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The sequence of events could have been mistaken for a fairy tale full of inspirational Americana for a handicapped Ukrainian six-year-old raised in an orphanage. The Barnett family of five, from Indiana, had just grown to one and welcomed into their home Natalia Grace, a young girl with a rare form of dwarfism who was briefly adopted by another American couple after leaving their native Ukraine. When that arrangement didn’t work out, the Barnetts stepped in and flew to meet Natalia at a Florida adoption agency before kidnapping their new daughter to Disney World.
The photos from this trip to see Mickey Mouse and friends, taken in spring 2010, show Kristine and Michael Barnett smiling next to their three sons and Natalia, the little Ukrainian, who is beaming and apparently throwing up her hands with joy.
Within days, however, the Rockwellian image of the quintessential American family—and one that welcomed a child in need into its midst—began to fall apart. What started as a question about Natalia’s real age quickly turned into a flurry of accusations. The Barnetts claimed their adopted daughter was in fact a homicidal adult while Indiana Social Services investigated possible parental abuse and neglect.
Thirteen years after a seemingly accidental and idyllic adoption, Michael Barnett appears in a new documentary. His eyes and veins bulge as he yells for the camera and bangs his fists on the ground. His marriage is over, his children partly estranged. He faced, fought, and punched out the charges related to his treatment of Natalia; His ex-wife saw that similar charges were not dropped until the spring.
Natalia—her age and history still raises questions—lives with another family in another Indiana town.
A new documentary looks at the strange twists and turns that began with the 2010 adoption of a disabled Ukrainian man by an Indiana family
Investigation Discovery’s The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which premiered this week and is streaming on Discovery+, seeks to delve deeper into a story that’s too wild to believe, complete with a cascade of eye-opening curveballs. The series ends with no real answers – and with the question of who might be the true victims of the entire convoluted saga.
“The more you look and research this case, the harder it becomes to figure out where the truth lies,” says former prosecutor and legal analyst Beth Karas on the show. “Maybe there’s more than one villain in this story.”
It all started just over a decade ago when the Barnetts, who married and gave birth to three sons after both attending Purdue University in Indiana, decided their family was financially and emotionally ready to adopt a child with special needs. At least one attempt at adoption abroad failed for them before they found out about Natalia, who was born with congenital spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia and was told she was six years old.
According to the documentary, Natalia had previously been adopted by a family in New England who appeared to have tried to give her away. The ID series interviews two different couples, also short people, who claim they were approached and had conversations with their former adoptive family.
The financial demands and suspicious behavior of this family put one off; The other, a couple from Texas, actually flew to meet Natalia and her caregivers at a lake house in New Hampshire, they explain in the documentary.
“I can feel angry walking into a room,” says Dwane Faris, who had hoped to adopt Natalia with his wife Robin. “I couldn’t really tell if it was because of the situation that was nasty or because of Natalia, there was something wrong with her … and I think that was the first time I fully trusted that intuition.”
Indiana natives Michael and Kristine Barnett adopted Ukrainian Natalia in 2010 and estimated her to be around six years old
(Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“Right then, I made the decision that that wasn’t going to happen — as hard as that decision was to make,” he says in the docuseries.
So in came the Barnetts, who in 2010 were “at the prime of their lives,” says Michael Barnett in the new docuseries, boasting about the “thirteen TVs, we’ve got 14 couches, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank account,” says he in the 2019 footage.
The eldest of their three sons, Jacob, was an academic prodigy who was diagnosed with Asperger’s; Michael’s wife Kristine published a book about his upbringing in 2013. By this time, however, the idyllic structure of the family had dissolved.
Things quickly went downhill after the Barnetts picked Natalia up at the Florida adoption center.
“Most of the fun times I can remember with Natalia came from the first week we were in Florida,” Jacob Barnett, now an adult, says in the docuseries while coming out of his room in his father’s basement in indiana speaks “We went to Disney World with Natalia. We were all excited to have her in the family. Natalia seemed happy to join our family.”
However, when Kristine tried to bathe her new daughter, she was shocked to discover pubic hair; It didn’t take long for the adoptive mother to find out that Natalia had been hiding her menstrual cycle, she claimed.
Incredibly, the Barnetts discovered that another girl with the same rare form of dwarfism also lived in Indiana, and the parents arranged a visit so the two children could meet, become friends, and support each other. Michael Barnett claims he was immediately surprised at how much older Natalia looked than the other girl – pointing out that his adopted daughter recognized this too and was quick to try to make herself appear younger.
Elva Reyes, the mother of Natalia’s former playmate, backs up the account in the docuseries; She had been disappointed by the encounter and had never arranged to meet the Barnetts again.
She said she was hoping that her daughter would be able to “make a…friendship that they can grow up with…” [and not] I feel like she’s the only one in the world.”
Instead, she immediately thought, “Natalia looks really well developed physically… My first impression is that your face doesn’t look like a little kid.” I can’t really say it’s an adult, but at least it is Teenager.
Adoption records show Natalia was born in 2003, but the Barnetts had her re-aged by an Indiana court in 2012, backdating her date of birth to 1989
(Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“She was very vocal and talked like she could hold a conversation very well … a very bright kid for a six-year-old.”
Her daughter Therese, now 14 years old, looks at photos of Natalia at the time and says in the film: “I definitely don’t think she looks the same age as me. I definitely had that baby look on my face.”
Therese adds, “I think she definitely looks like she’s at least 18, 20 years old.”
However, the question of Natalia’s age pales in comparison to everything else the Barnetts claim was going on at their home. According to them, Natalia threatened them with knives; void her youngest son, urinate on it and terrorize him; and attempts on her life, such as allegedly attempting to poison Kristine’s coffee and dragging her into an electric fence. The Barnetts say professionals told them Natalia was a sociopath and that her family was in danger.
The fence incident at a dairy – downplayed by witnesses in the documentaries – triggered an emergency call and Natalia ended up temporarily in a psychiatric hospital. In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, co-workers speak confidentially and describe her as “mature” because of her sexually aggressive behavior and speech. Michael claims his adopted daughter was sent home for proposing to male patients, but the hospital – given patient confidentiality – declined to comment on the series.
However, the Barnetts’ admitted treatment of Natalia also raises eyebrows. Michael describes how Kristine forced her adopted daughter to stand against the wall for hours and soil herself with it; As punishment, they also let Natalia sleep outside on the deck, prompting a neighbor to call social services.
According to Michael on the show, a responding detective (now deceased) recommended aging her daughter, a process the Barnetts are said to have been unaware of. In 2012, however, an Indiana judge agreed to change her date of birth from 2003 to 1989 and raise her age to 22, apparently based on evidence including the fact that she hadn’t grown in two years.
The Barnetts allege that Natalia repeatedly threatened and attempted to kill her; she denied it
(Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
As an adult, Natalia was no longer eligible for the Barnetts’ financial support.
They provided her with state benefits and rented her an apartment in nearby Westfield. Kristine dropped groceries on the curb before watching from the car as a neighbor helped Natalia bring them inside, says friendly neighbor Sue McCallum on the show.
However, it wasn’t long before even that neighbor — and the entire community — had concerns about Natalia’s behavior. The new resident was constantly chattering away with the neighbors, hanging around, and making life altogether uncomfortable; According to the documentary, complaints were received against the apartment complex, and Natalia even casually mentioned that she tried to kill her family, respondents claim.
Natalia even called 911 herself, claiming that she had been stalking a neighbor and was afraid of what she might do; The documentaries dramatically reproduce the call.
Eventually, the Barnetts removed Natalia from the apartment and found her a new apartment in Lafayette, a less sane town about an hour away, which Michael said Kristine had chosen because it was full of “white trash” to make sure no one messed with the Batting an eyelid would bizarre situation.
The Barnetts moved to Canada, where Jacob was pursuing graduate studies – but the alleged assumption about Lafayette was wrong.
While Natalia had been legally classified as an adult, meaning her adoptive parents could no longer be charged with child neglect, Tippecanoe County prosecutors, having become aware of Natalia’s plight, were able to charge Kristine and Michael with child neglect due to her dwarfism .
They did and multiplied as the all-American facade crumbled.
The Barnetts filed for divorce in 2013, and Michael goes to great lengths in the docuseries to blame Kristine for basically everything. He says she was abusive, shares social media interactions that suggest her deception and claims she used sex as a manipulation.
He physically mimics the beatings he says Kristine inflicted; His son Jacob, surprised by a microphone, also alludes to abuse and cover-ups.
For her part, Kristine refuses to speak to the filmmakers, only snorting that her network is “insane.”
The Independent could not reach either parent.
The documentary chronicles Michael’s legal battle while he was on trial for negligence in October; Natalia herself testified, detailing how a Lafayette family took her in and taught her life skills she had never learned under the Barnetts, such as reading, writing and washing her hair.
Her adoptive father was found not guilty on three counts of neglect and conspiracy to neglect a loved one.
Michael and Kristine Barnett were each charged with neglect in Tippecanoe County; He was acquitted last year and the charges against Kristine were dropped in March
(Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
The charges against Kristine were dropped in March – but Tippecanoe authorities have since released plenty of evidence to the public, including Natalia’s birth certificate, medical records and adoption documents.
“The Indiana State Police sent two investigators, and we sent one of our assistant prosecutors to Ukraine in 2019,” Tippecanoe County prosecutor Patrick Harrington told News 18. “That was before the war over there.” They succeeded actually finding and getting to know Natalia’s biological mother. DNA samples were taken from her and returned to the police lab, which showed she was Natalia’s birth mother,” Harrington said.
“The purpose of this isn’t to go into so much detail about what happened and didn’t happen in court. The purpose of this is to let you know what we have since the investigation began. Not one person, doctor, dentist, government official ever contradicts her date of birth,” he said.
In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, filmmakers video call Natalia’s mother in Ukraine, who details how doctors advised her to abandon the disabled newborn because she would never be able to adequately care for him. She laments the decision before repeated power outages disrupt transmissions in the war-torn country.
Natalia is not interviewed in the new docuseries, but includes footage of her conversations with the prosecution team, in which, after all the confusion, even she seems to have a hard time pinpointing her age.
However, she will be telling her own side of the story in a two-hour ID documentary that will air later this summer, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks.
In an extended preview of the Natalia Speaks documentary received by Entertainment Tonight on Thursday, Natalia says, “This is my side of the story and I’m going to tell what happened because I never had the opportunity to say, what’s happened.” .
“The things Kristine and Michael said I did are a lie. I’ve never done anything that Kristine and Michael said I did.”
However, we have heard of Natalia before. In 2019, she gave an interview to Doctor Phil in which she denied being an adult con artist posing as a child and spoke to the television personality alongside Antwon and Cynthia Mans, the Lafayette couple who taped her. Mans denied this, even in 2019, Natalia ever had a period.
For her part, Natalia has denied any allegations of murderous intent and behavior made by the Barnetts, even bursting into tears when she claimed, “No.”
Instead, she claimed, the family she believed would provide her with a forever home turned against her — and brutally.
Kristine, she said to Dr. Phil, “said I hid knives on the top of the fridge, under the fridge, in the cabinets, even on her desk in the office”…although she “even with…” wasn’t able to reach the top of the fridge a chair.”
“I thought I found the right family after scampering around,” she told the TV psychologist, adding; “I thought I found the right family for me.”