TX TX - Nicholas Barclay, 13, San Antonio, 13 June 1994

[Noirdame79]

If this is all true then it certainly explains some stuff.

As cold as it might sound, and I'm not saying this to be callous, but it's mercy in a way that Nicholas is gone (I'm certain he's dead). Considering the indicators that points to Nicholas being neglected, abused and unwanted.

While I believe that Beverly loved him and perhaps the only one to do so, even she was considering giving him up to a home. Being abandoned by your mother would certainly do irreversible damage to a child. The family clearly aren't looking for him, either everyone looked away when it came to the unstable and dangerous enviroment home Nicholas was in or they just didn't have the knowledge to understand the severity of it. Several people have also commented how Nicholas seems to be possibly malnourished as he isn't the weight and height he should be for 13yr old. Beverly slept during the day and worked at night, leaving Jason to be the only adult present in the house and anyone can imagine how that must have been like.

The family choose to protect Jason and anyone else possibly involved rather than use their morality to bring justice and closure to Nicholas and his case. They've tried to erase his existence by keeping quiet about the case and if it wasn't for Frederic Bourdin, they would have gotten away with it.

So yes, Nicholas had no one, his own mother didn't want him anymore. What kind of life is that for a child? He was already having a horrible one. He was going down the wrong path, not of his own fault but due to not having the best environment or family to guide, protect, nourish and love him. How would he have turned out as an adult? Not that that should determine who deserves to live or die, but my point is that it would have been a life of pain and darkness, which I wouldn't wish on anyone.

We already see it with Nicholas who was raging and lashing out of pain, due to what he was going through.

I'm probably saying the obvious, but my point is that sometimes I think it's a mercy when an abused child ends up dying, how can you repair the damage inflicted on their mind and soul? (For example, Peter Conelly aka Baby P).
Some survive and lots don't.

Had Nicholas continued to live, he would have still been enduring loneliness (he was cleary unwanted and I'm sure he sensed that), abuse, pain and neglect and likely to a worse degree if he was abandoned and given up to some home.

Finally bringing to my point that sometimes it's, unfortunately, a mercy.

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It's a good point, although if he had been removed from that home, maybe he would have had a better life. Who knows.

I have noticed a pattern in cases of missing children where the parent(s) or someone in a parental role is suspected of involvement in the child's disappearance.

1. The child is almost always portrayed in a negative light. Difficult to handle, incorrigible, dishonest, etc.
2. The parents or people in a parental role portray themselves as good, upstanding citizens who did the best they could; that the child caused all the issues, and caused their own disappearance. It's not unusual for other family members to adopt this narrative as well.
3. The details surrounding the child's disappearance are often sketchy, with very little detail, and little or no corroboration.

4. Very few photos of the child are often made available, and in some instances, the photos are of poor quality and/or from years earlier.

5. The suspected parental perpetrators are often extremely defensive, try to control the narrative, give vague information, and frequently accuse everyone else, specifically people who are suspicious
of them and don't believe their version of events of lying or of fabrication.


Contrary to what Carey claimed in the documentary, Jason was questioned before his death, by both the FBI and the PI Charlie Parker.

According to FBI agent Nancy Fisher, Jason was defensive and apathetic; he didn't seem to care that Nicholas had been missing, expressed no interest that he was supposedly "found", and most alarmingly, told Fisher that he knew that Frederic Bourdin was not Nicholas, but he wasn't going to inform his family of that. That, in my opinion, is the closest Jason came to confessing to killing Nicholas. A stranger, who could potentially be dangerous, is living with your family, passing himself off as your missing brother, and that doesn't bother or concern you? Luckily, Frederic is not dangerous, but Jason had no way of knowing that. Why didn't he tell his family that they had taken in an imposter? To cover his tracks, and perhaps to protect the knowledge that Beverly and other family members may have had about Nicholas going missing?

Charlie Parker said that he told Jason, right to his face, "I think you did it. I don't think you meant to do it, but you did." Parker said Jason didn't answer and just stared at him.

A few weeks later, Jason died of a cocaine overdose. He had been clean for a while, but something caused him to relapse. Fear of being exposed, and maybe even some guilt or remorse for what he had done. It does appear to be a suicide rather than accidental, IMO.

It's also obvious, as previously mentioned, why Jason called the police in September 1994, claiming that Nicholas was trying to break into the garage. The police, according to the FBI agents and Deputy prosecutor, were "sniffing around" and Jason obviously wanted to divert the police and get them to stop investigating him and the family and make the cops think that Nicholas was a runaway. This is very common, in cases like this, false sightings, etc, are often reported to throw suspicion off of family members.

For the family to go merrily on their way as if Nicholas never existed is further confirmation of their lack of care for Nicholas and their possible knowledge or suspicion of what happened to Nicholas, IMO.

 

[Hitchcock3000]

Charlie Parker said that he told Jason, right to his face, "I think you did it. I don't think you meant to do it, but you did." Parker said Jason didn't answer and just stared at him.

I think Jason not denying the accusation but just staring in response kinda confirms it.

IMO

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Nicholas is featured on the Charley Project homepage this week.

I need to seek out these documentaries but --
Nicholas was clearly NOT the problem in this family. Poor kid.

 

[Mysteries1974]

Nicholas is featured on the Charley Project homepage this week.

I need to seek out these documentaries but --
Nicholas was clearly NOT the problem in this family. Poor kid.

I think a large source of the family’s issues stemmed from drugs and the older brother. I think poor Nicholas died in that home and family members helped cover it up.

 

[Noirdame79]

I think a large source of the family’s issues stemmed from drugs and the older brother. I think poor Nicholas died in that home and family members helped cover it up.

Jason definitely had issues and was probably brought up with violence himself. Beverly had her own problems with addiction and trauma, and despite what Carey told journalist David Grann, just because Beverly was a high-functioning addict doesn't change the fact that she was one and that it made her an unfit parent. Jason was smoking cigarettes at 13 - how clearer can it be?

Poor Nicholas was doomed from the start.

 

[Noirdame79]

i went on Truth Finder i am a paid member there. i dont see that Beverly ever lived at 14111 Swallow Drive in San Antonio Texas. i took screen shots of where Beverly lived and i also took a screen shot of Jason where he lived with his mom. the 1st 3 are where Beverly lived and the 4th on is where Jason lived with his mom and the address of Jason living with his mom is 1111 Austin Hwy, San Antonio, TX. this is all confusing

The high-rise apartment is where Beverly was living in 1997, when Frederic Bourdin was masquerading as Nicholas, which was one of the excuses as to why he didn't live with her at first. Beverly was born in Utah, as was Nicholas, and he lived there during the early years of his childhood. While Carey has lived in Texas for many years, her Facebook page states that she is from San Francisco, California, and I've seen posts by her that indicate that she and Jason were raised in that state. I'm not sure why the house on Swallow Drive is not listed as one of Beverly's residences, because multiple sources state that she, Nicholas, and Jason lived there at the time of Nicholas's disappearance.

 

[Noirdame79]

In 2011, someone claiming to be Nicholas's sister Carey (and I think it was her) posted the following messages on the IMDB message board (which has since moved to the Movie Chat site) for the film The Chameleon, which was loosely based on the case and the 2008 article by David Grann.

As I've said before, Grann didn't just interview Fredric Bourdin; he interviewed family members, the private investigator Charlie Parker, FBI agent Nancy Fisher, and prosecutor Jack Stick. Also, Carey's daughter was quoted twice in the article (I posted excerpts of it previously in this thread). The real reason the family didn't like the article is that it exposed how dysfunctional and suspicious they are. While they agreed to be interviewed for The Imposter (2012) after being assured that it would be fair to them, according to a post made by "someone who knows the family" (who I think may have been Carey under a different username, and you'll see what I mean after you read it) the family also dislikes the documentary, for the same reasons stated by Carey. Also, notice that many of the things in this next post are very similar to some of the things Carey said in The Imposter.

See what I mean? In the early 2010s, social media was not what it is today, but this seems like an obvious attempt to control the narrative and to divert suspicion from Jason and the rest of the family. There are many inaccuracies in the above post as well - Frederic was arrested and sentenced in 1998, and Jason died in 1999. That's not three years later. Carey never said anything in the documentary about "Nicholas" calling her to tell her that the FBI was going to take him away again, and that's why she picked him up after FBI agent Nancy Fisher told her not to because Frederic was not her brother. Instead, Carey tried to explain what she did by saying, "I don't remember her [Fisher] putting it in those words." Also, Beverly told David Grann that she did not believe that Jason saw Nicholas the day he reported the "sighting" of Nicholas breaking into the garage. She said in The Imposter that she thought Nicholas had been abducted after he willingly got into a car with a stranger (victim-blame much?). Isn't it interesting how anyone who thinks the family had knowledge and/or involvement in Nicholas going missing is either lying, out for fame and money, misquoting them or is out to get them? Convenient. They are always the victim - the victim of Frederic, the victim of law enforcement, Charlie Parker, the media, etc. I know the media can distort things sometimes, however, as previously noted, the family has not done anything to change this; it is claimed that they only cooperated with the article and the documentary because they thought it would get Nicholas's picture out there and bring more attention to his case, when the irony is, the family isn't fighitng to keep his case alive. They don't post about him on their social media. They're not reaching out to media outlets to report on his story and how they (supposedly) want answers. They're not doing anything about it because they either know what happened or they don't care. They are more concerned with the public's perception of them, which is a red flag, IMO. The mantra of how the family were the only people looking for Nicholas (stated in the post and by Carey in the documentary) is yet another attempt to throw off suspicion.

Something else that is contrary to what is written in this post is that the private investigator and law enforcement were suspicious of the family before Bourdin was arrested, because they were not cooperative and were very resistant and apathetic to attempts to verify the identity of "Nicholas".

The more Carey and the cousin I conversed with online insist that the family had no involvement and that Frederic Bourdin should not be believed, the more I believe him. What does he have to gain, all these years later, by stating that Beverly told him that Jason killed Nicholas, and some of the family know or suspect it? If anything, it would serve him better to speak positively of the family, since they took him in for almost five months and "seemed" to accept he was Nicholas.

MOO

 

[Noirdame79]

As further confirmation, two of the IMDB messages, from "Nicky's real sister" and the "family friend", compared to a comment Carey made on Facebook. The same person definitely wrote these messages, IMO.

Carey has also referred to her parents (her father died last year) as hippies, which indicates that they were involved in the drug scene. She was born in 1966, which would have made her 14 when Nicholas was born, and she had her first child a few months shy of turning 18.