Nicholas Patrick Barclay

On June 13, 1994, Nicholas was last seen playing basketball with friends in San Antonio, Texas, which is where he grew up. He called home and asked his mother to pick him up, but she was sleeping and Nicholas’s older brother wouldn’t wake her up. He never returned home.

At first, the authorities thought Nicholas had left on his own. He had done this before, but only for a day. His mother said that he sometimes hit and cursed at her, and when they fought, the police were often called to the house. Nicholas’s mother tried to keep him in line by having Nicholas’s brother move in with them.

Nicholas didn’t go to school very often, and when he did, he got in trouble. He has a criminal record from when he was a teenager. He broke into a store, stole a pair of shoes, and threatened a teacher. The sentencing hearing was set for June 14, the day after he disappeared. One option was to put Nicholas in a group home, but Nicholas was very against this.

On September 25, Nicholas’s older half-brother called the police and said he thought he saw Nicholas trying to break into the family’s garage. When Nicholas saw that his brother had seen him, he ran away. The police looked all over the area, but they couldn’t find him. They and their mother don’t think that Nicholas’s brother really saw him.

In October 1997, more than three years after Nicholas had gone missing, police got a call from a man at a youth shelter in Linares, Spain. The person who called said that Nicholas was staying at the shelter in Spain after getting away from a child sex ring. The person the man thought was Nicholas had been abused for years, he said.

Nicholas’s sister flew to Spain, found the person, and brought him back to Texas after figuring out that it was her brother. Nicholas’s mother thought the man was her son, but a lot of other people, including Nicholas’s uncle, didn’t believe him.

The person had dark brown hair and eyes, and he or she spoke with a French accent and European-sounding phrases. He said that the people who took him had used chemicals to change the colour of his hair and eyes. He also said that living in Europe for so long had changed the way he spoke. The person wouldn’t give blood samples or let his fingerprints be taken to prove his identity, and he also wouldn’t say who took him.

In February 1998, a judge told the FBI to take the person’s fingerprints and blood to see if they matched those of Nicholas. The man’s fingerprints showed that he was a French citizen named Frederic Pierre Bourdin. He was 23 years old. Bourdin has been in trouble with the law in Europe and has used many different names. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to passport fraud and lying under oath. He said that he had pretended to be Nicholas after getting information about the missing boy from a centre for missing children.

After Bourdin was caught, he said several things about Nicholas that were not true. He said he knew Nicholas in Spain and that the boy was still alive. He also said he had proof that Nicholas was dead. Later, he denied ever meeting Nicholas and said he didn’t know anything about the case. Because he hurt the Barclay family, he got six years in prison, which is more than three times what the sentencing guidelines said he should get.

After Bourdin’s real name was found out, the police started looking into Nicholas’s family to see if they had anything to do with him going missing. In 1994, his mother was hooked on heroin, but she got clean after he went missing. She did well on the first polygraph about Nicholas’s case, but she did not do well on the second.

After Nicholas went missing, his brother started using drugs, and he died of a cocaine overdose in 1998. He was thought to be a possible suspect in the disappearance of his brother, and when he died, the investigation came to a halt.

Nicholas has never been found, and no one knows what happened to him. He might still be in or around San Antonio. Even though many agencies still call him a runaway, it’s possible that he was taken by someone else.

Medical Condition

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is what Nicholas has been diagnosed with.

Distinguishing Characteristics

Caucasian male. I have blue eyes and hair that is a light brown. Nicholas has the letter “J” tattooed on his left shoulder, the letter “T” tattooed on his left hand in the space between his thumb and fingers, and the letters “L” and “N” tattooed on the outside of his left ankle. He has a space missing in front of his two front teeth. Nicky is his nickname for short.

Clothing/Jewelry Description

A white t-shirt, purple pants and black sneakers. He was carrying a pink backpack.

Investigating Agency

• San Antonio Police Department 210-207-7484