Bumping For Nicholas

Here is my response to an earlier post entitled "What I Think Happened"

OP: Nicholas came home from playing basketball angry at his mother for not picking him up and angry at his brother for not waking up his mother. I don't think a screaming match ensued between the three, but most likely attitude was thrown left and right until finally, it hit a nerve in Jason. He probably pushed Nicholas or chased him in attempt to hurt him (not kill) and in the process, Nicholas fell and died. My guess is he hit his head on something.

The mother (Beverly) and Jason ended up realizing that they couldn't call the police because of their history with drugs and Beverly's recent drug addiction. They would most likely end up serving a serious time seeing they were unfit guardians in possession of drugs when Nicholas died. Therefore they plan to hide the body. They end up burying it in the backyard just like it was said in the film.[/b]

The juvenile court hearing that was scheduled for June 14, 1994, to determine if he would be sent to a juvenile facility (Nicholas was reported missing on June 13, but was actually last seen on June 10) may have been something of a catalyst in his disappearance, but not for the reason that many have theorized. Beverly and Jason were both drug addicts (heroin and cocaine respectively) and the family was well-known to local law enforcement for domestic violence issues. Despite all the descriptions of Nicholas portraying him as a "problem child", he obviously learned what he lived. Given that the adults in his life were not exactly behaving well, let alone responsibly, it's possible that they feared that Nicholas would "rat them out" at the hearing or at least expose their secrets. That might have been reason enough for one or both of them to want to "silence" him. It is also possible that if Jason and/or Beverly killed Nicholas, it might not have been intentional, and drugs can cause you to act in ways that you wouldn't when you are clean and sober. Not an excuse, but it can happen that way. I'm more inclined to think that Jason killed Nicholas (accidentally or deliberately) and Beverly helped to cover it up, if not right after, soon after. Three days would give them enough time to dispose of the body and come up with a story. There's been no real verification that Nicholas was playing basketball with his friends on the day he went missing, or that he even called home (we only have Jason's word for that). Given that his disappearance wasn't taken seriously at first, that may account for why his friends weren't interviewed at the time. Sadly, I think Nicholas and his family were probably seen as white trash, which didn't help matters.[/i]

OP: Before they moved she has Jason dig up Nicholas' body and dump it somewhere else. This would explain the leftover pieces of tarp or whatever the new homeowner found back there.

[i]I agree, I think Nicholas probably was buried in the backyard at first and his body was later moved (the tarp still being buried in the yard lends some credibility to this theory, and the then-current owner's dog obsessively dug where it was buried). It may have happened relatively soon after he was reported missing, as Jason left Texas in late 1994 to enter a drug treatment center in Utah, where he stayed with some of his mother's relatives for a few years. He was still there for the first month or so when Frederic Bourdin was impersonating Nicholas. [/i]

[b]OP: In the following year or so, I believe Beverly ends up telling Carey what happened. I don't think Carey was there the night Nicholas died nor did she have any involvement whatsoever.

[i] I also think that Carey had no involvement (she lived with her husband and children in a trailer park at the time), but I do think she knows or suspects more than she is letting on. Maybe she didn't want to believe that Nicholas was dead, let alone that her mother and brother caused his death. I have a feeling that she and her now ex-husband are the kind of people who see what they want to see and turn a blind eye to what they don't want to see (and this probably goes for all the violence that was happening prior to Nicholas vanishing). She probably wanted to believe that Frederic was Nicholas, which is why she went along with it. Beverly didn't come across as happy to be reunited with her "son". Jason was known to be violent when on drugs, and there are police reports that verify this. I find it very disturbing and telling how Carey, Beverly, and other family members are so adamant that Jason would never have harmed Nicholas and are so concerned with defending Jason yet they continually portray Nicholas as the one who caused all the problems. One family member even said to me (online), point blank, "Nobody's looking for Nicholas now." Hmmm.

It's possible that the family was not involved, but at the very least, you have to concede that they should have done better by Nicholas than they did.