Lost and Found and Lost Again
Imposters Claiming to be Missing Children
On Saturday, March 10, 1928, in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Christine Collins gave her nine-year-old son, Walter, a quarter so he could attend an afternoon movie matinee. It was the last time she saw him. At first, Christine believed her son’s disappearance was payback for Walter Sr’s errant ways; he had been convicted of eight bank robberies and was currently a resident of Folsom State Prison. The police investigated this but quickly reached a dead end.
Families all over the country rallied behind this frantic mother. The media jumped in to help, and the police felt the pressure.
Then, five months after Walter disappeared, word came that he had been found in Dekalb, Illinois. Law enforcement was relieved. Christine was overjoyed. The two of them exchanged a few letters, and Christine paid for her son to return to Los Angeles. She couldn’t wait to hold him.
But it wasn’t him. Christine knew this boy was not her Walter the moment she laid eyes on him. While there was a resemblance, no mother would be fooled by it. She told the officers who delivered the boy to her as much.
Incredulously, they encouraged her to “try him out.” It speaks to her desperation and longing that, for three weeks, Christine did. She tried everything in her power to convince herself that this boy was her son. When she finally quit pretending and brought “Walter” to the police station, Captain J.J. Jones of the L.A.P.D. was incensed that she was so ungrateful. He even called her a liar:
“ What are you trying to do, make fools out of us all? Or are you trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have the state provide for your son? You are the most cruel-hearted woman I’ve ever known. You are a . . . fool!”
In a last-ditch attempt to get her to shut up, he even had her committed to the Los Angeles County General Hospital’s psychiatric ward for evaluation.
While she spent five days behind locked doors, Jones extracted the truth from the Walter wannabe. The child’s real name was Arthur J. Hutchins, a nine-year-old runaway from Iowa. A waitress at a local restaurant noticed the likeness between the young boy sitting alone in a booth and the child in the Missing Person poster on the wall. She called the police.
When Dekalb police first questioned him, Arthur firmly denied being Walter Collins; however, when he learned the missing child lived in California, his story changed. Who doesn’t want to go to Hollywood?
In all fairness to young Arthur, there was more to the story, and it was sad. His mother died when he was young, and his father had remarried a woman who, at least from Arthur’s perspective, was the real-life equivalent of Cinderella’s wicked stepmother. And he never would have pretended to be someone else’s child if the police hadn’t kept insisting that he was.
The adult imposters you’ll meet don’t have any of these mitigators.
Modern-day missing child imposters seem to have their eyes on a different prize, whether it’s money (in cases where a long-lost relative returns to claim their inheritance), fame, or media attention. These deceivers cruelly prey upon the desperate hopes of traumatized families who have endured the unimaginable anguish of having a child vanish without a trace. Desperate for answers, they may initially embrace their lost child’s return, only to be crushed when they discover the hoax. Scabbed-over wounds are torn wide open.
Let’s look at three 21st-century missing child imposters, their motives, the tactics they used to deceive, and the backgrounds they often shared.
Brian Michael Rini: The Timmothy Pitzen Imposter
The Real Victim: Timmothy Pitzen’s disappearance has been a mystery since 2011. The six-year-old boy from Aurora, Illinois, was last seen with his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who checked him out of school and took him on a three-day road trip. They visited the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, the Key Lime Cove Resort in Gurnee, and the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells. On May 14, 2011, Amy was found dead in a motel room in Rockford, Illinois. She had died by suicide, leaving behind a note stating that Timmothy was safe with people who would love and care for him but warned he would never be found. So far, he hasn’t.
In April 2019, a young man was found wandering the streets of Newport, Kentucky. He claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen, a six-year-old boy who had vanished from Illinois in 2011. The man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, told police he had been held captive for years by two men who sexually abused him. He had recently managed to escape and needed help.
The story quickly made national headlines, giving hope to Timmothy’s family, who had been searching for the boy for nearly eight years. Timmothy had last been seen with his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who took him on a three-day road trip, visiting zoos and water parks before taking her own life in a motel room. She left a note saying Timmothy was safe but would never be found.
As the F.B.I. investigated the man’s claims, inconsistencies began to emerge. He refused to be fingerprinted but agreed to a D.N.A. test. When the results came back, they revealed that the man was not Timmothy Pitzen, but instead Brian Michael Rini, a 23-year-old ex-convict from Medina, Ohio, with a history of mental health issues and criminal charges dating back to his teenage years.
Rini had recently left prison after serving an 18-month sentence for burglary and vandalism. In interviews with the F.B.I., Rini admitted that he had learned about Timmothy’s case from an episode of the television show “20/20” and said he had fabricated the story to escape from his own family.
It was devastating for Timmothy’s loved ones. His cruel hoax had taken a heavy toll on the Pitzen family, subjecting them to a roller coaster of emotions and false hopes. Timmothy’s aunt, Kara Jacobs, poignantly said, “It’s like reliving that day all over again.”
It also upset Brian Rini’s family; they were disgusted. “I haven’t spoken to him in years. He’s been doing stupid stuff as long as I can remember. . . I hope he gets help. I hope he also goes to prison for this or at least an institution.” His father reiterated his son’s numerous diagnoses but said his son was well aware of what he was doing. Rini was charged with making false statements to federal agents, a crime that carries a sentence of up to eight years in prison. In 2020, he was sentenced to two years, with credit for time served.
Julia Faustyna: The Madeleine McCann Impersonator
The Real Victim: Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007, just days before her fourth birthday. She was on vacation with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Madeleine and her younger twin siblings were left sleeping in the family’s holiday apartment while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dined with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant. The parents took turns checking on the children throughout the evening. When Kate checked on the children around 10 pm, she discovered that Madeleine was missing.
The case quickly gained international attention. The police launched a massive search effort, but Madeleine has never found it. In June 2020, German police named forty-seven-year-old Christian Brueckner as the primary suspect in Madeleine’s 2007 abduction and murder. To date, he has not been formally charged in her disappearance. Still, he is currently on trial for raping three women as well as sexual assaults on children he allegedly committed between 2000 and 2017. He was living close to where the McCanns were staying at the time she disappeared.
In early 2023, a 21-year-old Polish woman named Julia made global headlines when she claimed that she might be Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who had vanished from a family vacation in Portugal in 2007. Julia, who also went by the last names Faustyna, Wendell, and Wandelt, had created an Instagram account under the handle “@IAmMadeleineMcCann,” where she posted side-by-side photos comparing her physical features to those of the missing girl.
Julia claimed that she had no memory of her early childhood and had suspicions about her true identity. She pointed to alleged similarities between herself and Madeleine, including a rare eye condition and a distinctive spot on her leg. Julia’s story quickly went viral, attracting a massive online following and intense media scrutiny.
Her parents came forward to dispute her allegations, insisting that Julia was their biological daughter and that all of her relatives knew it. They accused Julia of stealing childhood photos and documents to support her impersonation. They claimed that Julia had a history of mental health issues and had tried to get Julia treatment for years, but she had refused help. She refused help. They suggested that Julia’s motivation was a long-standing desire for fame and popularity, noting her earlier aspirations to be a singer or model. Overall, Julia’s family painted a picture of a troubled young woman with a history of mental health struggles and a penchant for attention-seeking behavior.
Julia’s family seemed blindsided and devastated by her very public claims and the ensuing media firestorm. They insisted that she was not Madeleine McCann and pleaded for her to get professional help. They said that her claims were causing them great distress and were deeply disturbed by how the situation had escalated. They also expressed concern that a “fake” psychic medium named Dr. Fia Johansson was exploiting her by taking her to the United States for a highly publicized D.N.A. test.
As the story unfolded, additional questions emerged about Julia’s claims’ credibility. The D.N.A. results revealed on an episode of “Dr. Phil,” confirmed that Julia was not Madeleine McCann. In the aftermath, Julia issued a public apology to the McCann family, claiming that it had never been her intention to cause them pain and that she had genuinely believed in the possibility that she could be the missing child.
Julia did not experience any legal consequences, although police did conduct a full investigation into the matter. Julia’s claims gained significant attention on social media and in the international press, and her personal life and mental health struggles became a matter of public scrutiny and intense criticism.
Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, never publicly responded to Faustyna’s specific claims to be their daughter. A representative for the family issued the following statement; “Due to an active police investigation, Gerry and Kate are not issuing any statements or giving interviews unless requested by the Metropolitan Police.” Many people sympathized with the McCann family and condemned Julia’s actions as cruel and insensitive.
Frederic Bourdin: The Nicholas Barclay Impersonator
The Real Victim: Nicholas Barclay disappeared on June 13, 1994, from his home in San Antonio, Texas. The 13-year-old boy was last seen playing basketball with friends near his house. When he didn’t return home that evening, his family reported him missing. Despite extensive searches and investigations, no trace of Nicholas was found. The case is still unsolved.
Nicholas Barclay had been missing for three years when Frederic Bourdin assumed his identity. Bourdin’s story is one of the most bizarre and unsettling cases of missing child impersonation in recent history. Born in France in 1974, Bourdin had a troubled upbringing marked by neglect and abandonment. By his early teens, he had begun a pattern of assuming false identities, often posing as a lost or abused child to gain sympathy and access to social services.
In 1997, Bourdin took his deceptions to a new level when he convinced authorities in Spain that he was Nicholas Barclay, a 14-year-old boy from Texas who had been missing for three years. Despite looking significantly older than Nicholas and having a French accent, Bourdin managed to fool the Spanish police, the U.S. embassy, and even Nicholas’s own family, who flew to Spain to bring him home.
For five months, Bourdin lived with the Barclay family in Texas, attending high school and undergoing therapy to process his supposed trauma. He explained away his changed appearance by claiming that his abductors had altered his eye color and accent. The ruse began to unravel when a private investigator working on a T.V. documentary about the case noticed discrepancies in Bourdin’s story and appearance, particularly his ears, which did not match Nicholas’s.
In February 1998, Bourdin confessed to the F.B.I. that he was not Nicholas Barclay but rather a 23-year-old French national with a long history of impersonating missing children. He claimed that he had learned about Nicholas’s case from a missing persons database and had impulsively decided to assume his identity as a way to start a new life in the United States.
Interestingly, Bourdin also pointed the finger at Barclay’s family as the people responsible for the real Barclay’s disappearance. When interviewed by the F.B.I., Bourdin is quoted as telling the F.B.I. that “the family killed him.” He specifically accused Nicholas’ older brother, Jason, and his mother, Beverly Dollarhyde. Bourdin also insinuated that some family members went along with his ruse because they knew Nicholas was dead.
Nicholas’s older brother, Jason, was described as a “cocaine addict with a violent temper.” Jason was reportedly uncooperative with law enforcement and hinted that he knew that Bourdin was not Nicholas but didn’t tell the family. The fact that Jason died of a drug overdose shortly after being interviewed by the F.B.I. and before Bourdin’s arrest has led to speculation about his potential involvement or knowledge of Nicholas’s fate. This statement led to a homicide investigation, but it was eventually closed due to lack of evidence.
Who Could Be So Cruel? The Psychology of Impersonating Missing Children
I can think of few scams as heartless as falsely claiming to be someone’s missing child. Any parent who has misplaced their child for a moment knows what absolute terror feels like. It’s been 19 years, and I still remember looking around at the 20,000-plus other Imperial Beach Sandcastle contest attendees and realizing I did not see my toddler. My four-year-old daughter had wanted to show me a sand dollar she had found. I bent down for an instant, and — poof — my youngest disappeared. The whole world shifted.
My husband and I were like most lucky parents; our child was found. But I will never forget that terror. And I never want to know what feeling comes next. Imagine years of suffering, the indescribable joy of thinking your child has been located, and the depth of despair you would feel after finding out it was a scam.
Understanding the root causes of why someone would impersonate a missing child would require a thorough psychological assessment and a closer examination of each individual’s personal history, motivations, and mental health. As such, I can’t diagnose any of these individuals. What I can do, though, is examine what the research tells us about the typical needs that are being fulfilled through these deceptive acts and explore the common personality issues that often underlie this psychological compulsion:
Serial impersonator Frederic Bourdin, for instance, was taken away from his mother at age three; he never knew his father (a married, twenty-five-year-old coworker of his mother’s). He rarely saw her after that but said that when he did, she seemed to take sadistic pleasure in deceiving him. He said, for example, that she would pretend that she was seriously ill and that she might die. He would then worry and have bad dreams. His mother denies this but did say that, at one point, she attempted suicide in front of young Frederic, an incident that certainly left some emotional scars.
Ultimately, raised in a series of foster homes and institutions, Bourdin never formed a stable sense of self. His chameleon-like ability to assume false identities may have roots in this void of authentic self-identity.
Maladaptive Personality Traits
Most of us would agree that it takes a certain level of callousness to deceive already hurting families. Adult imposters of missing children often display narcissistic and antisocial traits that enable them to carry out their deceptions without empathy for their victims. They possess a sense of entitlement and grandiosity, believing their own needs supersede any trauma or devastation their victims have experienced. They also tend to be compulsive liars.
Mental health disorders may accompany these maladaptive personality traits. Brian Rini’s family has alluded to many diagnoses he has received over the years, including Asperger’s syndrome, bipolar disorder, and ADHD. While not being specific in terms of diagnosis, Julia Faustyna’s parents publicly stated that their daughter has had mental health problems for years and has continually resisted treatment despite their attempts to get her medication and therapy.
Before Julia Faustyna claimed to be Madeline McCann, she had contacted a Polish charity called “Missing Years Ago” and claimed to be two different missing children: Inga Gehricke, a 5-year-old girl who disappeared from Germany in 2015, and Acacia Bishop, a 19-month-old girl who went missing from the United States in 2003. Both claims were easily disproved.
Does the Media Bear Any Responsibility?
Frederic Bourdon had an extensive history of impersonating various missing children and claimed to have assumed “at least 500 false identities” over the years. His exposure in the Barclay case did nothing to dissuade him; after being deported to France following the Nicholas Barclay case, just three months after his deportation back to France, Bourdin attempted to impersonate a fourteen-year-old child named Leo Balley.
High-profile missing child cases generate intense media and public interest. When done well, the media can give much-needed attention to missing child cases, provide a platform for grieving families, and pressure police to continue a search. We all know cases in which the media has played a pivotal role in solving a case by shining a public spotlight or encouraging tips.
- What is the history of the person claiming to be a missing person? Do they have a criminal history? Do they have a history of lying or deception? Have they made similar claims?
- What are the police saying? Is the person cooperating with them? Do they believe the person’s story is credible? Is their story consistent with what is known about the circumstances under which the original person went missing?
- Is the person willing to provide concrete evidence to support their claims (fingerprints, D.N.A., photographs)?
- Does the person’s appearance (age, eye color, etc.) match the missing person?
They can also do more harm than good. While no one except the con artists themselves is responsible for the havoc they wreak, the media can amplify a story without proper verification, spreading misinformation. Inaccurate or unverified information can lead to false hopes and further trauma for the families involved. Responsible media coverage involves approaching these claims with skepticism and checking out the evidence before the story hits the front page.
The Bottom Line
The fallout from these cases serves as a stark reminder of the devastating impact of deception and the importance of prioritizing the needs and well-being of the families affected by these tragedies.
The psychological landscape of missing child impersonators is a complex terrain of trauma, identity disturbance, narcissism, and a hunger for attention. While each case is unique, these common threads offer a glimpse into the disturbed minds behind these cruel deceptions. Tragically, the deep-seated pathology that drives these impersonations makes deterrence an elusive goal as, without external motivation in terms of real-world consequences, they are likely to do it again and again.
But there’s a more intimate issue that haunts me. How does a traumatized child like Frederic Bourdin transform into a perpetrator? What kind of thoughts justify chronic lying and deceit? There will always be vulnerable people; how do we better protect them? As true crime consumers and media professionals, how do we balance our fascination with these cases with a commitment to responsible reporting? By prioritizing the needs of the victimized families and keeping the focus on the real missing children, we can mitigate the damage of these false claims and channel our collective efforts into bringing the truly lost home.
Originally published at https://joniejohnstonpsyd.substack.com.