Carey Gibson’s experience of the Spain encounter — and of the subsequent months with Bourdin in San Antonio — is the most difficult element of the case to assess fairly.

Her public statements, particularly her participation in The Imposter documentary, present a person who was genuinely deceived.

She describes flying to Spain with hope and uncertainty, meeting a young man who said he was Nicholas, and being persuaded by specific things he said and did that this was really her brother.

She describes noticing the discrepancies — the accent, the eyes — and being given explanations that she accepted because the alternatives were too painful.

She describes the months in San Antonio as a period of increasing unease that she struggled to articulate or act on — a growing sense that something was wrong, combined with the psychological cost of confronting what that something might mean.