A family that was receiving a child back from three years of captivity by traffickers was not going to apply forensic scrutiny to the person in front of them.

The emotional weight of the situation was designed to suppress exactly the kind of careful observation that might have exposed him.

This is one of the most sophisticated elements of Bourdin’s approach: he understood that the circumstances he was creating — the drama of a rescued trafficking victim being reunited with family — generated psychological dynamics that worked in his favor.

The greater the perceived trauma, the more inappropriate careful scrutiny appeared, and the more pressure existed to simply accept and welcome and not question.

Carey Gibson’s Account