WEBVTT - Frédéric Bourdin: The Chameleon from Nantes 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:15.880 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to another 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.439 episode of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives and 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.919 motivations of some of the most notorious impostors throughout history. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.800 I'm Maria Tremarquis and I'm Holly Fry. And it seems 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.160 that each season we have been having one contemporary or 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.879 fairly contemporary person to talk about. For example, in our 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.160 Stoker season we talked about George Harrison and his two Stalkers. 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:42.160 But today our impostor is Frederic Bourdon. Frederic was born 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.280 to Guillain Burdon on June four, so she was eighteen 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.120 years old at the time, and she was living in 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.080 monte Au dessin France, that is, a suburb of Paris. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.000 His father's identity was unknown. Elaine would later stay in 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.280 a two thousand and eight interview with The New Worker 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.920 that Frederic's father was actually an Algerian man named Casey. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.440 Now my name pronunciation isn't going to be nearly as 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.520 delightful as Holly's, so just bear with me. One of 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.240 us speaks French, one of us does not only enough 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.400 to get into trouble only enough to make it sound great. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.480 So Gilan recalled that they had met at a factory, 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.119 and if you're curious, that was a margarine factory. They 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.679 both worked there at the time that she got pregnant. 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.200 But after she found out she was pregnant, she learned 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.479 that Casey was married, and because of that, she never 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.000 told him about their son. As she got older, she 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:44.200 could no longer remember Casey's last name, she stated. Gilane 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.920 raised Frederic for about two years until child services intervened, 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.920 and at that point he was placed with Elaine's parents. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.000 Relatives spoke out about this whole situation, saying, quote, she 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.480 liked to drink and dance and stay out at night. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.800 She didn't want anything to do with that child. Years 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.760 after he was removed from her home, Gilayne wrote her 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.200 son a letter saying, quote, you are my son, and 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.560 they stole you from me at the age of two. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.480 They did everything to separate us from each other, and 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.520 we have become two strangers. Frederic later spoke of his 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:22.440 mother's overwhelming need for attention, in particular his attention, describing 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.400 how she would feign illness or a grave circumstance to 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.120 get that attention. Guilaine, though she felt her son was 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.839 overreacting about her need for this constant attention, did acknowledge 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.079 that she had faked illness and had once attempted suicide, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.520 so he would be attentive to her. There are layers 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.480 of messed upness in play already. He is. Frederic began 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.120 impersonating people when he was still a kid. When he 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.640 was just five years old, he moved with his grandparents 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.639 to known He considered himself to kind of be the 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.400 village outcast, and perhaps he was, and because of that, 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:02.799 he began telling stories, fabricated stories about himself and about 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.840 his family. For instance, he explained to his fellow children 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.000 that his father was never around because he was actually 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.520 according to Frederic, a British secret agents. One of his 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:20.240 elementary school teachers described Frederic as quote a precocious and 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.880 captivating child who had an extraordinary imagination and visual sense, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.519 drawing wild, beautiful comic strips. He further recalled he had 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.480 this way of making you connect to him. This is 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.000 a little bit of a difficult topic involving child abuse. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.760 So if that is something that you are not ready 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.400 to hear about, hit mute for you. Know about thirty 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:46.200 seconds or so or just skip ahead. Yes. So. When 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.240 he was still quite young, Frederic confessed to his grandparents 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.760 that he had been molested by a neighbor, but no 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.720 one in the village seemed to believe the allegation, and 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.400 neither his grandparents nor anyone else ever looked into the matter, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.839 and perhaps not coincidentally, this is when Frederic began misbehaving 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.480 in school and stealing from the neighbors. Before long, he 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.720 was sent to a juvenile home not too far away 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.200 from his grandparents house, and at his new school, teachers 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.760 referred to his stories as quote little dramas, and that 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.240 they became more and more detailed as he made each 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.359 one up. Throughout his childhood and into his adolescence, he 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:29.239 often pretended that he was an amnesiac, intentionally getting lost 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.719 in the streets to make it feel real. In sixteen 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.720 year old Frederick hitch hike to Paris, where he invented 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.479 and inhabited his first baked character. Pretending to be a 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.160 British teenager named Jimmy Stale. He approached a police officer 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.839 for directions, explaining he was lost as it appeared to 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.800 be nothing out of the ordinary nothing came of it 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.760 other than a big boost to his boldness. It is 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.080 said Frederick has used forty identities, and if you ask him, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.960 possibly as many a five hundred. By the time he 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.200 became an adult, the French press had nicknamed him Chameleon 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.920 Monte or the chameleon from Some of his aliases were 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.640 real people, but some were not. And we're going to 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:17.080 talk about some of his big impersonations to really major scams, 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.279 with a smattering of others along the way. Otherwise we 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.880 would be here all day talking about those five hundred aliases. 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:28.400 But of those many, here are a few. Alex Dole, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:36.120 Benjamin Kent, Michelangelo Martini, Jimmy morns are No Ourient, Giovanni Petrulo, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.839 and Sladyon Roskovich. And that is just a tiny sample 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.000 of who he pretended to be. You'll notice he also 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.800 switched nationalities a few times, picking names in different languages. 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.320 He was apparently good at that as well. A police 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.479 captain once noted quote, when he talked in Spanish, he 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.960 became a Spaniard. When he talked in English, he was 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.440 an Englishman. Of course, he lied, But what an actor. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.760 So this I'm starting with a quote people always say 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.720 to me, why don't you become an actor, Frederick once 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.240 said in an interview, which the police captain too agrees with. 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.640 So Frederic goes on to say, I think I would 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.680 be a very good actor like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:20.800 But I don't want to play somebody. I want to 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.919 be somebody. He was always honest why he did what 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.880 he did. He wanted attention, He craved it. He acknowledged 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.440 what all pretenders know but don't often admit, and that 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.920 is quote, it is not that hard to fool people. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.159 He thought of his career this way. Quote. I know 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.159 it can be cruel, he said, of his methods, but 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.200 I don't want to become a monster. Yeah. There are 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.320 a couple of these stories we'll talk about that do, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.640 when you really look at them with the broad view, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.880 feel very cruel in a weird way. He transformed into 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.840 his characters with specific details for each He would include 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.920 things like what kind of soap they used, their heritage, 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.359 and even things like whether or not they had a 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.440 speech disorder or some sort of physical impairment. He was 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.920 meticulous with each character's outward appearance. He would or would 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.840 not have facial hair, he plucked his eyebrows. Anything that 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.640 he could do, he did that would help bring that 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.440 character to life. So he talked on about how he 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:26.040 considered prepping a character to how he imagined a spy 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.600 might do so, and that you change your superficial details 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.520 to become that character, but you never change the core 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.840 of who you are. So he once said, I don't 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.120 want to make myself into somebody I'm not. The story 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:43.280 is good enough without embellishment, and he continued, the worst 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.840 thing you can do is deceive yourself. He went on 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:51.240 to say, quote, the key is actually not lying about everything, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.840 otherwise you'll just mix things up. He claimed to live 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.720 his life with inspirational quotes that helped him along with 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.560 all of this, like keep it simple, and a good 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.239 liar uses the truth. The one thing you better not forget, 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.760 he advised, is your name. I've never actually seen the 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.880 inspirational quote A good liar uses the truth. I've seen 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.360 him or as a warning. Right, you know, not qualify 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.720 it as an inspirational quote. Right, it's a good piece 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:25.880 of information. Like, let's just leave it at that. For 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.640 a person who described himself as a professional liar, one 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.679 interviewer once said about Frederic, he seemed oddly fastidious about 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.000 the facts of his own life. In order to try 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.600 to bring his developed character to life in the real world, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.120 he did this thing that I have to concede is ingenious. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.920 He would first try to create the illusion among the 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.559 local authorities that his character was real. That's smart. He 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.360 would interact with police and thus create a record of 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.000 this person. He would call, sometimes more than once, under 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:02.040 different aliases, to report his character was in some sort 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:07.280 of trouble. Nobody, he later explained, expects a seemingly vulnerable 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.480 child to be lying. Still, characters can have flaws. So 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.680 here we're going to take a break for a word 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.280 from our sponsor, and by the time we're back, Frederic 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.640 will probably have something like six hundred and fifty two 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:32.640 new identities. We'll see, welcome back to criminally in Okay, 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:38.880 let's talk about Frederick's first big deception. By June, Frederick 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.040 had pretended to be more than a dozen children and 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.240 teenagers who were all imaginary. That June, as well, he 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.400 also turned eighteen. Becoming an adult meant he could no 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.600 longer stay in the places where he'd grown accustomed to staying. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.760 I've been in shelters and foster homes most of my life, 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.600 and suddenly I was told that's it, You're free to go, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.400 has said in interviews. By the mid nineties, Frederic had 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.640 a criminal record for crimes, including lying to police and 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.280 other authorities. Interpol and others were looking for him. He was, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.040 unfortunately also getting media attention, which is never a good 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.640 thing for an impostor. One of my favorite quotes that 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.079 he has said so far is I'd rather leave on 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.120 my own than be taken away, which is something he 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.400 flatly stated in an interview. So we're gonna jump ahead 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.280 a little bit to France in two thousand three, and 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.760 at this point, Frederick assumed the identity of a fourteen 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.800 year old French boy named Leo Balis, who had been 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.280 missing since n When it was suspected that Frederic was 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.400 not actually Leo, authorities tested his DNA, and of course 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.000 that test proved that the authorities were right. Frederic was 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.240 sentenced to four months in prison for stealing and using 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.840 Leo Bali's identity. There was also a time in August 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.800 of two thousand and four when Frederic was in Spain 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.520 claiming to be a teenager named Reuben Sanchez Espinosa. Rubin's 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.320 mother had been killed in the Madrid bomb attacks. And 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.160 here we are the inevitable thing happened to Frederic. When 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.320 the local authorities found out the truth, they deported him 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:21.320 to France. So let's get into Frederick's first really big scam. 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.840 On May three, two thousand five, multiple calls were placed 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.640 to the authorities about a teenage boy alone in the 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.920 local train station. That boy, who was Frederic in disguise, 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.640 found his way to the local government child welfare office. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.600 The boy was described as slim and short, with pale skin. 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.520 He wore a scarf wound around much of his face 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.320 and a baseball cap that was pulled over his eyes. 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.320 He had no money with him, but he did have 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.079 a phone, and he did have identification. His name was 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.880 Francisco Hernandez Fernandez, a fifteen year old from Spain. He 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.720 was quiet, but he did say that his parents and 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.520 younger brother had been killed than a car accident. He 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.199 had been in a coma for several weeks. After he recovered, 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.480 he had lived with an uncle, but when his uncle 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.440 became abusive, Francisco left. He was then sent to live 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.720 at a state run shelter that housed thirty five girls 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.719 and boys, almost all of whom had been removed from 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.160 their homes or abandoned by their parents. When he did speak, 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.400 he spoke very softly, and he would flinch if anyone 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.000 tried to touch him. The shelter he was at was 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.480 described as an old stone building with peeling white wooden shutters. 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.480 Kind of to set this scene, Francisco was given a 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.240 single room. He was enrolled at the local secondary school, 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.080 where there were about four hundred or so students, mostly 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.839 from tough neighborhoods, and most of whom had a reputation 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.720 for violence. Educators at the school would later say he 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.600 looked like every other teenager who passed through the school, 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.040 but that they felt protective of him. His literature teacher 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:00.280 asked another student, Raphael Passoa, deal made up to help 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.640 Francisco with his coursework, as he had enrolled mid term 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.680 and he was trying to catch up. Quote this guy 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:12.400 can learn like lightning, Raphael later recalled. Gradually, Francisco began 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.559 hanging out with his classmates, and it didn't actually take 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:17.480 very long before he was one of the most popular 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.920 kids at his school. Quote The students loved him. He 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.880 had this aura about him, this charisma. One of his 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.000 teachers recall he knew a lot of American slang and idioms, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.400 and he seemed to have a deep knowledge of music, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.680 not just American music, just music. And he could dance 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.160 just like Michael Jackson at a talent show. Quote. He 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.160 didn't just look like Michael Jackson dancing. His music teacher recalled, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.319 he was Michael Jackson. About a month later, however, on 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.959 June eight, a school administrator discovered who Francisco really was. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.520 She had been watching a TV show that happened to 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.560 be about one of the world's most famous impostors, Frederic Bourdon, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.800 a thirty year old Frenchman who impersonated children and teenagers, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.320 and she immediately told the principal quote, I swear to god, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.960 Bourdon looks exactly like Francisco Hernandez Fernandez. So she also 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.000 did a quick Internet search, and she was surprised at 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:18.559 the amount of information about the possible impostor. The press 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.880 called Frederick the King of impostors and described him as 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:27.000 we quote, the master of new identities who didn't want 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.360 to grow up. The press also claimed that Frederick had 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.480 impersonated everything from a tiger tamer to a priest, and 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.160 whether those two things are fact or fiction. There was 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:43.080 no question that Frederick had pretended his way through many things. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.760 But we can see though through our research and reading 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.560 so many of stories about him, is that he almost 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.640 always played one character over and over that was an 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.200 abused or abandoned child. So when all of this came 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.000 to light, the school notified the lease, and when he 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.880 was arrested, the incidentally balding fake teenager stated, in a 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.760 much deeper voice than Francisco normally spoke, quote, I want 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.880 a lawyer. He did admit to the police that he 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.200 was actually Frederic Bourdon, and he admitted that over the 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.840 past fifteen years he had invented scores of identity, many 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:24.280 of whom were children or teenagers. His trail included, among 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:36.040 other places, France, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.800 and the United States. I was counting along, but I 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.520 ran out of fingers. She had to go to toes. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.080 It became very awkward. Those countries. Wow, So we're going 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.560 to take a break for a word from our sponsor. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.600 And when we're back, we'll talk about why Frederic ended 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.000 up in the United States, in Texas and in San Antonio. 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.440 Welcome back to Criminalia. In just a minute, we're going 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.520 to explain why it was the years and not the eyes. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.400 It's important. At this point in his career, it wasn't 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.760 just Interpol watching Frederick. The U s State Department warned 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:23.000 he was quote an exceedingly clever man who posed as 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:28.000 exploited children and teenagers to garner sympathy, and in posing 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.560 as those children, he had raised some flags with government offices. 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.040 So at one point he had assumed the identity of 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.840 a teenager and was staying at a youth house in Spain. 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.880 And when he was exposed as a fraud, a child 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.840 welfare judge was assigned to his case, and she correctly 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.760 did not believe he was a teenager. She gave him 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.880 twenty four hours to prove it, and if he couldn't, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.160 she warned him that she would collect and run his fingerprints. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.160 Those fingerprints were on file with Interpol because they, as 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.320 we noted earlier, were watching him, so he couldn't risk 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.480 it and there for he couldn't prove if he was 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.680 or was not a teenager. Because of his criminal record, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.520 he was given a prison sentence. This here is the 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:15.560 next big scam that we mentioned earlier. Here. Frederic chose 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:20.480 to pretend to be a real person named Nicholas Barclay, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:24.320 who was a missing teenage boy from Texas. So with 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.400 his new identity in place, he'd have to convince Nicholas's 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.600 family as well as the local authorities, but he felt 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.680 he could do it, and in an effort to pull 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.119 this charade off, he started by calling the National Center 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.719 for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Virginia. He had 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.960 picked up some English over the years, which made things 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.360 a little bit easier, and he said that his name 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.680 was Jonathan Durian, the director of the Linares Shelter. He 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.320 claimed that a boy who spoke English but would not 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.440 say who he was, had arrived at the shelter, and 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.960 he described the boy as having a prominent brown hair 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.439 and eye and a gap between his teeth. That also 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.479 was an exact match for Bourdon, and a woman at 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.880 the center found a similar boy in the organization's database, 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.120 and that description was a fairly close match to Nicholas Barclay. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.760 The actual story about Nicholas Barclay is that he was 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.440 reported missing from his home near San Antonio, Texas. It 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:29.399 was the summer of and Nicholas was thirteen. He'd been 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:35.000 playing basketball with friends, but he never arrived back home afterwards. Nikki, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.080 as his family called him, was last seen, according to 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.480 his National Center for Missing an exploited file, wearing we quote, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.200 a white T shirt, purple pants, black shoes, and he 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.040 was carrying a pink backpack. So, because of the wheels 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.960 set in motion by Frederic making that phone call to Virginia, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.359 eventually Nicholas's mother, Beverly was told that her son had 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.280 been found, but not in Texas. He was in Spain, 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.960 and that was, of course not Nikki. Just why this 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.560 does seem incredibly cruel. It was Frederic who, then, as 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.720 a consequence, traveled to San Antonio and actually lived with 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.800 the Barclay family for about five months, which is amazing 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.880 because Frederick had been in his twenties at the time 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.119 and he didn't really resemble Nikki at all. So the 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.560 first problem was that Frederick spoke with a thick French accent. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.120 The second problem was that he had brown eyes, which 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.119 was actually a really big obstacle to overcome because Nikki 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.480 had blue eyes. And the third problem was that Frederic 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.040 had a tattoo on his forearm. Nikki was also tattooed, 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.960 but none of his tattoos were on his forearm. There 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.399 was a J on his left shoulder, a T on 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:50.960 his left hand between his thumb and his index finger, 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:55.080 and the letters L and N on his left ankle. 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:59.080 But despite these facts, the Barclay family welcomed the impostor 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.960 into their home as their son Nikki. So to explain 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.000 that change in eye color, because you kind of have 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.320 to have an answer for that, right, Frederic's explanation was 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.760 that he again posting as Nikki, had been taken kidnapped 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.080 essentially by a child sex trafficking ring, and that the 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.359 traffickers were the ones who altered his eye color, and 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.720 they did that before he managed to escape. But we 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.280 were uncovering all sorts of things about him, stated a 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.440 local private investigator who was working with a local TV 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.560 news crew. All that noise about eye color, and it 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:38.200 actually wasn't eye color that ended this impersonation. It was ears, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.840 as Holly mentioned earlier, When the private investigator compared a 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.000 photo of Nikki with a photo of Frederick. He noted 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.479 that the ears of the teenager and the man claiming 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.520 to be that teenager didn't match. So, just in case 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.200 you think that the Barclay family was so completely blinded 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:02.000 by their possible joel at having their child back with them, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.760 there were some red flags that they started to notice. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.680 They were not just completely bought into the illusion. When 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.479 Nikki's mother, Beverly, drove the impostor Nikki by his old school, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.960 she became convinced it was not her son. She later 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.320 told a private investigator quote, it's not him. He didn't 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.040 recognize the school he went by, and that was how 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.840 it all unraveled. The FBI was granted a court order 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.919 to take Frederick's fingerprints and a sample of his DNA. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.359 They did not match Nicholas Barclay, but they were a 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.080 perfect match for Nicki's impostor. Frederick pleaded guilty to passport 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.879 fraud and perjury and his San Antonio Federal court. He 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.640 was sentenced to six years in prison, which was more 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.000 than twice as long as recommended by the sentencing guidelines, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.840 and after his release, he was deported to France. A 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:00.560 French prosecutor called Frederick, we quote, an incredible illusionist whose 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.720 perversity is matched only by his intelligence. That prosecutor went 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:06.960 on to say, quote, in my twenty two years on 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.320 the job, I've never seen a case like it. Usually 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.000 people can for money. His profit seems to have been 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.520 purely emotional. And Frederick kind of backed this up with 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.720 his own statement because he always said, and we're quoting here, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.119 I am a manipulator. My job is to manipulate. And 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.600 many of the accusations and cases against him, and this 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:35.040 is interesting, authorities were never sure of the best punishment 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.320 for his crimes. Psychiatrists would be brought in to evaluate him, 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.480 and he was always determined sane. When one doctor was 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.040 asked in court, is he a psychopath? He testified and 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:52.200 we quote absolutely not. On August eight, two thousand seven, 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.440 Frederic married a frenchwoman named Isabelle, and the couple reside 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.440 still in France. They have five children together, and after 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:01.840 the birth of his first child, Frederick was asked by 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.240 the press if he had become a new person now 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.159 that he was a father and a husband, and he replied, quote, no, 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.440 this is who I am. And since getting married and 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.600 having children, Frederic has said he would we quote never 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:18.760 impersonate anyone again. His only goal, as he had always claimed, 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.680 was to have a home where he quote could be love. Frederic, 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:27.399 what a hard life, right, hard childhood? Yeah, you have 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:31.639 to balance the normal. I think reaction of outrage at 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:35.600 the cruel nature of him pretending to be children that 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.080 people had genuinely lost against like this is obviously someone 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.240 hunting for something themselves that they did not feel like 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:45.960 they ever had, right, And he always, through all the 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:49.840 research that I saw, always maintained he just wanted a 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:52.760 home and he just wanted to be loved since he 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:55.120 was a kid. That was what he said, and as 0:23:55.160 --> 0:24:03.119 we watch his story unfold, I completely believe him. So 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:06.840 with his story, said Holly, I hear the mock tail 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.320 this week has a baked good in it. It does. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.200 And it was partially because I wanted to do something 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.680 that was a little bit more fun, because this is 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:16.760 a little bit of a heavier story in some ways, 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.520 and because we talked so much about, you know, him 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:23.239 wanting to be a kid, I thought I would come 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.399 up with something that has a that hearkens back a 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:29.359 little bit to childhood. But also I wanted to, you know, 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:33.080 think about his specific story, which of course made me 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:37.119 think of French things, which are delicious. Many French things are, 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.440 And so I came up. This is actually a milkshake 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:44.679 this week, and it's called like a Kid Again. It's 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:47.760 simple to make. There's one ingredient that can be a 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:49.679 pain in the neck, and I will tell you my saga. 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:53.680 So it's very very simple. Uh, you're gonna want to 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:55.879 blender for this one. So you're gonna put in that 0:24:56.000 --> 0:24:58.480