A Shocking Discovery in Richmond Hill
On a swelteringly unbearable morning in Richmond Hill, Georgia, August 31, 2004, a Burger King employee stumbled upon a scene that would haunt the town and captivate the nation. A man, naked, sunburned, and covered in fire ant bites, lay unconscious behind a dumpster, his body bearing three depressions in his skull suggestive of brutal blunt force trauma. With no identification, no memory of his past, and only a vague sense that his name might be âBenjamanâ â spelled with an unusual two Aâs â he was dubbed âBurger King Doeâ by hospital staff. This man, who adopted the alias Benjaman Kyle, became the only known American citizen officially listed as missing despite his whereabouts being known, sparking a decade-long mystery that gripped true crime enthusiasts and genealogists alike. His case, marked by severe dissociative amnesia, raised questions about identity, memory, and the human mindâs fragility, leaving investigators and the public desperate to uncover who he was and what had happened that fateful night.
The initial investigation yielded little. No stolen vehicles or missing persons reports in the area matched his description, and his fingerprints turned up no matches in criminal or military databases. Diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, Kyle could recall only fragments: a birthdate of August 29, 1948, and faint memories of places like Indianapolis and Boulder, Colorado. These snippets, while intriguing, were maddeningly vague. His cataracts, which left him nearly blind, added another layer of complexity; it wasnât until a charity funded corrective surgery nine months later that he saw his reflection clearly and realized he was about 20 years older than heâd thought, a jarring moment that deepened the enigma of his lost years. The lack of answers fueled speculationâhad he been attacked, abandoned, or somehow slipped through the cracks of society?
Clues from a Fragmented Mind
Despite his amnesia, Kyle retained surprising skills and knowledge that hinted at his past. He displayed an uncanny familiarity with restaurant equipment, suggesting prior work in the food industry, possibly as a manager or technician. He could fix a stove and knew how specific kitchen machines operated, details that stood out against his otherwise blank slate. His memories of specific locations were equally tantalizing: he recalled riding an outdoor elevator at the âTop of the Rockiesâ restaurant in Denver and the layout of the University of Colorado Boulderâs Norlin Library, placing him in Colorado during the late 1970s to early 1980s. These fragments, detailed in The New Republic and the documentary Finding Benjaman, suggested a life once lived but offered no clear path to his identity. Efforts to jog his memory, including a 2008 appearance on the Dr. Phil show where he underwent hypnosis, failed to unlock his past, leaving investigators to rely on emerging forensic tools.
The media frenzy around Kyleâs case brought both hope and frustration. Newspaper articles in the Boulder Daily Camera and Denver Post in 2009 sought leads from Boulder residents, as Kyle recalled the Pearl Street Mallâs construction and the Big Thompson Canyon flood of 1976. Yet, no one came forward with definitive recognition. His story also appeared on Redditâs r/UnsolvedMysteries, where users speculated wildlyâsome even suggested he might be from an alternate universe or deliberately hiding his past. Despite national exposure on CNN, NPR, and Unsolved Mysteries-style segments, the absence of concrete leads deepened the mystery. Kyleâs accent, identified as possibly from northern Indiana or Oklahoma, and a surgical screw in his arm offered further clues, but without unique identifiers, they led nowhere. The publicâs fascination grew, but so did the sense that Benjaman Kyle might remain unknown forever.
Unraveling the Mystery Through DNA
In 2015, after over a decade of dead ends, genetic genealogy provided a breakthrough. CeCe Moore, a renowned forensic genealogist, spent two and a half years cross-referencing Kyleâs DNA with databases like Family Tree DNA and 23andMe. Her team identified a distant match with the Powell surname, tracing lineage to the Pacific Northwest and the western Carolinas. By meticulously building a family tree, Moore located an older brother in Indiana, confirming Kyleâs true identity as William Burgess Powell, born in Lafayette, Indiana, on August 29, 1948. The discovery, reported by News 4 Jax and The Los Angeles Times, revealed Powell had cut ties with his family in 1976, abandoning his car and trailer to move to Boulder, Colorado, on a whim. Social Security records showed he worked various jobs until 1983, after which he vanished from documentation until 2004. The revelation was bittersweet; while Powell regained his identity, his family, unaware he was alive, had filed a missing persons report decades earlier.
Yet, the mystery of those missing 20 years and the events leading to his condition remains unsolved. No criminal investigation was opened until 2007, and no clear evidence explains the trauma he suffered. Theories abound: was he a victim of a random attack, possibly linked to Hurricane Charleyâs chaos in August 2004? Did he choose to disappear, only to lose himself entirely? His decision to withhold his identity initially, as noted on his Facebook page, and his falling out with another genealogist, Colleen Fitzpatrick, who claimed he resisted uncovering his past, added intrigue. Even after his identity was revealed in November 2016, as detailed in The New Republic, questions linger about his reluctance to reconnect fully with his past and what happened during those lost decades. For those intrigued by unresolved cases, the Unsolved Mysteries series on Netflix offers similar stories, while sites like Websleuths and Reddit continue to dissect cases like Powellâs, keeping the conversation alive.
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