Afia Ohemeng
Kristine Barnett, 45, and ex-husband Michael Barnett, 43 have been charged with abandoning their adopted daughter when she was 9. According to the charges, they left abandoned her in Lafayette, Indiana, while fleeing to Canada.
In an interview with the DailyMail TV, Kristine denies the claims and said she and her husband were victims of a fraud. They claimed the girl they adopted was an adult con artist who tried to kill her adopted mother.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
Kristine and Michael agreed to the emergency adoption of Natalia Grace in May 2010 from Florida and were told by authorities that she was 6 years old.
Within a year, Kristine claims Natalia tried out various ways of killing her. Natalia allegedly pushed her onto an electric fence, poured bleach into her coffee and threatened to stab the couple in their already fitful sleep.
She would give graphic statements and draw various pictures as she said she wanted to kill family members, roll them up in a blanket and put them in their backyard.
The adopted Natalia allegedly stood over the members of the family in the night which pushed her parents to hide all sharp objects.
Natalia was treated by mental health specialists who determined she was an adult and pressed for the courts to have her birth certificate changed
AFFIDAVITS AND MEDICAL TESTS
Based upon medical evidence,the Marion Court in 2012, decided Natalia was born in actually born in 1989.
Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Department alleged that Natalia was infact a child when they abandoned her in 2013.
Natalia after being collected from her Florida adoption center by the Barnetts, soon had her new parents suspicious. Natalia had her period and an adult vocabulary for a mere seven-year-old girl.
Police say the girl was left to fend for herself for three years despite having a rare form of dwarfism that means she is 3ft tall and has problems walking.
But in an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV at an undisclosed location, Kristine insists there’s a major flaw in their case: Natalia was not a nine year old – as charging documents claim – she was actually 22.
A hearing has been set for September 24
‘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 doctors all confirmed she was suffering a severe psychological illness only diagnosed in adults.
‘She was jumping out of moving cars. She was smearing blood on mirrors. She was doing things you could never imagine a little child doing.’ – Barnett
Barnett grew more alarmed when she saw the little girl naked for the first time.
‘I was giving her a bath and I noticed that she had full pubic hair. I was so shocked. I had just been told she was a six year old and it was very apparent she wasn’t,’ she added.
There were further clues to an apparent deception: Natalia shunned dolls and toys, sought the company of teenage girls and appeared to use sophisticated vocabulary way beyond someone her age.
She didn’t have any trace of a foreign accent and when the family asked a Ukrainian friend to speak in their native language Natalia couldn’t understand or describe her homeland.
Michael and Kristine Barnett appeared on 60 Minutes in 2012 to talk about their then 13-year-old autistic son, Jacob, who was a physics prodigy
Kristine Barnett wrote ‘The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism’ about helping son Jacob nurture his abilities as a physics genius
‘At the time I ran a little school and I remember she said to me, these children are exhausting, I don’t know how you do it,’ Barnett went on.
‘I was like, you’re supposed to be a child yourself. It was like something another mom would say as she dropped her kids off.
‘It’s very hard to decipher how old she is because she has such a unique look. But at that time I started to believe she was probably a teenager.
‘But I didn’t have any regrets. This was what I wanted to do. I felt overwhelming love for her.’
Barnett says she soon began finding bloody clothing in the trash suggesting Natalia was having her period and trying to conceal the evidence.
She sought out the help of her family physician who ordered bone density tests to establish Natalia’s age.
When the results suggested the little girl was indeed at least 14 or older, Barnett says she switched the princess outfits and pink dresses for more appropriate clothes.
But as questions swirled around her age and true identity, Natalia’s behavior begun to deteriorate.
Pictured in December 2010, Natalia had an adult vocabulary. Kristine Barnett said, ‘At the time I ran a little school and I remember she said to me, these children are exhausting, I don’t know how you do it.’
Barnett recalls watching aghast on a baby monitor as Natalia attacked a baby boy when she was out the room.
When they attended therapy together Natalia scoffed at the ‘childish’ bonding exercises.
By 2011 Barnett says that Natalia was smearing bodily fluid on walls, making death threats and hearing voices as her mental health broke down.
Natalia would spend the next year or so being treated for various psychiatric disorders, spending days to weeks at a time at the St Vincent Indianapolis Stress Center.
