In August 2004, a man was found unconscious behind a Georgia Burger King. Initial reports described him as naked and covered in blood. When he woke up, he claimed to have no recollection of who he was. Now two filmmakers are trying to uncover what happened during the decades he was missing.
On May 25th, Investigation Discovery (ID) will premiere the four-part documentary, The Many Lives of Benjamin Kyle. The series followed Eric and Shannon Evangelista as they try to help a mysterious man who claims to be suffering from a rare form of amnesia. However, the investigation took an unexpected turn in 2015 when the man was identified as William Burgess Powell.
It is unclear whether Mr. Powell, who appears in the documentary, will dispute the filmmakers’ conclusions.
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Mr. Powell has not been arrested or charged. He also appears to have no criminal history, People magazine reported. According to the documentary, his whereabouts are currently unknown and the filmmakers encourage anyone with clues to contact the production company, Hot Snakes Media.
“We have never stopped and we continue to investigate,” Shannon told Fox News Digital. “I think the big question that continues to drive us is where was he from 1983, when his Social Security income stopped, to 2004, when he was discovered at Burger King? We want the public to help us answer that.”
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Hospital staff had nicknamed Mr. Powell “BK Doo,” for “Burger King Doo.” He then began calling himself Benjamin Kyle. Shannon had been diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, a condition in which people lose their memories of events before a brain injury, trauma or illness, but Shannon’s husband, Eric Evangelista, began to question his diagnosis.
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“His form of amnesia was a very outdated form of amnesia that you only see in old movies and soap operas,” he explained. “And when we started interrogating Benjamin, he didn’t want to be found. It became clear that there were obstacles he was putting up. If he really wanted to be found, he was going to do whatever he could. That’s when I said to Shannon, ‘This guy is full. We need to go further.'”
Mr. Powell has publicly claimed that he suffered from memory loss.
The Evangelistas are well versed in analyzing incidents. Evangelista previously worked as a broadcast news producer and newspaper reporter for 14 years. Shannon was a federal criminal defense attorney specializing in organized crime, then an assistant district attorney in Orange County, California, before moving to New York as a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office’s special narcotics unit.
Shannon said after hearing Powell’s story, she decided to reunite him with his family and document his journey. But as the investigation deepened, the mystery only deepened, raising more questions than answers about who he really was.
“It was weird,” she said. “I had a dream that I would see him and his wife again, and my wife would be crying while the kids said, ‘Dad!'” But when I took him out, I realized he knew where everything was. He said things like, “They built this theater in 1984,” and “I remember them giving out tickets to this theater.” He didn’t remember people and didn’t want to go anywhere where there were people who recognized him. ”
Powell, now 77, said he has 23 memories from “the mid-’80s.” During filming, he drove through the mountains of Colorado to locations he claims to remember. At one point, he joked, “If anyone wanted to dispose of a body, this would be the perfect place to dump it. It would be years before the body was found.” Then he laughed and kicked the stone down the mountain.
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“He started saying horrifying things, like talking about digging up skulls in cemeteries and abandoning bodies,” Shannon said. “I was like, ‘What’s going on here?'” I thought, “I need more help.” Requires a profiler. This is beyond my experience. ”
The Evangelistas sought guidance from Ken Maxwell, a former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York division.
Maxwell told Fox News Digital: “The first strong lead, or break in our journey, was the surfacing of a missing persons report prepared by the Indiana State Police in August 1976, detailing his nighttime escape from Lafayette, Indiana, in March of that year.”
“The report states that his car was abandoned in a rural area north of Lafayette. Not only was it abandoned, but the license plate was removed.”
“Anyone who’s been in law enforcement would never take the license plate off their car and drive all night to Colorado with their friends,” Maxwell said. “They were running away from something.”
Mr. Shannon noted that Mr. Maxwell was able to obtain Mr. Powell’s medical records from the time he was discovered at Burger King. He argued that the record contradicted aspects of Mr. Powell’s story.
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“The story was that he was beaten and thrown next to a trash can behind Burger King,” Maxwell said. “There were no scrapes or scratches on his body, except for infected ant bites on the soles of his feet, skin mites, and sunburn.”
Mr Maxwell also claimed that the initial paramedic response cast doubt on whether Mr Powell’s memory loss was genuine. Still, experts say memory loss can be difficult to definitively prove or disprove.
During filming, producers revealed Lafayette’s possible ties to a crime family, increasing speculation that Lafayette had ties to organized crime. Cold cases in the area were also investigated. Maxwell said he takes all theories seriously.
No public evidence has emerged linking Mr. Powell to murder or organized crime activity.
“In any investigation, we need to do everything in our power to corroborate the initial information,” Maxwell said.
“I had some people tell me that he was a hitman. I had some people tell me who he was hanging out with in the ’70s, and I did some research. There were some pretty nefarious people with criminal records. Even his brother was concerned about where he worked, because there were customers that frequented the place.”
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On September 21, 2015, Benjamin Kyle, also known as William Powell, is seen holding his newly issued Florida ID card.
(Getty Images)
Shannon said he last interacted with Powell in December 2016. It was later determined that Mr. Powell was no longer living at his last known residence and that his current whereabouts could not be determined.
“It’s not on his list,” she said. “As far as we know, he just went MIA. We’re not entirely sure where he is. We’ve heard rumors that he’s living in a certain boarding house, but we don’t have anything concrete anymore.”
“Everyone we talked to, everyone who had a relationship with him, said they hadn’t heard from him in years. We saw him working at a convenience store in Lafayette. When Ken walked into the store, they said he had quit that job. No one had heard from him.”
“We believe he’s still in the Lafayette area because he doesn’t really have a lot of financial wherewithal to go around, but I think that’s a well-founded assumption,” Maxwell said. “He’s good at laying low.”
Maxwell also said the investigation found that Powell was a “computer expert” and believed that skill set may have helped him conceal his identity and conceal his whereabouts.
During filming, new theories about Powell’s true identity continued to emerge, but for Evangelista and the others, each clue seemed to raise more questions than answers. Still, their search continues.
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Despite years of investigation, no evidence linking Powell to the violent crimes has been publicly presented, and many questions about his past remain unanswered.
“If you have a deliberate plan to live under the radar and off the grid, it’s possible,” Maxwell said.
“There are always arguments in families,” he recalls. “They haven’t been on the run for 21, 22 years. From 1983 until 2004, when he was found behind a Burger King in Georgia, there was no paper trail of this man.”
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“I just want to know more about who this guy is,” Evangelista said. “We want answers. This is not the end.”
Original article source: Amnesiac man found naked behind Burger King may have been hiding a mysterious past for decades
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