As we go into the month of October,everyone is getting into the spooky spiritand revisiting their favorite horror movies. A popular classic is the movieOrphan,in which a Russian orphan girl is adopted by a family, but it turns out that she is really an adult who is masquerading as a child and is prone to violent outbursts. Recently, the movie received a sequel, but oddly enough, the original, released in 2009, seems eerily similar to a real-life case that happened in 2010. The recent documentary,The Curious Case of Natalia Grace,tells the story of a Ukrainian orphan girl who was adopted by a family who claimed she was really an adult trying to kill them.
Natalia was born in Ukraine on August 07, 2025 (according to her original birth certificate) and was given up by her birth mother at the recommendation of the doctors due to her disability. Natalia was born with a rare form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, a bone growth disorder resulting in skeletal abnormalities. At a month old, she was placedin a Ukrainian orphanageuntil she was adopted by an American family at the age of four.
However, the family that adopted her had not been informed of Natalia’s condition, nor were they made aware of the surgeries and special accommodations Natalia would need for her disabilities, including custom shoes for her clubbed feet. Although we can’t be certain of their reasons, the couple decided to find a new family for Natalia. Eventually, in 2010, when she was six years old, Natalia was adopted by Michael and Kristine Barnett. And unfortunately, the story only gets crazier from there.
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Killer Con Artist or Neglected Child?
Kristine Barnett claimed that she began to suspect Natalia might be older than they initially believed after observing hair on her body that would indicate she was going through puberty. Kristine also insisted that Natalia had a period and was hiding her soiled clothes. Although Michael never observed such clothing or evidence of her having a menstrual cycle, he also believed that Natalia was older than six.
Kristine especially seemed shaken up about this possibility. She demanded that Natalia tell them who she really was and how many families she’d been with, even to the point where she would punish Natalia by forcing her to stand with her nose touching a wall for hours on end until she agreed to write down everything Kristine wanted to know.
The claims made by the Barnetts go even further, and according to Michael, they lived in constant fear for their lives with Natalia around. Supposedly,Natalia terrorized the family, threatened to kill them, and even attempted to poison Kristine by pouring kitchen cleaner into her coffee. Michael also stated that one night, they woke up to Natalia standing at the end of the bed holding a knife, waiting to kill them in their sleep. The Barnetts said they found knives hidden throughout the house that Natalia had stashed away, including in the couch, under her bed, and on top of the fridge.
Of course, this all strongly resemblesthe plot ofThe Orphanand begs the question, did the Barnetts take a page from the Hollywood thriller? Based on what we know from the documentary, child protective services were called on the Barnetts when they locked Natalia out of the house one night as punishment. Neighbors heard the little girl crying on the front porch for over an hour and called the authorities.
We later learned that Natalia had been forced for a time to sleep in their garage. After this particular incident, however, the Barnetts decided to have Natalia’s legal age changed and convinced ajudge that she was an adult. They then set her up in an apartment to live by herself and moved away, leaving Natalia to fend for herself at 9 years old.
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What Does Natalia Have to Say About the Situation?
In 2019, Michael and Kristine Barnett were arrested and charged with neglect of a minor and neglect of a disabled person. However, due to the legal age change that made Natalia 33 rather than 16, the charges for child neglect were dropped. And without knowing Natalia’s real age, the jury found Michael not guilty. Kristine’s trial was dismissed, and both of them stand by their accusations towards Natalia. However, the couple is now divorced, and Michael has come forward with another element to the story, claiming Kristine was also physically abusive towards Natalia and encouraged her three boys to torment her as well.
Natalia herself has spoken out once on the Dr. Phil show, denying that she ever tried to kill or harm the Barnetts. She also insisted that she was a child when all this happened and didn’t understand what was happening. To support her claim, as investigators were putting this case together, they located Natalia’s birth mother, who confirmed that she was born in 2003. So, how can we find out the truth of this case? Later this year,a second partof the original documentary will be released calledThe Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks,in which we will finally get an in-depth account of Natalia’s side of the story.
What will the new documentary reveal? We hope to get more clarity surrounding what really happened in this case and perhaps gain some insight into Natalia’s perspective. What did the Barnetts do to her? How was she feeling during the course of these events? Did she understand what was happening? How did she survive on her own? We hope all that and more will be explored inNatalia Speaks.
