Police in Amsterdam say that since they put out a public appeal for help identifying a mystery man with possible Canadian ties, they have received more than 500 tips.
The man nicknamed “The Lucky One” collapsed on a street in Amsterdam on May 10, 2023.
He was taken to hospital where doctors concluded that the man was suffering from a brain hemorrhage or a stroke.
It was determined after receiving medical care that he had developed aphasia, which affects how people speak, read, write, and understand what others say.
“We don’t really know how much he understands and we tried in different ways, but it’s not really possible to contact him to find out his real identity,” said Amsterdam police spokeswoman Marieke Storr.
Lucky had no personal identification when he collapsed, making it even more difficult to identify him.
The case is not a criminal case but a “social investigation,” and Storr said police are trying to identify him for multiple reasons, including linking him to someone he knows.
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“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.”
The Amsterdam West detective unit initially began investigating and pursued every possible avenue, including speaking with people he may have known in the city.
Ultimately, police said the cold case team took over as the detective unit needed to focus on criminal cases. Two former officers were assigned to the case and began a social investigation.
The couple, according to a police news release, attempted to determine who Lucky had been in contact with and his social circles.
They determined that he was a member of a Buddhist community based in Middenweg in Amsterdam, where some knew him by the nickname “Lucky”. Other sources also led them to Soep en Zo, a restaurant where he sometimes had a drink, in Waterlooplein or Waterloo Square.
There they discovered that some had called him “Canadian Chris”, prompting police to make a public appeal to people across the Atlantic in a video released on Monday.
“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.
Since they made their appeal on Monday, Storr said they have received more than 500 tips from the public, a number she said they are not used to.
“What we really want is for as many people as possible to see Lucky’s footage, so that the chances of someone they know seeing (the footage) are as high as possible,” Storr said. “We think the chances of someone in Canada knowing who he is is there.”
People can Contact the Amsterdam Police If they have a tip to share.
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