Murder of Genevieve Tetpon and return of Nicholas Barclay (Frederic Bourdin)

Genevieve Tetpon was found stabbed, stuffed in a sleeping bag on the side of the road. With little evidence and no suspects, the case turns cold. But a rookie cop makes finding Genevieve's killer his first priority... and what he discovers is startling. Then we cover the case of Nicholas Barclay. He went missing at 13, but emerges years later. He looks the same, but something seems off. Is he the long lost boy everyone's been looking for? Or did someone try to take his place?

Sources:
https://filmdaily.co/news/the-imposter/
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-19949847
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/08/11/the-chameleon-annals-of-crime-david-grann
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thepoliticalbrigade/a-measure-of-justice-t18725.html
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2011/02/04/man-charged-with-nearly-11-year-old-murder/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3419942/ 

Transcript

Liz: [00:00:01] guys. We're back. It's Liz 
Emily: [00:00:03] and Emily. And this is episode 27 of that's a bad sign. We haven't done an official intro in 
Liz: [00:00:10] awhile. I know we've just been like chit chatting, like we're old friends, which we 
Emily: [00:00:14] are 27 episodes in. Yeah, we are. That's 
Liz: [00:00:17] like half a year. We've 
Emily: [00:00:18] been doing this. Wow. You were thought we've had a little bit more success by now.
Liz: [00:00:23] Keep telling your friends, rate us on Apple podcast. Thanking you. 
Emily: [00:00:28] Um, all right, so you start off recommendation corner also. Okay. Let's give background on what recommendation quarter is. Cause I realize we haven't been 
Liz: [00:00:37] that. Oh yeah, that's totally fair. So 
Emily: [00:00:39] recommendation, coroner, it's just Liz and egg giving recommendations that aren't necessarily true crime related.
It's a way for us to ease into 
Liz: [00:00:47] the murders. And with that, I'll hop into mind for this week. I was just telling Emily, I have been binge watching the show Homeland on Showtime. It is. So good, but it is very anxiety inducing. And I did end up having heart palpitations yesterday, which might be unrelated, but it could be related, but that's how intense it is.
It's just so good. It's like a whole spy show. It's just Claire Danes is incredible in it. It's so good. Everyone should 
Emily: [00:01:16] watch it. I think everyone knows what it is. I don't think everyone knew that it's still on. Yeah. 
Liz: [00:01:21] Yeah. There, it was very much hyped up when it first came out and I watched the first couple of seasons and then I sort of.
Lost interest, but you know, it's still a pandemic, so I'm still looking for things to watch. So I decided to give it another try. And I'm on the last season now, which is season eight. So if you're looking for a new show to kill some time with this is it, 
Emily: [00:01:39] and mine is also a show. It's a limited series on Netflix called behind her eyes.
And I think it's fairly new. It's really good. And Bano, his daughter is the lead character in it. And all I'll say is it's six episodes. It's a mind bending like thrill or what's it 
Liz: [00:01:59] called? Like a psychological 
Emily: [00:02:01] thriller, a psychological thriller. It gets a little  by the end, but don't let that deter you if you don't like scifi.
Cause it's a minor part. That's a 
Liz: [00:02:10] huge plus for me. I love sci-fi. I know, 
Emily: [00:02:12] I know. And even I was watching it and my boyfriend overheard some episodes and like he wasn't paying attention, but when he was, he was like, Damn it. I wish I started 
Liz: [00:02:21] the show with you. Okay. I have to give that one a try. Cause I haven't watched it yet.
You guys have a recommendations and let's do it. Your stories first this week. Yes. Cheers.
Emily: [00:02:41] Emily here. And my sources today include tappa talk.com, Alaska public.org, and a show that's on. I think it's called unusual suspects. I think it's on, um, Oh, the ID channel. So I watched it on Hulu. This is an Alaska case. Oh my God. I meant to tell you, yeah, 
Liz: [00:03:02] our second Alaska case, let's go. 
Emily: [00:03:04] Okay. So on March 22nd, 2000 a managed driving and he sees trash on the side of a road in Anchorage, Alaska, and he notices something shiny in the trash.
So he decides he should pull over because, you know, if it's metal or something, that's something he can salvage and make some money off of. So he pulls over and he sees a bag of trash and he opens it and it's filled with random papers and. It's bills and some printouts of emails. He also sees two metal crutches.
So that's the shiny object that he saw. He also then sees a sleeping bag that's stuffed. So when he opens a sleeping bag, he finds the dead body of a young native woman. So when the police arrived to the scene, they can't find any ID on this native woman. So they classify her as a Jane DOE. And when they do the autopsy, they realize that she's been brutally stabbed 30 times.
Now there was no blood at the crime scene. So the detectives realize this woman was attacked and stabbed, and then she was disposed of, so she wasn't killed on the side of the 
Liz: [00:04:15] road. Okay. So that's just where her body was dumped. 
Emily: [00:04:18] Exactly. So the crime must have taken place somewhere else. Just something to note.
Now without any ID, they don't have a lead. Like they don't know who would have wanted this woman dead or anything. However, they do have that bag of trash. And in that trash, there was personal pieces of garbage things like credit card statements, um, doctor appointment notices, and also emails that somebody printed out and threw out.
And all the names on every single piece of trash were the same. They led to a woman named Alana TEFL. So with this lead, the police approach, Ilana, and she's not necessarily the suspect that they were expecting. She's a mother of two, she's a teacher in the community. She's married to a pastor. And by all means her and her husband are pillars of their community.
So the police asked them how a bag of her trash could have ended up next to a dead body. And she is dumbfounded. Like she has no idea. She has no idea who the woman is. She doesn't know why her trash would be there. She's truly astonished. And the police are inclined to believe her. Like, why would this random woman, or even our husband, who's a pastor.
They obviously they could do it, but the police are looking at them. And I think these people aren't related to 
Liz: [00:05:33] the crime. Unlikely with no sort of background in crime 
Emily: [00:05:37] also. So she does say that her car was broken into a month ago and she had a police report to prove it. So she says, you know, it's weird.
I don't know why someone would take those things. Like I didn't notice, but that could probably explain it. And the police do confirm that someone broke into her car. So the police. They're kind of back, you know, was it step zero? Like they don't know who this woman is and the one lead, they had turned out to be a dead end.
So now it's been two days and the police issue, a press statement and just States the Jane DOE and the circumstances of her death, 16 miles away from the crime though. During this press statement, Pat Fulton is home watching the news and she hears of the gruesome discovery of this woman and she's doing the dishes and she turns to her husband and says that poor family.
Unfortunately, the next day, police knock on her door, they were finally able to match Jane Doe's fingerprints to alum, a named Genovese in who was Pat's daughter. Turns out Genovese was 28 years old and she was a single mother of four kids. Oh, that's so sad. I know. So the police identified her and they were able to tell her mother, and it's so sad watching the mother's interview saying just how sh hours before she saw it on the news and thought, how horrible could that be?
And then it was her. 
Liz: [00:07:00] That's like actually heartbreaking. 
Emily: [00:07:02] Okay. But as horrible as this situation is now the police have something to go after. They can talk to the mother and say, who might've wanted your daughter, dad. And she says, nobody, my daughter is amazing. And they even describe her as that girl who like lights up a room when she walks in.
But the mother does say that. Her daughter, Genevieve was engaged to a man named Ken Gessler and she says, he's sketchy. He's an asshole. He's really mean. I bet you, he has something to do with my daughter's murder. So obviously the next step, this is their only lead that go to try to find Ken Gissler. And when they go to his home, it's been completely evacuated.
So absolutely nothing left. And that's just not a good sign. Like I feel like that is guilty. 
Liz: [00:07:48] That is 
Emily: [00:07:49] tabs. So they begin to approach his friends, trying to figure out where Gessler could be. And they finally talked to a guy named Grady Keppel. Who's a close friend of Gessler and he says, My friend could never do this.
Like, he might be an asshole, but I'm telling you he would never commit murder and like, yeah, maybe, you know, he was cheating on his fiance and, you know, she ended the engagement and I know they had an issue with the ring because she refused, give it back. Like he wouldn't murder her. 
Liz: [00:08:17] So he's spilling all the tea.
So 
Emily: [00:08:19] the police finally get a motive. Like the 
Liz: [00:08:21] police didn't know any of this, this guy. 
Emily: [00:08:25] It was so funny here, the detective detective said they like the two of them were just staring at this guy, like seriously, do 
Liz: [00:08:32] idiots have smarter friends? If you're going to commit a crime. So the police 
Emily: [00:08:37] now have a motive and they're about to leave the friend's apartment when they notice a bloody sleeping bag.
So they point this out and the friend says, that's not mine. That's . He dropped it off two weeks ago. You guys can have it. Like, I didn't think it was blood. Like, I don't know what that stain is, but, you know, have it, whatever. And the friend just, you know, he's claiming Gensler's is a nice guy, but the friends like throwing him under the bus.
He's 
Liz: [00:09:02] like, he's a nice guy, but X, Y, and Z. 
Emily: [00:09:06] So the police have this bloody sleeping bag. They're going to get it tested to see if it matches Genevieve's blood and they're actively looking for Gessler and they think they should approach the woman that he was cheating on his fiance with. So when they go, she's extremely hostile, she won't tell them where Gessler is.
And she's fighting with the police. She's extremely rude to them and they hear something in the back of the house. So they go around the back and there is, Gissler running away from the cops. 
Liz: [00:09:36] Shocking. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:09:37] So they, well, so they chase him and then they lose him. Right? Well, sometimes also no offense. You see these like detectives and they were like, Overweight not wearing running shoes.
So 
Liz: [00:09:49] like, okay. It's very confusing. It's like how Benson is always wearing heels and running. I was about 
Emily: [00:09:54] to say that Olivia Benson and SVO just doesn't have the appropriate attire. 
Liz: [00:09:59] No, she doesn't, but she makes it work. She doesn't 
Emily: [00:10:01] lose anybody with Gissler gone. They're pretty sure of his guilt. You know, he keeps splitting the scene and they don't have DNA, but he's clearly guilty.
Then they get the results back from the sleeping bag and it does in fact match Genevieve's blood. So that's not, you know, an open and shut pace, but that is evidence pointing again into his direction. They decided to dig a little deeper into his life and they find that he actually purchased a car from his friend and just gave his friend cash for it.
So they track the license plate and they realize that a week before the murder. Nope. Sorry. I got that wrong 10 hours before the murder. He was involved in a hidden run. However, I don't mean like hidden run. Like he hit a car and then drove away. He hit a car. And then got out of the passenger seat and ran away by foot.
This guy must be fast. 
Liz: [00:10:56] He is speedy. 
Emily: [00:10:57] He loves to run. So he actually left the car and ran away, which is good for police because now that's in police custody. If someone runs away from their car, it's like in the impound yard, right. So he's still on the run. The police go the impound yard to get his car.
And they think he might've murdered her in this car because we know the murder didn't take place at the scene where the body was found or he transported her in the car. So they do a search of the car and it's clean and not clean. Like he was bleach and everything like it's dirty, but there's 
Liz: [00:11:29] no blood there.
Right? No crime seemingly took place there. He 
Emily: [00:11:33] eventually realizes that the police are looking for him. Obviously, 
Liz: [00:11:38] as he's running here, it hits him. The police are running after him. 
Emily: [00:11:42] Well, so I guess he doesn't want to keep running. So he turns himself into the police. Oh God. And he says, I didn't do it. I know this looks bad, but I'm telling you I didn't kill her.
And they bring all the evidence to him. And he says, there's blood on that bag, that sleeping bag, because we went hiking and had sex and she had her period. And I ran away from you because I was scared and I ran away from the hit and run because I forget like he didn't have a license or he admitted to being intoxicated.
And the police say these are a lot of coincidences, but they can't hold him because it's all coincidences. And he even says to them, take my DNA. Just like do whatever you can to get me out of this because I swear I didn't kill her. And they do take his DNA and it doesn't match the DNA that they found under Genovese fingernails, because luckily she managed to scratch 
Liz: [00:12:33] her attacker.
Hmm. This is her turn. 
Emily: [00:12:36] Exactly. So the case turns cold. So now fast forward to 2009 and a rookie cop named detective Dave Cordy. He just joined the force. And I guess if you're a rookie cops, sometimes they just give you cold cases and they ask you to look over them like a fresh set of eyes. So they give him the file and he searching through it and he knows this something weird.
The what was her name? The pastor and the teacher, the couple that had the own, the trash bag next to his dead body. They said that they reported their car was broken into. However, when he was comparing the emails that they found, because the emails were in the trash. And the actual police report, he found that they waited three weeks.
So she emailed somebody, Oh, my car was broken in and then three weeks later there was a police report. 
Liz: [00:13:25] That's strange for two reasons to me, because waiting is weird. But also do you report a stolen car over email? 
Emily: [00:13:31] No, no. Sorry. It was her car was broken into, Oh, I think she told someone like our friend or maybe a family member.
Okay. Okay. So they were just comparing it and they thought this is strange, but. Yeah, like maybe it's explainable, but either way he decides to call the teacher and the pastor and they stand by their story. They have no idea what he's talking about. They're like annoyed at him for bringing this up 13 years later and they have no excuse and they kind of just like blow him off.
And he decides to keep them, you know, as potential suspects. But then he says they have two sons and one was in college during the crime in a different state. So he's likely not the culprit. But then the other son was 17 at the time. And he's likely not either, but he was a giant guy on the town's local football team.
He could have done it. So he decides to call him in and just ask him to come in for an interview, which he does. And his name is Derek Torian and he is super nice. He's what, this is 13 years later. So he's 30. Yeah. He's about 17 plus 13. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. So he's 30 years old. He is a husband with kids and he's also the coach in the community for the, uh, high school football team.
Everybody loves him and he's super open to the cops and he says, I don't know anything about this case. I was six or sorry. I was 17. My mom obviously didn't want to tell me about a murder. Like, I don't know how much it can help you. And the Cub feels bad. And he says, clearly he got the wrong guy. But then he says, okay, let me just rule you out.
Can I have your DNA sample? And this 30 year old man starts to clam up and get really antsy. And he says, I don't know. I think I have to ask my mom. Yeah. Liz has given me a luck. 
Liz: [00:15:21] Do you? 
Emily: [00:15:22] So this rookie cup is like you're 30 years old. You don't have to ask your mom, but okay. Like talk to your mom and get back to me tomorrow.
And. Tomorrow comes and Derek Torian never calls. So the cop realizes there's a good chance. It was this high school kid. So he's putting pressure on him. And finally, Derek does give the cop his DNA. So the cops are running it a few days later, he gets a positive match and Derek Dorian's DNA matches the skin that was found under gen V's fingernails.
So before they even go to arrest Derek, he comes back with the lawyer. In this time, his story is a little different. He says, okay. When I was in high school, I worked at the local pizza place and I was getting good grades and I had to make money to go to college. So I was a drug dealer on the side. So my acquaintance was in the pizza place with me and we closed up and we were cutting up cocaine and we're putting it baggies to sell to people.
And I guess I didn't lock the front door cause Genevieve walked right in and she saw what we were doing. And he said, But I just turned around and I went to the back and I went to the back office of the pizza parlor. And when I came back, my acquaintance killed her. I don't know about that. And he's like, and then I helped dispose of the body, but this was 13 years ago.
And you know, I was just a stupid kid and the police say two things, one. She hit 30 stab wounds and some of them were defensive wounds. If you went to the back, you would have heard something and you would've heard her screaming and also your DNA is found under her fingertips. So. You don't get those from disposing of the dead body.
You get those, if you're the one attacking her and she scratched 
Liz: [00:17:04] you. Exactly. Those are defensive wounds. They're not like, unless you're taking her hand after she's dead and scratching yourself with it. Exactly. That doesn't make any sense. 
Emily: [00:17:13] So, um, obviously the police call BS on this and they charge him with murder.
However, since he was the only living witness, because. Genevieve's dead. This guy who he's putting the blame on turns out he died 10 years prior in a gunfight. So he's the only living witness. And the detective say this case happened 13 years ago. There's barely any evidence. There's no one to corroborate his story or deny it.
He might get off if he goes to trial. So they eventually give him a plea bargain of aggravated manslaughter where he's serving 15 years in prison. And he's scheduled for release on April 24th, 2023. Wow. Side note native woman in Alaska are in high risk for attacks between Canada and Alaska. They're just disproportionately I think, attacked or targeted.
And so when this was first happening, There was actually a spree of native woman killings and police actually thought that at one point, this could have been the work of a serial killer. So a few years into her case, like six years into it going cold, they actually did find a serial killer and he admitted to many of the killings.
And when they showed him her picture, he said, no, it had nothing to do with that. So it was just crazy that like so many women were targeted and then a serial killer came forward and he couldn't even claim all of them. Like other people were committing crimes. It's just the statistics. I'm native woman.
It's, it's really scary. That's 
Liz: [00:18:48] really crazy. And I. I remember that I listened to some podcasts. I cannot remember the name of it right now, but it is about indigenous women in Canada who have gone missing. And it's really interesting because they just don't get the attention that you know, anyone else would get.
Yeah. The system just doesn't seem to care about them as much, really scary. Well, that was a very, very interesting case. And I'm happy that her family finally has closure. 
Emily: [00:19:14] I know, I know, like 13, I love hearing about cold cases that get solved like 13 years later. That's why I really want to do this case.
Well, great job. Thank you. All right, cheers. And then we could go into yours. Yes.
Liz: [00:19:40] okay. So I'm going to cover a very strange case of a missing boy, and that's all the information I'm going to tell you before I get into it. Okay. I am ready. I will give you my references though. Film deli.co bbc.com and the new yorker.com. Ooh. Most of my info came from the new Yorker article. Love it. In 1994, 13 year old, Nicholas Barclay of San Antonio, Texas disappeared after playing basketball with some of his friends, as the story goes, Nicholas called his mother to come pick him up, but she was asleep and his older brother, Jason refused to wake up their mother and was like, you can just walk home what a Dick.
I know, but. The mother had some drug problems. So I don't know if that's why he was like, let's just let her sleep. 
Emily: [00:20:30] Yeah. But still I shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion. 
Liz: [00:20:33] So there was obviously a huge search for Nicholas, but in the end he was never found and he was presumed dead. No. Now three years after Nicholas, his disappearance, the Barclays received a phone call from law enforcement.
A young man had been picked up by the police in Spain. And he said that his name was Nicholas Barclay. So this boy claims that he had escaped from a child sex ring and that he had been abused for the past few years. So Spanish police immediately reached out to the San Antonio police. The Barclay family was understandably filled with joy and hope that their Nicholas had been found.
Oh no, Nicholas's 31 year old half sister, Carrie ended up flying to Spain to identify him. Now Carrie went because she, I guess was the one that kind of held the family together. Because as I mentioned, the mother did struggle with addiction. So it's not really surprising that she was the one who flew to Spain.
Yeah. When Carrie got there, she saw this boy and immediately thought that's him. Oh my God. His nose looked like their uncle Pat's nose. He had the same tattoo that Nicholas had on his hand. And he knew so many details about the family. Asking about everyone by name. Wait, you said he was 13. Yeah. It's not a real tattoo.
It's sort of like a, like a kid would do give to himself. You know what I mean? Like a homemade tattoo of sorts that he would 
Emily: [00:21:57] have years 
Liz: [00:21:59] later. Yeah. You can like figure out how to like give yourself a tattoo. Holy shit. Okay. Carrie swore under oath that the person that they found was her brother and he was granted a us passport.
And then the next day they both were on a flight back to Texas. Wow. So all in all happy story, minus the child's x-ray. So Nicholas quickly blended in with the family. He was enrolled in high school. He did his homework every night. He played Nintendo with Cody who was Carrie's ten-year-old son. He occasionally went to church with his family and when prompted, he told everyone how happy he was to be home with his family again.
Oh my God. Like, so this is like a true miracle and this community. As I mentioned, Nicholas claimed that he had been involved in a child sex ring for the past few years. So the family wasn't so prized when his behavior was different than the boy that they remembered, obviously that will change you. How so?
Well, for example, he spoke English, but with a French accent and he used a lot of European phrases, but he claimed that his abusers had not allowed him to use any English while he was there. Like that makes sense. But. This one's a little harder to explain his eyes were Brown and his hair was blonde, but it had clearly been bleached blonde.
Nicholas had blue eyes and naturally blonde hair, but this boy claims that his abusers had chemically altered the color of his hair and eyes. How do you chemically alter your eyes? You don't got it. Got it. Got it. We will get there soon. Ultimately, the family believed that this boy was their son, but something was definitely very off on November 1st, 1997, just a few weeks after Nicholas had returned home, a television producer from a show called hard copy called private investigator at Charlie Parker.
He had heard about the miraculous return of 16 year old Nicholas Barclay. And he wanted to hire Parker to investigate the kidnapping, like who stole him in the first place. Yeah. So Parker agreed and he easily traced Nicholas Barclay back to Carrie's trailer. Nicholas had been living with his sister, Carrie because his mother was super unstable as we've discussed.
So it was a better option for him. A few days later, Parker arrived at the home with a camera crew, but the family didn't want to speak to anyone. Obviously. However, the boy agreed to talk. Not a good idea. Parker says that the kid was quote as calm as a cucumber, but he admits that he was very intrigued by his accent.
Parker spotted a photograph of Nicholas as a younger kid in the home. And he looked at the ears and then he looked at the boy in front of him and the ears were not the same. He says he once learned that ears are similar to fingerprints and that they're very, very distinct. I heard that as well. So after this, he had his cameraman zoom in on the kid's ears.
And then he pocketed the photo that he had found in the house. Oh my God. Parker then called a couple of different ophthalmologists and asked them if it was possible for someone's eye color to be changed from blue to Brown, by injecting chemicals, they all said no. Parker then spoke to a dialect expert at Trinity university who told him that.
Even if someone had been held captive in another country for years, they would quickly regain their native accent upon returning home. That's not looking good at this point. Parker passes on his suspicions to the San Antonio police department because he feared that the family could be in danger. If a stranger was living with them like this, he is super weirded out.
Now he also called Beverly Nicholas's mother and he told her what they had uncovered. After their conversation, he wrote in his notes, quote, family is upset, but maintains that they believe it is their son. 
Emily: [00:26:04] It's clearly a family just stricken by 
Liz: [00:26:07] grief. Yeah, it is. I mean, you look at this case from the outside and you think, how could you possibly believe this?
But when you're in the moment, you probably convince yourself that you want to believe it. Yeah. So Parker was still stuck on the accent. It sounded French, perhaps French Moroccan. And if that's the case, what the heck was this foreigner doing? Living in the Backwoods in Texas quote, I thought it was a terrorist.
I swear to God. Wow. Parker said honestly, though, what would you think, why would this, why would this person infiltrate the sticks of Texas? Basically a random family. Yeah. After about two months of being back home, Nicholas started acting moody and aloof. He stopped going to school, which resulted in suspension.
And then in December he stole his sister Carrie's car and drove to Oklahoma with no destination in mind. He just drove police, pulled him over for speeding and he was arrested, but his family brought him home. A few weeks later, he locked himself in the bathroom, picked up a razor and started to mutilate his face.
Oh my God. So then he was sent to a psych ward for several days for observation. Um, but he eventually was deemed stable enough to return back home while all of this was going on, the authorities were starting to doubt that this kid was the real Nicholas Barclay. Nancy Fisher, who was the FBI agent who interviewed Nicholas when he first returned to the U S was leading an investigation.
Emily: [00:27:43] I'm sorry, question. Why didn't anyone check his DNA? Why am I just 
Liz: [00:27:47] thinking of this? Oh, okay. You're on the right track here. Okay. So Nancy had taken Nicholas to see a forensic psychiatrist who concluded that judging by his syntax and grammar. He. Absolutely could not be American and was most likely French.
Oh no. She tried to get Nicholas and his mother Beverly to give blood and they refused Beverly. I would say things like, how dare you say he's not my son and stuff like that. So this woman is a little bit delusional. Yeah. Wow. By February Fisher is able to maintain warrants for their blood samples and fingerprints.
And on March 5th, Beverly called Parker, private investigator and told him that she too thought this person was now an imposter. Apparently there had been some fights breaking out between the two of them. Holy shit. The next day Parker took the kid out to eat at a diner and he said, you've upset your mother, the kid responds.
She's not my mother. And you know, it boldly Parker says, you're going to tell me who you are. And the kid says I'm Friedrich. Borden and I'm wanted by Interpol. Oh my God. Can 
you 
Emily: [00:29:05] imagine Parker's resides? Like wasn't expecting that 
Liz: [00:29:09] like surprise I'm wanted in Europe. After a few more minutes of chatting.
Parker goes to the bathroom and calls Fisher who says that she had also just found out the same information from Interpol. Cause she got the DNA and she was getting a warrant. So Borden was arrested that day. He kind of gave up 
Emily: [00:29:30] his cover very easily. 
Liz: [00:29:32] Yeah. But in reading the article about him, he had kind of gotten to a point where he couldn't keep this up any longer.
Like that's why he was going. So robe, like stealing the car. Self harm, all that stuff. He was, he couldn't keep up this facade. Yeah. Now in custody, Borden tells the authorities that Beverly the mother and Jason, Nicholas, his brother may have been complicit in Nicholas's disappearance. Now this is a wild theory.
This guy is a liar. So they're like, I don't know if we should really credit this with anything, but. I don't believe it, but then they begin to investigate some things that happened right after Nicholas is disappearance. For example, there were a lot of reports of Beverly screaming at Jason over Nicholas.
His disappearance, neighbors claimed that Beverly sometimes hit Nicholas prior to his disappearance. And afterwards Jason fell into a drug binge. And he eventually deed. 
Emily: [00:30:31] Okay. But that's just because your brother went missing, that doesn't mean you have anything to do with it. Yeah. 
Liz: [00:30:36] But there were, there were a lot of reports that Beverly's house was a dangerous one for her children.
So yes. Jason had a drug addiction. He was also the only family member who didn't come to greet their alleged brother at the airport when he returned. Oh. Cause he knows it's not him. Yeah. When asked by authorities, here's your brother long gone kidnapped aren't aren't you eager to see him? Jason says, well, no, they then say, did he look like your brother to you?
And he says, well, I guess, like not normal answers at all. 
Emily: [00:31:14] Yeah. But also he could just be so fucked up. 
Liz: [00:31:17] Yeah, totally. Eventually Beverly was given a lie detector test. And when she was asked the question of whether or not she knew Nicholas's whereabouts the machine went off, the charts signaling that she was lying, no Beverly, but ultimately there's no real evidence and they, they can't charge anyone with anything regarding Nicholas's disappearance.
Emily: [00:31:40] I have some questions, but 
Liz: [00:31:41] I'll let you finish so back to Borden and I'm definitely pronouncing that wrong. So I apologize to all of the French listeners out there. All two of you think there may be two Frederick Gordon pled guilty to perjury and to obtaining false documents. And he got six years in jail.
Okay. Carrie, Nicholas, his sister testified to the court saying even though she knew deep down that Borden, wasn't her brother quote, your heart takes over and you want to believe it. I understand that. I know it's really, it's actually just really sad. She also says, quote, he has lied and lied and lied again.
And to this day he continues to lie. He bears no remorse. So at this point she's like the jig is up. You've dragged my family through enough horror. I, this person needs to go to jail. Yeah. So in reality, Frederick Borden was a 23 year old young man from France. Who had spent his entire life impersonating other people in over 15 countries and in five different languages, smart guy, but 
Emily: [00:32:50] like, Oh 
Liz: [00:32:51] yeah.
Emily: [00:32:52] Is there just something mentally wrong with him? Who wants to do that? He 
Liz: [00:32:56] also always played a similar character and abused or abandoned child. Oh, this is likely because he didn't feel loved as a child. He was the illegitimate child of a poor woman. And he was put into a children's home at the age of 16 when he actually ran away and started his life of con artist conning.
But he's conning 
Emily: [00:33:19] families who are 
Liz: [00:33:20] grieving. Yeah. It's messed up. He made his way into shelters, orphanages, foster homes, high schools. Children's hospitals. You name it. When his sentence is up in the United States, he gets sent back to France. And in 2004, he assumed the identity of Leo Belli, a 14 year old French boy who had been missing since 1996, dude, DNA testing quickly proved that he was not Leo.
I also want to point out that at this time he is 30 years old. 
Emily: [00:33:52] So how 
Liz: [00:33:52] old would have Leo been? I think 14. Like, I think he's a good teenager. He's trying to impersonate a teenager still. Oh, I thought 
Emily: [00:34:01] he meant he went missing when he was 14.  
Liz: [00:34:05] whatever. Uh, I don't, I don't think so. I don't know. I'm actually not sure.
Um, either way, he's still trying to pretend that he's like much younger than he actually is. Yeah. Black dude. One of the French prosecutors in this case said, quote, usually people con for money, his profit seems to have been purely emotional. Yeah. Which is just like. Sad and eerie. It creeps me out. He's 
Emily: [00:34:30] psychologically messed up.
Liz: [00:34:33] And another quote from the new Yorker article, he was unusually adept at transforming his appearance, his facial hair, his weight, his walk, his mannerisms. He would say, I can become whatever I want and go into 
Emily: [00:34:48] acting 
Liz: [00:34:49] like, don't do this. So actually that comes up. Yeah. Cause people have said to him in his life, like go into acting and he's like, I don't want to.
I don't want to pretend to be another person. I want to be another person. Oh my God. He's crazy. Yeah. He also had a tattoo on his arm that said, chameleon, a ties. My friend, my friend is impeccable. I don't care what you say, but that beautiful word translates to his chameleon from Nance. That's Nads. The town where he was actually from, uh, okay.
He's like tattooing himself, like a chameleon. I'm the chameleon. It just kind of really freaks me out. It's 
Emily: [00:35:29] crazy. It's crazy. 
Liz: [00:35:32] In the end, in 2007, Borden married a French woman named Isabel and they had five children who would marry him. I'm not sure, but. The end of the article that I read was like, Oh, he has kids now.
And it's all great. But then I looked somewhere else and it said that Isabel and the kids have left. So I don't, and no one knows where they are. So I'm not sure if this is really a happy ending. I can't, 
Emily: [00:35:58] I can't imagine that man is going to have a happy ending without some like serious psychological help.
Liz: [00:36:04] Agreed. But that is all I know. And he seemingly is a free man in France. 
Emily: [00:36:11] So I remember this story because there was a documentary called the imposter. Yep. It was on Netflix and it came out when we were in college. So God like probably watched it like eight years ago. 
Liz: [00:36:24] God, please don't say. 
Emily: [00:36:26] Um, and some things I remember were how you said he kept trying to blame the family, saying they had something to do with the disappearance and you make a good case.
But I remember being really angry watching the documentary. Because he said, Oh, they would show me family pictures. And if I didn't recognize someone, they'd say, Oh no, no, you know that that's uncle John. And they would feed him the answers 
Liz: [00:36:50] that I could totally see happening. Yes. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:36:53] But also I was just like, you are facing charges.
So you want to put the blame on someone else. 
Liz: [00:37:00] Absolutely. But I do think that. There's something to be said for looking into it. I mean, they did look into the mom and the brother, there was not enough to go on, but something suspicious was going on there. I agree 
Emily: [00:37:12] and sorry. The other thing now that I remember was they had footage of him in prison after this happened.
And I guess it was the after United States, where do you go to prison? Spain or France? 
Liz: [00:37:25] I think France. Okay. Yeah, 
Emily: [00:37:27] France, regardless, somewhere in Europe, he was in prison and he would use the phone to call families that lost kids. And he would just call to pretend like he was the child. And I was thinking who is giving him phone rights in prison.
It's insane. 
Liz: [00:37:43] Yeah. I mean, I obviously had to cut a ton out of this story because it probably could have been three episodes. Sorry, I'm bringing it all back. No, no, it's totally fine because I'm sure people are going to be curious. Like how did he even know who. Uh, Nicholas was, how did he get that? And the answer to that is he was, I think he was in an orphanage at the time.
And, and then he wanted to claim or know something happened where he was going to get kicked out of the orphanage. And then he was like, I have to figure something out. So he was like, I'm a missing person. And he brought himself to the police station and then they started looking up missing persons, like missing children.
And he found missing children's supports. And then he picked one that he figured he could look the most. Like, I mean, 
Emily: [00:38:29] like I said it, and I'll say it again. He is smart, like cunning person who is resourceful. 
Liz: [00:38:36] Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's terrifying, but he is, he's a monster. He's he is good at what he does.
Yeah. The amount of pain he has put these families through that have already been through so much pain after losing their child is it's upsetting. Yeah. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:38:52] Um, I'm so glad you covered that. So my last question, what made you decide to cover this? I 
Liz: [00:38:58] don't know. That's okay. And I picked it this morning, so I don't know how, I don't remember.
I, I don't know if I was looking at like missing persons cases or something like that. Perhaps I ended up on an oxygen website and that's what led me to this. So. Oxygen 
Emily: [00:39:13] is the best. Well, that deserves 
Liz: [00:39:16] a cheers. Oh, I also want to point out that this case was the inspiration for the movie, the changeling what's the changeling.
Oh, with Angelina Jolie. What? Oh, you should definitely go watch it. What year 
Emily: [00:39:28] did it come out? 
Liz: [00:39:29] Um, I have no idea what year, but I mean, sometime after, is it old case? No, it can't be that old because this case isn't really that old. Who does she play? The mother of the missing child. Wow. Yeah, it's really good.
I watched it in college probably right after I watched the documentary. 
Emily: [00:39:46] Oh, okay. I think that's another recommendation 
Liz: [00:39:50] poorly watch. Everyone should go watch that after this one. 
Emily: [00:39:53] I'm team Jen, but I'll watch it. Cheers. 
Liz: [00:39:57] Go follow us on Instagram. Cheers. .