From a man with severe amnesia to children who were abducted, here are the top 8 most
mysterious people who have finally been identified!
8.
William Burgess Powell aka Benjaman Kyle
Back in 2004 someone working at a Burger King in Richmond Hill, Georgia, discovered that
a naked man was lying beaten and unconscious in front of the restaurant’s dumpsters.
Not the best thing to find during your break.
The man was sweating and sunburned.
Ants were crawling across his body and he was covered with bruises.
An ambulance took him to St. Joseph’s Hospital after the employee contacted the police.
The mysterious man possessed no ID or any documents that could identify him, so the
police recorded his name at the hospital as “Burger King Doe”.
When he woke up, he had no memory of his previous life and was diagnosed with severe amnesia.
The only thing that he knew was that his name might be Benjaman and that he was born 10
years before Michael Jackson – as he stated on an Ask-Me-Anything thread on Reddit in
2012.
Despite appearing online, on television and being featured in a documentary, nobody contacted
him with info about who he really was.
He stated on Reddit that only three or four people contacted him, but they realized after
a short discussion that he was not who they thought he’d be.
He also stated that he has no long term plans because he is already old.
His mystery was finally solved in 2015 after years and years of genetic detective work.
Even if most of his previous life is still unknown, he finally learned his real name:
William Burgess Powell, from Florida!
He supposedly was reunited with his family but has decided to keep most details of his
life private.
7.
Samantha Azzopardi aka GPO Girl In October 2013 a girl was found wandering
near Dublin General Post Office.
She was found in a very “distressed state” by the Irish police forces.
The very first news reports regarding GPO Girl stated that the Irish police had found
a little girl aged between 14 and 16.
She also possessed photos which displayed images of her being sexually abused and men
handing cash to other men.
All these factors led to the idea that she might have been the victim of an evil child
sex trafficking network.
This theory was soon destroyed when an Irishman named Joe Brennan identified the girl from
a photo the police released.
The truth was that the 14-year-old GPO girl was actually Australian Samantha Azzopardi,
aged 25!
The Irish police later found that Samantha was well known for these kind of tricks in
Australia and that she had already been convicted for fraud, deception, false pretenses and
for using forged documents in her home-country.
It was also stated that Azzopardi had some mental issues, but she may have had some good
traits deep down….like perseverance!
Maybe it was this that lead her to try the exact same scam in Canada only a year later.
Both countries spent thousands of dollars investigating her claims!
This time, though, she was finally sentenced to 12 months with six months parole for four
counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.
6.
Andreas Grassl aka The Piano Man In April 2005 a mysterious man wearing a soaking
wet suit and tie was found wandering the streets of Sheerness, Kent in England.
After he was found, he refused, or was unable, to answer any questions regarding who he was
or where he came from.
This lead to even more confusion that lasted until someone had the bright idea of giving
him a piece of paper and some pencils, hoping that he would write his name.
The mysterious man did not write his name; and instead he drew a detailed sketch of a
grand piano!
Intrigued, hospital staff brought him into a room with a piano, where he began singing,
like a professional musician.
Music was the only way he expressed himself for another couple of weeks.
He played music from various genres, including classical music, pop and even what appeared
to be his own compositions!
Doctors believed he was indeed a professional musician and that he had performed not long
before he was found because of the way he was dressed.
Some thought that the ‘Piano Man’, as he was nicknamed, suffered from trauma and
had lost his memories, along with his ability to speak.
Doctors examined him but found nothing wrong.
The examinations weren’t easy either because he was terrified of any new face.
Sometime later he finally broke his silence and identified himself as Andreas Grassl from
Germany.
He also told medical staff that he was gay and traveled to England by train after losing
his job.
His plan was to commit suicide and he had refused to talk to the police because of his
distressed state.
And now for number 5, but first, remember to subscribe before you leave!
We have lots of new videos coming soon!
5.
Robert van Helsum aka Forest Boy The Forest Boy was just 17 years old when
he showed up at Berlin City Hall in September 2011.
He looked like any other normal boy his age: Blonde, disheveled hair, blue eyes, about
1.5 meters tall.
He looked healthy and well cared for.
It was only when he spoke that the civil servant he approached realized he wasn’t really
an ordinary kid.
“I’m all alone in the world,” he told the office workers.
“I don’t know who I am.
Please help me.”
He told them that he had been travelling with his father for the last few years, and since
his father’s death, he had followed his instructions and searched for help in Berlin.
One of the civil workers stated that “he didn’t look at all like a vagrant.
He didn’t smell, he was clean, his clothes were clean, but he simply didn’t know anything
about who he was”.
She was right.
But the clean appearance of the “Forest Boy” wasn’t because of some miracle.
You may have already guessed it.
He lied.
About all of it.
Some school friends recognized him from the photos the police provided to the public and
contacted Dutch police.
When confronted with the new information the boy admitted: “Ok, you got me – I am Robin
and I made the whole story up”.
His full name was Robin van Helsum, aged 20 years from Hengelo, Netherlands.
It was thought van Helsum vanished before he was found working in Berlin.
He was later sentenced to 160 hours of community service.
All of that just for attention.
4.
Kimberly McLean
A wife and mother committed suicide in Texas and when the husband was going through her
belongings, he found out that she wasn’t who she said she was.
A family in Pennsylvania had lost their daughter when she ran away at 18.
An identity thief was left unidentified for 6 years after her death.
A story about her was published in the newspapers and it seems that she was known as Lori Erica
Kennedy Ruff, and Becky Sue Turner before that.
It wasn’t just a hobby of changing names now and then.
Becky Sue Turner was the name of a young girl who had died in a Washington State fire in
1971.
Identity theft, in case you didn’t know, is quite the crime and this case attracted
the attention of Joe Velling, a Social Security Administration investigator, who began asking
questions about who Lori really was.
The story was spread all over the world and many online sleuths tried to help crack the
case.
With the help of Colleen Fitzpatrick, a nuclear physicist turned forensic genealogist, Velling
was able to discover that the woman from Texas and the runaway from Pennsylvania were actually
one and the same.
Kimberly’s mother, who was now 80 years old, said she last saw her daughter 30 years
ago and was hoping that she was living a happy life.
Of course she was devastated by the news.
The real life story of Lori Ruff remains a mystery.
3.
Anjelica Castillo aka Baby Hope It is said that hope dies last… we will
never know if that was the case for Baby Hope whose body was found in a cooler at the Henry
Hudson Parkway.
The body was badly decomposed and examiners concluded that the body was that of a 3-4
year old Hispanic girl who was malnourished and whose hands had been bound.
Unfortunately even after the examination was completed, the case remained unsolved.
Police paid for the victim’s funeral in 1993.
Her headstone was marked as “Baby Hope”, with a note at the bottom saying “Because
we care”.
Finally, after 20 years, the case was cracked with the help of an anonymous tip, who led
to the identity of the victim and eventually, the killer.
Anjelica Castillo, who was known for over 20 years as Baby Hope finally had a name.
The little girl had been murdered by her cousin, Conrado Juarez, who confessed to torturing
and sexually abusing the child before he suffocated her with a pillow.
2.
David Lytton A stranger walks into a bar… but, it’s
not really a joke.
It’s what a landlord told the police when asked about an unknown man.
A stranger came up to him in a bar in December 2015 and asked for directions to the “top
of the mountain”.
Not long after, his body was found by a cyclist.
He was lying on his back with his feet facing uphill.
Because of the distance he had walked and his advanced age, it was assumed that he had
died of a heart attack.
But that was not the case!
It turns out the man died from a lethal dose of strychnine, a poison, and probably committed
suicide.
His identity remained unknown until this year.
In January the body was identified as 67-year-old David Lytton.
He flew to London from Pakistan right before his death and luckily his photo was on the
passenger list.
His identity was confirmed by using the mighty power of DNA testing.
His relatives said that David was kind of a loner, someone who enjoyed his own company.
He was surrounded by mystery, as he liked to keep things to himself and he was very
reclusive.
His girlfriend told The Guardian that she helped him to deal with depression, but it
is unclear if this is what brought him his death.The reason behind his strange death
is still unknown.
1.
Paul Fronczak
The short story is that Paul went missing and when a guy named Scott was found, everyone
thought Scott was Paul.
49 years later, Paul decided he didn’t feel like a Scott, and discovered he was actually
Jack.
Well, that’s pretty confusing, I know.
Paul Fronczak was born in April, 1964 in a Chicago hospital.
When he was about a day and a half old he was kidnapped by an unknown woman who pretended
to work at the hospital.
The woman disappeared as fast as she came, leaving no trace of her or Paul, behind.
A year passed and a young male toddler was found outside a store in New Jersey.
Authorities named this child Scott McKinley while he was in foster care.
Paul’s parents were convinced that Scott must be their lost son, Paul.
So they did what every loving parent would have done.
Adopted Scott and changed his name to Paul.
Who cares that nobody could confirm that Scott was actually Paul when you have parental love?
In 2012, Paul decided something was not right.
He took a DNA test to find out if he was really Paul.
His parents weren’t very happy with the thought that their son, who was now 49, might
not be their son.
But they eventually agreed and Paul’s intuition was right.
He was not Paul.
But he wasn’t Scott either.
With the test, he found out that his name was Jack.
He had Jewish origins (not Croatian or Polish like his adoptive parents) and he also had
a twin sister named Jill, who is still missing.
His biological parents are now deceased but he has met with his other family members and
they all told him the chilling story of how he and his sister disappeared right before
their 2nd birthday.
Their disappearances were never reported.
The mystery about Jack’s sister and the true Paul Fronczak remains unsolved.
So as reddit user Hysterymystery stated “Will the real Paul Fronczak please stand up?”
Thanks for watching!
Hope you enjoyed these bizarre cases of missing people!
Be sure to subscribe and see you next time!!
Byeeee!