We have all heard or read somewhere where they say, life is a mystery and if we think about it, it sure does make sense. One moment we held the happiness and in a blink, it just vanishes away from our hand leaving behind an empty fist. But take a look at the fist and try to make it tighter and there we have the motivation to move forward in life. The Barclays family met the same unexpected events in life but they kept their hopes high only to see what lies ahead of them. Everything that has happened, there was a reason behind it and the family was ready to find it. They were ready to go at any lengths, but still, the process that is life took its own course. If you are in a bad place right now, then it shall too pass.
The evening of June 13, 1994, changed everything for Barclay's family when they found out that their 13-year-old son has disappeared. There wasn't a single clue that could tell them what was really going on. The news broke the family from the inside and the grey clouds above them made their lives darker for them to see the future clearly. The case became the highest priority for the police. But the mystery revolving around a 13-year-old became harder and harder to solve. Until they found this clue.
It was an average summer day. As usual, Nicholas was out playing basketball with his friends. When the game ended, Nicholas took a walk to find a payphone to call his mother to see if she could pick him up. It took him a while to reach her mother as she was asleep after a night shift and it was his uncle Jason who picked up the phone on the third attempt. Jason told him that his mother is still asleep and suggested him to walk home. Only if Nicholas's uncle picked him up, this tragedy might have been avoided.
Nicholas was angry after hearing that now he has to walk home all alone, but he can't help it and decided to walk as it was getting dark. His family has lived in San Antonio, Texas for many years and he knew the roads by heart. But still, somehow the walk felt like a burden to him. He has walked home alone before but this time the experience was new. He felt like time was passing really fast and now it was really dark. He increased his pace but only to meet something unexpected.
Nicholas Barclay was a sweet kid, but his habit of wanting more and more attention contributed to his reputation of being a troubled youth. Often there were complains about him getting in trouble at school, and his short-tempered personality acted like a fuel to it. Because of his anger issues he often fought with his mother too and that brought more problems for him in life.
Because of his behavior, the other parents in his neighborhood told their kids to stay away and not play with Nicholas. It was becoming extremely difficult for Beverly Dollarhide to control her son, and she asked her brother, Jason, to live with her for some time to help her out. However, they never thought that all the trouble that Nicholas gave the family and his neighborhood will soon become memories. But some theories were making the disappearance a bigger mystery.
While Nicholas Barclays family was worried about his disappearance, authorities had a different theory in their mind. There have been some previous circumstances like these where Nicholas left his house without telling anybody and stayed hidden for a couple of days without telling anybody his whereabouts. The police were also saying, that Nicholas is hiding somewhere in the town because of his court hearing that was scheduled the day after he'd disappeared, and he was just trying to avoid it.
The police also inquired about anything that happened in the house related to Nicholas. Then his mother told the authority about the incident before Nicholas went missing. She told, they had a heated argument after she found out he's stolen a pair of sneakers and she told him to come clean about the stealing otherwise she is going to send him to a juvenile detention home. So the police did not cross out the possibility that he'd fled to avoid that as well. However, every previous theory proved to be wrong when a new theory surfaced.
As we have told you, Nicholas Barclay had a history of running away from the house and this could have been the possibility. But in his previous attempts, he never stayed away from home for more than a day and as the days slowly passed, the family knew something was wrong. The authorities were now alarmed by the situation and started paying more attention. They searched the house and his room and were shocked to see that Nicholas hadn't packed any clothes like before and all his belongings were right there in the room. The young boy was also known to have $5 on him, and now the authorities were really worried. But there was not a single clue on which the police can follow up. What next?
For investigators, this case became a missing person case from the simple case of troubled youth running away from his home. In cases of missing person, time is of the essence and unfortunately, in this case, progress was slow and the questions remained unanswered as there were no leads. The fact that Nicholas had $5 in his pockets made it unlikely that he'd got very far with that kind of money. The whole town was worried about the sweet kid and with each passing day, the possibility of finding him seemed low. There were many who suggested that he might have hitchhiked and if that is the case then finding Nicholas will be more difficult. Then, months later, the authorities received an unexpected call that shocked the whole station.
The day Nicholas went missing he was wearing purple pants and a pink backpack. Despite wearing such an eye-catching outfit, nobody in the town saw this kid. There were no leads, no reports of sightings and they had no concrete evidence that could tell the police what was really going on. The case was becoming a big puzzle with not pieces in hand.
Three months later, police received a call from his uncle, Jason who told them that he had seen Nicholas breaking into the family garage but fled when he was spotted. This news brought some hope in the family and for the authorities, this was the only lead so far. The police followed the lead and it took a very unexpected turn.
In the light of the newest evidence, the police set up a team to search the parameters of the house and the town. The investigators were determined to find something that can lead them to Nicholas, but again all the efforts only proved that Jason hadn't actually seen his nephew. The turns of an event made the situation more complicated and the case was very far from being solved.
Even after three months, everyone tried to stay hopeful. They all hoped for some kind of a miracle that will somehow bring out the clue that could lead them to Nicholas. Time passed and months became years. All the hope of the family, neighbors and the police started to fade away and the grey sky was now black that took away all the light only to leave them in the dark. But as they say, even in the dark we should always try to find light, they did the same and the case again took a very surprising turn.
It has already been three years since Nicholas Barclay disappeared but somehow his mother convinced herself that he will return. On a normal day, American law enforcement officials got a call from the Spain law authority. They told the American officials about the missing teen, which resembled Nicholas Barclay. How can they be so sure? But still, this news was a big break in cracking the case. The law officials were still skeptic about the whole event. They wanted to be sure about the whole thing and before telling the family they decided to take a look at the news.
From what the Spain authority had explained, a boy who appeared to be 16, exactly the same age Nicholas would have been. They told that he was found lost and scared hidden in a phone box in a nearby village. Though he was brought to a youth shelter, it seemed he'd been through a lot and something was not right with him. But still, something was missing and the American officials couldn't get their hands on it. Their instincts were speaking a different tone entirely. They had to be sure. They just can't ignore the news anymore. It was about time but not for long. The family, neighbors and the whole authority was about to get shocked by everything that happened after this.
The horrifying story of Nicholas getting kidnapped from childhood neighborhood and how he was brought to Europe where he was abused by a human trafficking ring before he successfully escaped the captivity and fled to safety. The authorities from both the sides were in shock to hear that, all of this happened to a 13-year-old innocent kid who never asked for anything like this to happen.
The authorities didn't want to waste any more time thinking about it and they disclosed the news to the family. They told them everything they got to know from the Spanish authority. The whole family was in tears and with each second their excitement kept growing. They just wanted Nicholas to came back to them. They miss him so much. But as emotions ran no one was ready for what would come all along.
The family didn't have a lot of extra money, so they decided that Nicholas Barclay's sister, Carey Gibson, would go to make sure that if he was really their Nicky. Carey has never flown before, but her company where she works generously gave her the plane ticket to Spain. When she landed in Spain airport, Carey saw a boy who was wrapped in a scarf and baseball hat. She just ran towards him to hug her lost brother, and confirmed, that he was indeed her brother. Little they knew, this reunion would take a very surprising turn.
At last, he was home. All Barclay's family, except Jason, excitedly welcomed him back with open arms. He was shown his room which was kept the same as he'd left it when he disappeared. At first, the returned Nicholas was timid and quiet all the time and the family realized that his memory wasn't entirely on point, but it was fair as he'd gone through a lot. This incredible reunion of a lost son made headlines around the world but as the family began to come back to normal, outsiders started noticing that something didn't seem right.
There was some specific identification that Nicholas Barclay, as a child had, like, blue eyes, blonde hair, and a gap between his front teeth. He also had tattoos on his body, including a "J" on his left shoulder, a cross between his right hand and "L" and "N" on his outer left ankle. But the boy who was now living in their home had none of this identification. While some attributes do change with age, the Nicky who'd returned had dark hair and eyes, but there was more that didn't add up.
He was not just looking different, the boy who came back also spoke with what seemed like a French accent, which he picked up because of the time he spent in Europe and also his captors didn't allow him to speak in English. The story was very unbelievable but the change of his eye color from blue to black was even more unconvincing for the family. Nicholas explained, that the captors altered his identity with the use of some chemicals that changed his eye and hair color. Despite all this, the Barclay family accepted him without questioning him any further. They weren't ready to accept anything besides that this boy was really their innocent Nicky. But another discovery changed everything.
Nicholas was adjusting with his life after returning home. He was enrolled in high school and seemed to get along with the family too. Although, he was not the same Nicholas everybody knew. He was different in all sense. The Barclays family attributed all these changes to the trauma he experienced for three years. He was all over the media and seemed to love the attention. He was on the TV interviews where he told about his experience with the world. However, one interview changed everything.
While the investigation was completed and the missing person case of Nicholas Barclay was closed, but somehow private investigator named Charlie Parker wasn't convinced about all that has happened. He was very critical of every event that has taken place since Nicholas' return.
One day, Parker showed up with a camera crew for an interview at the Barclay home. He wanted to personally meet the boy who returned. And it was during that recording for the TV show Hard Copy that Parker noticed something that shocked him.
P.I Charlie Parker saw the tape on loop and had an old photograph of Nicholas Barclay from when he was 13 which he kept holding in his hand while watching the tape. Suddenly, his detective's brain worked and he analyzed both the person, one who was in the interview and one who was in the photo. His guts were telling him that he is right, and the difference between these two which he has noticed is certainly an evidence that could change everything onwards.
“Zoom in on his ears,” Charlie Parker told the cameraman. The P.I was stunned, the ears of this person don't look like those of the young boy who disappeared. Now, Parker knew that something is wrong because the ears are the one part of the body that doesn't change over time. This, along with other odd changes in the color of the hair and eye of this "Nicholas" led the Parker to get a court order to take his fingerprints and run a DNA test on him. And the result shocked the whole world.
The Barclays family was happy and almost started living a normal life, but everything changed after the fingerprints and DNA results came out. Everyone was shocked, the results showed that this person was NOT Nicholas Barclay. This not Nicholas individual who has been living with them as their son for almost six months was an imposter. And the scientific results were right there to prove it. But the question was if he is not Nicholas Barclay then who is this guy?
When the authorities got the hold of this new turn of events they found out that this imposter, in fact, wasn't Nicholas Barclay, but a French man named Frederic Bourdin, who had been posing as Nicholas for past six months. If this wasn't enough, he also wasn't 16-years-old, but a 23-year-old guy. But how did he get to know about Nicholas? And how did he manage to stay in the house for six months?
Frederic Bourdin first heard about the missing American teen from a security guard who told him that they both looked very similar. After that, Bourdin gathered as much information as he could about the missing child and even adjusted his appearance to seem younger like Nicholas. He was ready to take Nicholas' identity.
After he gathered all the information about the real Nicholas Barclay from the news and people, he was ready for his next step. He worked on everything that made him look like Nicholas. We can imagine the work that he put into becoming Nicholas Barclay that he stayed in the house of Barclay's family for six months. Once his cover was blown, Frederic Bourdin made a shocking claim about why Barclay's family so openly accepted the imposter into their lives.
By now, it became very hard to trust any word that came out of Frederic Bourdin. But, not everyone dismissed the claim that Bourdin made about the family, they had known he wasn't Nicholas Barclay all along and had a very hidden motive to go along with the event. All the evidence, like, the changed color of hair and eyes, his French accent and his sudden behavior change were there in front of the family but still, they ignored everything. But why?
Frederic Bourdin accused the family of knowing one of them had harmed the boy and they wanted to hide the truth and so played along to cover their dark secret. However, the family gave a very different reason to prove, why did they want to believe that he was their Nicky.
The family was shocked to hear about the accusation that Frederic Bourdin made and said that he knowingly preyed off their grief and desperation in making them believe, he was the real Nicholas and in their distress they wanted it to be true. There was now two versions of the story and it was becoming difficult on whom to trust. One, the story of an imposter who played with the emotions of the family. Second, the imposter accusing of the family that was hiding a dark truth about Nicholas.
Both the version of the story proved one thing for sure, that they have lost Nichols for the second time and left everybody back to square zero. Still, P.I Charlie Parker didn't lose hope and didn't consider that the case was closed. He wanted to pursue the new evidence of this case. He was determined to know the truth behind the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay. He had two stories and decided to follow them.
P.I Charlie Parker did not leave any stone unturned and he saw both Frederic Bourdin and the Barclays family as guilty. He took the charge and decided to question both and in particular, Nicholas' uncle Jason. However, the things didn't go as planned and Jason succumbed to a drug overdose. The case again came to a halt, but that didn't stop Charlie Parker to unearth the truth. He kept the investigation ongoing. Meanwhile, Frederic Bourdin kept shocking the authority.
The authority was amazed to see the long list of charges Frederic Bourdin has added to his name. In 1998, he was in jail for six years on passport fraud and perjury charges. He spent his six years in jail and when he got out he again made the news. He returned to France and did not stop stealing the identity. Later, the authority saw some disturbing patterns which shed some more light on his true identity.
To their surprise, Frederic Bourdin, in 2003, took another identity of a missing boy. This time it was 14-year-old Leo Balley who had disappeared about seven years ago. Bourdin was almost 30 when he acted on this and eventually proved to an imposter after DNA testing. But he didn't stop there.
In 2004, Frederic Bourdin posed as Spanish teen Ruben Sanchez Espinoza, claiming his mother was killed in an attack in Madrid. Police eventually found out the truth and deported him to France where he tried took another identity of a 15-year-old Spanish orphan Francisco Hernandez-Fernandez. Again, he was unmasked by the police and was sent back to prison, but there was more about his real identity.
All the cases related to Frederic Bourdin, illegally stealing the identities of actual missing or orphaned children was truly shocking, but they weren't hidden, As it turns out, Frederic Bourdin was a professional French-born serial imposter who had spent his whole life stealing false identities.
He was famous who went by the nickname, "The Chameleon". He had used 40 fake identities before taking Nicholas Barclay's identity and had used 500 throughout his life. He was on the wanted list circulated by the Interpol before he managed to walk into Barclay's family. But it was in the mid-2000s, where he shocked with his most dramatic transformation.
Later, the authorities found out about his actual real life. He married a French woman named Isabelle in 2007 and the couple has five children. After taking the role of father, he decided not to impersonate anyone ever again. He said he did all the stealing with only one motive in mind, to find the love and affection that he never felt as a child. But Bourdin still manages to make headlines in a completely different way.
There's no doubt that Frederic Bourdin's life story looks like a movie story from Hollywood. As he made headlines in the world, the Hollywood also read about him, which resulted in the making of the movie The Chameleon (2010) and the 2012 documentary The Imposter. Today, the world is unaware of The Chameleon, Frederic Bourdin as he went off the radar and hasn't been heard since Nicholas Barclay case happened. But still, the question about Nicholas' departure remains a mystery.