WICHITA, Kan. He was found naked and unconscious near a trash bin in Georgia five years ago. When he woke up, he didnt know who he was. He still doesnt.

He has been on national television trying to find out. A congressman, the FBI and others have been trying to solve the mystery. A documentary is in the works. ABCs 20/20 has talked about doing a story on him. But the latest turn in the saga of the man who calls himself Benjaman Kyle leads to Kansas.

A forensic genealogist has determined that Kyles DNA most closely matches a group of people with the Powell surname who migrated over generations from the eastern part of the country to the Coffeyville area and northeastern Oklahoma. Its the strongest lead in the case so far.

Kyle said he has specific memories of two places Indianapolis and the Denver-Boulder, Colo., area but none of Kansas or Oklahoma.

Well, maybe one of Kansas: I think one time I went across that state, and I didnt think wed ever get out, Kyle said by telephone from where he lives near Savannah, Ga.

Kyle, believed to be 55 to 65 years old, has had amnesia since he was found about 6 a.m. on Aug. 31, 2004, behind a Burger King in a suburb of Savannah.

Emergency workers found him sunburned, covered with fire ant bites, blind and badly beaten. He had no wallet, no ID and couldnt remember his name, where he was from or his Social Security number.

Doctors determined he suffered from retrograde amnesia. He can remember recent events and some things from his distant past, but there is a blank period of about 20 years.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic genealogist from Southern California, is encouraged by the DNA link. She has been working on the case for several frustrating years.

She once located a homeless woman in Buenos Aires, she said, but she cant find the identity of an American male who is living in Georgia a man who appeared on the Dr. Phil television show last year asking the nation for help identifying him.

Kyle has had his fingerprints sent through criminal and military databases with no match.

DNA testing through the Center for Human Identification, the U.S. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, Family Tree DNA, the Veterans Administration and the FBIs National Crime Information System have produced no matches.

Stories in Indianapolis, Denver and Boulder newspapers havent turned up any leads that panned out.

Its totally incredible what we have tried, and nobody has recognized this man, Fitzpatrick said. This man has to have parents. He had to have neighbors, he had to go to school, he had to have had a job. You dont live in a vacuum where nobody knows you.

A DNA link to Kansas

The DNA link provides the best hope, she said. Kyles DNA isnt a 100 percent match with any Powells, but comes close to several in the southeast Kansas and Oklahoma region.

Kyle tested his DNA for 37 markers, and three people with connections in Kansas and Oklahoma came within two or three markers of a perfect match.

Thats worth looking at, Fitzpatrick said. It means he had a common ancestor with the Powells within the last couple hundred years. Thats the closest hes come to anybody.

One of the matches is with a person from Coffeyville, but nobody knows who that is because DNA databases have privacy provisions. It isnt necessarily someone with the Powell surname, but somebody with a Powell ancestry.

Another close match is with a man who lives south of Tulsa, who had an uncle named Powell from Coffeyville.

Theres definitely a Powell connection to that area, said Jim Barrett, volunteer administrator of the Powell Surname DNA Project, a Web site that provides DNA histories of Powells who have submitted tests to the organization from around the country to help them research their genealogy.

The Tulsa man has been in contact with Kyle, but they havent been able to determine a connection, Barrett said.

For now, Kyle lives in the home of a nurse who befriended him at a clinic for the homeless. He had been shifted from hospitals to homeless shelters until she took him in. Everyone just assumed I was a homeless bum, and nobody wanted me. They just wanted me off their hands, he said.