Truth, sometimes, can be stranger than fiction. A couple adopted a child in 2010, thinking that they’d become a bigger family.
It would’ve been a dream come true for both but it quickly spiraled into something we can only see in movies.
A couple from Florida took in a Ukrainian child in 2010.
Kristine and Michael Barnetts adopted Natalia when she was just six years old. The child had been under the care of different foster families before she finally found a family.
Natalia is suffering from a form of dwarfism that makes her smaller than her age. The Barnetts didn’t take that as an issue and continued to provide for her needs and integrated her into their family of 5.
All of it changed, however, when Kristine tried bathing Natalia.
Shortly after starting, she moved out of the bathroom and pulled her husband to the side. She then explained in horror that Natalia might not be telling the whole truth.
She has features that only girls who’ve gone through puberty have. They realized that she was older than she was letting on and that her dwarfism may have precluded reality.
“Natalia was a woman. She had periods. She had adult teeth. She never grew a single inch, which would happen even with a child with dwarfism,” the Barnetts said as quoted by BBC.
The story just got worse from there.
The Barnetts then claimed that Natalia was planning on killing their family. At one point, Michael said that Natalia allegedly tried to poison Kristine.
The couple also said that Natalia planned on stabbing the entire family in their sleep. The story then took one drastic turn after the other.
The Barnetts refused to believe that she was actually six when they took her in.
2 years after her adoption, the couple took the case to court and asked them to change Natalia’s birthdate from 2003 to 1989.
Kristine claimed that Natalia’s bone tests could prove that she might be around 14 years old back in 2010. They then made her live on her own for a year in a furnished and paid apartment.
In 2014, Natalia told the police that she has been abandoned. The family moved north to Canada to start their lives anew without Natalia in the picture. The couple then divorced soon after.
Natalia denied all of these allegations when she came on Dr. Phil.
She said that while she was returned to the orphanage after accidentally injuring another child, she had no intentions of hurting the Barnetts. She considered them the “perfect family,” for her.
The couple has been charged with two counts of felony neglect where a Tippecanoe County judge issued warrants for their arrests.
The Barnetts maintained that they were victims in the case.
Terrance Kinnard, Michael’s attorney, said that the couple was a victim of fraud. Hospital records from 2010 show that she was approximately 8 years old.
Natalia is currently living with Antwon and Cynthia Mans. The couple believes that she was 16 years old by the time they adopted her.
Watch how this adoption turned into a movie plot when a couple claimed they were fooled.
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