The Imposter

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I want to get a good picture,

some more pictures.

This is Carey's room, her bed.

This is the birthday girl's mattress

and everything else.

She's even got a TV

in her room.

Ain't she lucky?

That's my sister.

The birthday girl.

Ain't she beautiful?

And here is her brother.

Nick.

The thought of what somebody

could have done to him...

It gives you nightmares.

It really does.

His disappearance never made the news.

It wasn't news to them,

it was just news to us.

It came to the point where, you know,

you're not gonna find him alive,

but you just want to

find what happened to him.

They called me at work when I wasn't there

and they wrote a message and said,

"Someone from Spain has Nicholas."

He wants to come home.

My mom called me.

I was at work.

And she says, "Sitting down?

You're not going to believe this."

Course. It was mysterious,

it was er... exciting,

it was worrisome,

er, it was all mixed emotions, you know?

Ecstatic.

Bewildered.

You know, Spain!

Isn't that like across the country?

Um, how did he get there?

You want...

you have like a hundred thousand questions

that you want answered immediately.

I felt wonderful,

you know, excited.

You wanna see him, touch him,

you know what I mean?

And you want it all to happen now.

From as long as I remember,

I wanted to be someone else.

Someone who was acceptable.

The most important thing for me and what

I learned very fast was to be convincing.

When the police arrive,

I have immediately to put into their mind

they have a kid in front of them,

not an adult.

So it was very important for me

to behave like one.

They would see me with...

in a big coat with younger clothes.

And they would see a kid with a hat,

which is very low in the eyes.

They couldn't see my eyes.

I wanted to provoke on them

a sense of guilt...

...of being adults and to be close to a kid

which is dead scared.

When you see a kid that,

you know, got nervous reflexes,

that you can't touch them,

you can't approach them,

then you understand, you understand

that something is wrong.

I wasn't the one who was telling them

I've been sexually abused.

I made them ask me that by my attitude,

by my way of doing things.

They were the one thinking about it

and that gave me power.

I didn't speak much.

It's very hard to read a kid

that doesn't speak a word sometime.

If a cop don't know who a kid is

and where he comes from,

he just can't keep him

in the police station.

And I knew that eventually they would

have to put me into a children's home...

...and that's all I wanted.

Nobody ever gave a damn about me

and to know that if I change my identity

the reward was eventually

to be put in a place

where actually

they really cared about me...

then, hell, yeah.

I mean, I was reborn.

I mean... I was born again.

Nobody ever gave me a childhood,

because to give a kid a childhood

you need to, to love that kid.

I felt like I belonged there.

They didn't know

that I was 23, 23 years old.

I was considered like one of them.

I told him to be home by dinner

and gave him five bucks

to go play basketball,

and... he took off.

He called home, asking for a ride, er...

which was probably, I don't know,

he's within a couple of miles

from his house

and his mother works late

and sleeps during the day

and his older brother Jason

answered the phone.

When I woke up Jason was there and said

that he had called and wanted a ride home,

but Jason didn't want to wake me up,

so told him he had to walk home.

And that's... was the day,

the last time we heard from him.

You spend 24 hours crying, sick, worried,

then you get mad, then you get scared,

and then you try to get empowered.

You know, "OK, what can we do?

We have to do flyers,

we'll do this, we'll..."

You know, so instead of...

you don't cry, you do something positive

and try to work towards, I guess,

a solution of finding him.

I thought somebody offered him

a ride, and he got in the car.

I dunno, I think he would have got in a car

with someone that he didn't know.

What are you looking at?

I could see the worry and the pain

they were going through,

so I always said, you know,

"He's out there," you know.

"He'll resurface," you know.

Unfortunately for me, it was one of

those places which is very rare in Spain

where actually they can't stand

having a kid with no identity card,

er, no proof of who he is.

They wanted absolutely to know who I was,

where do I come from,

erm, they needed to know precise.

"If you don't tell us,

if can't prove us who you are,

I'm gonna have you fingerprinted

and your pictures taken."

I couldn't allow that to happen.

I had to find a way out of that.

So the only, only thing left there was

was 1) go to prison

I said that I was American.

That er... I ran away and I was

willing to contact my family for them

but I wanted to do it myself.

I didn't want my family to receive a phone call

from the police or the persecutor

or the judge in Spain.

I wanted to do it myself.

And I said I would need to be

in the office for the night

because I live in the States.

The States is, you know,

the times is different, it's er...

So erm, you know,

just leave me in the office

and tomorrow you will have all you need.

In this office nobody could hear me.

I knew that I could pass myself

for anyone on the phone,

could convince anyone of anything.

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