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The Man Who Disappeared For 27 Years | Random Thursday

2.5M views · Jan 16, 2020 · Science & Technology

Joe Scott

2.6M subscribers

Comments · 3.6K

@elisabethbourquehostetler7634 · 5 years ago
My father disappeared Oct 18, 1977. We looked everywhere, we retraced his steps countless times. My mother even got our senator involved, verified that his passport had not been used nor his SS#. The police were of no help whatsoever. They told my mom that her husband had left her and she needed to go home and raise her kids. Literally, that's what they told her! 5 Kids and the breadwinner is no longer present. From the family member's point of view, I can't even describe the horrors of not knowing... Year after year, the grieving process is slow and painful. But, we NEVER gave up hope. Nearly 27 years later, my father was found. Sept 2004, a car was spotted at the bottom of a pond in South Louisiana. That year, Florida was pummeled by hurricane after hurricane, leaving Louisiana in a bit of a drought. The normally 22 ft deep pond was about 11-12 ft more shallow than normal. The property owner, a farmer and his son were pumping water out to irrigate their fields when they spotted his car and called authorities. People try to say, 'Well, at least you got closure.' No, there is no such thing!! My heart still aches, even though I've now outlived him by 10+ yrs. Thank you for telling William's story.
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@michelebella677 · 4 years ago
I was in a detoxification program with Benjamin back in 2005 in Savannah Georgia. They had him in there because they just didn’t know what to do with him because they couldn’t figure out who he was. They kept shuffling him back and forth between shelters and places like this even though he wasn’t a drug user. I remembered the man and then left the program not knowing what happened to him. Years later, I searched his name to see if I could find out anything about him. Much to my surprise, he was on a bunch of different talk shows but I found out that for years after, this poor man fell through the cracks and ended up homeless. I’m so thankful that he finally found out who his family was and what his name was. He was such a nice guy when I met him years back. I’m glad his story came with a happy ending.
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@alyssat.8793 · 5 years ago
It’s honestly absurd that he had to have a valid photo ID to stay in a shelter in Florida, I can’t imagine how many people don’t have them, have lost them, or can’t get one due to situations like his that still would need to stay there.
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@fisheloph · 1 year ago
There was a homeless dude who used to hangout at the bakery I worked at in Seattle. Told me his name was Alexander. After about a year of knowing him, a woman came to the store and asked if I had seen a man matching his description. I said “yes, almost everything day. Thirty minutes ago, in fact.” His real name was David, and he’s been missing for six years. I met his son. David didn’t recognize his family, and didn’t want help. He passed away a few years later.
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@justinheape256 · 6 years ago
I had a cousin who went missing at 15 She'd be 41 now I love you Charlene
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@Janet_scribbles · 5 years ago
As an NP in the ER I have had a patient that had no identity and was too mentally ill to tell us anything. I did manage to locate a family member, it was a very emotional moment, she thought he had been dead for 5 years.
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@jwboll · 6 years ago
Been there, done that. I woke up in a ditch relatively uninjured other than my memory (motorcycle accident, no broken bones).  I could still talk, spell, compute math problems, but I had no knowledge of geography, no memory of any relationships or any people's names. The cool thing about amnesia is you honestly don't even know there's a problem.  Complete strangers were frantically angry at me for not being somewhere at a certain time, others were sobbing while asking me questions I didn't know the answers to ("what's your name", "where do you live", "what year is it"). Meanwhile I was totally chill, telling the strangers to not worry, they'll be ok.    When my memory returned the next day, it turned out these people were my immediate family (parents, brothers).  I will always remember not remembering, and that gives me a unique perspective on how urgent problems are only urgent if you remember that they are.
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@24JamesPerSecond · 6 years ago
Can't imagine how depressing it would be to lose your memory, come round and still think you were in your 20s and then find out you were 60-something.
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@curryenjoyer247 · 5 years ago
It's fucked up how you can lose your memories and not be able to get work cause you forgot your SSN. Basically the gov leaving you to die.
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@TheXmeimei · 3 years ago
Just finished reading the article, and the last line pushed me over the edge, tears flooded.   Whe asked why he chose the name Benjaman, his answer was:   “I read somewhere that it comes from Old Hebrew,” he said. “It means beloved son.”  😭😭😭
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@colemarie9262 · 6 years ago (edited)
I'm a psychiatric worker and I can't even tell you the nightmarish, life- destroying results of head injuries.....the vast majority of which (in that  population) are violence related. Please, PLEASE, understand what exactly can happen when you punch or kick someone in the head. You maybe never learned another way to deal with anger, you may live in a culture that encourages fighting, or you could just plain like it- but understand that one wrong hit can land the other person in a hospital for the REST OF THEIR NATURAL LIFE. Sure, you might be pissed off.....but are you really mad enough to force someone to re-learn how to walk, to speak? To not be able to remember their own parents? To be forced back into diapers in their twenties? THINK about it, please.
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@AidenRKrone · 2 years ago
People with memory problems often become hoarders because they think that by throwing something away (even a piece of objective garbage) they will lose the memory associated with it.
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