The lights and shadows of the nightmare of the Ukrainian orphan

• Natalie Grace: A couple adopts a Ukrainian girl and discovers that she is an adult with dwarfism when she tried to kill them

Parents accused of abandoning their daughter, an adopted girl who turned out to be an adult with dwarfism, a mother who claims that that adult girl wanted to kill them, three contradictory versions, a father who separates from the mother's version ... It was the news of the week and probably for a long time. On Wednesday, most media gathered information about a couple who adopted a Ukrainian girl and discovered that she was an adult with a bone growth disorder called spondyloepimetaphyseal dysplasia when she tried to kill them.

It was the nightmare of the Barnett, Kristine -45 years- and Michael -43 years-, a nightmare related by Kristine and that seemed to have no end. The Barnett were accused of abandoning a minor, detained and waiting to hold the trial. What had happened? How did everything change and went from the joy of adopting a girl, Natalie Grace , in 2010, to face the charge of abandonment? Lights and shadows loom over the Barnett's nightmare, augmented by the statements of a mother who says Natalie wanted to kill them and a father and his lawyers who seem to want to dismantle what for years was his alibi.

The history of the Barnett

The nightmare of the Ukrainian orphan , increasingly similar to the Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra La Orphan's film , begins the same as in the film. Kristine and Michale Barnett decided in 2010 to expand the family with a new son who would join the three they already had . It was then that they adopted Natalie Grace, a Ukrainian girl who was supposedly 6 years old and that they adopted at a Florida orphanage - they lived in Indiana.

" I always wanted to have a bigger family and I had very serious complications in my pregnancies and I couldn't have more children," Kristine Barnett explained.

At the beginning, like the film, everything was going well, but soon Natalie Grace's behavior raised the suspicions of the family, according to what Kristine Barnett explained in an interview in the Daily Mail .

The vocabulary he used, his development or physical, that he had menstruation ... "I was giving him a bath and I noticed that he had all his pubic hair. He was so shocked. They had just told me he was six years old and it was very obvious that he didn't have that age, "Kristine tells the Daily Mail . The Barnett began to doubt, but it was Natalie Grace's behavior that set off the alarms.

According to the mother, Natalie talked about killing them and "made drawings saying that she wanted to kill the family, roll us up in a blanket and bury us in the garden." In her interview with the British newspaper she tells how she saw her bleach into a coffee that was for her or how when she asked him what she was doing, she didn't hesitate to answer that he was trying to poison her.

When they adopted her they gave them all the documentation that Natalie had : she had a birth certificate from Ukraine in which she made sure that she was born on September 4, 2003 and that she needed a home immediately because her previous adoptive parents had suddenly abandoned her for reasons that were not specified in the documents. When the Barnett began asking about their age, Natalie Grace's behavior changed. I was more nervous, more irritating ...

The Barnett, alarmed by their behavior, took the girl to the St Vincent Indianapolis Stress Center mental health center where she stayed for several weeks. During the review, the specialists assured the couple that the age of their adopted daughter was "clearly inaccurate . " Those responsible for the center explained to the marriage that Natalia's teeth, as well as her sexual development, did not correspond to a person her age. One of the specialists even assured them that the tests showed that he was over 18 years old. During the treatment, Kristine Barnett says that Natalie came to confess that she was indeed an adult woman .

Even the Barnett family doctor, Dr. Andrew McLaren , said Natalie had fooled everyone, including him and other doctors.

Most telling is perhaps a letter from Dr. McLaren dated March 2012, in which he says that Natalie's birth date in 2003 is clearly inaccurate and that Natalia had made a career pretending to be a little girl.

Contradictory versions

It was also in 2012 when police began asking questions, although not about Natalie's age but about whether immigration fraud had occurred. According to Kristine, Detective Scott Clouse , now deceased, of the Westfield City Police Department, sent them an email that he himself had sent to the FBI and Immigration because he suspected there was a "false age report" before Natalia left. Ukraine.

In 2012, the Marion County Superior Court in Indianapolis , Indiana, determined that Natalie Grace was born in 1989, instead of the date of her Ukrainian birth certificate. At this time Natalie was considered adult by the State of Indianapolis. Despite this and the terror that the mother describes living with her Natalie continued with the family until 2013 when she was discharged in Psychiatry and placed under the supervision of a state tutor.

The Barnett family moved to Canada so that the eldest son, a 15-year-old physics prodigy, could study at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario . Natalie stayed in Indiana They got her social security number, requested social assistance, rented an apartment ... When Natalie caused housing problems and was evicted, they returned to help her and rented a new apartment in Lafayette , in the Tippecanoe County

According to Kristine for a while they talked every day on the phone until, always according to Kristine's version, Natalie cut off all contact with the family. The alleged minor denounced her parents for having abandoned her when she was 9 years old . His adoptive parents surrendered to Justice and were released on bail. However, it was with the statement of the two when it has become visible that something does not fit.

The versions of the parents are loaded with contradictions. While Kristine maintains that Natalie cheated on them and that it has been proven that she was an adult when she was adopted, Michael Barnett states that before leaving for Canada they had changed Natalie's age in official documents from 11 to 22 years and that Kristine said yes someone asked him to say he was 22.

In addition, the court documents cite two medical reports indicating that Natalie was eight years old in 2010 and 11 in 2012 , so today she would be 18.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project