Police Solve Mystery of Man Without a Memory : Amnesia: Diligent sleuthing by two officers uncovered clues that led to Canadian aunt and uncle of a man who can’t remember them.

A young man who woke up in a ditch along a freeway nine days ago and told Pomona police he didn’t know who he was or where he had been flew home to Canada on Tuesday, still trying to place the faces and voices of his closest family members.

Jim Belmore, 22, met his uncle, Geoff Bourne, at Ontario International Airport Tuesday without showing any recognition of him, and then flew with Bourne to Toronto with plans to be hospitalized there while trying to recover from amnesia.

Two Pomona police jailers tracked down Belmore’s identity with help from police in Canada.

The saga began Dec. 15 when Belmore showed up at the Pomona police station with a shaggy beard and ragged clothes, saying that he had found himself in a ditch alongside the San Bernardino Freeway at Indian Hill Boulevard. He had no wallet or other identification and said he had no idea who he was.

Lt. Leon Sakamoto said police sent him to Tri-City Mental Health Center and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center for a physical and psychological evaluation. They found that he was not suffering from head injuries or drug use but seemed to have a genuine loss of memory.

The young man told police that he thought his first name was Jim and that his last name might be Bellamore or Wilborne.

Joe Perez, a jailer who took Jim’s fingerprints so they could be checked with law enforcement agencies, said it was apparent that here was a nice young man who was bewildered and sincerely seeking help. Perez said, “He had a far away, lost look in his eyes.”

Belmore’s plight struck a chord with Perez and another jailer, Evelyn Kimbro. Both have children about Jim’s age and said they could imagine how worried his parents would be. So they decided they would try to find out who he was.

They checked fingerprints with police agencies in California and the FBI without finding any record of him.

Meanwhile, the Pomona Police Officers Assn. and the Salvation Army paid for Belmore’s lodging. He ate some meals at the city jail. Perez and Kimbro brought him some clothes.

Belmore’s face and story appeared in newspapers and on television, but no one came forward with any useful information. Kimbro said the case became an obsession. “I was waking up at night and coming in on days off,” she said.

Some people thought Belmore had an accent that sounded Canadian, but others weren’t so sure. Then a police lieutenant noticed that Jim was doodling traffic signs in French, raising the possibility that he might be French Canadian. (His background is not French, it turns out, but the clue pointed the right way nonetheless).

Perez and Kimbro started faxing fingerprints and photos to cities across Canada. Finally, Sunday afternoon someone at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recognized the photo as Jim Belmore, who had been missing since Nov. 4.

Belmore’s aunt, Rose Lalonde, who had reported Belmore missing to Saulte Ste. Marie police in Ontario, Canada, said in a telephone interview that this was not the first time her nephew had suffered amnesia.

A few years ago, she said, he left his mother and stepfather in Florida and was found three days later in New Jersey, telling police that he did not know who he was.

Lalonde said her nephew regained his memory quickly and the family forgot about the episode. “Everybody thought he wasn’t happy in Florida and got mad and left,” Lalonde said. “We didn’t take it all that seriously.”

After that incident, Lalonde said, Belmore lived for a time with his grandparents in Canada and then moved in with her and her husband, Gary, and their three children in Saulte Ste. Marie. Belmore got a job as an equipment operator in a gravel pit and then was laid off and took a similar job in Timmins, about 300 miles away.

Since gravel pits in Canada close down in the winter because of snow, Lalonde said, Belmore was about to be laid off again and was depressed about it.

Belmore failed to report for work Nov. 4 after leaving his rooming house in Timmins. His pickup truck was also missing, and authorities later found that it had crossed into the United States in North Dakota.

Lalonde said her nephew’s disappearance was surprising because he had been doing so well. He had many friends and was just beginning to get serious about a girl.

Lalonde said she thought he might have driven his truck into a ravine and had just persuaded authorities to launch an extensive air and ground search when she received a call Dec. 1 saying that he had been seen in Los Angeles.

She said Belmore’s stepfather in Florida told her that he had received a call from someone in Los Angeles who said Belmore had sold his truck and was living on the street. The caller had no other information.

Lalonde said the family then at least knew he was alive, but there seemed to be nothing else to do. Finding someone among the vagrants of Los Angeles was hopeless. “How many street people do you have down there anyway?” she asked.

So the family waited until finally the call came from Pomona. She was elated, Lalonde said, but also troubled.

First, there was the faxed picture showing her clean-cut nephew looking like “somebody on ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ ” complete with a dragon tattoo that had never been on his shoulder before.

Then, there was the eerie telephone conversation with her nephew. “You can’t imagine the feeling,” she said. “It definitely was him. I knew his voice. I would know his voice anywhere. But he didn’t know me.”

After Pomona police discovered Belmore’s identity, they arranged for a press conference in front of the police station, but urged reporters to question Belmore gently. “He’s still somewhat confused,” a police officer explained.

And the soft-spoken, freshly shaved Belmore seemed bewildered when reporters asked if he was happy to go home to his family for the holidays.

“I’m thankful,” he said, but added that he is nervous about meeting his family because he doesn’t remember them.

Perez said Belmore was still trying to puzzle out his past when he boarded the plane for Toronto Tuesday. “He was very frightened,” said Perez. “He looked at his uncle and he couldn’t recognize anything.”

Lalonde said family members have been on the phone with each other ever since Belmore was found and they’ve resolved to get him all the medical and psychological help they can. She said the family is grateful for “some terrific police work” to track down his identity.

No one may ever know what happened with her nephew between his disappearance in Canada Nov. 4 and his reappearance in Pomona Dec. 15, she said. “It’s scary. God knows what he’s been into.”

But, she said, he now has a chance to put his life back together. “He’s a terrific person. He’s very likable,” she said. “He’s just a little bit lost.”