The alleged biological mother of the "adopted child who turned out to be a 22-year-old woman" has addressed speculations in an emotional interview.
In case you missed it, Michael and Kristine Barnett from Indiana adopted a "six-year-old" Ukranian orphan named Natalia Grace back in 2010. However, they soon became suspicious of her, accusing her of trying to physically harm them and their biological children.
The couple soon came to the unbelievable conclusion that Natalia was not a young child, but actually, a 22-year-old woman with a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal, according to PEOPLE.
The outlet reported that in 2012 - two years after Natalia was adopted - the Barnetts petitioned Marion County Probate Court to legally change her age to 22, which would then alter her birth year from 2003 to 1989. The following year, they moved with their three sons to Canada without Natalia and left her alone in an apartment in Lafayette.
However, the Barnetts - who later divorced - were charged with neglect of a dependent. Prosecutors couldn't charge them with neglect of a child because of the young woman's court-ordered age change. Natalia also testified during Michael's trial saying that she didn't want to live in Lafayette.
The divorced pair recently featured in a new docuseries called The Curious Case of Natalia Grace by Investigation Discovery, where they told their adoption story and shared further claims about Natalia.
Check out the trailer for the series:In addition to this, Natalia's alleged biological mother, Anna Gava, has spoken out about the bizarre speculations surrounding Natalia. She recalled having a "difficult" birth with her daughter and insisted that she was a child when she was put up for adoption.
"When I regained consciousness, after anesthesia, the next day the doctor came and said there is no sense to take her home. They said that she won't be able to walk at all and she will be of very short stature," Gava said in the docu-series, according to TooFab.
Gava claimed she was told it would cost $100,000 for surgery and she didn't "have any finances" to cover that at the time, explaining: "I didn't initially want to leave her but the doctors said there is nothing you could do for her. 'You are young,' they said, 'You are 24 years old. Don't ruin your life, you will have other children.'"
The outlet stated that the alleged mom began to tear up at one point because she "listened to the doctors and left her instead of keeping her," adding: "All this time, all those years, I've been thinking about her, what is her life like what is she doing and everything like this."
"[Natalia] was promised piles of gold and it turned out the opposite," she noted, before expressing that she was shocked that Natalia was "abandoned at the age of 13 alone in an apartment".
Recently, attorney Beth Karas told TMZ that viewers of the true crime show may never "know the entire truth" about Natalia.
"There are people who observed her who lived near her because she had two different apartments, and they come down on a different side whether or not she is an adult or a child," she said. "They observe her riding a bicycle with another child, they also observe her acting out and coming out on men sexually. So, was she masquerading as a child?"
"I'm not so sure because we are the sum total of our life experiences and we don't know what her life experiences were until then, even as a child, maybe she was sexually abused as a child, and was acting out because she didn't know any better."
The attorney said that the alleged grown-up "didn't know her boundaries," and revealed that neighbors who spoke with her thought that she was an adult while others didn't seem to think so.
"Really the viewers are gonna make up their own minds because I really don't know," Karas said, before warning: "I lean one way but I don't know we'll ever know the entire truth here."
.jpg_vOvPo8?tr=h-184)
.jpg_PwXmKg?tr=h-184)
