The biological mother of an adopted Ukrainian midget who is accused of pretending to be a child has again claimed her daughter was in fact 19 years old and therefore a young girl when she was taken in by an American family.
Natalia Grace’s age has been the subject of much debate after she was adopted in April 2010 by a family who at the time believed she was a six-year-old girl.
But Michael and Kristina Barnett decided she wasn’t as young as they thought they were and moved her into a separate apartment in Indiana in 2011.
In 2012, the couple — on the grounds that Natalia was an adult “sociopath” posing as a child — petitioned a judge for statutory aging, and when that was granted, the then eight-year-old turned 22 overnight.
However, Natalia’s birth mother, Anna Gava, whose mother was confirmed after a DNA test, has revealed Natalia’s “real” age in a new Investigation Discovery documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace.
Anna Gava, the biological mother of an adopted Ukrainian midget – Natalia Grace – who is accused of being a child, has again claimed her daughter is in fact 19 years old – casting doubt on a judge’s 2012 decision Natalia to re-age
Natalia Grace’s age (pictured) has been the subject of much debate after she was adopted in April 2010 by Americans who believed she was a six-year-old girl at the time
Three years after proving she is Grace’s biological mother, she speaks to the documentary’s creators via video link from Ukraine and explains how she herself was born in 1979.
Gava’s own age raises questions about Natalia’s aging, which a judge ruled she was born in 1989. That would mean that Gava would have been 10 years old when she had Natalia.
Gava then reveals her daughter’s date of birth.
“She was born on September 4, 2003,” says Gava. “She was born at 6:25 a.m. in Maternity Hospital #1. She is my biological daughter.”
That would mean that Natalia would be 19 today and was indeed a young child when she was adopted by the Barnetts in 2010.
Gava’s appearance in the documentary comes almost four years after tracked her down in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv in 2019. Then she said the same thing: that her daughter was actually still a teenager.
At the time, she said her daughter was 16 years old.
“I know exactly how old she is,” Gava told DailyMailTV through a translator from her home in the southern Ukrainian city near the Black Sea.
“This girl is my daughter who was born 16 years ago.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Gava’s comments would cause the court to reconsider its decision to re-age Natalia or drop the charges against the Barnetts.
In the new documentary, Gava also details how Natalia – who suffers from a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal – was put up for adoption.
She says in the documentary: “They showed me her.” The birth was also difficult, very difficult. When I regained consciousness after the anesthetic, the doctor came the next day and said, “There’s no point in taking her home.”
“They said she can’t walk at all and will be very short in stature.”
“They said that an operation would cost $ 100,000, and since “you don’t have such finances”, “you also have an older daughter” – I already had Julia then, and Natasha was after her … She brought me a sample I wrote the waiver on the paper and had to write five copies of it.
“I didn’t want to leave her at first, but the doctors said there was nothing they could do for her.” “You’re so young,” they said. “You are 24 years old. Don’t ruin your life, you will have other children.”
The Barnetts were accused of neglecting their child in 2019 after they allegedly left Natalia and moved to Canada after they petitioned a court to have their child’s age increased from eight to 22, which was granted. Her charges were dropped in October 2022 and March 2023
Last week, former prosecutor Beth Karas (pictured) told that the process used to determine Natalia’s age made her feel “there’s just something wrong with Natalia’s case”.
Pictured: In this photo provided to DailyMail TV in 2019, Anna can be seen walking her first daughter while pregnant with Natalia. Gava’s own age raises questions about Natalia’s aging again, which a judge ruled she was born in 1989. This would mean that Gava would have been 10 years old when she gave birth to Natalia, although this photo shows that she was much older while pregnant
Last week, former prosecutor Beth Karas told that the process used to determine Natalia’s age made her feel “there’s just something wrong with this case”.
The lawyer said Natalia was never represented in court and was not informed about the trial, which she said should raise doubts about the correctness of the procedure.
Karas also appears in a new documentary in which she claims that Natalia’s disturbing behavior may have motivated her adoptive parents, Michael and Kristine Barnett, to use any means necessary to get rid of her.
“Letting them age as adults could have been a way for Michael and Kristine to protect themselves from child neglect charges,” she said in the documentary.
She also says that Gava’s age makes it unlikely that Natalia was born in 1989.
“Anna Gava was born in 1979, which means that if Natalia was born in 1989, she would have been 10 years old, as the courts ruled when they aged her,” she says.
“So there’s not a lot of good reason, other than that she has pubic hair, to believe she was born anytime before 2003.”
This is a reference to Michael Barnett revealing in the documentary that the couple suspected she wasn’t a child after Kristine discovered on a trip to Disney World that Natalia had “full pubic hair” while bathing her.
The Barnetts accused Natalia of a number of disturbing behaviors.
The couple, who split in 2014, claim she was an adult scammer who wormed her way into her family by threatening to stab her in her sleep and poison her coffee.
When Natalia once met another six-year-old who suffered from a rare bone condition called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, the Barnetts said the stark age difference seemed undeniable.
Natalia, who is said to not speak with a Ukrainian accent, towered over her playmate while her bone structure and vocabulary were far more advanced.
Over the months, Michael claimed it had become apparent that they were living with a threat, to the point that she threatened to stab her new siblings.
“She tried to poison and kill my wife,” Michael added. “[And]one night I opened my eyes and Natalia was standing at the foot of the bed with a knife in her hand.”
The documentary also shows Natalia’s suspicious behavior in her adopted country, including sitting at a table and reading the Bible. When asked why she read it, she replies, “To get rid of those evil thoughts.”
“She would do as much as possible to cause harm or psychological distress to the entire family,” Michael said.
Suspicious of Natalia’s real age, the couple moved with her into a separate apartment in Lafayette. They eventually took her to a doctor who told the couple that she was indeed an adult.
In 2012, they petitioned a judge to legally age Natalia, which was granted – although a skeletal exam by a local children’s hospital showed she was around 11 at the time.
Nevertheless, the Barnetts moved to Canada but were later accused of neglecting their child after eventually abandoning Natalia.
Her charges were dropped in October 2022 and March 2023.
However, Karas said the process of determining Natalia’s age should be examined in court given a number of unanswered questions.
Natalia Grace Barnett was placed in an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana, by her adoptive parents, Michael and Kristina Barnett, in 2011 after they suspected she was much older than she claimed. A year later, they filed a motion to have her aged, with a judge finding that she was 22 years old
“Natalia didn’t know about it,” she told .
“[It was]on the basis of that affidavit alone, with no witnesses or hearing, Natalia had no guardian or anyone to represent her in court, she was completely in the dark.”
“It begs the question whether a judge should be allowed to turn what is believed to be an eight-year-old into 22 with the stroke of a pen without testimony or even hearing an affidavit from the opposing party.”
She said the case was “unusual” because it was “so one-sided” and claimed there may have been an ulterior motive behind the Barnetts’ request for statutory re-aging.
“I think they saw it as a way out,” the former attorney said, adding that the Barnetts may have genuinely believed Natalia was an adult and panicked over the adoption fiasco.
“If they really believed she was an adult, that would be one way for them to deal with the situation and a cynic might say they wanted rid of her.”
In one of the most striking moments of the new documentary, Michael admits that after completing the re-aging treatment, he was still unsure about the judge’s decision that Natalia was 22 years old.
“As she aged again, I knew she was an adult. Did I know it was 18, 22, 35, 150? No,” he said.
Karas said his comments made it clear that from Michael’s perspective, “what they were doing was legal while she was an adult.”
Though Michael and Kristine avoided a conviction for any neglect, Karas argued that the apartment they housed them in was not fit for purpose.
Due to her stature and disability, Natalia had difficulty climbing or walking stairs for a long time.
Years later, Natalia testified in court that her diet consisted primarily of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ramen noodles, and the occasional pizza. She said she had limited use of her hands and arms and had trouble opening canned goods.
Natalia too had to move to a second apartment after a year due to complaints about her disruptive behavior. Neighbors reported that she had trouble taking care of herself and reported in the documentary that she wore dirty clothes and scuffed shoes and reeked of body odor.
Michael Barnett (pictured) claimed Natalia “abused” his family in the months following her adoption.
Michael Barnett is pictured holding his new daughter Natalia in Florida in May 2010, just days after picking her up from the adoption center
Since then, Natalia has called her adoptive parents “liars”.
She backed off her claims by saying at the beginning of a trailer for the continuing series, “The things that Michael claims I’ve done are a lie.”
In a sneak peek at her sensational interview, Natalia also addresses Kristine, saying, “She was trying to make it seem like I was just this big, crazy person.”
“That’s not true,” she adds. “I want to tell people what really happened because I didn’t have that chance.”