In the Barclay case specifically, he had the experience of being held within a family context — of sleeping in a child’s room, of being introduced as a son and brother, of receiving the domestic warmth of family life.

These were things he had not had as Frédéric Bourdin.

Whether that experience of belonging, even a stolen and false one, was worth the eventual imprisonment is a question that only Bourdin can answer, and his answers have not been consistent.

The Power Of The Story He Told

Bourdin’s trafficking narrative — the story he told about where Nicholas had been for three years — was constructed to be both explanatory and difficult to verify or falsify.

The story, as he presented it, was that Nicholas had been taken by a sex trafficking ring, held captive in Europe, subjected to abuse including the chemical injections that explained his changed eye color, and had eventually escaped and found his way to Spain.