0:21

Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, a

0:23

podcast where we choose a subject, read

0:25

a single article about it on Wikipedia, and

0:27

pretend we're experts. because this is the

0:29

Internet. That's how it works now.

0:31

I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be

0:33

setting the tone this evening, but I'll

0:35

need some standout talent to help

0:37

me do it. First up, two men

0:39

head and shoulders above the rest,

0:41

Noah and Heath. The only scenario where

0:43

I can imagine that would be

0:45

true is very not safe for work.

0:47

Chicken fight! Somebody said chicken

0:49

fight. Exactly. And

0:52

also joining us tonight, Shy

0:54

Town's Leash Chi, Tom and

0:56

Cecil. Chicago, a beautiful city.

0:58

Come flick our beans. We're

1:00

only shy until you park where we had

1:03

set our cone after we shoveled the street. Before

1:06

we begin tonight, I'd like to take a second

1:08

to thank our patrons. Patrons, without the folks

1:10

who give us money over at patreon.com

1:12

slash citation pod, we could blend into the

1:14

ocean of white guys laughing at their

1:16

own jokes. But thanks to you, we're

1:18

well -funded white guys laughing at our own jokes.

1:21

And if you'd like to

1:23

learn to join their fund,

1:25

we could be better funded. Thank

1:30

you. And doubt.

1:33

If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around

1:35

till the end of the show. Tell

1:42

us Noah what person place thing concept

1:44

phenomenon or event we'll be talking about

1:46

today after we're done talking about a

1:48

he's good sized endowment We're gonna talk

1:50

about the chameleon Mm -hmm, and Tom.

1:52

I thought we were gonna say all

1:54

right. We're just going straight into it. fine

1:57

And Tom you're an essay

2:00

about a person who leaves somebody say something

2:02

and it's And

2:04

Tom You wrote an essay about a

2:07

person who leaves their life behind

2:09

and escapes their very sense of self.

2:11

Does it have anything to do

2:14

with you having to shock yourself awake by any chance?

2:17

I think everything does, Eli. At this

2:19

point, everything. That's fair. So tell

2:21

us, Tom, what do you

2:23

stare at the ceiling thinking about while everyone

2:25

else in your house is asleep? Well,

2:30

there are a few times in our lives

2:32

that we get to sort of... ourselves. One

2:34

of the liberating things about starting

2:36

college or moving to a new area

2:38

is the opportunity to shed old

2:40

baggage and expectations and show to the

2:43

world a version of ourselves unencumbered

2:45

by the ghosts. of our own

2:47

pasts. These moments challenge the idea

2:49

that who we are is a

2:51

linear narrative and that the self

2:53

is a constant rather than an

2:55

intentional construction defined by a sort

2:57

of symbiotic collaboration between us and

2:59

our interactions the time. Symbiotic collaboration.

3:01

Are you doing a rough one?

3:03

What the fuck is this? This

3:05

is a fucking pitch book? What

3:07

is happening here? This is part

3:09

of my next Atlantic article, okay?

3:11

I think this is about fishing.

3:14

Yeah. These opportunities to

3:16

reinvent and redefine the self usually

3:18

mean taking on a new style

3:20

of dress. Show me your chameleon

3:22

tits. I like that

3:24

we have one section of the

3:26

show where we've agreed we

3:29

can heckle. It's nice. That

3:31

first paragraph. I'm sorry. I'm

3:34

in it. I'm in it. Me and

3:36

Caesar are like fucking what? Write

3:41

about spaceless. Write

3:45

Dumber. I don't know what know to tell you. These

3:50

opportunities to reinvent and redefine the self

3:52

usually mean taking on a new

3:54

style of dress or embodying a newfound

3:56

confidence or some other adjustment or

3:58

enhancement of the prior self. Very

4:01

rarely does this manifest in, for

4:03

example, a grown -ass man taking on

4:06

the identity of a missing child an

4:08

ocean away from his own home

4:10

in a desperate gambit just to be

4:12

loved. And it is definitely rare

4:14

that the same guy tries the same

4:16

thing over and over again in

4:18

country after country. The story is fucking

4:20

amazing. But for

4:22

Frederick Pierre Bourdain, the need to

4:25

be anyone but himself was

4:27

taken to the extreme. Okay,

4:29

I know he's going to be a different age,

4:31

but I am picturing a 45 -year -old guy

4:33

walking up to a house in Victorian short pants

4:35

with a big lollipop and being like, mama,

4:38

papa, I pretend. I

4:40

genuinely think that's what he was picturing, too,

4:42

Eli. Yeah, the story's going to get really

4:44

close to what Eli just said, actually. It's

4:46

very close to that. I wrote that joke

4:48

before I read the essay. Yep, sure did.

4:51

We can tell. Born

4:53

June 13, 1974. Date, I'm

4:55

going to need you to

4:57

remember. No. All right. Frederick

5:01

Pierre Bourdain first came to

5:03

be in Nanterre, France, born to

5:05

18 year old Jelaine Bourdain,

5:08

a troubled young margarine factory worker.

5:10

That butter work was outstanding. He

5:13

had it down. You

5:15

just have to

5:17

stick to it. Jelaine

5:22

claimed that the father was her

5:24

25 year old co -worker, Casey. Unfortunately,

5:27

it was less a buttery love story

5:29

and more I can't believe he's not

5:31

single. Since Casey was, alas,

5:33

already married, a fact he

5:35

failed to disclose to the loved

5:37

Lauren Jelaine. Jelaine

5:39

was left to raise Frederica Lone, which is

5:41

of course a hell of a lot

5:44

of work, and a hell of a lot

5:46

harder if you're still very nearly a

5:48

child yourself, and even more difficult if it

5:50

is 1974 in France, where single teenage

5:52

mothers were, try to restrain

5:54

your shock. not particularly well

5:56

treated socially. Jelaine coped

5:58

with these challenges by drinking, partying,

6:00

and neglecting young Frederick. Until

6:03

at the age of three, Frederick's grandparents

6:05

went to court to gain custody

6:07

of the boy, and the grandparents quickly

6:09

put three hours of distance between

6:11

themselves and Jelaine. Are

6:14

you Frederick Pierre Bourdain's

6:16

final transformation? Did

6:18

you want us to remember June

6:20

13th because it's your birthday? No.

6:27

Is it St. Patty's? Shut up. Got

6:30

my lollipop. Or as I might say, no. But

6:36

that didn't mean that Frederick never

6:38

got to see his mom. They

6:40

did have occasional visits together, though.

6:43

One would be hard -pressed to

6:45

describe them as particularly heartwarming. According

6:47

to Frederick, his mom got a kick out

6:49

of scaring him by pretending to be very

6:51

ill and getting her son worked up and

6:53

worried. A claim Jelaine denied, though

6:55

she did admit to attempting

6:58

actual suicide in front of Frederick.

7:01

You know, so she's a fun lady. Second

7:03

worst Jelaine I've heard of. Now,

7:08

as you might imagine, Frederick was

7:10

beginning to show some issues. Being

7:13

a person is already hard

7:15

and navigating adolescents often particularly so

7:17

but when you are growing

7:19

up raised by your grandparents because

7:21

your dad was a married

7:23

man who slept with your teen

7:25

alcoholic mom who cosplays dying

7:27

with you as a funny prank

7:30

it is more so. What

7:32

Frederick figured out though was that

7:34

he could lie. He could just

7:36

tell people whatever shit he wanted about

7:38

his family because No one ever checks

7:40

resumes or calls. Do you remember that

7:43

moment when you realized you could just

7:45

say whatever and people might believe you?

7:47

It's so. Still living

7:49

it. Still living it. Bevelton better

7:51

and better every day. So much easier.

7:53

What was your first big lie?

7:55

Do you remember it? You remember that moment? Probably

7:58

like, I love you too. Same

8:05

girl. So. Frederick

8:07

invented a story about his father's

8:09

career as a spy, and

8:11

he used this as a cover for why dad

8:13

was never around, and the story worked among his peers,

8:16

giving Frederick not just relief, but

8:18

a tool he could use. And

8:20

soon, creating fictional stories about his

8:22

life became compulsive, making it incredibly hard

8:24

for adults in his life to

8:27

know when he was crying wolf or

8:29

being honest. Quickly growing into

8:31

a rebellious teenager made it even harder

8:33

to tell when the boy was being

8:35

truthful and his credibility was so shredded

8:37

that when he told his grandparents that

8:39

their neighbor had molested him, nothing was

8:41

investigated. As soon there was

8:43

also neighborhood thefts that Frederick was involved

8:45

in as well and Frederick's grandparents took

8:47

a page from the family playbook and

8:49

they abandoned him to a juvenile facility

8:51

in an attempt to set him straight.

8:53

Should we be surprised that the French

8:55

are giving up on him so early?

8:59

But I bet abandoning him to

9:01

an institution of disciplinarians worked great

9:03

though, huh? Yeah, right. Frederick

9:06

was less than thrilled with becoming

9:08

a ward of the state. And

9:11

soon after relocating to the

9:13

juvenile institution, he began seeking out

9:15

and setting up elaborate traps

9:17

to trick adults into sympathizing with

9:19

him. Laying out in the

9:21

street, he would pretend to have been

9:23

hurt or have amnesia, coaxing passerby into

9:26

taking him in. And his rescuers would

9:28

see the helpless child and sweep him

9:30

up into the warmth and protection of

9:32

hospitals and shelters and police stations, where

9:34

Frederick would keep up the ruse for

9:36

as long as he could, reveling

9:38

in the care and attention of

9:40

absolutely anyone who would care for him.

9:43

Okay, I mean, I love an

9:45

elaborate sympathy trap, but that's like my

9:47

sexual style. But you're making it

9:49

harder than it has to be, Freddie.

9:51

Like the truth is a simple

9:53

sympathy trap for you. You could

9:55

just use that. Now, in

9:57

1990, at the age of 16, he

9:59

was relocated to another youth home, but quickly

10:01

decided he wanted out. And he had

10:03

shiked all the way to Paris and lived

10:05

and begged on the streets until an idea

10:07

occurred to him. He could

10:09

take his amnesia act to a

10:11

new level. He could lie himself

10:13

into a whole new life. Quote,

10:16

I dreamed they would send me

10:18

to England. where I always imagined

10:20

life was more beautiful," he later

10:22

told journalists. And

10:24

just hearing anyone describe England

10:26

as more beautiful than Paris

10:28

should be a clue as

10:30

to how bedrock deep Frederick's

10:33

delusions ran. The delicious cuisine,

10:35

the sunny weather, the

10:37

welcome embrace they offered

10:39

outsiders England's got at all.

10:44

Inventing a character he called Jimmy Sale.

10:46

He approached Paris police officials and

10:48

attempted to convince them that he was

10:50

a missing child, separated from his

10:52

family in England. One

10:54

glaring flaw in the story, he

10:57

could not speak English, something

10:59

the English are pretty well known

11:01

for. I don't

11:03

know, Tom. I once

11:05

heard a British guy pronounce hotter in

11:07

a way that had no consonants. His

11:14

clever gambit had failed, and he was

11:16

swiftly returned to the youth home he

11:18

had fled from. He'd escaped

11:20

severe punishment due to his age,

11:22

but this pattern of deception, specifically the

11:24

impersonation of missing children, would continue

11:26

for most of his life. In

11:32

1997, he made

11:34

his way to

11:36

Spain following a

11:38

series of failed

11:40

impersonations, but... for

11:43

Frederick. Spain had far

11:45

stricter views on legal documentation than

11:47

he had previously encountered up until

11:49

this point. Remember, Frederick had

11:51

been pulling this shit for a

11:53

long time and he wasn't getting

11:55

away with it. He got

11:57

caught each time but he was a kid

11:59

and kids get away with all kinds

12:01

of shit because kids are expected to do

12:03

stupid shit because their brains are made

12:06

of incomplete garbage jelly. Don't worry listeners, Tom's

12:08

kids don't listen to this shit. They

12:11

do, but they have brains made of

12:13

incomplete garbage. They can't.

12:15

When Frederick was caught impersonating

12:17

another imaginary missing kid this

12:19

time, the Spanish authorities were

12:22

less than amused. And Frederick

12:24

quickly realized he was about

12:26

to be fingerprinted, which would,

12:28

he understood, be disastrous for

12:30

his scams. Frederick was going

12:32

to need to think fast, which

12:34

he was, it turns out, both

12:37

really good at and really fucking bad

12:39

at. He starts to gnaw on

12:41

off his fingers. Fuck,

12:45

they still look French. Frederick

12:50

knew that if he was going to fool

12:52

the authorities, he was going to need to

12:54

act quickly to set up an identity he

12:56

could simultaneously lay claim to and which would

12:58

get him the hell out of Spain. So

13:01

Freddie told the authorities that he was

13:03

an American boy who had run away

13:05

and he insisted on contacting his family

13:07

himself. so he could gain access to

13:09

a telephone, and he also insisted on

13:12

some privacy. Sorry, okay. He

13:14

told the Spanish cops that he

13:16

was a fugitive American kid.

13:18

Yeah. And that he needed a

13:20

private conference room. Yeah. He

13:22

told them that in French. And

13:24

they said yes. They

13:27

probably said see. Yeah. What

13:31

is happening? So

13:34

soon as he was alone, Frederick began

13:36

secretly making calls to the police in

13:38

the United States and he was posing

13:40

as a Spanish official. Fishing

13:43

for leads Frederick contacted agencies

13:45

across America reporting that there was

13:47

a boy from the States

13:49

that they couldn't identify and asking

13:51

if they had anyone matching

13:53

his own description. Now,

13:55

matching is a strong word though,

13:57

big pin in that for later.

14:00

And fairly quickly, landed on the

14:02

profile of Nicholas Barclay, who had

14:04

gone missing at 13 in 1994

14:06

from San Antonio, Texas. And

14:08

for the first time, Frederick Bordeon

14:11

didn't just create a new

14:13

life for himself. He

14:15

stole. Hello, is this

14:17

a police? Who am I? Well,

14:19

I was hoping you could answer that actually.

14:23

So after establishing that this was the

14:26

identity he planned to steal but didn't

14:28

still had to prove it to the

14:30

Spanish authorities. So he convinced

14:32

the center for missing and exploited

14:34

children to send him a

14:36

fax with a photo of Nicholas

14:38

Barclay. And there were definitely

14:40

going to be some challenges. So

14:43

one challenge, for example, was

14:45

that Nicholas Barclay and Frederic looked

14:47

pretty much nothing at all

14:49

alike. They did not have the

14:51

same eye color. for instance,

14:53

or the same hair color. And

14:55

Nicholas had tattoos, which I

14:57

do not understand because he went

14:59

missing at 13. But that's

15:01

what the article said. Texas. Sure.

15:05

And also, Frederic

15:07

was seven years older

15:09

than the missing boy. What?

15:12

I didn't do nearly enough absurd lying when

15:14

I went to Spain. I could write

15:16

so many weird things. I've said that, I've

15:18

said that about you. He explained in

15:20

French that he's Nick from Texas and he

15:22

needs to use the fax machine. It's

15:27

also 1997. What the

15:29

fuck does a 13 year old have

15:31

a tattoo of Johnny Bravo? Like what the

15:33

fuck? Now back at

15:35

the shelter while the authorities tried to work

15:37

out the veracity of this insane story. Frederick

15:40

said about his transformation. He bleached

15:42

his hair, he had a girl

15:44

in the shelter replicate the described

15:46

tattoos, and he said about concocting

15:48

a story about having been kidnapped

15:50

and sold into sex trafficking. Oh,

15:53

and those sex trafficking kidnappers

15:55

had also injected his eyes with

15:57

permanent eye color changing eyeball

15:59

dye, which is totally real and

16:02

not something he just made

16:04

up. Was he any traffic by

16:06

low pan from Big Trouble

16:08

in Little China? Sorry, sorry, only

16:10

green eyed victims of kidnapping,

16:12

please send the rest back. The

16:16

kidnapped sex trafficked kid

16:18

story was not particularly plausible,

16:20

but it did elicit

16:22

deep empathy and concern. And

16:24

so everybody just immediately

16:26

switched from being dubious to

16:28

being generous and sympathetic. And

16:30

all the weird peculiarities and oddities

16:32

in Frederick's mannerisms and behaviors were

16:35

now perfectly explicable as being the

16:37

result of the, you know, adrenochrome

16:39

harvesting program he had supposedly been

16:41

abducted into. You get that kid

16:43

near a pizza parlor basement, he

16:45

just starts shaking. Now,

16:49

of course, when a US citizen

16:51

and Texas native and a child no

16:53

less has been kidnapped, sold into

16:55

sex slavery, and after having been missing

16:57

for years, they resurface, there is

17:00

going to be some attention paid. Are

17:02

we sure it's not Jelaine Maxwell? No,

17:05

I don't think we should be sure of that at all. Now,

17:08

Borden was informed that the US Embassy

17:10

was on the way to meet him,

17:12

along with his sister, Carrie, who is

17:14

coming to collect him and bring him

17:16

home to their mother, Beverly, in Texas.

17:19

Now, Frederick knew that this was

17:21

the most dangerous part of the

17:23

con, since he knew nothing whatsoever

17:25

about his supposed family. Or

17:27

Texas. Or America. In

17:29

any sane world, this would be the

17:31

part of the story where the sister meets

17:33

the fraud in real life, and the

17:35

whole thing blows up in his stupid lying

17:37

face. We do not, however,

17:39

live in a sane world. I would give you

17:41

that idea. Filled

17:46

with anxiety about trying to act like someone

17:48

he did not know, he waited for everything

17:50

to fall apart around him. Frederick was convinced

17:52

that there was no way he was going

17:54

to be able to pull this next part

17:56

of the scam off. Surely

17:58

the sister of the missing

18:00

boy would see right through

18:02

him. But instead, Carrie

18:04

greeted Frederick warmly and professed

18:06

to seeing similarities in him to

18:08

her uncle, and she declared

18:10

herself convinced. But it's

18:12

the next part of the story.

18:14

that really enabled Frederick to continue. All

18:17

right. Well, turns out Texans have

18:19

an any old missing kid policy, which

18:21

is good news for Frederick. So

18:23

while he mops his brow, we'll take

18:26

a quick break for some apropos

18:28

of nothing. Hey

18:43

chief you got a second of

18:45

course Johnson come on in So

18:47

I got some concerns about the

18:49

Barclay case terrible stuff terrible to

18:51

talk to me Right, so so

18:54

this kid a lot of his

18:56

story doesn't add up. How did

18:58

he get to Spain them sex

19:00

trafficking bastards, right? sex

19:02

traffickers who Changed his eye color. Yes.

19:04

Yeah. All right. Now. I need to

19:06

look into that there there could be

19:08

others who've had that same thing done

19:10

now Could there be cuz I I

19:12

haven't heard about that anywhere. Well, the

19:15

eye ink? Right. Also,

19:17

he's missing a lot of details in

19:19

the Barkley kid's life. He

19:22

couldn't tell us about the tattoos. He

19:24

has, like, literally on his own body,

19:26

and he, I mean, he sounds French. Now,

19:28

Johnson, I like that you're skeptical, but

19:30

you have to understand that when that kid's been through

19:32

as much as this kid has, well, I

19:34

mean, it changes you. You

19:37

think he's been molested so bad

19:39

that now he's French? I do.

19:43

Okay, I'll call

19:45

his family

19:47

or kid right

19:49

right All

19:52

right when we

19:54

left off

19:56

Frederick had talked

19:58

himself into

20:00

a sweet new

20:02

gig as

20:04

a teenager in

20:06

Texas in

20:09

the 90s so

20:12

How was he at Battletoads,

20:14

Tom? Bad. Bad. Everybody

20:16

was bad at Battletoads. Jesus. In

20:19

a bid to reconnect her missing brother

20:21

to his family, Carrie eagerly showed Frederick

20:23

dozens of family photos. And she tried

20:25

to catch him up on what he

20:27

had missed and they reminisced about the

20:29

past. Unknowingly, she

20:31

provided him with the ammunition needed to

20:33

convince the embassy of his new

20:35

identity. See, the embassy insisted on a

20:37

test. before he would be released

20:39

and handed over to the custody of

20:41

Kerry and subsequently sent to the

20:43

United States. What they wanted was for

20:46

Frederick to identify and name members

20:48

of his supposed family from photos. A

20:50

task that he handled with ease, since

20:52

Kerry had just spent hours essentially helping him

20:55

cram for the test. Sorry,

21:05

they went with an oral version of

21:07

a DNA test instead of just a

21:09

DNA test? Now the

21:11

Ruse had taken on a life of

21:13

its own and soon Frederick was flying

21:15

to Texas, a place he had never

21:17

been. With Cary, a sister that was

21:19

not his sister that he had just

21:22

met. Frederick was unsure how long

21:24

any of this con could last. It

21:26

was so insane that he was pulling this

21:28

off that even he couldn't believe that

21:30

he wasn't getting caught. Holy shit, I have

21:32

almost rid of this pesky health care

21:34

which my country has had since the year

21:36

I was born. USA.

21:41

USA. Now

21:43

at the airport, the excited

21:45

and nervous family of the

21:47

very real and very missing

21:49

Nicholas Barclay greeted the very

21:52

French and very much older

21:54

Frederick. Everyone in the

21:56

family had heard about the ordeal

21:58

that Frederick slash Nicholas had and very

22:00

much hadn't endured, and they were

22:02

all determined to treat him as kindly

22:04

as possible. Despite

22:06

his uncharacteristic quietness, the

22:08

Barclay family welcomed him

22:10

home. Adjusting slowly to the

22:12

pace of change in San Antonio,

22:14

Bourdain began settling in, seemingly finding the

22:16

love and family connections he had

22:18

always been searching for. And for a

22:20

minute, it seemed to kind of

22:23

be working. Kind of like when your

22:25

house sitting and someone's goldfish dies, then you

22:27

just kind of replace it with a

22:29

new goldfish. Sure. Yeah. But the goldfish is

22:31

seven years older and has a French

22:33

accent. That

22:35

could be the amnesia from the

22:37

lost adrena. I just hope

22:39

the second half of the story

22:41

is this 22 year old dominance as

22:43

a high school sophomore running back.

22:45

That is what I'm hoping for. Now,

22:48

United States officials were not quite done

22:50

with him yet. He was called into

22:52

the San Antonio Missing Children's Center by

22:54

the FBI in November of 1997. And

22:57

there he was interviewed to collect his testimony

22:59

of what had happened to him so they

23:01

could capture his abusers. And

23:03

immediately, the interviewer was suspicious

23:05

of Borden's appearance. He

23:07

appeared older than 16 and,

23:09

you know, his dark

23:11

five o 'clock shadow was

23:14

not typical of a blonde

23:16

teenager. All right, so

23:18

gentlemen. Let me show you here a

23:20

photo of Nicholas and my God and

23:22

tell me what you think because in

23:24

this photo, he is supposed to be

23:26

16. Okay, so

23:28

as 22 years old as

23:30

he looks, he also looks at

23:32

least that French. He

23:35

looks like he's about to star in

23:38

Dear Heaven Hansen. He

23:40

looks like the sex trafficker that he

23:42

made up. Visually,

23:44

he's the opposite of the kid next to

23:46

him in the pictures you showed us. Also,

23:48

after seeing this picture, he will not

23:50

dominate as a running back at any

23:52

age. That's all I'm saying. No domination.

23:54

facial expression of the kid who got

23:56

kidnapped looks like he's thinking there's a

23:59

49 -year -old French guy next to him.

24:04

So despite the misgivings of the

24:07

investigator, Frederick had a

24:09

narrative advantage. See, he

24:11

hadn't been abducted, of course, into

24:13

sex slavery, but he had undoubtedly been

24:15

abused. And he had jointly spun

24:17

stories of the fictitious sex ring he

24:19

claimed to be subjected to by

24:21

weaving in bits and pieces of the

24:23

very real traumas he had endured

24:26

or observed in various facilities over the

24:28

years, including details like his untreated

24:30

broken right hand and cigarette burns and

24:32

a permanent limp. And it all

24:34

helped us solidify the tale that he

24:36

was telling. So a private investigator

24:38

by the name of Charlie Parker was

24:40

hired to track down board in

24:43

for an interview about his past. And

24:45

comparing a photo of Nicholas to

24:47

Frederick, Parker was startled to notice how

24:49

different their eye colors were. And

24:52

I presumably, he did not buy

24:54

the magical eye die story. So

24:56

he also then remembered that ear

24:58

shapes are very unique to individuals.

25:00

The fact I just learned reading

25:02

this story. And so he tracked

25:04

down photos to compare and he

25:06

concluded that Frederick Bourdain was just

25:08

definitely not Nicholas Barclay. Okay, I'm

25:10

glad the PI knew about like

25:12

ears and eyes and stuff, but

25:14

also that's an old French guy.

25:16

The reason is because that's an

25:18

old French guy. So

25:21

he then alerted FBI agent

25:23

Nancy Fisher, who had interviewed Frederick

25:25

at the Missing Children's Center,

25:27

and they were both at a

25:29

loss as to how to

25:31

proceed, since the family was claiming

25:33

Bourdain as theirs. And

25:35

they were also nervous about this guy's

25:37

intentions, like, Was he a spy,

25:39

a terrorist, a pedophile trying to infiltrate

25:41

the schools? Was he perhaps a

25:43

French guy in his mid -20s dodging

25:45

the Spanish police and desperate for the

25:47

love of literally anyone? Well,

25:49

I'm sorry. Wait, can a family just

25:52

claim someone like that? Because if so,

25:54

several of my long lost brothers are

25:56

in a prison in El Salvador right

25:58

now. You're

26:00

to have to call Bacala yourself. Yeah,

26:03

apparently. But Borden was

26:05

flown to Houston. under the guise

26:07

of getting therapy for his traumatic

26:09

experiences. And in Houston, he was

26:11

really being interviewed by Dr. Perry,

26:13

a forensics expert to further examine

26:15

his story. And he

26:17

did not display any of

26:19

the normal biological reactions

26:21

to discussing intense trauma. Oh,

26:24

and also Borden's heavy native

26:26

French accent raised some red

26:28

flags because of course it

26:30

did. Finally, thank you. Like

26:32

50 people just never enough.

26:34

What was happening? Dr.

26:37

Perry knew that this person could

26:39

not have been raised in the United

26:41

States and then just lose his

26:43

native accent in only three years abroad.

26:46

I'm sorry, can you say burger one

26:48

more time? It sounds like you're

26:50

saying burger. But

26:53

did the doctor also know

26:55

that you can't gain nine years

26:57

in three years abroad as

26:59

well? I'm

27:01

really loving the image of

27:03

just the one heaf doctor

27:05

being like, What's happening? Did

27:08

you say three years is

27:10

nine years in metric? That's nothing.

27:13

What are you saying? So

27:16

Perry concluded that obvious

27:18

things are obvious. And

27:20

he presented his findings to Agent Nancy

27:22

Fisher, who notified Kerry right away

27:25

that pretty much there was no way

27:27

this grown ass French man was

27:29

actually her long lost now 16 year

27:31

old Texan brother. And according

27:33

to Fisher, Carrie was shocked on

27:35

the phone, but she collected Bourdain

27:37

at the airport just as she

27:40

would have her true brother. And

27:42

despite warnings from the FBI, the

27:44

family doubled down on embracing Frederick

27:46

so much so that when the

27:48

FBI requested blood samples, the

27:50

mom actually laid down on

27:52

the ground and refused to

27:54

cooperate. Jesus. No, no.

27:56

If I give you my blood, you're just gonna

27:59

tell me it's a 43 -year -old French guy. No. I'm

28:02

pregnant. This

28:05

reaction raised suspicions in not

28:07

only the investigators but

28:09

with Bordeon himself. So

28:11

think about this for a minute. You've

28:13

infiltrated a random family you know nothing

28:15

about and you are living with them

28:17

and they are raising you like you

28:19

are their long lost 16 year old

28:21

son, but you know. You've got to

28:23

know, none of this makes any sense.

28:25

You know you don't look anything like

28:27

this kid. You are clearly much older.

28:29

You don't know where anything is. You

28:31

have a heavy French accent. Why

28:34

was the family so insistent

28:36

on believing your bullshit? Why do

28:38

they think you were in

28:40

fact Nicholas? And it's perhaps

28:42

because the family knew that

28:44

you were not. And they were

28:46

still very glad to see

28:49

you because they killed Nicholas. Okay,

28:51

what? Wait, okay. So

28:53

this family murdered a 13

28:55

year old. And then

28:58

they got a call from

29:00

the U .S. State Department that

29:02

their murder victim was found in

29:04

Spain. And they were like,

29:06

yep, sure was. That was a

29:08

freebie, right? So.

29:14

maybe that happened. Right? There's

29:16

a theory. Thanks for that. It's fucking

29:18

crazy that Tom is just saying maybe

29:20

right now. There is a theory that

29:23

the family knew a lot more about

29:25

the true cause of the disappearance of

29:27

Nicholas. Nicholas's half -brother, Jason, had lived

29:29

with Nicholas and his mother at the

29:31

time of the boy's disappearance. And Jason

29:33

had a heavy drug addiction. I'm sorry,

29:35

are we just accusing this actual family

29:37

of murder kid? Yes. Well, it's not

29:39

just me. They 100 % murdered their kid.

29:41

I'm not down with that. So

29:59

Jason had a heavy drug addiction, which

30:01

it spilled over onto his mother and

30:03

the stress and the drugs and all

30:05

the frustrations that come with these things

30:07

created a very hostile and very volatile

30:09

home life. And Frederick Bourdain, he's in

30:11

this house and he feels trapped. not

30:13

just by the possibility of being discovered,

30:15

but also he's now got this creeping

30:17

paranoia that the family he's living with

30:19

could have actually been the ones that

30:21

harmed Nicholas themselves. Yeah, I mean, it's

30:23

scary, but I feel like the family's

30:25

not going to do a second murder

30:27

of the same kid, right? Yeah, they'd

30:29

be asking for it at that point.

30:32

Why not? They've had practice. Oh, okay.

30:34

This one seems to be working out.

30:36

Okay, but this raises the very real

30:38

possibility that Kerry was giving him the

30:40

whole, hey, do you remember our extended

30:42

family tree treatment on the plane on

30:44

purpose, right? Which is fucking awesome. So

30:48

the FBI obtains warrants for fingerprints

30:50

and DNA samples from the family

30:52

and from Borden, and Interpol returned

30:54

the results of his true identity.

30:56

And just like that, the

30:59

jig is up. On March the

31:01

4th, 1998, Frederick was detained

31:03

and arrested for illegally entering the

31:05

United States and assuming the

31:07

identity of a missing child. But

31:09

by now, Frederick was so

31:11

convinced that the family had something

31:13

to do with the disappearance of

31:15

Nicholas that upon his arrest, all

31:17

he wanted was an audience with

31:19

the San Antonio Police Department to

31:21

inform them of his suspicions. The

31:24

whole thing was so suspicious

31:26

that they promptly opened their own

31:28

homicide investigation. Hey, this

31:30

guy with an incredible track record

31:32

of ridiculous lies, he seems trustworthy,

31:34

right? That guy? He

31:36

is right now. After

31:40

Beverly, as the mom, passed

31:42

two polygraph tests, Agent Fisher

31:45

insisted on one more, and

31:47

as she herself was increasingly

31:49

sure the family was up

31:51

to something. A Beverly failed

31:53

that last test spectacularly. But

31:56

polygraphs are basically forensic dowsing

31:58

rod bullshit. And Beverly claimed

32:00

that she failed because she lied about

32:02

stealing, but she was truthful about everything pertaining

32:04

to her son. And the whole family

32:06

stands together in their convictions that they don't

32:08

know what happened to Nicholas. And

32:11

the truth of what happened to Nicholas

32:13

Barclay remains a mystery. I think we

32:15

all know what happened. That was a

32:17

JBR snag. He got JBR so hard.

32:19

He's Taylor Swift now. OK, so look, I

32:21

know that two of our co -hosts are

32:23

uncomfortable with the accusations that have been

32:26

made on the air. So I will simply

32:28

direct everybody to the documentary, The

32:30

Imposter, where they interviewed this

32:32

family, asked them if they've

32:34

killed their kids and their

32:36

answers are basically... You don't

32:38

did it! You don't did

32:40

it! All

32:42

right, all right though, but it would be

32:44

pretty awesome if it turned out that the that

32:46

the kid was in France pretending to be

32:48

Bourdain. So

32:51

Bourdain was convicted of

32:53

perjury and fraudulently obtaining a

32:55

passport and spent six

32:57

years in jail. He was

32:59

released in 2003 and

33:01

deported back to France. Within

33:04

months, he attempted to steal

33:06

the identity of Leo Bailey from

33:08

Grenoble, France, a 14 -year -old

33:10

missing boy. Pick an adult dude,

33:12

what are you doing? He

33:15

was found out when DNA - I am this baby.

33:20

He was found out when DNA testing

33:22

was done proving that he was not

33:24

Leo. And also in

33:27

2003, he would have been

33:29

29. And they still

33:31

had to use DNA rather than

33:33

like their eyes for this. In

33:35

Spain in 2004, he pretended to

33:37

be a boy named Ruben Sanchez Espinosa

33:40

and claimed his mother had been

33:42

killed in the Madrid bomb attacks. Once

33:44

again, he was caught. Returning

33:46

to France in 2005, the

33:48

now 31 -year -old bored in

33:50

spun yet another story, this

33:52

time claiming to be Francisco

33:54

Hernandez Fernandez, a 15 -year -old

33:56

Spanish orphan. What? This time

33:58

claiming his parents had been

34:00

killed in a car accident

34:02

and in this compulsive liar's

34:04

fever dream He further invented

34:06

a story involving his escape

34:09

from an abusive family member

34:11

and the story worked well

34:13

enough The story worked well

34:15

enough that at 31 they

34:17

believed him. Oh, really attended

34:19

or I guess like reattended

34:21

Junior High School. And

34:23

there is a picture here guys

34:25

of what this guy looked like

34:27

in 2005 in junior high I'm

34:29

gonna do so many crimes in

34:32

Spain like right after I am

34:34

the king of Spain. I'm flying

34:36

to Spain to take my throne

34:38

right after. He doesn't even look

34:40

young for 31. He looks look

34:42

hard 35. Yes, right. He looks

34:44

like Johnny Galecki playing a Bond

34:46

villain. He

34:48

looks like Doogie Hauser if he graduated

34:50

a year late and became an adjunct

34:52

professor. So

34:56

an administrator at the junior

34:58

high was watching a television program

35:00

about Borden and recognized him.

35:02

Although one might have imagined that

35:05

his receding hairline and the

35:07

moonwalking heartfelt lip sync performance of

35:09

80s icon Michael Jackson in

35:11

front of his new class in

35:13

2005 might have raised some

35:15

eyebrows before that. Now, this time

35:18

he was convicted and sentenced

35:20

to four months in prison. Hey,

35:23

guys, I know that this person was

35:25

dealing with some very real trauma,

35:27

and I empathize with whatever he went

35:30

through, but he needed to go

35:32

to jail for this stuff for longer

35:34

than this is. Doesn't

35:36

help. All in

35:38

all, Frederick Pierre Bourdain is

35:40

speculated to have assumed at least

35:42

500 false identities. Come on.

35:44

In 2007. In 2007, guys, just

35:47

two years after pretending to

35:49

be a junior high school student,

35:51

he married his wife, Isabelle,

35:53

a French woman he had been

35:55

dating for about a year.

35:57

And I have no idea who

35:59

told her he was or

36:01

how he explained to her literally

36:03

anything about his life that

36:06

had happened at all ever. Whatever.

36:08

Together, they had five children. But

36:10

by March of 2017, the couple had

36:12

split. And in a Facebook post,

36:14

he started impersonating his own child. That's

36:16

confusing. And

36:20

a Facebook post, he announced that she

36:22

had been unhappy for a decade and ultimately

36:24

left him for another man. Was

36:26

it him? But

36:32

in 2008. After the birth of his

36:34

first child, Bourdain was asked by his

36:36

staff writer at the New Yorker if

36:38

he'd become a new person in this role

36:40

as husband and father. And he replied, no,

36:44

this is who I am. All

36:47

right. They

36:49

totally killed their child. If

36:51

you'd like to summarize what you learned in one

36:54

sentence, what would it be? That

36:56

kid everyone had in high school who

36:58

looked weirdly older than the other

37:00

kids could buy beer without getting carted.

37:02

That was probably a 30 year

37:04

old French guy. Oh, yeah. All

37:06

right. Are you ready for the quiz? I am indeed. All

37:09

right, Tom, we've got a

37:11

French beggar who impersonates a kid

37:13

who got murdered by their

37:15

family in the United States. Obviously,

37:17

he needs a musical. What's the

37:20

title? Hey. Lime

37:22

is Jean Valjean Amazing

37:24

Only one answer provided only

37:26

one answer needed it

37:28

is a my friend nailed

37:30

it Oh, I don't

37:32

want to go after that

37:34

lime is would have

37:36

been good enough all on

37:39

its own But then

37:41

you've got this the fucking

37:43

amazing Jean Valjean been

37:45

a Ramsey joke, which is

37:47

also a callback and

37:49

kudos. Okay Here's my

37:51

way worse joke. What's

37:54

the easiest way to spot a French guy

37:56

pretending to be a Texan? A,

37:58

he's barbecuing a snail. B,

38:02

he looks like he's had access to

38:04

health care his whole life. C,

38:06

he thinks the H in yee -haw

38:08

is silent. Or

38:10

D. He's a grown -ass

38:13

man speaking broken English with a heavy French

38:15

accent who doesn't understand American pop culture

38:17

references, doesn't know how baseball works, doesn't remember

38:19

any of his friends, drives on the

38:21

wrong side of the fucking road, can't name

38:23

the last three presidents, and holy fuck

38:25

how the hell did he ever think this

38:28

possibly could work? Secret

38:31

answer, E, all of the very - It

38:33

is, it is all of the above, yeah. Okay,

38:36

Tom. They made a movie about his

38:38

parents whirlwind romance at the Margering Factory. What

38:40

was it called? A.

38:44

La La Land. Oleg Speed. Barefoot

38:49

in the parquet. C. Cholesterol

38:53

about Eve or Dee. Grease.

39:03

Grease is the word, my friend.

39:05

Grease is the word. Oh, I'm

39:07

sorry. It was cholesterol about Eve.

39:09

I'm sorry. I was pretty solid,

39:11

too. All right, Cecil, you win. And

39:14

why on earth? There's no way.

39:16

This is written in for me. Audience,

39:18

thank you very much. Eli's going

39:20

go next. That is what was

39:22

written in their script. All right. Well, for

39:24

Cecil, Tom, Noah, and Heath, I'm Eli Bosnick.

39:27

Thank you for hanging out with us today.

39:29

We'll be back next week. And by then,

39:31

I will be an expert on something else.

39:33

Between now and then, you can listen to

39:35

our other podcasts in the other podcast places.

39:37

And if you'd like to help keep this

39:39

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39:53

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