In August 2004, a person was discovered unconscious behind a Georgia Burger King.
Preliminary stories described him as bare and bloodied.
When he awoke, he claimed he had no reminiscence of who he was.
Now, two filmmakers are trying to uncover what occurred through the many years when he was lacking.
On Could 25, Investigation Discovery (ID) premieres the four-part docuseries “The Many Lives of Benjaman Kyle,” which follows Eric and Shannon Evangelista as they try to assist the mysterious man, who claimed to endure from a uncommon type of amnesia, piece collectively his misplaced identification.
However after the person was recognized in 2015 as William Burgess Powell, the investigation takes an sudden flip.
It’s unclear whether or not Powell, who seems within the docuseries, disputes the filmmakers’ conclusions.
Powell hasn’t been arrested or charged with any crime. He additionally doesn’t seem to have any felony report, Folks journal reported. In response to the docuseries, his whereabouts are at the moment unknown, and the filmmakers are encouraging anybody with results in attain out to their Sizzling Snakes Media manufacturing firm.
“We’ve by no means stopped, and we’re nonetheless investigating,” Shannon informed Fox Information Digital. “I feel the massive query that’s nonetheless looming, the driving power for us, is the place he was from 1983, when his Social Safety earnings stopped, till 2004, when he was discovered at a Burger King. We’re hoping the general public will assist us reply that.”
Hospital workers nicknamed Powell “B.Okay. Doe” for “Burger King Doe.”
He then started figuring out himself as Benjaman Kyle.
Whereas he was identified with retrograde amnesia, which causes somebody to lose recollections earlier than an occasion resembling a mind damage, trauma or sickness, Shannon’s husband, Eric Evangelista, started to query his prognosis.
“His type of amnesia was a really outdated type of amnesia that you simply solely present in outdated motion pictures and cleaning soap operas,” he defined. “And after we started questioning Benjaman, he didn’t need to be discovered. It turned apparent that there have been roadblocks he was placing up. For those who actually needed to be discovered, you’d be prepared to do something attainable. That’s once I mentioned to Shannon, ‘This man’s filled with it, and we have to go additional.’”
Powell has publicly maintained that he suffered from reminiscence loss.
The Evangelistas aren’t any strangers to analyzing circumstances. Evangelista beforehand spent 14 years as a broadcast information producer and newspaper journalist.
Shannon was a federal felony protection lawyer specializing in organized crime earlier than turning into an assistant district lawyer in Orange County, California, and later shifting to New York as a prosecutor within the Particular Narcotics Division of the district lawyer’s workplace.
Shannon mentioned that after studying Powell’s story, they had been decided to reconnect him along with his household and doc his journey. However as they dug deeper, the thriller solely intensified, elevating extra questions than solutions about who he actually was.
“It was bizarre,” she mentioned. “I had this dream that I used to be going to reunite him along with his spouse, who was going to be crying as the children had been like, ‘Dad!’ However once I took him out, I seen he would know all of the locations. He can be like, ‘In 1984, they constructed this theater,’ or ‘I keep in mind they had been giving tickets for this.’ He wouldn’t keep in mind individuals, and he didn’t need to go anyplace the place there was an individual who may acknowledge him.”
Powell, now 77, mentioned he had 23 recollections from “the mid-‘80s.” Throughout filming, he was pushed by way of the mountains of Colorado to a location he claimed to recollect. At one level, he joked, “If anybody needs to eliminate a physique, this could be a very good place to shove one off. It’d be years earlier than they discovered it.” He then laughed and kicked a rock down a mountain.
“He would begin to say these impromptu issues that had been scary, like speaking about digging up skulls within the cemetery and dumping our bodies,” mentioned Shannon. “It was similar to, ‘What’s occurring right here?’ I used to be like, ‘We’d like extra assist. We’d like a profiler. That is past my expertise.’”
The Evangelistas turned to Ken Maxwell, a retired FBI assistant particular agent accountable for the New York division, for steerage.
“The primary of what we’d name a powerful lead or break in our journey was the surfacing of a lacking particular person report that the Indiana State Police wrote again in August 1976 that detailed the circumstances of how he fled in the midst of the night time from Lafayette, Indiana, in March of that 12 months,” Maxwell defined to Fox Information Digital.
“In that report, it says his car was deserted in a rural space north of Lafayette. It wasn’t simply deserted — they took the license plates off of it.”
“To anyone who’s been in regulation enforcement, individuals simply don’t take the license plates off their automobile after which drive all night time with a pal to Colorado,” mentioned Maxwell. “They had been fleeing from one thing.”
Shannon identified that Maxwell managed to acquire Powell’s medical information from the time he was found on the Burger King. He argued the information contradicted facets of Powell’s story.
“The story was that he was crushed and thrown subsequent to a dumpster behind the Burger King,” mentioned Maxwell. “There wasn’t a single abrasion or scratch on his physique apart from the contaminated ant bites on the soles of his toes, pores and skin mites and a few sunburn.”
Maxwell additionally argued that the preliminary EMT response forged doubt on whether or not Powell’s amnesia was real. Nonetheless, specialists notice that reminiscence problems might be troublesome to definitively confirm or disprove.
Throughout filming, producers uncovered attainable ties to a criminal offense household in Lafayette, fueling hypothesis about whether or not he had connections to organized crime. Chilly circumstances within the space had been additionally explored. Maxwell mentioned he took all theories significantly.
No public proof has emerged linking Powell to any murder or organized crime exercise.
“In any investigation, you actually should exit of your option to attempt to corroborate the preliminary data,” mentioned Maxwell.
“We had just a few individuals inform us that he was a hitman. We had just a few individuals inform us who he was hanging out with again within the ‘70s, and we did some checks on them. There have been some fairly nefarious characters with felony information. Even his brother was involved concerning the place the place he was working due to the sort of clientele that used to frequent the place.”
Shannon mentioned they final interacted with Powell in December 2016. They later found he not gave the impression to be dwelling at his final identified residence, they usually mentioned they’d been unable to find out his present whereabouts.
“There’s no itemizing of him,” she mentioned. “He simply went MIA so far as we’re involved. We’re not solely positive the place he’s. We’ve heard rumors that he’s dwelling at some particular boarding home, however there’s nothing concrete there for us anymore.
“Everybody we talked to, anybody that he had a relationship with, mentioned they haven’t heard from him in years. We did see him working at a spot in Lafayette, a comfort retailer. Ken went in, they usually mentioned that he had left that place. None of them had heard from him.”
“We imagine he’s nonetheless within the Lafayette space as a result of he actually doesn’t have numerous monetary assets to go locations, however I feel that’s well-founded hypothesis,” Maxwell mentioned. “He’s masterful at laying low.”
Maxwell additionally mentioned his investigation instructed Powell was “a pc skilled,” a talent set he believes may have helped him conceal his identification and preserve his whereabouts hidden.
New theories about Powell’s true identification stored surfacing throughout filming, however for the Evangelistas, each lead appeared to boost much more questions than solutions. Nonetheless, their search continues.
Regardless of years of investigation, no proof has publicly emerged linking Powell to any violent crime, and many questions on his previous stay unanswered.
“You probably have a purposeful plan to dwell beneath the radar, off the grid, you are able to do it,” mentioned Maxwell.
“Households have arguments on a regular basis,” he mirrored. “They don’t run away for 21, 22 years. There’s no paper path on this man between 1983 and 2004, when he was discovered behind the Burger King in Georgia.”
“I simply need to discover out extra about who this man was,” mentioned Evangelista. “We would like solutions. This isn’t the top.”
