And That's Why We Drink - E286 A Middle Finger Lemon Manicure and the Devil's Night-Time Corn Walk

Episode Date: July 31, 2022

It's episode 286 and we were both very brave today! This week Em brings us the lore of the Devil's Tramping Ground in North Carolina. Is it the place where Satan paces every night or is it the worn out path of a working mill donkey? We go through all of the possibilities! Then Christine covers a chilling tale of kidnapping and con-men in the story of Nicholas Barclay. And lastly, what would be on your Bumble BFF reading list? ...and that's why we drink!Don't miss our 2nd Annual Cryptids Unscripted Poetry Slam and Charity Auction! Get your tickets here: momenthouse.com/cryptidsunscripted

hi everyone we are about 45 minutes late to recording because we did our thing where we rabbit hole into silly dialogue and uh so here we are the words existential crisis were said multiple times in a very unironic tone. Like we were having a chat. We've had a bit of dread over here lately, but we're bouncing back a little bit. The angst is real. I have poured my wine. I texted Blaze because we ordered Indian food.

And I said, when the naan gets here, can you bring it up? Because I haven't eaten since like one o'clock and it's 645 and I just opened a bottle of wine. Yeah, not the smoothest thing i've ever done but i was like i still want my wine it's gonna be a very silly silly time with christine this week well besides your existential crisis why do you drink this week emothy um why do i drink um well i have i'm very close to the troll hole being done. Like so close. I am, I'm antsy.

Not why I'm angsty too. We're both. Right. I'm antsy to just like show it to you, which I get to do in a couple of days, I think. Wait, yeah. Expect an e-vite. Oh my God. In 48 hours, less than 48 hours, I'll be there.

So I will warn you, the main part I really wanted to like be done is the one part that won't be done by the time you're here excellent then uh but other than that it's completely finished so I can't even picture it I can't I'm not even gonna try to imagine it because I just can't wait to see it it's just a lot of um I was having a little bit of a crisis because I feel like I've been hyping it up and parts of it that aren't even shown on camera are like some of the cooler parts. And so I feel bad that like people are probably going to look at it and be like, this is it. Oh, please don't be silly.

We're going to do a whole tour. It's going to be magical. It's going to be the talk of the town. Well, it already is. I know. Get with it. But so I'm behind the times. I'm excited about that.

I'm excited. Today is RJ's 30-30. And so his girlfriend has like a surprise situation set up for him. Beyonce, I think. Is it Beyonce's birthday too? No, fiance. His fiance. His fiance.

His fiance is Beyonce. No. Yes, his fiance. You buried the lead if that's the case uh but no yeah there's only a limited time where you can say fiance so I feel like people want you to use it you know just to no it totally makes it just slipped my mind I just in my mind their relationship is still so new but I have to remember it's been like over two years at the start of COVID right like a long time yeah it's it's odd it's an odd concept but so we're doing something for him for his birthday tonight and how fun uh and then the last thing I'm excited about is that uh Mariska Hargitay here's the situation what I have been that's RJ's fiancee too there's so many no that one's mine

don't worry no that one's mine back off there's truly nothing i would not do for mariska oh 100 and so i have been watching well i used to be a huge fan of law and order sv that was like the thing every night of middle school and high school my mom and i would like sit down and watch law and order um and i could never get past that one really wild season where like mariska is severely tortured and all that yeah um i i couldn't do it at the time that it aired uh and i wrote off law and order svu because i my brain couldn't process the situation um and i've always up until then i've still always watched law and order sv but it's always been reruns like obviously the elliot stabler years sure and and up until the

torturous yep like i like i know the opening sequence to that episode so well because it's when i know to go back to season one episode one yeah start over where by the way they say a slur for uh oh they say many slurs but like i remember the first episode because i was like recently re-watching it while i was pregnant i was like i'm just gonna start over and i i think i facetimed you or something and i was like i don't remember being this horrified when i watched this back in the 90s or 2000 like milk aged like a t-word in there that's not great that they say a lot oh and an f word and an n word like they say it all um and uh but so i actually started re-watching it during making the troll hole and i've literally gone all the way up to season 15 holy shit and so um today I was very brave and I finally watched the episodes that I've been avoiding.

And now I can officially. You can keep going. Like about eight years too late can finally start watching what I consider new episodes. Good for you. I don't think I've ever watched past that either. I really I knew what happened because I'd seen it in pieces every every now and then i'd get a little brave and watch a clip of it but i let i made myself sit down and watch all three episodes and it was still i wanted to fast forward yeah that's there are a couple criminal minds episodes that like i had to stop watching the show completely for like a solid

three months before i could like go back because i was like too much much, too much, too much. My mom actually got into Criminal Minds or something like CSI or something. NCIS. Maybe. That's my mom's big one. She got into it during COVID. And then she used to be a crazy helicopter mom. And it has come back. So whatever content is going on on that show, you have succeeded in scaring her all over again.

I love that my mom watches that obsessively and gives like zero shits about my safety. She doesn't give zero shits about my safety, but she's like, that's not the lesson I learned from that show. Oh, I've been getting like fearful phone calls, like warning me, like, I don't know. I couldn't even tell you what the examples are, but I'll hear her and I'm like, what? Are you like, what's happening? What's going on in Fredericksburg that's making you think about this? Derek Morgan in the background? Is that Hotch?

What's going on? Well, so anyway. You know I love Shamar Moore. You know it. If you happen to write for any of those scary crime shows my mom loves, know that you're doing a great job invoking fear. Anyway, those are several reasons why i currently drink why do you drink oh i'm so happy you asked what's happening i went to

get my nails done today uh-huh and i don't often get my nails done and like a couple weeks ago i got my nails done for the first time since like before i was pregnant and i just have a lot of for the first time since like before I was pregnant. And I just have a lot of, this is going to be shocking to everyone, social anxiety. And so I, I'm just always like nervous getting my nails done. Cause I'm like, I don't know, like, like I've done it enough times. I should be fine and know the etiquette and everything. And, but I just get nervous. I don't know. And so today I went and I was like, I'm going to ask ask for nail art which is like a thing I rarely do um and I was really really nervous and I went in and I asked for my nail art and I got it and I'm gonna show it to you now and you're not gonna like it because it's all lemons lemons oh Christine

see I wish your social anxiety kicked in a little more today I almost actually the reason I drink I I drink, I was literally standing there at the nail polish selection being like, oh my God, I know tonight I'm going to say the reason I drink is because I had big plans to get a lemon manicure. And I chickened out and said like, just red or something. I was so convinced I was going to chicken out. And I was like, no, I have to do it. But yeah, look, she made little like um her name was Molly and she did a very good job so there's a lemon slice on this finger so proud of you and then there's little baby lemons I think the your middle fingers ironically are the ones I like the most the most lemons of all oh what a nice shot yeah just if anyone everyone knows what our relationship

looks like at all moments just lemons through my middle fingers at you all the time. But yeah, I'm very excited about it because I feel like I faced a very tiny little fear. But, you know, I was nervous. We were both brave today. Yeah, look at that. I love that for us. I love that for us, too. It's a very courageous day.

Yeah. Well, and that's really all the reason I drink. I was just so excited about it. And the whole time we were talking for 45 minutes, 44 minutes to be exact, before the recording, I kept, like, pulling my hands down because I was like, oh, my God, Em can't see the lens before we record. Well, that's why I've been hiding my nails, too, because you're going to be stunned when you see what I've done. I'm trying to imagine what could horrify me the most they are nakey what am i to say to you christine well since we're both being brave um maybe we should

see how brave we are with this story and good sec good segue i thought that was a good segue well i actually would like to see how brave you would be in this situation because today we're talking about the devil's tramping grounds what and i would like to know if you think you could enter the devil's tramping hell no yay or nay i would do well give me a minute to drink some more and then i'll do it what kind of a what kind of monetary dare would get you into the devil's tramping grounds? It's not even monetary. I think you and I have a similar approach to some things. Yeah.

No shit, Christine. Mine's monetary. Is it? Okay. Well, I feel like you and I both bow to social pressure in a lot of situations. And I feel like we could talk each other. Like neither of us could want to do something feel like we could talk each other. Like neither of us could want to do something. And we would somehow talk each other and ourselves. We've done this

many times. Talk ourselves into doing it for the story, for the video. And for free. Like, what is wrong with me? For free. So like, I'm like, oh, I would need a million. No, no. You and I would talk each other and ourselves into it. I think we are really good at talk, discussing a backup plan in advance. We're like, okay, if things go awry, what's the game plan? That's true. I'm also saying all this with zero context of what we're even talking about. I just feel like in a scary scenario, like remember, okay, we can't talk about that.

It's a spoiler for the live show. I was going to say something and then I was like, there was one moment where you really wanted me to do something scary and i was like no but i'm pretty sure if you had asked me like two more times i would have been like fine yeah i know exactly what you're talking about for the video for the story for the camera yeah yeah yeah like such a sellout oh yeah well i think if i just dangled it if if I spun it the right way of like, this is what could happen. You tried to. I remember you being like, I'm filming this, Christine. And I was like, man, way to guilt me. Like, that's the way to get me to do something. Like, look, there's nothing I love than putting you in a sticky situation and

watching you squirm your way out because you always do it's amazing just like how are you gonna do it i don't know i can't wait for this tramping ground though okay well the devil's tramping around i've also heard devil stomping ground but the main one seems to be tramping which i always thought it was like is it tramping or trampling trampling you trample you You definitely trample people. Well, you don't trample people, but a person could be trampled. But I think tramping is like a type of like gallivanting or something. Lollygagging.

Lollygagging around. The devil's lollygagging grounds. That's cute. His silly little spot. It sounds sinister though. Yeah though yeah well you tell me so it is in north carolina and not too far from you i guess in comparison to me like 10 hour drive uh well hey you could be there in a day i could be there in a day that's true so one uh it's one of north carolina's most haunted locations allegedly

and it's basically this local lore in chatham county near harper's crosswoods it's in the woods oh well i already don't like it so it's this cute little spot in the forest and allegedly the devil uses this area as his personal portal between hell and earth and he comes here on through that's kind of it he comes here just to pace and plot out his future devilish schemes you know that not to be catholic but here i go. Okay. What is this about? Just Catholic things. So it reminds me of the, is it the Garden of Gethsemane where? Oh, let me look back on all of my education. Okay.

When I met you, you talked some bullshit about how you read the entire Bible. And I was like, okay. I did, but it was honestly, when was that? 2017? Never again. I actually would like to read it again because I want to be able to say that, but like you, apparently I've never read it and I seem to know these things and you seem to have absorbed nothing of it. You want to know why though? You want to know why? Why? First of all, you went to Catholic school and like learned it. I just read it once and then the information fell

out of my head, which is very common. Then why do you want to do it again that's my question i guess to see if i can retain it for at least like a year like just to see i don't know then you're gonna have to make flash cards that's true never mind it's a lot of work okay i'm just gonna trust the catholic like for the person practicing catholic here, I'm not a practicing Catholic. I would like to make that very clear. But I just feel like if no wonder you don't like to read, like if that's the only book you've read in the past fucking five years besides Benicula, then yeah, no shit. You don't like to read.

I literally just bought The Constitution. All right. And I was like okay i was like i was like you know what i need to know i need to know about this you don't though like just read it on the internet that's what i that's what don't worry i learned that because i bought it and what do you mean you bought it like i bought like a little copy of it. We were at a bookstore. National treasure or some shit? Why? Are you like trying to talk about your right to bear arms? Like why are you buying the Constitution?

That's like such a weird dad thing, isn't it? I guess. I feel like as I'm getting older, I'm becoming more of a weird dad anyway. That's fair. I just wanted to read. I felt like I should, for myself, just like try to see how much of it i can memorize or if i saw your bumblebee okay i can tell you we the people in order to form that's the preamble and we all know that because the schoolhouse rock so relax damn it but the thing is the schoolhouse rock ended at

the preamble i need the whole constitution written out in song it will be fine do you though okay here's the thing i think selfishly yes but not for any other reason for what selfishly for what pure entertainment i don't know it's not entertaining i don't know okay to me why don't you read it or something like it's equally as long no the constitution actually it's just like a little pocket book well i'm mostly talking about the bible but oh but but yeah i mean okay here you go this is the thing if i saw your bumble bff profile and it said like books i've read in the last five years literally said the bible and the constitution i'd be like what i don't need to be i don't need

this energy that's a great point that's a great point and mindset and and mindset the binocular might sway me the other direction but like mine mine would say like Stephen King and some weird thriller romance novel. And you're just like the Bible and the Constitution. And that's it. Yeah, I feel like I feel. Well, I guess. And then I wrote a book. You could add that to.

Also, I wrote a book and I'd be like, oh, is it like an analysis of the Constitution? I honestly I only got that and wanted to the reason i read the bible the first time was because i i was hoping i would absorb more of it but i really i did get overwhelmed by the writing and it really tricked me up it's a lot but the i wanted to learn about it because if people were ever going to come at me and try to use the bible as their weapon i wanted to be able to say well i've read the bible and there's so and so okay well you can say that now though you can say i read the fucking bible i can't i was really hoping i would be able to use it more as an argument already on the internet like go to ranker or something or buzzfeed they've already selected all those passages that you can

use no i know that now but i still wanted to do it for myself and it i got overwhelmed same thing with uh the constitution I just went. I was like, if all these people are using this as like their weapon, I'd like to know why. I do understand the angle. But I also understand. Please know it would not be on my Bumble profile. I was going to say, like, we have limited days on this earth. And you're like, I'm going to read the Constitution. I'm like, just fucking watch Mariska.

Like, do something more entertaining. I don't know. That's kind of what ended up happening i just found it online and got a spark notes version i'm clearly the devil on your shoulder here i'm like don't read the bible don't read the constitution watch the tv the literal devil said don't read the bible i'm pretty sure something like that oh um well hold on all i was gonna say is that this reminds me of the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus hung out the night before he was crucified. It's actually very sad. And he was like, to his dad, he's like, why are you doing this to me?

And he paced in the garden all night. This just reminds me of this devil thing. That is sad. Yeah, and it reminds me of this devil pacing around in the woods. Yeah, but this one, he's, maybe it was the dark side of Jesus when he was like, I'm ready to throw down if they're going to come at me like this. Yeah. But it was, it's the devil's pacing ground where he like plots to like be bad to humankind or something. Right. It feels like the inverse, like the opposite of it, you know? Like maybe like what

Jesus was really feeling that day. Maybe like his true feelings, like his diary would have expressed it. Yeah. Yeah. It's just blueprint theory of his innermost darkest secret, maybe. I do know like some people who've studied theology listen to this, which I'm very proud of you for not pulling all your hair out while you listen to us talk. But I'm sorry, I probably got all of that wrong. But I do, it just struck a parallel with me that Jesus was also pacing in a garden in the woods. You know what I mean? I like to think of like Jesus and the devil as like mirror images of each other. So like it would make sense why on earth one is pacing and under, in the maybe someone is i don't know yeah like i feel

like maybe um gethsemane and north carolina are like opposite on the axis or something yeah we know all about acts access access to okay latitude longitude you know the ups and the downs left and the rights i think you get it uh so we're on earth where are we oh yeah so he's the devil's tramping ground is used as an area where he can enter earth from hell and vice versa and this is where he takes a walk where i like it that this is like maybe his smoke break from hell like he's just like i need to get out for a little bit i've been working overtime and they just snap, see what's going on. And then he just paces this one little patch of earth.

Gets a few steps in. Gets his steps in. And he uses the space to, quote, turn his bitter mind towards ways to bring human souls to damnation. Oh. It's like a brainstorming session exactly where he's just kind of plotting away uh apparently so there's a podcast called the carolina home podcast and one of their hosts talked about how growing up he remembers um the school librarian telling them stories about this which i love that the school librarian telling them stories about this, which I love that the school librarian is like,

you should check out Benicula and then go to the devil's tramping ground. And Em's like, no, I'm going to read the constitution. Ironically, the amount of time that I waited for fucking Benicula. It was impossible to get your hands on. It was,

there was a one book and like a hundred kids. But so apparently there was this librarian who also talked about the devil's tramping ground to the children and i kind of love that i love it too like scare them a little bit you know like get that little little tinge of fear bring keep the keep the lore alive and uh here's the thing why do people think that the devil paces here do you want to take any guesses on why they think oh this is obviously the devil's tramping ground like anything about the property you might think this is gonna come out of left field but i'm gonna say it anyway oh well okay it is a field so oh oh what's he saying oh why i think that the devil okay my thought this is again gonna come out of left, but I'm thinking maybe there are fossilized dinosaur footprints here.

And they're like, oh, footprints. It's the devil. No, is that not it? That's not it. Okay. Because I feel like then it would be like an archaeological site. Yeah, now you're right. You're 100% right.

That's stupid. I don't know. I have no idea. You're not, well, you're not totally off on one of the theories because if the if you're saying like oh because they found like some really old stuff they're from before human the human period i don't know that's what i'm saying uh they one of the theories is that they're uh that it's just really old and so but then again like the definition of old is kind of. What do you mean old? Everything's old. We'll get there.

We'll get there. I don't want to get into it. Oh, okay. So the reason why it's called the Devil's Tramping Ground is because, oddly enough, in this patch of the woods, there is a quote, perfectly round and absolutely barren circle of 40 feet in diameter field oh so it's just like someone almost like no grass nothing can grow in it cut a circle out like barren like no nothing can grow in this circle that sounds like a ufo landing well that's one of the theories christy oh really okay okay so um it's completely barren nothing can grow at all in it and if anything tried to grow in it apparently there have been like moments where

someone thought like oh something's happening let me put my corn here it dies right away oh no additionally if you try to take something trying to grow inside the circle and move it outside of the circle and replant it it it will also die. Well, that's sad. So something chemically, nothing's growing there or nothing's growing there if it's already sat there. On top of that, if you try to put something in the circle to see what it will do, and this isn't just like your corn, which like people have tried to bring their corn in and then it dies. But if you even wanted to bring like i don't know a marble a marble a backpack or something any random household object if you leave it in the circle long enough it will move on its own so people have been putting things in this circle and then they like they'll find it the next day either moved in the circle thrown

out of the circle or completely missing oh that's spooky and the same thing will happen uh to items that people have attempted to even like tie down because one of the theories could be like oh well an animal grabbed it in the night sure but if you some people like literally bring like stakes and like try to like nail like their like whatever it is in the middle of the ground to like see if it'll stay and not move because of the wind or whatever and it will be missing or moved or thrown out of the circle um and i wonder how far out of the circle because i think it'd be really creepy if it was just toeing the line no totally um basically if you leave any of the stuff in the

devil's path the theory is that you're ruining his nighttime walk and so it's gonna get fucked with get this corn out of my way yeah who left their shoe and marble here so i i guess in this town it's maybe a common activity to for at least for like the the cool bad teenagers oh yeah to leave something there in the circle and see if the devil messes with it but it has to be done before the sun sets because it gets too dangerous to be there once the sun has set it's too dark and this is when the devil appears might come over and it's very dangerous yeah so uh there have been teenagers that will actually try to like for the people who are really brave and thrill seekers uh they will

like dare each other to stay overnight in the woods near this circle or camp inside the circle in tents uh to see if their items will move or if the devil will show it all and there's actually one lore that a group of boy scouts stayed inside the circle overnight in their tents which like who was their like scout master or whatever get some badge like what kind of badge are you getting for that whose dad was like this is a good thing as a great idea as an organized community of children. We should do this. Also, like, did the parents sign a permission slip?

Was it very clear on the permission slip what they were doing? I feel like somebody was being a little sneaky sneak. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it was just like a dad with his kid and his kid's friends from the Boy Scouts. And now we're making it into a thing. I don't know. Maybe it was like, oh, this is a perfectly clear patch of dirt why don't we put

our tents right here yeah maybe they did not know what they were doing i don't know but so they all decided to stay overnight inside the circle in their tents to see if anything would happen and they woke up the next morning and they're like, oh, man, like nothing happened. But then they got out of their tents and realized that them and their tents were miles away from the circle. That's bananas to me. Miles. No. And so because this is such a well-known lore, locals have told their kids to never go near that area. They've also claimed to actively avoid the area or to not even talk about it in some

in some homes um i also imagine as a parent just telling your kid like not to go into the woods at night is like a pretty fair thing to say yeah i would argue that's a that's a solid um piece of advice but i also understand if it's like a like a dangerous area because that's where like all like the bad kids are like that's just additional fear for your child. Right. You don't want or who knows who's out there. Also. Yeah, exactly. Because like if this lore is known in the whole area, then like there could be people who are waiting for someone to show up to boy scouts out there waiting. There could be a marble and you don't want to see what's going to happen. Waiting.

There could be a marble and you don't want to see what's going to happen. So people have also claimed that when they're driving past the area, they will see glowing red eyes from that part of the woods. And visitors to the circle have felt nauseous and dizzy. Other people have felt completely filled with dread. There have been paranormal investigators who have gone there and like basically quit on the spot because they were so uncomfortable oh one guy actually tried to drive to the circle in his car and the closer he got to the circle his car started stalling out but when he decided that he was going to leave and turn the car around his car started working better and better as he got back to the main road and then he did it with a second car and the same thing happened no i feel like that's like radiation like some weird thing coming from the circle that's like malfunctioning everything or some emf situation i don't know

uh one person actually got a photo of the devil's tramping grounds one time and allegedly the picture had one of the trees in the woods in the picture and the tree seemed to have an opening with a door and it looked very much like a portal ew so i think that either is where the theory of it being the devil's portal comes from or it like only emboldens that theory have you seen this photo no i haven't i couldn't find it i don't know if someone else finds the picture let us know um another time a man stayed out there and while he heard footsteps while he was in his tent near uh so he heard footsteps nearby his tent and at the same time his dog seemed to be in a weird So he heard footsteps nearby his tent. And at the same time, his dog seemed to be in a weird, dreamy-looks trance state.

Oh, no. Like the dog had seen something he couldn't while he was also hearing footsteps. Dogs also have been known to act really scared and whine and cower near the devil's tramping grounds. And they won't even go near it. And birds will refuse to build nests in the trees nearby. Get it. Forget it. So multiple types of animals are like, beg to differ. go near it and birds will refuse to build nests in the trees nearby get it forget it so multiple types of animals are like beg to differ and then humans are like i'll go in it's like god why are we so stupid well also if if animals are afraid to get to that space i guess that helps along the

theory of like if you leave something in the circle it'll get moved and it's not an animal right good point even though dogs are scared of this area ironically locals often report hearing howling near that part of the woods which i and maybe like hell hounds if it's a portal to hell right yeah howling sounds hellish sure does and earlier renditions of uh this folklore actually claim that dark animals would appear in the circle. That you would just see like monster beasts. All the way back to the 1930s, there's a newspaper article from the Chatham Record. And this is a quote about these dark animals that you could see there. about these dark animals that you could see there.

For more than a hundred years, and how much longer, no one apparently knows, this spot has not materially changed appearance. It was also in the 30s that a huge ghostly black animal began to haunt the spot. A supernatural beast that resembled a black bear began to chase raccoon and possum hunters from the grounds, along with anyone else who dared trespass. Whether the beast is the

pacing devil in another form or one of his hellhounds is unclear oh i hadn't even thought that it could be the devil himself yeah so he's maybe pacing and then he's like not pacing he's sprinting so he just he just shows up and scares the poo out of you i guess but uh that was one of those quotes that i just did was an article from the 1930s and it says for more than 100 years so that means yeah through the 1830s people have been talking about this place what and it hasn't changed like the the look of it like the creepy has stayed exactly the same and even then they were saying it was the devil's tramping grounds and another another article mentions that the devil's tramping grounds uh this article was from 1882 and it was interviewing older locals that said that they had heard about it as kids

so if this is 1882 and older locals are talking about it from childhood that means that this uh story or this lore could date back to into the late 1700s so and all it is i mean realistically if you are like a new tourist hiker and you have not visited this part of the woods before you might just see it as like a patch of barren nothingness and i think more of it it just looks kind of like an empty space. Yeah. So it doesn't seem that scary until you've heard the lore for literally hundreds of years.

Yeah. And here are some of the theories as to... Oh, I can't wait. What it could be. One of my thoughts is it literally could just be animals that are not afraid to be in the area, moving things or footsteps or howling. Well, why won't anything grow though? That weird right so why it won't grow those are some of the theories

i'll do right now um some of them are very silly some of them it ranged in some of them ranged uh all the way into racist though so look out okay why damn it wow um the best known theory for why nothing will grow there it dates back at least 100 years and it's that um one of the indigenous tribes there used to dance in a circle on the spot so much that plants stopped growing uh under where they would dance okay another one is that there was a battle between two indigenous tribes and so much blood was spilled that nothing will grow out of that ground anymore because something chemically happened from so much blood fall. Okay.

Another one is that this site is a native burial ground and that is linked somehow to the lost colony of roanoke oh whoa so all these not a big fan of they seem to uh associate i don't know maybe there's a truth to it and i don't know enough about the history but it feels like they're just kind of depends on whose theory this is like if this is like random white folks theories then like yeah step back you know especially because it's like linking indigenous people with like unholy activities or with the devil or something devil right good point yeah i don't know or but then also there's like just like how you're saying oh maybe it's called that because this place is, you know, is older than there's something was going on here before we ever got here.

That kind of narrative also happens here where it's like, oh, it's older than white people coming here. And so it must be a native situation. Yeah. Which is like it must be mysterious and evil. And yeah. Yeah. And then it's linking like indigenous people with like a dark mystery that's a great point yeah it's no we don't like that early

articles here's a weird thing too is that a bunch of articles even like like to further the story or to further the spookiness of uh the devil's tramping grounds there would be articles that i don't know if they are true or not or if they were just like you know random scary stories but there were a more than one that said like oh well a white guy went and an indigenous guy went there obviously they didn't use those words um but it's like oh a white guy went here and an indigenous guy went there and the indigenous guy was felt really freaked out and so uh and so both of them left and it's kind of this like weird odd undertone of like if even you know the indigenous people are freaked out you know it just kind of feels weird and also it's like if these stories are from like the 1800s and a white guy and an indigenous guy are hanging out by themselves in the woods, I'd also be nervous if I were the indigenous guy.

Yeah, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. So I don't know what the context is. That's a very fishy story. Enough articles were just kind of like vague enough to make it seem scary. But also it's like it could have just never happened or if it did happen there could be a completely different reason or it just all felt kind of off like we were pushing this yeah in a weird way i know what you're saying for cooler things than using

native tribes as props in a story um another what could be cooler? And just about anything, tell me just about anything. Um, so another thing or another theory, uh, is that, which I think is pretty cool. I hope I'm allowed to say, I think it's cool. Um, is that it could be a fairy ring, which is apparently those I'd never heard of them, but I guess fairy rings are plant circles caused by fairies when they dance in a circle together wait you haven't heard of fairy rings no i've heard of it like vaguely like i just know that it's uh in some places very a very popular belief all right we will we will i'll put that down as a as a potential i would love to hear about that um so yeah so i guess

that also kind of fits with the narrative they're pushing of like oh indigenous people danced here and that's what caused it but it's like in this theory it's oh well fairies dance yeah yeah yeah it's sort of like they're at least like a a mythical uh creation not like a real less of a trope group of people right exactly uh so they think it might be a fairy ring which is also apparently a gateway to the fairy realm and that also plays into the portal kind of storyline um there's one story where apparently people stayed the night here at the devil's tramping grounds and they were once quote lulled to sleep with calming melodic music that like was not of their own that's weird uh and they woke up later outside of the circle oh so i i kind of wonder if that means that like you like the furries are like

you're not welcome in the circle like please stop trespassing or maybe because you're not supposed to walk through a fairy circle i do know that oh okay well that'll that would explain it yeah and uh also there's a lot of stories of like fairy music and kidnappings there's a lot of oh god uh well like the fairies not like a kidnapper uses fairy music no no no i know okay no i do follow that yeah yeah yeah uh but so apparently that's that's a trope that kind of plays into this of like oh well maybe you're getting moved around when you're not aware of it yeah you're getting like lulled and then like moved okay um so anyway the one theory is that it's fairies another theory is that it's a ufo which i know aliens and UFOs, like who knows what science is true to that.

But I feel like I hear enough about UFOs landing and like the radiation from their craft. I feel like for some reason that's the most believable one to me. Isn't that weird? I have the exact same thought. I'm just like, I feel like this one, it's my comfort space.

Cause I'm like, well, I feel like I hear about this one way more than anything else yeah so the idea is that a ufo landed here and the craft burnt a spot into its landing area and the radiation from alien spacecraft or alien technology is what damaged this area of the ground which is also like kind of the concept of a crop circle anyway and it just feels like a big crop circle yeah and you know you do hear that um when there are like alleged ufo landings and the radiation one thing and then also like oh the the grass died where it landed and like you do hear that that's that's like definitely what my first thought was well so they actually did soil

evaluations i was gonna say someone's gotta check that soil but there was at the time there was no radiation detectable although you could then argue that like well maybe their radiation is we don't we don't have machines to detect their radiation the ones that i've heard of with ufo landings like they do detect radiation i'm right that's what i've heard yeah i feel like that's a thing uh also that would mean that aliens are like coming down here just to like be invisible and throw your shit out of a circle so like yeah good point unless maybe there's like a force field i mean we could get into like some really crazy theories but uh so one theory is that it is a ufo another theory which is like more historical i suppose is that this property once used to be a mill and they used a donkey to grind their wheat

and as the donkey would walk the path over and over again to grind the wheat the circle just became barren from so many footsteps oh but apparently there's no evidence of a mill being here it's just kind of a thought of like oh maybe that's what happened they just made the donkey walk in circles for so long yeah in circles like that's so sad how monotonous um so here's one thing apparently one day a sign got put up here at the devil's tramping ground and the sign called this area the chatham county vortex what so i guess it like someone was like i don't like the name devil's tramping ground let's call it something more whimsical so it's sometimes called the chatham county vortex based on what you're researching

and this vortex is apparently according to one article it is quote the anchor of a magdalene crystal column of energy whoa a lot of words uh so this refers to so magdalene is magdalene energy which literally is from mary magdalene yeah and magdalene energy, or also called, like, Mare energy, this energy is, quote, an expression of divine feminine presence concentrated in one sacred spot. So... Whoa.

That's definitely a twist, because it sounds to me like they're putting a positive spin on what this place could be. Yeah, like sacred and divine is definitely different from the devil. Yeah. And like a feminine presence when usually the devil is associated with more like, right. I mean, he feels like a little bit of an alpha male, in my opinion. The exact opposite of divine femininity. But so that's, I guess, another theory that theory that you know what this place could be but i guess the understanding as it's just just happens to be a vortex full of energy but then

another personal theory that i think you and i would both agree on is like maybe there's only a lot of energy there because a lot of people have brought energy to that spot good point good point so in the 1950s soil samples were collected again and uh basically they say that the reason for the circle is that there's a toxic level of salt in the soil which is keeping the plants from growing but they couldn't explain how that much toxic salt would be only in a perfect circle weird spot a perfect circle like what a weird like something exploded there and just like left the salt in the soil it's so random maybe like in the fucking 1600s someone just had a big bag of salt in that tour and it just like oopsies and they're like oh man i wonder

if this is just gonna affect the landscape for years and years and they were riding on a donkey and it was just going in circles and they were like i'm just spilling salt all over the place i hope nobody tries to put their shoe in their marble in here right so and so in the 1950s that was their best explanation of like oh well salt toxicity so in 2015 the they tested the soil again and there's no salt toxicity and they said that they can't come up with any reason why the soil is so infertile and then they said in fact if anything

with years of visitors coming to this place and using it as like a campfire spot and I'm sure there's a bunch of people that our parents would say are into dark witchcraft and come here and have fires and stuff with so many people coming and have fires and stuff. With so many people coming and making fires in this spot, not only should this place not be infertile, but it should

be more fertile than anywhere else in the area. Oh. And so the soil researchers from like, what, seven years ago, they said there's no reason for this circle to exist that they can come up with. That's pretty weird. So it's currently private property that's been kept in the same family for over 100 years i guess they have nothing to say about it they're like get off of maybe they're pushing them out at night well so it actually they i think loved the attention for a while and allowed visitors like all the time and then by 2018 the people just kept littering it so much that they ended up having to make people stop coming so that's the only reason why you are no longer welcome there but uh maybe the the devil's still throwing your stuff around i don't know wow that's the

devil's tramping grounds that's the wildest thing i've never heard about this i will send you a picture right now in the chat yeah i just love the idea that there are so many just like places we've never heard of that have like lore and like just little spots throughout the world that you would never know about you would never know i just love it it's like so many mysteries let me actually i'm going to text you i'd like someone had to put an arrow as if you couldn't tell what it was oh oh it literally just looks like that's the incredible hulk out of fire or something like it just looks like a big ass fire pit so is the white part around it part of it or is it just this dark spot i so i don't know maybe the air the arrow is actually

referring to like a fire they had there or something because that looks a little more ashy yeah um i think the lighter part it looks just like a circle but there happens to be a darker center and i freaky i think the lighter part is supposed to be the footpath of the devil and walking around just walking around and around like that donkey. Oh my gosh. How weird. Isn't it weird? So there you have it. If you're in North Carolina and you feel like trespassing, I guess, and breaking the law, you know.

First of all, don't. If you do, send photos, but don't do it. First of all, time travel to before 2018 and I hope you have a blast. There we go. Yeah. Wow. That was a good one and a weird one thank you all right i have a story for you m that is um so bananas it's so freaking bananas okay and i saw this in a documentary back in I think 2015 or 2016 like before we ever started the podcast when I was living in Glendale I watched this on Netflix and was like what the fuck and this is uh the documentary was called The Imposter I re-watched it it's on it's not

on Netflix anymore but it is on Amazon Prime And I remember finding it because I Googled like best true crime documentaries on Netflix. And that's how I found it. So it's the story of Nicholas Barkley. I don't know him. Okay, great. Because I'm just going to tell you about it. It is just so wild. So Nicholas Barkley or Barclay,'m not really sure uh was they say it differently

in the show um nicholas barclay was 13 living in san antonio texas with his mom beverly and his 24 year old half brother jason and according to his mom um nicholas was 13 going on 30 one of my favorite movies okay well so was jennifer gardner so i love mark ruffalo he was a cutie pie in that movie god i got so cute so cute do you like do you think he's cute today yes cool i think so right i feel like i feel like he looks so different right it's so stupid but like 20 years ago i feel like he looked so different but i feel like he looks so different. It's so stupid, but like 20 years ago, I feel like he looked so different. But I feel like he was, maybe it's that he's like more of a, got a dad factor now. And I'm, I don't know.

I think he's just. I have a big crush on him. I just think he's a little cutie pie in 13 going on 30. He really was. That was when I was like, oh, I like that. I also think I, I also think I just know him as Bruce Banner now. And that's what, yeah, I was wondering. But yeah, no, I, I, I'm still into it. I also think I just know him as Bruce Banner now. That's what, yeah, I was wondering. But yeah, no, I'm still into it. I'm still into it.

But yeah, anyway, so his mom described him that way. He was stubborn. He thought of himself as an adult. And she even said if he made up his mind he was going to do something, pretty much there was nothing you could do. So Nicholas struggled behaviorally and was diagnosed with ADHD. Can relate. I don't know. Can relate. I want to point out too, I forgot to say when this was, but he was born in 1980. So at this point, this is 1993 that this takes place. So unfortunately, 13 going on 30 had not

made its big debut in the world. It'll get there. It's coming and everyone feels it coming uh in their bones um so nicholas struggled behaviorally he was diagnosed with adhd and he had several charges on his record for theft he had broken into a convenience store and allegedly threatened his teachers and he was actually due to appear in court on a more recent charge. And there was talk of putting him in a group home for juvenile offenders. So he was struggling a lot. His family had a lot of conflict with him. He had been in trouble many times. This poor kid,

times um this poor kid he's only 13 already coming up on a hard time um so nicholas's mom had another son named jason who was 24 so this would be nicholas's older brother and uh his mom asked his mom beverly asked jason this 24 year old her son to move into the house to help her handle nicholas because he was just a handful um but according to a childhood friend of nicholas jason was a selfish person he was apparently really struggling with addiction he made the house very volatile and he allegedly introduced his mother to drugs as well oh shit yeah so like he came to help and then like didn't help at all uh so he basically worsened the family dynamics instead of like helping his mom handle quote-unquote uh nicholas and i mean it's very sad it's just very sad because this kid is 13 and a lot of this talk, this description of him is very vilifying.

And it's sort of like, you know, he had ADHD. He was only 13. His home situation was unsafe and scary. It sounds like his brother and his mother were doing drugs. And so I feel like he's going through it and he's so little. And so it's hard to say like, oh, he was a juvenile delinquent. It's sort of like he was going through it. And so it just makes it a little bit sad.

So he clearly probably needed some sort of professional intervention or something like that. I mean, in the home videos that they show in the documentary he was very goofy and sweet and like was holding the camera and was like i'm the director like he was just very oh like good kid yeah just sweet and cute and like obviously he had a lot of behavioral issues and you know we could talk for days about that but uh he and his mom butted heads a lot he was known to run away from home from time to time, but always came back the next morning. And Beverly, his mom described him as a very street smart city boy.

So the day he went missing, nobody panicked at first. They just thought, well, he's out there somewhere. He's staying at a friend's. He ran away, whatever. Sure. well, he's out there somewhere. He's staying at a friend's. He ran away, whatever. Sure. So it was June 10th of 1994, and Nicholas left to go play basketball at some nearby courts with his friends. He had $5 in his pocket from his mom. He went to go play. At some point, he called home

to ask for a ride back. His older brother, Jason, picked up the phone and scolded him and said, Mom is sleeping. She's preparing for her night shift at Dunkin' Donuts. No one's picking you up. You got to walk home. Oh, damn. OK. This was the last time anyone ever heard from Nicholas.

Yeesh. OK. Yikes. So he had never stayed away for more than 48 hours. So on the third day of him not showing up his mom called the police and they'd been to the house before over family fights over drugs and other issues so they basically wrote this off immediately as a runaway situation and sort of brushed it off and in an interview beverly said his disappearance never made the news it wasn't news to them it was just news to us so and it's sad because you see so many

cases like this where yeah the classic trope is like oh they ran away and they don't do anything about it and like oftentimes that is what it is but that still means they're endangered right like if they're a minor yeah like he's 13 hair right it's like i'm like he's 13 like i don't know about you but if my child ran away i'd still be petrified yeah well like what's this it doesn't explode doesn't fix it like oh he ran away well yeah go fucking find him i feel like if someone said well he just ran away i'd be like uh that's not that's not good oh are we like pleased about that yeah it's so weird to me and like i know there's so much you know socioeconomic stuff behind this because yeah you know so but it's just like oh it's so frustrating especially when you get into the

stories where maybe they weren't a runaway and you just wrote it off and nobody looked into it and so i don't know it's just such a trope at this point in the true crime world so there were no leads no clues nothing to trace and a few months after the disappearance this is kind of weird jason the older brother called the police to report nicholas attempting to break into their house but when police showed up like nicholas wasn't there there was no way to verify that he had ever been there and so they either think like he was mistaken he was also struggling heavily with addiction the older brother so they're like maybe he was just you know not confused or yeah like not with it um so the trail on nicholas basically went cold and like i just

want to point out one more time he was 13 like he was a little kid i mean oh it just makes my heart hurt i mean i yeah i don't know what's going on behind the scenes but it feels like nothing is going on yeah they totally wrote it off it's sort of like he wanted to leave and it's like well he can't want to leave because he's a child. It's literal truancy last I checked, right? That's not allowed. Not going to school. Yeah, like being absent.

Truancy, that's such a good word. Elliot Stabler recently just called his child the truant on the show. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Whoever said it wasn't educational i know it well no that's such a good point of just like why is this child not important to you weird weird so the trail went cold um and his family just had to live without answers until Until this story. October of 1997.

Okay. So this is four years later? It's like three years and some change later. The family gets a call. Why? That they've found Nicholas. That immediate, I'm already confused because i feel like that implies for the last three years they were doing work behind the scenes and didn't tell anyone so it was actually

a police officer in spain who called what okay said nicholas is here do you want to come pick him up shut up wait so he like turned himself in and he was like i've been missing how did this happen well let me tell you m i'm so glad you asked i don't even know the best way because like what i'm trying to think of the best way to tell this that's like the christine her scene shifter you have to just spit it out. What is going on? I'm just gonna spit it out. So it turns out the person calling was actually 23 year old Frederick Bourdain, a French national currently living in Spain. He I'll give you a little backstory on him before I before I go any further. So he was a lonely person, self-described. He said he'd grown up in a loveless childhood. His mother was very young and his grandfather was extremely racist and hated him stand with an Algerian man and uh thus Frederick was born and his

grandfather just never liked him or accepted him because his father was Algerian okay and this guy Frederick just dreamed of being cared for and wanted to relive his childhood with a loving family and so he went to therapy and got help just kidding he didn't go to therapy and get help um he really should have but he didn't good one jk haha oh saddest joke of all time instead he decided he was gonna make his own new childhood oh this is literally one of the law and order su episodes yes wait yes yes i've seen that one it might be even more than one like a girl showed up at the door of her family to be like i'm back after being kidnapped uh for the last four years and then they find out that the girl wasn't their daughter but the actual daughter got killed

and the girl who showed up at their doorstep hated her family and so she was like i you need a kid and i need parents yeah didn't she have the same tattoo yeah she had the same tattoo that's why they thought it must be her and they just didn't know they were like she doesn't look like my daughter but maybe it's just been so many years yeah well spoiler alert that's like the same fucking thing i wonder if that was based on this because the time was 1997 i wonder when that yeah it's one of the earlier come on how weird is that it's literally one of the earlier seasons and and law and order started in 99 okay that's pretty weird headlines that is pretty fucking weird okay yeah okay i'm on yeah no but

like it really does read like an svu episode like it's so batshit um and i know i just read that or i just told that story last week of um the woman who survived her kidnapping and like that sounds like a lifetime movie i mean these stories are just like plot twist upon plot twist so wild so one october night in spain frederick called the police and he claimed to be a family in spain like a dad he's like i'm on vacation with my family in spain and i found this frightened child who's all alone and refuses to eat and he needs help and the police are like oh okay like bring this kid into the station and so the police he tells the police where to come pick up this kid and it's frederick and it's so i think the reason the the documentary is like so horrifying is because frederick is interviewed throughout this whole he basically tells the whole story and he's like smiling

and like telling it and like what laughing and just like anyway this is how i got here like just disney channel original like hey it's me i feel like i would have already felt a red flag inching up with him laughing i feel like this should be like a really emotional moment right yeah exactly so it's like it's chilling i guess that might be the best word like it's just chilling to watch him tell the story with like no he doesn't seem too concerned about it it's like oh my god so frederick poses as this lost and traumatized child and he basically when he's retelling this and kind of like smiling and like being like kind of coy and like isn't this silly um he's telling the story and he says he never told

authorities that he had been sexually abused at this point or hurt but he behaved in a way where he knew the authorities would assume he had been abused oh so he's like i didn't have to tell them anything they just looked at me and were like oh this child has been abused master manipulator yes yes like fully acting um and so he ended up in a group home at first and he kept being grilled about his identity because they had to figure out who the hell he was so finally he decided to make up a story and he said i i'm a runaway from america and these social workers were like okay well we need to find your family then and he said okay well i'll it sounds wild but basically they let him stay in the office that night like in the police office and i i assume it's because like they didn't know where to put

him sure but he basically said like they just i said like, why don't I just stay here overnight and I'll call my family? And they said, OK, you can stay here overnight. So they let him just hang out in the police station overnight by himself. This. So does this kid. I mean, I know he knows he's being sneaky because he's like kind of implying things, but it does he feel remorse in hindsight for this? Or was he just kind of like doing it for survival or okay uh i don't believe

he feels remorse just by the way that he tells the story with like zero concern like it just seems like he's just like guess what this silly thing happened um weird yeah and so i wonder we definitely get more insight later into like his background and like why but it sounds like he just had a very troubled like he was just i i honestly don't know what would possess you to behave like this but it sounds like he is lacking some sort of empathy because especially when i tell you later like some of the shit he did just for fun on the side and it's like oh god uh some of the shit he was pulling is like that's not for your own sake or for your own survival that's for your entertainment

you know it was just to have something to do something. Exactly, exactly. So my guess not as a professional and not as a mental health professional, but my guess is like, there's no like remorse here. And so at this point, he's kind of just winging it. Like he doesn't really have a story in mind except Oh, I'm an American kid. kid and i've i'm missing from my family so he somehow talks them into letting him stay overnight in this police station and that night he uses their phone to start calling random police stations around the united states so wait he didn't even have a monitor with him or like no someone on a night shift alone some now i'm understanding the craziness behind it because i really thought like oh of course they would let him stay like in the

locker room or something because people like the interview room right yeah and like we'll give him a blanket and like lock the door no yeah i didn't know they just gave him free reign of a fucking police station right and i feel like that that gives insight into like how manipulative this fucking guy was because he was getting it now i'm gonna call my family tonight and they were like okay and so he just fucking started calling random police stations around the u.s and eventually he got put through to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia. And he claimed to be an officer named Jonathan who had an American child who seemed to be about 15 or 16 years old with him in Spain who needed help. I see.

Okay. There's the connection. So he gave vague details about the kid being missing for like three years. And the woman on the other end said, oh, well, it could be Nicholas Barclay. He comes up in the system as a potential match. And he says, this is like to me, like this didn't stand out in the documentary, but to me it stood out. He said, can you fax over the missing person's flyer? he said can you fax over the missing person's flyer and to me i'm like wait so this guy had to find their fax number to be like can you fax me a picture that's actually such a good point like how did he know like their internal data was so wild that he like got them to fax the information over a picture of this kid and he was like he looked at the picture and said, on the phone, he said, uh-huh. Yep, that's him. I have Nicholas right here with me.

Oh, my God. Because he looked at the photo and said, I think I can pull this off. I think I'm going to be that kid. What the fuck? But this is one of those things where, like, I know I've said it before in the past, the past but like if it weren't criminal and morally unethical i am impressed by the genius like i am i am impressed by the the the being able to even concoct a plan like this i hate that it was like put in motion but like totally thinks of this who knows totally and it's sort of like if only his powers were used for good yes think about what could have happened you know take over the world this is why i love

the movie um catch me if you can it's my favorite movie that's such a good movie it's just like it gets me every time just like that element of like trickery and like what a mastermind deceit and like mastery i just think it's like socially tricking people. Like I think it's fascinating. But then when it comes to this, it's like so sick when people use it for such a fucked up reason. Yeah. So he basically says, yes, I'm this police officer. I have this 15 year old kid with me and let's get in contact with this family.

So, of course, immediately call nicholas's family and they're like guess what we have your son which is like oh this is where it just gets so ethically horrible uh so nicholas's older sister carrie and she becomes like one of the main characters and she's also interviewed in the documentary she called and said i want to speak to him and frederick pretended to be this like a social worker or police officer and carrie even described him as very reassuring so clearly this guy's a fucking master manipulator yep and he said i have nicholas with me um and she was like can i talk to him can i talk to him and basically

he pretended to be nicholas long enough to say i love you like really quiet oh to carrie and she started crying and she was like oh my god you really do have my brother and so she really really believes this she really thinks that like okay they found him also side note like this means he changed his voice on the phone oh yeah he was like let me go get him yeah like making the whole thing faking the whole fucking thing it's just all the tiny little things that you think about afterwards and you're like man like what on earth is going on yes and like if you think about it the time difference like it was nighttime and he was alone and And then in Texas, he it was much earlier. So he was able to call and like pretend to be a police officer, even though like it was what midnight, you know, so savvy, but savvy for evil in the wrong.

I know for such a fucked up reason. So Carrie is like, wow, I can't believe that you found my brother. So the you the FBI and the U.S. Embassy in Spain got involved. And clearly this was a minor, so they needed to act quickly. And he, I guess, spoke English well enough that officials were convinced he was American. But, I mean, if you listen to him, he has a very thick French accent. Not very thick. Like he speaks English very well.

But like he definitely has a French accent. So, to me, I'm like, that's kind of weird. I mean, he's been gone three years. But we'll get to that, I guess. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I have nothing for you as someone who's never had to switch accents as quick as a phone call. Right, right, right.

Yeah, you would think that would be for someone who seems to know the whole plan. Like, wouldn't you have an excuse for that? But maybe he does have an excuse. He does. You haven't gotten there yet. Oh, yeah, he does. No, you're exactly right. That's kind of what ends up happening.

So he speaks like really good English. So officials are just convinced he's American. And Frederick says about this time, I didn't stop because I didn't think of stopping. But when he got another fax that showed Nicholas, so now he's like, he's like, I'm Nicholas. And they're like, okay, you're Nicholas. We're going to send you to Texasas and then they send in a fax of a full colored picture of nicholas and he was like well shit this kid is blonde as can be bright blue eyes and frederick himself dark brown hair brown eyes and is like how on earth does he explain this oh m oh i feel like you're gonna tell me he did

some like obviously dyed his hair yep and then he like i don't know ate enough chocolate until his eyes turned brown i have no idea no it's just it's just as nuts okay it's just as nuts i'm i'm very hesitant it's so bananas so he okay the other problem is when nicholas disappeared he was 13 so now he would be 16 well fucking frederick is 23 okay what is going on like he's 23 and and there's are we just gonna say like early bloomer and like he just shot right up with stubble that's maybe whitening already honestly one of the fbi agents at some point was like he had this like dark stubble coming in and i was like he's blonde and 16 why is he growing a beard a whole like police force and town and then maybe family.

How were they all like, aha, that tracks a hundred times for a hundred different things. This is why it's so alarming. It's so alarming. I feel like Law and Order actually had to like dim it down. Dim down. A hundred percent. I feel like usually they have to make it so much worse. Because the tattoos that comes into play and it's like the least of all of this. Right, right, right. Yeah. A hundred percent. I feel like usually they have to make it so much worse. Because the tattoos, that comes into play and it's like the least of all of this.

Right, right, right, right. A hundred percent. I feel like Mariska Hargitay went to the producers and was like, this has to be more believable. There's no way in hell anyone's going to stick with us for this. That's how wild it was. So obviously like 13 to 16, yes, there's a difference for a teenage boy to grow in that time, but like not so drastically. So according to Nicholas's mom, Nicholas had beautiful blonde hair that kind of looked like a pixie like he was really light,

really blonde. And Frederick, like I said, had dark hair, brown eyes and was a full grown man. So he was like, the fucking jig slash gig is up. Still don't know which one's right. I legitimately don't. I'm pretty sure it's the jig is up. The jig is up. OK, the jig is up and he runs away because he's like, can't pull this off i'm just gonna leave it's too far he's like i've gotten too far and i'm in too deep i'm gonna run away but officials went out and found him and rescued him and brought him back to the group home oh my god i know and

frederick's like memory of this he says god didn't want me to leave this place. He was like, this is just fate. I got brought back and this is just the storyline I had to follow. So instead, Frederick dedicated himself to passing as this 16-year-old kid, Nicholas. He had a kid in the group home. This girl gave him three stick and poke tattoos that matched the tattoos that Nicholas had from the missing flyer. The good news for him was that they were relatively simple. So like he just got them basically like stick and poked on himself. He also bought bleach and he dyed his hair blonde, which like.

I know you kind of touched on this, like nobody was like like why is this kid bleaching his hair and like right like do you have a reason yeah this is so sketchy yeah i feel like i'd at least be like oh why did you dye your hair blonde just like even if even if the answer is just for fun like i feel like you should have a reason ready to go so weird it's so weird and so he like why is your five o'clock shadow yeah why is your five o'clock shadow? Yeah. Why is your five o'clock shadow so coarse? Why are you graying like an old, old man? Why do your knees crack? Oh, no.

Oh, no. So this makes me sad, but like Carrie, the sister soon hopped on a flight to Spain to pick up her brother. And she was saying in the interview, like she was from small town Texas she had never left the country this was like just a wild trip she didn't sleep for days before her flight and she said she just remembers wanting to see him hold him smell him just get there and then like that breaks my heart into a million pieces and this is a good time to even mention that like I guess if you're the parents or the family i could understand like especially up until like having not seen him it's face to

face and seeing how different he looks like just being desperate for the chance of like maybe absolutely like i could i could totally believe that i'm quite more frankly if the fbi says or the the whatever embassy says no this is him i'd be like yeah okay if you say so right yeah i i think i'm just more shocked by like like professional officials like what is going on here who don't have emotional stake yeah like i think that's what it is is like of course the family wants to believe it's him but it's like the officials who were like somehow duped it's so weird to me um and i guess you know if you have the tattoo it's like well he has the same tattoo but like even before that they were already convinced it's just so weird to me

but so she sees frederick for the first time and apparently he is having a major panic attack. And in the interview, he's about to get found out. Yes. He thinks he's about to get found out and he calls it a game. He says the game was over, which already fucked up that he calls it a game. Well, he probably said that because he didn't remember the phrase the jig is up. Well, well, well. The game is over i think well well well if we're gonna go there if we're gonna joe there okay

oh my fucking god so christine you really nailed that well thank you so she sees frederick who's having this like panic attack and she said she wanted it to be nicholas so badly that she just believed it was him and i can fully understand why that would be yeah you see the blonde hair you see a teenager you see the tattoos and you're like that's my brother i also liked it also is an interesting uh psychology experiment because absolutely I like to think that if my mom was only missing for three years I'd be able to spot her anywhere anytime and know absolutely for sure whether or not that was her but absolutely this story seems to be leading us it like flies in the face of that yeah it makes me like wonder myself like oh if i'm

if my mom were missing for three years how how far would my mind go to have me accept this other person yep or or how how desperate would i be for like a resolution or anything but i mean and i guess part of it too is that like from 13 to 16, I feel like somebody can change so much. That's true. Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like from 13 to 16, you could change so much. Whereas like if I think if like someone our parents age was gone or us for three years

that it wouldn't be like such a drastic like height difference. Even like Leona in three years, like like right no idea what she's gonna look like yeah no clue so i wonder if part i mean i have to assume part of it is like they just thought oh he grew up in those three years and that's a good point he did also have the same nose which is very interesting and like i'll get to that in a minute but uh carrie saw him and just immediately had this she called it a sense of immense relief just seeing touching kissing holding him he's here we're here i have him and she described his nose she said she'd recognize his nose anywhere and like oh it gives me such creeps because when

frederick is telling the story in the interview he says she said she'd recognize my nose anywhere and he she said it looked like uncle pat's nose and it's like so manipulative yeah and he's so entertained by it and it's like god this poor woman and also what a weird angle of victim blaming of like well it's not my fault like she said she'd recognize me anywhere so i didn't tell her it's my nose exactly so yeah she basically is like oh my gosh he and they do have a very similar nose. And so I guess she just was like, that's him. And he also wore sunglasses, a hat and a scarf. And he spoke very softly in an attempt to disguise his accent and acted super withdrawn. And Carrie had been told that he had escaped a sex trafficking ring. So like his behavior would obviously change from the trauma. Exactly. So she wrote it off to trauma and like gave him room and gave him space.

And she did show him photos of the family and asked him, what do you remember? And she pointed out each family member and named them for him. And some people were not convinced by his like little show so before they let him leave with carrie he was questioned by skeptical judges who showed him more family photos that he had not seen and basically quizzed him and he somehow got four out of five correct probably i know probably just based on what like carrie had just shown him like oh look at our family photos do you remember uncle pat do you remember whatever whatever and uh so somehow when they showed him these photos even in the interview he's like i knew he was like if nothing

else like now is when i was going to be found out right but he got four out of five correct and they were like well i guess it must be him. So they fucking let him go home with Carrie. How strange. I know. And so she basically took him home to Texas and they flew back. And his whole family was at the airport when they arrived. His mom wanted to run to him, but he seemed like really standoffish and scared.

So she just took his hands and like gently hugged him and said she'd missed him. And then on the drive home, they played music for him and sat in happy silence. And Carrie explained that she had smiled all the way home and couldn't keep a grin off her face. That's so sad. So fucking sad. And so this is just like a side note, but just like so fucked so frederick arrived at this

house in around san antonio and he was disappointed because why he was like oh i thought i had tricked my i had tricked everyone into a better life exactly yeah gross yeah and he said his thought of america was always like big city fancy people you know and now they're in like rural suburban san antonio like not what tv shows you what an entitled what like oh well i shouldn't have even like i should have found a different family he's like i want a loving family but not this one it, oh, my God. So he thinks this is like kind of disappointing and a little too shoddy for his liking, but too late now. So Frederick literally starts going to high school as Nicholas Barclay. And I'm not even kidding. He starts posing as a 16 year old despite being in his 20s.

And he apparently even had a thing with a girl in the neighborhood. And he was probably a minor. Please tell me it was not a minor. Of course, a high school kid. So like fucking yuck. He's an adult. She's like a 16 year old. He's like, oh, he blushes when they talk about her.

He's like on the phone with her all night and she thinks he's another 16 year old kid and he's in his 20s i mean it's just so icky and he just took this as like this is my shot this is my shot to be in a family he rode the school bus to and from school every day and he described it as being just like the American dream. This is what he had wanted. Except the house is garbage. Except I have to live in like a fucking shotgun house. Too bad for me. I don't get to live in Manhattan.

Gross. Gross. So the family didn't reach out to the FBI at first because they wanted Nicholas to have time to heal on his own so it was an fbi investigator who contacted them first insisting on interviewing him because they were like well if he's been abducted by this sex trafficking ring we gotta fucking find out who did it yeah so they call the family and they're like we need to talk to him and we need to talk to nicholas and figure out who abducted him this fucking story that he tells. He says he was playing basketball down the street and he was chloroformed and taken into a van by military officers. That's just step one.

Oh, how many steps? He said that the military members kept many children whom they would drug and move constantly all while raping them and physically torturing them. He said they put headphones over his ears that played a message which said you are not you over and over. What? That they broke his hands with a baseball bat. They broke his foot with a crowbar. And he even walked with a baseball bat they broke his foot with a crowbar and he even walked with a limp he said they hid the children's identities by putting a special solution into their eyes that changed their eye color oh my god i literally earlier almost said like he was like an eye drop yeah that's like okay and like that's really wild because wouldn't the FBI be like, that's not a thing. Right.

Like, did they think like, oh my God, we just landed on like some special ops shit. Yeah. We don't have the special technology. The government is holding out on us. They're using it in their sex rings, but we don't know about it. It's like, what? He said they burned him, fed him insects did scientific experience experiments on him put needles in his eyes like he just went on and on and the fbi agent said she left the interview

shaken which like she doesn't normally feel after an interview and she said she couldn't imagine any child making stuff like this up she was basically like this must be true why the fuck would you why would a kid make this up yeah she didn't realize he was 23 you know and i i also guess like i know so little about i mean i'm very fortunate to know so little about like what a human trafficking ring would look like i i almost could believe anything that they do to you especially if it's horrible and scary like i mean i guess you can get her and also hearing you're not you like nice touch uh on fucking touch i'm letting everyone know that like they brainwashed me into not being who i used to be not having my accent from texas yep yep yep so she was like

well there's no way some a kid would make this up and she was like shit she was just like horrified to think she had a military trafficking ring on her hands that was like the u.s military and she was like holy shit so frederick was like i fucking won this game. Like, I'm winning this game. His family believed he was Nicholas. The FBI believed him. He had a U.S. passport. People in town just believed he had lost his memories to trauma. And that's why he didn't remember specific locations or friends.

Sure. That's what they said in law and order. Yeah. Like, she just can't remember she can't every time she would like get trapped in something she'd just be like i'm sorry i'm confused and it would it worked and like what are you gonna say no you're not your trauma didn't do that to you like how would you know and so they just like let him have that space and trusted him and he said i finally succeeded to become a kid again a second chance to go to school

and to succeed this time you would also think though that like like i mean i don't know it's all very nuanced and all that but i would think if you really were traumatized and now you just have to go back to school after three years like when your grades deplete when you have to like be held back like you'd think you'd have some sort of like traumatic repercussion right i mean do you just go to junior year from eighth grade just go to homecoming and you're like i'm fine now right yeah it's it would be yeah yeah and they just were like well i guess he's back and i don't know he's he's clearly good at what he's doing so i'm not

doing something judge anyone else yet people are convinced somehow but the only person who wasn't convinced was nicholas's half brother jason do you remember the one who was 24 at the time who said we're not giving you a ride and he's now 27 allegedly he showed up looked at frederick coldly barely welcoming nicholas his brother back home turned around and fucking left and was just like no i'm not participating in this he was like this is this is too kooky nicholas was uh sorry frederick was basically like yeah jason was the only one who was like nah that's not him and but but didn't say that's not him just like fucking left which is so weird to me but whatever i wonder if he just like could kind of smell trouble and was like i don't need any more of that i guess so i mean yeah he did have enough trouble on his hands

um but there was this tv show who had heard the story of this American boy rescued in Europe and so this TV show hired Charlie Parker, PI. Oh! And so they hired this private investigator Charlie to track down Nicholas so they could interview him for the show. And the FBI had specifically

told Nicholas to stay away from the media because if this really was like a high-ranking military sex trafficking ring they didn't want the media picking up on this because they wanted to like get in before they knew the FBI was on to them sure so they were like don't go on TV but instead Nicholas was like okay I'm gonna do it anyway and by Nicholas I i mean frederick so he does the interview while charlie parker pi is on the scene watching the interview to just like i don't know suss out what's going on and while frederick is being interviewed or quote-unquote nicholas he is looking at the

photo of the real nicholas at the same time and's like, this kid's eyes are bright blue. And he's looking at it. And then he goes, this, this can't be right. So he realizes in that moment, like that's not fucking Nicholas. There's no way.

I apologize, but I feel like that was like several steps ago. Like, like why are we, why are you? I was the only one to figure it out like i'm like what a good detective but also it just makes me wonder like how did everyone else but then again you know i don't wasn't there to hear his sob story so i know it's so hard it's

and i wonder if it's partially you know that psych experiment where they show like multiple lines of different lengths and they say like which one's longer and everyone in the group is a plant except for one person and they all say like the shorter one is longer and then the last person just says like oh yeah me too the shorter one's longer because they just go along with the story what's it called it's it's a it's one of like the conformity tests oh yeah it's like a yeah i guess type thing i don't know yeah i guess it's the same thing of like if everyone's saying it's him i guess it's him especially when you add in not just the conformity part of the psychology test but the being told by authority part of the

psychology test a hundred percent like you believe of course you believe the interpol and fbi are like yeah that's him look at the tattoos and you're like well how do you argue with that yeah and like why would you think someone's pretending to be him like why would that be your thought like right someone got fake tattoos to pretend to be our missing son it's so wild sounds it sounds equally flabbergasting absolutely as what you're hearing right now as the actual story exactly and you'd rather believe that he was actually here so he's looking at him he's like that kid has blue eyes and that kid has brown eyes and he requested a photo of nicholas's ears oh apparently this is something i tried to look up and i could not find but apparently

at least in the interview he says this pi says martin luther king jr's murderer was identified and caught based on his ears oh fun fact well not quite because i tried to find this and i could not find oh any information i can't believe a goddamn word you're saying in this whole episode don't trust me for one second confused. Yeah, you should fucking should be. So yeah, it was very weird. I don't know. But apparently like the ears of a person don't change over time. And so like, you know, they shouldn't change.

And so back at home, he compared the ears of Nicholas and Frederick in Photoshop. And if you do look at photos, like they have completely different ears, which does not make sense. Your earlobes wouldn't change shape over a couple years and so uh he called the fbi and was like oh hey it's me charlie parker pi uh frederick is a fraud uh sorry to tell you but that's not actually the kid you think it is i also wonder if he went yeah i hope this isn't too shocking yeah hey is this awkward like has anybody said this yet because right is anyone else was anyone doubting this because i feel like they're about to have a really good day when i tell them they were right yeah like that one intern at the fbi who was feeling weird about this they were correct so the fbi warned parker not to interfere with a federal

investigation and said like listen the family says it's him like they would his own mother would have known if it wasn't actually him and parker was like you tell me whatever you want but i'm convinced that this is not the real nicholas and he got really freaked out because he was like convinced that Frederick was either a spy or a terrorist. He was like, why the fuck would someone like go through all this to pretend to be a 16 year old kid? Yeah, I would think this is like a weird undercover situation. Yes, there must be some like plot or like terrorist plot or spy situation. Like there must be some reason he's doing this. And so the FBI then flew Frederick to see a doctor to sort of see if they could uncover

more about his abduction. And apparently the doctor pretty instantly felt like something was off. So based on Frederick's accent, the doctor knew he could not have been raised in an American English speaking household because Frederick could physically not speak in his alleged childhood Texan accent. Oh, interesting. It's also very much like the three versus the three situation. What's that? Remember we did this last time where like an inglorious bastards, like he got caught

because he couldn't. Oh, my screen was covering half of your face, so didn't see your hand yeah three three exactly yeah yes because germans do it this way yeah yeah it's almost like a that should be if not innate anymore it should or it should come out if you try yeah you should know it somewhere you should at least be able to fake a really good texan accent at this point you'd think so and like that's the part that always stuck with me when i started watching this which is like if he lived in texas till he was 13 and never spoke english for three years like you'd still have it like it wouldn't vanish you could at least even if you were faking it you could fake a decent one

you'd think so and he just couldn't make the right sound like his mouth literally just didn't do the draw as they say as nobody says but well let's make sense that i know what you're talking about okay there we go so he couldn't do it. And the doctor was like, um, ding, ding, ding, red flag emergency, pressing probably the secret alarm button under the desk. Like, this fucking kid is not from Texas. I don't know who's telling me this, but he's not from Texas. speak French so traumatically and with his like what you were saying earlier with his like um earpiece in saying you are not you you know even if he had somehow been brainwashed and forced to not speak English and forced to speak French so traumatically that he got this French accent it's apparently nearly impossible that he couldn't at least for a moment pull out his childhood texas accent so he also felt like the way frederick was recounting his trauma was an act because he had worked with a lot of trauma victims and he was like this is not ringing true there's something off so he tells the fbi hey this fell as a fraud

and so now the fbi are like okay we've got two people telling us like this is not the right kid he's lying so they call the sister carrie and they basically say this is not your brother remember how we said this is your brother jk fun fact jk it's not and they said we don't know what he's doing here but he could be very dangerous uh where don't don't pick him up at the airport he's flying back to texas don't pick him up at the airport we'll take care of it and apparently on the phone carrie just started shrieking because again she's like losing him again again yeah she like had this hope rekindled and now it's gone but when frederick and the fbi arrived at the airport carrie was there calm and

smiling to pick up her brother nicholas oh no carrie so yeah the fbi investigator was stunned she called the u.s attorney's office who was like just let nicholas go home with her i guess and so they went home together and she was kind of on board of like you need a family i want my brother back i think so i think i think it was just like let's just go back to how it was a few days ago yeah pretending um she says in an interview now that she doesn't remember it being certain that nicholas was a fraud oh okay and she basically says she saw what she wanted to see that her brother was home and she's like that's what i want to see and that's what we're gonna go with all right do you know what whatever whatever you want girl you know it's like i'm not in a position

to tell you you know so the fbi showed up to collect blood dna samples from nicholas and the rest of the family to like compare DNA. Apparently, Beverly, the mom, laid down on the floor hostile, refusing to go anywhere, refusing to give up her DNA. And the FBI was like, this is getting weird. Something suspicious is happening. We feel weird about this. What gives? They now felt a little bit suspicious that perhaps the family knew frederick was a fraud but they wanted him to be nicholas because maybe they were hiding

something about nicholas's actual disappearance oh shit which now in hindsight like what a twist because now it makes you want to second think second guess every time everything all the plot twist all the interactions so far everything and you're like wait wait wait wait wait so even when they got called forever ago yeah by a police station and a quote police officer said i you know we have your son they in theory if i'm reading the room they knew immediately it was not true could be well then that makes so much sense if that's true that makes so much sense why they were willing to just like be accepting of any bullshit lie he told they're like oh yeah yeah okay they gave you eye drops and now your eyes

are brown okay cool well anyway you know yeah if that's true if they i don't know the rest of the story yet yeah it's very much just like one theory so like and it very well could not be that and it could really just be everybody's trauma you know playing on itself which again not my place to say it's not um yeah but yeah we will definitely get into it because that is a major theory so Beverly said in the uh documentary I really had no idea what I was thinking at that time. My main goal in life was not to think. Basically, she just wanted this to be her son, which. Fair enough.

Fair enough. So Frederick, at this point, who's been like fooling everyone right now, he's starting to feel weird. And he's like, hang on. It's very obvious now that i'm not nicholas everyone's made this very clear right what are we doing here what are we doing here he's like we're all still playing along with this act they're still like the bullshitter is now being bullshitted and he's like yes he's like wait a minute like we all know what's happening now right so like what is this what did i get myself into like i thought i was fooling you and now i'm like wait what do you know you know they're outsmarting him

in a way yeah it's sort of weird it's like a plot twist on him and so he was like i feel like it's very obvious i'm not fucking nicholas and for some reason the family keeps playing along with this act he started thinking about carrie giving him the family photos back in spain and like playing along with his memory loss and it's a very jarring moment in the documentary because spoiler alert but he basically says like and then i realized they killed him and it was like oh it's like this moment of like oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god and so he's like they must have killed him and they're playing along because they were just hoping that his presence would like cover it up and if that were his feeling right away where he was like i know that they killed him now you have like beyond walked yourself into a trap because if they were willing to kill their own horrible

family to join as like they were willing to kill their own son then wow you are not safe there and but like you are also like just as in the doghouse you forced your way into the situation basically it's your own damn fault and like again i want to say like this is a fucking con artist saying this with no proof so i don't i don't want to make it sound like oh well he suddenly knew the truth like he he says this but he says a lot of things he also he also says the eye drop thing yeah i was gonna say he also his eyes turned brown from an eye drop it is a if it is true talk about a plot twist talk about a plot twist really yeah it talk about an svu episode i mean i was gonna say talk about at least like something to consider if you're in a writing room right now

oh absolutely like no wonder mariska was like we need to tone this down it's too far we're going too far she was probably like get me to to the writing room. Like who on earth approved this? Who the fuck thought this was going to be believable? So he basically thought maybe they're trying to just like cover this up by going along with my story. And he specifically suspected Jason, the brother, and Beverly, the mom. Sure. I would too. Which kind of tracks because Carrie seems to be the most just like desperate for her brother to come yes open-hearted just like vulnerable like

really believing this you know and I did talk about how I was gonna say I would also do that because I would also say it was the two of them because or at least the brother because in their own testimony like he was the last person to talk to him and it was basically a get yourself home we're not coming to pick you up yeah so i just feel like if you're the last person and also that story i don't know but i'm i'm just playing detective right now without knowing all the information but that could have also been its own story of like oh he was at the skate park or playing basketball or something right he could have already been gone yeah right it could have just been like a fake story of like, oh, he was at the skate park or playing basketball or something. Right. He could have already been gone. Yeah, right. It could have just been like a fake story of like, oh, no, he just disappeared playing basketball. Hmm. Exactly. So it's a little bit

shady. I do give them that. And so as far as Frederick's story goes, he thinks it was Jason and Beverly who were involved. And he said in an interview, some of them did it some of them knew of it some of them chose to ignore it yeah that was his angle well especially because when you said like he came home and like saw the family for the first time the brother just like up and left like was like no thank you that also makes me think that the brothers i know i don't know who's i don't even know the rest of the story so i'm when i say he's guilty i don't actually I don't know who's I don't even know the rest of the story so I'm when I say he's guilty I don't actually I'm theorizing here folks but if if he were the one to do it it would make sense why he sees this man coming and pretending to be his 13 year old brother or 16 year old brother and he's

just like well I'm exiting I'm taking myself this is not for me like I know the truth and don't need to be here and maybe other people know the truth wouldn't he want to like play along though or not really i guess oh maybe i don't i there's so many angles we could take this story it's like how would you even know what anybody would do i don't know but it makes sense that he would probably be like yeah i just don't even want to know yeah no you're right i think that makes sense of like what like literally showing up being like what the fuck is this and probably looking at your mom if that were the case and being like what the fuck we know what happened you know i don't know i

don't know um so the fbi they are getting more involved now they show up with a warrant they take frederick's fingerprints they send this to interpol and the embassies and at this point frederick's like okay they've got my fucking fingerprints the gig is up fuck jay god it's like literally you can never say gif to save your life it's but the time okay but the time that like people are actually accepting of that sound coming out of your mouth, you can't do it. Is it gig or jig? It's jig. Oh my God. Okay, the jig is up.

The jif is up. Everything you say is with a J. Jif is up. Jif. The jig is up. Okay, got it. Got it. Got it.

So the jig is up and he's like, does it sound natural? So he's like, they took my fingerprints. My fingerprints are in the fucking Interpol system.'re gonna know who i am so he decides to meet with fucking parker pi fella oh okay come clean tailing him yeah so in the interview it's so creepy apparently the the pi creepy. Apparently, the PI, Parker, says, you've done some things that upset your mom. And Frederick says, we both know that's not my mom. Okay, well, at least we're now admitting it. Yeah, finally coming clean. So basically, just at this time, the FBI gets a call from Madrid, Spain, identifying Frederick as a serial imposter who

was wanted for numerous charges including posing as more than 500 different fraudulent identities 500 500 this guy's 23 you know the whoa talk about so that means his turnaround rate is not good like he is right good point he's only pretending to be people for like 10 minutes at a time right like an afternoon what are you doing so you would think after doing this 500 times you'd have a better story than this eye drop nonsense right that at least and he really thought like i'm gonna get caught again the whole time if you have 500 identities under your belt you better know a goddamn texas accent at least a southern accent like something i think this was his first time out of europe he was like wow i'm going to the big old us of a yeah that makes sense got it to be fair everyone in texas was like yeah this sounds right

all right that's also fair that's also totally fair it's so bizarre like he really pulled it off somehow shockingly but so yeah so like talk about reopening a wound like now the family nicholas's family like presuming that they really are innocent and just had lost their son and wanted him to be back they were losing him again so they lost a child now they get him back only to find out it was like some sick joke like a prank for no reason just like a sick prank and now frederick was telling everybody hey you know what i think they killed their son nicholas so it's like yeah wow so they're already like dealing with the blow of like oh shit like poor carrie is like that's not my brother and then he's like oh wow. So they're already like dealing with the blow of like, oh shit, like poor Carrie is like,

that's not my brother. And then he's like, oh, by the way, I think they murdered him. So, so maybe you already said this, but so now is he going to Charlie Parker PI so he can be like, um, here's another crash, a case to crack. Can you go see if they killed their kid? So weird that like now, like the villain has become the hero no it's true and like that's a big recurring theme that i had to keep reminding myself of like because you know we like to go down that rabbit hole like maybe they did murder the kid but then

it's like but our only source is like this fucking guy who's lied about literally everything and has not one shred of evidence you were totally right so it's sort of like i just have to keep telling myself like what a and i say hero assuming that they actually did kill their son but also like we don't know that right do we find that out no no oh okay i thought this was all leading to like us finding out okay i take back basically everything i said where i'm accusing i know it's it's so easy to go down that path because it's like oh well that would explain some of the behavior but then it's like but wait wait the starting point of this is like this fucking serial liar con artist at this whole this for some reason

in my mind i had primed myself into like one there's only one way this story ends no it's true and it did that in the show too i remember watching watching and going like, oh my God, it makes sense. Oh, well then I apologize. I did not mean to do that. Wow. No, but it's sort of hard. It's like, it's like he really put this

in everyone's head to the point that the FBI were like, okay, we're going to investigate this as a homicide. Like he literally. Man, he manipulated me. I wasn't even there. Yes, me too.

And so basically they decide to open a homicide investigation against nicholas's family oh now it feels so much more fucked up it's so twisted and so the pi gets permission to dig for nicholas's body in the yard at the family's former residence where nicholas had gone missing and he believed that he believed that nicholas's body was buried in this yard spoiler alert they don't find it uh but he also believes that jason remember when he called in that uh like oh my brother's trying to break into our house when he was like missing he believes that jason just did that to make it seem like nicholas was still alive even though he knew he wasn't you're right okay all very like circumstantial like not even

circumstantial just like anecdotal like that's what he thinks so the fbi became convinced that okay this is where i take issue to the fbi became convinced that no family would have fallen for frederick's act no matter how desperate they were but i'm like but you fell for it the fbi fell for it we fell for it for a second there yeah like if the fucking fbi is like oh no that's definitely the same person how can you blame like this family it's just so ridiculous that they're like oh well the family was tricked. So they must have murdered their son. It's like, well, you fucking didn't know. Man, you told them it was him.

You're the ones that called and said, guess what? It just pisses me off that they're like using this against them now. And it's like, you're the ones who started this. You're the ones who believed it from the start. You're the ones who heard the story about the eye drops and we're like yep that tracks you know like that part i never fell for that's the part where it's like wait what the fbi was still on board after that and it pisses me off that now they're like oh well they didn't figure it out so they must be murderers and it's like hold on okay so by that logic like it's i don't know it just ticks me off so it's very sad too because carrie the sister uh remembers being like totally

devastated and heartbroken when she first kind of had to accept that frederick wasn't nicholas and she was angry at herself and she said how could i be so fucking stupid i mean seriously like she's just like so devastated in herself carrie the sister oh god which just is so sad because no matter what happened i i really don't get the feeling i i just get the feeling she genuinely just wanted this to be her brother especially like i feel like if feel like if she found out for the second time that this isn't your brother and then that, like, shriek came out. That sounds just like a guttural human. Just horrible. Just like something that can't be replicated.

Like an innate, horrible reaction. Exactly. I had that same thought. So they decided to submit Beverly, the mom to a polygraph test about nicholas's disappearance she passed the test twice with flying colors but then they made her take it a third time and she failed it and it's sort of like well she passed the first two times you can't just be like and they're like well the third time she failed it and it's like well but she passed the first right right i don't see how that i don't think that's like

a fair shake but um she also said in the interview that she lied in that interview about having stolen something and she thinks that's why she failed yeah because she lied about like a crime that she had committed and she thinks it came up as like she was lying if that makes sense but so anyway she said in an interview i've been crazy but never violent and carrie was just beyond the sister was beyond outrage that frederick would put her family through this like specific version of hell after already putting them through a very specific and fucked up hell and so as she pointed out the story of using frederick to cover up nicholas's murder didn't really make sense because police like i said had never cared that much about nicholas's disappearance right so like they

didn't need to cover it up because police didn't really give a shit. Like they were like, he ran away, whatever. From beginning to end, the police are kind of shocking me, but also not. Shocking, yeah. Yeah. But I'm just like, oh, wow. Like the bar is pretty low. The bar is pretty low. And like, it does make a good point.

The bar's pretty low. And like, it does make a good point. Like, why would we try so dramatically to cover up his murder if nobody was even looking into it? But my devil's advocate of that is, but what would it look like if you got a call being like, we found Nicholas? And then you're like, oh, no, you didn't. You couldn't. Right. Because he's dead. Like, you know, it's sort of like, maybe you had to play along because like, you can't be like. Because you would have gotten caught yourself. Yeah, you can't be like, well, I know it's sort of like maybe you had to play along because like

you can't be like you would have gotten caught yourself yeah you can't be like well i know it's not him well how do you know because he's buried in the backyard like i so part of me is like i i get the argument but i'm also like devil's advocate it's not necessarily a foolproof argument to me i'm not saying that i believe that they did anything but i just think it's i don't know worth pointing out so meanwhile in jail for some reason this is where i'm this is where i get into the part about like the no remorse when you ask like do you think he well now after hearing all of this i i know my answer okay good because there's also more which is oh my god in jail frederick some fucking reason, had unfettered access to a phone.

Shut the fuck up. Like, that's how this whole thing started. Exactly. Exactly. And so he uses his phone to make hundreds of collect calls. Oh, my God. M is horrible. To families of missing children claiming he had information

on their children's whereabouts and was he planning on then no he just wanted to be nah just to fuck around with them just for fun that's like a like a cat and a mouse situation just like twisted wanting to torture them yes. And his MO was always like impersonating endangered minors. That was like his thing. And he'd often stayed in children's homes as like a runaway or a victim throughout the years. And basically he was just doing all of that for like emotional gratification. He wanted to like be cared for like an endangered child. But so then calling all these hundreds of

families to just be like i know where your child is like that was just its own brand of fucked up i don't want to say it feels it doesn't feel sicker it feels i don't know i think i think because the first half of the story started with me actually thinking like, oh, he just wanted a home and he was just really hoping like people went too far, maybe. Yeah. That's what I think I was hoping this, how the story would go versus like, oh, he's an, well, he was still, what he did was still a monsterful to these people. But like, it was in my mind, I was hoping that the drive was just coming from desperation but now it just like reminds you all over again that all of it was just maybe just to

fuck with people well and not to use our favorite word but it almost seems like very wanton just like fuck it i'm in jail why don't i just fucking wreak some havoc and like yeah call some people and just rile them up in the worst possible way and get their hopes up and then let it come crashing down just because i have that power and they let me use a phone it's like just so sinister yes it's so sinister and just so like almost random like yeah you're right there's no like reason behind it it's not like he's like oh well i'm seeking some sort of safety or something. It's just like him being the sole source of the sole source telling the fbi that this family killed their son is like all right how much water does this argument hold because he's the only one who has claimed this and he has no proof yeah but he's just so manipulative

that the fbi believed him it's it's disturbing i mean wow i feel like even i got tricked a bunch of times i think i just feel like i thought the story was going in different directions and so then i was primed to react or no it's true blaze and i were watching it last night and blaze was like oh my god they they killed their son didn't they and i was like what and like i had watched this but it's been like six, seven years. And I was like, wait, oh my God. And then literally he goes, then I realized they killed Nicholas. And I went, oh my God, they killed him? And then like 10 minutes later, I was like,

wait, why did I just believe that guy? He just told me everything he said was fake. Yeah, that was really, that makes me feel like gross that I fell for it so easily. But then it makes me like, well, then I'm sure that's how every single person in the story felt. And like, it must just be so like, not only an embarrassing sounds like obviously not a strong enough word, but just like to be the family and to be like, shit, we just wanted to believe this so badly. And now we've been made fools of by this guy who's just laughing about this.

And like, I mean, it must just be the worst feeling on top of the heartbreak of losing your son. It's just, it's so sick. So ultimately, Frederick was charged with perjury and obtaining a passport illegally. He was sentenced to six years in prison. He was deported to France in 2003. And three months later, after being deported to France,

he attempted to steal the identity of a missing 14- old great so nothing's changed nothing's changed nothing's changed as of the airing of the imposter which is the documentary i've been referencing for the most part uh which came out in 2012 frederick uh the last we know was married and living in france with three children so that's great so he convinced someone to fall in love with three children. So that's great. So he convinced someone to fall in love with them. That's for sure. He convinced someone at least to procreate. I don't know about love, but at least they've procreated. So hopefully some of his hopefully the genes came from the mom. We'll hope. Yeah. Eventually, with absolutely zero evidence backing his allegations against Nicholas's family, the homicide investigation was closed. So Nicholas's alleged murderer, Jason, the older brother, and I say alleged murderer with a huge grain of salt, a mountain of salt, because this is literally coming from a compulsive liar who has admitted to making everything up so his alleged murderer the older

brother um had previously gone through rehab and become clean but he tragically relapsed and overdosed shortly after frederick was arrested oh well i to be fair i feel like anything like that story we just heard surely would be something to uh make someone spiral it's not gonna help your mental health exactly it's not gonna help if you might have already been like hurting that day vulnerable absolutely this whole thing happened yeah i what a shame but what a fucking shame it really is it's just like why like their lives were already in shambles losing their son and then it's like you just blew it up some more, you know, just for your own fucking fun. And Carrie, the sister, regrets in an interview that now Jason isn't even alive to defend himself against all these accusations that he murdered his brother.

But oh, yeah, Frederick and the P.I. continue to make these allegations against Jason and his family. And for what it's worth, they show the P.I. digging in the backyard and they don't find anything. So that lead didn't go anywhere. In the end, you know, it's very possible. talked on the show about like the power of our brains just telling us things and like tricking us and being able to believe something you want to believe just for the sake of like fitting in the right puzzle piece or like easing your pain and so yeah it is really possible that the the power of grief and like the the hope that they were holding on to blinded the family to the truth. And they just really wanted this to be true that they had their son back and that

after such a long nightmare, like they could go back to being a happy family. And I don't think that's unlikely at all. I really, I really don't. i feel like all the pieces just kind of aligned for them to just say okay the fbi says it's him he has the same tattoos and honestly fair enough it's a wacky phenomena but you know what clearly clearly it's uh not impossible no i totally agree and like you know we say this a lot but like i don't feel like i have a place to say like i wouldn't i would know you know like yeah i like to think i would know but clearly like this story has proven me wrong like i mean i i i would have gone into this and i did go into this thing like i feel like i would i would know but i'm fucking clearly not like maybe

not yeah what especially with like a kid who's changing over several years and like and also why would anyone do this like I feel like your thought would be like well why would anyone fake tattoos and like yeah like that's a that's a good theory if it made any sense at all yeah it's like for what like to what end you know and it's just like oh to the end of i don't know i just felt like it which is like so twisted so unfortunately um as far as we know nicholas is still missing there are no leads um his family can just hope that one day maybe they will have actual true concrete answers but for now that's the story and'm going to actually send you, we can also post this. I'm going to send you a picture of what he looked like.

Yeah. Like the side by side. I almost sent it to the group chat. And then I was like, Eva's on vacation. She's going to be like, what the fuck is this? She's going to be like, well, they're still recording. Yeah. Well, they're doing some bullshit over there.

I mean, not at all all does he look 16 but i guess there are enough features where if he dyed his hair right it's i but also i will say the black and white photo of him is is like not in character it's like not in character like because he really tried like he dyed his hair blonde he wore like scarves and hats and sunglasses like he kind of tried but yeah i feel like they'd look like they i could see them passing as siblings with a massive age gap but they are not the same person no but that's also like with fresh eyes without any emotional attachment to the family and like and like the full story yeah yeah and like the con yeah so i could if i were their sibling desperate for my brother back exactly and you know i was i was just desperate desperate desperate uh i mean i don't i don't know it's it's obviously possible to to

believe it so and they don't look wildly different if the color like the hair color and i color exactly i think like if you covered up i'm gonna send you another one like it's it the worst thing like i mean it just the age it's not so much that's the most jarring part yeah it's not so much the coloring as it is the age that's the problem yeah oh i see it now okay hmm it's like maybe if you're desperate enough definitely he's kind of like a chameleon like i think he really tried and like these pictures are not that one i think is more him pretending but like that first picture like that's not him pretending at all that's like him right as himself I think if he had you know dyed his hair and put

on sunglasses and spoke really softly and pretended to be a child like maybe that would kind of check those boxes I don't know I mean you know i i obviously i shouldn't be the one to be able to say anything clearly it if i think if you're desperate enough to have a loved one back in your life you could get your brain to believe anything so yeah exactly exactly it's just sad it's just like this shouldn't have even been shouldn't have happened wow talk about a roller coaster right it's like what the left and right and all over the place man well done christine oh well thank you thank you for going on this journey with me um yeah i just i i feel a little tricked and a little mad that i was able to get that's the

thing it's like it's like so it like disarms you and then you're like well shit like i didn't i didn't mean to fall for that i don't know boy well yeah if you guys want to watch it it's called the imposter um it's currently on amazon prime but it's very annoying because at least when i watch it it's like every half hour it's sort of like a new Chanel perfume. And I'm like, whoa, I'm talking about a child's potential disappearance and murder. So there are ads, which as someone who like only watches like Discovery Plus and Hulu now without ads, I'm like, what the fuck is this? Who's screaming in my computer? But yeah, so it is on Amazon Prime for free. Cool. And it's i highly recommend it it's very creepy to watch him tell the story yeah i bet it's like very jarring um so yeah yeah i think

i'm gonna stick with my laundry svu if you don't mind um yeah or you could watch the remake don't don't i'd rather see mariska just handle it for me and solve it and also everyone's happy at the end of the day happy ending check check check and also like at the beginning they even tell you like this is all fictional none of it's real and you're like okay i love that i love like why do you insist on that so heavily sometimes i wish our podcast was us just telling completely fake crimes actually Just kidding. Actually, let's just completely rip off Law & Order and just ride with what they're doing. JK.

They've made it this long for a reason. Clearly. Well, thank you, Christine. I'm going to actually go finish off the last episode of Law & Order. Yay. I'm very excited. I think we need to do a five minute uh aftermath unfortunately yeah i think so um for your unfortunately for your tv binge i you have to talk to me for five more minutes that's fine that's fine but it's uh it's on patreon if you guys want it for some god awful

reason want to hear us keep talking uh you can go to patreon.com slash and that's why we drink and uh we do little after chats after the episodes where we just kind of word vomit at each other um and it's a good time i'm gonna pour another glass of wine and we're gonna go do that now yeah all right see you over there in the after chats in our the whatever goodbye we'll try it again in a minute and that's why we drink