True Crime with Kendall Rae - Couple Claims They Adopted an Adult Posing as a Child… but Is It True?

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Natalia Barnett, a Ukranian orphan was living with her adoptive parents, Kristine and Michael Barnett, who have said she is actually a 20-something woman with a short stature as a result of a condition she has called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. They have claimed that Natalia has scammed them, and even threatened violence against them. Is there any truth to these claims? This episode is sponsored by: HelloFresh - promo code: kendallrae18 MasterClass Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/  All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and my company is matching all donations up to $50,000 from now until the end of the year: https://give.missingkids.org/campaign... Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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treat cure or prevent diseases. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So today I have another very interesting case for you. One that is really, really weird. And once again, I know your opinions will be all over the place and I do invite you to share your thoughts. And I'm sure a lot of you have kind of heard bits and pieces of it.

It's been very scattered on gossip, type magazines, and tabloids and just social media. And people have been requesting that I talk about this for a really long time. I kind of wanted to wait till the dust settled a little bit and we could really gather the facts here, although that has actually been pretty hard to do. So I do want to give a bit of a disclaimer. This story is extremely complicated. It's very hard to figure out what's true and what's not true. I tried to follow the story as

accurately as possible, but it is possible I have something wrong in here, but if you've never heard of this and you're totally lost already, let's go ahead and dive in a couple months ago back in 2019 a story came out to the public that had been going on for a while But it just surfaced last year it was about a couple from Indiana who were charged with neglect because apparently They had moved to Canada and left behind their 11 year old adopted daughter, Natalia. This was from day one, a mission of love. We were told in the medical paperwork that we had that she was six years old. Now with that wild story about an Indiana couple charged with abandoning their adopted daughter

who has a rare form of dwarfism. They say she's really an adult con artist who threatened them. So as far as we know, in 2008, Natalia came to the US from an adoption program in the Ukraine. They believed that she was probably in a group home before she came here. At first, she was adopted by a different family, a different couple, and they soon decided that it wasn't a good fit for whatever reason, and they returned her to the adoption agency. So then, in November of 2010,

another couple adopted Natalia and their names are Christine and Michael Bennett. They love children and Natalia was going to be a new addition to their family. Now, when the Barnets adopted her, they say that they were told that she was a six year old girl and that she was actually born with a form of dwarfism. Now, she had a specific type of dwarfism,

however, I am not going to be able to say it. So I'm going to play a pronunciation for you guys. Now this is a disorder that affects the bones and the growth of a human, and she also suffered from scoliosis, which can be very painful. So clearly, Natalia did not have it easy when it came to her health. When they adopted her, they were told that she might have some trouble walking, but they didn't mind that. Now, one thing that is just not clear here is Natalia's history with the adoption agency

before she was adopted by the burnins. Christine, the adoptive mother, actually said that she was with 30 different families before she came to them, which is kind of odd. I mean, that's a lot of families. And Natalia actually thinks that she was with different families before she came to them, which is kind of odd. I mean, that's a lot of families. And Natalia actually thinks that she is making this up, but she doesn't remember being with that many families. She only remembers being with a few. We got a phone call from an adoption agency in Florida.

They had reached out to us and they said, hey, we've got the perfect child for you. We think you should adopt this girl Natalia. At first, you know, I didn't think that that was strange, we've got the perfect child for you. We think you should adopt this girl in the towel, yeah. At first, you know, I didn't think that that was strange, but obviously looking back, you shouldn't be getting cold-called, you shouldn't be getting a phone call out of nowhere from somebody trying to send the child to you. We're not gonna give you any information about the child, we're not gonna give you any information

about the former family. Here's all we're gonna give you. information about the former family. Here's all we're going to give you. Here's two pictures. Here's a Ukrainian language birth certificate. And here's one doctor visit from two years before. You have 24 hours to tell us whether or not you want to

adopt her. If you don't adopt her within 24 hours, we're sending her directly to foster care. We were sitting in a little, uh, 80-BD office room in a strip mall. And next thing, you know, the door opens. And Natalia comes running and smiling ear to ear, saying, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy. You know, she was just given up for adoption by her old family five minutes before that. We should have recognized that there's no six-year-old on the planet that would be happy in this situation and immediately start referring to Christina

myself as mommy and daddy. We only were in the room with her for five minutes to meet her, and after those five minutes, the adoption agency pulled Christina and I out of the room. We went and signed paperwork and the next thing you know, Natalia, was ours. From joyful occasions to the unexpected, first Franklin financial makes loans for living,

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So Natalia claims that when she was adopted by the Barnets, everything was fine at first. She actually felt love with this family eventually. She said she felt safe and comfortable and happy and was enjoying herself. However, Christine says that they started having issues with her literally right off the bat. Day one. They said that right away, they thought Natalia was acting strange. The alert started before we even got home. That very first night when Christine was giving our new daughter a bath, she shouted to me, Michael. And it wasn't just a shout.

It was one of those tones of voice where you knew something was very wrong. I came rushing into the bathroom and I found Christine, why does it ghost? She was truly shaken. I had no idea why. And Christine simply said, look, and I looked, and I looked down and Natalia at age six had full pubic hair.

They immediately thought she was actually older than she was saying she was. One of the first red flags that they say they saw was that they went to the beach with their family and the boys ran to the ocean, just ran red in, and Natalia wanted to be carried to the water. And Michael and Christine were really tired and just needed a second to collect themselves before carrying her down, but she got impatient and actually ran towards the water herself. Now, they were kind of shook after this because they were like, I thought you couldn't walk,

and now you're running towards the beach, and they thought this was really strange. They also noticed that Natalia didn't really care for playing with toys. When it came to playing with other children, she preferred older children, even teenagers. They also thought her vocabulary was pretty well developed and sophisticated for her age. They also claimed that she couldn't speak or understand even her native language from Ukraine. They had a Ukrainian friend actually speak in their native language and she didn't understand it at all. And they thought at this point maybe she didn't even come from Ukraine.

Christine also ran a home daycare for a living and she said that one day in Italia walked up to her and said, these children are exhausting. I don't know how you do it. And she thought that was a really weird thing for a kid to say to their mom. I was putting her into the bathtub and I noticed that she had full pubic hair. Christine did not say anything about bloody clothing

or anything to me. And she said that I had one and that she had knees, a tampon and there was spotage, I guess, I don't know why. And she's a seed that's blood. And the tell you would do things like place clear thumbtacks on the stairs face up so that when we would walk up the tale, you would do things like place, clear thumbtacks on the stairs face up so that when we would walk up the stairs, we would be stepping on thumbtacks to pain and injure ourselves.

Now, keep in mind that Natalia tells a completely different version of events. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift. Whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby. Or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today.

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So she had her first surgery and she said that's when things changed. She said that Christine and Michael started treating her completely different after this surgery. As time went on, things apparently got really bad in the home. The Barnett actually claimed that Natalia became extremely aggressive and threatening towards them and even threatened to kill them multiple times. Christine claims that Natalia would make these weird statements

about wanting to harm them, wanting to harm the entire family, drawing pictures of this violence happening, saying she wanted to roll them up and blanket and toss them into the yard. And this is the craziest part. And remember, we don't know if this is true or not. And Natalia just completely denies this. But Christine claims that they would wake up in the middle of the night all the different family members.

And sometimes Natalia would just be standing over them, watching them sleep. If I ever went in the room, it was to wake them up because I was either scared of a nightmare or something like that. But I never went in their room. I didn't. I didn't. She also claims that she hid knives all over the house. She was hiding knives in our couches.

She was talking about she was gonna kill family members. She's standing in the middle of the room and she would say I'm waiting for the right time, which Natalia denies as well. She said that I hid knives on top of the fridge. How did you get something on top of the refrigerator? I can't even reach a knife, and with a chair, I can reach it. And then Christine and Michael also claimed

that Natalia tried to poison Christine with lemon pledge. She put chemicals on the coffee. Did it happen? No, so we had Mr. Spots. So what I did was I scooted the chair over so I could get up there and I scooted her coffee back. She came out and was like, what are you doing? And then she claimed that I tried to spray it in her coffee.

You could look in her coffee. There was nothing. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior 1 in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway.

You're inhaling and long exhale. Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or paid subscription starting at 12.99 per month. But Christine claims that when she had asked her what you're doing with the pledge, that Natalia said, I'm trying to kill you They said things were getting so out of hand with her that she was just destroying the home. She was wiping

bodily fluids, they said on mirrors in the house and she would also sometimes jump out of the car while it was moving and then the biggest claim of all is Christine says that one time Natalia tried to push her into an electric fence Which is interesting because Natalia is only two feet tall the de Paul say that's not even physically possible It if me and my wife tried to push an average height person into an electric fence I don't think it would really go that well. You imagine somebody Struggling to walk and then pushing an average type woman. So one thing that's really strange here is back in 2012. Only two years after the adoption, the Barnett's filed emotion with the Marion County Superior Court regarding Natalia's age.

They requested that her age actually be formally changed, and the judge actually followed through with this and ordered that her birth year be changed from 2003 to 1989 on her birth certificate, which put her at age 22 instead of nine. Now, to this day, no one knows how old Natalia actually is. Currently, she claims she's 16, maybe 17 about sure when she claims her actual birth date is, but I think Natalia really doesn't know how old she is, because she's from a group home.

It's possible that they don't even know her birthday. Oftentimes in group homes, they celebrate all their birthdays at once and, you know, there's plenty of reasons why someone may not know their birthday if they came from, oh, sketchy situation and they were adopted. So that's been the big debate here is how old is Natalia. So eventually, the Barnets decided to take Natalia to a doctor for a psych evaluation and have her working with some therapists as well. And they claimed that she openly talked about how she wanted to kill Christine and the kids

with the therapist and the doctor. Apparently Natalia gave the doctor an exact plan of how she would do it and exactly what she would do with their bodies. And they also claimed that she told the therapist that she was lying about her age. Now Christine has given the court a actual copy of this note from this doctor. We don't have any real information about this and cannot confirm that it's real. But apparently in this note it talks about how she was actually diagnosed as a psychopath and a sociopath. It says that her birth certificate is clearly a fake

and basically that she's way older than she's claiming to be. The doctor wrote that Natalia was well over the age of 18 and this was back in 2011 that this was written apparently and they said they were able to come to this conclusion by doing an exam on Natalia's teeth, looking at her sexual development and by using a bone density exam. They claim that she had a normal menstrual cycle as well.

So all of this is in this doctor's note that we have not been able to see. So with all this info, Christina Michael were able to get the court to agree to change her age to 22. Now Michael actually said that one of the benefits of getting her age change was to get her into a psychiatric

Hospital because if she was a minor, she wouldn't be able to be lawfully admitted. So there have been several different attempts by media outlets to get that letter from that doctor They've reached out to the doctor But their office says that they refuse to have any involvement in this because it's a violation of patients rights now Side note it was also around this time that police first started asking questions and trying to figure out whether an immigration fraud actually took place before the Barnett's

had involvement with Natalia. They thought something sketchy was going on with the adoption. The Westfield City Police referred the case to the FBI and ICE because they suspected that there was false age reporting prior to her leaving the Ukraine. because they suspected that there was false age reporting prior to her leaving the Ukraine. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is this.

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This is the Barnett kitchen. As you can see, I'm watchin' Ellen here while my due day care. And we've got Jake eating a sandwich. So I was going through one of Einstein's equations, you know the one that says, mass equals rest mass divided by square root and minus V square root by C square. Eventually I did manage to get out of that F equals MDBT, which is the definition of the

force, but the thing that kind of concerned me was how come you can accelerate, I mean you can light travel at a constant speed, but as in it doesn't accelerate forward or backward, but it does accelerate exactly sidewaysi-way in certain cases. He was super good at physics and he was featured in a segment on 16 minutes and even gave a TED talk. And then in 2013, Jacob was accepted to the Perry Meteor Institute for Theoretical Physics

in Waterloo, Ontario. And because of this, the Barnets decided they're going to move to Canada with him, but they decided to leave Natalia back at home. Now, this is where all the controversy has come in and why the Barnets are now in trouble. According to them, they left Natalia completely set up and good to go.

They set her up with her own apartment and they agreed to pay her rent. They also set her up with a social security number and put her in other welfare programs so she was while taking care of, she was on food stamps. And apparently, at her first apartment, Natalia actually caused some problems and was evicted, but from afar they paid for that and paid for her to get into a new place.

Christine claimed that she was communicating daily with Natalia. She said she even came up with a plan for Natalia to enroll in college to study cosmetology. The Barnets told her that they would pay for her rent for one more year, which is what they did with all their other kids, and then she had to figure it out on her own. Now this is maybe okay if she was 22, but if she's a minor, this is very illegal. When you adopt a child, that child becomes your child

completely. You can't just dump them off somewhere. And it's like, okay, let's say she is 22 or older. The Barnett's claim she's a lot older than that. She still has dwarfism. She still needs probably a caretaker or help. She can't reach a lot of the things. It's not like the place was completely set up

to fit her needs and her handicap. And they have taken legal responsibility for her. And I feel like there's other ways to deal with the issues that they're having, then to just leave her often department kind of pay her off. Eventually the family stopped talking to Natalia randomly. Eventually Christine claimed that she got a letter in the mail saying that Natalia had changed

the beneficiary on her insurance policy to someone else instead of Michael. Eventually Christine claims that she could not get in touch with Natalia anymore. At this point, she was really worried that Natalia was fooling some other family into thinking that she was a child. But there was nothing that she could do at this point

because they had changed her age to a legal adult. So eventually, Natalia went to the police and told them what had happened. In September of 2014, they got involved because Natalia told them that her adopted parents just left her in an apartment by herself and went to Canada. Now it's very confusing what happened in the years

after this. Natalia lived alone for quite a while. She, I think, bounced around out of a few apartments. Apparently she was evicted in 2014 from one apartment and then somehow got back into it by a neighbor's Paying for her and then eventually she moved in 2016 because she wanted to start attending this one school And it was actually a tuition-free school for high school and young adults or older youth called Excel Center

And eventually in Natalia was actually taken in by another family Recently this family did an interview for Dr. Phil. Natalia was on Dr. Phil. The Barnets were not on it because they are currently facing court charges that I can't speak about this. And listen to this interview from her new adoptive mother, you can say, it's not legal, but her guardian.

My friend called me and was like, you need to come down here right away. So like, oh, she's telling me she's 22, like, look at her. And I go, are you 22, she said? Yeah, but you could tell that it was just like, yeah, because I was told, yeah. And she said, I have my own apartment. And I was like, well, you know, I have a couple kids at home.

Come on down. You could play with them, talk with us. And she came to our house, hung out down there, and she never left. So they think that Natalia is like 16, maybe 17 at the time I'm filming this. And in 2016, they actually petitioned to become her new legal guardians, but they weren't able to do this because legally she's not a minor. She's an adult. She's, you know, listening to the system is 22.

So they had to try to change her age to prove that she was a minor. But in order to do this, they need her birth records, which are like impossible to get. Adoption paperwork is considered confidential, so this stuff was not ever released to them. So the petition to become her legal guardian was actually dropped, but despite this, they say they see each other as family, Natalia claims she loves living with them, and they love her back, but her age has totally been up for debate still. There are people out there, there's tons of people out there that think she is like 30. That she's this really smart psychopath scam artist and I'm sure a lot of you will think that and I'm not sure

what to think. A lot of people see Natalia as a disabled adopted person who's been through a really hard time in her life, who was neglected by her adoptive parents. Of course, Natalia claims that everything the Barnett said about her wasn't true, but they still claim that it all was. Now the Barnett's claim that they did not know that Natalia was a minor or that they truly thought she was an adult when they left. They still think that to this day, I believe, but the investigators submitted an affidavit saying

that they think that they actually did know that she was a minor and they knowingly did this. Investigators said they were able to confirm all of this because they found medical records that show how the Barnets actually had Natalia evaluated twice by doctors at the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital. The first doctor's evaluation took place in 2010

and it was determined that Natalia was a minor child and her age was estimated to be around eight years old. So if that's true and that's how old she actually is, it means she was living alone around age six to seven or eight. A lot of people think that that's just not possible. Like how was she taking care of herself? There's so many things you have to do to live on your own

that there's no way a seven or eight year old would know how to do these things. And her new, I guess, adopted family claims that Christine basically, like, groomed her for this and they just didn't want her anymore. So they set up this whole scheme. Apparently only months before the Barnett's went to Canada in 2013, there was a second

evaluation done on Natalia. This time she underwent a skeletal survey, and those results clearly stated that she was still a minor child, so it was September of 2019 that this story really started blowing up because warrants were issued. They were charged with two counts of felony neglect of a dependent. Now the two of them are divorced divorced so they're facing separate charges. Michael Barnett and his ex-wife Christine could face jail time accused by the state of Indiana of neglecting their adopted daughter Natalia leaving her

behind after moving to Canada. We were told by doctors this person's associate path this person is a con artist, you are all in danger. But according to the Barnets, Natalia is not who she says she is. They claim she's an adult and that she was attempting to cause them harm. Right now, she could be 16 based on her original birth certificate or 30 based on the revised certificate. But officials believe she was a minor when the Barnett's moved out of the country. Christine surrendered to the authorities and was released after posting a $5,500 bond, and Michael was released after posting a $5,000 bail. And of course, the Barnett's have pleaded

not guilty to all of the charges. The Barnett's are facing six to 20 years in prison if they end up proving that they're guilty. So like I mentioned before Natalia is doing well now, she's with her new family. Her new family has had no problems with her and they claim that she treats all of her siblings really well, she's doing really well with them. They said that she helps make bottles, she cooks, she cleans, she does plenty of chores and helps out with the other children in the family. Natalia and her new family both believe that the Barnett should serve some jail time for what they did to her and abandoning her. But ultimately, Natalia says that she just wants all of this to end so she can move on with her life.

So I find this to be really, really interesting. And I can honestly say, once again, I have no idea what to think. So many things cannot be confirmed. It's too hard to make a complete opinion on this for me personally, but I'd love to know what you guys think. Like I said, you're either gonna think she's a scam artist sociopath that pretends to be a child because of her dwarfism to get adopted by multiple families,

or you're gonna think that the Barnett's had abandoned a disabled child, a minor that they adopted. That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcast. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray.

I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the Friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1FFFC.com to learn more. All loan terms and APRs depend on meeting our underwriting and income criteria and may require collateral. First, Franklin Financial Corporation is licensed by the Virginia State Corporation Commission CFI-215, Georgia Residential Mortgage Licency 5656, MMLSNB141654, not available in North Carolina. Work at your licensee 5656, MMLS number 141654.

Not available in North Carolina.