Police used facial recognition to identify Darrell Powell eight days after he was found without ID in Orlando.
ORLANDO, FL — A Pennsylvania man found unconscious in a Wawa restroom on Sept. 8 in Orlando later woke up with no memory of who he was or how he arrived in Florida, authorities and relatives said. The man, identified as Darrell Powell, 48, had no wallet or phone when paramedics took him to a hospital as a John Doe.
Powell’s case has drawn attention because of its unusual mix of a public place, a gap in records and a medical diagnosis that left him unable to recall his name. Police confirmed his identity more than a week after the discovery by running a new photo through facial recognition, which matched a Pennsylvania driver’s license. With Powell’s parents deceased and no children, officers reached his ex-wife in Pennsylvania, who has become his primary contact as he tries to rebuild basic details of his life. Doctors told the family that a brain aneurysm likely triggered the amnesia, a condition they say can improve but often follows an uncertain timeline.
According to relatives, Powell grew up in the Harrisburg area and graduated from Middletown Area High School in 1995. Workers at the Wawa found him unresponsive inside the men’s restroom that Sunday and called 911 shortly before midday. He was admitted under an unknown name and remained there for days. “He doesn’t know who he is. He knows who he has been told he is,” his ex-wife, Abi Knaub, said in an interview describing the first conversations after he regained consciousness. Eight days after the hospital admission, officers photographed Powell and ran facial recognition, yielding the identity match that opened the door to family contacts and prior records.
Knaub said Powell’s identification led her to trace recent activity that didn’t line up with his last known life in central Pennsylvania before the two lost touch years ago. Records tied to his license listed an address in Erie, roughly 250 miles from Camp Hill, where she had last known him to live. A landlord confirmed an apartment in Erie with rent paid through July, according to Knaub. She also learned Powell had rented a car in Erie that later turned up in Florida. An invoice showed he booked a cruise out of Miami for Aug. 3–10, though whether he boarded remains unknown. Hospital staff told the family doctors diagnosed amnesia connected to a brain aneurysm, a condition that can leave memories patchy or entirely missing for a period of time; the exact onset and what happened before he collapsed are still unclear.
The Orlando discovery set off a cross-state effort to fill in a month of missing movements. Police indicated Powell had no identification or phone on him at the Wawa and that early checks found no immediate reports of a missing person under his name in Florida at the time. Knaub, who divorced Powell in 2013, said officers contacted her because Powell’s parents are deceased and he has no immediate family. “They landed on me because there is no one else,” she said. Powell, now 48, has looked through photos from his earlier years, including snapshots from high school and family gatherings, but relatives say the images have not sparked any clear memory returns. He told a reporter he wants to “start over” while doctors monitor the aneurysm and weigh treatment options. What prompted his collapse in the convenience store bathroom is still unknown, and police have not announced any evidence of a crime.
Records and interviews sketch a fragmented timeline. Powell and Knaub separated more than a decade ago, and she said the last direct contact she recalls was around 2014. After the Orlando hospitalization, authorities placed Powell on a bus back to Pennsylvania, where Knaub met him. He is currently staying at a shelter while he navigates paperwork and medical follow-ups, she said. The Wawa where he was found sits along a busy corridor serving theme-park workers and tourists, a place where unaccompanied medical emergencies often generate few immediate witnesses beyond employees. Staff who called for help at the time have not described any earlier interaction with Powell that day, according to the family.
Similar cases of sudden amnesia following medical events are rare but documented, emergency physicians say, and can leave patients oriented to the present without recalling personal histories. Powell’s diagnosis—amnesia related to a brain aneurysm—adds risk because aneurysms require careful monitoring to assess rupture risk and treatment windows. The lack of identification on Sept. 8 complicated efforts to notify contacts during the first week in the hospital, delaying the handoff to someone who knew him. Facial recognition supplied the breakthrough, matching the new photo to the Pennsylvania license record and revealing the name, approximate age and prior addresses that let police make a call that reached Knaub.
Investigators have not announced any criminal charges connected to the bathroom incident, and there is no public indication that theft or assault occurred inside the store before Powell was found. Orlando police and hospital staff documented the case as a medical event. If additional records emerge—such as the rental car’s detailed tracking data, cruise embarkation lists or surveillance footage from businesses along the route—those could tighten the travel timeline from Erie to Miami to Orlando. As of this week, Knaub said she is still gathering receipts and notices tied to Powell’s apartment lease and rental agreements to determine where he spent the weeks before Sept. 8.
For now, Powell is focused on learning the basic outline of his life. Knaub has shown him photos and yearbooks from Middletown Area High School. A few classmates have reached out through social media, offering fragments of memory to fill the blank years. “Basically, I’d like to just be able to start over,” Powell said in an interview recorded after he returned to Pennsylvania. Local advocates have helped with temporary housing while he schedules follow-ups with neurologists. Knaub said she will continue supporting him as he rebuilds identification documents and medical files, adding that her role has become part detective, part translator of his past. She said loved ones understand why she stepped back into the picture: “They know this is who I am.”
As of Sunday, Nov. 23, Powell’s case remains a medical investigation with open questions about his travels in late summer. Authorities have not set a public briefing, and relatives say the next milestone will be medical evaluations in the coming days and any records that confirm whether he boarded the August cruise.
Author note: Last updated November 23, 2025.