Imposter, The (2012)

[bunniefuu]

I want to get a good picture,

some more pictures.

This is Carey's room, her bed.

This is the birthday girl's mattress
and everything else.

She's even got a TV

in her room.

Ain't she lucky?

That's my sister.

The birthday girl.

Ain't she beautiful?

And here is her brother.

Nick.

The thought of what somebody
could have done to him...

It gives you nightmares.

It really does.

His disappearance never made the news.

It wasn't news to them,

it was just news to us.

It came to the point where, you know,
you're not gonna find him alive,

but you just want to find what happened to him.

They called me at work when I wasn't there

and they wrote a message and said,
"Someone from Spain has Nicholas."

He wants to come home.

My mom called me.

I was at work.

And she says, "Sitting down?

You're not going to believe this."

Course. It was mysterious,

it was er...exciting,

it was worrisome,

er, it was all mixed emotions, you know?

Ecstatic.

Bewildered.

You know, Spain!

Isn't that like across the country?

Um, how did he get there?

You want...
you have like a hundred thousand questions

that you want answered immediately.

I felt wonderful,

you know, excited.

You wanna see him, touch him,
you know what I mean?

And you want it all to happen now.

From as long as I remember,
I wanted to be someone else.

Someone who was acceptable.

The most important thing for me and what
I learned very fast was to be convincing.

When the police arrive,

I have immediately to put into their mind

they have a kid in front of them, not an adult.

So it was very important for me
to behave like one.

They would see me with...
in a big coat with younger clothes.

And they would see a kid with a hat,
which is very low in the eyes.

They couldn't see my eyes.

I wanted to provoke on them a sense of guilt...

..of being adults and to be close to a kid
which is dead scared.

When you see a kid that,
you know, got nervous reflexes,

that you can't touch them,
you can't approach them,

then you understand, you understand
that something is wrong.

I wasn't the one who was telling them
I've been sexually abused.

I made them ask me that by my attitude,

by my way of doing things.

They were the one thinking about it
and that gave me power.

I didn't speak much.

It's very hard to read a kid
that doesn't speak a word sometime.

If a cop don't know who a kid is
and where he comes from,

he just can't keep him in the police station.

And I knew that eventually they would
have to put me into a children's home...

..and that's all I wanted.

Nobody ever gave a damn about me

and to know that if I change my identity

the reward was eventually to be put in a place

where actually they really cared about me...

then, hell, yeah.
I mean, I was reborn.

I mean... (Laughs) ..I was born again.

Nobody ever gave me a childhood,

because to give a kid a childhood
you need to, to love that kid.

I felt like I belonged there.

They didn't know that I was 23, 23 years old.

I was considered like one of them.

I told him to be home by dinner

and gave him five bucks to go play basketball,

and... he took off.

He called home, asking for a ride, er...

which was probably, I don't know,

he's within a couple of miles from his house

and his mother works late
and sleeps during the day

and his older brother Jason answered the phone.

When I woke up Jason was there and said
that he had called and wanted a ride home,

but Jason didn't want to wake me up,

so told him he had to walk home.

And that's...was the day,
the last time we heard from him.

You spend 24 hours crying, sick, worried,

then you get mad, then you get scared,

and then you try to get empowered.
You know, "OK, what can we do?

We have to do flyers,
we'll do this, we'll..."

You know, so instead of...

you don't cry, you do something positive

and try to work towards, I guess,
a solution of finding him.

I thought somebody offered him
a ride, and he got in the car.

I dunno, I think he would have got in a car
with someone that he didn't know.

What are you looking at?

I could see the worry and the pain
they were going through,

so I always said, you know,
"He's out there," you know.

"He'll resurface," you know.

Unfortunately for me, it was one of
those places which is very rare in Spain

where actually they can't stand
having a kid with no identity card,

er, no proof of who he is.

They wanted absolutely to know who I was,
where do I come from,

erm, they needed to know precise.

"If you don't tell us,
if can't prove us who you are,

I'm gonna have you fingerprinted
and your pictures taken."

I couldn't allow that to happen.

I had to find a way out of that.

So the only, only thing left there was

was 1) go to prison

2) prove to them that I'm someone.

I said that I was American.

That er...I ran away and I was
willing to contact my family for them

but I wanted to do it myself.

I didn't want my family to receive a phone call
from the police or the persecutor

or the judge in Spain.

I wanted to do it myself.

And I said I would need to be
in the office for the night

because I live in the States.

The States is, you know,
the times is different, it's er...

So erm, you know, just leave me in the office

and tomorrow you will have all you need.

In this office nobody could hear me.

I knew that I could pass myself
for anyone on the phone,

could convince anyone of anything.

So I call the American Police.

County South, Detective Fowler.

The New York Police.

Lieutenant Kojak's office.

Different police stations in the States.

- Dobie here.
- Who is this, please?

I told them every time
that I was a policeman from Spain

called Jonathan Dorian,

that we had found a kid,

we are sure he's from the States
but we don't know where.

How long ago was this?

He's been maybe missing for a few years,
that someone must be looking for him.

So the police say, well, you know,

we got hundreds of posters
of missing persons on the wall

and we just can't go through each of them.

But what we can do for you

is to give you the number of the centre
for missing and exploited children

of Arlington, Virginia.

Centre for missing and exploited children.
Lorraine speaking. How may I help you?

Er, we have a kid in a shelter,
certainly is American,

who is about 14, 15 years old

but the problem is we don't know who he is...

I describe myself.

Every detail I gave was details
that I know that I could handle.

I wanted to be vague enough for her
to look at many different things.

I wanted her to have many possibilities.

Let me just take a look here.

"I got maybe something," she said.

"Maybe, you know, we got a kid from San Antonio

missing since June 13 1994.

His name is Nicholas Barclay."

I said, "Could you send me a fax
of what he looks like?"

In my head, I was just a police officer
with, with Nicholas Barclay next to me,

trying to confirm his identity
and like any other policeman would do.

Let's see if it's him.

I thought, let's see if it's him.

I look at it, black and white picture,
old picture.

Well, missing for three or four years,

guarantee one thing, there will be a change.

If there is a change, there will be doubt.

If there is doubt, then I got a chance.

Something in my head decided
I could do it, that I had to try.

I took the phone and I told her
that this is Nicholas.

We got him, it's him.

It's incredible, it's him.

My mom called me
and she says, "Are you sitting down?

You're not gonna believe this."

And I said, "What, Mom?" She goes,
"The police department called me

and they think they found Nicholas
in Linares."

So I'm like, "OK,
where in Texas is Linares?"

Because Texas has a lot of small towns.

And then she was like, "No, Spain."

I'm like, "Spain?"

Oh, God, how to explain the emotions.

It's like all these different emotions,
from excitement to bewilderment,

to what do we do?

What's the next step? How do we get him?
When do we get to talk to him?

I knew that after that they would contact me.

They would try to verify, to call,
to see, to... Is it true? Is it here?

Is it, you know...
Carey, the family and all that.

Well, when I first got, you know,
got a hold of the shelter,

they put me on the phone with Jonathan Dorian

who said that he worked for the, a shelter,

and that he was the one
who was talking with Nicholas

and had got the information from Nicholas
on who he really was.

When she called, I said that Nicholas
was seated next to me.

But he was very scared, he was very traumatised

and he didn't want to talk to no-one.

He sounded very responsible, very concerned.

Er, he claims that he has been abused,
that he's been hurt,

that erm...certainly he's been abducted.

I kind of thought he was like
a social worker type of person.

Um, very reassuring.

She said, "Is he saying anything?

Is he talking about us? Does he remember?"

Well, actually, I think he forgot
about everything, you know.

He doesn't remember very much.

He remember you but not very much.

We were told he was held by
some kind of like a sex sl*ve kind of ring,

and that he had escaped from there and
that he was found wandering the streets.

She was heartbroken
but at the same time she was very happy.

I wanted to hear his voice.

No!

Absolutely, there was no way I was going
to talk to her pretending to be Nicholas

because I wasn't Nicholas
and she was his sister,

so er...it would have been a risk,

too big a risk for me,

but I did say a few words.

She said: "Hello, Nicholas.
You hear me, Nicholas?"

Nothing.

"I love you, Nicholas.
I want to take you back home with me.

I'm gonna take you, baby.

I'm gonna come and get you and..."

And maybe you hear "Love you"
or something like that, you know.

Very far away. It, it...

And then she say: "Was it him?"

I said, "Yeah. He said 'I love you."'

Oh. And then she started crying
on the phone.

You start crying, you tell him, "We're
going to come and get you, bring you home.

We'll get there, we're going to bring
you home, and I love you too."

I erm... I washed her brain.

I didn't stop,
because I didn't think of stopping.

I didn't watch myself in the mirror
and say, "What the f*ck are you doing?

Stop that immediately."

I realised that I've crossed the line.

I wasn't pretending no more
to have another identity. I stole one.

I got a phone call: "Would you please
call a Carey Gibson?"

Well, I was astounded by what Carey said,

so one of the first things I said to her was,

when the FBI
and the US State Department assist you

and uh...get you and your brother back here,
I have to interview him immediately.

When the welfare of a minor,

er...is in jeopardy,

our reaction has to be very quick,

er...very responsive.

We have to put ourselves

in the position of the child

or the child's parents or guardians.

Generally when a child is missing for years,

either the child is dead or the child is not found

and to find that child in another country
is extremely rare.

That made it all the more compelling for us

to make sure that we did everything right
in terms of er...

establishing who he was
and getting him back to his family.

My main concern was getting him back,

so that my part could start,
the investigation could start...

we could find out
what had happened to this child.

I sent somebody out there
as quickly as possible.

The next day...
The next day, it got beyond my control.

The centre for missing
and exploited children sent me a flyer.

There was the picture of Nicholas
at the time of his disappearance...

And I saw what real Nicholas looked like,
really with colours and everything.

He was very blond, very...

He had blue eyes.

He looked nothing like me!

Nothing!

There's, you know, the only thing
he had in common with me

was that he had five fingers at each hands.

Then I said, f*ck, let's burn myself.

You know, I b*rned the flyer.

If I could have b*rned the identity that I said

and every word that had been
out of my mouth for the past few days,

I would have b*rned them too!

When everyone tells me
that the American Embassy is coming

and er...everybody's, you know...

and don't worry, Nicholas,
we're gonna take care of you.

Well, yeah, OK,
you know, I... I couldn't do nothing.

The only thing I could do

was think of how was going to be the prison
where I was going to be.

I didn't know what to do.

I really didn't know what to do.

When the Vice Consul first arrived in Linares,

he got to the centre and found
Nicholas Barclay had disappeared.

I said, you've got to find him.

So he essentially,
with somebody from the Linares Centre,

went around looking for him.

Our priority was his safety and to make sure
he was reunited with the family.

I tried to run away
like I would do anywhere else.

Nicholas Barclay?

God didn't want me to leave this place.

I spoke with the vice consul and asked him
about his interactions with Nicholas.

He reported at the time that he spoke English,

that he, he was, he was at least at that moment

convinced that this was an American.

When I woke up the next morning,
everything was normal.

Then I saw the director of the shelter
that said,

"Well, you know, you must be happy,
your sister is on the way."

So I said, "What do you mean?"

He say, "Well, your sister,
you know, from San Antonio,

she's on the plane,
she's coming to get you."

f*ck, you know. f*ck! f*ck!

f*ck! f*ck! f*ck!

I'd never left the country.

I didn't know even what it entailed.

I knew Mom couldn't handle the flight.

She can't, she couldn't do it.

I have to do this.

I just gotta go get him
and get him back here where he's safe.

I should have thought of that.

I should have thought of the consequences.

If you do that, imagine for a second

that you're the father of a kid that's
been missing for three years, four months,

and that they find him in Columbia,
er...what would you do?

What would be the first thing you'd do?

I would jump on a f*cking plane.

I didn't sleep for two days
before I got on the plane.

Fear, but also anticipation,

cos you want to get there, get there.

You want to see him, hold him,
smell him, just get there.

You can't prepare to play a role
of a person that you don't know.

I couldn't be Nicholas Barclay
because I didn't know Nicholas Barclay.

I didn't even know at that moment
if he was left or right-handed.

So, er, that was a problem.

I got on the plane and tried to sleep.

Didn't work.

The director...

This is Nick, mwhah.

He thought he was an adult.

We called him 13 going on 30.

Very difficult to discipline him.

If he made up his mind
he was gonna do something,

pretty much there wasn't a lot you could do.

Put the lighter down.

He'd run away before
for a night or two, mad at Mom.

"I'm leaving, I'll find a new mom, a new home.

Kiss my ass," kind of thing.

And he, you know... would leave
and she would hunt him down

and find out where he is
and he'd show up the next day.

He was not, um, you know,
this perfect nice sweet innocent,

he was a very street-smart city boy.

- It's nice to meet ya. I am the director.
- In here, Nick.

See, ain't I beautiful?

He had beautiful blond hair.

Kind of looked like, erm, a little pixie.

He had blond hair and blue eyes
and a bit of a gap between his teeth.

When he smiled, you could see it.

Finally I'm on the ground.
"Who, who, who am I looking for?

What do they look like? Are they in suits?

Oh, damn, you can smoke here. Thank God!"

The air smelt different.

Erm, it was a lot less crowded than I thought.

I did everything I could
to give myself a chance.

I bought product to colour my hair totally blond.

The gentlemen and a lady approached me,

cos I wasn't sure where to go

and we went straight into a car
and started driving.

On the flyers it said that Nicholas Barclay
had three tattoos.

There was a girl inside the shelter
that did small tattoos just like that.

She was no pro, she was just a kid.

And I asked her to put those tattoos

that were on the flyers on me.

I was quiet and that's when
the lady started talking to me.

She kept my mind busy
with explaining the countryside to me

the whole way down there on the drive.

I took big sunglasses, I took a hat,
I took a scarf, I took a glove.

I thought that if she couldn't see me,

then she wouldn't be able to say
I'm not her brother.

We stopped for a Coca-Cola,
which I thought was really cool.

They had coke there and it was
the anxiety of how long it was taking.

Minutes before she arrived
I was convinced it was finished.

That I was gonna get arrested
and maybe b*at up also

because they were
not going to be happy about it.

I remember going into like a waiting area.

I'm speaking with a couple of people from
the home saying that he was in his room.

He'd been locked in his room all day.
He wouldn't let anyone go in.

Finally when I heard someone
knocking at the door and saying,

"Hey, Nicholas, your sister is downstairs,

er...she's waiting for you, she's there..."

I went downstairs and into like a courtyard.

There were some kids playing
like ball against a wall

and looked up at the window and told him,

"I'm here, come here. I want to see you,
I want to hold you."

I remember seeing him look out the window.

I was sure that as soon as the sister
was gonna see me,

she was going to say
"What the f*ck is that?" You know.

That's not...that's not Nicholas.

I waited maybe 10 minutes.

I knew I was about to lose everything.

I knew I couldn't wait no more,

that I couldn't go away,

that I couldn't just disappear,

so I opened the door and I went down.

It was just this sense of immense relief.

Just seeing, touching, kissing, holding him.

I said, "What the hell?" You know.

He's here, we're here, I have him.

She didn't even wait a second or two seconds.

She jump on me, she jump on me,

she took me in her arms

and she said, "Nicholas, oh, and you
were afraid I wouldn't recognise you.

I would remember that nose."

So I just... I remember touching his nose
and telling him, um,

"I remember that nose,
you kind of look like your Uncle Pat."

She said, "Don't worry," like she always say,
"everything is going to be fine.

Everything is going to be perfect.

I know it's you."

He was just...just basically
told me he loved me,

and he didn't say a whole lot
until all the people left.

Only God know why she would
do something like that,

but...but I know one thing for sure
is there was no other way.

She came for me and she wanted me back.

We went to the visit room
and she showed me dozens of pictures.

Pictures, pictures, pictures.

You remember, this was with Mom
at the, at the house we were living in

before you, you went missing.

Remember this was
when you were playing with Scotty.

Remember this was...

And he was like, "Jason looks the same,
Codey's gotten pretty big, huh?

Mom, God, Mom looks exactly the same.
Has she put on weight?

Wanted to know if Grandpa was still an assh*le,

um, told me how much he loved Grandma
and he missed her.

I remember seeing the tattoo,
the cross between his, you know,

right here on his hand.

I just kept thinking
how much he looks like Uncle Pat

and how mom was going to be
really surprised how tall he was.

She said that he looked very different,

that he had, you know, grown up...

..and erm...

he's very quiet, you know, kinda held back.

He talked with a funny accent.

But it was always a whisper and very quiet
like he was hiding from something.

I mean, God, look what he had been through.

He wasn't the same person.

He wasn't the same Nicholas
that disappeared four years before.

He had been held and tortured
and God knows what else.

He wasn't that same person.

The judge in Linares wanted to make sure
that there was in fact some legal basis

for Nicholas claiming to be er...
Carey Gibson's lost brother.

So now the problem was that they
had the sister and the embassy official

that were swearing that I was Nicholas Barclay

and there was the police and the prosecutor

and the judge who were not convinced at all.

The judge insisted on separate interviews

and part of the evidence that was in those
interviews was a family photo album.

And the judge said, "Listen,
the only way for you to prove

that you're really Nicholas
is we got pictures here

that you've never seen before.

I'm gonna show you five of them."

Number one, OK.

Number two, OK.

Number three, OK.

Number four, OK.

On the five one I made a mistake,

but it was too late.

She was already convinced
I was Nicholas Barclay.

At that point I didn't see how I could
not document him as a US citizen.

I would not have been able to do anything
if Carey didn't show me those pictures.

They took picture of me,
with no hat, with nothing.

Which was, you know, they saw my eyes.

Erm, the constitution of the United States.
I swear to be a US citizen.

You know, it wasn't real but I did it.

We didn't do a whole lot of talking
the night before we got on the plane.

Not uncomfortable, just silence,
and it was almost like a peaceful silence.

You know, I could hear him breathing
and I just felt pretty peaceful.

I'd been thinking about running away
even before I met her.

All I got to do was take a taxi cab
and, going to a train station,

buy myself a ticket out of Spain.

I could have done that in a couple of minutes.

Nothing was stopping me, nothing.

I went down a few times in the hallway,

always wondering if I was doing
the right thing, the wrong thing.

Should I go, shouldn't I go,
should I go, shouldn't I go?

When I was born,
I don't think there was much love.

My mother was very, very young at the time
and she was, she was only 17 years old,

met er...older man, which was my father,
from Algeria.

My grandfather was a very r*cist person

and knowing that the man my mother
spent the night with is an Algerian,

he wanted absolutely my mother
to have an abortion.

Er, to get rid of me even before I was born.

For him an Arab should be
dealt with a nuclear w*apon

and a black man is a monkey.

Before I was born,
I definitely I had the wrong identity.

Er, I already didn't know...I was already
prepared not to know who I really was.

A new identity with a real passport,
an American passport.

I could go to the US, go to school there.

Live with that family and just being someone.

And don't have never again
to worry about being identified.

I saw the opportunity.

A woman that could go through so much
to get me with her back in a family

which got kids, which seem a fam...
a loving family,

gotta be some...somebody good,

You know, I had conflicting rules
inside my own head.

Carey want me to be Nicholas
but what about the others?

Are they going to want me to be Nicholas too?

I didn't understand why he was so...
like, nervous, you know what I mean?

He was like, you know,
constantly moving and to the bathroom,

and watching people,

watching me, he was always watching me.

She was always looking at me.

I attested it to him just being scared.

You know, he's going back home

and we don't know what's happened to him,

how his mind's working.

Um, but he was just...
maybe he was afraid

that, that he wouldn't be recognised
or, or Mom wouldn't love him any more.

I'm gonna get k*lled.

And I want...

And I say, well, maybe the plane better crash.

When they said it was time for us
to board, I...nudged Nick and I said,

"You ready? You ready to go home?"
He said, "I'm ready to go home."

"Let's get the f*ck out of here, and go home."

And we got on the plane.

I was really nervous,
anticipation, pretty happy.

You know, we had made it...
It was a family thing, we all went together.

I remember that night, minute by minute.

It was me, my grandma,

my sister and my dad, I believe.

We all loaded up in my Lincoln

to go get my mom and Nicholas.

It was a wait and see
but everybody was excited, you know.

We didn't know what to expect...

I didn't want to go out of the plane.

I wanted to wait.

I wanted to prepare myself.

I didn't have no plan.
I didn't have no strategy.

I knew there was no way out.

I could not turn back.

We had no idea what kind of person
we were getting, who was coming back.

I wanted to run and grab and hold him
but he held back.

So I walked down and grabbed his hand
and hugged him and told him I missed him.

He had changed so much.

It was like mind-boggling.

But then I realised, you know,

you tell yourself, well, he's been
through all this horrendous stuff,

so he's absolutely gonna be different.

I just remember my kids
and my mom and erm, my husband

and just, God, we were so happy.

He was like totally covered up,

so then I got scared, thinking
that this kid's really messed up,

just by his appearance.

He was very quiet and erm, standoffish.

I never liked people to touch me.

And I can't change that.

So when she put her hands around me,

she must have felt
that I wasn't enjoying it at all.

I was very cold, very closed.
I didn't speak to people.

As much as I was happy...I didn't show it.

I had a border in front of me.

I didn't want to screw up.

Of course, it was welcome with open arms
and let's get you home attitude.

Talk about the rest later, you know,
let's just go home.

I just watched him all the way home in the car

and you could tell he was uneasy.

So we put on a tape, tried to make him
as comfortable as possible.

♫ THE DOOBIE BROTHERS:
Listen To The Music

It was a quiet ride home, you know,

and everybody, you know, quiet but yet excited.

♪ Don't you feel it growin', day by day

♪ People gettin' ready for the news

I couldn't keep the smile off my face
at that point in time, honestly.

I just had a grin and all the way home.

♪ Oh, oh, listen to the music

♪ Oh, oh, listen to the music

It was just a happy good feeling that...

our long lost Nicholas was home.

I had a family and even more.

I never... I never dreamed of so much.

I never dreamed to be able to
not only stay in a place where I'm loved

but actually to have a family.

When I woke up in Texas country...

.. what I saw wasn't exactly
what I expected to see.

The States for me was big city, it was
big buildings and, and people everywhere.

The first thing
when you open your eyes is official,

your name is Nicholas Patrick Barclay,

that you're born December 31st 1980,

and that every family member
is calling me Nicholas

and not "Nicholas,
but what is your real name?"

No! Nicholas.

"OK, we're going to go shopping, Nicholas."

They drove me around,

and, you know,
I knew I had to recognise something,

so...and I also knew that I couldn't
because I'd never been there before.

Hey, Kirk, how are you doin'?

We met some people that knew Nicholas
before he disappeared.

I told them I didn't remember them, there
was something but I didn't remember them.

Like I had lost my memory,
which is what I told them.

He's traumatised.

That's why he wasn't remembering anything,

because of all, all of the things
that had happened to him.

I remember a sign.

I saw Nicholas in the picture doing this
with his fingers, you know,

his, his way to say "hello", you know,

and I did it a few times with them.

When I was there. That was one of
the only things I knew what to do.

I was thinking to myself

that Nicholas Barclay could come back
at his house any day.

That was my first worry.

I was really worried about that.

I couldn't help it.
I said, "Man, what if he show up?"

What if you opened the door
and say, "Hey, I'm back."

You know.

We thought the best thing for him
was just to have a normal routine.

You get up, you eat breakfast,
you do this, you eat lunch,

you eat dinner, we'd watch a movie,
just the normal family atmosphere.

Me and him hung out.

I’d just take him for drives and talk to him
and turn up the music and stuff.

♪ I listen to the wind

♪ To the wind of my soul

He'd hang out with Codey and his friends

and after school they'd go to the park and play,

and, I mean, they would do what teenagers do.

He actually kinda started liking a girl
in the neighbourhood, Amy.

They would hang out, talk on the phone

and he'd kinda get blushy-red
when we talked about her.

The only person I hadn't met
in the Barclays' family

was, erm, Jason, his other brother,
the brother of, erm, Carey.

And finally he came to see me.

He didn't look at me like Nicholas and he
didn't pretend to look at me like Nicholas

and, er, he said good luck to me and he left.

♪ I swam upon the Devil's lake

♪ But never, never never never...

We didn't even talk about
what had happened to him over there,

because we felt, like, when the time was right
he would open up to us.

I did not receive any telephone calls
from the family

saying, you know, "Nicholas is back.

Please come over and talk to us.
We need help."

And I felt like it was imperative

that he be interviewed quickly.

So I'd agreed to meet Nicholas
at the San Antonio missing children's centre

to conduct our first interview.

I introduced myself to Nicholas
and then told him why I was there,

and that the purpose of this interview
was to get his account of his kidnapping

and for his assistance
in locating his abductors.

All I knew about Nicholas

was what I had read
on some of the missing posters.

Not that people can't change in three years,

but this person in general
did not appear to be 16.

He had a shadow of a beard, a dark beard,

that I doubt if Nicholas would have had
a shadow of a dark beard at the age of 16

since he had blond hair.

He appeared to be quite nervous

and he just seemed very uncomfortable
this entire time.

I told them that, um,
I was taken by m*llitary overseas

and I was abducted and put in a van,

then fly over to some places
that I never knew where it was.

That, er, we were kept in a room
with different kids.

They'd get chloroformed,

and, er, they wake up and they're, er...

you know, in a place
they don't know where they're at.

They were subjected by
high-ranking m*llitary to sexual abuse.

Every night all of the kids were r*ped
and molested by men.

These men were American, Mexican and European.

They broke my hands, especially
my right hand, with a baseball bat.

They kept burning him
and giving him insects to eat.

- We were tortured.
- They broke his fingers.

- His left foot was broken with a crowbar.
- I was r*ped.

They keep these kids in line
by doing m*llitary scare tactics.

We were experimented on.

They would put needles in his eyes.

Headphones on their heads screaming
and yelling, er, different languages.

Spanish kept playing over and over
and a voice kept saying, "You are not you."

If he spoke English, he was beaten.

They moved these kids around in m*llitary planes.

We never saw where we were going.

The boys' identities were changed
by either changing their hair colour,

eye colour or other ways.

They were always in uniform.

A solution was put in his eyes.

They would sell him for money for sex.

His eye colour was changed from blue
to brown by the use of this solution.

The door wasn't shut and I left by that door.

I ran in the big hallway
and there was another door.

Somehow I managed to go outside

and outside I ran, I ran, I ran

and hours after that
l, I discovered that I was in Spain.

We've got a kid here
which is about 14, 15 years old.

He doesn't have no ID.

He's no documents on him
but you can see he's very young.

And he's very scared.

She was professional
but you could see that she was horrified.

This was a horrendous interview
and when I left I was shaken by it

because it had all the horrific,
emotional side effects

that go with listening to such a story.

He knew about this type of activity.

I mean, a normal person
doesn't sit down with a story

and make up horrendous...

that's not what you lie about.

You don't go into detail about t*rture
and the murdering of children or whatever.

None of that seemed normal.

He was tortured.

I mean, he had t*rture written all...

He had a broken hand
that was never medically attended to,

he walked with a limp,

erm, he had cigarette burns down the back
of his head to the back of his ankles.

This person is either, erm,
had been the victim himself

or he was a fantastic actor

and I didn't
know which of those titles applied to him.

I let them know that I was very sorry
about what had happened

and we were going to locate
the people who had done this

and put an end to the trauma
that he had been through.

This was the last border.

It's like you...

I won. You know, the game is over.

I had passports, everybody in the family
say I am Nicholas Barclay.

Nobody was investigating me.

Nobody was suspicious that I know.

Hell, I was happy.

I was, you know...
I couldn't believe my luck.

My name is Charlie Parker.
I'm a private investigator.

Hey, how are you doin'?

Say, I want you...
I want you to do something for me.

♪ I know dark clouds are gonna gather around me

♪ I know my way'll be rough and steep

♪ Yet beautiful fields lie just before me...

I got a call back in November and, erm,
from a television producer for Hard Copy

and he said that a boy

who had been missing earlier for four years
had turned up

and he wanted me to track him down
so they could get an interview with him.

First I had to find out where his mother lived.

Found her and then we drove out to
the north of San Antonio to do the interview.

I had repeatedly asked him,
please do not contact the media.

If anything that Nicholas was telling us was true,

if any of it had any accuracy,

and if there was any m*llitary officer
possibly involved,

the last thing that we wanted it to be put

was on the front page of the newspaper
or on television

so that that abductor would know
something about our investigation.

This is Eyewitness News at 10.

He disappeared without a trace three years ago.

Tonight a San Antonio boy is back home.

Nicholas Barclay is now 16 years old.

He vanished when he was 13...

Nicholas says he was kidnapped

and taken to Spain.

He says for three years he was repeatedly
drugged, beaten and r*ped,

all part of a sex sl*ve operation
involving dozens of missing children.

Well, Bob, the FBI is not taking this case lightly...

The reason?

Somehow a 13-year-old boy from San Antonio

ended up in Spain without a passport.

June 19th 1994,
Nicholas got into a fight with his family,

so he came here to Fort Sam Houston
to play basketball.

Two young boys approached him,
they started talking.

The next thing he knew, there was a cloth
over his mouth and Nicholas passed out.

He claims his captors changed his appearance

to make him unrecognisable.

He was no longer allowed to speak English.

Did they r*pe you all every night?

Me? No.

Because they didn't r*pe me every night.

Some of them, they liked more.

Some of the kids they liked more.

They r*pe them
usually two or three times a week.

I wanted the media's attention, so that
I would make Nicholas even more real,

that people would really believe
that I'm Nicholas

and they would love me even more for that.

They set him up, put a microphone on him
and had the cameras on him

and I moved over behind a booth.

And it was almost fate.

Behind that booth was a picture

of the actual Nicholas Barclay.

And I could look at that picture
and look at him at the same time.

And as I looked at the picture, I noticed
that the boy had blue-grey-looking eyes

and this man had brown eyes.

Here was a moment where the hair
stood up on the back of your neck,

and, and er...there was
just something wrong about it.

I did what they wanted me to do.

Something was wrong. I said,
"Can you get me a picture of his ears?"

I need to get...get that.

And I had read about Scotland Yard
using that method to trace down a man,

James Earl Ray,
that had k*lled Martin Luther King.

They had caught him in Heathrow Airport
by identifying his ears.

And I knew the ears were a means of identity,
almost like fingerprints.

I put the picture in my pocket and took it...

When I got back to the office,

I put the pictures in Adobe Photoshop.

They, they were different ears.

And so I knew right away

that absolutely he was not Nicholas Barclay.

I thought I had a spy.

I thought I had real, honest to God spy.

Why else would a guy come here
and take the place of another person?

What would be his reason?

I phoned Nancy Fisher.

I said, "This guy's a fake. It's not him."

I said, "The ears don't match."

And my comment to him was,

"You need to be very careful

that you don't intrude
on the federal investigation."

People aren't used to hearing
you talk about somebody's ears

and I think she was taken back by that.
She didn't know what I was talking about.

I thought I didn't have a right to question,

you know, their statement
that this was their family member

because how, how could they be wrong?

I mean, no-one would be wrong
about something like that.

What do they want? I've already got
the fact he doesn't have the same ears.

Why would you ever, 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 Nicholas Barclay.

It was an outrageous thing.

I cannot have talked to anyone
that hasn't read about this

that has said, "Wait a minute.
I know my own kid. I know my own son.

I can look in his eyes and tell..."

It's like when you go to a class reunion

and you see the kids
you went to school with in 19...

♫ DAVID BOWIE:
Queen Bitch

It really began for me, the American dream,
when I took that big yellow bus

to go to school
with others, with other students.

♪ I'm up on the 11th floor
and I'm watching the cruisers below

How many French adults
go to American schools for kids,

into a yellow bus...

♪ My heart's in the basement

♪ My weekend's at an all-time low

That was impossible. You could do that
in a movie, you could do that in a...

but you can't do that for real.

♪ Letting him go

♪ Walk out of her heart

♪ Walk out of her mind...

I finally succeeded to become a kid again,
officially, with a passport,

to have a second chance,

to be able this time to go to school
and to succeed this time.

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ She's an old-time ambassador

♪ Of sweet-talking, night-walking games

Well, he started back to high school.

I really was worried.

I didn't know what he was going to do.

This was a case. I mean, a real case.

This guy was lying about who he said he was

and here the family was accepting him.

I expected him any day to blow up
something at the airbase

or do something at the army base.

I was pulling teeth trying to determine
who had kidnapped Nicholas,

when and where and under what circumstances.

I had almost no information

because all the information he gave us
was very, very general.

He couldn't give names, he couldn't give places,

he couldn't give times,
he couldn't give anything.

The family was told that the reason
we were taking Nicholas to Houston

was because he'd been through trauma.

So he deserved to see a forensic expert
to deal with the trauma.

Initially I thought that this was
going to be a forensic interview,

er, with the intent of finding out
more information

about the people who abducted him.

Here was this pale white kid
and I introduced myself

and, as he spoke back, immediately my...

Something in me just said, this is not right,

there's something wrong here.

I speak with him for a long time.

He asked me to repeat all the stories
I'd been telling everybody.

I remember people grabbing me
and putting me in the van.

I went to sleep and I woke up in a room.
There was other kids...

I didn't see the same physiological change

in his body posture,
in his pupil size, in his heart rate,

that I would normally see

with somebody who's talking about
a traumatic experience.

He couldn't speak English without an accent.

That told me about the development of his brain,
and the development of language.

You just cannot be raised for
the first six, seven years of your life

in an English-speaking home

and later on, you know, eight, nine years later,

even 10 years later,

not be able to speak English without an accent.

I can guarantee you that this kid was
not raised in an English-speaking family.

You know, I don't know who he is
but the person who was...I was interviewing

could not have been Nicholas Barclay.

OK, the worst scenario
just showed up and I don't like that.

This investigation did a 90 degree.

It just went from one, one place
all the way up to another.

I immediately called Carey Gibson
and I said to her,

"Carey, Dr Perry has just stated
that this person cannot be your brother,

for the fact that he cannot be an American.

This could be a very dangerous person."

She shrieked or screamed
and said, "Oh, my gosh!"

So I said, "Don't be at the airport," you know.

"I'll handle it. I will take care of this individual"

and that she did not have to take him home,

you know, back to her home to live with them

and she says, "OK, OK."

We fly back into San Antonio
and there's Carey standing there.

What?

She acted like we'd never had that conversation.

And she acted excited to see him,
asked him how his trip was.

I think I just stared for a minute...

And I called the US Attorneys' Office
right then and there

and I said, "What do I do?"

And the Assistant US Attorney said,
"Let him return to her temporarily."

She welcomed this person home
just like he was her brother.

I didn't have any clue
as to why she behaved in this manner.

Because in my conversation with her,

I had said,
"This person is not your brother."

I don't think... I don't remember her
putting it in those words.

Well, maybe they wanted him so badly
to be their son

that they said he was their son,

but it was starting to get ridiculous.

I couldn't let it go. There was no way
in the world I could let it go.

I started going into the neighbourhood,

and finding out about the real Nicholas Barclay,

interviewing the neighbours,

trying to find out what I could about that boy

and about that family.

And what's going on?

You know, why would Nicholas have left?

The police used to usually come

maybe like twice or three times a month.

Either it was argument with the kids

or with their boyfriend or with the other son.

I spoke to everyone and they all said
that Nicholas had caused trouble,

had come home late at night.

We've all had arguments in our family,

but it's rare that we call the police,

that it is so bad that they have to come.

It, it made me think
there was something going on,

more than meets the eye. Of course it did.

I knew that DNA samples would prove
that he wasn't Nicholas Barclay.

Mrs Dollarhide said, "This is my son.

I don't have to provide blood samples
for you for DNA

and she laid down on the floor,

literally laid down on the floor,

and said, "No, and you can't pick me up,
and you can't make me."

I did not want to go anywhere with the FBI,
but I don't remember refusing.

I was stunned.
I've never had that reaction before.

She wasn't just apathetic, she was hostile.

To be honest with you, I really have
no idea what I was thinking at that time.

My main goal in life was not, not to think.

We didn't need to prove who he was.
We knew who he was.

I no longer saw them as a grieving erm...
victimised family.

I saw them as a very questionable family.

There would be no reason for them
to accept a stranger into their lives...

..unless there was something to hide.

That would be the only reason.

Something was being hidden
and I didn't know what that was.

When Beverly refused to give her blood sample,

I started to become suspicious.

They knew that I wasn't Nicholas.

Whatever I was telling them,

they didn't believe a word of it.

But they were good at not showing it.

I mean, who wouldn't see it?

That's about four, five years ago now.

I remember in Spain,
Carey did everything for me.

When I didn't know something, she told me.

"You forgot everything
but you're going to remember it now

and, you know, this was Mom at the place
we're living in with... Do you remember?

Oh, this was Chantelle. You remember
Chantelle. That's your niece, my daughter.

Do you remember that? Do you
remember that? Do you remember that?"

Over and over and over again.

That's Jason.

She wanted to put it in my head.

She wanted to put it in my head
so I would never forget.

She just could not say it's not Nicholas.

Did she believe it or not?

If you asked me, I would say,

no, not for a second
did she believe I was her brother.

She decided I was gonna be her brother.

It's like I woke up in a place where...

Lies even bigger than what I did.

You know, it's...

they pretended as much as I did and even more.

I kept thinking about the kid, Nicholas Barclay.

At the time of his disappearance,

he was living with Beverly
in the house on Swallow Street

and his brother Jason was also living there.

Jason, Nick's older brother,

when he moved into their house,

that house changed,

because before he got there,

Nick and his mom

seemed pretty close to me.

She loved him to death.

I mean, she loved him, you could tell...
She, she... He was the light of her life.

This guy moved in, he was a bum, a drug addict

and he only cared about himself.

And when he got into that house,
it just made things that much more worse.

In fact, I think it even pushed his mom
into doing dr*gs herself

when he moved into the house.

That house just became
a volatile situation altogether.

I discovered from the police files,

a couple of months after the disappearance,

that Jason had called the police

and said that his brother
had tried to break into the house.

Well, we see that kind of thing all the time.

People, people
are constantly doing stuff like that

to make people think that person's alive.

I started to put two and two together

and I thought something happened
inside that house to that boy.

I didn't need to be Columbo
to put all the pieces together.

They k*lled him.

Some of them did it, some of them knew of it,
and some of them chose to ignore it.

I wasn't worried about
Nicholas coming back no more.

Neither Nicholas Barclay
or his mother were cooperating,

so we were going to have to have
a search warrant ex*cuted

in order to obtain those blood samples.

I couldn't pretend no more to be Nicholas
and act like Nicholas.

I took two or three other agents with me
to go pick him up.

So inside me, I started getting,
you know, more and more aggressive,

weird.

I couldn't go on.

We got the fingerprints
and we got the palm prints.

Within a few weeks, we would be sending
them out to Interpol, to the embassies,

to see if any of these fingerprints

matched anything that they had on record.

I was trying to find a way out,

not only a way out in San Antonio, Texas,

but a way out, out of my mind.

Nicholas was becoming
much more agitated and angry

and I really felt like he was going to run away

and if he ran away we might have
a very hard time locating him.

I started tailing him, I started following him.

I started sitting up on Beverly's place
where she lived

and writing down licence numbers of
all the cars that came to her, to see her.

So I took a razor blade and I slit my face.

Everything was snowballing
and snowballing and snowballing.

I show them, show them that

I was under a great deal of pressure.

On March 3rd of 1998,

the legate in Madrid, Spain, called me

and he said, "We've just identified him."

And I said, "You're kidding?"

I knew that everything was going down
and it was just a matter of weeks.

He said, "What I'm gonna do right now
is fax to you the records that I have."

He agreed to meet with me.

We ordered hot cakes.

And we started to eat.

And he said...

I said,
"You really made your mother angry."

And he said,
"She's not my mother and you know it."

And I thought, well, I'II be damned.

And so I stood over the fax machine,

waiting for, of course, them to come in

because I was screaming and jumping up and down.

I actually said, "Well, I'll be damned,

you're going to finally tell me
who you are."

I was like doing a dance
and everybody was high-fiving.

It was like, you know, we finally,
we finally know who this person is.

And my heart was b*ating fast,
just like it is now thinking about it.

And... And I said, "Who are you?"

He said, "I'm Frederic Bourdin
and I'm wanted by Interpol."

The fingerprint cards told me

that he was not 16, he was 23.

That he was not American, he was French.

That he was not Nicholas Barclay,
he was Frederic Bourdin.

We grow up in America thinking Interpol

is kind of the God of the cops.
You follow me?

That's the highest step you can get
in "Copland".

And so I thought, Jesus Christ,

if he's wanted by Interpol,
what has he done? You know.

There is no limit to what he's done.

So he began to tell me.

Frederic Bourdin is delinquent.

Activities and modus operandi...

He has travelled throughout Europe

appearing at shelters for minors

under different aliases.

Spain, 1992.

Spain, September 1993.

Barcelona...

.. stated that he'd run away
from his adoptive parents' house.

Brussels, '95.

Pyrenees...

Milan, 1993.

Glasgow.

I sat there. I could hardly eat,
I could hardly swallow my food.

He always wore glasses.

Giovanni Petrullo.

Michelangelo Martini.

Donovan MacNeph.

- Peter Samson.
- William Thomas.

Jimmy Sale.

Peter Robin.

James Markey.

Frederic Cassis.

'93.

Hernandez Fernandez.

'95.

Edgar Guteyere.

'97.

Spain, 1997.

It's possible he may need psychiatric help.

Settle in tonight

because we are about to share with you

a story so bizarre,

it's hard to believe it's true.

This is the tale of a master imposter

who managed to lie his way
into the United States

and prey upon the most vulnerable of people.

He is the only person in US history

ever to have assumed
the identity of a missing child.

He fooled even the lost boy's mother.

It's hard to imagine
how he could have gotten away with it.

We knew it was going to be,
you know, heart-wrenching and...

you know...

but we never thought it wouldn't be him.

You know, why would you even think that?

The first feeling was complete sadness.

Because it wasn't Nicholas.

Which took us back to square one.

Where is Nicholas?

That was the first one.

The second emotion was,

how could I be so f*cking stupid?

I mean, seriously.

I contacted the SAPD,
the San Antonio Police Department,

and told them, decided to tell them,
that, hey, they k*lled him.

Based upon Frederic Bourdin's allegations,

a homicide investigation was opened

and the allegation
was against the family members

as being...participating in
the disappearance of the child.

It was related to us
that while Frederic was in jail

that he said that my mom confessed to him

that her and Jason
k*lled Nicholas and hid the body.

They accused me first

and it totally freaked me out.

Because I, I...have been crazy
but never violent.

This is the street the kid lived on
when he went missing.

There's the house right there.

I think the boy's buried here.

I want to talk to Darryl inside.

He's agreed to let me dig
and see if Nicholas Barclay's here.

If Beverly knew that this individual
was not her son,

then she had to have
some type of ulterior motive

and it had to be something very scary

for her to accept a stranger into her household

posing as her own son.

I agreed to take a lie detector test.

She passed the polygraph.

And I said to the polygraph examiner,

"I don't understand this,

I don't understand it at all.
Will you give it to her again?"

So he gave it to her again
and she passed the polygraph.

I said, "No, there is something wrong."

The third time he gave it to her,

she flunked every question.

I mean, like, big-time.

The polygrapher said the machine
practically jumped off the table.

Her answers appeared to be false on everything.

And he turned to her and he said,

"Mrs Dollarhide, it appears
that you know where your son is.

It appears that you know what happened
to him" and some other questions.

And that's when she became
very aggravated, very agitated,

jumped up and ran out and was screaming.

I lied about being...stealing,

and I had...so that's why I failed.

I didn't lie about anything to do with Nicholas.

It was the other questions.

- Darryl? Charlie Parker.
- Mr Parker.

How are you doin'?

It's nice in here.

So this is the house, huh?

Yes, sir.

The polygraph led us to believe
that she did have some information...

..she could provide that she refused to
and we felt like Jason had information.

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,

but...I don't know.

I know my brother or my mother did not
k*ll Nicholas, accidentally, on purpose.

Whatever Frederic said, it never happened.

When we first got my dog, he was always
digging in the back corner over there

where the, the tree is.

And one day I was mowing
and saw, like, pieces of, like, plastic,

- kind of like a tarp kind of material...
- OK.

..sticking out of the ground.
I tried to pull it up to get it out,

and it just kept ripping on me
as it was stuck in the ground.

So I never paid any attention to it
or gave it any thought,

until last night when we were speaking
on the phone.

And the bush has been there a while?

I had initially tried to get a hold of
Jason prior to Frederic's arrest

and couldn't.

And then when I finally did get a hold of him,

I asked him
about the disappearance of his brother.

He just seemed totally apathetic about
the disappearance of his younger brother.

Extremely apathetic.

And didn't care that he'd been returned

but when he did see him,

no, that wasn't his brother,

but he didn't seem interested enough
or excited enough

to tell his mother and sister,
"That's not my brother.

No, no, they just wanted to believe."

Yeah, it's a good spot. Let's see.

Say he dumps him here first...

..and then, if he looks up,

yeah, yeah, this is good, this is good.

He was very hostile, refused to help in any way,

and then he later left
the drug rehabilitation centre

and was found having d*ed from a drug overdose.

I think that Jason became a perfect scapegoat
because he's not here.

He d*ed,

so he can't be questioned
or, you know, anything.

I mean, he can't, he can't even defend himself.

It's kinda like a nightmare.

AII this stuff is coming at you and none
of it's true but nobody believes you.

Or they think that you had
something to do with it.

And it's like getting in trouble
for something you didn't do.

You know, when kids tell you,
"I didn't do it!"

You're going, "Yeah, right."

But I didn't do it.

I do feel like the family knows
the whereabouts of Nicholas Barclay.

I think that Beverly Dollarhide
and Jason Dollarhide knew at one time

what happened to Nicholas Barclay.

Show me one piece of evidence,

show me one thing that will lock
anybody in our family up over this,

just one shred of actual proof.

Back here. Let's go back here.

The biggest, funniest one to me, hilarious,

is that we went and picked up
a complete stranger

to hide the fact that we k*lled Nicholas

or someone in my family k*lled Nicholas.

When through four years
that Nicholas was disappeared,

we were the only ones looking for him.

Why would we go pick up a stranger to hide
something that didn't need to be hidden?

Just another one of his lies.

Even from behind bars,

he continued to lie to families
of other missing children.

From this phone in his cell,

Bourdin made hundreds of collect calls

claiming to have information
about lost children.

He even said he could help solve

the highly publicised case of Sabrina Aisenberg,

an infant who was taken from her home
in Tampa, Florida, last year.

No.

Yes.

He's a habitual liar

and it blows my mind

that anybody can take anything
that is said out of his mouth as truth.

What? This kid comes
and says he's Nicholas,

and then turns around and says,

"You...these people
that took care of me k*lled him."

Hm.
How do you come up with that conclusion?

He put us through enough already

and then for him to do this
while he's in jail for what he's done

and to cause more pain to our family?

f*ck him.

♫ 16 HORSEPOWER:
Wayfaring Stranger

I didn't give a damn what other people
were thinking, or what they were feeling.

I care about myself, just about myself...

..and f*ck the rest of it.

♪ I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

♪ Travellin' through a world of woe

♪ Ain't no sickness, toil or danger

♪ In that bright land to which I go

♪ I'm goin' there to see my father

♪ Said he'd meet me when I come
- (Digging)

♪ I'm only goin' over Jordan
- (Digging)

♪ I'm only goin' over home

♪ I know dark clouds are gonna gather around me

♪ I know my way'll be rough and steep

♪ Yet beautiful fields lie just before me

♪ Where God's redeemed their vigils keep

♪ I'm goin' there to see my loved ones

♪ Gone before me one by one

♪ I'm only goin' over Jordan

♪ I'm only goin' over home

♪ I'll soon be free from earthly trials

♪ This body rest in the old churchyard

♪ I'll drop this cross of self-denial

♪ And go singing home to God

♪ I'm goin' there to see my saviour

♪ To dwell with Him, no more to roam

♪ I'm only goin' over Jordan

♪ I'm only goin' over home

♪ I'm only goin' over home

♫ JIMMY DRIFTWOOD:
He Had A Long Chain On

♪ One night as I lay on my pillow

♪ Moonlight as bright as the dawn

♪ I saw a man a-walkin'

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ I heard his chain a-clankin'

♪ It made a mournful sound

♪ Welded around his body

♪ Dragging along on the ground

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He stood beside my window

♪ He looked at me and he said

♪ "I am so tired and hungry

♪ Give me a bite of your bread"

♪ He didn't look like a robber

♪ He didn't look like a thief

♪ His voice was as soft as the moonlight

♪ His face full of sorrow and grief

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on

♪ He had a long chain on