Last Podcast On The Left - Relaxed Fit: The Curious Case of Natalia Grace

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

This week the boys discuss the controversial documentary series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace and break down the harrowing true story of the young Ukranian orphan with dwarfism who was re-aged (and framed to be evil) by her adopted American family.

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It's the only one he knows. There's no place one he knows. Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da little bump you gotta push inside your gut and then everybody knows you got one extra lump for the sluts welcome to last podcast on the left ladies and gentlemen that was entirely improvised tune no way yeah he didn't work I mean I that you might think he spent all night working on that. A lot of people come at me and ask me all the time, where does it come from? How do you do it? And it's I have six writers. Each day we sit and we, you know, we hash back and forth and just that alone went through about three weeks of work. That's nice. I'm Marcus Parks and I'm here with Ed Larson.

Hello. And today we're going to'm here with Ed Larson. Hello! And today we're gonna... This is a relaxed fit. This is a relaxed, very unplexable, relaxed fit. Very much so. But today we're gonna be talking about a specific case. We're gonna be talking about something that we've been obsessed with for a while now. The second season of the show about the subject just came out. We're gonna be talking about the curious case of Natalia Grace. Yes, and I will again I did a I already did my apology

I said it once and I'll say it again first off because I was interested in the story of Natalia Grace Simply from the angle that the orphan movie was real. Yeah, well, that's that was the conceit Yes, because that's I mean to be fair that's exactly how it was framed in the news before yes the full documentary came out it was framed in the news as a little person or Orphan terrorizes precious mother. I read the Daily Mail There was framed as an evil orphan had come to America posing as a child and it terrorized a family had terrorized anti-Zelensky forces from inside of the Ukraine

Stabilized Ukraine support from within America. Yeah, and this person had terrorized these two people one of whom was a mother Who had written a book called the spark about raising an autistic son, raising him to be a genius. Yes. And she did it. Yeah, and she did it. And that was her concesion that she did it. And there was all of a sudden in their life this crazy adult posing as a child that was

bringing knives in their room and threatening to kill them and all that. And as a... And had purposely sprouted bush hair. Yes. As a tactic. Like a scum. It does. You could do it if you think really hard

and you press your hands together and go, yeah! Yeah! Boink, boink, boink! But none of that was true. No. As we now know, it was a child the whole time. Very much so.

Very much so a child. Proof is in the pudding of that. So you love pudding. The pubic hair, all right? Can we talk? It was a lie. It was a lie. We'll get to it.

We'll get to it. We'll get to it. Also, I've had back hair since I was 10. Yeah. So I had back hair before I had pubic hair. Really? I had chest hair before I had pubic hair. How can you tell if you have back hair before pubic hair because I couldn't see the yeah my pubes at the time because I was

Fairly round, but I could tell from the back hair because my mom said oh good you like your uncle Kevin. He was veral She always told me back hair was a sign of virility. I guess so yeah look at me now Yeah, all these children look at it. You know, I just keep late-term aborting them So should we start with maybe going through the characters? Absolutely going through all the people so the main character here is Natalia Grace She was born in the Ukraine in 2003 we think around but definitely around 2003 the the documents that they received from the Ukraine say that she was born in

2003 but you know it's it's within you know, let's say plus or minus a year man the footage of that Ukrainian orphanage It was freight where she came from. Yeah, dude. It looked like an MK ultra site Ukrainian like and Russian former Soviet states, their orphanages have an absolutely horrific reputation. That's slander. I can't fucking even... What? No, these places are absolutely... they're horror shows. They're... and they've been horror shows forever, you know, and they're... they're basically... a lot of them are set up to drain as much money from America as they possibly can. I think there's other ways to do that.

Start a proxy war. And Ukraine, like, we all, you know, we all have a soft spot for them now. Of course. Back in 2003, incredibly corrupt. Yeah. There's a lot going on. It's a hard area to be in, especially it seems as a child in a, in a, their version of the, uh, the system, like the, the foster system, because Natalia Grace,

with the, the stories that she talks about within that Ukrainian orphanage, like the idea that they, so in order to get all the kids in Ukraine, in that orphanage to go to sleep at night, they had a man, you remember this dress up in a goblin mask and a suit. This is what she, according to Natalia Grace, and I actually kind of tracks that he would chase them to sleep. Which is like, it doesn't make a good attitude. Like, can you be haunted to sleep each night?

And either, because you either become Angelina Jolie. Slap or Wednesday Adams, but real. Yeah. You know, but I guess that's kind of what ended up kind of happening. Natalia Grace, but I don't know about her memories because she came to the United States at a very young age. She was two or three when she came to the United States. And she was adopted by this family called the Chikoni. Yes. the Chikoni family, which also goes, then she was named Natalia Lord's Chikoni,

which is Madonna's child's name as well. Madonna's the Chikonis. Yeah, Madonna's real last name is Chikoni. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, Madonna. I don't know if Madonna is her actual real first name, but her last name is Chikoni. I would imagine Madonna's not her real name.

It might be like Lauren. Yeah. I think that kid might be. But the Chaconis had her for two years and, you know, Natalia Gray, she was born with... That is her real name, Sir legal name. Yeah, that is her real name. But she was born with a rare form of dwarfism, so she requires a lot of medical attention. A lot.

A lot of medical attention. It's a very expensive child to have. Yeah. And so the Chakonis. Specialty shoes. You need to have stuff set up in your house so they can reach things. A lot of surgeries.

A lot of surgery. A lot of surgery constantly, yes. 3,200 people have this in the world, they said. Yeah. Damn. It's very, very rare. But what the Chakonis did is that they started basically shopping her around, shopping Natalia around

to other little people families. Yeah, well, because the idea of maybe people that understand the syndrome or what she deals with, like would probably help to have a couple, to having an actual door family raise you mind, because they know what to look for and they know how to help. Yes, but it also came with a price tag, it seems. And it always, the Chaconis are a very mysterious people in this story because nobody has ever actually talked to them. They're very secretive, they're very reclusive, they're very litigious.

Yeah, they don't want to be involved in the story Which I mean it's hard because they did what they felt was right by Natalia and you know I don't know what else you you're supposed to do about that, but I knew they couldn't properly take care of her you would think you would think yeah But eventually after passing over like two different little people couples The Chaconis settled on Michael and Christine Barnett. Now, Michael Barnett, how would you describe Michael Barnett? He is a weenie. Is a weenie? He is one of the...

I talked about this on Side Stories and he obviously, he makes for good television. He does. If you look, if you watch the actual series animated animated, but Michael Barnett is a then absolute Weasel yeah, I would put him towards he's like an evil pain butler to Christina Barnett to Christine Barnett He was a very strange man Flare for the dramatic very much. Very much so. He's obsessed with himself, loves Alice in Chains.

That's one of the best parts about him. Loved his little car, he pulls up in his little car, loves has a convertible of some sort. Absolutely, he's spreading, there's nothing wrong with that. And then he definitely looks like Fred Durst now on tour. Cause you see how Fred Durst is doing the old man thing. But he is a shameless, fame goblin. Yeah, that is now the center.

He centered himself into this story. He's a narcissist, first of all. I mean, he's absolutely a narcissist. Absolutely. And possibly on the spectrum. How are we dressed? Always. And throughout the show, I watched seven episodes

in the course of like 10 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like half broken right now. Yeah, yeah, okay. And but it seems like he slowly got worse dressed throughout, I know he has less money, you know, time goes on. He was never dressed well.

You're like the first interview that tie, come on, kill him. I think that he's supposed to be, he's looking relatable. I think that's what he's doing. I think he's trying to show up like, my guy, my regular guy. When he did the act out of the first, when he was in that first season, when he is on the ground,

I mean like, I can't say anything. Yeah, I'm like that. Right, right, that's how I speak. Yes. So a lot of times I'm watching him being like, that's quite the storyteller right there. And I know that's because I'm like that. Right, right. This is how I speak. Yes. So a lot of times I'm watching them being like, that's quite the storyteller right there. And I know this because I'm watching. It's like, I use my hands.

Histrionic is the way that I absolutely describe this man. And so Michael Barnett is married to Christine Barnett. And Christine Barnett is 100% is, I mean, from what I can tell from the documentary series from, you know, and from what she said and blah, blah so on and so forth sociopath. I'm an absolute sociopathic personality She is a handful Also in terms of just look that ice blonde like she's got to think she looks like kind of otherworldly She looks like what's her name from the Golden Compass. Oh

like kind of otherworldly. She looks like what's her name from the golden compass. Oh, Kate Blanchett, kind of like that style, like with like Ice Queen, whatever it is or was it from X-Men? Oh, Emma Frost. Yes. She kind of looks like Emma Frost. That's that a dime store Emma Frost. I got like Brett Butler if she was a robot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're Brett Butler. We have Emma Frost at home. That's who she is. Ah! But she wrote this book, The Spark, because they have their other son. Their biological son.

Their biological son. One of the three. Yeah. Yes, the one that was featured on the documentary series, he was a child prodigy. It's like, you know, he broke all these records. He gave his own TED talk Yeah, I heard stories where you know He would take like popsicle sticks and toothpicks and he would build like the interstate

Like he would build like Indianapolis. He would build the interstate. He knew all the names of the streets. Like he's an absolute Genius, yes, like an incredible proven genius. And as it seems, which I've heard a lot about prodigies. It's like that idea of like, when they try to move on past their prodigy stage, it's very detrimental to their mental health. Cause a lot of times that accelerated intellect seems to sometimes affect a social ability,

like it affects somebody to bring you in, especially if you're, they talk about with kids that get put ahead in class, you know, like how like they, it kind of fucks up their social network a little bit and kind of fucks them up later on. I don't know if you've met anybody and I love them, but it's like, yeah, how many times you've met someone, I remember in school, had went from home schooling

to came to public school. It's a tough transition. And it's a hard transition because they come in and they're used to mom and dad being their social network or they're used to, and so they're kind of like, kind of act like an alien. And I feel like in that way, he suffered from that where he got to the point where like, now you're not a child anymore. Where's the adult prodigy part?

And the pressure seems to make people kind of fold in a little bit. Yeah. Well, Christine wrote a book about raising this guy. His name is Jacob. Wrote a book about raising him called The Spark in which she takes a lot of credit for his genius. Yes. It takes a lot of credit.

But basically saying if it wasn't for me and my superior skills, this child would not be the genius that he is. And it's successful. I mean, this book was well known. There was a 60 minutes segment on Jacob Barnett. I mean, this woman gave talks. The book was, it sold very, very well. So this woman was a known figure in, I guess, the parenting community. I don't know exactly what you'd call it. Oh, according to here, Jacob Barnett is full on getting his doctorate right now.

That's incredible. Yeah, he's working hard becoming a theoretical physicist. Sounds difficult. Yeah, Jacob Barnett, he was also abused as a child. In the show, I would say he's the only likeable character. A poor... I'd say so. I feel poor, but also I feel bad for Natalia Grace because of what she went through in this process of being blamed. Well, the story of Natalia Grace is, I think, completely wrapped up in this documentary series. Because so far that there have been two seasons, the documentary aired on ID Discovery, six

episodes each, season one, season two. And the documentary itself kind of became a part of the Natalia Grace story, especially how they framed it. Because I would say that this documentary series is unethical to say the very least. It's very exploitive. Very exploitive in a lot of different ways and towards a lot of people in the case. Towards Jacob, towards Natalia.

I am thankful that Natalia actually does get to tell her story. In the second season she gives her a bottle, but in the first season the documentary filmmakers kind of like they frame it as like Maybe she's an adult. Yeah, maybe she's not maybe she's a sexual predator Maybe she's not when they knew the entire time that she was a child I was multiple episodes in when I still thought that she might be a little demon. Yes And they set it up for narrative interest, but it doesn't really serve. Like you have to wait a whole season to find out

that they knew for a fact that she was a child the entire fucking time. And that's the big key here, is that where did it start? So Christine Barnett, the Barnett's adopt Natalia Grace. Yeah, in 2010 they adopted her. She arrives at their home and it sounds like... Well, they picked her up in Florida. They picked her up in Florida.

Little people of America or something were the ones that sold her, kind of? I'm not sure about that. Okay, I'm still piecing together the documentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if we get a couple of facts wrong, forgive us. Sightseers, L-P-O-T-L-A-GOTL at gmail.com because we're just kind of talking about this story. Because I will say like, I know that there are people who feel very, very strongly about this case.

And I'm one. And I get it. But I will, but I'm also going to say that this case is extraordinarily messy. It's very messy. It's very complicated. Everybody's got a different story as to what happened. And that's also on top of the fact that, you know, a lot of people depend on Natalia Grace herself as far as how things happen.

We also have to remember that she's working from a child's memory. Like she's talking about things that happened when she was seven, eight, nine, ten years old. She was literally forced to become an adult. She was, by the time she was nine, she was definitely forced to become a adult because the courts did it. But then later on, like, before that,

she really, she had a very tough life. Yeah, and that's the other thing too, is that it's also the memories of a person who has absolutely, without a doubt, 100% been sexually abused at one point in her life. And thoroughly traumatized. And thoroughly traumatized. And thoroughly, and physically abused, mentally abused,

emotionally abused, every kind of abuse you could think of, she went through. So Barnett's, they adopted Natalia, she arrived. Our read on the situation is that we think that Christine Barnett was looking for material for her next book. Of course. You know like because technically that's also backed up by Michael Barnett who believes that Christine was like had openly said this, that this was a book that she was a new con to basically the idea of like kid flipper. I can get a kid in there. I can get a kid. Any kid. It doesn't matter. I can flip them. I can make them a success story.

Yeah, I can take a child with a very rare genetic disease with a lot of challenges, and I can make them a genius, because I made my other son who has his own issues. I made him a genius, so I can make anybody a genius. It's the big sequel. Yes, and obviously this is conjecture, but it does seem to track $600,000 on the first book advance, right? Yes. And so and then Lord knows how much that successful book made after that. So we're talking probably a million dollars

She's looking at another meal ticket. Yeah, this is all my opinion. Oh, yeah These are all opinions and I'm not even counting like talks that she could give appearances All the ancillary income you get from the shed. Yes. And so they it seems that Natalia arrived and I think number one her physical issues were apparent and On like they were not prepared. No, and then she came and all of a sudden like because what she needed was a lot of Care she needed a lot of surgeries. She needed again the prosthetic shoes I think believe the prosthetic shoes cost like three grand. It's like this big money and She also showed up

Truly desperately traumatized. Yeah, maybe with and sometimes in that it kind of prefers in a way like she showed up not ready to be the prodigy That Christine wanted her to be not at all and then Realized that I can't flip this kid What do I do? I got to get rid of this kid. Yeah, and About a year before a little movie called the orphan had been released which is a great movie And I still wish it was real. Because that's fun as hell. And so like it's, it's speculated that Christine saw...

Oh I know an orphan! Yeah, saw the movie and thought we'll just do that. We'll just prove that this little girl is an actual adult. And then once we prove that she's an adult, we can just kind of get rid of her. We can push her aside. We can get her out of here. Well, they tried a couple of things.

At first it was trying to show that she was a danger. So she started reporting that she was attacking people in the neighborhood and that she was attacking her fellow kids. And then she was attacking people in the neighborhood and then she was attacking her fellow kids and then she was attacking people at school. We now know that Natalia's teacher came out and said that Christine Barnett had made a report that Natalia was ramming kids with her wheelchair

and being a wheeled terror inside of her classrooms with Natalia's teacher basically said that didn't happen. Natalia's adopted mother, Christine Barnett, was like, she's a monster. We're trying to maybe get her into sort of like an asylum-like situation. Well, I mean, there was so many, you know, but things leading up to that,

to the asylum-type situation where it was, you know, them saying that she would show up in the middle of the night at the foot of their bed with a knife. Yes. Saying, I'm gonna kill you. They try to throw the, there were other kids in the middle of the night at the foot of their bed with a knife. So I'm gonna kill you. They try to throw the, there were other kids in the traffic. Yeah, exactly.

I tried to lure them out to try, like grabbing their toys and throwing them out and trying to lure them out in the traffic. And then sexually getting involved with her husband. She floated this idea that Natalia was seducing Michael. Well, that was a very interesting thing because she was also, at the time, she was messaging and in contact

with a little person country singer named Freddie Gill. This guy's a fun character. He's a fun character. He goes by the name of Two-Foot Fred. He got famous by being in the first big and rich hit, the first big and rich video, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy. He's another Indiana guy, and he claims that he was in contact with Christine because Christine got ahold of him and said, like, hey, I'm having troubles, you know,

with raising a little person. I'm having the issues. I'm having challenges, like maybe I can ask you for your advice. And as time went on, you know, Christine is very fond of sending sexually explicit images of herself to people. Yeah, yes. She's very fond of that. And so she started to try to seduce them. Yeah. So she started sending these sexually explicit images to Freddie Gill. And then she started saying, uh, I think that Natalia is sleeping with one of the neighbors. Uh, she's an adult. I think she's sleeping with one of the neighbors. Then she said like, I think that Michael is sleeping with Natalia. And then this woman, Christine, knowing full well that this is a child, tried setting up Natalia with Freddie Gil. And even started taking pictures,

like putting Natalia in full adult makeup to make her look older, taking pictures, and asking Freddie, it's like, so do you think maybe you'd wanna spend the night with Natalia? Like there's so much weird shit. And that's just what we know about. And that's just what we know about because Christine Barn just what we know about because Christine Barnett, obviously, has refused to talk about

this with anybody. She has not gone on the record because- It's probably a smart thing. Yeah, for her, yeah. But so this starts, she's trying to ramp this up. Natalia is obviously in a lot of pain. Now, we keep saying we know for a fact that she's a child. And how we know for a fact that she's a child. And how we know

for a fact that she's a child is that in season two of this documentary series, they released that they had went and they had taken her to a dentist to go like, because they're trying to figure out how to age her for a while. Like there was a discrepancy about how old she was because they did, there was like, according to them, the Barnets, because like anything comes out of their mouth, you really can't trust, unfortunately. But they basically said, they all, you know, the paperwork was inconclusive. And like this one, this one said a different year, and this other one said a different year.

And so they went to kind of like an older face. Now when you look at it, this is probably a bad comparison. But when we adopted Wendy, when Wendy came, we were told that Wendy was four. Yeah. Right? But then you realize when you look back on pictures of Wendy, she obviously was younger because now she's growing in size.

Right? And your face grew. Right? And Talia is very much not an adult when you look at her as, when they had her. Well, it all depends. And that's the thing. That's why the fucking documentary is so shitty is because the documentary Purposefully chooses pictures and you know the lead out you know in the first season from later on from later on and they purposely choose Like pictures videos that in which you could be like okay. I could I could see that

I can see the confusion there. I can see why somebody would be questioning that. But then there's just one, there's one picture, like to speak to Henry's point, there is one picture in particular in which she is smiling and her mouth is full of baby teeth. For certain. For certain.

Obviously baby, like she's missing a couple of teeth. You know, these obviously are baby teeth. And they go to the dentist, and the dentist is like, yeah. Yeah. This is a kid. I would say she's nine years old. Yes. They believe that she was aged somewhere between eight and nine.

They looked at, they literally just looked at the fact that she had baby teeth still coming in. And that, and there's the proof. That's it. Technically, the documented X-ray. The documentary series could have just ended. That was like the entire big reveal, which is we know for a fact that they knew that The dated x-ray the documentary series could have just ended We know for a fact that they knew that she was child and they didn't do anything about it But then they continued to go ahead and so this is I feel like also also one of the most

interesting parts of this case is that we talk about all time of magical thinking and like the power of words And like all it's kind magical thinking and like the power of words and like all those kind of things and what happens at perception. Think about how magical it is that you could go into a room and a man in a cloak, right? With a big old scary book and a quill.

Can look at you and go like, ah, you say you're nine? Not anymore, you're 22! And legally you are. And now you are this fucking legally you are and now you are this fucking you are this age Forever, yeah, and they can't seem to undo it the re-aging was like that's like the Kind of this weird crazy sort of like a very unique crime well here in the center of this Well, here's what happened with that is The Barnettes, they keep going to doctor after doctor until they finally find one that says like, oh yeah, yeah, that's probably an adult.

Yeah, because if they said that they tried to blame it on the pubic care. Yeah. They said that she had pubic care too young. Yeah. Well, that was the thing that that was the story that they told was that when they adopted her in Florida, they went out for a day at Disney World, you know, the whole family went out for a day at Disney World You know the whole family went out for a day at Disney World and they took Natalia back to the hotel with the whole family They took Natalia back and the whole family back to the hotel room you know Christine like undresses her to give her a bath as you would for a six-year-old kid and Michael's Michael hears a scream from the bathroom. And Christine says, get in here. And as Michael puts it, I went into the room.

I just went into the room. I went into the room and I looked out and I saw that she had Pee-Bee Care. There was first-person Pee-Bee Care. This is the motion. It's this. I knew that there, I've been working on my Michael. She had. Peep-a-care. There was first person. Peep-a-care. This is the motion. It's this. I knew.

I've been working on my Michael. I've been trying to figure out how to play a Michael. He's a difficult. He's such a, he's a very distinctive. It's so hard without you seeing me because it's all the, like the him smash in his face and him like rolling and writhing and stuff and then being like, no, no, no, no. I tried. I tried. I tried, I tried. Yeah, he's a coward who was also a bad man.

Yeah, I don't know. He's an absolute coward because he claims that in all of this, he is victim to. He claims that he was fully passive and fully submissive and that he was under the spell of Christine just like everybody else in the family was. And he could never break free from Christine. Well, he ramped. He closed up his story from the first time he was talking.

The first interview he did, he said everything. He said all of the stuff that he was directly involved in, and it wasn't until later, probably after season one came in, and someone probably sent him a cease and desist from Christine and he probably had to stop talking. We kept calling her evil in the second season. I mean, she is. Well, that's, that's his very dramatic nickname for her. He's like, I don't call her Christine. Her name is not Christine.

I call her evil. Her name is evil. And when evil tells you something, evil is going to get something. You know, I discovered an interesting little anecdote about Christine and Michael. I discovered it on Reddit. I wanted the Natalia Gray subreddit where the people are very passionate. Yeah. But there was one person who claimed that they worked for Christine at her daycare.

Because Christine actually did run a daycare out of her house for many years. And this person claimed that this daycare was also somewhat abusive and it was very bizarre. This person claimed that Christine's style of childcare is that they would take toddlers, zip them up into like these little sleeping bags, these little cocoons, and put them in high chairs. This person called it baby jail. And basically these kids would just sit there in these little cocoons for hours on end,

right up until 5 p.m. when the parents would come to pick them up. Then they would unzip the children, let them out, and then the parents would be none the wiser. Yes. And what she said about Michael, this person who worked at the daycare, is that Michael would basically go up to his room. He'd kind of have his room and he'd only come out every once in a while to get some food. He would barely talk to Christine. Anytime he talked to Christine, it would be to complain

about something. And then he'd think he'd look very disheveled all the time and think he would just hide from Christine basically all day long But it makes sense and again attracts. I think that he was abused in the scenario, but he has a lot of He was a part of it entirely He was number two He said he saw her beat him. Yes three times multiple times that he saw her beat him. Yes. Three times.

Multiple times. Yeah. So he didn't do anything. Also, did he ever have a job? I kept trying to clock that. Like, what was his employment situation? A fun guy. Yeah, I don't think he was ever at any point held down a job.

He had a job. I can't remember what it was. Here we go. What did Natalia Grace's form do for Living Base on Michael Barnett's career? This is actually interesting. I think he was a real estate guy Retail jobs. Okay. I'm using team leader role to district manager roles for companies such as circuit city and T-Mobile He is absolutely a circuit city manager. Yes. He is. Oh, wow

That just came all the way back that he is definitely a manager of a retail company. He works as district director of operations for a financial company in Indiana. So I don't know what that is. Yeah. He does staffing and stuff. But yes, I could totally see him be a manager. Absolutely.

Live from Northland. Hello, Ed Larson and Amber Nelson from the brighter side here to check in with you, see how you're doing. Is your day more disappointing than a gas station sandwich? Are you trying to put one foot in front of the other in a glue factory? Did you try to throw your air fryer in the bathtub but nothing happened because you were too lazy to plug it in first? Then the Brighter side podcast is for you! Each week we take nasty, dookie, stupid,

dumb, stinky, no good, doodoo factory, kaka like topics, and try to find the brighter side. Hey Amber, what's the brighter side of waking up chained to a bed in Russia? At least they have free healthcare. That's right! So start your weekend off right every Friday with the Brighter Side on the last podcast network. You beautiful babies. ... Circling back to the re-aging thing.

So they find a doctor that is able to say, is willing to say like, this is, yes, I believe that this is an adult. And so they go to this judge and this is what's so is a judge named Gerald Zor. And me who? Judge Zor. And this judge didn't see Natalia, didn't bring Natalia in.

He didn't meet anyone. He didn't even meet the Barnets. They never even stepped in the court. They, the Barnets didn't take an oath to tell the truth. The Barnets just submitted a petition with this doctor's note saying like, this is an adult and the judge said, okay, and just reaged her from 18, 8 to 22. And if you want to, if you you wanna ask the question to so many things in this fucking case when you ask like,

how did this happen? The answer is always Indiana. This state almost fucking murdered me. It is really weird, man. A bad, as far as the government goes in Indiana, it's fucking god awful. Well, this is just a, you know, obviously there are tons of different people within these governmental systems, people that are better and worse at their jobs.

This is just such an example of, I feel like the only way I really put it, it feels like some kind of negligent laziness. Yes. Where no one really looked into this case. This all came about, I don't really know how they got to change somebody's age without their consent, unless they got her to sign the form.

Maybe there's something in there. I don't know how that fucking works. But if you're an eight-year-old, you can't sign paperwork. But that's what they did. That's what they did. They basically got her to admit somebody, they just fucked her up. It really does seem seem you could convince a child to say anything. And now when she's legally an adult, they could do anything they want to her.

Yeah. After she's 22. I mean, it really does seem like the judge, like the paperwork came across his desk. He read through it. He went, that's weird. Yeah. He just signed it and handed it off. And so all of a sudden in the with the stroke of a pen her birthdate changed from 2003 to 1989 and that's not magic I don't know what is like legitimately like this idea of now We all have collectively agreed that you're a you're an adult now perception I mean the idea so now the perception is like this person does like suddenly like this Nine-year-old could go in and buy a case of beer. Yeah, yeah

She can vote, you know, it's all this shit like instantly so now they don't know what to do with Natalia Grace So now they got her they they they have won in this aspect because because Christine Barnett wanted because they've been trying to get her out They couldn't figure out a way to do it without them being on the hook So because Christine Barnett did not want things to come back to her for getting rid of this child Even though like it would have been in an atrial it would have been utterly Understandable in and actually probably more people would have applauded you if you had come out and been like, this has actually passed my abilities. I'm gonna admit that we wanna put her in a place

where she could be taken care of and watch over the people who know what they're doing. You would have been a fucking hero. She decided that she thought that people would then think that she, I guess, think that she was bad at it. Well, they would think, they would, she was, it's speculated that she was afraid that people would think she was a bad person by saying that

I can't take care of it because you know that she doesn't have what it takes And yeah, it would be a black mark on her record. It would basically be just make her reputation her her cue score Yeah, lower and then now so now but now that they have reaged her they can kind of do whatever they want So they move her to an apartment have reaged her, they can kind of do whatever they want. So they move her to an apartment. They literally just drop her off at a place when an extremely bad neighborhood in the state of Indiana, where it's like,

you're just basically watching a child who has to kind of figure it out. And the one thing I'll say about a disabled child, a disabled child, and I'm telling you Grace, I'll say something, man, she fucking bowed up. She like, the fact that she figured out how to make it, like literally how to survive is crazy. It is, but the first neighborhood wasn't that bad.

It's all bad. It's not good. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't beautiful, but it was, the first neighborhood wasn't all that bad. It was like one of those apartment complexes where it's a bunch of like single story apartments, you know, maybe like four or five people live in there.

And so she's nine years old. She's just dropped into an apartment. And so she just starts going to other people's houses and just knocking on doors saying, hey, can I come in? Can I have food? Can we hang out? Like, can I need stuff? And she's been, and as you said, Eddie,

like, you know, a kid will say, do whatever you tell him to do. She's been told over and over and over and over again by Christine, you're 22, you're 22. And Michael as well. He's also been telling her, you're 22, you're 22. This is how a 22 year old acts. This is what a 22 year old says.

This is what you say when you're asked these questions. She coached her. Yeah, she was absolutely coached. So she starts just walking into people's houses. But it's interesting, cause now you're legally an adult. So up to this point, she has been kind of accused of doing these kind of like fucked up kid things. Yeah.

Accused of fucking with the neighbors kids, accused of fucking with her stepbrothers, accused of attacking people at school. And that's one thing when you're a kid. But now you're quote unquote an adult. So everything that you do now has to be looked at like you're an adult. She was playing with a local kid. People came and saw her roll around the grass with this other kid. They've been told that all of the people that have met Natalia Grace have been told that that's a 22 year old woman, that it just looks like a little kid. So you watch them, these two kids playing

together like in a field. What would you do if a strange 22 year old person that looked like a kid that was in a kid but was like playing kind of not intimately but literally like tickling and rolling around with another kid that age? Well, something that would be inappropriate for a 22 year old person to do. Yes. Yeah. This one's saying they said she was unbuckling his pants. Yes. She's doing because now again, it's coming from the view of being over viewing this as a 22 year old doing these things We're it's like no was a fellow nine year old that was doing stuff

That was just literally like playing with another child and trying to fuck you that having some kind of social network Well, I mean not only that but you know the unbuckling of the pants all this points towards the child being sexually abused because she also made if that's even real If that if that's even real, but I don't know I mean she made a lot she'll made a lot of sexually inappropriate comments to her neighbors a lot of sexually inappropriate jokes yeah she did spend a brief period in what they called a stress center which was it was a fucking asylum yeah it was an interest they showed of it it did not look friendly

looks terrible yeah yeah it's bad yeah but it was also said that she was, you know, approaching sexual appropriateness with some of the other patients. And then she was taken out of that center because of that. But that's the thing is that that's what that's the behavior exactly the behavior that abused kids exhibit. Yes. A lot of abused kids exhibit, they call it precocious sexuality. And it's almost proof that at some point, either before she came to the Barnets

or while she was with the Barnets, she experienced some sort of sexual abuse. At some point in her life, almost certainly. This is frown time. All of this is frowny things. Yeah, it's a very, and it's even frownier for the fucking documentary filmmakers to exploit all of that for six episodes. Yes. I have some questions about the

Asan asylum that just don't add up to me. No, there's- As far as the documentary- Oh, you know, no, there's a lot of, they left a lot of gaps. Yeah, they left a lot of gaps. They were in and out of that shit in the first season, and then don't mention it in the second. Yeah, because like, first of all, all the phone calls from the nurses and shit, none of those people left their name. They're just random phone calls.

It could have been literally anybody that they're talking to, and we have to take their word for it that they're actually talking to the nurses that work there. But I know that no nurse from like, a fucking nursing home would even talk like that. No. You know, it's just like, who the fuck are these people?

Yeah. It doesn't add up. No. You know, it's just like, who the fuck are these people? Yeah. It doesn't add up. No, it doesn't add up at all. So it may even be that all that was bullshit. Who knows? Who knows? There's the thing in this story. Because you can't even trust the filmmakers

in this fucking thing. Everybody's all over the place and everybody's got a fucking agenda. Natalia Grace is just really just trying to tell her story, but also I think that her memory is kind of jacked up because of all the things that happened to her. I also think that she's been through a fucking lot. I think that there's a lot,

and it was traumatized deeply as a kid. And now we've got Michael Barnett, who is a legitimate, I don't know what you'd call him. You know, like he is a- A narcissist. Yeah, and I would not let him fucking watch Wendy or Carmen. Never mind having adult children. You know what I mean?

You're gonna be allowed to drive. Yeah, he's a fucking greatest man. Then you could Christine Barnett, who's an actual fucking little literal monster. Yeah. She found the perfect Patsy, which is Michael, I feel like. Or developed him. Yes, developed him.

Yeah, and then abandoned him. Because after she was at the apartment for, I think it was a year that she was in this. You've gone for a while. It was quite a long time in this apartment by herself in a fairly nice neighborhood, and she would go across the street to another, to this other family who were like these two nice people

that were just like, she was a problem because she was around all the time. And they thought that this is like, oh, this is a 22 year old person who has no sense of boundaries whatsoever. And that's what most people thought about her. It's like, oh, this is just a person who has no sense of boundaries.

Not knowing that they're dealing with a nine year old who's lonely. Yes. And that's really, because everyone thought it was quote unquote creepy. And this is where the creepy, oh, thing comes from. Which is this idea of like oh you know she did all this fucked up stuff oh she's an evil orphan and this is like no she was just fucking not 22 she was a child now also was fed this stuff that she was an orphan fed that she was an evil

22 year old fed like she was told this so you get it it's easy to program a child. Not just that, like, I think it's important to remember that she is in constant agonizing pain. Yeah. You know, like, and who knows like what medication she's on to make her think a certain way. Oh yeah. I don't think she was given any medication. You don't think so?

She wasn't taken care of. Like she wasn't taken care of. They did the absolute bare minimum. They only gave her one surgery, right? Of what she needed, dozens of them. Yeah, and then she fucking was sitting there and she couldn't move properly. She couldn't walk.

Her feet were facing out, you know? And she still has all fucked up, obviously. She didn't even have the right but pews, you know, to walk around. She needed a walker. She needed to have that. She's sped up a little bit. Man, when they showed the steps,

she had to go up in order to get into that high, needed to have a... She needed specialty shoes. She's specialty. Man, when they showed the steps, she had to go up in order to get into that high, get into the apartment. Well, that's the second apartment. Yes, that was the second apartment. The first apartment that she was in, after, you know, I think after the lease was up, they were like, we can't have her around anymore.

She's made sexually inappropriate comments. And also the incident with the little boy. They're like, we can't have her around anymore. She can't live here anymore. So what they did is they found another apartment and they found another apartment further away. Like they took her to the town of Lafayette, which was like an hour's drive

from where Christine and Michael actually lived. And they took her to Lafayette, and this was in Christine's words, they said, she said, it's a white trash town, no one's gonna care. Like, we'll just, we can just put her somewhere and no one's gonna give a shit about it. She was literally left there to die.

She was. I've seen shit like this before. You're given no money, you're put in the house, in the North with no electricity most of the time. It is to kill you. No phone, they wiped her contact list, clean on her phone. Yes. As they put her in a bad neighborhood on food stamps to survive a nine-year-old,

they thought that she was going to get murdered. Yeah, it's truly... Or starved to death. Truly fucked. Or fall down the stairs. I think they were counting on falling down the stairs because even in order to get to the apartment building, it was like kind of a cracker box, you know, a top-on-top duplex, she had to walk up these huge...

Steep! Like steep cement stairs, just to get to the building, and then she had to go to the second floor. You know, and how's she gonna carry groceries up there? I think they were counting on her falling down the stairs and dying. That's what they were counting on. And then they moved to Canada.

Well, Christine Barnett moved to Canada. Cause they found out Michael could not go as well, which seemed to be a part of her plan as well. Her plan was to abandon Michael back in, or the plan was to keep Michael in America, to go away, leave without divorcing him. Eventually they did get divorced. Oh yes, they got divorced.

But yeah, Christine and Jacob and the other two kids went to Canada because Jacob had gotten into this special school where school for geniuses, so on and so forth. And that's the other thing too, is that this entire time, like Jacob was being forced to participate in the abuse of Natalia.

Oh, he absolutely was. I mean, because one of the things we didn't really talk about because long before she was sent to the apartment, it was two years of intense physical abuse on the part of Christine Barnett, just beating her and forcing Jacob to do weird shit like she would bring in Jacob, who was a young, not necessarily prepubescent but young teenager I think bring him in to Natalia's room say pee on her bed pee on her bed She was bad pee on her bed and would make him pee on the bed when he's like I don't want to do this I don't want to do this and then there's of course the hot mic moment in the middle of the fucking documentary series

They basically have the kid confess to pushing him down the stairs or the Michael kind of Says something with him. Well, they are, they've just finished an interview. And they got, and Michael and Jacob, the son. The kid is like next to tears during the entire interview too. The entire interview. Yeah, yeah, he's haunted by this. Absolutely haunted.

It is horrible little basement and fucking. It's just like, it looks like there's mold on the walls like it is like he's in a horrible situation it's like math problems written on whiteboards everywhere yes it is like a weird living situation yeah he looks like what's his name from beautiful mind down there yeah yes yeah but he goes upstairs with michael and the interviewer is supposedly over but jacob still has his microphone on he's on a hot mic mic. They set his ass up, in my opinion. And from what it looks like to me, they saw the jinks and they're like, okay, we're gonna keep,

if I would believe them if they weren't filming him. Yeah, yes. They were still, because he was up at the top of the stairs with the hot mic, they're like, hold, point the camera at the stairs. If the camera wasn't pointing at the stairs and it was just a hot mic situation, I would almost think about maybe giving them a pass,

but it's not, they knew what they were doing. They knew that both of them aren't bright. Michael and Jacob, I mean, Jacobs and Genius. Jacobs and Genius, but not Street Smart at all. You know, and so it's fucking, he like realizes that the moment he says it, and you see it, he rips it out of his shirt. He's like, it's a strut.

I'm sure the kid's fucking horrified. Yeah, I feel so bad for him. Well, what he said is that, you know, he's like, well, we said that we weren't gonna talk about the thing. And they're like, oh yeah, the stairs thing. They push it down the stairs like, yeah, I told them I wasn't gonna talk about that.

And he's like, cause I don't wanna get a subpoena or anything. Well, you were a minor at the time. So, and then Jake goes like, oh no, my mic's on. Oh God, oh no. Because what, I mean, you can extrapolate from that is that Christine at one point forced Jacob to push Natalia down the stairs.

And there's a lot of evidence of Christine Barnett doing this. She forced Natalia to go on camera often and confess to crimes, quote unquote, things that she's done the poisoning putting the I saw cleaner and the coffee. She made her say that she did it She did a lot of stuff. She put her on camera because Christine Barnett Is evil Like she for and she did the thing where she she tried to set all this up

Which is like because it's wild it's like truly like it's deception with a club when she was doing it on purpose. She was interrogating her own adopted child seems like hourly. Yeah. You know, like it was insane. Yeah. I mean, she would get her on camera and say like, admit that you have periods. Admit that you have periods. Tell me that you have periods.

The evidences and then eventually go, I have periods. Like it was it's fucking horrifying to watch. It's horrifying. But yeah, that's what they would say is like they would that she would was menstruating, you know, and she had pubic care and that's why that they knew that she was an adult when the whole time they had They had every knowledge that she would they would multiple doctors in Dennis prove that she was a child. So they move her out to this apartment that's essentially a death trap for someone like her. And after, it seems like, you know, the timeline's a little fuzzy here,

but it seems like after a couple of weeks, this other family who lives in the neighborhood, the man, notice her and immediately talk to her and immediately say like, oh, this is a kid Because the man's adopt a lot of kids. Yes, they have five kids of their own Well, I believe they're part of the quiver full movement. Are they I believe they are part of it That means well just the idea of ID or a Christian group that Man, they love to come. Yeah, it's about having as many children as humanly possible. Yeah, it's having arrows and filling your quiver with arrows.

Yes. Yeah, it's... Creating your own society. Yeah, creating your own society. It's like one of those like subtly violent things where it's saying like we need a Christian army. So breed your own army and have as many children as you possibly can.

Gotcha. And so the man's, they're... Satan should try it. He's got enough to deal with. So their name is Cynthia and Antoine Manz. They're an interesting couple. And Cynthia does seem like a genuinely caring person. She does.

She does seem like a very a genuine person that she truly loves kids, truly cares about kids. Antoine, I'm not quite so sure about. I don't like him. I don't like him either, but he's a pastor of some kind. I don't know what denomination. I feel like he made up his own denomination.

He sounds, it's interesting because he's present for all of these interviews inside of the documentary series. In the second season, he's present for all of these interviews inside of the documentary series. And the second season, he's present for all the interviews. Well, not the last one. Not the very last one, exactly. Yeah, probably because Michael wouldn't show up without him. I wouldn't show up, motherfucker.

He says one curse word and he starts screaming about God while they're trying to interview him. I mean, that whole thing was a, it all feels very reality television. It's very reality television. The second season, you can tell that they are turning the Natalia Grace story into a reality TV show. Yes. And that's where you're like, that's what I'm trying to get in my world where I'm like, so this is HBO?

No. This is what HBO, no, but it's not. It's ID, but it's on the HBO fucking app. Ah, no, it's on Max. Max is not HBO, my friend. Discovery has ruined HBO. You don't need to get into that now. Look at this fucking shit where it's like, it's on Max. Max is not HBO, my friend. Discovery has ruined HBO. I don't need to get into that now.

Look at this fucking shit where it's like, I am one, because I forget, that really is like, talk about like, if you wanna, like, there's a media thing where you start to watch this stuff, and I was like, I can't fucking believe that HBO would make something like this. And then after, remember,

they're not making something like this. ID is making this. Yes. And so you have to, I was thrown off by the bleeps. Yeah. I was watching HBO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where's the, I want to see that pubic hair. Yeah. I didn't realize that it was ID until I think like the second season. Yeah. But it wasn't until like the whole time I'm thinking it's HBO, which is, you know, kind of fucked up because it lends the whole thing like Right, gravity! Such an error of legitimacy. Yeah, yeah. Fly from your grave.

So the man's like take Natalia in like okay you're getting out of that fucking apartment We take you in and they say that she's lived with them for like ten years. They say she's a loving happy person Yes, no problems. They you know they adopt a lot of kids She's always very good with all the other kids like I mean yet they say that yes She she has her problems, but she was an abused child and neglected child. She has fucking problems She's all jacked up. Yeah. Yeah, she can't really read. She can't really write Or she couldn't at the time when they found it, you know when they fucking Almost no formal education. No one's well Yeah, she goes again. She had to yeah. Yeah, she had to yeah. She had to figure it out

but at the I mean and I Not it's this isn't necessarily a spoiler But you know at the end of season two You know you get a cut like and this is just more of the exploitative bullshit Yes, the end of season two like they they end season two with, you know, the man to finally adopted Natalia. Even though she's an adult. Even though she's an adult, which you can do.

You know, you can adopt adults. But you know, they adopt Natalia and they make it out to this very beautiful scene. You think this is how it's going to end. And then there's the twist. Yes. At the very end. There's a little clip of the man's talking about how they're done with Natalia Grace.

She, would they say she's tweaked? I've got the exact quote here is they end it, you know, the adoption ends and then you hear the boom. It's been like two weeks, six months after that. And then it says, you know, two weeks after filming ended, producers received a call from Mands. And the call, and they played the call, it was Antoine said, something ain't right with Natalia.

This girl is tweakin'. I feel like she's the enemy in the house. And she said to us, we have held her hostage, made us look like we're the enemy. She's done other things too, but this was a new low. Natalia does not have emotions for nothing but herself. We're done. We're done with her my Feeling is the nature of it is the nature of the calls fairly stage very performative It's very performative

And I think we are watching and obviously feeding into it a little bit just being in our interest Yeah, but watching it with it talking, talking that this is creating a third season of a reality television show. I have no idea how far Natalia Grace is involved with this. We know that she is profiting off the show, which as she should. Yeah, right? Does she make money?

Yeah, they're paying her money. Michael, does he make money? I imagine they're not paying him anything. Or he might have a day right, but- I bet they pay him. They have to pay him, right? Yeah, I bet they pay him. I kept looking up him, right? Yeah, I bet they pay him. I kept trying to find, I kept looking up like,

are these people getting paid? I couldn't find shit. I know that she's getting paid because now, I guess the man's a part of what that was referring to, the statement is about, they felt that the money from the show wasn't split with them. Whatever, I don't know. Where did you find that out?

Like another forum, again. Okay, yeah. It's like another just reading on reading. Like that's a forum, that's probably speculation. Yes, it's all speculation. Actually, every article I found was like, by the sun or the Daily Mail, and it's like none of this is credible.

Well, this is what's hard, is that like, this is why a lot of times we cover stories that have been through like nine other vetting processes so that when we get to it, we add the dubious. You know what I mean? We add the dubious, we add all this stuff. We're like stuff like this is it's so hard because number one, it's very emotional.

It's extremely emotional. People get tied up. We talk about the passion behind this. And two, it's like, we don't really know what happened at the very center of the story. The things that we do know is the fact that she was a little girl when she was adopted and should have been treated as such. That is like the heart of this entire story is that none of this would have been ha- none of

this would have happened if she was just treated like a child instead of having somebody do truly one of the- you could have left her at a fire station and it would have been less fucking devious than what Christine Barnett did. You know, and like even if she was, even like Natalia was a little evil or whatever as like an eight year old, it's an eight year old. It's an eight year old. Eight year olds do fucking evil shit sometimes and they grow up and they wish they never did it. She came in to survive a Ukrainian orphanage where they scared them to sleep every night

in the street. Sorry, she might be upset. She could barely walk. She might be upset. She can barely walk. She's in constant pain. She is in surgery after surgery. Her hands don't work. That was the other thing too.

You know what showed me Natalie fucking Clue'd me? You were watching it last night. And you were like, they say all the stuff about her. Hurtin' people. And like holding knives. And there's the whole story of like her trying to pull Christine into an electric fence. That was the most ridiculous stupid fucking part of the goddamn show. Pushing the kids in and then cuts to innocuous but interesting Michael this fucking guy what a

piece of work he tries to go into a LeBron James like handshake chain with oh my god Natalia, do you remember this? He tries to like show her the snap He doesn't he like you know he's like no no you have to do it like this and he goes like you know like slap You got a click you know you snap your fingers and shit. She can't even fucking do it No, of course not and you're like all right. She doesn't have the hand strength. Well. She says it hurts his hands I know but a And you're like, all right, she doesn't have the hand strength. Well, she says that her touch his hands. I know, but then, but partially you're like, there's that thing that the beginning

of the documentary series put the little seed in, being like, oh, is she maybe, is she kind of evil? Even if she, you know, but then you're like, no, she literally couldn't do it. I just watched her not be able to do it. And she definitely can't do anything of physical force using her hands. You watched her do that as a 22 year old.

Yes. And they're saying that all of this happened when she was nine. Yes. You know, it's like, I mean, they talk about, you know, her showing up into their room with a knife, you know how you fix that? A fucking baby gate.

She was like a, she was like a, Child locks. She's like two feet tall. There was also a, Even that at that point, it was like a foot and a half, two feet tall. Like, and she says that herself. She's like, look at me.

She's like, why are you you're afraid of me? Like what the fuck? They also said that they they talked about that that they did diagnose her with reactive attachment disorder, which was it's like this concept of You come from a place of no trust. You're an orphan. It happens a lot with orphans trust. You're an orphan. It happens a lot with orphans. According to this, it's a reactive detachment disorder develops because a child's basic needs for comfort and affection and nurturing weren't met. And like what that means is that like they sometimes act in fucked up ways and they do fucked up things. And one of those where it's like, I actually think is possible in a way of like, they kind of floated, she just kind of would hide knives places out of the feeling of not being safe.

That's what I believe, out of feeling of not being safe. You're doing something, you're hiding stuff just for the sake of protecting yourself. Well, how are the bomb hit them? And just so the dad would find them and she would be able to manipulate them. Absolutely. We always talk about how adopted kids sometime, you know, hide food, that kind of thing. Well, I mean, as far as her being, you know, the neglect goes and how badly that can really affect somebody. And I know I've talked to

Henry about this, but have you ever heard about the wire monkey story? No. There was a study that was done many years ago when they were still very cruel to animals, where they took a baby monkey, or a few baby monkeys, and they had two mama monkeys that they basically crafted. One mama monkey was very soft made from like a very plushie substance, but you would not the monkey would not get food if they went to mama to soft monkey. The other mama monkey was made of wire. Yeah, it was very cold. It was cold and but that monkey, you'd get food

if you were the baby monkey, you went to the wire monkey. Inevitably, every time, invariably, the monkey would go for the soft monkey. They would go for the soft monkey. Because the comfort to them, to the baby monkey was more important than the food. And so it showed, and so they were able to kind of extrapolate from that like you know, you know that

Comfort was far as primates go like that is essential to our Our developmental process is nurture over nature. You must have well the idea must have you must have comfort You must be loved you must be held babies must be held. They have to have, they have to have it because what it does is it destroys, if you don't have it, it destroys an essential social adaptive nature. Like you're supposed, it's just how it is. It fucks you up. And so they said right here, it's a, it is a common problem for kids that were, this is from Romanian orphanages, but it's, it was a common problem from kids that were from a lot of Eastern European places I don't know why why are they bad to orphans? Is there just a thing that they just are not into it?

I feel like there's got to be there's got to be at least one good Ukrainian orphanage, right? I guess so but we're gonna be good ones. There's got to be one good Russian orphanage, right? Maybe job. Don't pay shit I'll tell you that right now. So you're kind of getting who you get, you know? And then it's like the really good people get, yeah, they run a really good orphanage, but there's still a lot of extra kids, especially in places that are like war torn and going through constant civil war like the Ukraine.

Well, I mean, when I was in a high school, I participated in CX debate. And what's funny is that I can't remember the subject at all But I remember one of our like one of the things that we argued for was like, you know Russian adoption And we had this whole we went through this whole thing. This is like 1999. This is real sad I'm reading about Russian orphanages right now and it ain't well man Muppet babies Shouldn't be there. This is not good But we went to but our whole point was that Russian orphanages

are absolutely fucking awful. Eastern European, like former Soviet bloc orphanages are absolutely just, I mean, places of torture and despair. Which that's a place, that's where Natalia Grace was coming from. But things about all this is that it all begs the question, why do we know about this? Like why do we know that all this happened? That's because in September of 2019, Michael and Christine were charged with multiple counts of neglecting a dependent for leaving Natalia in

the apartment. Someone noticed. And so they were charged with eight crimes like neglect of a dependent neglect of a dependent causing bodily injury but at the end of the day The judge again the judge in this case Did not allow the re-aging to be brought into evidence They were not the prosecution was not allowed in any way whatsoever to talk about the fact that this was a nine-year-old that they dropped off. They just talked about this. So the entire trial, Michael's trial, Michael was first, Christine was second, they tried

them separately. The entire trial, the prosecution had to go only on the fact that this was a 22 year old. And I think the jury took an hour, maybe two, to come back with a verdict of not guilty for Michael, just based on like, well, it's a 22 year old. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do about it? Yeah, exactly. And these fucking judges stick up for each other.

You know, like that's what I think. That's where I take from this. It's like, oh, we don't wanna be shown as like weak minded, make mistakes. And so they're gonna fucking stick up for this other judge. That's a I think that's where I'd take from this. It's like oh, we don't want to be shown is like weak-minded make mistakes Well, so they're gonna fucking stick up for this other job. That's a good point. I think that's a great point I think that that's that is a massive issue I think that they they're like this president has been sent and if we undo this How many other people are gonna come to undo this product because it's understanding that we would have to do

Like like how do you put it? That means that someone's like truly fucking with They not that I guess the trust the court puts on you to not lie to us about Reaging your child, but I also like how many people I'm gonna look this up I don't know many people a year or re-aged like how often does that happen? It doesn't seem like it's a, I mean, I think it happens in adoption cases with Eastern European kids because oftentimes the age is wrong.

But usually it's like a year, two years, three years. It's not fucking 12. Yeah. And then go back on the judge thing, not to get too political or whatever, but we know that it's either, if it's a state case, then either the pens probably appointed this judge, because it's Indiana.

And if it's a federal case, Trump probably appointed this judge. Well, I think- 2019. I think these are probably elected judges. You think so? I mean, I actually, I don't exactly know how Indiana, it like works because a lot of judges are elected. And I don't know if you know this,

but in, I know at least in Texas, like you don't have to have a law degree to be elected to judge. Whoa. You can like, and that's like, I'm a judge now. Like county judges, you know, like, like that. Like you don't have to have a law degree.

You just have to say like, hey, I want to be a judge. And everyone was like, yeah, I think he'd be pretty good at that Yeah, I like him. Yeah, I like him and so all of a sudden you've got this guy in there that has very little knowledge of the law But he's there and he's making Decisions that affect people's lives, but I think it has what it probably has more to do is just you know This judge doesn't want to fuck with another judge. That's it. Like another judge, like he saw the judge is like,

I can't really, like maybe he probably fucking knew the guy. You know, he's like, doesn't want to fuck with his job. Doesn't want to fuck with the guy and just fucking, lets it go and doesn't allow the re-aging to be entered. So Michael gets off scot-free. And then after Michael gets off, the prosecution looked at Christine's case and decided, we can't win this shit. It's a waste of time. And the prosecutors aren't gonna try a case unless they are

99% sure that they're gonna win. They're not gonna go forward with it. Yes, because to lose something like that would be a massive with it. Yes, because to lose something like that would be a massive public loss. Two in a row. Yeah. Yeah, to lose two in a row and to also like spend the time, spend the money, all that, to try this person. And so they just dismissed the charges against Christina a little less than a year ago in March of 2023. And so she can't be tried again now, right? No, she can be, I think. Civilly probably. I think they're going to go for the civil reward because the state of the state of that you have limitations for neglect of a discipline. I believe that if disabled person had passed, that was one of the other reasons why they couldn't get Michael on those charges. Yeah, but I think if I know if you are tried for a crime and found not

guilty, you can't be tried again. But if charges are dismissed against you, I think you can be, I think the charges can be brought back if there's new evidence. I'm pretty sure. I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. But they're not, you know, it's not like, they're just not going to go for it. They're not going to go after it. I think as far as the state of Indiana is concerned, this case is by them. I don't think they fucking care. But there's so much footage of her just abusing this child. We saw it in the documentary. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's no, but that's the thing. There's much footage of her just abusing this child. We saw it in the documentary. Yeah. Well, I mean there's no but that's the thing There's only footage of her telling that there's footage of her emotionally abusing her

I mean, there's no physically abusing. I mean the wall thing is insane But there's no fit but there's no video evidence of that and that I last said as long as they said it Yeah, and yeah, there's no you don't't know. And that's, and it could also be argued, that's just a, you know, that's a punishment that a parent is allowed to, I mean, how there's a lot of people that will defend beating your kids, you know, like still like, you should, we should bring spankings back, you know,

like there's plenty of, especially like Indiana, like I know all our people in Indiana, I love you. We got good people in Indiana. We got really good people in Indiana, but God damn that state's awful. It just got a lot of problems. It just needs a lot of help. It's got a lot of problems. I personally have people going through some crazy problems with the adoption process in Indiana. Yes. That's as far as I can talk about that, but like I know firsthand there is some crazy problems with the adoption process in Indiana. It is very interesting.

I'm also looking more into re-aging. But like, I guess it does happen fairly often in international adoptions, because they believe if you shave a couple of years off a child, it makes it more attractive. Yeah. Albert Pujols. Yes.

Who? Albert Pujols, the great home run hitter. He came from the Dominican Republic and like he came in and they were like, he was like, ah, you know, I'm 16, I'm 18. Yeah, of course. But he was a clearly 20 something. That's what Larry Fishburne did to get an apocalypse now. Yeah, yeah.

He was, yeah, he was sick. Amelie Kunis. Yep. Yeah, exactly. So sometimes re-aging is good. That's what we learned. But where we are with this case now is like, I don't believe that Michael or Christine,

well, I mean, I mean, Christine, her reputation is fucking ruined. Yeah, that's over. Her life is over. Like, I mean, she is forever Christine Barnett, the woman who, you know, tortured and reaged a little person for years. I never gave fucking Jacob a dollar for the book. Nothing. Yeah, that sucks too. Yeah. That poor kid. I feel so bad for him too. I feel bad. I mean, he seems to be like the only genuine dude

in this whole thing. Like he seems like he's really trying hard to be a good person. And I just, I hope Natalia can find some peace. I hope that she gets, I mean, I hope she gets paid. There's gonna be season three of this show. Obviously. And so we're gonna end up watching that at some point.

And you might notice, so this was like, this is a relax fit. Yeah. So this was a lighter episode. We're talking about some stuff kind of, but I want you to know we got two absolutely thick ass series. You just coming up. Yes.

Can you give any hints? Well, one is we got true crime. Okay. Big old, big old true crime story. And then we are doing a really fun trip into stuff that this is a part of your education. Thank you. Eddie, we're going to teach you about what's really going on. Oh, more alien shit. No, it is not more alien stuff. It's the truth. No, it's it's there's some aliens up, but it's what's really going on under the surface.

Yeah, buddy. What goes on? Yeah. Who's making the decisions that affect us all? And I'll say sometimes there are people that need to sleep on a rock with a sun lamp. Now you're speaking my language. Very big, very big series. But yeah, so you know, if you know, like we're just doing, we're doing a run up to some really big, thick stuff

before we do our big histories. We've got two big series, then we've got a big history series is the summer that we're gonna do, I'm very excited for. And the true crime series, what I'll say is that it's a, it is a modern story that has,

that of the last 10 years that has roots in the past, or I would say the motivation of the perpetrator has his motivations far in the past. Okay. Perhaps a war between two religions. Oh! I hate religion. And you're gonna like this.

You're gonna like this. The nuns are number one now, by the way. Did you did you hear that nuns are number one? Yeah, the number one religion in America is none You met like none They're out there have you ever seen a young man? I have my whole life. I've never seen one young guy You know, I've never seen a young nun. No, I never have either. We are gonna see the end of nunnery We'll still have priests for a while, but yeah, we'll definitely see the end of nuns. Yes fuckers man Yeah, what the nuns be priests. That's the whole problem. You know, man, you know what?

That should keep them out. No, just let them fuck. Just let everyone fuck. Let everybody fuck. That's the problem. That would be a big problem. That's the big problem. We're gonna help out a lot.

Yeah, let the nuns be priests, but first let them fuck. Yeah, kid. Everyone, they let them scissor. Let the g-let priests suck dick. Yeah? Do you know how many problems would be fixed if priests could just suck dick? I probably do.

You don't think that the Virgin Mary, yeah't think that the Virgin Mary didn't suck dick? Yeah, that's how you think she got the name. Yeah, buddy. Yeah, because she kept the holes empty. Oh, I don't know how I asked. They never said anything about virgin teeth. Oh, this has been a... I was sitting in the house, the know, the guy, Angel came to the windows, I don't have

a baby. Oh, is that Gabe? Yeah. Gabe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what a sad episode. So next week we got one that we're doing a last little special and then once we're back. So two weeks from now, we're going to be having a big, big, big series. So you'll see. All right. My fuckers. Very big indeed. But yeah, don't forget to check out all our shows, all of our live streams at

twitch.tv slash LPN TV. All you out there who are patreon subscribers we get some really cool shit coming up we're going to be adding some stuff to our patreon here very soon here within the next month so if you're not a patreon subscriber right now you can go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left and check out to see what all you get for becoming a patreon subscriber and also know that there's going gonna be some extra shit in the future especially for those of you who enjoy watching last stream on left. We have a lot of stuff coming down the pipe we have a lot of changes and we didn't kind of work on behind the scenes a little bit but

you're gonna be so I think the word is overwhelmed with content very soon you're gonna you're gonna cry yourself to sleep. Yeah, and if you wanna watch us do the podcast, you can check that on our Patreon as well. Yeah, it's in there. Last stream on the left, or go to our YouTube page. There are always, last stream on the left is posted two days after it airs on Patreon.

So you can go check it out early on Patreon and watch it live and interact with us as it happens every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PST Yep, or you can watch it for free on YouTube two days later. So why don't you just go ahead and take those hell out that shit? Hell Satan. Oh yeah, I'll gain hell Jacob. Yeah Natalia's cool, but you know, it's a little difficult. It's hard up as a pure soul. I feel so much for Jacob I really do I feel a lot for Jacob, but yeah, yeah, and I also feel for Natalia dude. Yeah, it's like I feel I is an abused child. There's no question about yeah. Yeah, she's doing her best

That's what I'll say about Natalia. She's doing her best and good honor for doing the best she can with a horrible Fucking that hand that she was dealt in life and Jacob too. Yes. But everyone else like, I don't know. I got no good feelings for anyone else. I don't know nothing about the other kids. Yeah, they purposely stay out of it as they showed up. Except for Cynthia Manns. I got a good feeling for Cynthia Manns.

I like Cynthia Manns. I think Cynthia Manns is a genuinely good person who truly cares about kids. Antoine Manns, I don't know about that guy. Yeah, he's a manipulator. I don't know about that guy at all. Yeah, I don't know about him. All right. Bye! Byenetwork.com.