Did Little Person Pose as Child to Infiltrate Dysfunctional Family? | Natalia Grace Case Analysis

hello this is Dr Grande today's question is can I analyze the case of Natalia Grace she was the topic of a documentary on Investigation Discovery titled The Curious Case of Natalia Grace just a reminder I'm not diagnosing by this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon I'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video first I'll look at a summary of the documentary on this case then offer my analysis the documentary The Curious Case of Natalia Grace detailed The Adventures of the Barnett Family from Indiana they adopted Natalia Grace who they thought was a six-year-old orphan from Ukraine at the time of making this video six episodes of the documentary have been released this is season one these episodes mostly feature claims made by Michael Barnett the documentary had kind of a cliffhanger at the end investigation discovery announced that they will eventually release a follow-up Series in which Natalia Grace will share her side of the story the documentary jumps around a bit and has an erratic feel to it the story isn't necessarily presented in a way that's helpful in this summary I have filled in the gaps with information from other sources to build a cohesive narrative the documentary starts by talking about the Barnett Family Michael and Christine Barnett lived in Westfield Indiana which is north of Indianapolis the couple had three sons one of their sons was named Jacob he was considered to be extremely intelligent he was even featured on 60 Minutes in 2012 due to his cognitive reasoning abilities along with his father Jacob was also interviewed as part of the documentary Michael talked about how he and his wife became interested in adopting a child he received a call from an adoption agency that told him the family could adopt a six-year-old Ukrainian orphan named Natalia Grace but they had to do so within 24 hours it was an emergency she had a Ukrainian birth certificate that listed her birth date as September 4 2003. she had a rare bone growth disorder which caused dwarfism Natalia had been adopted in 2008 but the adoption didn't work out despite the many red flags in this case the Barnett Family picked up Natalya in April of 2010. the adoption was finalized in November of that year right away Michael and Christine started to suspect that Natalya was older than six for example they noticed that she had a lot of pubic hair they claimed that she had menstrual cycles she was described as having an adult vocabulary and they thought that she looked much larger than another six-year-old girl who had the same medical condition in addition Natalia did not seem to know anything about her time in Ukraine she was unable or unwilling to talk about her experiences in the orphanage or talk about anyone who she met there Natalia only spoke English and did so without an accent according to Michael Natalia started to develop behavioral problems about four months after moving to their home she had a habit of urinating and defecating on various objects like objects not located in the bathroom later in the documentary Jacob claimed that his mother Christine ordered him to urinate on Natalya's bed in retaliation like to teach Natalya a lesson Jacob was not proud of his actions as the behavioral problems with Natalya continued she started adding additional behaviors that were even more worrisome again this is according to Michael Barnett she hid knives in her room tried to poison Christine and would drop toys taken from the Barnett boys in the street as if to lure the boys into the street where they could be hit by a motor vehicle at one point Natalya allegedly issued a warning to the barnetts saying quote I am going to kill you in your sleep unquote Michael and Christine reacted negatively to this threat they were probably hoping for a somewhat less homicidal adoption experience the couple took Natalya to a mental health professional who declared her to be a sociopath Michael talked about one incident where he woke up to find Natalya standing at the foot of his bed holding a knife when he asked her what she was doing she said quote nothing I don't know what I'm doing here unquote Italia continued to be treated by mental health clinicians but they supposedly told Michael and Christine that nothing could be done in order to help Natalya they advised the couple to restrict Natalia's Freedom by locking doors an alleged incident involving an electric fence only further alarmed the barnetts the family was at a Cow Milking facility when Natalia allegedly tried to pull Christine into an electric fence according to an employee at the facility this section of electric fence was not active that day so there was never actually any danger Italia was taken to a mental health facility she admitted to being homicidal she told clinicians that she had tried to kill her parents and she thought it was fun Italia demonstrated no remorse the staff at the facility thought that she was an adult and transferred her to an adult unit she told staff there that she was 18 years old the staff described Natalia as manipulative and aggressive in addition she allegedly talked a lot about sex and propositioned men who she encountered in June of 2012 the barnetts petitioned a Marion County Court to alter Natalya's Ukrainian birth records to reflect that she was an adult this would facilitate Italia receiving Mental Health Care appropriate for an adult the couple was successful the court changed Natalya's birth year from 2003 to 1989. Natalia aged 14 years in the blink of an eye she went from being eight years old to 22 years old the judge used information from a physician to make this determination but no one knew for certain how old Natalia was it sounds like there was some guesswork involved Michael and Christine helped Natalia obtain various types of assistance including food stamps and moved her into an apartment on Union Street in Westfield Italia did not seem to thrive in that environment the neighbors made numerous allegations against her here are a few examples she had terrible body odor walked into their homes without permission would wait on their doorsteps for them to come home told them about trying to kill her parents with a knife and attempted to make inappropriate contact with a boy in the neighborhood Natalia called 9-1-1 and told the operator that she stalked her neighbors tried to start a fire in her microwave and was afraid of hurting people neighbors contacted the department of children's services but the agency had no authority over the case because Natalya was legally an adult not surprisingly the apartment complex did not renew Natalia's lease probably because of the Stalking Part the barnetts moved Natalia into another apartment in July of 2013. this one was in Lafayette Indiana it was on North 11th Street which is a bad part of town the barnetts moved to Canada and left Natalya behind they were going there to support Jacob's education in 2014 Natalia moved in with a woman named Cynthia and was no longer in her apartment Christine ran into some marital difficulties while in Canada they divorced in 2014. Michael eventually remarried and moved back to Indiana in 2019 Michael was paid a visit by the police who believed that he and Christine had abandoned Natalya in violation of the law Michael did a lot of talking to the police which was a bad idea in September of 2019 he and his ex-wife were charged with neglect of a dependent the state's case was based on the idea that Natalia was only 16 when the barnetts set her up in the Lafayette apartment a judge ruled that Natalia was legally an adult essentially supporting the other finding that was made about Natalia's age this was devastating to the state's case but they continued the case against the barnetts based on the idea that the barnetts abandoned a dependent with a disability Michael and Christine were to be tried separately with Michael going first on October 27 2022 Michael Barnett was found not guilty on all charges on March 24 2023 the charges against Christine Barnett were dismissed now moving to my analysis here are my thoughts on a few areas that stood out to me in this case item number one this case contains a lot of evidence that points to different conclusions for example Natalya gave conflicting statements collecting more information about the life of Natalia Grace and her experiences with the barnetts does not necessarily bring the truth into Focus there is the sense that for every Point made by one statement or observation there's an equal Counterpoint that comes from somewhere else one Central mystery in this case has to do with Natalia's age this brings me to item number two when was Natalia Grace born was she born in 2003 as her birth certificate originally stated 1989 as the judge ruled later on or some other year was she a child or an adult when she was adopted let's take a look at the evidence both for and against the idea that Natalya was actually six years old or close to that when she was adopted starting with the factors that support this Theory Natalia's birth certificate indicated that she was six years old the producers of the documentary found Natalya's mother in Ukraine she was born in 1979. which meant that Natalia was definitely not born in 1989. Natalya could have been born before 2003 but not 14 years earlier moving to the factors that contradict the theory that Natalia was six years old or close to it when she was adopted her parents claimed that she had menstrual cycles and a lot of pubic hair Natalia never grew at all after the barnetts adopted her not even a little she had adult teeth a physician said that she was 22 in theory this determination was partially based on bone density test results Natalia did not like dolls or other toys she found certain mental health therapy exercises to be childish and did not like them for that specific reason Italia was diagnosed as being sociopathic which is not actually an official mental disorder the closest mental disorder to sociopathy would be anti-social personality disorder which cannot be diagnosed under the age of 18. Italia allegedly heard voices many of the disorders that would cause this symptom would not be found in children Natalia was described as being articulate and having an adult vocabulary if Natalia was a child when she was left in the apartment why didn't she cry or completely shut down emotionally most children that age would have a strong reaction to being abandoned like that in 2012 Italia told mental health professionals that she was 18. when considering all the evidence do I think that Natalya was six years old or close to it when she was adopted no I believe she was older than six I don't think she was an adult but I think it is reasonable to believe that she was somewhere around 11 or 12 years old it's worth noting that whether she was six or somewhere around 12 she was still a child moving to item number three do I believe that Natalia wanted to kill the barnetts like was she really dangerous Natalia told mental health professionals she was homicidal neighbors accused her of stalking and she called the police on herself saying that she was stalking her neighbors when speaking to Phil McGraw Italia said that another family had rejected her because they thought she was going to break their son's arm I don't think that Michael and Christine are credible but it's hard to ignore the other reports in this case clearly something was going on with Natalya she put people in fear for their safety but I'm not convinced she was dangerous there's no evidence that Natalia actually hurt anyone one would think that if she had this predisposition to cause harm she would be successful at least once item number four there have been many allegations that Natalya was mistreated by Barnett family members just a few examples Michael accused Christine of physically striking Natalya Jacob admitted to a disconcerting urination situation which also implicates Christine because she allegedly directed Jacob a conversation between Jacob and Michael was caught on a microphone that Jacob was wearing during the recording of the documentary Jacob had forgotten to remove the microphone he mentioned to Michael something about Natalya being thrown down steps in the last episode of the documentary there is this dramatic Cliffhanger where Michael has been confronted with some type of horrible accusation the nature of the accusation was never stated but one can infer that he had been accused by one of Christine's lovers of doing something bad to Natalya in some of the video clips shown in the documentary Christine appears to be grilling Italia Michael accused Christine of forcing Natalya to stand with her head against a wall for eight hours Christine was allegedly trying to extract information from Natalya about who she really was as if Natalia was some type of secret agent or con artist who had infiltrated the Barnett Family if Natalia was mistreated this could explain her propositioning of men use of sexual language and other boundary Crossing item number five in the documentary it's fairly clear that Michael wanted to hurt Christine emotionally but it's hard to believe a word that he said he was dramatic overly emotional and appeared to be feigning tears when the police came to talk to Michael he tried to bury his wife by implicating her but he also almost buried himself I wonder if the same pattern of Vengeance repeated in other places like was Natalya the focus of Michael's rage and pettiness at one time if he could be that vindictive against Christine he could be that vindictive against other people item number six what do I think happened in this case this is just a theory my opinion I think that Natalia had been mistreated at some point prior to being adopted by the Barnett Family and she was a few years older than her birth certificate suggested she exhibited some anti-social Behavior which greatly Disturbed the barnetts they reacted in a way that was unhealthy and maybe even aggressive they exaggerated the negative behavior and tried to make Natalya feel ashamed in addition they tried to get her to confess to being older than she was this harsh and oppressive environment only made Natalia's Behavior worse The barnetts Wanted the court to change Natalia's age in order to get her out of their lives through Michael's effort to get revenge on Christine for the divorce he made himself look guilty fortunately for Michael the jury realized that he was morally offensive but not a criminal now moving to my final thoughts this case brings up many questions was Natalya an adult pretending to be a child a child pretending to be a stalker an age-shifting secret agent from Eastern Europe or an aspiring electric fence killer pretending to be captivated by Cow Milking I don't know but I would like to hear Natalya's side of the story the contradicting evidence in this case does not leave much hope that the next documentary will clear up these questions but maybe it'll help a little one thing is for certain this case may be about someone diminutive in stature but the mystery is enormous in scale those are my thoughts on the case of Natalia Grace please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 222,854

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Id: I9CXGm0H_30

Length: 17min 40sec (1060 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023