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A Ukrainian orphan accused by her former adoptive family of impersonating a child wants to tell her side of the story.
Natalia Grace was the subject of Investigation Discovery's (ID) documentary “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace,” which premiered in May of this year. Now she's speaking out in the new six-part documentary “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks,” in which she attempts to clear her name.
“There is a hidden truth in every lie, but you have to dig deep enough to see it,” Natalia said in the series. “You won’t get away with this. This is my side of the story.”
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Natalia Grace was accused by her former adoptive family of pretending to be a child when she was supposedly an adult. (investigative discovery)
“Do I look like a monster to you?” she added.
Ken Maxwell, the former FBI agent who investigated Natalia's case, told Fox News Digital that he was not surprised that Natalia was now speaking out.
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“Natalia didn’t even have the opportunity to tell her whole story on the witness stand,” Maxwell said. “And of course she was under the silence order from the beginning…It's a natural progression of events. The trial is over and the silence order has been lifted. This gave her a platform. “We were obviously very concerned,” and I’m excited to hear their side of the story.
Natalia Grace, an orphan from Ukraine, was adopted by the Barnetts in 2010. (Investigation Discovery)
Michael Barnett and his then-wife Kristine Barnett adopted Natalia in April 2010. At the time, it was reported that she was 6 years old. Six months later, the parents allegedly began observing violent behavior and questioned whether Natalia was a child or an adult woman betraying the family. Natalia suffers from a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita.
According to the docuseries, the couple claimed that Natalia hoarded knives in her room and placed clear thumbtacks at the top of the stairs so they could step on them. Natalia was also accused of trying to poison Kristine's coffee with a cleaning solution and dragging her towards an electric fence.
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“It was very bizarre from the start,” Maxwell explained. “You have this orphan from Ukraine who comes to the United States, is adopted by a family, and then is accused of all sorts of bizarre behavior… And then this case received tremendous media attention on an international level… So from the beginning, we wanted to continue to investigate.”
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Kristine Barnett wears a bright blue sweater and sits on the sidewalk with her children (Investigation Discovery)
Maxwell delved deep into Natalia's past in Ukraine.
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“There is a birth certificate, there are documents from the orphanage that we were able to obtain,” he said. “But there were still some unanswered questions about her whereabouts after her birth, which reportedly took place in 2003, according to her Ukrainian birth certificate. There was a plumbing or sewage accident at the hospital where she was born that destroyed some records…Whether it was a coincidence or not, her file was missing.”
“…You’re also dealing with adoptions in Eastern Europe,” he continued. “If you just google adoption anomalies or scams in Eastern Europe, you'll probably get a little misty-eyed when you read about the past incidents. I'm not saying these are all adoptions, I'm just saying it's on record that there were. “There have been certain inadequacies in the past with adoptions from Eastern Europe.”
The Barnetts had previously accused Natalia Grace of violent behavior. (investigative discovery)
Maxwell said he and his team spoke to Natalia. She claimed she suffered trauma as a child in Ukraine that affected her memory. She remembered an unknown man putting something on her face, causing her to faint.
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The docuseries claimed that following Natalia's alleged behavior behind closed doors in 2012, the Barnetts asked a court to legally change her birth year from 2003 to 1989, which was granted. This changed her age from 8 to 22 years. The family then moved to Canada with their biological children. The couple's eldest son was reportedly set to start studying there.
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Kristine Barnett is the author of The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism. (investigative discovery)
The Barnetts got into trouble in 2013 when Natalia was discovered living alone in an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana, leading to an investigation and her arrest. In 2019, the now-divorced couple was charged with neglect of a dependent.
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Michael was ultimately found not guilty by a jury in 2022 and Kristine had all charges dismissed that year. Both parents had previously claimed the allegations were false and said Natalia was an adult and not a neglected child.
The documents showed Natalia's dental records from 2011. These appeared to show that she still had 12 baby teeth, which would have made her between 6 and 9 years old at the time. Her former dentist said the results were “undeniable.”
Kristine Barnett with Natalia Grace. After adopting Natalia, the Barnetts claimed they became suspicious of her age. (investigative discovery)
The series also showed Natalia being tested by TruDiagnostic, a lab that offers an at-home epigenetic test to determine how old someone is “from a biological perspective, at a cellular level.” The documentation revealed that Natalia was informed in August of this year that she was “more like 22.”
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Maxwell said Natalia was first placed in an apartment in the summer of 2012 after her age was changed. Natalia said she was abandoned in a second-floor apartment where she was unable to climb the stairs. Natalia also claimed she was traveling without a walker or wheelchair.
In court, Natalia testified that she learned almost everything about her life from a family that took her in. While prosecutors said she was “totally dependent” on the Barnetts, defense attorneys argued, “She wanted nothing to do with the Barnetts. She had moved.” On.”
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Natalia Grace suffers from a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. (investigative discovery)
The defense showed jurors videos of Natalia running across a street, going through a grocery store and holding on to the edge of a pool. They argued that she was an able-bodied adult who was no longer interested in being part of the family.
“The apartment manager I interviewed would never have given a lease to a minor,” Maxwell said.
According to the special broadcast, there were some neighbors in Natalia's apartment complex who questioned her behavior.
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Prosecutors couldn't charge the Barnetts with child neglect because Natalia ordered an age change, People magazine reported.
Kristine Barnett did not take part in the upcoming documentaries. (investigative discovery)
The documentaries include sit-down conversations between Michael and Natalia. Kristine did not take part in the special broadcast. In response to Fox News Digital's request for comment, Kristine forwarded a Facebook post from law firm Mark Nicholson.
“…The truth is that sometimes people are falsely accused of crimes, as in this case,” it read in part. “Our client was innocent of the crimes charged. Unfortunately some people are upset because we won. The disgruntled people have watched a television show, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, and naively believe they know everything there is to know about the case. They had no involvement in the case…Because we cared about the truth, we proved the facts to the courts and prosecutors, and the facts forced them to dismiss the criminal charges and ultimately the entire case.”
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One thing is certain for Maxwell: everything went wrong for Natalia from the start.
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The Barnetts' divorce was finalized in 2018. (Investigation Discovery)
“She was born a small, severely disabled person,” he said. “Her biological mother immediately signed over custody to the social authorities in Ukraine. She was abandoned in the hospital immediately after birth. That's traumatic enough for any child, whether they have a disability or not… Natalia remembers living in at least three or four different places, although she can't remember all the details. She believes she lived with foster parents for a while, but was then taken back to the orphanage. She is adopted by the first family that brought her to the United States back in 2008. And they had her for less than a year. Then they began their efforts to re-admit them through an organization [for little people].”
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Natalia Grace lives in Indiana. (investigative discovery)
“After three possible attempts to place Natalia with families of little people, it failed,” Maxwell continued. “And then the Barnetts finally took custody and adopted Natalia in 2010. So she was out of one place for a long time… And then just one side of the story was presented, that it was a monster, a murderous monster… Us “We know from history and from previous cases that trauma-related incidents often occur in adoptions where adoptees act out and have all sorts of emotional or mental challenges…It’s not unusual.”
Maxwell said whether Natalia was behaving “bizarrely or not,” there was no doubt that she was “a very troubled young person who had experienced tremendous trauma.”
“It wouldn't be at all unusual for someone like her to behave in a way that, let's say, is not in keeping with society's best expectations,” Maxwell said. “…I'm not trying to overly defend Natalia. All I’m saying is that you have to consider all possibilities here.”
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Michael Barnett and Kristine Barnett were previously charged with child neglect after they left their adopted daughter in Indiana to fend for themselves when they moved to Canada. Michael was found not guilty of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to neglect a dependent. The charges against Kristine were dropped. (Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office)
Natalia has vehemently denied the Barnetts' allegations.
Natalia has since been adopted by her new father, Pastor Antwon Mans. They live in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In 2019, the Mans family shared with Dr. Phil tells them that Natalia has never been violent towards them.
Maxwell admitted that Natalia's case still has unanswered questions.
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Natalia Grace previously told Dr. Phil that she just wants “people to hear my opinion on the bizarre allegations her adoptive parents have made against her.” (Dr. phil)
“People should confront the old cliché of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes,” Maxwell said. “Let’s talk about shoes. Natalia didn't even have the right shoes to walk. Imagine the physical suffering she went through and the medical necessities she needed. She still needs to undergo corrective surgery. Regardless of whether you think Natalia was something evil. Child or not, she was still a child once.
“The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks” will premiere three consecutive nights starting January 1 at 9 p.m. Emma Colton of Fox News Digital and The Associated Press contributed to this report.