Going West: True Crime - Nicholas Barclay // 22

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

In 1994, a troubled 13-year-old goes missing while walking home from a basketball game. The police chalk it up to a runaway case, but he doesn't return home. 3 years later, he's found in Spain claiming that he was kidnapped in Texas and had just escaped a sex ring run by military officials. When he's reunited with his family, red flags begin to raise and police wonder what really happened to the boy who disappeared years prior. When the truth is uncovered, no one can believe it. This is the case of Nicholas Barclay. **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THE NEWS CLIPS OR FILM PRESENTED** Shiver, The Imposter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyZrYiTWRDk&t=4164s Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Today we've got some awesome shout outs, so thank you so much to Jamie from Ann Arbor. In a big thanks to Amy from Ohio. Next up, Hillary from Hendersonville, Tennessee. And then we've got Mary from Norfolk, Connecticut. And thank you to Valerie from Norman, Oklahoma. Patrick from Westford, Massachusetts. Thank you to Jordan. We don't know where you're from, but you're awesome. Thanks for the reveal. And thank you to Patrick, we don't know where you're from, but you're awesome, thanks for the review. And thank you to Patrick from Northeastern Massachusetts.

Thank you, Colton and Eugene Oregon. We miss your face too. And last but not least, Brittany from San Antonio, Texas. Thank you so much. This episode takes place in your city. We got some seriously amazing reviews from all of you, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If anybody else would like a shout out on the show, go give us a nice old 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. But make sure that you leave your name and your location. This is episode 22 of Going West, so let's get into it. He disappeared without a trace, three years ago.

Tonight, a San Antonio boy is back home. Nicholas Barclays now, 16 years old, he vanished when he was 13. Nicholas says he was kidnapped and taken to Spain, because he was repeatedly drugged, beaten, and raped all part of a sex slave operation involving dozens of men. 16 years old, he vanished when he was 13. Nicholas says he was kidnapped and taken to Spain because he was repeatedly drugged, beaten, and raped all part of a sex slave operation involving dozens of missing children. Something was being hidden, and I didn't know what that was.

My mom called me, and she says, are you sitting down? You're not going to believe this. The police department just called me, and they think they found Nicholas and Leonaris. Fame. I'm like Spain. We had no idea what kind of person we were getting. You get what's coming back. You've changed so much. He's a habitual liar and it blows my mind that anybody could take anything that

is said out of his mouth. It's truth. He put us through enough already and then for him to do this, why he's in jail for what he's done and to cause more pain to our family, fuck him. Nicholas Barclay was born on December 31, 1980 in San Antonio, Texas. His father was never in the picture, so he was raised by his mother Beverly Dollar Hyde. Nicholas was the youngest in the family and had two older step siblings, Carrie and Jason, who were both over 10 years older than him. I've read some places that say Jason was his uncle, but those accusations are not true

he was definitely his older brother. As Nicholas grew up, he became more and more troubled. He was occasionally verbally or physically aggressive with his mom and he often skipped school. By the age of 13, he already had a juvenile record after threatening one of his teachers, breaking into a convenience store and skipping school. He even had three homemade tattoos. A J on his left shoulder, a T on his left hand between his thumb and his index finger, and the letters L and N on his left ankle. And I couldn't find what those letters stood for, but he definitely had those.

So Nicholas grew up in an incredibly broken home. Like we mentioned before, he didn't have a father figure in the house and his mom battled with a drug addiction and worked graveyard shifts at a local convenience store. Beverly eventually had to ask her son Jason to come live with her so he could help take care of Nicholas because she couldn't do it. However, Jason also had a drug problem, which was mostly cocaine, and was known to have a violent temper. This made for even more trouble in the house as Nicholas wasn't surrounded by a single

positive or responsible influence. Police were repeatedly called to the house due to the domestic violence claims on all ends. So in 1994, Nicholas was 13 years old. He stood at 4 feet, 8 inches, and weighed about 80 pounds. So he was very small for his age, and if you look at photos of him, he looks much younger than 13. Things at home seemed to be getting worse, and Nicholas was already scheduled to appear in court on June 14th. This hearing would determine whether he was to stay living at his house or if he'd be sent to a rehabilitative group home for his crimes. So Nicholas is in a very unfortunate situation and it's definitely because of his home life. I mean, I don't believe that he would have committed any of these crimes had it not been for his rough upbringing. And it's just very sad that he had to be put in

this situation because it's really not his fault. Yeah, he's put in this kind of tough situation, this tough environment where, you know, his brother, his older brothers on drugs, his mother's on drugs, they don't really seem to care too much about what Nicholas is doing in his life. They kind of let him come and go freely. So it's hard for Nicholas to really have any structure in this type of home environment. But I have actually seen some videos of Nicholas and he seems like a sweet kid. He seems like he's got a lot of energy, but he doesn't seem like a bad kid. And I think that

that's kind of the misconception about him as a person is that he seems like a sweet boy. He's just dealing with a really tough living situation. I think he put on this tough facade, but that wasn't really who he was on the inside. Because like you said, there's home videos of him and they're really cute. It's around this age of 13 and he looks so sweet and looks like a good kid and like he has potential. I definitely think that he was very poorly influenced and wanted to put on that heart exterior. And I think his mother even stated that he wanted to have street smarts or thought he

had street smarts that he really didn't have. And also like you mentioned earlier as well, he was kind of on the smaller side of being 13, so I think he had to put on that tough facade because if not, he probably would have been pushed around for being small at his age. On June 10th, 1994, so a few days before his court appearance, Nicholas was in his neighborhood with some friends playing basketball.

His mom had given him $5 in case he needed to buy anything while he was playing, but the park was only about 1-2 miles from his house. Apparently, Nicholas had called his house looking for his mom when he was done playing, but Jason answered the phone. Nicholas asked Jason if he could ask their mom to come pick him up from the park, but Jason said no. Since Beverly worked night shifts, she usually slept throughout the day, so Jason refused to wake her and told Nicholas to just walk home because it wasn't even very far. Jason hung up the phone and after that, Nicholas didn't come home. So we say it was June 10th, but this date isn't

actually 100% confirmed as far as we know. So June 13th was the day that Beverly reported Nicholas missing, but that was supposedly three days after he disappeared. She said that the reason why she waited this long was because he had run away before, so she wanted to give it time since she assumed he'd be back. The fact that Beverly waited three days to report her son missing is incredibly telling, and the fact that it seems normal to her that her son would go away for multiple days just shows what kind of mother she was and what kind of household Nicholas grew up in. In no way is it normal for your child to disappear for a few days. You know, he's not an adult. He can't fend for himself.

He's very small and he's young. And legally, she's responsible for him. Yeah, this is, like you said, very telling. Because if I had gone missing at 13, my parents, I mean, literally within hours would be contacting the police. Oh yeah. So it just, I get it. I get it. You know, he's run away a few times before. I understand that, but that doesn't mean that you don't do your responsible part as a parent

to go and look for him. Even that, if your child is the type to run away, clearly something at home is wrong. Yeah, absolutely. There's obviously a reason why he wants to run away. But just to go even further, it's like, it it just it pisses you off that she waited so long because had she not waited so long, this would have been a very different story we're telling. And you know three days is a long time. He's 13 years old. It's not like he can crash at his friend's house or he can get a hotel or

something like that or sleep in his car. And let's think about this as well. He's at a basketball court and it's not like he went home to grab his things and to go stay at a friend's house. So to me it's like three days with the same clothes on and you don't know where your son's at. That is just very alarming. I just don't know how Beverly could sleep for three nights knowing that her son was somewhere out there and not in his bed. And it may seem like we're being really harsh towards Beverly, but if you really think about this situation, he's a 13 year old boy, like you need to be responsible for your child if you're going to be a mother.

At the time of Nicholas' disappearance, he was wearing a white t-shirt, purple pants, and was carrying a pink backpack. So his outfit was pretty hard to miss as police described it. They said it would have been pretty hard to miss him. They also figured that since he had $5 on him, he wouldn't have gotten very far at all. About three days has gone by and Nicholas hasn't returned home. Police chalked this up to him being a runaway for many reasons. They looked at the fact that about four days after he went missing, he had that court date. He was really not into the idea of living in a group home so they figured he ran away so he wouldn't have to face that potential reality. They also

had a feeling he ran away since he had done so before and had a rebellious streak and he wasn't very fond of his family. Beverly told police that she wouldn't be surprised if he took a ride from a stranger because that was something that he would have done. And I'm sure by now you guys probably know how I feel about this runaway situation. For some reason they have to chalk Nicholas's disappearance up to him being a runaway just because he's runaway before and they don't fully investigate it that much. They don't really look into this. Well, that's the issue and I think this happens with a lot of other cases like Elissa

Turnie, which we covered in episode 8. She was in her later teen years, but still. They're like, oh, well, they ran away before, so they have the ability to do it again. That's something that they would do, but at the same time, you have to look at the details surrounding the disappearance. When they're strange and they're off, or if the child is troubled, you know, you shouldn't just assume that they ran away. And I don't think you should ever assume they ran away, because think about all the kids that actually disappeared

when the police thought it was a runaway. You should never assume that it's a runaway. Assume it's a disappearance, and if it's not great. I know that police are busy, and they work on a lot of cases at once, but letting something like this slip through the cracks just because you're too ignorant to look at the details is very upsetting. Yeah, it's very upsetting

because you gotta think about this. There are so many cases where this happens, where these kids are chalked up to being runaways, and there's that potential there for that not being the case, and I really think that every single missing child case needs to be fully investigated. I mean, they need to look at every single detail because these are kids we're talking about.

The really unfortunate thing is that months passed and they really didn't even look for Nicholas at all. They were convinced he had gone away on his own free will despite the fact that he was just 13 years old. Three months after his disappearance on September 25th, Nicholas' older brother Jason called the police to report an attempted break-in in his mom's garage. But it wasn't just anyone breaking in. Jason said it was Nicholas. He said as soon as Nicholas saw Jason, he fled. The police came to the house and looked around, but didn't find any sign of an attempted break-in, and after searching the neighborhood, they didn't find Nicholas either. Police came to the conclusion that this was

a false report. They didn't believe Jason saw Nicholas at all. Years went by and no one had seen or heard from Nicholas. Suddenly in October of 1997, the police in San Antonio got a phone call from a man working in a youth shelter in Spain. The man spotted a boy huddled up in a phone booth and he had apparently been living in the shelter after escaping from a child's sex ring run by European Spanish and American military officials. He said he had been abused for years and that he was originally kidnapped from the United States. He kept very quiet initially. When police arrived at the shelter, he barely said a word. They asked him numerous questions, who he was, where he came from, he barely said a word. They asked him numerous questions. Who he was, where he came from, what exactly happened to him.

He didn't answer any of these questions. The Lanier Spain police took him in in hopes of discovering his identity and bringing him home. The police have this young boy, who to them, appears to be around the age of 15. He's wearing a hat, scarf, and he's bundled up in other clothes to keep warm in the cold weather. Police spoke to him in different languages because, even though he had previously spoken English, they didn't know what he could and couldn't understand since he wasn't speaking to them. Police told the boy that they were

going to conduct a DNA test to determine who he was. That's when he told police his name was Nicholas Barclay and that he had been abducted in San Antonio, Texas. At this point, the police really noticed his accent. He didn't sound American to them. When they questioned this, he explained that his captors forced him to learn French along with a few other European languages and that if he spoke a word of English, he would be beaten. So the reason he spoke with an accent was because he wasn't really speaking English for three whole years.

Police took this situation very seriously, especially with the mention of military officials running a sex ring. They were determined to find out where it was and they explained to Nicholas that they would do whatever they had to to find his abusers and take them down. The police phoned Nicholas' family and they could not believe the news. Nicholas' older sister, Carrie, was absolutely overjoyed, and honestly to me she seemed like the only stable person in the family and the one who cared most about Nicholas. Carrie, who remember as much older than Nicholas,

was determined to fly to Spain and identify him. Nicholas didn't have any kind of documentation on him, so they didn't want to just fly him to Texas before someone in the family could confirm that it was actually him. Carrie didn't have any money at the time though, so her employer actually helped her buy a plane ticket so she could see her little brother, which is really cool of them.

This was Carrie's first trip to Europe and she was incredibly nervous to see Nicholas, but she was also inexplicably excited. After her nine hour flight, she was taken to the shelter that Nicholas had been staying at. At first, he stayed in his room, her from the window because it was very nervous. As soon as he went downstairs, Carrie gave him a huge hug and confirmed that he was indeed her younger brother. Carrie knew that he had undergone serious trauma, so she decided not to question him and fear

of making him upset or have to relive it too soon. Instead, she showed him family photos to remind him of what he was going home to. While they were looking through photos, she looked down and noticed his hand tattoo, and it confirmed even further that it was her brother. They looked at photos of the family, the house he lived in before he went missing, his friends, etc. She said that at first he didn't remember much, but that the memories quickly started to come back again.

He even asked her if their grandpa was still an asshole. Nicholas had remained very quiet with her, but she understood that it was likely because of his abuse, so she gave him space. That night, they shared a hotel room in Spain before returning home to Texas the following day. Kerry reported that it was very relaxing as she listened to him breathing while he slept. She was just so relieved that he was alive and they were together again. The following morning, police wanted to make sure that Nicholas was who he said he was,

so they showed him five family photos and asked him to identify who the people were. He got four out of five right. That was enough for police to know that he was telling the truth. With that, Nicholas was issued a new passport and he and Kerry got on the plane back home to Texas. When the two landed, Nicholas's entire family was there to greet him, except his brother Jason. But nonetheless, everyone was excited to see him. At that time, since three years had passed with no sign of Nicholas, his mom Beverly had moved and she was renting a room, so she wasn't really in the position where she could house Nicholas.

His older sister Carrie decided to take him in and have him share a room with her son Cody, who was actually around Nicholas' age, and the two played Nintendo together, or they all watched movies as a family. Nicholas even went back to school and started hanging out with his friends again. Not to mention, he started liking a girl at school. So things were really going back to normal. However, Nicholas's family immediately noticed that he looked pretty different than he did three years ago. His eyes were no longer bright blue, but now brown,

and he was much bigger and taller than he had been at age 13. Nicholas had told his family and police that the reason his eyes were brown was because his captors had injected a solution in his eyes, causing them to change color. He said they did that so that no one would recognize him. The police had never heard anything like that, but they didn't completely rule it out as a possibility. would recognize him. The police had never heard anything like that, but they didn't completely rule it out as a possibility. Police called Nicholas into questioning him more about the sex ring so they could get to the bottom of it. Nicholas pretty much explained in detail how him and other children were tortured and all of the police were incredibly horrified. But the officers also noticed

the differences between the Nicholas that was in front of them and the photos of him from just three years prior. One of them noted that he had the shadow of a dark beard despite the fact that he was blonde. He also had a kind of brassy hair color with dark roots coming in as if he had recently died his hair, which he pretty much always covered up with a brimmed hat, baseball cap, or a beanie. And for those of you who have not bleached your hair, I will say that when you have brown hair and you bleach it, it doesn't just turn blonde right away. You have to do multiple dyes over the course of like a few months to avoid doing a lot

of damage to it. But if you bleach just one time from brown, it's very likely that it's going to be an orangey brassy color. It's not just going to be blonde. And this was the exact color that Nicholas had. Like I said, his roots were dark, proving that this orangeish blonde color wasn't his real color. And Nicholas had dirty blonde hair, so there were natural streaks of blonde amongst brunette. It wasn't just one solid color like he had now. And not just that, but something that was just so unbelievably strange to them was his accent. They realized that even if he had strictly been speaking a different language for three

years, he would still remember his first born language that he had spoken fluently for 13 years. Also, Nicholas couldn't even speak in an American accent when he tried to. This was especially strange to police, because he wouldn't have just lost his ability to speak in an American accent completely after the short amount of time. And I know people who live in the United States and have for years and years, but aren't originally from here, and they still have their native accent. It doesn't just go away. in years, but aren't originally from here, and they still have their native accent.

It doesn't just go away. And my grandparents are actually from France, but they've lived between the United States and France for the past like 50 years or so, and they have the thickest French accents you've ever heard. You know, I've had friends that are American, and they go and live, you know, in a different country abroad, and they come back and sometimes they'll have a little bit of an accent on the end of their words, but if you ask them to speak a full American accent, they could do it easy, because they've lived their whole life speaking that way.

Exactly, and actually Nicholas was speaking with a French accent, but he spoke in European slang, so kind of like you're saying you pick up slang from wherever you are. Like, I was in England for a whole month last year, and I noticed that I went up at the end of my sentences, like everyone did around me with their British accents, and it's just something that you kind of develop if you're next to them, but I still sounded like an American. Yeah, but then when you came back, it was like you could go back to your original accent like nothing ever happened Like I remember I was on tour with one of my old bands and we were in Tennessee and we were hanging out with the other band members from that state And like I immediately started picking up that like Tennessee twang to my words Within like the first hour of hanging out with them just because you somehow you just pick it up that way.

So Beverly wasn't very suspicious of Nicholas. She was convinced that it was her son. Jason, on the other hand, was very skeptical. When he finally did come around visiting, he didn't treat Nicholas like he was his brother, and before he left, he told him good luck. Nicholas refused to have a DNA test done or give fingerprints to police. He also refused to name any of his abductors.

In late 1997, so a few months after Nicholas returned home, he was featured on TV. A local private investigator was working on the set and was incredibly suspicious of him as well. He didn't understand the eye color situation at all and just didn't think the two looked alike. While simultaneously watching Nicholas on TV and looking at a photo of Nicholas at 13, he noticed something else. The ears were different. Ears are one of those things that don't change over time. And if you look at a baby photo of yourself, you'll realize this. In February 1998, the FBI got a court order to take the boy's fingerprints and blood

to assure it was a match to those of Nicholas Barclay. Once the tests were done and the results were returned, the police were shocked. The fingerprints identified that the boy was Frederick Pierre Bourdain, a 23-year-old French citizen and not Nicholas Barclay. At this point, a complete stranger had been living with Nicholas' family for six whole months. And we'll get more into this case after these short messages. At the Unseen Podcast, we look at cases of missing people, unresolved investigations, and above all we focus on UK True Crime. So if you want to listen to UK Cases and care about little known stories that might have

been forgotten about, then we are the podcast for you. Join me, Caprice, every Sunday as we delve into these stories. You can find the unseen podcast anywhere you are currently listening, and I hope you can join me in discussing forgotten and unresolved cases. I'm Greg, the host of Suspicious Circumstances Podcast, where I explore fascinating and bizarre stories. If you like true crime, you might be curious why a well-to-do housewife in California was assassinated in her own home in broad daylight, or how a Japanese serial killer used

cult leader techniques to control his victims and get them to kill each other. Or maybe you'd like to know if the Soviets created a bio-weapon and unleashed it upon the world in 1977. Yeah? Sound good? Great. Subscribe to Suspicious Circumstances Podcasts on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. And we're back. Frederick Bourdain was born on June 13th, 1974, in the Western suburbs of Paris, and was raised by his grandparents.

He didn't receive any love or affection from his mother growing up. He also never knew who his dad was, but his mother told him that he had been an Algerian immigrant. Apparently his grandparents were incredibly racist, and just the fact that he was half Algerian made them disgusted by him. But they still continue to raise him since his mother wasn't in the picture. So he grew up in a household that was incredibly negative and unsupportive.

All his life, he wanted to be someone else. So one day, he got the idea that he would impersonate a missing child. Then he would finally be met with love and affection and pretty much be able to start his life over. And although he had a criminal history in Europe and he had used aliases before, Nicholas Barclay was the first time he stole someone's identity, but it wouldn't be his last. And this is very reminiscent of that recent case where a 22-year-old man was impersonating a missing child by the name of Timothy Pitson. When Frederick was huddling in that phone booth, he knew he wanted to impersonate someone. He was so scared that no one was going to believe him, but he did it anyway.

Apparently, a child center had given him the information about a missing child in San Antonio, Texas, and that's how he found out about Nicholas Barclay. He even got the same tattoos to make his charade more believable, which is crazy. And that child center that he had actually called was the National Center for Missing and Exploded Children, which if you follow us on Patreon, you know that we donate 10% of all of our earnings from Patreon to that center and they really do a great job at finding missing children and making sure that they're safe. But just to be clear, he was the one that actually called them and he was basically searching for any information on any missing children at that time and they came up with a match in

Nicholas Barclay and they actually faxed him a black and white photo of Nicholas, which he used to impersonate him. So going back to his appearance, he had a girl in the shelter he was staying at in Spain actually give him the tattoos that Nicholas had. So that's how he got those and kind of made them look homemade like Nicholas's were and he also did bleach his hair blonde and he also later mentioned that that's why he always wore a hat because his roots were coming in because he's naturally brunette. Yeah, I think it's crazy because Frederick pretty much wasn't thinking that he was going to get away with this.

He thought that he would get away with it for a while and maybe this would be a short con. But once he realized that he could potentially like have this new life, he went pretty much all in. I guess in the first couple months we mentioned that he would stay with his sister, but then he eventually went back to living with his mom Beverly for a short time, and apparently he had stolen Beverly's car and had driven it to the state of Oklahoma where he got stranded, and Beverly had to come pick him up.

Frederick was starting to get into trouble and starting to act like Nicholas had when he was 13. I get that this is a con, but I do find it pretty strange that he starts becoming attracted to one of his classmates, given the fact that he's a 23 year old man, and she's a high school girl. It just seems kind of strange. I know that Carrie was saying that he came home and he was all excited and getting all giddy and telling her about the girl. So it is pretty weird.

I get it, he was trying to play this part and maybe he really got into the role and being amongst that age, he kind of transported back in time or something, I don't know. And I get that. It's still a little creepy, but I think at this point he's really embodied who Nicholas Barclay is and he almost believes that he is Nicholas Barclay at this point because he so badly wants this escape from this terrible life that he had before and he's finding all this

love from his family and going to school and having friends, and all of these things, and being treated well. And I think even they mentioned that when he first got back, the family like took him shopping for all these new clothes, and bought him whatever he wanted really. And honestly, they were probably treating him better than they ever treated the real Nicholas. Yeah, and that's a really good point to make. They treated Nicholas, the real Nicholas like shit. I believe with the exception of Carrie and her husband.

And that's one of the frustrating parts of this case that Nicholas really didn't have a chance at a great life. When Frederick arrived at the airport to meet Nicholas' family, he was wearing a hat, sunglasses, and scarf. It was October in Texas, so it wouldn't have been very cold. But even then, it really looked like he was trying to hide his appearance. And it turns out he was. He later stated that he was so nervous that the family would know immediately that it wasn't him.

And to his surprise, they actually believed it. That was also the reason he was watching Care Carrie from the window of the shelter in Spain because he was afraid she would know he was lying and he wouldn't be able to go to America. It's really strange to me that the family believed he was Nicholas because he looked like he was in his mid-twenties, which he was. If you look at side-by-side photos, there's just no chance that that would be the same person just three years later. Maybe like 10 to 15 years later, but certainly not three.

Frederick did have a gap in his front teeth just like Nicholas did, though. The police think the family believed Frederick's lie because they were so desperate to have Nicholas back that they kind of just went with it. And aside from the gap in the front teeth, when Carrie went to Spain and met Frederick, who she thought was Nicholas, she said that she was surprised at how much he looked like their uncle Pat, and she kept saying that to him. So I think that that also helped her believe that it was Nick, because she's like, whoa, he's growing up to look just like our uncle.

Once Frederick was caught, he made a few accusations to try to save Azaz. He first stated that he had no Nicholas in Spain and that he was alive. Then later, he said he had proof that Nicholas was dead. Then, he finally admitted that he never met Nicholas and didn't know much about the case before impersonating him. Frederick Bourdain was arrested and pleaded guilty to passport fraud and perjury in 1998. He was sentenced to six years in prison for this crime, which is actually over three times longer than what the sentencing usually is because of the harm and false hope that he caused Nicholas's family. After Frederick was

arrested, the police began once again looking into Nicholas' case. At this point, they really didn't believe that he was a runaway on his own. They started looking into his family to see if they knew anything about his disappearance, that they were hiding, or if they were potentially involved in whatever happened to him. They discovered that Nicholas' mom, Beverly, had been addicted to heroin while Nicholas was living with her, but she had apparently gone into recovery once her son disappeared. Weirdly enough, when they asked her to take a polygraph, she passed. But for whatever reason, they gave her another polygraph, and she failed. When police wanted to

question Jason, Nicholas's older brother, they had discovered that he had just died from a drug overdose, so he was never questioned for Nicholas' disappearance. Once Frederick Bourdain was released from prison in August 2004, he returned to Spain where he impersonated yet another kid. He began claiming to be Rubin Sanchez Espanosa, the son of a woman who was killed in the 2004 Madrid bomb attacks. Once police discovered he was impersonating someone else, they deported him back to France. Then, in June 2005, he stated that he was a 15-year-old Spanish orphan named Francisco Hernandez Fernandez. He said that his parents were killed in a car accident, and they believed him for a

month, and he even went to middle school in the southwest of France. Funny enough, an administrator at the school watched a TV show about Frederick and recognized that he was pretending to be named Francisco, so she reported him. Three months later, in September 2005, he pretended to be a guy named Leo Bali, and afterwards, he was sentenced to four months in prison. And this guy really just doesn't know when to give up, honestly. Well, I read that they think that he tried to impersonate 500 people. He's like 44 years old right now. I don't know how that's possible.

And he hasn't tried to impersonate someone in a while. I don't know how he could have done 500, but that's just what people are claiming. What really blows my mind is that in 2005, when he's impersonating Francisco Hernandez, Fernandez, he actually went to middle school. At this point, he's like 27 years old, or 28 years old, or something.

I know, it's ridiculous. I don't understand how you can impersonate being someone in middle school when you're 28. Like, what is this? Well, that's the thing is even when he was 23, he did not look 15. So I can imagine that years later, he didn't look 15 either or younger even. In 2006, Frederick began dating a French woman named Isabel, and August 8th, 2007, the two got married. At this point, they have five children together. After his first child was born, he stated in an

interview that he would never impersonate anyone ever again because he was finally receiving all the love he could ever want. But on March 23rd, 2017, Frederick shared on Facebook that Isabel left him for another man because she was incredibly unhappy with her marriage with Frederick and apparently had been for many, many years. She even left him with the kids. In 2009, Law & Order SVU made an episode titled Stranger, which is extremely similar to the Nicolas Barclay case, including Frederick Bourdain's involvement. Then, in 2010, a film called The Chameleon was released,

and although it's a story of fiction, it's based off the life of Frederick and premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Then, in January 2012, a documentary called The Imposter premiered at Sundance Film Festival. If you guys haven't seen it, we would highly recommend it. It used to be on Netflix, but now you can actually find it on YouTube, and it gives a really good look into the mind of Frederick and why he did what he did. Yeah, seriously, guys, go check out this documentary.

It was pretty amazing. It's filmed really, really really well and the narration is actually done by Frederick himself, so it's kind of interesting to see what he was thinking as this whole crime is playing out. So to this day, we still don't know what happened to Nicholas Barclay, so let's get into some theories about what we think might have happened. The first theory that we have is that he actually did run away on his own free will. This one seems like it could be likely only because we know that he didn't like his home life.

There are a ton of missing children cases we read about where the child had a great home life and all the parents will say that they would have never just left like that. Nicholas wasn't in that kind of situation, so it's very possible that he just decided that he wanted a better life, and since no one at his house wanted to help him out and give him a ride that day, he said, screw it and left. We also think that it's unlikely because here's the thing.

He's 13 years old, he doesn't have a job, a car, or any money, to disappear like that without any of your belongings without any way of supporting yourself seems impossible. It's not like he was a few years older and decided to crash on some of his friends' couches or something of that sort. Realistically, he would have no way of getting by and surviving. And if he was slummin' it, he probably would have eventually gotten caught for stealing

food or breaking and entering somewhere so he could eat and have shelter. In our next theory is that Beverly and or Jason were involved. First of all, not reporting Nicholas missing for three days gives you ample time to dispose of a body before the police come sniffing around. But why would they want him dead? We all know that they argued a lot and that Beverly wasn't in the position to be able to care for Nicholas,

so it's possible that they wanted to get rid of him for these reasons. It's suspicious to me that Jason called the police when Nicholas supposedly broke into the garage. If that's your missing brother, why wouldn't you run out to check it out instead of calling the police to report it? And since the police thought that he was a runaway, it wouldn't make sense to tell the police this unless you were treating it like a break-in and not as though this is your own brother. And not that the police believed him anyway, but why would he be breaking into his garage three months later instead of like three days later? Also, why would he be breaking into his garage and not as bedroom to gather his things?

And another good point is that, could Jason have potentially called the police to buy himself time because he really did murder Nicholas and he wanted the police to believe that Nick was still alive. That is a great point. It's also very odd that Jason was supposedly the last person to talk to Nicholas, but the existence of this call was not confirmed, and the fact that he didn't show up to the airport when Nicholas was supposedly home, you'd think he'd want to be there with the rest of the family to see his brother who'd been missing for three years. Also, he was the only one in the family who was really skeptical about Frederick as Nicholas.

So maybe he knew it wasn't Nicholas because he knew that Nicholas was dead because he killed him. And one last thing that really makes me suspicious of Jason is the fact that he said good luck to Frederick before he left. Was it a good luck because I know that you're not my brother because I killed him or was it a good luck? My family's crazy or what kind of good luck was this? It was definitely good luck because he knew he wasn't Nicholas because that's the way that Frederick took it. And in the imposter, Frederick explains that, and he was basically saying that Jason didn't believe him from the beginning.

And I think if this is the scenario, and if this really is the case, I don't know if I see Beverly being as much involved as I do Jason. I'm gonna have to agree with you and a big part of that is because she let Fredrick live with her and she welcomed him home. If she knew that he was dead, she would never let a stranger live amongst her and her family. The only way I could see her doing that is if she was trying to cover up the murder by making it appear that Nicholas was in fact alive. It's still a really dangerous thing to do because she wouldn't have known who Frederick was. It's not like she set it up like that.

And I just don't really see that being the case. And why would she want to bring more media attention towards her? No one was snooping around trying to see if she was guilty of anything. No one thought she had anything to do with it anyway. That's very true. Yeah, they didn't really come investigating that much. So if she had just said, you know, nope, that's not my son. Nobody would ever know the difference, really. This brings us to our last theory, and that theory is that Nicholas was abducted. As many of us know, for a lot of child abduction cases, perverts usually like young kids, and even though Nicholas was a teenager at the time of his disappearance, he looked incredibly young.

Also, many children have been abducted while walking by themselves, so even though it was only a mile or two, which if you've listened to our episode on Jessica Ridgeway, then you know what we're talking about. Distance really doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since no one has heard from Nicholas, it's very likely to me that he was abducted and murdered. Whether it was by his brother or a stranger, I don't think any other scenario is as plausible. Yeah, definitely. And he was at the park, which we know a lot of child abductors kind of prey on parks because they know that's where children are going to be obviously. And if they saw Nicholas by himself without his parents, they would have an opportunity to do that.

And according to Jason, he told him to walk home. So he would have walked home, even though it was only a mile or two, which you know is still like a 20-30-plus minute walk. Exactly, and just the fact that we've never heard anything about the real Nicholas Barclay since he disappeared, that leads me to believe that he must have been picked up and probably murdered in that way, which is very sad and unfortunate. To this day, Nicholas Barclay has never been found dead or alive. Today, he would be 38 years old. If anyone has any information on this case, please contact the San Antonio Police Department

at 210-207-7273. zero, two zero seven, seven two, seven three. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. And you know we'll have an all new case for you guys next Monday to dive into. Let us know what you think about this case and what you guys think happened to Nicholas Barclay by checking out our website going Westpodcast.com or commenting on our Instagram at GoingWestPodcast. And don't you dare forget to check out your boy on Twitter at GoingWestPod. If you guys are not subscribed to us on Patreon yet, it's just $5 a month. Patreon.com

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