This raises a question worth dwelling on: why did it take a private investigator working with a television show to notice what trained law enforcement personnel did not?

Part of the answer involves the power of social confirmation.

When people in Bourdin’s immediate environment — the Barclay family, the social workers, the personnel who knew him as Nicholas — had already accepted him, they generated a social reality that was difficult for subsequent observers to challenge without strong motivation.

Law enforcement personnel who interacted with “Nicholas” did so in a context where everyone around them had already validated the identity.

Challenging that consensus required a specific reason to be skeptical.