Prepare to be shocked, creeped out, and intrigued all at the same time! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we’re looking at the facts, accusations, and theories surrounding Natalia Grace.
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00:00I still don't have concrete answers.
00:03Somebody's not telling the truth.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're looking at the facts, accusations, and theories surrounding
00:09Natalia Grace.
00:11I want you to know how old I am.
00:14I want you to know about my past because I want to know too.
00:18There are two sides to every story.
00:21In the case of Natalia Grace, though, people have gone back and forth between who's lying,
00:25who's telling the truth, and whether one person is being 100% honest.
00:29And you want to have me give you one word that describes Natalia to me?
00:35Enigma.
00:36While investigators have been able to pin down some facts, much of this story boils
00:41down to she said, they said.
00:43Natalia Grace is either a monster or a victim, depending on who you ask.
00:48The answer may never be clear-cut, but everyone can agree on one thing.
00:52This is among the most fascinating and unsettling stories to grace the true crime scene in some
00:57time.
00:58I mean, you've adopted a kid and now they're trying to kill you.
01:01I mean, it's the stuff of a horror movie, right?
01:05Natalia's adoption and abandonment.
01:07Natalia Grace was born in Ukraine with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, an uncommon bone growth
01:13disorder.
01:14Spending much of her childhood in a Ukraine orphanage, Natalia was eventually adopted
01:18by Michael and Christine Barnett.
01:20We're overcome with joy and emotion.
01:22Oh my gosh, that day in and of itself, without context, is one of the five greatest days
01:27of my life.
01:29This wealthy Indiana couple already had three sons.
01:32Their eldest, Jacob, has autism, inspiring his mother to create a nonprofit special needs
01:37learning center.
01:38The Barnett family opened up a foundation, a place where parents and kids with autism
01:44could go be with other parents and kids with autism and feel normal.
01:48Jacob was also the subject of Christine Barnett's book, The Spark, a mother's story of nurturing,
01:53genius, and autism.
01:55Seeking to adopt another child, the Barnetts received a call about Natalia in 2010.
02:00Given a 24-hour window, the Barnetts flew to Florida and formally made Natalia a part
02:05of the family.
02:06The Barnetts celebrated with a trip to Disney World, but things soon took a hairy turn.
02:12We went with Natalia to Disney World.
02:15We were all excited to have her in the family, and Natalia seemed happy to join our family.
02:21At the hotel, Christine prepared to give Natalia a bath.
02:25Christine's going to give our brand new daughter a bath, and I hear a shout from the bathroom.
02:34This was a, I'm not playing around, come here right now, Michael.
02:38Although Natalia was said to be roughly around six or seven, Christine claimed that she found
02:43hair in areas that normally wouldn't see development for at least a few more years.
02:48This wasn't the last time the Barnetts cast out surrounding Natalia's age.
02:51The Barnetts allegedly discovered signs of menstruation and found that Natalia was much
02:55taller than another girl with the same form of dwarfism.
02:59There's no way anybody could look at this picture and say, those two are the same age.
03:03Even more concerning, the couple believed that Natalia was attempting to harm the family,
03:08claiming that she put pledge in Christine's coffee, hid knives in her room, and attempted
03:12to push Christine into an electric fence at a farm.
03:16Christine's screaming at them, she needs to be arrested, she tried to kill me, she needs
03:19to be arrested, she tried to kill me.
03:22We wanted charges.
03:24We wanted her arrested.
03:26These were supposedly enforced by verbal death threats.
03:29If you're thinking, this sounds exactly like the 2009 horror film Orphan, you're not the
03:34only one to draw that parallel.
03:36Making Natalia out to be a sociopath, the Barnetts placed her in a mental health hospital.
03:41We had been trying to get her to inpatient treatment.
03:44We had been begging people to help us.
03:47We had been told by everybody, you need help desperately.
03:51Your family's in danger.
03:52She needs inpatient treatment.
03:54Although Natalia wasn't deemed mentally unstable, some did question her age with accusations
04:00of her quote, propositioning men.
04:02Around the same time that Natalia was in the hospital, her adoptive parents petitioned
04:06successfully to have her legally re-aged from 8 to 22.
04:10They give her a new birth certificate with a new birth date.
04:13They gave her a new Indiana ID.
04:17Everything changes from a year of birth of 2003, back it up 14 years to 1989.
04:24Shortly after Natalia's release, the Barnetts sent her to live in a Westfield apartment.
04:29She was later moved to a Lafayette apartment while her adoptive family uprooted to Canada.
04:332013, the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada wants Jacob, who's 14, to
04:41go there to get his master's degree.
04:44So we're moving to Canada.
04:46Natalia would be taken in by Antoine and Cynthia Manns, who were skeptical of the Barnetts'
04:50claims and actions.
04:52Who's the true victim and monster?
04:55Natalia has denied the accusations against her, swearing that she was the one being abused.
05:00That whole thing was just a big chain reaction from one line.
05:04But people don't know what happened in that house.
05:10According to Natalia, Christine was the primary source of torment, inflicting physical harm
05:15and attempting to set her up with older men.
05:18Natalia further claims that Christine pressured her to lie about her age, among other things.
05:23Jacob Barnett was supposedly instructed by his mother to kick Natalia down the stairs.
05:27It's okay.
05:28I feel like I deserve the right to tell my story.
05:31I did not tell them that.
05:33I didn't tell them about kicking them down the stairs.
05:36Well, kicking down the stairs, we said we're not going to say, right?
05:39Although Natalia says that Michael didn't participate in the beatings, she blames him
05:44for not stopping Christine.
05:46Although Michael has spoken ill of his adoptive daughter in the past, he's since had a change
05:50of tune, arguing that Christine abused Natalia and himself.
05:54In any case, Natalia believes that Michael still played a major role in her abandonment.
05:59Christine is the real monster.
06:03Michael is an accomplice to the monster, because he went along with everything that Christine
06:09said.
06:10Michael filed for divorce in 2014, with his marriage to Christine officially ending in
06:152018.
06:16The following year, Michael and Christine were charged with child neglect.
06:20Prior to this, the Barnetts were on the cover of magazines and newspapers.
06:26And now, after being arrested and charged, being photographed for a whole different reason.
06:31A jury found Michael not guilty after roughly two hours of deliberation, although some key
06:36details were excluded from the trial.
06:38Namely, Natalia's age when the Barnetts abandoned her.
06:41It had been determined that Natalia's biological mother was Anna Volodymyrivna Gava, who was
06:46born in 1979.
06:49The DNA test results came back.
06:52It is a match.
06:53She is indeed Natalia's biological mother.
06:58This is a huge deal, and may put this whole age issue to rest.
07:05When the Barnetts had Natalia re-aged, her birth year was changed to 1989, which would
07:10have made Gava a 10-year-old at the time.
07:12It seemed more likely that Natalia was born on September 4, 2003, as her original records
07:18indicated.
07:19Nevertheless, the charges against Christine were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
07:36In August 2023, a DNA test found that Natalia was roughly around 20.
07:42Thus, she would have been around 9 when the Barnetts put her in an apartment.
07:46It's clear that the prosecution believes Natalia was a child when she was left alone
07:50to fend for herself in this apartment in Lafayette, Indiana.
07:55Getting her re-aged to an adult could have been a way for Michael and Christine to protect
07:59themselves from child neglect charges.
08:02This seems to conclude, once and for all, that Natalia wasn't an adult pretending to
08:06be a child.
08:07What remains up for debate is whether Natalia was ever violent towards the Barnetts.
08:12Natalia and Michael have since come together, agreeing that Christine put them both through
08:15hell.
08:26They also denied Christine's allegations that there was a sexual relationship between
08:30them.
08:31Although Natalia forgave Michael, she still believes that he holds some accountability.
08:43Natalia is especially suspicious of whose idea it was to re-age her, a subject that
08:57Michael refuses to talk about.
08:59As for why the Barnetts adopted Natalia in the first place, it's been theorized that
09:03Christine wanted to exploit and profit off her.
09:22When that didn't go according to plan, they sought to distance themselves from Natalia.
09:26Cynthia Manz even suspects that Christine took direct inspiration from the movie Orphan
09:31in an attempt to paint Natalia as a monster.
09:47After serving as her guardians for a decade, Antoine and Cynthia Manz officially adopted
09:51Natalia in June 2023.
09:54Assuming that Natalia really was an innocent victim, this might seem like the happiest
09:58ending possible.
09:59With this adoption, I'll be legally a part of the family.
10:02So that way, I'll be protected while I do civil suits against the Barnetts.
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10:24There's just one more revelation that has given people pause.
10:28Who is Natalia Grace?
10:30Natalia Grace has presented her side of the story on Dr. Phil and the docu-series The
10:34Curious Case of Natalia Grace.
10:37Both make Natalia out to be a more sympathetic figure than the Barnetts implied.
10:40I had to learn a lot of life lessons at an early age, but I will forever embrace my past
10:47because I feel like it made me stronger.
10:50However, the Investigation Discovery series ends its second season on a note that throws
10:55everything into question.
10:57In a phone conversation, Antoine and Cynthia Manns are heard accusing Natalia of lying,
11:02backstabbing and only caring about herself.
11:04She's done other things too, but this was a new low.
11:09Natalia does not have emotions for nothing but herself.
11:13While the docu-series exists to inform, its goal above all else is to entertain.
11:19For all we know, this phone call could have been taken out of context to hook us in for
11:23a potential third season.
11:25That said, we're not sure how else to interpret this bombshell as of writing.
11:29We're done.
11:30We're done with it.
11:36Following the season 2 finale, Natalia posted on social media that she was quote, doing
11:41well, but couldn't elaborate because she quote, signed an agreement with the show to
11:45keep things confidential for now.
11:47This won't be the last we hear from Natalia Grace.
11:50I just want to stay focused on now because I have a lot of big plans for my life.
11:55While a third season of the docu-series has yet to be announced, the showrunners have
12:00set viewers up for more.
12:02Natalia's story will also be dramatized in a Hulu limited series starring Ellen Pompeo.
12:06By that point, perhaps we'll have a clearer answer of who Natalia Grace is.
12:11This is a new chapter in the story with just endless possibilities.
12:19Until then, she remains something of a mystery.
12:22Maybe this is due to limited information and conflicting accounts.
12:26Depending on how much the media truly knows though, Natalia might be an enigma by design.
12:31Book two is about to be written by me and that book is going to be an amazing book.
12:38I already know.
12:39What are your thoughts on the Natalia Grace case?
12:41Let us know in the comments.
12:43This was hard, but I'm willing to do it because everybody deserves a second chance.