Morbid - Episode 680: Frederick Bourdin and the Disappearance of Nicholas Barclay

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

On the afternoon of June 19, 1994, thirteen-year-old Nicholas Barclay left his home in San Antonio, Texas to play basketball with some friends. Hours later, he called home to ask his mother for a ride, but was told he would have to walk home, but Nicholas never came back. His mother reported him missing and an investigation was started, but it quickly stalled when there was no evidence of what happened to Nicholas.Three years passed and one day, out of the blue, the family received a call from the US Embassy. Nicholas had been discovered in Spain, they said. He had endured terrible trauma at the hands of a human trafficking ring and he was desperate to come home. The family was elated and eagerly welcomed Nicholas back into their home. But to some of the people involved in the boy’s return to Texas, there were just too many things about his story that didn’t quite add up.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAssociated Press. 1998. "Fugitive poses as teenager." Orange Leader (Orange, TX), September 12: 5.Davies, Nick. 1998. "The Lost boy." The Guardian, October 17.Flynn, Sheila. 2023. A French serial imposter convinced everyone he was a missing Texas teen. This PI convinced him to confess. January 27. Accessed May 24, 2025. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/imposter-netflix-frederic-bourdin-nicholas-barclay-b2269897.html.Grann, David. 2008. "The Chaemeleon." New Yorker, August 8.2012. The Imposter. Directed by Bart Layton. Performed by Bart Layton.Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go. It's like having a cozy seat in our haunted mansion, no ads, just you, and early access to new episodes. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network Podcast. podcast. on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, you weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid.

This is morbid. It's morbid in the late morning. I'm tired. I know. You know when you sleep too, like not to brag, but you know when you sleep too good? It's like when your hair is too soft. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it happens. Actually, guys, my hair was too soft this morning. I had to put some dry shampoo in there.

Her hair is too soft and she slept too good. I know. And my skin's too clean. My skin is actually not very clean right now. You're just really, you're struggling. You know, I'm really out here. I have thoughts and prayers, everybody. I have a couple of- Prayers up.

Prayers up. Prayers up for me. I have a couple of spots on my face that I had to conceal, don't feel today. So, you know, just like you. And I say, prayers up. Just like you, I'm imperfect. Yeah.

She's just like us. This is an off-putting intro. It is very off-putting. Imagine if this is the first episode someone chooses to listen to. Christ Almighty. They're out. Sorry. They're gone.

We lost them. It was nice knowing you. I'm a good person, I swear. I'm a good person. I swear. No, we're a little silly today. We are a little bit silly. I'm hungry.

So that's going to play a role in this episode. I just ate my weight and chia seed pudding. Good for you, man. It was fucking good. I have pineapple next to me if you want some. She does. Like you over there. Oh, thank you.

Like Elena if you want some. Elena. If I could, I would give you the pineapple through the speaker, weirdo. But I haven't quite figured that out yet. Thank you, I appreciate that. You betcha. I'll wait until after the episode.

Yeah, it's weird to eat on mic. Yeah, I don't wanna give you guys like a misophonia moment. That's pretty fucking gross. Yeah, if you, oh, one fun thing is if you haven't listened to the rewatcher yet, uh, what the fuck are you doing? Dumbass.

Uh, we're, we're in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer over there and then we're moving on to another show. The way that I was just about to say, just boop. Nope, we're not telling you. We have not announced that yet. We're not telling you, but I think it'll be one that you'll be excited about because it's a lot of fun. Yeah.

And if you don't know what we're talking about, we have another show called The Rewatcher. We cover Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've never seen it. I've seen a couple episodes, but for the most part, I've never seen it. And Elena has and Mikey has. Yeah.

And now we're going into another show that I have literally never seen even a single episode. And Elena has and Mikey has. Yeah, this one is gonna be even more wild just because Ash, at least with Buffy, had seen like bits and pieces. Yeah, just like growing up with you. But this one, she's blind.

Yeah, I have nothing. Completely in the dark about, so this is gonna be a real, real experience. In fact, I was getting, you guys were talking about it in code earlier. Yeah, me and Mikey were texting hilarious moments. It was making me teode. And we said, don't worry,

we'll show you this conversation when they come up. You did, that was nice. That was nice of you, because I was like, But there's something really fun with it too, that we'll get to announce soon. A little added fun thing with that season of the rewatcher. Is there? Yes, we were just talking about it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, what? Anyway. So yeah, go check it out if you haven't watched, listened to The Rewatcher yet. It's a lot of fun over there. It is fun. And I think you guys will dig it.

Yeah, and we do Scream too, so listen to Scream. With Caleb. With Caleb, we listen to, or We listen to and watch horror movies. We do both. We cover them and we all pick a different one every week and it gets pretty fucking crazy. It does, it gets funny over there. Yeah, it gets silly.

So if you needed to round out your morbid listening experience, I would highly recommend that. Just a whole bunch of Elena and Ash. Yeah. And France. And France. And France. All right, well I have a weird fucking of Elena and Ash. Yeah. And France. And France. And France. All right.

Well, I have a weird fucking case for you today. Yeah, you do. I know this case. Like, I knew of it, but I didn't know all the details. This is the case of Frederick Borden and the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay. Interesante. It is an interesting case.

It's pretty sad, but fascinating. And you're just like, how the fuck did this happen? But I'll tell you how. I am wondering that. So let's start at the beginning, which is June of 1994. Nicholas Barclay was 13 years old, and he got into an argument with his mom over something pretty trivial.

Nobody really knows exactly what they were arguing about, but it was a pretty common occurrence between the two of them to be fighting. So Nicholas was definitely a troubled kid. He had a lot going on. We'll get into some of it later. But that specific day, his mother, Beverly Dollarhide, was really just in no mood to entertain this argument.

So rather than continue at all, she gave Nicholas $5 and she was like, go play basketball with your friends. Like, get out of the house. Yeah. A few hours later, after his friends had gone, like all gone home, Nicholas called the house to ask his mother to pick him up.

But his half brother, Jason, picked up the phone and told him that their mom was sleeping and he didn't want to have to wake her up. So he was like, you got to walk home. And hours and hours passed and Nicholas never did return home. Oh no. Yeah.

That's such a sad way to, you know, just the thing that they were arguing. They were arguing and then also being like, no, I'm not coming to get you. Walk home. Oh, that's sad. So sad. So at first, the family thought that Nicholas probably ran away and they assumed, you know, he'd just be back soon. His sister, Carrie Gibson said he'd run away before for a night or two.

He was mad at mom and said, I'm leaving. I'll find a new mom and a new home. He was not this nice, sweet, innocent kid. He was a very street smart city boy, but Nicholas didn't return after three days. So Beverly filed a missing persons report at that point, but he's 13. Yeah. And he's been gone for three days. Yeah. That's the likelihood of them finding him at this point is pretty low. Yeah. So when the news that Nicholas had gone missing was made public, shockingly, it didn't come as a surprise

to anybody familiar with the family. According to neighbors, the police would visit the house a few times per month because the arguments between Beverly and the kids, or between Beverly and her boyfriend, got so heated. Yeah. It seemed to be a pretty known fact that Nicholas was a difficult child.

He was constantly getting into loud arguments with his mom, he was fighting with his brother, Jason, and he had been known to run away from home on occasion. Beverly said, he thought he was an adult. We called him 13 going on 30. It was very difficult to discipline him. If he made his mind up, he was going to do something. There wasn't much I could do.

So when he was reported missing, no one outside the family seemed particularly alarmed. His disappearance never made the news. It wasn't news to them. It was just news to us. Just sad. Yeah. So weeks and weeks passed,

but there was no sign of Nicholas anywhere. No one heard from him at all. The belief that he had just like run away pretty soon gave way to the belief that actually there might have been some kind of foul play involved. Beverly said, I thought somebody offered him a ride and he got into the car. I think he would have gotten into a car with someone who kidnapped him. That's so scary. I know. Those weeks turned into months, the months turned into years, and it seemed like Nicholas was never coming back. Then, out of nowhere, in the fall of 1997,

three years after he had disappeared, the family got a call from the US Embassy in Spain, saying they had found Nicolas in a children's home and that he was desperate to return home. Can you even begin... Mm-mm. ...to imagine this? Like, this... Like, that would be unthinkable.

Like you're just getting a call from a foreign embassy and they're just like, hey, your kids here just showed up. And how long was this again? Three years. Three years later. Think of how long three years is. Yeah. Like three years is an eternity.

An eternity. So and every single day waking up just like filling in the blanks of what happened to your kid. And then you get a call like, oh, he's just here and now he gets to come home. Yeah. Like, you'd be, I feel like the mix of complex emotions that you would be feeling would be so overstimulating because you'd be like, it's like excitement, grief for what they could have potentially been through. How did they get there? Who is with them? What have they been dealing with? How'd they get all the way to fucking Spain? Are they okay?

Living in Texas? Yeah. Like, holy shit. Yeah. Well, according to the Spanish authorities, Nicholas had told them very little and was by all accounts very deeply traumatized by what had happened to him. From what they could piece together, this is like a little bit triggering. Nicholas had been kidnapped from Texas by human traffickers who sold him into essentially sexual slavery until he was able to escape after three years of enduring that abuse. He ended up being discovered by two French tourists who were in Spain at the time, and they found him by the side of the road near a diner and just called the police. After conducting a basic interview with him, the authorities were convinced that he was an American and they were eager to return him to his family. His family obviously was elated by the news that after three years with no answers, their son and their brother, their loved one was coming home. His sister Carrie coordinated everything with the embassy

and she made plans herself to immediately travel to Spain to be the one to bring her brother home. But because of the circumstances of his disappearance, the case ended up being transferred to the FBI, who would now be opening an investigation and vowed to capture the men who had kidnapped him in the first place. But this complicates things, obviously. SONIA DARA Oh, massively. who set the hands of his kidnappers. And obviously she knew that going through an experience like that will leave some kind of long-term emotional effect on a person. Like psychological scars.

And she also knew that three years had passed, and in that time, Nicolas would have changed physically. Especially when you think about the jump from 13 to 16. That's a big jump. So it seemed likely that maybe she wouldn't recognize him immediately. And despite having prepared herself for the worst, when they finally met in Spain, Carrie didn't have much trouble recognizing her brother. She said he had changed somewhat, but as far as she could tell, he was Nicholas.

That said, there were things about him that did give her pause. She said he talked with a funny accent, but it was always a whisper, very quiet, like he was hiding. She also noticed that his eyes, which were always a very vibrant very quiet, like he was hiding. She also noticed that his eyes, which were always a very vibrant blue, if you look up pictures of him, he has like striking eyes. Now they were light brown. So that's weird. Yeah, that doesn't happen. The handlers from the embassy explained that while he was being held captive, the abusers would beat him if he spoke English, so he learned to speak in a way that would please

them. And they explained that according to Nicholas, the captors had also injected his eyes with some sort of solution to change their color. Holy shit. Yeah. And as for his quiet, skittish behavior, obviously Carrie rationalized it by reminding herself that he had been severely tormented and traumatized. Yeah.

So that was gonna change his behavior around others. For sure.. Yeah. So that was going to change his behavior around others. For sure. You know? So that night, she spent hours going through an old photo album with her brother, just giving him updates on everybody, reminiscing, pointing out people, being like, you remember Auntie, you remember Uncle, this like, Mom, you must miss Mom. Yeah. And he said very little, but he seemed interested.

And she said she could tell that he loved seeing the pictures. But before they could leave Spain and return to Texas, the U.S. Embassy obviously needed to certify Nicholas's identity. As far as Carrie could tell, it was her brother, but they needed actual, like, information to confirm that this was really him before they would issue him a passport. Yeah, of course. So the following day, Nicholas met with a judge from the embassy who had devised a strategy to determine if this was in fact Nicholas Barclay.

In their meeting, the judge showed Nicholas five photographs of his family, his quote unquote family, and asked him to identify various people in those pictures. He correctly identified the first four, but he was unable to identify the fifth person, like the person in the fifth image. Huh. Yeah. Well, even though he hadn't been able

to identify all five correctly, the judge reasons that four out of five was sufficient, and the embassy issued him a new passport, and he was off to return home to Texas. I mean, I- Trauma. That's the thing, I can, there's like that element of unthinkable trauma here. Yeah, that is playing a role in all of these decisions.

I feel like I play a role in most of my decisions three years of being human trafficked. I mean, that's a that's something most of us luckily, fortunately, can never even begin to conceive of the trauma that would come to that. Taught to speak a different language, injected in the eyes. Forced to speak a different language. Right. Like injected in the eyes, like big things going on. So I can see how they would be like, okay, yeah.

He got four out of five. Maybe his memory is not going to be as clear. Right. You know? You can see it. You can kind of see it. Yeah, of course. So with all the details on the paperwork squared away, Carrie and Nicholas went to the airport the next day and they were, you know, prepared to leave Spain to carry. He seemed incredibly nervous about the flight or returning home, maybe a combination of both. She said, I didn't understand why he was so nervous. He was constantly

watching people watching me. He was always watching me. Obviously, obviously she had some kind of strange feeling about it. Once they got back home though, Nicholas was welcomed with open arms by almost everybody in his family. At first, the attention and warmth did seem to be overwhelming for him. To the family, he seemed pretty shy, pretty withdrawn, obviously very guarded. But like Carrie, they reminded themselves that he had undergone a profoundly traumatic experience,

so it made sense that he wasn't like super duper happy, you know, like he was before. Yeah, of course. So within a couple of months, Nicholas did seem to relax and he was settling in. He started hanging out with his old friends. They were super happy to have him back, obviously. And he even seemed to be kind of developing a crush on one of the girls in the neighborhood. The change was positive, and it seemed to indicate that he was returning to his old self, but there was still one big hurdle before he and the family would be able to put this whole thing behind them. Because of the alleged kidnapping and the human trafficking,

the FBI was obviously eager to pursue the case, and they wanted to speak with him immediately. So after letting him get settled back in with his family, they scheduled a meeting with Special Agent Nancy Fisher, and Beverly and Nicholas sat down with her at the Texas Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Given what had happened, Nicholas was obviously eager to get through the interview as fast as he could and never talk about what had happened to him again. Can't blame him. Well, that would be easy to understand, though. There was still something about Nicholas and his behavior

that struck Nancy Fisher as unusual. Later, she said, not that people can't change in three years, but this person did not appear to be 16. He had a shadow of a beard, a dark beard that I doubt Nicholas would have had at the age of 16 since he had blonde hair. Yeah. And if you do look at pictures of like,

when he was found three years later, he looks like he's in his 20s. Oh, 100%. Like, he looks like a man. Yeah, shocking. It is. Not to say that like a 16-year-old... Everyone ages differently. Yeah. Right.

Like some 16-year-olds, you're like, holy shit, you look so much older. Yeah. This was a little different. But he also obviously appeared to be nervous and uncomfortable, but almost to be nervous and uncomfortable, but almost unusually nervous and uncomfortable. But like the others, Nancy was like, he's been traumatized, he's been brutalized, it's going to change a person, especially in this setting,

where they're disclosing the most horrific details about their bit of a pass. A little leeway here. Yeah. Yeah. If you're listening to this podcast, you know that in every great true crime story, there's always one turning point. The moment somebody actually decides to change course. Well, hello, listener. Here's your chance for a turning point of your own. Meet Fume, the flavored air device designed to help you ditch bad habits and feel good about what you're reaching for. No nicotine, no vapor, no batteries, just an awesome design in flavors like crisp mint,

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It's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be. I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her. Listen to episodes of Karen, The Retrial, exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. -♪ Piano music playing. -♪

According to Nicholas, he said he had been abducted by the, quote, military overseas on the night that he went missing. He said his captor approached him on the basketball court, chloroformed him, threw him in a van, drove to the airport, and they left the country. He claimed that from then on they would move him around often, he was always kept in rooms with other children that were also being trafficked, and they were regularly assaulted and sexually abused by high-ranking members of the military," he said.

In the report prepared after the interview, Nancy Fisher described various aspects of his abuse. This is pretty graphic. But she said, every night, all the kids were raped and molested by men. These men were American, Mexican, European. They kept burning him and giving him insects to eat. His left foot was broken by a crowbar. The boy's identity was changed

by changing the hair color, eye color, or other ways. His eye color was changed from blue to brown by use of a solution. This is like horrific. Unimaginable things. I can't even like go there. I can't either. Nicholas claimed that he only managed to escape that night because his captors forgot to close the door securely. And that's how he got out. Yeah. He said he got out of the building and just ran for hours until he couldn't run anymore.

And that's when he was discovered by those two French tourists who obviously called the police. Which you wonder at that point, you're like, so did anyone else try to escape? That was my immediate thought. I literally just wanted to say that. We didn't hear that like other kids showed up. Yeah, they left the door open and one kid's running. I'm assuming not everyone is going to run.

Obviously, there's fear, but there's going to be at least another one. More than one. Yeah. So Fisher said later, this was a horrendous interview and I was shaken by it when I left because I felt all the horrific emotional side effects that go with listening to such a story. So she thanked Nicholas for being super candid with her, and she assured him they were going to find the people who had done this to him and bring them to justice. Before leaving, she reminded the family that because this was an open and ongoing case,

they really should avoid speaking with the press because it could compromise the investigation. Despite the warning, the news about Nicholas' ordeal and his return home had already gotten out, and the family was constantly getting calls from reporters. About two months after Nicholas had got home, private investigator Charlie Parker got a call from a producer at Hard Copy, the national news magazine program, and they wanted to do a story on Nicholas, but they were having trouble getting in touch with the family. So it was their intention to hire Parker, who worked out of San Antonio, track the family down, and get their consent to cover this story. Parker actually had no difficulty getting

hold of Beverly and Nicholas. And to his surprise, they seemed pretty eager to share their story, which was not great, because the FBI literally said don't do that. Literally just said don't do that. And like anything the FBI tells me to do, I'm probes going to listen. Yeah, if they say don't do that because it's gonna compromise a giant child trafficking

ring that they're trying to, you know, eradicate down. Yeah. Listen to that. I know, listen. Yeah. Now, just a few days after reaching out to the family though, Parker found himself invited into the family home. He was watching as the local news taped an interview with Nicholas just sitting in the

living room. In that specific interview, Nicholas is wearing a large jacket pulled up around his neck, a wide brim hat, and dark sunglasses. Okay. Interesting. His responses to the interviewer's questions are very short, very quiet, and delivered with a distinct heavy French accent.

Which is fucking weird. Yeah, like, that would make you... People questioning this, I get it. Yeah. Like this is it's fucking weird. It's strange. I can't imagine my like, like my child goes missing. Three years later comes back with different eyes, a dark beard and a fucking French accent. That's it. It's the eyes that I'm having trouble.

Yeah, that I would have. But again, like That I would have. But again, like, I understand desperation. Yes. Could also be playing a role into this, that you are just desperate to have your child back and you will just kind of ignore the red flags because you're like, I just want this to be him.

It's like the case that you covered, the Bobby... Bobby Dunbar. Bobby Dunbar case. Yeah, it's like you just desperately want your child back. So you'll just kind of put yourself in a headspace of like, this has to be him. Yes. Because otherwise something terrible happened. Otherwise he's gone.

Yeah, I can't take that. Right. And I'm sure like, in some ways, it would feel like don't rip this child away from me. Like if they, you know, like, yeah, they're thinking like this is my child or even like, they've convinced themselves, you know, like they've convinced themselves and it's like, don't take this child away from me. Like if they, you know, like they're thinking like this is my child or even like... They've convinced themselves. You know, like they've convinced themselves and it's like don't take him away again. Yeah, exactly. So Charlie Parker was watching the interview in a separate room

where he could see Nicholas clearly. And as it happened, he also found himself standing next to a photograph, an old photograph of Nicholas on the wall. As he watched Nicholas being interviewed, his eyes just kept darting back and forth between the photograph and the young man in the other room. And the more he examined the photo in front of him, the more he started, you know, kind of noting the differences between the two. He said, there was a moment where the hair stood up on the back of your neck and there

was just something wrong about it. The fact that he just like knew. He just like innately, exactly. Not wanting to tip anybody off to his though, the next day Parker asked Beverly if she had a picture of Nicholas that he could borrow to kind of study some more. And he remembered that, and this is interesting, he remembered that when Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray was arrested in London, the authorities used a comparison of his ear in those photographs, or in a photograph of Ray, in order to confirm his identity.

So Parker enlarged the photo of Nicholas and compared it to the photo of 16-year-old Nicholas in his passport. And to his surprise, the boy's ears were not even remotely similar in the two photos. Ooh. And our ears don't change. No. It's entirely possible for somebody to dye their hair,

change the way they speak, maybe even change the color of their eyes to seem like they're somebody else. But again, our ears are like our fingerprints. They're formed when we're very young and, you know, barring some kind of mutilation, they just don't change as we grow older. Yeah. So that being the case, Charlie Parker now had compelling evidence that the boy living in Beverly's house was not Nicholas

Barclay. Which also is fucking horrifying. Terrifying. Horrifying. Like I have goosebumps now. Yeah. Like I've read through this multiple times. I can't.

I have goosebumps. Yeah. I can't. So fearing that the young man could be a spy or have some kind of nefarious intent, Parker called Nancy Fisher, special agent Nancy Fisher, to report his discovery. And he was stunned to find that Fisher didn't seem too interested in what he had to say. In fact, the most she was willing to tell him was just be careful that he didn't intrude on a federal investigation,

unless he wanted to get charged for the crime. Oh. Yeah. Later, she said, I thought I didn't have a right to question their statement that this was their family member, because how could they be wrong? I mean, no one would be wrong about something like that.

Why would you ever take in a stranger? Not just a stranger from this country, but a stranger from another country who speaks with a French accent. This has to be Nicolas Barclay. Which I, again, I understand that. Totally. That thought process,

like I totally get where they're coming from I get that but also you're an FBI agent. Well, so sure that's the thing like I that's I This is so fucked up. Well, this whole thing cuz it's like It's different because she's an FBI agent. That's where that's where like to like that's your job It's different FBI agent, but then at that like I was just saying that but then at the same time When the fuck do you run into that during your career? And it's like, at this point, it's so hairy because you are questioning a grieving, a family who's been grieving for three years.

Yes. The loss of their child. And it's like, and now they have this hope and they are telling you this is their family member. They're like steadfast about it. It must be a very strange position to be in to know that it is not. Yeah. And to be like, how are you not seeing it?

Right. You know, like we think of the Bobby Dunbar case and we were saying like, how can you not know that's not your son? I think, but it's like, I think desperation plays a part of just controlling the part of your brain that logically tells you that is not your child. It just shuts it off, I assume. And I think when, unless you've been in that position, it's probably hard to understand.

But looking from this point of view, you say, dear FBI agent, you gotta question it. If you ruffle some feathers, you ruffle some feathers. You gotta let it slick off your back and be like, sorry, I'm just doing my job. Right. Well, you know, we're here talking about it. So, you know, something happened. Exactly. So Nancy Fisher might not have wanted to believe that they were dealing with a straight up imposter, but there were others who were far less willing to entertain this whole charade. As part of the FBI's investigation into the case, Nicholas was sent to see forensic psychologist Bruce Perry in order to collect more information about his claims about being trafficked. He later said, Bruce said, I introduced myself and when he spoke back, immediately I thought something's wrong here. As a contractor with the FBI, Perry had interviewed

countless survivors of traumatic situations, actually, unfortunately, similar to those that Nicholas said he had gone through, and nothing about the boy's behaviour seemed to support his story. Most significantly, Nicholas spoke pretty casually about the details of this abuse that he supposedly went through, without showing any of the physical and largely unconscious signs of somebody who's been abused. There was also the fact that he seemed entirely incapable of speaking fluent English or speaking without an accent. Like it seemed like he could not do. Perry said, that told me about the development of his brain

and the development of language. You just cannot be raised for the first six or seven years of your life in an English speaking home and not be able to speak English without an accent. I can guarantee you that this kid was not raised in an English speaking family. Which it really is fascinating how people can like pick those little parts of your pathology and point to like, nope, it just proves it. You know what I mean? And it's so fascinating just how the brain works and how even, you might so badly want to change that, but you just can't.

Like the brain is just wired that way. So Bruce Perry reported his suspicion to Nancy Fisher and along with what she'd heard from Charlie Parker, at that point, she could not ignore the obvious fact that whoever it was who had returned home from Spain with Kerry Gibson was not Nicholas Barclay. So fearing now that the family might be in danger, she immediately called Kerry Gibson, his sister, or quote unquote, and told her what they learned. And to Nancy's great surprise, Kerry seemed uninterested in hearing that the young man living in their house was not her brother, and may in fact be a dangerous person. Later,

Kerry said she didn't remember Nancy Fisher putting it in like those exact words that this person might be dangerous. But the fact remained that no matter how she phrased it, the family was determined to hold on to the belief that their lost loved one had come back to them. And it seemed like nothing was going to change their minds, which you like we're saying over and over again, you can understand a little bit. It's just a sad situation. It really is. Very quickly, the Dollarhead family had gone from willing participants in an FBI investigation to now a serious obstacle in finding the truth.

A few days after Nancy Fisher informed the family about the potential danger, she actually went to Beverly's home to obtain permission to get a DNA sample from Nicholas, but the agents were met at the door with a very uncooperative Beverly. Not only did she refuse to allow them near Nicholas, quote unquote, but when they pushed the issue, she threw herself onto the floor and started screaming, no, and you can't pick me up and you can't make me. Yeah, which is sad. It's the whole thing.

It's heartbreaking. The whole thing is heartbreaking. I mean, this is awful. Yeah. From Nancy Fisher's perspective, though, the change was remarkable. She said she wasn't just apathetic, she was hostile. I no longer saw them as a grieving victimized family. I saw them as a questionable family.

There'd be no reason for them to accept a stranger into their lives unless there was something to hide. So she's looking at it like, this is a bit nefarious now. Yeah. Because I understand that you need to question that. You need to say Because you have to look at it from a totally, you know unbiased point of view not living in the emotion of it all you need Right. Like why are you trying to keep this if I'm telling you this is could be a dangerous stranger This is likely not your son, right? Like why can't we investigate this?

But then you look at the family and you say, well, I don't want you to put my loved one who I think this is my loved one through more trauma. And I just want to go on with my life. But you can see how it would look nefarious from the other side. Yeah, and the thing, like, it wouldn't be super traumatic to get a DNA test to confirm

your identity, I don't think. Exactly. You know, like, but again. But I've never gone through this experience. So who knows? But while Nancy Fisher and the other FBI, the other agents from the FBI continue trying to work with the family, private investigator Charlie Parker was kind of, you know, in the background there.

He was tailing, quote unquote, Nicholas everywhere he went at this point. At times he would reach out in the hope of forming a connection that would allow him to get more information. And after about a week or two, his efforts seemed to pay off. One afternoon, Charlie Parker invited quote-unquote Nicholas out for breakfast at a local restaurant, and they sat down together. They apparently ordered some hotcakes. And the conversation eventually turned to the night that Nicholas disappeared several years earlier. Parker said, you really made your mother mad, referring to the fight that he had gotten

in with his mother before he left to play basketball. And at hearing that the man sitting across from Charlie Parker, put his fork down, looked up at Parker and said, she's not my mother and you know it. I would shit my pants. Charlie Parker was probably like, wow, I thought that was going to be a lot more difficult. Yeah. And also obviously Charlie Parker knew he fully knew like he had gone studied the ears and everything like he knew innately he knew you don't go that hard unless you're pretty sure that you're right. Right, but then to have somebody confirm it

must be just a whole different thing. You must be orbiting at that point. Like I would be shot into the Kuiper belt. And then you're also like, okay, cool. Who the fuck are you sitting across from me? Who the fuck are you? And two, what the fuck do we do next? Yeah, like what do I do with this information?

Because now I know. But it's like, is the family gonna take this? Yeah. And how are they gonna take next? Yeah. Like, what do I do with this information? Because now I know. Right. It's like, is the family going to take this? Yeah. And how are they going to take it? Exactly. So once the confession was out of his mouth, it didn't take long for the imposter Nicholas's story to fall apart.

A short time after that breakfast meeting with Charlie Parker, he was fingerprinted by the FBI, who ran the prints through the International Database and almost immediately got a hit, which like fantastic. Why the fuck didn't you just do that as a precaution originally? Okay, thank you. Because my first question was going to be, wait a second, they didn't fingerprint him? Why didn't I think of that before?

We could have started, like that judge's idea was super cute and like super fun. Like pointing out family pictures. That should have been along with fingerprints. Right. Dental records. The whole nine. And what's wild is I didn't question earlier why they didn't do fingerprints or dent.

I think I probably just assumed they did. I think I assumed they did and now I'm like, wait a second. Yeah. Why wouldn't you do that to begin with? Clear as day. Yeah. Wow. Certainly is.

The fact that they didn't fingerprint him to begin with is mind boggling. Yeah, that's truly baffling. My baffles are baffled. Truly. So the young man who had been passing himself off as Nicholas Barclay for several months now living in this family's home was in fact 25 year old, a 25 year old French man named Frederick Bourdine. Yeah.

So see, there was a reason he looked that old. Not only was he 25, he was a fugitive wanted by the Interpol on several counts of impersonating other people all around Europe. Oh no. They had been living with a motherfucking fugitive. Oh no. Can you like, can you imagine? You think your 13 year old son disappeared?

Like you're not only you think, he did. He did disappear. Three years later, he comes back. The FBI is like, yay, woo, he's back. We showed him some photos. He knows you guys. It's great. And then you find out you've been living

with a 25-year-old French fugitive. I'd be like, who did I piss off in a past life? Seriously, I'd be like, what the, when does it end? Truly, when does it end? Holy shit. A 25 year old French fugitive, what the fuck? And you've just been laying your head down at night with that man in your house.

Yeah. Pretending to be your child. And also, this guy. Ew. What the fuck? It's weird. This family lost their 13 year old child and you prey upon that

You got to be yeah, you got to be the lowest form of scum He is a mentally ill human being he I will say has a very tragic backstory It by no means excuses what he did, but there's some psychological thing that played out here. Jesus. Against the Odds, Tales and Tips for Animal Attacks and Natural Disasters. This might just be the most important book you'll ever read. Go inside life or death situations where everyday people survived nature's most extreme scenarios and learn how you can too. In these tales you'll hear about the grit, willpower and know-how needed to endure shipwrecks, alligator attacks, earthquakes and more. You'll learn from experts, including top doctors, about what happens to your body and mind in life-threatening situations.

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Trust me when I tell you, the stories are real and the secrets are shocking. Be sure to follow redacted declassified mysteries with Luke Lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts. So in retrospect, it obviously seems unbelievable that anybody would have looked at a 25 year old man, specifically this 25 year old man, and believed him to be 16-year-old Nicholas. Like, I was telling you I was doing this case,

and you looked at the pictures and you were like, -"How the fuck did anybody think that?" Yeah. But he had gone out of his way to make himself appear younger. And when it came to manipulating people, he was a master manipulator. Still, the difference between the two people is immediately apparent. Bourdine himself said in a 2011 interview, I mean, who wouldn't see it? He himself was like, yeah, that's fucking crazy. Yeah, like I saw the pictures.

I was like, I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't know about that. One of these things is not like the other. Yeah. So the revelation that Nicholas was actually Frederick Bourdine was a shock to many of the people who had, you know, closely followed this story or who were involved in this story. But it also raised several new questions.

Chief among them, who the fuck was this guy and why did he want to impersonate an American teenager? Yeah. Given that his history is almost entirely self-reported and the fact that he is a consummate liar and con artist, it's pretty difficult to know how much of his personal history is true. But throughout the last decade or so, it does seem like he has this kind of remarkable willingness

to be honest about his life and his crimes. So it's possible that he told the truth with regard to his history and his motives for this whole thing. Yeah. So, uh, Frederick Pierre Borden was born June 13th, 1974 to a single mother, Ghislaine Borden in Nanterre, France. France. Why can't I say France?

France. France. Why did I say it like a- France. France. Anyway, at the time of his birth, his mother was very young and his father was an older man from Algeria and he was already married at the time. So Ghislaine never told him about her pregnancy.

Not very prepared or very interested in being a mother. Frederick ended up being raised by his grandfather, who he claimed was an abusive racist who treated him very badly because he was mixed race. Frederick said, before I was born, I already had the wrong identity. I was already prepared not to know who I really was. She's really sad. That is sad. And in 2008 interview, Ghislaine recalled that her son was like any other child, totally normal in his early years. But she said she didn't have much experience with him when he was young. Okay. Yeah, just before he turned three, he was removed from the home and placed with her parents

because of her lifestyle. At the time, she was a heavy drinker. She usually didn't have a job. She was in no way fit to be a mother. And besides all that, according to one relative, she really didn't want anything to do with that child. That's sad. It is really sad.

It's really sad. It doesn't give you a right to traumatize people later in life, but it's very sad. You feel sad for the child. Yeah. When he did see her, Frederick remembered his mother being very dramatic, constantly needing attention. So relatable. While most people would have been happy to see their children

and, you know, make their children the center of attention, Ghislaine seemed kind of frustrated when the focus wasn't on her and when, like, Frederick was getting attention. So she would feign illness when he was around, and especially when they were alone together, and make him run and get help. He said, to see me frightened gave her pleasure. That's fucked up.

So she's like fucked. Yeah. That's really fucked up. If this is true, because again, this is his account. I was going to say, because remember, he's a con man. Right. Caught between his grandfather's abusive, you know, abuse and his mother's disinterest and, you know, whatever was going on there. Frederick started creating fantasies in his head

about who his real father might be. And when he entered school, he started telling stories about his father. He told his classmates that his dad was a British secret agent among other lies. But no matter how outrageous the stories about his home life were, his peers more often than not seemed to believe him. A former teacher of his said he had this

way of making you connect with him. And they described Frederick as a, quote, precocious and captivating child who had an extraordinary imagination and visual sense, drawing wild, beautiful comic strips. So he like, there was a lot going on in his mind for sure. At the same time that his creative side was emerging at school, like cool, cool, cool, teachers started noticing other more troubling aspects of his personality. Not cool, not cool, not cool. He was rebellious, he acted out a lot, and he showed what teachers described as signs of mental distress. So something was going on. At one point he told his grandparents that he had, this is awful, had been molested by a neighbor. But it doesn't seem like they did anything to

report that or have that investigated. So after that, he became even more rebellious and even more defiant. When he was 12, his grandparents weren't able to control him anymore. And he was usually in trouble for acting out at school or stealing from neighbors. So his behavior got him sent to a facility for troubled children. And that's a fact. During his time in the children's home, he seemed to get even more creative with the stories that he was telling. He got more dramatic, more detailed. In 1990, when he turned 16, he was required to move to a different children's home for older kids. But after just a few days there, he ran away and hitchhiked to Paris, where he invented his first fake identity.

He said he was a lost British teenager named Jimmy Sale. Later, he said, I dreamed they would send me to England, where I always imagined life was more beautiful. But the problem was, he spoke almost no English, so the authorities in Paris didn't believe his story, and eventually he confessed, gave them his real name, and they promptly returned him back to the home.

Oh, geez. Yeah. So lots of failures here. Yeah. So his performance of Jimmy Sale lost British teen might not have been very convincing to win him a free trip to England, but it did seem to work for like a little bit. Like he was almost convincing them. In fact, if he had spoken English and been able to give some other details and, you know, explain away flaws in his story, he might have been able to pull it off. He wasn't super far from pulling it off. So it was then that he established a strategy of impersonation that he would now employ

countless times over the next two decades. By 1992, he had impersonated more than a dozen fictional children and just bounced around from one children's home to the other, just lying about his identity. But now that he was 18, things were different. They didn't send 18-year-olds to children's homes. They sent them to prison or just like kicked them out to live on the streets. And at the same time, he hadn't received any education or life lessons, anything that you need to live successfully as an adult. So he decided he just wouldn't live as an adult. Instead, he continued impersonating children all over France,

fleeing when he was found out only to start his ruse, restart his ruse somewhere else with a new fake identity. By that time, he had accumulated a pretty significant record with the Interpol for lying to authorities, falsifying his identity, falsifying documents. It was true that he had broken the law by creating so many fictional identities, but it also seemed to be one of the few things that he was actually really good at. Like, he got caught, obviously, because you can only put up things like that for so long. But he was the way he would... He got away with it for a while.

He got away with it for a while. And the way he would manipulate people, like, they did believe him. Yeah. He had this ability to make people believe him. Yeah. Which is really fucking scary. Which also makes you question a lot of his background.

Yeah, it does. That you can't verify, at least. That you can't. Well, he kind of said, having spent so many years in institutional care, he had a keen understanding of how to elicit sympathy from adults and how to exploit their guilt. Absolutely. He knew which buttons to push in order to get what he wanted while also making them overlook obvious inconsistencies in his story.

In the time that had passed since his teen years, his fantasies and his stories had gone from, you know, creative play to now criminality. But the motive always seemed to be the same, despite having become a straight-up con artist and an impersonator. His identities weren't about money or anything like that, or like stealing from people. He just said, for as long as I can remember,

I wanted to be somebody else, someone who was acceptable. Which is really fucking sad. I know, that's the thing, if it's like, that's really the case, then that's devastating. He never got charged with like any theft or anything like that. Like, he was always just charged for being a con artist and like falsifying documents to be a child. Well, and it's like, you wanted to, like like he's wanting all these things that he didn't get and these people treated him so badly, but then he's going and like destroying people's lives. It's fucked up.

And it's like, that's not going to help. It's not going to help. I think he didn't learn like compassion and compassion, empathy, like relating to things to one another humanity. And it's like, I think if he had seen a psychologist while he lived in those children's homes, he might have turned out to be a very different person. Potentially. But like you were just saying, because he had the childhood he did being passed around people who just truly couldn't give a shit.

He never felt wanted or loved anywhere. But when he created stories about being a lost child or sometimes a mute, traumatized teenager, he found the kind of sympathy and care that he always wanted. Even being placed in a children's home, he said he felt more comfortable than he ever had been with his mother or his grandparents. Wow, that's really sad. He said, nobody ever gave a damn about me.

So to be put in a place where somebody really cared about me, I was reborn. Wow. Which is sad. That's horrifying. Yeah. But unfortunately, no matter how good he was, like we know, the characters and identities he made for himself over the years only lasted so long before he was found out and had to

move on. In October of 1997, his latest scheme had earned him a stay at a child welfare home in Spain, where a judge gave him 24 hours to prove that he was a teenager or face criminal penalties. He was going to go to prison. So panicked that now he had overplayed his hand and can wide up in jail. He told the manager of the home that he was an American teenager who'd been kidnapped and brought to Spain and all he wanted was to go back home. He played the trauma card and convinced the manager to let him be the one to contact his family in private.

And he even got them to agree to letting him do it in the manager's office, like alone. Which is wild. How do certain people just have this ability? Because here's the thing, like it is insane, but I know people who I think could pull this off. 100%, that's the thing. There are certain people who just have this ability.

Yeah. Con artists are scary fucking people. Because you hear, like, there have been people in my life, and I'm like, how the fuck did you get away with doing that? And like, how do you not care about hurting somebody like that? How do people just let you do it? And how do people let you do it? But they do. It's crazy. So this happened.

The night before he was to be fingerprinted by the Spanish authorities. Fingerprinted. The night before. He sent the entire night placing calls to various police stations and cities across the US. Every time he would claim that he was a Spanish police officer who had found a missing American boy, but he said the boy refused to speak to them. So he was reaching out on the boy's behalf to find out whether or not this boy matched any of their missing children. Wow.

Which like imagine getting that call, you'd be sus about that call. Absolutely. So yeah, he did. Like he struck out repeatedly that night, but then he got a hit at the Texas Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After providing what was basically a description of himself,

the operator told him the description sounded a lot like that of Nicholas Barclay, a teenager from San Antonio, Texas, who had gone missing three years earlier in 93. So Bourdine asked the operator to fax a photo of Nicholas, and he did, or they did. And when the image of the missing boy came through, Frederick was like, this is a long shot. Like, I don't really even look like this kid, but I'm gonna try, because it's my only hope. Wow.

He said he thought to himself in that moment, he's been missing three or four years. I can guarantee one thing, there would be a change. If there's a change, there will be doubt. If there's doubt, then I have a chance. That is chilling. It is. That is so chilling.

Because he did not give a shit about what that could do to this family. He didn't even think about it. He just said, I can't go to prison. So this is what I can go to prison. So I'm just going to ruin this family's life. Yeah. Wow. So it was then that 25 year old con artists Frederick Bourdine transformed himself into

16 year old missing teenager Nicholas Barclay. While the authorities started contacting the embassy and the family, Frederick worked fast to make his appearance match that of Nicholas to the best of his ability. He dyed his hair blonde. He even had one of the other residents tattoo him with the initials that Nicholas had tattooed

on his hand and his ankle. Yet even those alterations, like with those alterations. He got, yeah, he dyed his hair, he got tattoos for this. But even with those alterations, like with those alterations, he got, yeah, he dyed his hair, he got tattoos for this. But even with those alterations, he was sure that he would be found out immediately and sent to prison. He just was like, it's worth a try. Wow.

Later, he said, you can't prepare to play a role or be a person you don't know. But when the first interview happened and the embassy official seemed satisfied with the story, it did seem possible. Still highly unlikely, but possible that he could pull it off. Then in the days that followed, he thought surely he'd be discovered as a fraud at any minute. But every passing step, everyone seemed to believe his story with no hesitation. The reality is that obviously, like a lot of people don't want to question a story like

this, especially one that he had told where, you know, he'd been traumatized and everything. So, it worked. So it just, all the cards fell into place. Yeah. And it was pretty much what he assumed. People were easy to manipulate when you knew what buttons to push. And he did know what buttons to push, the trauma buttons. Yeah.

But his biggest challenge, he figured, came when Casey Gibson, Nicholas's real sister, arrived in Spain to pick him up. Frederick was convinced that after days of pretending he was going to be found out when Casey got there. But he said Casey didn't appear the slightest bit suspicious, so it seemed like he might actually get to leave Spain. In fact, when it came to establishing his identity for the passport, something he definitely

thought was going to trip him up, it was Casey who prepared him for the passport, something he definitely thought was gonna trip him up, it was Casey who prepared him for the test unknowingly. Oh, man. The night before Frederick was to meet with the judge at the embassy, again, remember, they spent hours going through family photos and telling stories. So when the judge asked him to identify those people in the family photos, he had been given all the information he needed,

not even 24 hours earlier. Wow. Just by happenstance. It all just kind of fell into place for him. He didn't even have to do the work. Yep. For years, years at this point, he had passed himself off as dozens, dozens of fake teenagers

with varying degrees of success. But this was the first time he had taken the identity of an actual person. And he was still convinced though, that sooner or later someone was gonna realize he wasn't Nicholas. It's obviously one thing to create a fake persona and like come up with your own backstory,

but it's quite another to adopt the identity of a person who had 13 years of experiences with a family. Yeah. And like an American family. You know, that's pretty family. Yeah. And like an American family. You know, it's pretty different. Yeah. McElroy left you wondering how someone could become so cruel, manipulative, and untouchable? You'll want to hear my psychological breakdown of this case on my podcast, Killer Psyche. I examined the twisted mindset behind McElroy's reign of terror, how he exploited fear,

used charm as a weapon, and turned an entire town into his victims. Understanding what made him tick is exactly the kind of insight I bring on Killer Psyche, where I use my experience profiling criminals for the FBI to uncover what drives people, like Ken McElroy, to become predators. So if you're curious about the mind behind the mayhem, join me for an inside look at the psychology of a man who got away with everything until he didn't. Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. So when they arrived in San Antonio, he said the Dollarhead family welcomed him with open

arms like Carrie. It seemed they didn't notice the glaring differences between Frederick and Missing Nicholas. Because they didn't want to. No, of course they didn't. Each new person he met seemed to adopt the position that, since he had gone through this traumatic ordeal, he would almost certainly have changed in some way. And he said if anybody was suspicious, they didn't let on. Wow. Aside from one person who did not seem even remotely interested in entertaining the ruse.

When they knew Nicholas was going to be coming home, the family organized a party and all the relatives and neighborhood friends came over to the house to welcome him when he got there. The only person who wasn't there was Nicholas's half brother, Jason, the one who had called remember and Jason said like, no, I'm not waking up, mom. You gotta walk home. That's tough. Since Nicholas's disappearance, Jason blamed himself for everything.

And he was a heavy drug user for years. Unfortunately, it made him slip a lot further into his addiction. A couple weeks after the party, though, Jason did finally come by the house to visit with the family. And when he walked in, he gave quote unquote Nicholas a hug. But Frederick said he remained very standoffish for the entire visit, and he seemed to be viewing his quote unquote brother with a very wary look. In fact, despite spending hours with the family that day, they only spoke one time.

As Jason was preparing to leave the house, he looked at Frederick suspiciously, said good luck and left. Good luck. Good luck. Holy shit. Chills you to your fucking core. Can you, Frederick was probably like, oh. Yup.

Oh. Yup. That man knows. The fact that this is not like like it is a movie now, but the fact that this whole story is not just a movie originally is fucking crazy. Like that this is real. That it's real is insane. Wow. Good luck.

Holy shit. So he'd been doing this for a lot of years, obviously. So he knew when his lies were starting. Like he could tell when people were realizing coming onto him when things were gonna fall apart. Yeah. His resemblance was slight at best. And again, he spoke with a very strong French accent.

So the lie should have been obvious from the start. And he said that being the case within a few months of being in San Antonio, he started questioning if the lie was so obvious, why would the family be so willing to accept him as their missing child? So now he's starting to kind of be suspicious of this family. Lord, when Nicholas disappeared in 1994, the authorities assumed like we said in the beginning that maybe he had just run away from home. Yeah.

And Nicholas actually had been picked up by the police shortly before he disappeared for stealing a pair of tennis shoes. And it was possible that the theft and like some other things that were going on at the time was going to result in him being placed in a juvenile facility. Like he was supposed to go to juvie that summer. Add that to the fact that unfortunately Beverly Dollarhide also struggled with addiction. And his brother Jason, like we know, was an addict at the time and also was frequently abusive to Nicholas.

Like they did not get along well with each other. I feel really bad for Nicholas. I do too. He had a very sad life. But all that gathered together. It made sense to the San Antonio police that he would have run away at the time. But years later, as more and more people

started digging around in the family's history, some people started to wonder if the family knew more than they were saying. And that's maybe why they were so willing to accept this. To just go along with the ruse. Yes, exactly. It was clear, obviously, that Jason immediately saw through Frederick, but he seemed perfectly willing to let everybody else go on pretending, which Frederick said struck him as very strange.

Well, that was when you said he said, good luck and left. I'm like, all right, if you can tell that this is not your brother, you're not worried for your family. Why are you just letting this go? Right. And that's exactly how guys, that's exactly how Frederick felt. Yeah, which I'm wild to be on Frederick's level right now. I know I hate it thought process wise, but it just makes sense.

Yeah, it is. It's a question. You have to ask. Right. You can't just pretend that that's not weird. No, it is fucking weird. Later, Frederick said, it was clear that Jason knew what had happened to Nicholas, which is chilling. And that's, you know, according to Frederick, I'm not saying that he did.

At the same time, PI Charlie Parker, though, also began to suspect that the family might have been involved in Nicholas's disappearance. Charlie Paca. Oh, shit. In his research, he learned that a few months in Nicholas' disappearance. Charlie Paca. Oh, shit. In his research, he learned that a few months after Nicholas' disappearance, and this is fact, it's not like alleged or anything, Jason called the police to report that he had seen his brother trying to break into the house one night, but when he called out, Nicholas ran away again and was never seen ever again.

Huh. Parker knew that while, sure, this could have been true, it also very well could have been Jason attempting to make the authorities think that Nicholas was still alive, which was a kind of strange thing to do unless maybe he knew what had happened to Nicholas. Maybe knew who was involved or was trying to keep the keep it going. Yeah. Getting back to Frederick though, once the positive ID had been made,

he was arrested for lying to the FBI. It's kind of a big deal. As he should be. Yeah, they will definitely always arrest you for that. Yeah. And he was also arrested for entering the US on a false passport among various other things. Upon being arrested though,

he told the local FBI and the local police and the FBI that he was confident that Nicholas's family had killed him and had welcomed him into the family as a way of further covering up their crime. Oh, that's awful. Which is so fucked. The accusation, along with other facts of the arrest, were enough to make the family give up their insistence that this was Nicholas. And this whole thing finally came to an end. Years later, Beverly herself admitted that, after a few weeks of having Frederick in their home, she did start to doubt whether or not he was Nicholas,

but she kept that suspicion to herself. She said one of the things that tipped her off was, Nicholas was a warm child, always hugging her and kissing her, but she said this person in her house was cold and extremely guarded. She had noticed it the first time that they hugged at the airport and she never really like he never really seemed to get comfortable around her and vice versa. But she said at the same time she just wanted to believe so badly that it was her son that she went along with it.

Well, and also it's like if he's just been in part of a human trafficking ring, he might not wanna touch you. Like he might not wanna be touched at all. So it's like that would not shock me. Like I would expect that to be honest. I'd be like, you probably don't want anyone touching you regardless of who they are or what their intention is. So that wouldn't like shock me.

Wouldn't shock me either. And that wouldn't be like a weird thing to point out that like, yeah, you know what I mean? Like I feel like that would just be like par for the course with that kind of thing. You would think so. I think we also right now have a lot more information about like what happens to people

and like what that all entails. Who knows what she knew about that in that immediate moment, you know? But still it's weird. I agree with you. So while Frederick sat in a cell, Nancy Fisher started now looking into the claim that the family was responsible for Nicholas's disappearance. Unfortunately, and you know, not surprisingly, the family was not cooperative with the investigation. I'd be pretty pissed if this happened to me.

But Beverly refused to help. She said, if Jason did something to Nicholas, I didn't know about it. And I can't imagine Jason ever doing that. It's just not in his makeup, which like he was abusive to Nicholas. So he's, you know. Like, I'm not, again, I'm not like, I don't know what happened here. Nobody does.

So I'm not gonna say anything happened. To me, that's just a strange way of wording that. Yeah. If I have children, I'm not saying like, if one of them killed the other one, then I don't know about it. Like that's not going to be in my vocabulary. Like that's not going to be even in the orbit of possibilities. It's going to be, of course that didn't happen.

There's no fucking way that would happen. And again, I'm not saying that means that something happened. It's just a weird way to word that. Strange way to word that. Completely agree. Like I just, I wouldn't have worded it like that. I will say, you know, hot dog in a trench coat, take it for what it is. She took two polygraph exams and passed them. Okay. But then they had her do a third and she failed every single question on the third one.

So that shows you that the polygraphs are just shit. How do you pass two with flying colors and then the third one with flying colors. Every question. Yeah. And also like if you already passed two, why are they making you take a third? Because they know it's bullshit. Yeah. Like this is a waste of time. But Nancy Fisher said of the third exam, she practically blew the instruments off the table. Damn. I was like, yikes. Jason himself was even more uncooperative. When Nancy Fisher sat down to interview him a few weeks later, she said he was hostile. He refused to help in any way.

Shortly after that interview, he checked himself into rehab for drugs, but he left halfway through before finishing the program and he died from an overdose a short time later, which is very sad. The investigation into the family pretty much stalled because they couldn't find any, the investigators couldn't find anything concrete linking the family to his disappearance. But you know, there were suspicions still. Nancy Fisher said, I do feel like the family knows the whereabouts of Nicholas Barclay. I think Beverly and Jason knew at one time what happened to Nicholas Barclay.

Well, that's just the FBI speaking. I'm not saying I know what happened. That's just the FBI saying it. Other investigators shared the belief. They cited the history of violence in the home, the evidence of the abuse documented before Nicholas went missing. But unfortunately to this day,

he remains a missing person. That's really sad. Just really sad. After a few weeks of arguing back and forth with the prosecutor, Frederick Borden accepted a plea bargain. And in September of 1998, he pleaded guilty to perjury and obtaining and possessing false documents. When asked why he had perpetrated this crime

against a grieving family, he told the judge he was merely seeking love, which outraged the family. Yeah. And would outrage me. Yeah. That's great. Go find love somewhere else. Go figure it out. Not with my grieving family. Yeah. That's fucked up. Go fuck yourself.

The judge actually sentenced him in this case to six years in jail, which is more than three times the recommended sentence for that charge. Which is pretty crazy. Yeah, it is. When you think about like all that goes into the scheme that that's the thing like, it's pretty diabolical what he did. Yeah. But remember, he took a plea. So there were some charges that were dropped.

So the judge did everything he could. After Frederick completed his sentence, he was obviously deported back to France where he got right back to his old ways impersonating fake teenagers. He did nothing. No, literally did nothing. He was continuing to impersonate people and he actually spent time in prison like multiple times. Eventually, he got out and met and married a woman named Isabel who he met when he when

she reached out after seeing him on TV discussing his history and what she described as his quest for love. Ladies, we have to do better. It's true. We have to do better. We really, really have to do better. Yeah, we do. They are still married to this day

and they did have five children together. Wow. According to Frederick's mother, when the family got the invite to the wedding, they didn't go because she said, no one believed him. I wonder why. Like, that's bad.

If you're sending out a wedding invite and everybody's like, oh, that's probably fake. Nobody believes that you're even getting married. Like, you've been lying for a long time. You're a pathological liar. It's sad. It's sad. As for his new role of husband and father, those who know him best do not believe that Frederick has changed at all.

According to his mother, he is a quote liar and will never change. His uncle Jean-Luc Dreuert said, he agreed saying you can't just reinvent yourself as a father. You're not a dad for six days or six months. It's not a character. It's a reality. And that's that. And that's it. That's the that on that. Holy shit. What a wild thing that played out here. The real like loser in all of this, like the person who lost is Nicholas. He's lost still.

And he's almost lost in the story. He is. You know what I mean? Like it's like, no matter what the story became something so different. And it's like, when you really boil it down, you're like, what happened to that 13 year old boy that day? And it doesn't really, it didn't seem like there was like, a lot of investigation that happened. That's the thing. I'm like, why are we not figuring out what happened to him? And I think there wasn't a lot of investigation because they were like, oh, he ran away. He had ran away before. So it's like, yeah, okay. That doesn't mean that they,

and it's like, yeah, he ran away and he obviously came back. Yeah. You're telling me that kid just ran away and never came back, never popped up anywhere. Yeah. Ever. Yeah. Like Nicholas Barclay just does not exist anymore. I don't know what happened to him. Obviously. I don't think he ran away. I don't think somebody did something bad to him, whether it was somebody who did it like while he was walking home. Yeah, it could easily be a stranger. You know, the FBI could be right to suspect the family. Who knows?

Like, I don't know. That's the FBI suspecting that something was closer to home here. That's on the FBI. That's on the FBI. I'm not. I'm definitely not the federal Bureau of Investigations. You know, I, I too am not. That's federal Bureau of Investigations. Would you tell me if you were? I would. I, the day I become the federal Bureau

of Investigations, I will absolutely update you. I'll show you the text. Really quick. Thank you so much. Right when it happens. That's super great. I'll throw it on my Instagram. Perfect. I won't see it. Yeah, you won't see it. Yeah, but everybody listening. Well, yeah, this is a strange story. Yeah. An upsetting story. And no one wins. No. In this story, which is like very sad. Something I forgot what you said earlier, but like, like you, or you were saying he just gets lost in the story. The other, the other thing is he maybe wouldn't have gotten so lost in the story of Frederick hadn't done what he did. He absolutely wouldn't have cold cases get investigated all the time. Yeah. Three years into that, they might've

found something if they continued looking, but they thought he had came that they thought he had come home. And then when they realized it wasn't him, they had a whole other situation to deal with. But they were having to deal with, okay, is this him or not? Right. And it's like, and that's precious time they could have spent looking into this case. And he's just gone.

Nicholas is just gone now. And then by that point, the family's angry and upset. And then some of them, I think- Some of them are pushing back on investigations. And it's like, you've really lost the sauce here. And it's like, again, there's a 13-year-old boy who went missing that just is gone in this whole thing. And it's just The Frederick Show.

Hopefully, someday they can reopen up an investigation and figure out what happened. We always say, cold cases never cold. No, they're not. A 13-year-old should never go missing and not be found. That's the thing. That's fucked up. Come on.

It's like, it's just really sad. Somebody knows something. It's just sad that I think in his 13 years of life, he like, he didn't get to be happy. Yeah, it sounds like he didn't get a lot of a, lot to be, to be a kid. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Sad case. It is a sad case. And you know, Frederick's childhood is fucking sad too. Maybe. Maybe. Well, he was case. It is a sad case. And you know, Frederick's childhood is fucking sad too. Maybe. Maybe. Well, he was in those homes, so that's sad.

You know, like that's facts. Yeah. So that's sad that he had to be put into homes. For sure. It's just a sad case all around. But don't impersonate people, okay? Don't do that. Unless it's for like, like you're impersonating like Kermit the Frog's voice.

Yeah. Do voice impersonations. Those are fun. Yeah, those you're impersonating like her with the frogs voice. Yeah. Do voice impersonations. Those are fun. Yeah, those are fun. Not like, not like other. Not missing children. I don't have to tell you that. Yeah, that should go without saying.

Turn this off and seek help. Yeah, that should really go without saying. All right. Well, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't take our advice and not impersonate missing children Yeah, just like be cool. Don't be all uncool. Don't be all uncool. Can't just live in I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a If If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus

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