A couple who adopted a child that they believed was six years old has revealed the concerning signs they witnessed that led them to believe she was actually a grown woman before the truth came to light that she was indeed 22 years old.
In 2010, Michael and Kristine Barnett from Indiana were convinced that they had adopted a six-year-old child from Ukraine.
The alleged orphan, named Natalia Grace, began to arouse suspicions of her true identity after the family claimed that she attempted to harm both the parents and their biological children.
A new docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, airs today and it has given viewers a chilling insight into how this bizarre story unfolded.
Watch the trailer below:During the series, the family shared the alarming signs which alerted them to the fact that the girl they thought to be their child, was actually an adult.
"Kristine’s going to give our brand new daughter a bath, and I hear a shout from the bathroom," Michael said. "This was a, 'I’m not playing around, come here right now, Michael' shout."
The father rushed to the bathroom where he recalls seeing his wife in a state of utter disbelief and fear, and she instructed him to "look down".
"Natalia had full pubic hair," he continued. "I don’t know what you think. Is that possible? Is that even possible? Who the f*** is this person?"
Despite the discovery, Michael vowed to show "love and compassion" to their adopted daughter - that was until things began to escalate.
"There was a day when I came home from work, Kristine’s got a pair of Natalia’s underwear," he explained. "Kristine asked Natalia to tell me what was going on. 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."
The family was perplexed as this shouldn't have been happening at the age that they thought Natalia was, and things got serious when she attempted to attack the children in the house.
Martin alleges that Natalia attempted to "kill" his children, and she was sent to a children's psychiatric hospital before staff moved her to an adult ward following their discovery of her pubic hair.
The parents claimed to Good Morning America that Natalia would leave thumbtacks on the staircase, and even tried pulling Kristine into an electric fence.
The couple separated and faced charges of neglect of a dependent after they moved to Canada with their three sons - leaving Natalia alone in a Lafayette apartment.
It is believed that Natalia was born with a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal, that according to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is "a rare genetic disorder that results in short stature and skeletal anomalies that primarily affect the spine and long bones of the arms and legs."
Attorney Beth Karas spoke with TMZ about the first episode and what viewers can expect. She said: "[The family] went to the court with an emergency petition and an affidavit from a doctor who had been treating her for the past few years who said that he did not notice any growth and there was no growth in four years.
"She was supposedly eight at the time. So he said, 'Well, you stop growing when you're 18. If she hasn't had any bone growth in four years, then she's at least 22,'" she continued. "And with a stroke of a pen, he went from age eight to 22 for Natalia. So she theoretically became somebody who could vote, drink, and drive."
The documentary airs today on Investigation Discovery.
