Police in Amsterdam say since putting out a public call for help to identify a mystery man with potential Canadian ties, they’ve received more than 500 tips.
The man, who has been nicknamed “Lucky,” collapsed on a street in Amsterdam on May 10, 2023.
He was taken to hospital where medical professionals concluded the man had suffered a brain hemorrhage or stroke.
It was determined after receiving medical care that he was left with aphasia, which affects how people speak, read, write, and understand what other people say.
“We don’t really know how much he understands and we have tried in various ways, but it’s not really possible in communication with him to find out who he really is,” said Marijke Stor, spokesperson for Amsterdam police.
Lucky had no personal identification on him when he collapsed, making it more difficult to identify him.
The case is not a criminal but a “social investigation,” and Stor said police are trying to determine his identity for multiple reasons, including to connect him with someone he knows.
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“We want to not only find out who he is, but also if there are any, for example, relatives who still love him and he could get in contact with, because he is right now in a nursing facility where they are taking, of course, good care of him,” she said. “But he spends a lot of his time alone and we think it would be very nice for him if he . . . could be able to talk to someone he knows.”
The Amsterdam-West detective unit initially launched the investigation and worked to pursue every possible avenue, including talking with people he may have known in the city.
Eventually, police said their cold case team took over as the detective unit needed to focus on criminal cases. Two former officers were assigned the case and began the social investigation.
The pair, according to a news release from police, tried to map out who Lucky was in contact with and his social circles.
They determined he was a member of a Buddhist community based on Middenweg in Amsterdam, where some identified him with the nickname “Lucky.” Other sources also led them to Soep en Zo, a restaurant he would occasionally get a drink at, on Waterlooplein or Waterloo Square.
It was there that they found out some called him “Chris the Canadian,” which prompted police’s public plea to people across the Atlantic Ocean through a video released Monday.
“The people told us that he always spoke with what they called an American or a Canadian accent,” Stor said. “So the theory that he might be from America or Canada, that’s a theory we think could be really possible.”
She did caution it doesn’t mean “Lucky” is definitely Canadian or American, but it could still be a “real possibility.”
The man currently only speaks minimal words, mostly English words like “nonsense,” “definitely,” and “positive,” which he uses to agree or disagree when asked questions.
But while they’ve asked him questions about himself, including verbally, by speech computers, or pointing at letters on a map, they’re not sure how much he actually understands.
Since they made their plea on Monday, Stor said they’ve gotten more than 500 tips from the public, a number she said they’re not used to.
“What we really want is that as many people as possible see the footage of Lucky, so that the chances of someone knowing him will see (the footage) are as big as possible,” Stor said. “The chances of someone in Canada knowing who he is, we think, are there.”
People can contact Amsterdam police if they have a tip to share.
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