The Shocking True Story of Natalia Grace

MsMojo

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.

Transcript

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.

10:08Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified

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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.

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