The mystery man known as “Lucky,” who was found without an identity in Amsterdam in 2023, is not a missing Vancouver man, according to police.
Vancouver police confirmed earlier this week that they are investigating whether “Lucky” is John Russell Kenny, who has been missing since 1994. On Saturday, Amsterdam police confirmed on Saturday that “Lucky” and Kenny are two different people.
“This matter was investigated in cooperation with the Canadian police, and it has now been conclusively proven that Lucky and Mr. Kenny are not the same person,” Amsterdam police spokeswoman Mariejke Storr said.
Vancouver Police Const. Megan Lowe confirmed the finding in an email to Global News, saying the two men’s fingerprints did not match.
Meanwhile, Storr said Amsterdam police have received more than 500 tips since a video of Lucky was posted a week ago. These tips have provided several “specific names of people” and detectives are now investigating at least nine leads.
Lowe said Vancouver police are not involved in investigating those leads.
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Lucky was found collapsed on an Amsterdam street in May 2023. He was taken to hospital where doctors concluded he was suffering a brain hemorrhage or stroke.
He still suffers from aphasia, which affects how people read, speak, write, and understand what others are saying.
“We don’t really know how much he understands and we’ve tried in different ways, but it’s not really possible by communicating with him to know his true identity,” Storr said.
Lucky had no personal identification when he collapsed, frustrating efforts to determine his identity. The case has been classified as a “social investigation,” and Storr said police are trying to identify him for multiple reasons, including linking him to someone he knows.
“Not only do we want to know who he is, but we also want to know if there are, for example, any relatives who still love him that he can contact, because he is now in a nursing facility where they are taking good care of him, of course,” she said. “But he spends a lot of his time alone, and we think it would be very good for him to be able to talk to someone he knows.”
It is believed that the man may be from Canada or the United States, with police indicating that sources led investigators to Soep en Zo, a restaurant where he sometimes went for a drink in the Waterlooplein in central Amsterdam (Waterloo Square).
There they discovered that some had called him “Canadian Chris”, prompting police to issue an appeal last Monday to people across the Atlantic to help identify the man.
“People told us he always spoke with what they described as an American or Canadian accent,” Storr said. “So the theory that it could be from America or Canada is a theory that we think could really be possible.”
She cautioned that this doesn’t mean “Lucky” is definitely Canadian or American, but it could still be a “real possibility.”
The man currently speaks only a minimum of words, mostly English words like “nonsense,” “sure,” and “affirmative,” which he uses to agree or disagree when asking questions.
But even though they asked him questions about himself, including verbally, using talking computers, or pointing to letters on a map, they weren’t sure how much he actually understood.
People can Contact the Amsterdam Police If they have a tip to share.
&Copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
