The father who adopted a young ‘child’ has shared the telltale signs that she was actually an adult, saying he was left wondering: “Who the f**k is this person?”
Kristine and Michael Barnett adopted Natalia Grace back in 2010, believing her to be a six-year-old girl with a rare bone growth disorder.
However, as time went on, it transpired that she wasn’t who said she was - with the Barnetts saying she was secretly an adult attempting to harm their family.
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The stranger-than-fiction story has become the subject of a brand new documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which explores the Barnetts’ accusations of their adoptive daughter being a fraudulent 'adult sociopath masquerading as a child'.
In the first episode, Michael discusses the signs that he and Kristine noticed in the first few months after adoption - including one incident immediately after they picked up their ‘brand new’ daughter.
He recalls: “We get to the hotel that night, and Kristine’s going to give our brand new daughter a bath, and I hear a shout from the bathroom.
“This was a, ‘I’m not playing around, come here right now, Michael’ shout.
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“I get up and go flying to the bathroom, and the colour’s almost gone from her face. It’s almost like she’s seen a ghost. She’s truly frightened and she just doesn’t know what she’s seeing or what’s going on.
“She says, 'Michael, look. Look down'.
“And Natalia had full pubic hair. And I don’t know what you think. Is that possible? Is that even possible? Who the f**k is this person?”
Michael said he and his wife vowed to show ‘love and compassion’ to Natalia after the bizarre discovery, as these were things she hadn’t experienced before.
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However, things took another turn when she admitted to having already started her period.
He continues: “There was a day where I came home from work, Kristine’s got a pair of Natalia’s underwear.
“Kristine asked Natalia to tell me what’s going on.”
A home video then shows Kristine asking Natalia to explain to her dad ‘what happened’.
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Michael continues: “I can remember her physical-ness at the time, her hands were just out in front of her like this, and she’s like, 'Well, I have a period, and I’ve been hiding it'.
“And I just don’t know what’s going on right now.”
Michael can then be heard in the video telling his wife it’s simply ‘not possible’.
A family friend also says that Kristine had found some socks that she had used in her underwear and thrown them out of the window.
“Kris was just mortified,” they say.
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“She said, ‘This isn’t normal. What have I got myself into?’
“And I said, ‘You need to start finding out how old she is’.”
Later in the documentary, we also hear how Natalia was sent to a state mental hospital, where she had to be transferred to the adult wing after staff discovered her pubic hair.
Various employees are interviewed anonymously via phone in the six-part series, with many saying Natalia could be ‘manipulative’ and ‘aggressive’ towards others, ‘talked about sex a lot’ and even started ‘propositioning the men’.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace will air for three consecutive nights on Investigation Discovery starting on 29 May.
Topics: Documentaries, TV and Film, Natalia Grace
Jess Hardiman