A family from the United States adopted a Ukrainian girl in 2010, who they believed was six years old. What they didn’t know was that the orphan was a midget, who they now claim was an “adult sociopath in child disguise.”
Natalia Grace was adopted as a child, but she was a 22yearold woman Photo: Cynthia Antwon Mans/Montagem R7/Reproduction/ND
The whole story was made into a documentary where in one of the scenes, Michael Barnett, the adoptive father, is shaking with anger, crying and banging on the ground while screaming that the whole family was abused by then 22yearold Natalia Grace. .
Michael and Kristine Barnett adopted the girl on April 26, 2010. The couple were adamant that they would be taking a sixyearold child home to Indiana.
Story inspired by the movie The Orphan
It got even worse when the girl said she became violent. The couple concluded that she was an adult posing as a child.
His story became known after it served as inspiration for the film A Órfã. “She tried to poison and kill my wife,” Michael said. He also said that one night he opened his eyes and Natalie was standing on the corner of the bed with a knife in her hand.
“She made statements and drew that she wanted to kill family members, wrapped them in a blanket and put them in the backyard,” Kristine told DailyMailTV.
“I definitely don’t feel safe around Natalia,” her son Jake said in another excerpt from the documentary.
Natalia was a woman, 22 years old, no child.
This whole situation led to the couple filing a motion in Marion County Probate Court in 2012, two years after the adoption, to legally change Natalie’s age to 22 and change her birth year from 2003 to 1989.
“Natalia was a woman. She was menstruating. She had adult teeth. She hasn’t grown an inch,” Kristine said. In addition, Kristine says all doctors have confirmed that she suffers from a serious mental illness that is only diagnosed in adults.
After the application was approved, the couple moved to Canada with their three biological children, where the eldest, Jake, was scheduled to begin college, leaving the young woman alone in an apartment in the town of LaFayette that they had arranged for her .
However, this life cycle of the two, who later divorced, was not over yet. The former couple have been accused of negligence, authorities said Natalia, who is dependent on the two because they suffer from spondyloepiphyseal, a rare form of dwarfism.
They were also originally accused of child neglect, but the charges were dropped due to the legal age change and the statute of limitations.
She wanted to be with the Barnetts
Natalia testified during Michael’s trial that she did not want to remain alone in Lafayette. “I wanted to be with the Barnetts,” she said, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier. “I wanted to live with them.”
In an episode of the American series Dr. from 2019. Phil and Natalia, who was readopted, denied being adults, and the young woman’s new parents defended her, saying she was a “genuinely loving girl” and not the adult sociopath posing as child, the Indiana couple claimed.
Michael was found not guilty in October 2022 on the three counts of negligence and conspiracy to commit negligence of a relative. The charges against Kristina were dropped almost six months later, in March 2023, three weeks before the trial.
The documentary “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace” will be released on May 29 and tells the woman’s story.
*With information from the R7 portal.