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A couple who adopted a kid they thought was six years old has described the alarming behaviours they saw that led them to mistakenly believe she was an adult before it was discovered that she was actually 22 years old.
Michael and Kristine Barnett from Indiana believed they had adopted a six-year-old Ukrainian boy in 2010.
The family stated that Natalia Grace, the purported orphan, tried to hurt both the parents and their biological children, which led to doubts about who she really was being raised.
A new docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, airs today and it has given viewers a chilling insight into how this bizarre story unfolded.
During the series, the family shared the alarming signs which alerted them to the fact that the girl they thought to be their child, was actually an adult.
“Kristine’s going to give our brand new daughter a bath, and I hear a shout from the bathroom,” Michael said. “This was a, ‘I’m not playing around, come here right now, Michael’ shout.”
The husband reportedly told the father to “look down” as he hurried to the toilet after witnessing his wife in a complete state of shock and terror.
He said, “Natalia had full pubic hair. “I’m not sure what you believe. That seems possible. Even so, is that possible? Who the f*** is this?
Michael promised to treat their adopted kid with “love and compassion” despite the revelation, but things quickly got out of hand.
“There was a day when I came home from work, Kristine’s got a pair of Natalia’s underwear,” he explained. “Kristine asked Natalia to tell me what was going on. I can remember her physical-ness at the time, her hands were just out in front of her like this, and she’s like, well, I have a period, and I’ve been hiding it.”
The family was confused because this shouldn’t have been happening at Natalia’s age, and things grew worse when she tried to harm the young residents of the home.
Martin claims that Natalia tried to “kill” his children. After being admitted to a children’s mental hospital, she was later transferred to an adult ward after staff members noticed that she had pubic hair.
The parents even attempted to lure Kristine into an electric fence while making the accusation that Natalia would leave thumbtacks on the stairway to Good Morning America.
After moving to Canada with their three sons, the couple split up and were accused of neglecting a dependent, leaving Natalia alone in a Lafayette apartment.
Natalia is thought to have spondyloepiphyseal dwarfism, which the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia describes as “a rare genetic disorder that results in short stature and skeletal anomalies that primarily affect the spine and long bones of the arms and legs.”
Attorney Beth Karas spoke with TMZ about the first episode and what viewers can expect. She said: “[The family] went to the court with an emergency petition and an affidavit from a doctor who had been treating her for the past few years who said that he did not notice any growth and there was no growth in four years.
“She was supposedly eight at the time. So he said, ‘Well, you stop growing when you’re 18. If she hasn’t had any bone growth in four years, then she’s at least 22,'” she continued. “And with a stroke of a pen, he went from age eight to 22 for Natalia. So she theoretically became somebody who could vote, drink, and drive.”
