killed Nicholas? Obviously this will all be conjecture, but I am curious what impression others got after watching the film.
Personally, I would guess no. I think their acceptance of Bourdin as Nicholas was born out of the human mind's natural tendency to hold onto beliefs, especially pleasant ones, not out of some sinister cover-up motivation. And there really is nothing further to support the idea that anyone killed him.
I'm in the no camp. I can't even believe anyone would take the wild claims of a pathological liar and near sociopath over the much simpler and more obvious truth. Even before the idea of murder was dragged up I was laughing at those two apparently empathy free morons who kept repeating the ludicrous idea "but why would anyone accept a person who clearly wasn't their son?" as some kind of evidence of suspicious goings on. Erm, maybe they just really missed their boy and longed for closure? Grieving people will tell themselves anything.
Murderers who've gotten away with it, on the other hand, will not expose themselves to massive media and law enforcement scrutiny the way these people did. It's insane to suggest otherwise. Sorry, but the only suspicious thing here is the ever reaching behaviour of the law. Three polygraph tests? Imagining Boudin was a spy? Digging in the garden over the word of a fooking impostor? They wanted a mystery where there was none, to cover their own foolish asses and to fit their own deeply warped world views - and maybe for self aggrandisement.
Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.
- Marla
absolutely correct!
shareI think the dead step-brother Jason killed him. Can't be 100% sure or anything, but a couple of things indicate that he killed Jason or at least knew he was dead and covered it up.
1. The fact that he reported to the police that Nick had tried to break into the house one month later. This is apparently the only real sighting of the kid after he disappeared and it was alleged by Jason. Like the private detective said, there's very little reason to do this unless you're trying to give off the impression that the kid is alive and out there when in fact you know he's dead, and this has of course been seen in other cases by abductors/murderers. It just seems so strange that the kid would try to break back into the house soon after he went missing, and then never be seen again - it's been 20 years and that's the ONLY apparent sighting? It's almost certain to be a lie, and I can think of no other reasonable explanation for that lie other than Jason knowing the kid was dead and wanting to make it look like he was alive.
2. Although the guy is obviously a sociopathic liar, the fact that when he saw Jason he just said 'good luck' sits very well with the theory that Jason at least knew he was dead. For me, it's pretty good evidence (if true) that Jason knew the kid was dead and wasn't coming back. Granted, it's quite an assumption to assume that this isn't a lie, but it fits with what was said regarding Jason being questioned at the drug rehab facility - that he was disinterested in what happened to the kid and showed no concern.
It's hard to rule out a stranger abduction, it could so easily have happened, but I think the theory that Jason did it fits better. Interviews in the doc suggest that Jason and the kid did not get along, and that Jason was heavily into drugs and could be violent. It's not hard to imagine a situation in which the kid ends up dead here - drug addled Jason snaps and it's manslaughter, he covers it up. Also possible (but imo less likely) that he OD'd on Jason's drugs and he covered it up.
Assuming some scenario in which it was manslaughter/murder, did the family know? I don't think you can conclude that they knew just because they were apparently fooled into thinking some 23y old Frenchman was their son when he wasn't. I think it's possible that desperate people in a situation like that would believe a cunning con-man when they just want him back so much. I don't think the sister or the brother in law knew anything, they seem fairly genuine in this doc. It's harder to tell with the mother though, she seems less forthcoming and you have the lie detector tests etc. (not that they're really worth anything but a little suspicion). I think she knows the kid is dead and Jason was involved, but I doubt she actively participated in covering it up.
I'd be interested in knowing if any law enforcement actually did a proper search of that property at any point after the kid went missing.
Is this your homework, Larry?
Who knows? I wouldn't trust Bourdin as far as I can throw, but there's definitely something seriously off about the family. They're all either borderline retarded, or more likely, they were using the imposter to cover up their involvement in Nicholas' disappearance. I don't buy that any of them seriously thought Bourdin was Nicholas. It's just too much of a stretch, even for the dumbest of hillbillies. Furthermore, I tend to believe Bourdin that the sister was explicitly feeding him information about the photos when she came to get him in Spain. Why would she be showing him a bunch of old family pictures almost immediately upon seeing him anyway? It doesn't strike me as something a normal person would do in that situation, unless she wanted to quickly familiarize him with the make-up of the family so he could answer the questions from the authorities.
I dunno, it was probably just a singularly deranged case of a group of sociopaths (the family on one side, Bourdin on the other) serendipitously crossing paths and using each other out of mutual self-interest. What a strange, strange story. Absolutely fascinating though.
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I'd like to know the percentage of the time a relative is responsible for a child's disappearance, i've heard the 90$% figure in cases where someone is murdered.
Assume nothing; Question everything
Why would she be showing him a bunch of old family pictures almost immediately upon seeing him anyway? It doesn't strike me as something a normal person would do in that situation, unless she wanted to quickly familiarize him with the make-up of the family so he could answer the questions from the authorities.
I can think of three other possible reasons.
First, she'd been told he was traumatized, so it's possible she was trying to comfort him with images of family since the family couldn't be there.
Second, she'd been told he didn't remember things due to trauma, so it's possible she was hoping to jog his memory with photos.
Third, it's possible she was trying to put her own fears to rest by seeing if he recognized people, but being up against a professional conman, was out of her league. He said earlier in the documentary how easy it was to get police and child services to jump to the conclusions he wanted by saying just enough and letting them mentally fill in the blanks--the vague but encouraging responses he gave her ("Look how big Cody's gotten," "Is Grandpa still an *beep* fall into that category well.
no they did not, there has never been any evidence that they did!
shareI said this in another thread, but I suspected something was off about the disappearance by how the mum talked about it early on in the film. I then felt bad about it, but then the film took us there too. There definitely seems to be some reason to think there was involvement there.
share