A couple who adopted a six-year-old girl who was eventually determined to be 22 years old has explained in detail the terror that she caused them.
A new docuseries is due to air tonight which will unravel the bizarre story of Natalia Grace and her adopted parents, Michael and Kristine Barnett.
Titled The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, the three-part series will shed light on how the family came to adopt Natalia, and the series of events that caused them to believe her to be an adult.
Natalia, from Ukraine, first showed signs that she might be older than she made out after her adopted parents noticed she had full pubic hair and appeared to be getting her period, which shouldn't be possible at six years old.
Watch the trailer below:The couple, who have since separated following the ordeal with their adopted daughter, claims that Natalia displayed extremely concerning behavior and that she "terrorized" them.
According to Michael and Kristine, Natalia would defecate in their car and then proceed to smear her feces over the windows.
She would also leave thumbtacks on the stairs and the family believed that she was attempting to kill them, including their biological children.
Michael also stated that Natalia would "throw herself" out of the passenger door of their car in public to gain attention.
Scarily, Michael claimed that the Ukrainian-born woman would hoard knives and would tell him "I'm going to kill you in your sleep."
To further this, he claims that he would wake up at night and she would be standing at the foot of his bed wielding a knife.
Michael claimed that Natalia would attempt to drag Kristine into an electric fence and would attempt to poison her by pouring cleaning supplies into her coffee.
Natalia was sent to a children's psychiatric hospital before staff moved her to an adult ward following their discovery of her pubic hair.
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.
Despite there still being question marks over Natalia's true age, a judge at Indiana's Marion County Court determined that she was 22 years old.
Following the verdict, Natalia was presented with new documents after it was claimed that her Ukrainian birth certificate was forged. Her new birth date was set as September 4, 1989.
Beth Karas, a legal expert, explains in the docuseries how this age could still be wrong and it involves a search for her birth mother in Ukraine.
"This woman, Anna Gava, who is supposedly Natalia’s biological mother, just said she’s been going through this saga for 17 years," she said. "Well, she said that in 2020 - do the math. That means Natalia may really have been born in 2003, which is what she has said all along."
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."
The first episode of the series airs tonight on Investigation Discovery.
