RedHanded - Episode 305 - Natalia Grace: The Orphan

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

In 2009, the horror film ‘Orphan’ told the tale of a couple who unwittingly adopted a 9-year-old girl, who (spoilers) turned out to be a murderous, adult woman.Sometimes though, reality is stranger than fiction. A year after the film’s release, the Barnetts, a wealthy picture-perfect American family, adopted 6-year-old Natalia Grace from Ukraine. But within just 3 years, they’d abandoned her and fled to Canada. Why? According to the Barnetts, Natalia – who had a rare form of dwarfism – wasn’t a little girl at all. She was actually a 22-year-old woman who was trying to murder their whole family. In this bizarre case, everything most definitely isn’t as it seems…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Yes, welcome. Come on in. The water's horrible. It's fucking covered in algae or something equally horrible. But we are here and we are ready to get started with quite a tale. The noise you just heard was Mabel's tail bashing against a metal pole. But now she's gone to bed, so it's all going to be fine. Fingers crossed. So in 2013, a bizarre story hit headlines across the world. An American family who had adopted a six-year-old girl from Ukraine

had suddenly abandoned her in an apartment in Fayetteville, Indiana, and run off to Canada. The couple, Michael and Christine Barnett, claimed that Natalia Grace, a child with diastrophic dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism, was not in fact a little girl, but a fully grown 22-year-old woman who had been trying to kill their entire family. There really is no subtle way to start this story with a plot line like that, and with comparisons to the 2009 horror movie Orphan that came out just a year before the Barnetts adopted Natalia. Believe me,

this case is as fucking weird as it gets. I didn't realise that this was after Orphan. Oh yes, a year after. That's bananas. Uh-huh. So to really understand just how bananas it all is, we're going to have to start at the beginning. Michael and Christine Barnett, plus their three sons,

11-year-old Jake, 9-year-old Wesley and 6-year-old Ethan, were the picture-perfect family. And I can't say the word Wesley without thinking about Wesley Snipes' arms. Now we're all thinking about it, so. You're welcome. Why would you name your son Wesley? He's never going to have arms as good as Wesley Snipes. Something to aspire to. True. May we all be more Wesley Snipes. Every day is arms day when your name is Wesley. Well, I think I'm going to have to start doing

some serious arms days because I've got to wear a bloody strapless bridesmaid dress in September. Oh, look, this is the fear. I have two weddings to go to this year and they're both in peak summer. So I can't just like wear a fucking jumper like I would want to so I went to like my first body tone class in probably about 18 months today and I cannot walk I like actually physically can't walk we came down to the studio which is in the basement of the building we work in I realized I'd forgotten my headphones and I had to call producer Seb and I was like Seb please please can you bring my headphones I can't'm in danger. I can't walk. Yeah, well, but once again, I will just complain about it and do absolutely nothing to change it.

Right. The Barnetts all had Wesley Snipes arms, and they lived in a huge American house in Hamilton County, Indiana. And if you check out the new Discovery Plus docuseries on the story, which is quite satisfyingly named The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, like, it's just nice to say. It just trips off the tongue, doesn't it? You will hear Michael Barnett telling you just how big their house was. It was a whopping 5,000 square foot.

Can I just stop you right there? Please do. Because I think Americans don't realise how much house for their money they get. Like, I think the UK actually has some of the smallest pound to square foot. Yeah, apart from like Hong Kong. Like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that you get. And Hong Kong is just like a weird anomaly because they actually have loads of land. They just like don't build on it for some weird reason. I watched a documentary about it because I'm a boring person.

In the UK, 5,000 square foot. Are you a billionaire? I don't even know how many square foot my flat is, but it's probably like four. All I know is square foot because I am house hunting. All I know is square foot. And let's just say I will have to pay a Wesley Snipes arm and a leg to be able to buy a 1,500 square foot house. And I will feel like it's a palace. We walk into houses that are 1500 square foot and we're like, oh my god, it's so big. It's so big.

Well, so, you know, count your blessings, America. Michael also explains that the family had hundreds of thousands of dollary-dos in the bank. 13 TVs, 14 couches, and numerous fancy cars. Including an audacious yellow Lamborghini, parked out on the driveway. Just like I think gold cars should be illegal, I think yellow cars also. Now whether we find all that a bit gauche or not... Just a bit. Just a tad.

Michael did seem to have worked hard. He'd grafted and moved his way up the greasy pole of the retail industry to take district manager roles for brands like T-Mobile. And his wife, Christine, well, she was no slacker either. Aside from raising their three sons, Christine was also a budding author and motivational speaker. And in 2010, following a diagnosis of autism for her and Michael's eldest son, Jacob, Christine started Jacob's Place, a not-for-profit learning centre for autistic and special needs children.

And Jacob, or Jake, is a fascinating kid. There is actually, Hannah, an entire episode of 60 Minutes just about him. Those families certainly get their 15 minutes, don't they? Completely separate from the whole Natalia Grace thing. That happened years before she's even on the scene. And that's because at the age of two, doctors had told the Barnetts that Jake would never even be able to tie his own shoelaces. But by 12, Jake had taught himself calculus in two weeks. He was a maths prodigy with a photographic memory and an IQ higher than that of Einstein's. He was a maths prodigy with a photographic memory and an IQ higher than that of Einstein's. Jake was a fully-fledged, certifiable genius. And his parents

were, of course, immensely proud. Christine even wrote a much-praised book called The Spark about raising a gifted child. I wonder what it feels like as a parent the day you realise that your kid is smarter than you are. Good question. Good like with Mabel it's easy because I'm millions of years more evolved than she is so I'm always going to win but what if you have a genius child that's like actually you're philosophically forward in these ways I mean you know swings and roundabouts but yeah they've got it all going on they've got it all going on they've got the perfect 5,000 square foot American house they've got the all going on they've got it all going on they've got the perfect 5,000 square foot American house they've got the genius kid and everybody's happy and the yellow Lamborghini

and the yellow Lamborghini so I really want to start singing yellow Lamborghini to the tune of yellow submarine but I'm not going to because I don't think that's what our audience is here for no I've just got black and yellow in my head but actually the meme version where it's like queen in yellow queen in yellow because she wore yellow to her birthday or something. Look, my brain is not a fun place to be, guys. And sometimes I will invite you in, but you don't want to stay. So yes, the Barnetts were blessed in a lot of ways. And given all of their happiness and familial bliss, they decided it would be amazing to

bring another child into their enormous 5,000 square foot home. You've got to fill it with stuff. Yes. And people. And kids. TVs, sofas, and human beings. So, with three boys already running around, the Barnetts decided to set about looking to adopt a little girl.

And soon they were matched with a child from Haiti called Gilberta. But then in 2010, when Haiti was rocked by that catastrophic earthquake, the country shut down all adoptions and the Barnetts knew it was unlikely that their plans would go ahead anytime soon, if at all. So imagine their delight when another organisation called Adoption by Shepherd Care, based in Florida, called them saying that they had a little girl in need of a home. This child had dwarfism and the adoption centre explained that the Barnetts with their foundation for special needs kids would be the perfect fit. So the family were sent two pictures of a sweet little girl with

brown curls and a chubby face as well as a Ukrainian birth certificate. Natalia Grace, the child the adoption centre had matched the Barnetts with, was born on the 4th of September 2003, making her six years old. The same age as the Barnetts' youngest son, Ethan. How perfect, Michael and Christine thought. The two kids can grow up together, and it looked like their family was finally going to be complete. So the Barnetts immediately jumped on a plane and headed to Florida, complete with matching homemade Welcome Home Natalia T-shirts.

But when they arrived at the centre, because it was a closed adoption, they weren't given any more information about their new would-be daughter. All the Barnetts knew was that Natalia had been adopted from Ukraine by another American family, and that family didn't want her anymore. So if the Barnetts didn't take Natalia that day, the disabled little girl would be going straight into care. So, probably feeling under quite a lot of pressure, the Barnetts agreed to the adoption. And when Natalia was brought into the room to meet her new family the tiny girl bounced in, huge smile on her face

calling them mummy and daddy. Michael said that his and Christine's hearts melted and all of them were completely overjoyed. And before returning to Indiana the Barnetts decided that it would be great to take all of the kids to Disney World as they were already in Florida, so why not? And they could all bond as a family. And there are tons of pictures and home videos of them there.

Happy, smiling, excited. But that very same night, something strange happened. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part

of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. According to the documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, Christine decided to give Natalia a bath. And that was when she discovered, much to her horror, that her new adopted six-year-old daughter had full pubic hair.

Needless to say, the Barnetts were pretty freaked out by this, but they claimed that they tried to accept it as an unusual but possible situation. Especially when, according to them, they were told that the youngest age pubic hair typically shows up is around age eight is it apparently so i have fact checked this and apparently that's not even precocious puberty that's like normal it's not counted as precocious puberty so if a girl starts her period or starts to develop pubic hair at the age of eight that is the youngest range that is considered non-precocious wow yes i also feel like i don't remember pubes being a gradual thing i think it's just like the pube fairy came in the night and was just like you

and now you shout out pubes yeah i can't remember i remember i started my period when i was 13 so i definitely i'd say slap bang in like normal yeah yeah i can't even remember i was definitely in secondary school though i think yeah i was, I was in a Morrison's toilet. Oh no! I went shopping with my mum after school one day, had really, really bad stomach ache. I was like, I need to use the loo in the supermarket. Went in there, pulled my pants down and I was like, holy fuck. I'm dying. And obviously it doesn't matter if you've already had the chat, you know everything about periods.

It's still a big bloody shock, literally. So no, age eight is not considered precocious. It is considered within the normal range of things. So you might be thinking, dear listener, well, eight years old, but she's meant to be six. Well, most people who go through with international adoptions know that a lot of the kids have their ages reduced by a couple of years artificially to make them more attractive to potential parents. And equally, like this is something that happens with refugee children quite a lot. If they're from places where the political situation is unstable, they might not necessarily have a birth certificate. They definitely don't have a passport. How can you prove it? You can't just chop their legs off and count the rings. You know, it's

impossible. Exactly. So I think most people who get into this kind of situation with an international adoption understand that there may be a couple of years, give or take, with the child that they're adopting. So the Barnetts say that because they found this out, they were like, okay, fine. So despite their initial shock, the Barnetts seem to have swept this hairy situation under the rug. Are you sure they didn't put it under the bush? So many. Is it a bird in the hand or a bird in the bush? A bird in the hand is better than a bird in the bush.

Sure, all of those things. They talk themselves around and tell themselves that maybe Natalia was just a touch older than they'd been led to believe. But it was okay because when they returned home to Indiana, outwardly the Barnetts seemed to be fine and continued to present themselves as the perfect family. They even threw a huge party to welcome Natalia into the family where they invite all of their extended family, all of their neighbours. Like they're very much like if they were surprised about that at that point and it continued to be a fear for them at this stage, they don't show it. They very much welcome her into their family. However, perfect wasn't exactly the situation behind closed doors because let's face it, it rarely is. Natalia seemed

to have some behavioural issues, which is not massively shocking when it comes to a closed adoption. And we're not saying that all kids who are adopted have behavioural issues, obviously not. But what we do know about little Natalia's early life isn't great. She was abandoned by the last family who adopted her. And she spent the years before that in a Ukrainian orphanage with a serious disability. So sure, behavioural issues, to a certain extent, were to be expected. And that's what we do know. The fact that she was abandoned by one family and that she had spent time before that in

a Ukrainian orphanage. We don't know anything else about Natalia's childhood, about her background. So what little we do know is pretty bloody bad and who knows what else happened to her. And so what are these behavioural issues that we're talking about? Well, in the documentary, Michael explains that these issues initially manifested themselves as problematic behaviour towards his other three children. Natalia would apparently steal their toys and sneakily throw them into traffic. She'd soil herself

and then smear her faeces on the youngest son, Ethan, in particular. She'd threaten the boys with violence. And these statements that Michael makes are backed up in the documentary by his now adult son, Jake, who says clearly, there was fear.

We were scared of her. And like, remember, Jake at this son, Jake, who says clearly there was fear. We were scared of her. And like, remember, Jake at this point, like, he's a lot older than Natalia. She's six slash eight, something like that. And she's very small. She's very, very small for her age. But again, in the face of these kind of behavioral issues, the Barnetts say that they expected

some level of maladaptive behavior. So they just tried to work through it, and they say they never ever considered giving her back. They did, however, contact the adoption agency multiple times, but they say that they weren't much help. So the Barnetts found Natalia a therapist. But then, another discovery left them questioning everything all over again. One day, Michael came home

and Christine asked Natalia to tell him what she'd found hidden in her room that day. Michael said that Natalia then told him she had a period and that she had been hiding it. And apparently, what Christine had found in her room was bloody underwear. So, of course, now the age doubts resurfaced. Yet again though, the Barnetts say that they brushed it off as possibly being something they just couldn't understand. Maybe

Natalia's condition made her more likely to start puberty early. It was such a rare type of dwarfism, it was pretty hard to say what was quote-unquote normal for Natalia. We also know that childhood stress and abuse can actually induce girls to go into puberty early, and Natalia. We also know that childhood stress and abuse can actually induce girls to go into puberty early. And Natalia certainly had a stressful life. Nature, you crazy. I know. Like, it is bananas. I know I've already said that. Human body, stop it. Yeah, no, I looked that up. They never bring this up in the documentary. They never sort of really expand on this. So I looked it up. I looked up, like, can the impact of stress or an abusive childhood lead to coming into puberty earlier? Yes, apparently that is true. Apparently you do see that being a case. And also like the reason girls

start going into puberty much earlier now than we did like 50 years ago is because of the lights we use. What? Iridescent lighting is causing girls to go into puberty earlier isn't that mental and also our diets also the diets that we follow these days like processed foods etc etc it's crazy don't we have enough to deal with no apparently not apparently not so yeah like hannah said the barnetts understand that it's very hard to sort of make comparisons between natalia and other children of her age because of how rare the form of dwarfism she has is and how that might be impacting her physiologically speaking. So through their foundation the Barnetts managed to find another little girl who was not only the same

age, six years old, but had the same exact condition as Natalia. This was very exciting. It would give everyone a more like-for-like comparison and also it would give both girls someone that they could connect with as they grew up. So the Barnetts arranged a meet-up with the other little girl. Her name is Therese Rias and she came to visit. But straight away everyone, including Therese's mum was confused. Natalia and Therese looked very different. Therese was much much smaller and clearly much less developed physically speaking. Their faces look so different. Natalia's features and cheekbones for example are much more pronounced and it is hard to look at the pictures of the two of them, which we'll post on socials, and say that they look the same age. I do have to admit that Natalia does look older.

But saying that, I don't know enough about the condition to know if there wouldn't be a lot of variations in appearance anyway between different children that have the same condition. I don't think anybody knows that because it's so rare. There's not like a big enough sample for them to say, oh, the average size of a child with this condition at this age is this, this is what the average child looks like. There's just not a big enough sample size. But I do have to admit, when you look at the pictures, Therese, who wasn't adopted, who didn't go through, obviously any child who's born with disabilities is going to go through a difficult life. But what I'm saying is like, she was with her birth mother.

She had like a normal middle-class life. Whereas Natalia has gone through quite a lot of stress, as we'll go on to discuss, probably quite a lot of abuse, shifted from place to place, grew up in an orphanage, yet she looks bigger and more developed. It feels like it doesn't fit for me but again it's not a definitive black and white thing however this once again amped up the barnett's fears that natalia might be older than they thought she was and it also pulled up another

issue that had been niggling away at the back of their minds. Natalia hadn't been in the US that long. She'd spent most of her life in a Ukrainian orphanage. But she didn't have a Ukrainian accent. She didn't even have a particularly foreign accent. She spoke English and read out loud with relative ease and confidence. Everyone just thought she was precocious, and maybe she was. But it was just another thing that made the Barnetts doubt her age. And now her backstory. Then, one night, the first incident that truly scared the Barnetts occurred. They heard a noise coming from Natalia's room, so they went to check. And they found Natalia standing in the dark in the middle of the room with a blank look on her face.

Michael asked her what she was doing, to which Natalia replied, waiting, waiting for you to go to sleep. No, unsubscribe. Yeah, now look, again, we have to be very clear that I would absolutely recommend that people go watch the Discovery Plus documentary on this case. I think it's like five parts, It's very in-depth. But let's also be very clear that it is told entirely from the perspective of Michael Barnett. Right. But I have also, and we will come on to this, watched an entire interview in which Natalia Grace has given every opportunity to rebuff these things, to deny these things, to come back at some of these accusations. And we'll come back to that later. We have to take this with a pinch

of salt, but it's very hard to know where the truth lies in this case. But we do have to tell you what Michael says. And this is what he says happened. So soon after this incident in Natalia's room, Michael goes on to say that one night they woke up, so him and Christine woke up, to find Natalia now standing at the foot of their bed with a knife in her hand. When they yelled at her, what are you doing? She just replied, I don't know, dropped the knife and quietly went back to her room. The Barnetts also claimed that they searched her room after this and found a stash of knives under her bed. Up until now, the therapists the family had been taking Natalia to hadn't really spotted anything in her that was particularly out of the ordinary.

So the Barnetts moved her again and again from clinician to clinician, hoping that someone somewhere would give them some sort of answer. And now, after the knife incident, Michael says that in the documentary, that a new therapist told them you're all in extreme danger, she's a sociopath, you can't help her, this cannot be changed. Is that something a therapist would say to a parent about their child? No, and this is where everything gets a bit weird. Up until this point, when you're watching the Discovery documentary, you do feel like everything Michael is saying could be true. Although you're under absolutely no illusions that Michael is a normal, trustworthy man. He's

got a yellow Lamborghini, for Christ's sake. He's highly dramatic, histrionic even, and he comes across as incredibly unreliable. There's a lot of wide-eyed screaming at the camera and banging fists on the floor. And the more you listen, the harder it becomes to take what's being presented by Michael in the documentary at face value. It is bonkers. He is bonkers. Like, watch the documentary series. And he is in it for like 90% of the time. And he is just so intense, so extreme.

To say he has an extreme personality is a massive understatement. He is out of his fucking tree. There is no doubt. I think the problem is a lot of people watching it might think that he's been pushed to that because of what's happened. There are receipts that that's not the case. We will come on to that. I don't think you suddenly develop an extreme personality just because of this.

But I don't know. I don't know. And we have to say that quite a lot of what Michael says isn't backed up by other people. The entire documentary is from his point of view. And there are brief additions from Jake, who was just a child at the time, and also his son. And if your dad is that much of a character, you're probably not going to get in his way are you i feel so sorry for jake he is like this fucking child genius who had all the possibilities in the world open to him and now he lives in michael's basement oh and i just i feel so sorry for jake i just want to free jake free jake that is my big takeaway from this. And even Jake says, if a therapist did

tell the Barnett family to do some of the things that they did to Natalia, then that person should not have a license to practice. He says it and he looks uncomfortable as he's saying it, but it's because you can tell he's just such a pure soul. He doesn't want to throw his parents under the bus, but he also knows the difference between right and wrong, which is something I do not think Michael or Christine know for a fucking second. And what those things are that Jake is referring to, don't worry, we will tell you later on. But for now, we need to stick with this line of questioning. This idea that a therapist would tell the Barnetts that Natalia was a sociopath, and essentially there was no hope for her,

is pretty shocking. It's not unbelievable, because we've certainly come across plenty of quacks in the world of true crime, but shocking all the same. It does seem like, given that this was the fourth therapist that the Barnetts had taken Natalia to,

the family just seemed to be going from therapist to therapist until they found one that agreed with them. They seem very much to be like therapist shopping, right? Until they get the answer they want. Which, as my therapist told me this morning, if someone has repeatedly switched therapists, that means the therapist was getting close to the problem and they didn't want to talk about it anymore, they moved on interesting and i am currently going through a mild obsession with munchausen by proxy and i'm listening to multiple podcasts about it because it's fascinating and you know standby for a shorthand imminently coming from me on that but in that it's very similar the idea of doctor shopping you go from doctor to doctor to doctor until you get one that's willing to go along with your game so look i'm not saying

just because they took her from therapist to therapist that Natalia couldn't have had sociopathic tendencies or even some sort of personality disorder. We know from the little we know about her childhood that she grew up facing huge adversity and instability and maybe worse, as we'll go on to discuss in a bit. We know that those kind of things, while it doesn't happen to everybody, can be the catalyst for the formation of some sort of personality disorder,

particularly antisocial personality disorder, sociopathic tendencies. That is all true. But this point of the documentary, when we hear Michael Barnett telling you with such conviction that a therapist had told him this about his daughter, was a turning point for me that the Barnetts may not have been all sweetness and light. In any case, Natalia continues with her therapy, and things do seem to improve at home. But then, one day, Natalia and Christine are doing the washing up at home, when Christine left the room briefly to answer a call.

When she came back, she picked up her cup of coffee, raised it to her mouth, and smelt something odd. It smelt like chemicals. And that was when she spotted a bottle of lemon pledge on the counter, and Christine completely lost it. Michael says in the documentary that he came into the kitchen to find Christine screaming at Natalia, why did you do this?

To which, he claims, Natalia said, I'm trying to kill you. I'm trying to poison you. So the Barnetts took Natalia to the local stress centre, which is a treatment centre for mental health conditions, and they claim that the experts at the centre told them to start locking Natalia in her room at night. All of this, surprising to no one, had a hugely detrimental effect on the Barnetts' other children. So, for the youngest, Ethan's seventh birthday, the family decided to take a trip to Traders Point Creamery. Here, the family started a country walk through the fields when Natalia said that her feet hurt and she needed to sit down.

Christine said that she'd stay with her, so Michael and the boys went on ahead. But a little while later, Michael heard sirens going off behind him. Immediately concerned that something may have happened to Christine, he ran back. Even that, I'm like, why did you immediately think something would have happened to Christine? You're just on a farm and you heard sirens. When Michael got to where he had left his wife and adopted daughter, he saw Natalia screaming at Christine, I'm going to kill you, you bitch.

You're going to die. Michael says in the documentary that he didn't actually see what happened. But according to what Christine told the police that day, Natalia had tried to pull her into the farm's electric fencing. So the police had been called by farm employees because Christine was screaming so much. But no one actually saw what had happened. Though other people who work on the farm who were interviewed in the documentary did say that they were totally confused by what was going on. And they really didn't understand why the child was totally calm,

but the mother was causing such a scene and making, in their own words, the situation so much worse. These witnesses also said in the documentary that they didn't hear any threats or screaming coming from Natalia. I also find it quite hard to believe that Christine couldn't have simply overpowered Natalia, who on top of having dwarfism, also had scoliosis. Why did this situation escalate to the point that the police were called? Michael's explanation for this in the documentary is that Natalia had very good upper body strength.

And I'm sure she did. In the home videos, it's pretty clear that she uses her arms a lot to move around so she may have had good core strength but her arms were short with clear deformities which made it hard for her to even stretch them out completely there's so many home videos of her like we'll come on to talk about this later but like stretching her arms out and you can see she hasn't got that range of motion like she cannot stretch her arms out to this full extent. And she has got deformities in her arms. So it also means that she can't put them straight. They're kind of like bowed. Right.

So whatever her upper strength, I just don't believe she's got the capacity to do what Christine says she was trying to do. And Wesley Sniper Arms or no Wesley Sniper Arms, she's tiny. Yeah. I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying that's not what happened. I'm just saying I don't believe Christine that she was in as imminent danger as she made out. Also, I googled it. Like literally, if you fall into an electric fence, it gives you an unpleasant shock, but it's not going to kill you.

Oh, yeah, I've done it many times. And also the farm workers were like, the electric fence wasn't even on that day. Christine obviously didn't know that. And if you don't know it's going to kill you, of course it might be a scary prospect, but she's tiny. Right. So, you know, could Natalia, no matter how old she is, realistically have pulled Christine anywhere? We can't say for sure. But I suspect that the real reason the Traders Point Creamery situation happened is because the Barnetts needed a public incident on the record. I really do think that it was probably staged by the Barnetts

in an attempt to get Natalia taken away from them. And that way, no one would be able to blame them for giving up on this poor disabled child because clearly she was a homicidal maniac. And if this was their plan, it kind of worked. Because after this incident, Natalia was admitted to the LaRue Carter State Psychiatric Hospital. At this institution, it is alleged that Natalia told hospital employees that she wanted to kill the entire Barnett family. And in the documentary, you hear interviews with staff from that institution who say that Natalia was aggressive, manipulative, and that she lied all the time. And I do have to say,

in the documentary, they're sort of disembodied voices, and they just have like a thing appear on the screen saying like, you know, blah, blah, at LaRue State Carter Hospital, whatever. And I'm like, isn't there a thing of like patient confidentiality where like actual nurses and doctors wouldn't be able to say these things? So part of me does wonder if they were like orderlies or people who worked there. But then somebody claims that they were giving Natalia an injection. So then I'm like, who is this person saying it? They're also all anonymous. I'm not saying that she didn't exhibit troubling behavior at the hospital because as we'll see, the next thing you're about to talk about did happen.

Yeah. But it is all a bit weird. When Natalia arrived at the hospital, firstly, she was put on the children's ward. But when her pubic hair was discovered, she was moved to the adult wing. Immediately, there are problems here. Is that really enough to move her when her birth certificate says that she's seven years old? I'm like, what the actual fuck? It's a hospital.

Yeah. Baft. No intermediary, no adolescent wing. Yeah, it's not like, oh, you've got pubic hair, you must be a 30-year-old woman. Like, what's happening? Bizarre. And it just gets even more bizarre. Because when Natalia was moved to the adult wing because of her pubic hair, according to the staff, she started acting in an extremely sexually provocative way towards the other male patients. Apparently she'd ask them if they wanted to be her boyfriend and she'd start talking dirty to them. And for someone who claimed not to be able to speak English when she first arrived at the hospital, was shocking to the staff. But despite the hospital employees trying to get her to stop, Natalia apparently continued to behave sexually.

And a month later, she was sent back to the Barnetts for fear of her safety around the men. What the fuck? There is so much to unpack here, I, like, don't even know where to begin. I feel like the most obvious option is put her back on the child wing. I, honestly, why was she back on the child wing. Honestly, why was she moved to the adult wing in the first place? And when she's there, why was she ever in the presence of other adult male prisoners? Why is that happening? If she needs psychiatric help,

surely the hospital is responsible for providing that in a safe way, not just kicking her out. You're running a psychiatric hospital. Do not tell me that there are not vulnerable patients there. And this is how you safeguard them? Firstly firstly by moving somebody who's incredibly vulnerable with a disability however her behavior presents itself to an adult wing and then why is she even around fucking fully grown men there it makes absolutely no sense and also why does everyone in this psychiatric hospital... Which is literally equipped to deal with people who are disturbed like Natalia Grace is. Yes. Why do they, and everyone in the documentary, and basically anyone who ever discusses this case ever, ignore the most obvious conclusion that there is to make?

That a child, because yes, I do think that Natalia was a child, I do not think she was six years old, but definitely I that Natalia was a child. I do not think she was six years old, but definitely I do think she was a child. Why does nobody talk about the fact that a child who engages in sexually explicit behaviour is most likely to have been a victim of sexual abuse? Literally no one ever mentions that anywhere. They're just like, oh, isn't this weird? I'm like, no, she's probably been sexually abused.

But for some reason, the psychiatric hospital didn't think that there was anything they could do. I don't know. Your job. So Natalia goes back to the Barnett home. And pretty soon, the Barnett family ended up on the Child Protective Services watch list. Because one night in March 2012, the police got a call from the Barnett's neighbours. Apparently Natalia had been locked out of the house all night with just a blanket. When the police arrived, the Barnett said that they just hadn't felt safe with Natalia in the house. And for some reason, the officer didn't really seem to do anything. He didn't separate the

family. He didn't arrest Michael or Christine. Just did nothing. If he had just done a simple background check on the Barnetts, he would have found that the police had been called out there before due to complaints of domestic violence. Long before they adopted Natalia, which is why I said at the start, I do not think that this whole, like, Michael Barnett is just as extreme as he is in the documentary

because he was pushed to breaking point because of everything that happened after he adopted Natalia, which is very much a story he wants to paint. Him and Christine were having call-outs from the police for domestic violence issues long before they adopted Natalia. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

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by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newestetts didn't do something about Natalia, if they were that terrified of her. Why didn't they tell the police that she was trying to kill them again? Or at the very least, why didn't they just take her back to the adoption centre? They don't do either of those things.

They call the adoption agency multiple times to sort of like ask for more information about her background. But they do not report any of these things to the police or social services contemporaneously. They don't try take her back. If she's such a burden in your life and it's disrupting your other three kids, why not just take her back? I mean, look, the only reason I can think that they didn't do any of those things is that they didn't want to tarnish their reputation as these sort of pillars of the community with their foundation for special needs kids and all of that. And like, you know christine's got a book to sell and they've really branded themselves as this inclusive family that cares about kids with special needs and i think they think if we give her back to the adoption center especially

after we threw this massive fucking party welcomed her into the family did all of this made a big like song and dance about it we're gonna look really shitty yeah and i really think that is their main motivation i think if they knew if they sent natalia back the picture perfect barnett big like song and dance about it we're gonna look really shitty yeah and i really think that is their main motivation i think if they knew if they sent natalia back the picture perfect barnett image would be shattered yes i agree and i also wonder if there was some because i don't think the barnetts are outstanding members of society i wonder if a bit of them kind of enjoyed it. Oh, they are very extreme personalities, and I do not think you're wrong for a second. But like I said, the only people that the Barnetts did call

was the adoption agency to try and find out who the American family was who had adopted Natalia first. But they couldn't find out anything. Remember, it was a closed adoption. However, it seems, and this is what Michael says in the documentary, that the receptionist at the adoption centre took pity on the Barnetts and told them to check Natalia's bags carefully. And bingo, the Barnetts found an ID card with Natalia's last family's details on it. And that family were Gary and Diane Ciccone from New Hampshire.

Live free or die. So, when the Barnetts dug into this, they found that the Ciccones had actually gone to Ukraine, to the orphanage, and adopted Natalia in person in 2008. But within months of getting Natalia to the US, the Saccones had tried to offload her onto various other families. They'd even gone to a Little People of America event, trying to find potential takers.

But everyone was suspicious of them, mainly because they'd only had Natalia for a year, and also because the Saccones wanted whoever took Natalia off their hands to cover the $25,000 in fees that they had spent on the overseas adoption. I don't think you can do that. Yeah, they're just like, look, we tried. We did this. We went all the way to an orphanage in Ukraine.

We wanted to adopt this little girl. We paid $25,000. But you've only had her. They literally start doing this within months of bringing her to the US. And of course, like the other families they approach are like, is this just a scam? And on top of that, if any of the families asked if they could have Natalia psychologically evaluated before they adopted her, the Saccone's flat out refused. So when they couldn't get an informal adoption to work for them, they took Natalia back to the adoption centre, where one year later, in 2010, she was adopted

by the Barnetts. So she's been with them since 2010. Let's fast forward a little bit now and come to 2012, whereby at this point, everything in the Barnett household has gone to total shit. And the Barnetts found themselves desperate to get Natalia re-aged and apparently re-aging children who have been adopted particularly international adoptions isn't that unusual typically when their real age comes to light you can go to court and present enough information and get that child re-aged so the bonnets took Natalia to their general practitioner and explained that Natalia has periods pubic hair adult teeth we'll come back to this and explain that Natalia has periods, pubic hair, adult teeth, we'll come back to this, and say that in the last four years since she came to the US, she hasn't

grown an inch. They can see the height she was in 2008, like on her documents when she first came to the US, and they say that she's exactly the same height now, which even with dwarfism, wouldn't be the case. You would still grow. So the GP compiled a report on the matter and the Barnetts went in front of a judge. Now this GP, just to make it very clear, was no expert in dwarfism, let alone the incredibly rare type of dwarfism that Natalia had. No one that was an expert in the type of dwarfism that Natalia had was even consulted for this report to be put together. So while I'm saying that, you know, they said she would have

at least grown a little bit in those four years, I don't know. You just don't know. Again, there's not a big enough sample size. And nobody who was an expert who could have even pointed at whether that was factually true or not was even consulted. And they're probably quite hard to come by if that particular type of dwarfism is as rare as it is, like, but they don't try. They don't try, not even a little bit. So the judge, who was also not an expert in any of this, took a look at what was being presented to him by this GP and the Barnetts and did a little back of the envelope calculation, eventually concluding that if Natalia hadn't grown in four years, and let's say you stop growing at age 18, she must therefore be 22 years old. And so,

on the word of this GP, the Barnetts, and this judge, in 2012, Natalia was legally re-aged from 8 years old to 22 years old. And her birth year was changed on all legal records from 2003 to 1989. Like you. She's older than me. She's June 1989. So that meant that Natalia was a legal adult and therefore no longer entitled to the Barnetts' financial support. And so, as soon as the Barnetts got that paperwork through,

they set Natalia up with federal benefits and rented her an apartment in nearby Westfield. Christine paid the first three months up front, and they gave Natalia some furniture and groceries. And then they just left her there. And this is where, my friends, we call absolute bullshit. There is absolutely no way on God's green earth that in 2012 Natalia Grace was 22 years old. But guess what age you are legally obligated to care for your adopted child until 21. Oh, shock.

If they want to join the army though, fine, me too. Quite convenient. Yeah, very, very convenient that they managed to get Natalia Grace re-aged to just beyond the age for which they have to be legally obligated to look after her. So let's clear this up. We do not think that Natalia was eight years old in 2012 either, but we certainly don't think she was 22. We're also not saying that she wasn't troubled and exhibiting serious behavioural issues, but dumping this disabled child, because yes, we do think she was a child, in a flat on her own and just pissing off is so fucked. And it's astonishing that the state even allowed it to happen. It's completely unbelievable. And I don't know what would have to be wrong with your moral compass for you to talk yourself into that

being the right thing to do. Yeah, I think this is the fundamental issue, right? That people abuse children all the time. They neglect children, they abandon children, all of those things happen. In this case, the state allowed this to happen. They look at natalia grace and they do not see what they should have seen in front of them this judge did not see a vulnerable disabled child of questionable age and they re-aged her to be 22 and allowed these people to just dump her in a random flat and this is my entire issue with it to come back to your point of like what has to wrong with your moral compass? Because the Barnetts could have just taken Natalia back to the adoption centre. Look, I'm not saying it's easy to adopt a child. I think what happened here is they think, let's make ourselves look great. Let's go adopt a child from another country. Let's do an

international adoption. Let's bring this child into our home. And you know, there's also that like virtue signalling that goes along with that. We'll look really saintly into our home. And, you know, there's also that like virtue signaling that goes along with that. We'll look really saintly for doing it. And I think they were kind of addicted to that feeling after they'd started the foundation and stuff. But when they found themselves unable to cope, when they found themselves in over their heads with this adoption,

they could have taken Natalia Grace back to the adoption center. And yes, she probably would have gone back into care, but at least she would have had the opportunity to end up in a decent home, and she would have had the opportunity to still eventually be adopted again by somebody who could have helped her. But instead, the Barnetts didn't want to ruin their reputations, so they re-aged Natalia through probably great time and expense of their own, hiring lawyers, etc, etc. They made her sound like a murderous con artist, again, not saying she didn't exhibit some troubling behaviour, and then they left her in that flat. They had other options open to them that were

more humane and more decent, but they chose to do this. And I think that is the fundamental issue that anybody who feels like even slightly sorry for them that they may have been overwhelmed by this adoption, they had other options and they didn't choose that. I also think they were probably worried that if they had called the police or got social services involved or tried to take her back to the adoption centre, that maybe Natalia might have told those people things regarding the Barnett's treatment of her, which we're going to go on to discuss. So now Natalia's living on her own in this apartment. Neighbours in the area started to take notice of her. They'd see her struggling with the bins

or to bring in the groceries that were dropped off by Christine or Michael. Yeah, the neighbours in the documentary say that basically, like, Christine or Michael would just, like, drive up, drop off groceries at the top of the drive and then just watch as Natalia had to drag them all back into the house. The neighbours were completely confused. This person looked like a child, but Natalia kept telling all of them that she was 22. And after spending time with her, the neighbours started to believe her.

Everyone there said that when she played with the kids, she was like a child, but when she spoke to the adults, she also fitted in with them. But one thing was clear. All of the neighbours thought it was obvious that Natalia needed quite serious help. She'd turn up at their houses saying she was hungry. She'd just let herself in if no one was home.

She wasn't taking care of herself. She was dirty, she was smelly, and she rarely seemed to be changing her clothes. The other thing is that the neighbours say that she sm care of herself. She was dirty. She was smelly. And she rarely seemed to be changing her clothes. The other thing is that the neighbors say that she smelled of BO. Children don't have body odor. Yeah. Again, though, if she has got periods and she's got pubic hair, even if she is a or whatever age, like maybe that would also start. But like, it's just so confusing.

And the fact that she tells them she's 22 if it is a con why doesn't she tell them that she's a child yeah in order to get that help or that attention she doesn't say she says she's 22 is it because she's so used to just repeating what people have told her to do i don't know it's very very confusing and i think it confuses the neighbors because they don't quite believe that she's 22 they think she's younger than that but she's telling them that she is and she's also able to hold these conversations with the adults. But then she also really enjoys playing with the kids. Like, it's really, really confusing. So the neighbours also say that Michael was the only one who really seemed to come and visit Natalia. And those who lived nearby couldn't

believe that this man who drove a flash yellow Lamborghini made his disabled daughter live in a place like that on her own. So eventually, the neighbours called the Department for Child Protective Services. But since Natalia was now 22 years old, it was passed over to Adult Protective Services. Over the months that followed, things didn't get much better for Natalia in the apartment complex. Neighbours felt bad for her because she seemed lonely, but they also found her increasingly odd. She'd wait on people's doorsteps, like Hannah said she'd go into people's houses when they weren't there. She'd tell them openly about having taken a knife to her parents, trying to poison them and having tried to kill them. People were creeped out and started complaining about her to the agency that managed the properties. One day

Natalia even called 911 on herself. Westfield 911, what's your emergency? I'm stalking one of my neighbours, I want to hurt them. I'm afraid it will quite happen if someone doesn't help me. I'm going to send some help. What's your name? Natalia Borgner. Jesus. Yeah, so as you can hear, scary, scary call.

So you do understand that people like want to be good people. They want to help this person. But they're also really creeped out by her. There are very specific allegations made by the neighbours that Natalia offered sex to the older men who lived there, totally freaking them out. And sometimes when she played with the little boys, the parents said that they caught her being inappropriate

in how she was touching them. And possibly the confusion arises here because if Natalia was a child, then children playing together, wrestling, roughhousing, no one is going to bat an eyelid. But Natalia is telling everyone that she's 22. So to have a grown woman playing with your kids like that would be disturbing. And then on the flip side, if she was a child, offering sex to men, again, feels indicative of someone who has experienced sexual abuse. But if she was an adult, the playing with children could be indicative of some level of arrested development. It literally is just like layer upon layer upon layer of confusion. The only thing I'm sure about is that she's incredibly disturbed. Incredibly so.

And like something has happened that we're not aware of. But she doesn't talk about it. So we can't know which is the case. We can't know if she was a child or if she was an adult or why she told people that she was 22 if she wasn't really. The only reason I can think is, like I said, Natalia just did what she was told to by the Barnetts for fear of what would happen if she didn't. Or because she is a child who was institutionalized, therefore maybe she does just sort of go along with what she's being told to some extent. I don't know,

it's really confusing. But whatever the situation was, when Natalia's one-year lease was up due to the number of complaints against her, the lease wasn't renewed. So Christine and Michael moved her into a new flat, this time in Tippecanoe County, Lafayette. And the flat they moved her into was in a neighbourhood that was significantly more rough. They also put her in a second floor flat with no lift. In the American documentary, obviously, they say in a first floor flat, and I'm like, what's the big deal? But that's because Americans say ground floor,

first floor, second floor. It's second floor, but to Americans, it's first floor, because we just say first floor, second floor. And I do think it is one of the few things that we have got wrong and they have got right. Yes. So yeah, she's on the second floor. She's on the first.

She's on the second floor off the ground. So with this whole, like, second floor flat situation, whether Natalia was a child or not, her physical disabilities were definitely not being catered for here. But the Barnetts seemingly had bigger things to worry about. Because at the same time that they moved her into a new flat, 14-year-old Jake had just been accepted onto a master's programme at the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada.

Smashed it, well done. Thank you. And the whole family was going to be going with him. Of course, minus Natalia. And before they left, they enrolled Natalia for an adult GED class at a local college, gave her back her cell phone that they had previously confiscated. But they returned it with all of the contacts deleted. And then they fucked off to Canada.

And a few weeks later, the Barnetts got a call from Natalia's college saying that she'd stopped turning up to class and they weren't really sure why. Doesn't look like the Barnetts did loads to try and check up on their daughter. Because they were totally shocked when a few days later the college called them saying, don't worry, we found her. She's with a woman called Cynthia Mann. So Christine finds Cynthia and calls her. And Cynthia tells her that yes, Natalia is with her and her family now and she's fine. But when the Barnetts discover that Cynthia has rerouted all of Natalia is with her and her family now and she's fine. But when the Barnetts discover that Cynthia has rerouted all of Natalia's social security payments to herself and sublet the apartment and was taking that cash too, Christine was pissed. She even called the police to check

on the situation. But as far as the police could tell, Natalia was indeed fine. But that didn't stop Christine calling Cynthia from Canada on a regular basis, accusing her of using Natalia was indeed fine. But that didn't stop Christine calling Cynthia from Canada on a regular basis, accusing her of using Natalia for money and telling her that Natalia wasn't all she seemed, saying she's already had sex and been to a psych ward. Which if she's 22 years old, what's the big fucking deal if she's already had sex, Christine? And also all Christine wants is for Natalia to be in someone else's hands. So it's happened. Why are you so worried about it?

I think it's because if you watch what they're doing, they try everything they can to isolate Natalia. We'll go on to discover why they choose, in particular, the flat and the area that they choose to put Natalia in. But I think even the last flat that they had put her in, I think they started to worry that all of these neighbors were paying too much attention to natalia right when they give her the phone back they give it back with all of the contacts deleted i think they just wanted to like get abducted or murdered or die or like set the house on fire or something even the fact that they sign her up for ged classes i'm like i don't think they've done that the goodness of their hearts i think they've done it because she leaves the house every day maybe something will happen maybe somebody will snatch her up thinking she's a kid

and fucking murder her like i really think they just wanted her to go away they do not want her with anybody else because they do not want her talking about what they've done and i don't really think it's about the money either because firstly they're bazonka loaded and natalia's rent was being paid using her social security payment so if Natalia's living somewhere else they don't have to even bother doing that so again why? How much money are you going to be getting from like disabled social security that it's like worth causing this fuss and like still being entangled in Natalia's life? Like if she's 22 now and she's gone to live with another family and you're in Canada, why not leave her alone? Yeah. Well, we think it's because Christine was a woman very preoccupied with her image

and, as usual, power and control. And by Natalia living with someone else, it made her look like she was still a dependent person, someone who needed taking care of, and that doesn't look very good when Christine and the whole family have fucked off to Canada, leaving her in an apartment on her own and never going to see her. The Barnetts always seemed very concerned with keeping Natalia isolated. At the first apartment complex, they didn't like that the neighbours were helping Natalia.

In a video that the Barnetts shot themselves that's in the Discovery Plus documentary, the Barnetts are questioning Natalia on where some of the food in her flat has come from. She's reluctant to tell them, but eventually she does say that the neighbours bought it for her. Again.

Is it a fear that all of this reflects badly on them? Or because they don't want Natalia speaking to anyone and spilling their secrets and telling people what they've done to her? That's what I'm leaning to, is that if she goes back into care, she's going to spill. If she's hanging out with other people, she's going to spill if she's hanging out with other people she's going to say that's their fear i think oh absolutely and if other people like neighbors are taking pity on her cynthia man is taking pity on her they're helping her bringing her groceries moving her into their house it makes you look like you abandoned somebody who needs help not

somebody who's 22 and just so happens to have dwarfism but doesn't need any support and can live a totally independent life and go off to college and not worry about anything. It completely flies in the face of that, which makes you look like a fucking terrible person. But if that was their concern, nothing about what they had done would stay secret for long. Because in 2014, Michael and Christine got divorced. Christine stayed in Canada with the boys and Michael returned to the US and in September 2019 Michael and Christine Barnett were both finally charged with neglect of a dependent causing bodily injury and conspiracy to commit neglect of an independent. So these charges are brought against them because Natalia makes a complaint at last.

And, you know, I think some people initially watching the documentary will think that Cynthia Mann is some sort of con woman who's after this money. I do not think that is the case at all. I think Cynthia Mann and her husband, Antoine, actually genuinely care about Natalia. Because every day that she goes to this trial that we're going to go talk about, Cynthia Mann is with her. And, you know, she's still in her life. Natalia is still living with her. They do care about her. So it's only after Natalia sort of been with this family for a while that she feels ready to make this complaint to the police. And that's when these charges are made. And almost immediately after these charges were made against

Christine and Michael, Michael starts making claims that Christine was the real abuser. Classic. How the worm turns. Oh, and it turn, it does. It's a wiggly worm. And he wiggles all over the place and he absolutely turns on Christine and throws her under a whole fucking lorry full of buses. Because he now says that

Christine would beat Natalia on a daily basis. He claimed that he'd come home and Christine would almost every day be playing the who are you game with Natalia. Where she would punish Natalia by making her stand with her arms up against a wall for hours or simply by beating the shit out of her after berating Natalia to tell her the truth about who she was Christine would do things like give her a pen and pad and be like write down the name of every single person you've ever lived with write down your entire backstory and Natalia would just keep saying as she does to this day I don't know I don't know I don't know and Christine would just use physical punishment to reprimand her for not quote-unquote telling the truth so

Michael also said to prosecutors that he was willing to say all of this at trial to testify against his ex-wife in exchange for the charges against him to be reduced. And to be honest, Michael kind of had some receipts. He had text exchanges between himself and his wife in which Michael clearly says to Christine that she's been beating Natalia. And Christine, in her replies, defends her actions. She never denies anything. And these are contemporaneous texts. But in classic Michael Barnett style, he goes way too far with placing himself as the victim. He claimed that he was a

victim of sexual abuse by Christine because she used sex as a weapon and withheld it from him to punish him. He literally says that. Grow up. With no, no, like, I don't even know what the word is. Like, no sense of self-awareness. He constantly says that he is a victim. Christine also abused him, abused the boys, abused everybody. She was the main sort of ringleader in this.

I believe that to an extent. But Michael Barnett is absolutely complicit in everything that happened in that house because he's a weak man. Yes, yeah. But to say that he is a victim of sexual abuse because his wife withheld sex as a punishment for him, that's a toxic trait.

It's not sexual abuse, Michael. Yeah, exactly. You're a fucking idiot. And you're complaining about that while you had a person in your house, whatever age she was, with a disability who was being physically abused by your wife. So shut the fuck up. But in the documentary, Jake, who, like I said, now lives in Michael's basement. And I'm like, free Jake.

He's now estranged from his mother, Christine. And I do think he is a far, far more reliable witness. And he also says in the documentary that he knows his mum wasn't innocent, but that he still has to try and protect her. He explains that he's tried to talk to Christine about everything that happened and that all he wanted was an apology, but that he didn't get one.

And that tells you everything you need to know about Christine Barnett. What specifically Jake is referring to here when he wants an apology? Well, it becomes clear during the course of the documentary that Natalia wasn't the only one who was victimised by Christine. Jake admits that his mum made him urinate and defecate on Natalia's bed and on her belongings as punishment when Natalia didn't follow Christine's rules. What? That's horrific. And he looks so filled with shame and horrified

when he tells that story about what he was made to do. And the documentary, in a Jinx-esque moment, even caught some stuff that Jake says off-camera into a hot mic. And basically, I want you guys to go watch the documentary because it is flawed in the sense that it is like very one-sided from like Michael's perspective. But like, you know, they've done good work producing it. Basically, what he's referring to is an incident of kicking down the stairs. Given all of the accusations, prosecutors decided to try Michael and Christine separately.

I think they figured out that they had a better shot at conviction with separate trials. They started with Michael. His trial kicked off on the 23rd of October 2022. The entire trial was based on whether or not Michael had abandoned his adopted daughter, Natalia. The problem was that Natalia's legal age was now 32. And the question of whether she really was 22 or a minor when the Barnetts left her in that apartment in 2012 was not allowed to be brought up in court at all. Nope. It wasn't even to be a part of the question hanging in the air. Nothing was to be mentioned about that. So as far as everybody knows, she was 22. Including the jury. As far as the jury could tell, Natalia had a disability when

she was abandoned by Michael and Christine, but she was also 22 and legally an adult. So the jury were basically being forced to decide if Natalia was too vulnerable to have been left. It was nothing to do with how old she was. Yep. It was never, ever a decision based on her age. And in the documentary, you get a behind-the-scenes look at Michael's defence team preparing for his trial. And honestly, they are all as fucking weird and over-acty as he is. It's, like, painful to watch the last, like, episode and a half of that series because they just, they make me cringe so hard.

But they do find out quite a lot about Christine during Discovery. Like the fact that while she and Michael were still married, Christine had been having an affair with another man. Physical affair. And she'd also been sending pretty explicit texts and raunchy pictures of herself to a number of other men. So the bottom line is that Michael found out a lot of shit about Christine. And he was fucking raging.

Michael's attorney told him repeatedly, however you might feel about her now, do not bring up Christine, your wife, at trial. They literally scream at him. But Michael just could not help himself. He told the court that Christine had told him, we'll put her in Lafayette because it's a white trash town and no one will care or worry about her. This was a bad, bad move. Bad move. Because he was married to Christine at the time. So he's basically admitting in court that they did abandon her and that they, as a couple, specifically chose an area to leave Natalia where they thought that they would get

away with it. Yep. He's fucking so stupid. Why would you say that? Why would you say that? I just don't know. And at Michael's trial, Natalia took the stand herself. But when she was questioned about the entire situation, she just kept saying again and again, I don't remember. Now look, if you consider the possibility that she was actually a child when a lot of the things that she was being questioned about at trial had happened, it kind of does make sense that she may not be able to remember.

But to jurors who weren't even aware of the age dispute, not only is it not allowed to be brought up, they're not even aware that there was an issue with her age because they just see that she's 22 at the time. Her claiming not to remember anything looks really weird and fucking suspicious, especially seeing as it was her that had brought the case against Michael.

So eventually, Michael was found not guilty. Rage. Yeah, rage, rage, rage. Rage all over the page. And unbelievably, all charges against Christine were also eventually dropped when the prosecution decided that they didn't have enough evidence against her. After Michael's trial in 2019, our favourite non-doctor doctor got involved. That's right, Dr Phil. Dr Phil and all of his hundreds of millions landed an exclusive interview with Natalia and her new family, Cynthia Mann and her husband Anton. And this interview obviously focuses very heavily on Natalia's age. After this episode aired, jurors from Michael Barnett's trial

were horrified. Some of them even said that if they had known there was a possibility that Natalia was under 16 when the family left her, they would have found Michael guilty. But that's double jeopardy. Let's talk about that Dr. Phil episode in a bit more detail. You have probably seen clips of it. I know I have. And begrudgingly, we do have to say that Dr. Phil does quite a good job here. He's kind, gentle, sympathetic, but still manages to ask Natalia important probing questions. And Natalia just repeats what she did in court. She just says, I don't remember, to almost all of Dr. Phil's questions. And while you could say it was because she was young when it happened, you also have to admit that in historic child abuse cases,

adult survivors can recall the details of what happened to them quite often. But Natalia just won't say anything. When asked, for example, why the Barnetts abandoned her or why another foster family she had been with before them put her back in the system, again Natalia just repeatedly says, I don't know. Basically, she tells the story of this foster family who had her, then put her back in the system again Natalia just repeatedly says I don't know basically she tells the story of this foster family who had her who gave her back and she says this she says I was very close to my foster brother there and we used to wrestle then one day I landed on his arm weird and his mum was like I can't do this anymore and that's when they gave her back to the system. And when Dr. Phil asks her, what do you think she meant by this?

When she said, I can't do this anymore. Natalia just says, I don't know. She won't even speculate on people's motivations. Like this isn't something she's being asked to remember. She's just being asked to reflect upon why that situation may have come about. But she just says, I don't know. And that does come across a bit weird. But then again, she was in the system. And looked after children have a lot of challenges to overcome. In my past life, many, many years ago, obviously, I used to produce child protection conferences. We used to do specific

events on looked after children because the challenges they have to overcome are immense. And often when they're moved from home to home, family to family, each time they have to readjust, learn a brand new set of rules and culture of that house and fit into a group of brand new people. There's a reason that children who leave care suffer from the highest levels of suicide in this country and in the West, but nobody ever talks about that. And this kind of trauma can lead to what you see in Natalia. She has very contained emotional responses and a very shallow affect. She doesn't come across as totally believable during the Dr. Phil interview. And at times, she definitely pretends to cry, which does come across as manipulative and you know as

empathetic beings we hate shallow affect it's like we cannot stand it but it's also something she can't help again we're not saying that all people who are in care exhibit behaviors like these but it's likely that it was in care that natalia learned to somewhat shut down her emotions and mimic behaviors just to get by. So, question round, lightning round, sudden death. Is Natalia Grace lying? Pass. I don't know. No, I don't know. And if you watch the Dr. Phil interview, she only denies things that are really easy to prove.

Everything else she says, I don't know. I don't remember. And it is strange. Question number two. Was she a child when the Barnetts adopted her? I'm going to go with props. I don't know how old, but I would say, you know what? I'm going to go, I'm going to go for 14. Okay. So not six and certainly not in her twenties. And we've got another hard evidence reason to think of this. A PI went to Ukraine to find Natalia's birth mother and they proved it was her with a DNA test. And that woman was not even old enough to have a 22-year-old daughter. She'd have had to have her daughter when she was like seven for Natalia Grace to have been 22 in 2012. So that, you know, we can just put back to bed

immediately. And the fact that she hasn't automatically had her birth certificate changed and been legally reaged in the US based on that fact alone is shocking. So yeah, look, I'm going to tell you what I think happened, right? I think that Natalia was probably six or seven when she first came to the US in 2008. And that's when she was adopted by the Saccones. And I think that because in her picture that was taken when she entered the US, Natalia has missing front teeth. And, you know, we mentioned earlier about the adult teeth situation. Like this is where we're coming back to it. And six or seven is usually the age that children lose those teeth.

You lose your molars much later, but you lose those front teeth around age six or seven. So let's say she's seven, worst case in 2008. That means that in 2010, when the Barnetts came onto the scene, Natalia would probably have been around age eight or nine. Let's go with nine to give, you know, the top end. Meaning, if you're nine, that the pubic hair and periods, although never corroborated by anybody else other than the Barnetts, which is important to say, and her current family, Cynthia Mann, says that she's never had a period since she's been with her,

the periods in the pubic hair could have been true because she was nine years old. And it fits within the normal range of time that that would happen so if we follow that same pattern of thinking that means that by the time the barnetts abandoned her in 2012 natalia grace was probably 10 or 12 and you know if she was 12 and she was being forced to live in a flat with absolutely no like account taken for her disabilities that is still diabolical absolutely absolutely diabolical how she managed to survive is quite frankly beyond me and the other thing is if this was all a con if this was a con run by natalia grace in order to just you know have the

easy life and live with an american family and like be looked after like she was a little kid i think it is weird that in the dr phil interview which you can think what you want about dr phil it is the only thing we have where it's completely natalia's opportunity to speak freely to say whatever she wants natalia never really points out her disability for pity or to add to whatever con people might accuse her of running if i was her i would double down hard on the disability i would double down hard on the disability. I would double down hard on the fact that I was a child when they left me. But she kind of doesn't really do that. Now, I'm not saying, again, that Natalia is totally as innocent,

butter wouldn't melt as she puts herself across in the interview either. Because we have to admit that there was a pattern of behavior from Natalia that was witnessed by multiple unconnected people. The Barnetts have difficulties with her, the Saccone's had difficulties with her, the foster family she was placed with had difficulties with her and all of the people that lived near her in that first flat had found her behaviour to be strange. She made people feel uncomfortable and she did inappropriate things but again she was a child who was most likely abused. So it could be that Natalia was just a damaged child

who needed a lot more support than she got. And then the age issue raised by the brarnettes muddied the waters. But when you watch Natalia in the Dr. Phil interview, it is odd. For example, when she's watching a clip of Christine talking about things like the pledge poisoning attempt and the knives, there's no look of anger on Natalia's face. If someone was making wild accusations about me or saying things that were absolutely not true, I'd be furious.

And also Natalia never actually denies that she poured lemon pledge into Christine's coffee or that she tried to pull her into the electric fence at the dairy farm that day. She also never denies the knife situation or, you know, the whole standing in her bedroom telling them she was waiting until they go to bed. She never denies the knife situation or, you know, the whole standing in her bedroom telling them she was waiting until they go to bed. She never denies any of it. And she even says that what the documentary people heard was, quote, Christine's side. And Talia doesn't say that it's not true. And she doesn't call Christine a liar. Which again, I don't know. I don't know. I would say, why wouldn't you make a full-throated accusation

and say, she is a liar. These are lies. They are not true. She doesn't say that. She says, that's Christine's side. Even when Phil, in the interview, asks Natalia how she managed for all that time living on her own, Natalia is quite nonchalant about the whole thing. If she really had been born in 2003, as Natalia maintains to be the case, she would have been just eight years old when she was left. But somehow she fed herself, took herself to school, sorry, took herself to adult college, lived in flats that again had no modifications made for her disability,

but somehow she managed. It's not impossible, I grant you that, but it is weird. And in the interview, she just says, it wasn't that long. But it was that long. She was there for like a year in the first flat. So why does she say it wasn't that long? Is it because she is older and she was capable of like taking care of herself and she doesn't want it to seem like she did take care of herself for that long on her own? I don't know, it's really confusing. It's also worth pointing out something that Phil himself mentions, which I know to be true. Children who have been institutionalized or in care tend to have a developmental delay. So they tend to operate developmentally at an age a few years younger than they actually are. And this

makes sense. That level of disruption in the early years to a child is going to make it harder for them to progress at the same rate as their peers. Now, obviously, with work, that gap can be closed over time. But if Natalia was eight when she was left in that flat on her own, she was probably developmentally more like a six-year-old. And I don't have that much experience with children, but ACD Face's nephew is six years old.

I cannot imagine for one single second him living alone and looking after himself. But then again, kids are adaptable, so I don't know. And like, I'm not saying that what she did wasn't impressive, but she didn't look after herself. She wasn't clean. She was showing up at people's houses saying she was hungry. Like, that's quite childlike behaviour to me. childlike behavior to me. So essentially, as usual, the reality is somewhere in between the two

stories. Somewhere in the middle of what the Barnetts claim and what Natalia says. I don't think she was as young as she said she was. But again, to lie about her age probably wasn't a choice that she was in control of. It was probably a choice made by people at the adoption centre who were trying to get rid of her. And as for the poisoning attempts and the knives in her room and threats of violence and murder, Natalia is someone who spent her entire life, no doubt, feeling completely powerless, with absolutely no control. So these were probably tactics that she used in the face of an abusive woman like Christine to protect herself.

And there are a lot of people who've been through a lot less who've done much worse. Oh, absolutely. I think the impulsivity, the inability to predict outcomes and the shallow effects that you see in Natalia, they are all signs of trauma. And while they may have led to her doing weird stuff if for example the inappropriate behavior with other kids and sexually provocative ways she was with some men is true they are again signs of trauma and not necessarily signs that she was fucking homicidal yeah and i think the worst thing about this case is absolutely i do think the truth lies somewhere in the middle natalia isn't innocent but she was at some point an innocent child that was clearly abused i do think

the barnetts adopted her were well over their heads and didn't know what to do and they made the worst possible series of choices yeah christine barnett is an abusive woman who should be in prison i also believe michael barnett should be because he witnessed it on a daily basis and did nothing to stop it and i think that the worst thing about this entire story is that I think the adoption center wanted to get rid of her because I think they found her difficult to place in a home because of her behavioral issues. And the state is absolutely complicit in what happened to Natalia Grace. If she had just been placed with any other family, I think they either would have found her behavior really challenging and given her back into the

adoption center, or they would have found a way to cope that wasn't this. Yeah, so appalling they're appalling people They're appalling people and what you have here is a child who was traumatized most likely sexually abused God knows what happened to her in that ukrainian orphanage I don't think she was telling the truth about her age But like you said, I don't think it was a decision made by her and christina michael barnett should be fucking behind bars and that's it and that's the truth and that is the truth and i think in the documentary a lot of people say there's more than one villain in this story i don't think natalia grace is a villain no i think she's an incredibly damaged person yeah and it's just shocking to me that nobody blames the state for what happened here the judge is the one who legally

re-aged her to be 22 years old with not an iota of actual evidence so that's where i would place the blame yeah as well as on christine and michael bonnet who can go to fucking hell so that is it yeah it's a lot it's a lot it is a lot. It's a lot. It is a lot. Hurrah. Goodbye. Bye. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the

Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC party. I'm Jake Warren. And in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.