different from other Davidsons who have been tested by the Davidson/Davison/Davisson Research DNA Study Project.[27] The fact that Kyle has several weak matches to Powells, with a single strong match to a Davidson, indicates a possible non-paternity event in the male line of his family — that is, an adoption, a name change, or an illegitimacy. It is surmised that his legal name might be Davidson, but that in past generations, the family name was originally Powell. A comparison of the whereabouts of the Powell and Davidson families revealed that members of both families were living in close proximity in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1900s.
A geographical comparison between Kyle's Y-DNA results and the YHRD.org Y Users Group database shows a somewhat close match in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma, but the US coverage in this database is sparse and only includes Y-DNA haplotypes. A more comprehensive autosomal DNA test by 23andMe relating to mixed-gender family lines reveals a large number of matches with ancestry in the western Carolinas, eastern Tennessee, northern Alabama, and northern Georgia. His closest autosomal DNA match is with a Perry from Newberry County, South Carolina who is estimated to be a third cousin. Other names that appears as close matches include Hooper, Parker and Davenport.
A major challenge exists in discovering who Kyle is because most records are keyed on an individual's name and Social Security number, which in Kyle's case are unknown. Many records are kept in hard copy format, making searching difficult. Many others that could be searched electronically on his birthdate are protected by privacy laws. The hope of identifying him rests on finding a DNA match, or on attracting the attention of someone who recognizes him by his photograph.
In February 2011, Benjaman chose to leave his comfortable accommodations in Savannah, GA to move to Jacksonville, Florida. Without a social security number, Benjaman decided to live on the streets, both jobless and homeless.
In March 2011, Benjaman was the subject of a student documentary from Florida State University's Film School. The film, entitled "Finding Benjaman" was a rehash of Benjaman's curious circumstances, and an appeal to action for local media groups and politicians. Through the outreach involved with the film, Kent Justice of News4Jax ran a series on Benjaman with the help of Florida Senator Mike Weinstein. Through Weinstein, and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Benjaman was able to obtain a Legacy Identification Card, in addition to the medical clinic identification card he had earlier received from the Curtis Cooper Clinic in Savannah, GA. As of December 2011, these efforts have not led to an identification.
The news series also got the attention of a local business owner, who offered him a job washing dishes. Benjaman still works that job today, sleeping no longer in the woods, but in an air-conditioned shed through the good will of someone else who saw the story.[28]
Although hundreds of people have donated their time to helping Benjaman, and the numerous newspaper articles and TV spots about him, as of December 2011, he remains unidentified.
Colleen Fitzpatrick, a well known forensic genealogist, is active in his case, in collaboration with the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, the FBI, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and several police departments.