Andreas Grassl - Tracing The 'Piano Man'

Tracing The 'Piano Man'

For several months, Grassl was interned in a secure mental health unit in north Kent while he was being treated and evaluated. Interpreters were unable to discover his origin. Orchestras around Europe were contacted in a bid to trace his identity.

The West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust, and the local police received what they described as an "overwhelming" public response, receiving over 800 calls on a dedicated helpline.

Grassl's picture was posted on the UK charity Missing People's website (formerly the National Missing Persons Helpline). On 18 May 2005, a Polish man working as a mime artist in Rome approached Italian police officers, believing the Piano Man to be a French busker called Steven Villa Masson. However, the British newspaper The Independent tracked down Masson to his home in France, thus ruling out this lead.

Italian television stations showed footage of a concert pianist with a resemblance to the Piano Man—the pictures were filmed at an instrument fair in Rimini five years earlier. Observers found his hair different, but his nose and facial structure very similar. He also stayed silent. British tabloids also suggested a link to a man last seen in Canada two years previously, Sywald Skeid (then known as Philip Staufen), who had wandered into a Toronto emergency department apparently suffering from amnesia. His true identity was revealed in a GQ magazine article as in fact Sywald Skeid.

BBC News reported on 29 May 2005 that a Czech musician called Klaudius Kryšpín, the drummer of a Czech rock band Pražský výběr ("Prague Selection"), had rung the helpline, offering information that Piano Man might be a pianist called Tomáš Strnad, who along with Kryšpín was a member of the tribute band Ropotamo in the 1980s. Also, Klaudius Kryšpín's twin brother Richard who lives in Columbus, Ohio confirmed that Piano Man had a striking resemblance to Strnad. Another person who argued that Strnad might have been Piano Man was Michael Kocáb, the singer of Pražský výběr and a former adviser of Václav Havel. A problem with this theory was that Kocáb argued that he met Strnad on 10 April 2005 near Prague (three days after the Piano Man was found in England). Even though the West Kent NHS Trust described this as a "promising lead" and reportedly planned to bring in a Czech interpreter, this theory (like the theory that it was Steven Villa Masson, above) was dashed when Tomáš Strnad was found and interviewed on Czech TV.

On 3 June 2005, Dateline NBC, the American NBC network's investigative news magazine, featured the story of the Piano Man as its top story.

On 24 June 2005, Susanne Schlippe Steffensen (Dansk Folkeparti), a local council member of the Danish municipality of Karlebo, near Copenhagen, made a claim on Danish TV 2/Lorry, that the Piano Man was in fact her Algerian-born husband. Steffensen had not seen her husband since February, when he had travelled to Algeria to visit his sick mother. "He has lost 20 kilos and bleached his hair, but I can see in his eyes that it is him. I will never be wrong when I see those eyes", she said to TV 2/Lorry. Steffensen's theory was that her husband had travelled to England due to a conflict with his family. According to Steffensen the family was unhappy with the fact that he was married to a western woman. "I think he has fled for his life. He has previously received death threats," said Steffensen. She went to England to meet her claimed husband, but according to Steffensen the hospital did not allow her to meet him.

On 2 July 2005, BBC News reported that the Piano Man, when shown a map, pointed to Oslo, the capital of Norway. A Norwegian speaking person was brought in to open communications. According to the report the Piano Man seemed more responsive when Norwegian was spoken even though he remained unable or unwilling to speak. The theory was further strengthened by claims that a Norwegian vessel was in the area at the time the man was discovered.

According to media reports, the Piano Man also made a drawing of the Swedish flag after coming to the hospital. This led to speculation that he had lived in one of the Scandinavian countries.

Between 4 July and 6 July, students from Norway said they knew the man in question as an exchange student from Ireland. These beliefs and possible leads were dashed when Norwegian papers were able to contact the man whom the Piano Man was thought to be.