A doctor has confirmed the real age of the "22-year-old woman" who was accused of posing as a child.
Natalia Grace made headlines earlier this year after her shocking story was revealed in a docuseries titled The Curious Case of Natalia Grace by Investigation Discovery.
The film followed a couple named Michael and Kristine Barnett who adopted what they believed to be a six-year-old girl from Ukraine back in 2010. However, they soon became suspicious of the girl, accusing her of trying to harm them and their biological children physically.
However, the pair became suspicious of their daughter's age and claimed that Natalie - who has a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal - was actually an adult woman with cruel intentions.
The couple alleged that Natalia tried to poison Kristine's coffee and kill her by dragging her towards an electric fence and placing clear thumbtacks on the stairs face up so that they would step on them, per Yahoo.
PEOPLE reported that in 2012 - two years after Natalia was adopted by the Barnetts - the couple petitioned Marion County Probate Court to change her age legally to 22, which would then alter her birth year from 2003 to 1989. Which would mean she would now be around 34 years old - a claim she has always denied.
The following year, Michael and Kristine moved with their three sons to Canada without the alleged grown woman - leaving her alone in an apartment in Lafayette.
According to ET Online, they were charged with neglect of a dependent before Michael was found not guilty of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent in 2022, while charges against Kristine were dropped in March 2023.
As her story blew up in the media, the young woman has now offered her side in Investigation Discovery's new six-part docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks.
Watch the Natalia Speaks trailer below:The upcoming documentary will retrace Natalia's "adoption saga and the Barnetts' allegations from Natalia’s perspective, offering insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnetts' home and how much truth there actually is to their claim Natalia was not a six-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare genetic disorder, but rather a homicidal adult intent on harming them and their children," per a press release.
The trailer, shared by Investigation Discovery, shows Natalia confronting her former adoptive father Michael. The pair sit face-to-face, with Natalia telling him: "I was never in [your and ex-wife Kristine's] room with a knife," to which Michael shrugged and responded: "I know what I saw."
According to Too Fab, the special also shows Natalia going to get DNA testing done by Dr. Halland Chen at TruDiagnostic, who used a sample of her blood to determine her "chronological age".
The tests revealed that she was "closer to 22" in age, which they stated was "pretty close to what you think, you're almost 20, that's within 2 years." That age is much younger than the 34 years of age she'd be under her legally changed birthdate.
As Dr Chen shares the results, she begins to tear up and says: "This one little piece of paper throws every single lie the Barnetts have said right into the trash, with a match. This is so big, this has been 12 years of just two people, lying their butts off. They ruined a kids' life."
"They painted them as a big monster when in reality, they were the ones. It just proves I was not lying about my age. They ignored everything that was pointing to the truth, just so they could have this stupid lie. They knew it and they still did what they did," she added.
If what the doctor says is accurate, then it would mean Natalia was four when she went over to the USA from Ukraine. Therefore, she would have been just seven when the Barnetts adopted her, and would only have been eight when the petition to change her age to 22 was filed.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks will premiere across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1.
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