His death removed the possibility of any investigation into the questions that Bourdin’s accusations raised about his potential role in Nicholas’s disappearance.

The family’s relationship to one another in the aftermath of the case — particularly given Bourdin’s accusations about potential family knowledge of the imposture — is not publicly documented in detail.

The stress of the original disappearance, the false hope and its removal, the accusations, and the sustained public attention to their most private circumstances constitutes a level of sustained difficulty that is difficult to quantify.

The Barclay family’s experience of this case is not simply the experience of being deceived by a con man.