A 'real live nobody' - article link
Savanna NOW
ACCIDENT - The only life he knows started shortly before 7 a.m. Aug. 31, 2004, when a former Burger King manager found Kyle lying next to a Dumpster behind the restaurant on U.S. 17 in Richmond Hill, according to a police report.
Kyle was naked and unresponsive. He was sunburned and covered in bites from fire ants, according to paramedics' reports.
The fast-food manager called police, who labeled the man with no name a "bum" and sent him off in an ambulance, the report stated.
Paramedics took Kyle to St. Joseph's Hospital.
Officers found no clothes, wallet or anything to identify the man. Police told Kyle they found no signs of a crime, but Kyle believes he was mugged.
According to the paramedics' reports, three depressions showed on the right side of Kyle's head, which could have come from blows delivered with a blunt object. The report also indicated Kyle was unconscious but breathing when he was found, and that he was sweaty. Prolonged exposure to the sun had left him blinded.
Paramedics also noted signs of possible neurological problems.Two weeks later, Kyle was transferred to Memorial Health University Medical Center. He was semiconscious, records show.
At that time, he could tell doctors he was thirsty, that his back hurt and that he couldn't see. But he could not tell them the one thing they wanted to hear: who he was.
"When I looked in the mirror, I could not believe how gray my hair was and how old I was," Kyle said. "There's a bunch of years missing, and I don't know what happened."
The fire-ant bites went away, and his back grew stronger. His blindness, which doctors diagnosed as bad cataracts, was repaired by donated surgery.
Twice he has returned to the Burger King where he was found.
"I thought seeing the place would help. It didn't," he said. "I don't remember how I ended up in Richmond Hill or how long I was lying there."
He also has talked to operators at most of the motels and restaurants in the area, but no one has found an abandoned car or any records that the man was there.
During the past three years, vague flashbacks have popped into his head, Kyle said.
For some reason, the name Benjaman - "with the A, not the I" - has logged into his mind. He's not sure if that is his name or the name of a family member, but he likes the name, he said.
He decided to use the last name of Kyle because that would make his initials BK - just like the short version of Burger King.
"I got tired of the jokes about Burger King," he said.
Doctors estimate Kyle is in his late 50s or early 60s, so he has adopted a 1948 birth date.
Kyle said he remembers living in Indiana and Colorado, but he doesn't know when or where. He has no memories of Richmond Hill or any other place in the South.
He believes he has three brothers, but he can't picture them or remember their names.
"It's like I have a 20-year gap," he said. "I just don't remember."
Kyle can read and write and has the intelligence of an adult.
He believes he might have worked in a nice restaurant, because he has a lot of knowledge about kitchen equipment and restaurant design.
Georgia Legal Services was trying to help him obtain a Social Security number, but they hit a wall when Memorial Health wanted $800 to obtain copies of his medical records, said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.
At Kingston's request, the FBI took Kyle's fingerprints and forwarded them to the National Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia. There, technicians ran the prints through their national databases, which include convicted criminals, crime scene evidence and anyone who ever served in U.S. armed forces, said William Kirkconnell, supervisory senior resident agent for the FBI in Savannah.
"There was nothing on file," Kirkconnell said.
They also took photographs and checked to make sure Kyle was not in the federal Witness Protection Program, Kingston said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 944-0700.
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