Document verification, in 1997, was not as sophisticated as it later became.

The confidence with which Bourdin presented himself, combined with the family’s apparent recognition and acceptance, created a baseline assumption of legitimacy that was difficult to challenge without significant motivation.

In part, he persisted because exposing him as an impostor would have meant confronting the family with a devastating truth — that their hope was false, that Nicholas was not here, that the relief they had felt was a lie.

But not everyone who encountered him was convinced.