Benjaman Kyle

"Benjaman Kyle" was the alias chosen by an American man who had severe amnesia.

In late 2015, genetic detective work, which had gone on for years, led to the discovery of his identity as William Burgess Powell (born August 29, 1948).

With the rediscovery of his Social Security number, he again became eligible for employment and has received public assistance.

On August 31, 2004, he was found naked and injured, without any possessions or identification, next to a dumpster behind a Burger King restaurant in Richmond Hill, Georgia.

Between 2004 and 2015, neither he nor the authorities determined his identity or background, despite searches that had included television publicity and various other methods.

On August 31, 2004, at 5:00a.m., a Burger King employee in Richmond Hill, Georgia, found Kyle unconscious, naked, and sunburned behind a dumpster of the restaurant.

He had three impressions in his skull that appeared to have been caused by blunt force trauma and he also had red ant bites on his body.

After discovering him, employees called the emergency services, and EMS took him to St. Joseph's/Candler Hospital in Savannah.

He had no identity document and was recorded in hospital records as "Burger King Doe".

Kyle believed he was passing through Richmond Hill, either on U.S. Route 17 or Interstate 95 in late August 2004.

He may also have been on the road because of Hurricane Charley, which had hit earlier that month.

After being released from the hospital, Kyle spent several years between the Grace House men's shelter and hospitals.

After the incident, no criminal investigation was opened by Richmond Hill police until a friend inquired with the department in 2007.

There were no reports of stolen vehicles in the area and local restaurants and hotels did not encounter any individuals matching Kyle's description.

Two weeks later he was transferred to Memorial Health University Medical Center, where records state he was semiconscious.

He eventually said that he remembered his name was Benjaman, spelled with two 'a's, but said he could not recall his last name.

He came up with the surname "Kyle" from his police and hospital placeholder name.

He had cataracts in both eyes, and had corrective surgery nine months after he was found, when a charity raised enough money to pay for the operation.

Upon seeing himself in the mirror for the first time, Kyle realized he was around 20 years older than he thought he was.

In 2007 while at The J.C. Lewis Health Care Center he met a nurse who first inquired about his past.

The nurse helped support Kyle financially while he earned about $100 a month mostly doing yard work.

While driving his truck in a yard, Kyle discovered that he still remembered how to drive a car.

He was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia in 2007 by Jason A. King in Atlanta.

Georgia Legal Services did not obtain medical records for Kyle because Memorial Health requested an $800 fee.

A friend contacted Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston for help with the case.

To help with Kyle's identification, Kingston's office sent DNA samples to the FBI's National Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia.

In July 2009, a search was being made by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for Kyle's Vietnam draft registration, based on his birthdate and his physical characteristics.

In March 2011, Kyle was approached by Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts graduate student John Wikstrom.

Kyle moved to Jacksonville, Florida, traveling on foot, in order to be filmed for a documentary.

In 2011, with help from Florida State Representative Mike Weinstein, Kyle obtained a legal, government-issued Florida Legacy ID.

Kyle's story appeared in a report on News4Jax, which caught the attention of a local business owner who subsequently employed Kyle as a dishwasher.

he lived in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in a 5-by-8-foot, air-conditioned shack provided by a benefactor.

For many years after his amnesia Kyle was homeless and had been unable to obtain employment as he could not remember his full Social Security number.

Several online petitions were created asking lawmakers to grant Kyle a new Social Security number.

In 2012, an online petition was created on the We the People petitioning system on whitehouse.gov, but when its deadline expired on December 25, it had received only two-thirds of the number of signatures required to receive an official response.

In February 2015, forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick reported that Kyle had cut off all contact with her just as she felt she was nearing a breakthrough.

On September 16, 2015, Kyle announced that his real identity had been found, including identifying his name and close family members.

There were a number of major efforts to identify Kyle by matching his fingerprints or DNA with that stored in various databases.

These efforts included:

A DNA test revealed that Kyle shared significant amount of DNA with members of a family named Powell in the western Carolinas – descendants of a 19th-century man named Abraham Lovely Powell.