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Netflix UK’s recent addition, The Imposter, deals with how a French confidence trickster assumed the identity of Nicholas Barclay, a teenage boy, in the late 1990s and stayed with the Barclays for a while before getting caught.
In 1997, Frédéric Pierre Bourdin impersonated Barclay, who went missing three years ago and stayed with the latter’s family before a sleuth and an FBI agent sensed something suspicious.
The Imposter focuses on this case and features interviews with several family members of the Barclays, Bourdin, and others related to the case.
According to IMDb, the synopsis of The Imposter reads:
"A documentary centered on a young man in Spain who claims to a grieving Texas family that he is their 16-year-old son who has been missing for 3 years."
First released in 2012, the Netflix documentary details how Bourdin successfully managed to trick the mother and sister of Nicholas Barclay (born Nicholas Patrick Barclay), nicknamed Nicky, and lived with them. Everything was fine until a private detective and an FBI agent smelled something fishy, leading to Bourdin's arrest.
Nicholas Barclay was 13 at the time of his disappearance
Nicholas Barclay was 13–14 when he disappeared from near his residence in Texas between June 10–13, 1994 (the exact date remains a matter of debate). He has remained missing for 28 years, according to reports.
On the day he disappeared, the San Antonio, Texas, resident reportedly went to meet his friends at the nearby basketball court in the evening. The distance between his house and the courts was hardly 1.5 miles.
After playing for a short while, his friends left, leaving Nicky behind. The boy then called home and asked his half-brother Jason (then 24) to pick him up. Their mother, Beverly, who worked the night shift at Dunkin’ Donuts for all days a week, was sleeping at the time, reports added.
Since Jason didn’t want to disturb her sleep by firing their car's engine, he asked Nicky to walk down home. That was the last time they heard from that boy.
Troubled childhood gave rise to Nicholas Barclay’s rebellious streak
According to The Casual Criminalist, Nicholas Barclay leaving his house and returning after a couple of days wasn’t anything unusual. He had a “rebellious streak” and left home after frequent fights with his mother but returned 48 hours later.
Nicky's tiffs with her reportedly forced Beverly to call Jason so that he could take care of the boy, but it seems nothing helped.
By 13, Nicky had three tattoos: a “J” on his left shoulder, a “T” between his left thumb and index finger, and “N” and “L” on his outer left ankle.
Reports stated that Nicholas Barclay also had a juvenile criminal record. He threatened his teachers, and once broke into a convenience store and stole a pair of shoes. The Casual Criminalist added that police often dropped him off at home with a warning.
On June 14, Nicky was to appear in court, where the judges would have determined whether he should be sent to a juvenile home, according to the report. Beverly filed a complaint three days after he went missing, but the cops didn’t take her seriously given their problematic family history (Nicky's unstable behavior and Jason and Beverly's drug addiction).
Nicholas Barclay was reportedly wearing a pink backpack and purple trousers when he went missing.
Did Jason kill Nicholas Barclay?
Unable to control his guilt, Jason seemingly relapsed into his cocaine addiction. A few months later, in September of that year, he apparently told police that he thought Nicky was attempting to break into their family’s garage. However, law enforcement officers found nothing substantial to back up this claim.
When Bourdin was held, he told the police that Jason had killed Nicky, and that's why the family accepted him so readily to hide the crime. The case was eventually reopened for a homicide investigation, marking Jason as a suspect.
He died of an overdose before cops could question him further.
The Imposter is currently streaming on Netflix.
