Featured Image Credit: ID
Topics: TV and Film, Natalia Grace, US News
Claire Reid
The woman who was accused of posing as a six-year-old girl while being an adult became emotional as she had her real age confirmed.
The unusual story all kicked off back in 2010, when husband and wife Kristine and Michael Barnett, from Indiana in the US, adopted Ukrainian-born Natalia Grace, believing her to be a little girl with a rare form of dwarfism.
However, the couple alleged that after bringing her home to the US, they discovered that she was actually an adult posing as a child and that she had nefarious plans to harm them.
The Barnetts claimed she was an 'adult sociopath masquerading as a child' in a bizarre criminal case of fraud and said she had made several attempts to kill the couple.
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When the Barnetts left Grace on her own in an apartment in Layfette, Indiana, in 2013, authorities pushed 'neglect charges' onto both of them.
Grace has continuously denied all of the allegations made against her and is set to tell her side of the story for the first time in the upcoming ID documentary series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, which airs next month.
In the documentary, Grace tells the documentary makers: “I want you to know how old I am, I want you to know about my past because I want to know, too. I want the puzzle to be complete.”
In the opening episode of the new series, Grace visits TruDiagnostics, where she undergoes various medical and diagnostic tests to confirm her true biological age.
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Doctor Halland Chen, from TruDiagnostics, brings Grace in to give her the news.
He explains: “Based on all the studies and everything being analysed, you’re more close to 22, which is pretty close to what you think… you’re almost 20. That’s two years.”
So this means that Grace was indeed around seven years old when the Barnetts adopted her - and not an adult.
After being given the news, Grace comments: “This one little piece of paper throws every single lie that the Barnetts have said right into the trash with a match.”
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Grace, who attends the appointment with her adoptive dad Antwon Mans, then breaks down in tears as she adds: “This is so big, because literally this has been 13 years. 13 years of just two people lying their butts off. They ruined a kid’s life.
“They painted me as some big monster when in reality they were the ones.”
With Mans agreeing with his daughter, her voice cracks as she adds: “It just proves that I was not lying about my age. They ignored everything that was pointing to the truth just so they could create this stupid lie.”
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks airs across three consecutive nights on ID from Monday 1 January.