[imagesource:youtube/screenshot]
A new documentary will be hitting our screens this May, and this time it is about the bizarre case of Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian orphan who was adopted by an Indiana couple who believed she was six years old, only later to find out she was an adult with a rare form of dwarfism.
Duping a couple into believing she was a child is probably enough to get your own documentary, but the story doesn’t end there as it turns out Matalia has sinister motives for wanting to be adopted.
As they say, the plot thickens.
Michael and Kristine Barnett adopted the young woman in 2010, but it wasn’t long before she was discovered to have a kind of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal.
The revelation must have been a terrible shock to the young couple, but what makes the story even more bizarre, and worthy of a crime documentary, is the fact that Natalia turned out to be a sociopath intent on trying to kill the family.
It sounds like the family adopted Peter Dinklage and got Henry van Breda.
It’s claimed that Natalia tried to poison Kristine’s coffee and kill her by dragging her toward an electric fence. The miniature maniac also placed thumbtacks pointy-side up on their staircase in the hopes that someone would step onto it and fall down the stairs.
The Barnetts claim in interviews that doctors treating the woman told the family that she was a sociopath and that they were all in danger.
“This person is a sociopath. This person is a con artist. You are all in danger.”
The couple petitioned a court in 2012 to have Natalia’s birth date changed from 2003 to 1989, making her 22 instead of eight years old as she claimed.
This move allowed the family to leave the nutter in the US and move to Canada, with her new recorded age removing the possibility of being charged with abandoning a minor. Actually very clever if you think about it.
The couple was however charged with ‘abandoning a dependant’, but thanks to the details of the case, the charges were dropped in 2023.
During the trial, the diminutive woman insisted that she didn’t want to be left in the US, saying “I want to be with the Barnetts, I want to live with them”.
Do you remember your first pubes?
I do, cuz my mom straight up kicked me out and moved to Canada!!!— Natalia Grace (@ImNataliaGrace) October 2, 2019
The doccie will be airing on the ID channel on DSTV and will feature interviews with family members as well as an interview the young/old/crazy woman had with Dr Phil.
Here she claimed she was left to fend for herself at the age of eight, and apparently fooled the famous Doctor. Check it out:
Also, check out the trailer below:
This sounds like a really bizarre story and might just be the perfect viewing for a winter’s night.
[source:people]
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