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Florida? To. Means.

2:20

Malaise and you guys will

2:22

notice that this. Is

2:25

an oldie but a doozy. Not

2:27

that much of an oldie. A year

2:29

old a one is less than a

2:31

year old is. That if we

2:33

first releases episode can July twenty

2:35

twenty three and we have decided.

2:38

To. Pull it out of the archives now because

2:40

it. Takes. For.

2:42

The longest time with this

2:45

absolutely. Bat. Crazy case.

2:48

We'll. Only really sad. Michael.

2:50

Barnett's version of events. And. He's

2:53

a guy. He is. Indeed,

2:55

someone is that. Because.

2:57

Natalia side wasn't included

3:00

tool. In. The original

3:02

multipart documentary to Curious Case of

3:04

Natalia Grace. There.

3:06

Was a big black hole of

3:09

information and just so many questions

3:11

that were left on opposite. Now.

3:13

With the recent release of the

3:15

Nice six part documentary series Natalia Gray

3:18

speaks. We. Finally get to

3:20

hear what she has to safer. And

3:24

Oh. My. God. I

3:26

watched all six episodes.

3:28

And they are nearly. All an hour

3:31

long And it was. A

3:33

lot. Do I think they needed six

3:36

episodes new? I think they could have

3:38

said what they were trying to say

3:40

in about an hour and a half.

3:44

Dot is what they did. And yes, We

3:46

watched all of it at the end of it. while I

3:48

did think we got some. Interesting new

3:51

insights that wasn't exactly enough

3:53

for. Whole new episode over a hundred, despite

3:55

the fact that there was almost six hours worth

3:57

of content. So here is what we've done instead.

4:00

we have recorded an update on the case which

4:02

we're going to add to the end of our original

4:04

episode that you're listening to right now. And

4:06

in that update, we don't go into the whole backstory

4:09

again because we've already did that in a lot of

4:11

detail in the first episode on this story. So if

4:14

you know the case well enough and you

4:16

don't want to hear it all over again, you can just

4:18

skip to the end of this here MP3

4:20

in your phone and you can just check

4:22

out the update. However, it will

4:24

definitely make a lot more sense if you

4:26

listen all the way through. Yes. So unless

4:28

you're in a Thalia Grace savant. Oh my

4:31

god. Yes. And I think I am now.

4:34

So check it out. We'll see you on the other side. I'm

4:46

through. I'm Hannah. And welcome to

4:48

Red Handed. Yes. Welcome.

4:51

Come on in. The water's

4:54

horrible. It's fucking covered

4:56

in algae or something equally

4:58

horrible. But we are

5:01

here and we are ready to

5:03

get started with quite a

5:05

tale. The noise

5:07

you just heard was Mabel's tail bashing against

5:10

a metal pole. But

5:12

now she's gone to bed so it's

5:14

all going to be fine. Fingers crossed.

5:16

So in 2013, a bizarre

5:18

story hit headlines across the

5:20

world. An American family

5:23

who had adopted a six year

5:25

old girl from Ukraine had suddenly

5:27

abandoned her in an apartment in

5:29

Fayetteville, Indiana and run off to

5:31

Canada. The couple, Michael and

5:34

Christine Burnett, claimed the

5:36

Natalia Grace, a child with diastrophic

5:38

dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism,

5:41

was not in fact a little girl, but

5:43

a fully grown 22 year old

5:45

woman who had been trying to

5:48

kill their entire family. There really

5:50

is no subtle way to start this story with

5:52

a plot line like that. And with

5:54

comparisons to the 2009 horror Movie,

5:56

Orphan, that came out just a year

5:58

before the Barnett's adopted Natalia. Believe.

6:00

Me: This. Case it is kinda

6:03

weird. As a cat, I didn't. Realize

6:05

that this was after all. Of

6:07

us a year after. That

6:09

the non and ah, Sit.

6:12

A really understand just how been on as it

6:14

all his. Book. And have to some of the

6:16

beginning. Michael. And Christine Barnett

6:19

plus best three sons eleven year old

6:21

Take Nine. Year old Wesley. And. Six

6:23

year old Ethan. With. A picture perfect

6:25

family and I can't say the word

6:27

Wesley without thinking of out Wesley Snipes

6:29

off. Now

6:31

we're all thinking about it. So. You're.

6:34

Welcome for. Which you

6:36

connect? me a sucker Wesley: He's never gonna have arms

6:38

as good as What Success. Something.

6:41

To aspire trees, May we

6:43

all be more? Wesley Snipes everyday His arms

6:45

day when your name is Westlake Well it's

6:48

like I'm gonna start doing some serious arms

6:50

days cause I've got the were Bloody strapless

6:52

bridesmaid dress in September. House look This is

6:54

the fair. I have two weddings to go

6:56

see this year and they're both him peak com

6:58

and he's like on just like were a fucking

7:00

jumper li i would want to. So I

7:02

went to like my third Party Turn

7:04

class in probably about eighteen months Today.

7:09

Tix. We came down to the

7:11

studio which is in the basement. Of building we work

7:13

and I realize I forgot my had

7:15

said ah cool produces about biceps a

7:18

please can you britain had My fiance

7:20

isn't a topic for the or but.

7:23

Yeah. Well but once again I will just

7:25

complain about it and do absolutely nothing to. Write

7:28

the bonus. All. Had Wesley Snipes

7:30

songs and they lived in a huge American

7:32

house and some awesome county Indiana. And if

7:34

you check out the new Discovery Plus Ducky

7:36

series on the story which is quite satisfying,

7:38

The names to Curious Case of Natalia Grace

7:40

like it's just nice to say it's a

7:42

strips off the tongue them that. You

7:45

will hear Michael Barnett telling you

7:47

just how big their house was.

7:50

It was a whopping five thousand

7:52

square foot Kanye to stop. you

7:54

right back to his to hit

7:56

a curse i think americans don't

7:58

realize how much house for their

8:01

money they get. I think

8:03

the UK actually has some of the smallest

8:06

pound to square foot.

8:08

Yeah, apart from Hong Kong, I get. Yeah, yeah,

8:10

that you get. And Hong Kong is just like a weird anomaly

8:12

because they actually have loads of land, they just don't build

8:14

on it for some weird reason. I

8:16

watched a documentary about it because I'm

8:18

a boring person. In the

8:20

UK, 5,000 square foot. Are you

8:22

a billionaire? I don't even know

8:24

how many square foot my flat is but it's

8:27

probably like four. All I know is square foot

8:29

because I am house hunting. All

8:31

I know is square foot and let's just

8:33

say, I will have to

8:35

pay a Wesley Snipes

8:37

arm and a leg to be

8:39

able to buy a 1500 square

8:41

foot house and I will feel like it's a

8:44

palace. We walk into houses that are

8:46

1500 square foot and we're like, oh my god, it's so

8:50

big. It's so big. Well, so count your blessings,

8:52

America. Michael also

8:55

explains that the family had hundreds of

8:57

thousands of dollar ado's in the bank.

8:59

13 TVs, 14

9:02

couches and numerous fancy cars,

9:05

including an audacious yellow Lamborghini

9:07

parked out on the driveway.

9:10

Just like I think gold cars should

9:12

be illegal. I think yellow cars also.

9:14

Now, whether we find all that a bit

9:16

gauche or not, just a bit,

9:18

just a tad, Michael did seem to

9:20

have worked hard. He'd grafted and moved his

9:23

way up the greasy pole of the retail

9:25

industry to take district manager roles for

9:27

brands like T-Mobile and his

9:29

wife, Christine, well, she was no slacker either.

9:32

Aside from raising their three sons, Christine

9:34

was also a budding author and

9:36

motivational speaker. And in 2010, following

9:39

a diagnosis of autism for her and Michael's

9:41

eldest son, Jacob, Christine started

9:44

Jacob's place, a not-for-profit

9:46

learning center for autistic and special needs

9:48

children. And Jacob, or

9:50

Jake, is a fascinating kid. There

9:53

is actually, Hannah, an entire episode

9:55

of 60 Minutes just about him.

9:58

Their family's starting to get their 15 minutes. completely

10:00

separate from the whole Natalia Grace

10:03

thing that happened years before she's

10:05

even on the scene and that's because at

10:07

the age of two doctors had told the

10:09

Barnett's that Jake would never

10:11

even be able to tie his own

10:14

shoelaces but by 12 Jake

10:17

had taught himself calculus in two weeks

10:19

he was a maths prodigy with a

10:22

photographic memory and an IQ higher than

10:24

that of Einstein's Jake

10:26

was a fully fledged certifiable

10:28

genius and his parents were

10:30

of course immensely pretty. Christine

10:33

even wrote a much praised book called

10:35

The Spark about raising a gifted child.

10:38

I wonder what it feels like as a parent the

10:40

day you realize that your kid is smarter

10:42

than you are? Good question. Good question. Because

10:44

like with Mabel it's easy because I'm millions

10:47

of years more evolved than she is so

10:49

I'm always gonna win but what if you

10:51

have a genius child that's like actually you're

10:53

philosophically forward in these ways? I

10:56

mean you know it swings around a bit but

10:59

yeah they've got it all going on they've

11:01

got it all going on they've got the

11:04

perfect 5,000 square foot American house they've got

11:06

the genius kid and everybody's happy. And the

11:08

yellow Lamborghini. And the yellow Lamborghini. So I

11:10

really want to start singing yellow Lamborghini to

11:12

the tune of yellow submarine but

11:14

I'm not going because I don't think that's what

11:16

our audience is here for. No I've just got black and

11:18

yellow in my head but actually the meme version where it's like

11:20

Queen in yellow Queen in yellow because she

11:23

wore yellow to her birthday or something. Look

11:26

my brain is not a fun place to be guys and

11:28

sometimes I will invite you in but you don't want to

11:30

stay. So yes the Barnettes were

11:32

blessed in a lot of ways and

11:35

given all of their happiness and familial

11:37

bliss they decided it would be amazing

11:39

to bring another child into their enormous

11:42

5,000 square foot home. You've got to fill

11:44

it with stuff. You had people and kids.

11:46

TVs, sofas and human beings. So

11:49

with three boys already running

11:51

around the Barnettes decided to

11:53

set about looking to adopt a

11:55

little girl. And soon they

11:58

were matched with a child from Haiti called Huberta. But

12:00

then in 2010 when Haiti was rocked

12:03

by that catastrophic earthquake, the country shut

12:05

down all adoptions. And the Barnett's

12:07

knew it was unlikely that their plans would go

12:09

ahead anytime soon, if at all.

12:13

So imagine their delight when

12:15

another organisation called Adoption by

12:17

Shepherd Care, based in Florida, called

12:19

them saying that they had a little girl in

12:21

need of a home. This

12:23

child had dwarfism, and the

12:25

adoption centre explained that the Barnett's, with

12:27

their foundation for special needs kids, would

12:30

be the perfect fit. So

12:32

the family were sent two pictures of a

12:35

sweet little girl with brown curls and a

12:37

chubby face, as well as a Ukrainian birth

12:39

certificate. Natalia Grace, the

12:41

child the adoption centre had matched the Barnett's

12:43

with, was born on the 4th of September 2003,

12:46

making her six years old. The

12:50

same age as the Barnett's youngest

12:52

son, Ethan. How perfect,

12:54

Michael and Christine thought. The

12:56

two kids can grow up together, and it

12:58

looked like their family was finally going to

13:00

be complete. So the

13:02

Barnett's immediately jumped on a plane and

13:04

headed to Florida, complete with

13:07

matching home-made welcome home Natalia

13:09

t-shirts. But when

13:11

they arrived at the centre, because

13:13

it was a closed adoption, they weren't

13:15

given any more information about their new

13:17

would-be daughter. All the

13:19

Barnett's knew was that Natalia had been

13:21

adopted from Ukraine by another American family,

13:24

and that family didn't want her anymore. So

13:28

if the Barnett's didn't take Natalia that

13:30

day, the disabled little girl

13:33

would be going straight into care. So

13:36

probably feeling under quite a lot of pressure,

13:38

the Barnett's agreed to the adoption. And

13:41

when Natalia was brought into the room to

13:43

meet her new family, the tiny girl

13:45

bounced in a huge smile on her face, calling

13:47

them mummy and daddy. Michael

13:50

said that his and Christine's hearts melted,

13:52

and all of them were completely

13:54

overjoyed. And before returning to Indiana, the

13:56

Barnett's decided that it would be great to take all

13:58

of the kids to Disney World as they walked in.

14:00

already in Florida so why not and they could all bond

14:02

as a family. And there are tons

14:04

of pictures and home videos of them

14:07

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14:10

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16:44

According to the documentary, The Curious Case of

16:46

Natalia Brace, Christine decided to

16:48

give Natalia a pass. And

16:50

that was when she discovered, much to

16:53

her horror, that her new

16:55

adopted six-year-old daughter had full

16:58

pubic. Needless

17:01

to say, the Barnett's were pretty freaked out by

17:03

this, but they claimed that they

17:05

tried to accept it as an unusual but possible

17:09

situation. Especially when,

17:11

according to them, they were told that

17:13

the youngest age pubic hair typically shows

17:15

up is around age eight. Is

17:17

it? Apparently so. I have fact

17:19

checked this. And apparently… That's

17:21

not even precocious puberty. That's normal. It's

17:24

not counted as precocious puberty. So if

17:26

a girl starts her period or starts

17:28

to develop pubic hair at the age

17:30

of eight, that is the youngest range

17:32

that is considered non-precocious. Wow. Yes.

17:36

I also feel like… I don't remember pubes being a

17:38

gradual thing. I think it's just like the pubes fairy came

17:41

in the night and was just like, now you shall have pubes.

17:43

Yeah, I can't remember. I remember I started

17:45

my period when I was 13. So definitely

17:47

I'd say

17:49

slap bang in like normal range. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:51

I can't even remember. I was definitely in secondary

17:54

school though, I think. Yeah,

17:56

I was in a Morrison's toilet.

17:58

Oh no. I

18:00

went shopping with my mum after school one day, had really,

18:03

really bad stomach ache. I was like, I need

18:05

to use the looze in the supermarket. Went in

18:07

there, pulled my pants down and I was like, holy fuck.

18:11

And obviously it doesn't matter if you've already had

18:13

the chat, you know everything about periods, it's

18:15

still a big bloody shock, literally. So

18:19

no, age eight is not considered precocious.

18:21

It is considered within the normal range

18:23

of things. So you might be

18:25

thinking, dear listener, well, eight years old, but she's

18:27

meant to be six. Well, most

18:30

people who go through with international

18:32

adoption know that a

18:34

lot of the kids have their ages

18:36

reduced by a couple of years artificially

18:39

to make them more attractive to potential

18:41

parents. And equally, like this is something that

18:43

happens with refugee children quite a lot. If

18:46

they're from places where the political

18:48

situation is unstable, they might not necessarily have a

18:50

birth certificate, they definitely don't have a passport. How

18:53

can you prove it? You can't just chop their legs off and count the

18:55

rings, you know? It's impossible. Exactly. So I

18:57

think most people who get into this kind of

18:59

situation with an international adoption understand that there may

19:01

be a couple of years, give or

19:04

take, with the child that they're

19:06

adopting. So the Barnett says that because

19:08

they found this out, they were like,

19:10

okay, fine. So despite

19:12

their initial shock, the Barnett seemed to

19:14

have swept this hairy situation under the

19:16

rug. Are

19:19

you sure they didn't put it under the bush? So

19:22

many. Is it a bird in the hand or a

19:24

bird in the bush? A

19:26

bird in the hand is better than a bird in the bush? Sure.

19:29

All of those things. They talk

19:31

themselves, and tell themselves

19:34

that maybe Natalia was just a touch

19:36

older than they'd been led to believe.

19:39

But it was okay. Because when they

19:41

returned home to Indiana, outwardly, the Barnett

19:43

seemed to be fine, and

19:45

continued to present themselves as the perfect

19:47

family. They even threw a

19:49

huge party to welcome Natalia into the family,

19:52

where they invite all of their extended family,

19:54

all of their neighbours. They're very much like,

19:56

if they were surprised about that at

19:59

that point, and it continued. to be a fear for

20:01

them at this stage, they don't show it. They

20:03

very much welcome her into their family.

20:07

However, perfect wasn't

20:09

exactly the situation behind closed doors

20:12

because let's face it, it really

20:14

is. Natalia seemed to

20:16

have some behavioural issues which is not

20:18

massively shocking when it comes to a

20:20

closed adoption and we're not saying that

20:22

all kids who are adopted have behavioural

20:24

issues, obviously not a lot. What

20:26

we do know about little Natalia's

20:29

early life isn't great. She

20:32

was abandoned by the last family who adopted

20:34

her and she spent the years

20:36

before that in a Ukrainian orphanage with

20:38

a serious disability. So sure,

20:41

behavioural issues to a certain extent were to

20:43

be expected. And that's what we do know, the

20:46

fact that she was abandoned by one family

20:48

and that she had spent time before that

20:50

in a Ukrainian orphanage. We don't know anything

20:52

else about Natalia's childhood, about

20:54

her background. So what little we do

20:57

know is pretty bloody bad and

20:59

who knows what else has been taught. And

21:02

so what are these behavioural issues that we're talking about?

21:04

Well, in the documentary, Michael

21:07

explains that these issues initially

21:09

manifested themselves as problematic behaviour

21:12

towards his other three children. Natalia

21:15

would apparently steal their toys and

21:17

sneakily throw them into traffic. She'd

21:19

soil her sense and then

21:21

smear her faeces on the youngest

21:23

son, Ethan, in particular. She'd

21:26

threaten the boys with violence. And

21:28

these statements that Michael makes are backed up

21:30

in the documentary by his now adult

21:33

son, Jake, who says clearly,

21:35

there was fear. We were

21:37

scared of her. He's a

21:39

lot older than Natalia. She's six slash eight,

21:41

something like that. And she's very small. She's

21:43

very, very small for her age. But

21:46

again, in the face of these

21:48

kind of behavioural issues, the Barnett say

21:50

that they expected some level of maladaptive

21:52

behaviour. So they just tried to work through it.

21:55

And they say they never, ever considered giving her

21:57

back. They did, however, point out

21:59

the adoption. agency multiple times, but they

22:01

say that they weren't much help. So

22:04

the Bonettes found Natalia a therapist.

22:07

But then another discovery left

22:09

them questioning everything all over again.

22:13

One day Michael came home and

22:15

Christine asked Natalia to tell him

22:18

what she'd found hidden in her room that day.

22:21

Michael said that Natalia then told him

22:23

she had a period in that she

22:25

had been hiding it. And

22:27

apparently what Christine had found in her room

22:30

was bloody underwear. So of

22:32

course, now the

22:34

age doubts resurfaced. Yet

22:36

again though, the Bonettes say that they bush

22:38

off as possibly being something they just couldn't

22:41

understand. Maybe Natalia's condition made her

22:43

more likely to start puberty early. It

22:45

was such a rare type of dwarfism, it was

22:47

pretty hard to say what was quote unquote normal

22:50

for Natalia. We also know

22:52

that childhood stress and abuse can actually

22:54

induce girls to go into puberty early.

22:57

And Natalia certainly had a stressful life.

23:00

Nature, you're crazy. I know. It is

23:02

bananas. And no, I've already said that.

23:04

Human body, stop it. Yeah, no, I

23:06

looked that up. They never bring this

23:08

up in the documentary. They never sort

23:10

of really expand on this. So I

23:12

looked it up. I looked up like

23:14

can the impact of stress or an

23:16

abusive childhood lead to coming into puberty

23:18

earlier? Yes, apparently that is true. Apparently

23:20

you do see that being a case. And

23:23

also like the reason girls start going into puberty

23:25

much earlier now than we did like 50 years

23:27

ago is because of the lights we use.

23:29

What? Iridescent lighting is causing girls

23:32

to go into puberty earlier. Isn't that

23:34

mental? And also our diets, also the

23:36

diets that we follow these days. They

23:38

process food, etc, etc. It's

23:41

crazy. Don't we have enough to deal with? No, apparently

23:45

not. So yeah, like

23:47

Hannah said, the Bonettes understand that it's very

23:49

hard to sort of make comparisons between Natalia

23:51

and other children of her age because

23:54

of how rare the form of dwarfism

23:56

she has is and how that might

23:58

be impacting her physiologically speaking. Through

24:01

that foundation, the Barnett managed to find another

24:04

little girl who was not only the same

24:06

age, 6 years old, but

24:08

had the same exact condition

24:10

as Natalia. This was

24:13

very exciting. It would give

24:15

everyone a more like-for-like comparison and

24:18

also it would give both girls

24:20

someone that they could connect with as they

24:22

grew up. So the

24:24

Barnett arranged a meet-up with the other little

24:26

girl. Her name is Therese Ries and she

24:28

came to visit. But straight

24:30

away everyone, including Therese's mum,

24:33

was confused. Natalia and

24:36

Therese looked very different. Therese

24:39

was much, much smaller

24:41

and clearly much less

24:43

developed physically speaking. Their

24:45

faces looked so different. Natalia's features

24:47

in cheekbones, for example, are much

24:49

more pronounced. And

24:51

it is hard to look at the pictures

24:54

of the two of them, which we'll post

24:56

on socials, and say that they look

24:58

the same age. I do have to admit that

25:00

Natalia does look older. But

25:02

saying that, I don't know enough about

25:04

the condition to know if there wouldn't

25:07

be a lot of variations

25:09

in appearance anyway between different children that

25:11

have the same condition. I don't think anybody

25:13

knows that because it's so rare. There's not

25:15

like a big enough sample for them to

25:17

say, oh, the average size of a child

25:19

with this condition at this age is this.

25:21

This is what the average child looks like.

25:24

There's just not a big enough sample size. But

25:26

I do have to admit, when you look

25:28

at the pictures, Therese, who wasn't

25:31

adopted, who didn't go through,

25:33

obviously any child who's born with disabilities is going

25:35

to go through a difficult life. But what I'm

25:37

saying is like, she was with her birth mother.

25:39

She had like a normal middle class life. Whereas

25:42

Natalia has gone through quite a lot of

25:44

stress, as we'll go on to discuss probably

25:47

quite a lot of abuse, shifted from place

25:49

to place, grew up in an orphanage. Yet

25:51

she looks bigger and more

25:53

developed. It feels like it doesn't fit

25:55

for me. But again, it's not a definitive

25:57

black and white thing. However,

26:00

this once again amped up the Barnett's

26:03

fears that Natalia might be older than

26:05

they thought she was. And

26:07

it also pulled up another issue that had been niggling

26:10

away at the back of their minds. Natalia

26:12

hadn't been in the US that long. She'd

26:15

spent most of her life in a Ukrainian orphanage.

26:18

But she didn't have a Ukrainian accent. She

26:20

didn't even have a particularly far-relaxed accent. She

26:23

spoke English and read out loud with

26:25

relative ease and confidence. Everyone

26:27

just thought she was precocious. And maybe she

26:29

was. But it was just

26:32

another thing that made the Barnett's doubt

26:34

her age. And now

26:36

her backstory. Then one

26:39

night, the first incident that

26:41

truly scared the Barnett's occurred. They

26:44

heard a noise coming from Natalia's room. They went

26:46

to check. And they found

26:48

Natalia standing in the dark in the middle of

26:50

the room with a blank look on

26:53

her face. Michael asked her

26:55

what she was doing. To which Natalia

26:57

replied, Waiting. Waiting

26:59

for you to go to sleep. No. Unsubscribe.

27:02

Yeah. Now look.

27:05

Again, we have to be very clear that I

27:07

would absolutely recommend that people go watch the

27:09

Discovery Plus documentary on this case. I

27:11

think it's like five parts. It's very in-depth.

27:13

But let's also be very clear that it

27:16

is told entirely from the perspective of Michael

27:18

Barnett. Right. But

27:20

I have also, and we will come on to

27:22

this, watched an entire interview in which Natalia Grace

27:24

has given every opportunity to rebuff

27:27

these things, to deny these things, to come

27:29

back at some of these accusations. And

27:32

we'll come back to that later. We

27:34

have to take this with a pinch of salt. But

27:37

it's very hard to know where the truth lies in this case. But

27:39

we do have to tell you what Michael says.

27:41

And this is what he says happened. So

27:44

soon after this incident in

27:46

Natalia's room, Michael goes on

27:48

to say that one night they woke up.

27:51

So him and Christine woke up to find

27:53

Natalia now standing at the foot of their

27:55

bed with a knife in her hand. She

28:01

just replied, I don't know, dropped

28:03

the knife and quietly went back to her room.

28:06

The Barnett's also claimed that they searched her

28:08

room after this and found a stash of

28:10

knives under her bed. Up

28:13

until now the therapists the family had

28:15

been taking Natalia to hadn't really spotted anything

28:17

in her that was particularly out of the

28:19

ordinary. So the Barnett's moved

28:21

her again and again from clinician to clinician,

28:24

hoping that someone somewhere would give them

28:26

some sort of answer. And

28:28

now after the knife incident Michael

28:31

says that in the documentary that

28:34

a new therapist told them, you're

28:36

all in extreme danger, she's

28:39

a sociopath, you can't

28:41

help her, this cannot be changed.

28:44

Is that something a therapist would

28:47

say to a parent about

28:49

their child? No and

28:51

this is where everything gets a bit weird. Up

28:54

until this point when you're watching the

28:57

Discovery documentary, you do feel like

28:59

everything Michael is saying could be true. Although

29:02

you're under absolutely no illusions that Michael is a normal

29:04

trustworthy man, he's got a yellow Lamborghini for Christ's sake.

29:07

He's highly dramatic, histrionic even, and he

29:09

comes across as incredibly

29:11

unreliable. There's a lot of wide-eyed

29:14

screaming at the camera and banging fists on the

29:16

floor. And the more you listen, the

29:18

harder it becomes to take what's

29:21

being presented by Michael in the

29:23

documentary at face value. It is

29:25

bunkers. He is bunkers. Like watch

29:28

the documentary theory. And he

29:30

is in it for like 90% of the time. And he

29:32

is just so intense,

29:35

so extreme. To say he has

29:37

an extreme personality is a massive understatement.

29:39

He is out of his fucking

29:41

tree. There is no doubt. I

29:43

think the problem is a lot of people watching it might

29:46

think that he's been pushed to that because

29:48

of what's happened. There are receipts

29:50

that that's not the case. We will come

29:52

on to that. I don't think you suddenly develop

29:54

an extreme personality just because of this. But I

29:58

don't know. I don't know. And we have to. say

30:00

that quite a lot of what Michael says isn't

30:03

backed up by other people. The entire

30:05

documentary is from his point of view and there are

30:07

brief editions from Jake who was just a child at

30:09

the time and also his son and if your dad

30:11

is that much of a character you're probably not going

30:13

to get in his way are you? I feel

30:15

so sorry for Jake. He is

30:17

like this fucking child genius who

30:19

had all the possibilities in the

30:21

world open to him and

30:23

now he lives in Michael's basement. Oh and

30:26

I just I feel so sorry for Jake.

30:28

I just want to free Jake. Free

30:30

Jake. That is my big takeaway from

30:33

there. And even Jake

30:35

says if a therapist did

30:37

tell the Barnett family to do some of

30:39

the things that they did to Natalia then

30:41

that person should not have a license

30:44

to practice. He says it and he looks

30:46

uncomfortable as he's saying it but it's because you

30:48

can tell he's just such a pure soul he

30:50

doesn't want to throw his parents under the bus.

30:52

He also knows the difference between right and wrong

30:54

which is something I do not think Michael

30:56

or Kristine know for a fucking without a goat. And

30:59

what those things are that Jake is referring to,

31:01

don't worry we will tell you later on but

31:04

for now we need to stick with this line

31:06

of questioning. This idea that

31:08

a therapist would tell the Barnett's that

31:10

Natalia was a sociopath and

31:12

essentially there was no hope for her is

31:15

pretty shocking. It's not unbelievable

31:17

because we've certainly come across plenty of quacks

31:19

in the world of true crime but

31:22

shocking all the same. It

31:24

does seem like given that this

31:26

was the fourth therapist that the Barnett's had

31:29

taken Natalia to the family just seemed to

31:31

be going from therapist to therapist until they

31:33

found one that agreed with them. They seem

31:35

very much to be like therapist shopping

31:37

right until they get the answer they

31:39

want. Which as my therapist told me

31:41

this morning if

31:44

someone has repeatedly switched therapists that means the

31:46

therapist was getting close to the problem and

31:48

they didn't want to talk about it anymore

31:51

so they moved on. Interesting.

31:53

And I am currently going through a

31:55

mild obsession with Munchausen by proxy and

31:58

I'm listening to multiple podcasts. about

32:00

it because it's fascinating and you

32:02

know standby a partial hand imminently coming from me

32:04

on that. But in that it's very similar, the idea

32:06

of doctor shopping. You go from doctor to doctor to

32:08

doctor until you get one that's willing to go along

32:11

with your game. So

32:13

look, I'm not saying just because

32:15

they took her from therapist to

32:17

therapist that Natalia couldn't have had

32:19

sociopathic tendencies or even some

32:21

sort of personality disorder. We know

32:23

from the little we know about her childhood

32:25

that she grew up facing huge adversity and

32:28

instability and maybe worse as we'll go on

32:30

to discuss in a bit. We

32:32

know that those kind of things while it

32:34

doesn't happen to everybody can be the catalyst

32:37

for the formation of some sort of personality disorder

32:39

particularly antisocial personality disorder

32:42

sociopathic tendencies that is all

32:44

true. This

32:47

point of the documentary when

32:49

we hear Michael Bunnet telling you with such

32:51

conviction that a therapist had told him this

32:53

about his daughter was a turning point

32:56

for me that the Bunettes may not have been

32:58

all sweetness and like. In

33:00

any case Natalia continues with her therapy

33:02

and things do seem to improve at home

33:05

but then one day Natalia

33:07

and Christine were doing the washing up at home.

33:10

When Christine left the room briefly to

33:12

answer a call when she came back

33:14

she picked up her cup of coffee raised it

33:16

to her mouth and smelt something

33:18

hot. It smelt like chemicals

33:21

and that was when she spooked a bottle

33:23

of lemon pledge on the counter and

33:25

Christine completely licked. Michael

33:28

says in the documentary that he came into

33:30

the kitchen to find Christine screaming at Natalia

33:32

why did you do this to

33:34

which he claims Natalia said

33:37

I'm trying to kill you. So

33:41

the Bunettes took Natalia to the local stress

33:43

center which is a treatment center for mental

33:45

health conditions and they claim that

33:47

the experts at the center told them

33:50

to start locking Natalia in her room

33:52

at night. All

33:54

of this surprising to no one

33:56

had a hugely detrimental effect on the

33:58

Bunettes other children. So,

34:00

for the youngest, Ethan's seventh birthday,

34:03

the family decided to take

34:05

a trip to Traders Point Creamery. Here

34:08

the family started a country walk through the fields

34:11

when Natalia said that her feet hurt and she

34:13

needed to sit down. Christine

34:15

said that she'd stay with her so Michael and the boys went

34:17

on ahead. But a little

34:19

while later, Michael heard sirens

34:21

going off behind him. Immediately

34:24

concerned that something may have happened

34:26

to Christine, he ran back. Even

34:29

now, I'm like, why did you immediately think something would have

34:31

happened to Christine? You're just on a farm

34:33

and you hurt Florence. When

34:35

Michael got to where he had left his

34:38

wife and adopted daughter, he saw Natalia screaming

34:40

at Christine, I'm going to kill you, you

34:42

bitch. You're going to die. Michael

34:45

said in the documentary that he didn't

34:47

actually see what happened. But

34:49

according to what Christine told the police that

34:51

day, Natalia had tried to

34:54

pull her into the farm's

34:56

electric fencing. So the

34:58

police had been called by farm employees because Christine

35:00

was screaming so much. But

35:02

no one actually saw what

35:04

had happened. Though, other people who

35:07

work on the farm who were interviewed in

35:09

the documentary did say that they were totally

35:11

confused by what was going on. And

35:13

they really didn't understand why the child was

35:15

totally calm but the mother was causing such

35:17

a scene and making, in their own words,

35:20

the situation so much worse.

35:23

These witnesses also said in the documentary that

35:25

they didn't hear any threats or

35:28

screaming coming from Natalia. I

35:30

also find it quite hard to believe

35:32

that Christine couldn't have simply overpowered

35:34

Natalia, who on top of having

35:37

dwarfism, also had scoliosis. Why

35:39

did this situation escalate to the point that the

35:41

police were called? Michael's

35:43

explanation for this in the documentary is that

35:45

Natalia had very good upper body strength. And

35:48

I'm sure she did. In the home videos, it's pretty

35:50

clear that she uses her arms a lot to move around.

35:53

So she may have had good core strength,

35:55

but her arms were short with clear deformities, which

35:58

made it hard for her to move around.

36:00

her to even stretch them out completely. There's

36:02

so many home videos of her like we'll

36:05

come on talk about this later but like stretching

36:07

her arms out and you can see

36:09

she hasn't got that range of motion. Like

36:11

she cannot stretch her arms out to

36:14

this full extent and she

36:16

has got deformities in her arms so

36:18

it also means that she can't put

36:20

them straight they're kind of like bowed.

36:22

So whatever her upper strength I just

36:24

don't believe she's got the capacity to

36:26

do what Christine said she was trying

36:28

to do. And Wesley Siphons or no

36:30

Wesley Siphons, she's tiny. Yeah I'm not

36:32

saying again, I'm not saying that's not

36:34

what happened. I'm just

36:37

saying I don't believe Christine that she was

36:39

in as imminent danger as she made at.

36:42

Also I googled it like literally if you fall into an electric

36:44

fence it'd give you an unpleasant shock but it's not going

36:46

to kill you. Oh yeah I've done it many times. And

36:48

also the farm workers were like the electric fence wasn't even on that

36:50

day. Christine obviously didn't know that and

36:52

if you don't know it's going to kill you of course

36:54

it might be a scary prospect but

36:57

she's tiny. So

37:01

you know could Natalia, no

37:03

matter how old she is, realistically

37:05

have called Christine anywhere? We

37:08

can't say for sure. But I suspect

37:10

that the real reason the traders

37:13

point Creamery's situation happened is because

37:15

the Barnett's needed a public

37:17

incident on the racord. I

37:20

really do think that it was probably

37:22

staged by the Barnett's in an attempt

37:24

to get Natalia taken away from them. And

37:27

that way no one would be able

37:29

to blame them for giving up on this poor

37:31

disabled child because clearly she was a homicidal maniac.

37:35

And if this was their plan it kind of worked.

37:37

But after this incident Natalia was admitted to

37:39

the LaRue Carter State Circuit Cancer Hospital.

37:43

At this institution it is alleged

37:45

that Natalia told hospital employees that

37:47

she wanted to kill the entire

37:49

Barnett family. And in

37:51

the documentary you hear interviews with staff from

37:53

that institution who say that Natalia was aggressive,

37:56

manipulative and that she lied all the time.

37:58

And I do have to say. In

38:00

the documentary, it's sort of disembodied voices and

38:03

they just have like a finger beer on

38:05

the screen saying like, you know, blah, blah,

38:07

at the ruse, take her to hospital, whatever.

38:09

And I'm like, isn't there a thing of

38:11

like patient confidentiality where like actual nurses

38:13

and doctors wouldn't be able to say these things? So

38:15

part of me does wonder if they were like orderlies

38:18

or people who worked there, but then somebody

38:20

claims that they were giving Natalia an injection.

38:22

So then I'm like, who is this

38:24

person saying it? They're also all anonymous. I'm

38:27

not saying that she didn't exhibit troubling behaviour

38:29

at the hospital, because as we'll see, the

38:31

next thing you're about to talk about did

38:33

happen. Yeah. But it is all a

38:35

bit weird. When Natalia arrived at

38:37

the hospital, firstly, she was put on the children's

38:39

ward. But when her

38:41

pubic hair was discovered, she was moved

38:43

to the adult wing. Immediately

38:46

there are problems here. Like is that really enough to

38:48

move her when her birth certificate

38:50

says that she's seven years old? I

38:52

don't know what the actual fuck. It's

38:55

a hospital. Yeah.

38:57

Yeah. Baffed. No intermediary,

38:59

no adolescent wing. Yeah. It's

39:01

not like, oh, you've got pubic hair. You must be a 30 year old

39:03

woman. Right. Like what's happening?

39:05

Bizarre. And it just gets even more bizarre.

39:08

Because when Natalia was moved to

39:10

the adult wing because of her

39:12

pubic hair, according to the staff,

39:14

she started acting in an extremely

39:16

sexually provocative way towards the other

39:18

male patients. Apparently she'd asked

39:20

them if they wanted to be her boyfriend

39:23

and she's not talking dirty to them. And the someone

39:25

who claimed not to be able to speak English when

39:28

she first arrived at the hospital was

39:30

shocking to the students. But despite

39:32

the hospital employees trying to get her to stop,

39:35

Natalia apparently continued to behave

39:37

sexually. And a month later, she

39:39

was sent back to the Barnett's for

39:41

fear of her safety around the men.

39:45

What the fuck? There is

39:47

so much to unpack here. I like don't even know

39:49

where to begin. I feel like the most obvious

39:51

option is put her back on the child

39:53

wing. I honestly, why would she move to the

39:56

adult wing in the first place? And

39:58

when she's there, why would she? ever in

40:00

the presence of other adult male prisoners.

40:02

Why is that happening? If she

40:05

needs psychiatric care, surely the hospital is

40:07

responsible for providing that in a safe way,

40:09

not just kicking her out. You're running a

40:11

psychiatric hospital, do not tell me that there

40:14

are not vulnerable patients there. And this is

40:16

how you safeguard them? Firstly, by moving somebody

40:18

who's incredibly vulnerable with a disability, however her

40:20

behaviour presents itself, to an adult wing.

40:22

And then why is she even

40:24

around fucking fully bromended? It makes

40:26

absolutely no sense. And

40:29

also, why does everyone in

40:31

this psychiatric hospital, which is

40:33

literally equipped to deal with

40:35

people who are disturbed like

40:37

Natalia Grace's, why do

40:39

they? And everyone in the

40:42

documentary, and basically anyone who ever discusses

40:44

this case, ever ignore the most obvious

40:46

conclusion that there is to make, that

40:49

a child, because yes, I do

40:51

think that Natalia was a child, I do

40:53

not think she was six years old, but

40:55

definitely I do think she was a child.

40:58

Why does nobody talk about the fact that

41:00

a child who engages in sexually explicit behaviour

41:02

is most likely to have been a victim

41:04

of sexual abuse? Literally no one ever mentions

41:07

that anywhere. They're just like, oh, isn't this

41:09

weird? I'm like, no, she's probably been sexually

41:11

abused. But for

41:13

some reason, the psychiatric hospital didn't

41:15

think that there was anything they

41:17

could do. I don't

41:20

know your job. So

41:22

Natalia goes back to the

41:24

Barnett home. And pretty soon, the

41:27

Barnett family ended up on the

41:29

Child Protective Services watch list. Because

41:32

one night, in March 2012, the police got a call

41:36

from the Barnett's neighbours. Apparently

41:38

Natalia had been locked out of the house

41:40

all night with just a blanket. When

41:43

the police arrived, the Barnett said that they just hadn't

41:45

felt safe with Natalia in the house. And

41:47

for some reason, the officer didn't really

41:50

seem to do anything. He didn't separate

41:52

the family. He didn't arrest Michael. Christine

41:54

just did anything. If

41:56

he had just done a simple background check on

41:58

the Barnett's. he would have

42:00

found that the police had been called out

42:03

there before due to complaints of domestic violence.

42:05

Long before they adopted Natalia, which is why

42:07

I said at the start I do not

42:09

think that this whole like Michael Varna is

42:11

just as extreme as he is in the

42:13

documentary because he was pushed a breaking point because

42:15

of everything that happened after he adopted Natalia which

42:17

is very much a story he wants to paint.

42:19

Him and Christine were having callouts from

42:22

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42:24

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Land. And also, it's a bit confusing as

44:01

to why the Barnettes didn't do something about Natalia,

44:16

if they were that terrified of her. Why

44:18

didn't they tell the police that she was trying to kill them

44:20

again? Or at the very least, why

44:22

didn't they just take her back to the adoption centre?

44:25

They don't do either of those things. They

44:27

call the adoption agency multiple times to

44:29

ask for more information about her background,

44:32

but they do not report any of these

44:34

things to the police or social services contemporaneously.

44:36

They don't try to take her back. If

44:38

she's such a burden in your life and

44:41

it's disrupting your other three kids, why not

44:43

just take her back? I

44:45

mean, look, the only reason I can think

44:47

that they didn't do any of those things is

44:50

that they didn't want to tarnish their reputation as

44:52

the pillars of the community with their

44:54

foundation for special needs, kids and all

44:56

of that. And like, you know, Christine's

44:59

got a book to sell and they've really

45:01

branded themselves as this inclusive family that cares

45:03

about kids with special needs. And I think

45:06

they think if we give her back to

45:08

the adoption centre, especially after we threw this

45:10

massive fucking party welcome during to the family,

45:12

did all of this, made a big like

45:15

song and dance about it, we're going to

45:17

look really shitty. And I really

45:19

think that it is their main motivation. I

45:21

think if they knew if they sent Natalia

45:23

back, the picture perfect Barnette image would be

45:26

shattered. Yes, I agree. And I also wonder

45:28

if there was some, because

45:30

I don't think the Barnettes are

45:33

outstanding members of society. I

45:35

wonder if a bit of them kind of enjoyed

45:37

it. Oh, they are very extreme

45:40

personalities. And I do not think you're wrong

45:42

for a second. But

45:44

like I said, the only people that the

45:47

Barnettes did call was the adoption agency to

45:49

try and find out who the American family

45:51

was who had adopted Natalia first.

45:54

But they couldn't find out anything remember of

45:56

the closed adoption. However, it

45:59

seems... And this is what Michael

46:01

says in the documentary that the receptionist at

46:04

the adoption centre took pity on the

46:06

Barnettes and told them

46:08

to check Natalia's bags carefully.

46:12

And bingo! The Barnettes found an

46:14

ID card with Natalia's last family's

46:16

details on it. And

46:18

that family were Gary and

46:21

Diane Saccone from New

46:23

Hampshire. Live free or die. So,

46:28

when the Barnettes dug into this,

46:30

they found that Saccone's had actually

46:32

gone to Ukraine to the orphanage

46:34

and adopted Natalia in person in

46:36

2008, but within months of getting

46:39

Natalia to the US. Saccone tried

46:41

to offload her onto various other families.

46:44

They'd even gone to a Little People of America

46:46

event trying to find potential takers.

46:49

But everyone was suspicious of them, mainly

46:51

because they'd only had Natalia for a

46:53

year, and also because the Saccone's

46:55

wanted whoever took Natalia off

46:58

their hands to cover the $25,000

47:00

in fees that they had spent on the overseas adoption.

47:04

I don't think you can do that. Yeah, they're just

47:06

like, look, we tried, we did this, we

47:09

went all the way to an orphanage in

47:11

Ukraine, we wanted to adopt this little girl,

47:13

we paid $25,000, but you've only

47:15

had her. They literally stopped doing this within months

47:17

of bringing her to the US. And of course,

47:19

like the other families they approached are like, is

47:21

this just a scam? And

47:23

on top of that, if any of the families asked if

47:25

they could have Natalia psychologically evaluated

47:28

before they adopted her, the

47:30

Saccone's flat-haired refused. So when

47:32

they couldn't get an informal adoption to work for them,

47:35

they took Natalia back to the adoption centre,

47:37

where one year later, in

47:39

2010, she was adopted by the

47:42

Barnettes. So she's been

47:44

with them since 2010. Let's fast forward a

47:46

little bit now and come to 2012, whereby

47:49

at this point, everything in the Barnette

47:52

household has gone to total shit. And

47:54

the Barnettes found themselves desperate

47:57

to get Natalia re-aged. And

47:59

apparently we... aging children who

48:01

have been adopted, particularly international adoptions,

48:04

isn't unusual. Typically

48:06

when their real age comes to light, you

48:08

can go to court and present enough information

48:10

and get that child re-aged. So

48:13

the bonnets took Natalia to their

48:16

general practitioner and explained that

48:18

Natalia has periods, pubic hair, adult teeth,

48:20

we'll come back to this, and

48:22

say that in the last four years

48:24

since she came to the US, she

48:26

hasn't grown an inch. They

48:28

can see the height she was in 2008

48:30

like on her documents when she first came

48:32

to the US and they say that she's exactly the

48:34

same height now, which even with

48:37

dwarfism, wouldn't be the

48:39

case, that you would still grow. So

48:41

the GP compiled a report on the

48:44

matter and the bonnets went in front of

48:46

a judge. Now this GP,

48:48

just to make it very clear, was

48:50

no expert in dwarfism, let alone the

48:52

incredibly rare type of dwarfism that Natalia

48:55

had. No one that was

48:57

an expert in the type of dwarfism that

48:59

Natalia had was even consulted for this report

49:01

to be put together. So while I'm saying that

49:04

they said she would have at least grown a little bit in

49:06

those four years, I don't know, you just don't

49:08

know. No. Again, there's

49:10

not a big enough sample size and nobody who

49:12

was an expert who could have even pointed at

49:15

whether that was factually true or not was even

49:17

consulted. And they're probably quite hard to come by

49:19

if that particular type of dwarfism is as rare as

49:21

it is, like, but they don't try.

49:23

They don't try, not even a little bit. So

49:26

the judge, who was also not an expert in

49:28

any of this, took a look at

49:30

what was being presented to him by this

49:32

GP and the bonnets and did

49:34

a little back of the envelope calculation, eventually

49:37

concluding that if Natalia hadn't grown

49:39

in four years, and let's say

49:41

you stopped growing at age 18, she

49:43

must therefore be 22 years old. And

49:47

so, on the word of

49:49

this GP, the bonnets and this judge,

49:52

in 2012 Natalia was legally

49:54

re-aged from 8 years old to 22

49:56

years old. and

50:01

her birth year was changed on all

50:03

legal records from 2003 to 1989. Like

50:09

you. She's older than me. June

50:11

1989. So

50:14

that meant that Natalia was a legal

50:17

adult and therefore no longer entitled to

50:19

the Barnett's financial support. And

50:22

so as soon as the Barnett's got that

50:24

paperwork through, they set Natalia up with federal

50:26

benefits and rented her an apartment in nearby

50:28

Westfield. Christine paid

50:30

the first three months up front and they

50:33

gave Natalia some furniture and groceries. And

50:35

then they just left her there. And this

50:38

is where, my friends, we

50:41

call absolute bullshit. There

50:43

is absolutely no way on God's green earth

50:45

that in 2012 Natalia Grace was 22 years

50:47

old. But

50:50

guess what age you are legally obligated to

50:52

care for your adopted child until? Oh,

50:56

shuck. They want to join the

50:58

army though. Fine. They're convenient. Yeah,

51:01

very, very convenient that they managed to

51:03

get Natalia Grace re-aged to just beyond the

51:05

age for which they have to be legally

51:07

obligated to look after her. So

51:10

let's clear this up. We do

51:12

not think that Natalia was eight years

51:14

old in 2012 either, but

51:16

we certainly don't think she was 22. We're

51:19

also not saying that she wasn't troubled

51:21

and exhibiting serious behaviour issues. But

51:24

dumping this disabled child because yes, we do

51:26

think she was a child in a flat

51:28

on her own and just pissing off is

51:31

so fucked. And it's

51:33

astonishing that the state even allowed it

51:36

to happen. It's completely unbelievable. And

51:39

I don't know what would

51:41

have to be wrong with your moral compass for

51:43

you to talk yourself into that being the right

51:45

thing to do. Yeah. I

51:47

think this is the fundamental issue, right? That

51:49

people abuse children all the time. They neglect

51:51

children. They abandon children. All of those things

51:53

happen. In this case,

51:55

the state allowed this to

51:58

happen. And

52:01

they do not see what they should have

52:03

seen in front of them. This judge did

52:05

not see a vulnerable disabled child of questionable

52:07

age. And they

52:10

re-aged her to be 22 and allowed

52:12

these people to just dump her in

52:14

a random flat. And this

52:16

is my entire issue with it to come back

52:19

to your point of like what has to be

52:21

wrong with your moral compass because the barnet could

52:23

have just taken Natalia back to the adoption center.

52:25

Because I'm not saying it's easy to adopt a

52:27

child. I think what happened here is they think

52:30

let's make ourselves look great. Let's go adopt a

52:32

child from another country. Let's do an international adoption.

52:35

Let's bring this child into our home. And

52:37

you know there's also that like virtue signaling

52:40

that goes along with that. We'll look really

52:42

saintly for doing it. And I

52:44

think they were kind of addicted to the feeling

52:46

after they've filled in the foundation and stuff. But

52:49

when they found themselves unable to cope, when

52:51

they found themselves in over their heads with

52:53

this adoption, they could have taken Natalia Grace

52:55

Duke to the adoption center. And yes she

52:58

probably would have gone with kind of care.

53:00

But at least she would have had the

53:02

opportunity to end up in a decent home and

53:05

she would have had the opportunity to still

53:07

eventually be adopted again by somebody who could

53:09

have helped her. But instead

53:11

the barnets didn't want to ruin

53:13

their reputations. So they re-aged Natalia

53:16

through probably great time and expense

53:18

of their own hiring lawyers etc etc. They

53:21

made her sound like a murderous con

53:23

artist, again not saying she didn't exhibit

53:25

some troubling behaviour and then they left

53:27

her in that flat. They had other

53:30

options open to them that were more

53:32

humane and more decent but they

53:34

chose to do this. And

53:36

I think that is the fundamental issue.

53:38

That anybody who feels like even

53:40

slightly sorry for them that they may have been

53:42

overwhelmed by this adoption, they had other

53:44

options and they didn't choose that. I

53:47

also think they were probably worried that if they

53:49

had called the police or got social

53:52

services involved or tried to take her

53:54

back to the adoption center that maybe

53:56

Natalia might have told those people things

53:58

regarding the barnet's treatment of. her,

54:00

which we're going to go on to discuss. So

54:03

now Natalia is living on her own

54:06

in this apartment. Neighbours in

54:08

the area started to take notice of her. They'd

54:10

see her struggling with the bins or to

54:12

bring in the groceries that were dropped off by Christine or

54:14

Michael. Yeah, the neighbours in the documentary

54:16

say that basically like Christine or Michael

54:19

would just like drive up, drop

54:21

off groceries at the top of

54:23

the drive and then just watch as Natalia had to

54:25

drag them all back into the house. The

54:28

neighbours were completely confused. This person looked like a

54:30

child but Natalia kept telling all of them that she was 22 and after

54:33

spending time with her, the neighbours started

54:36

to believe her. Everyone there said

54:38

that when she played with the kids, she was like a

54:40

child but when she spoke to the adults, she

54:42

also fitted in with them. But one thing

54:44

was clear, all of the neighbours

54:46

thought it was obvious that Natalia needed quite

54:48

serious. She'd turn up at their

54:51

houses saying she was hungry, she'd just let herself in

54:53

if no one was home. She wasn't

54:55

taking care of herself, she was thirsty, she

54:57

was smelly and she rarely seemed to be

54:59

changing her clothes. The other thing

55:01

is that the neighbours say that she's smell

55:03

of BO. Children

55:05

don't have body odor. Again though, if

55:07

she has got periods and she's got

55:09

pubic hair even if she is 8

55:11

or whatever age, maybe that would also

55:13

start but it's just so confusing and

55:16

the fact that she tells them she's

55:18

22, if it is a

55:20

con, why doesn't she tell them that she's a child

55:23

in order to get that help or that attention? She doesn't

55:25

say she's 22, is it because she's so

55:27

used to just repeating what people have told her to do?

55:30

I don't know, it's very, very confusing and

55:32

I think it confuses the neighbours because they

55:34

don't quite believe that she's 22, they think

55:36

she's younger than that but she's telling them

55:38

that she is and she's also able to

55:40

hold these conversations with the adults but then

55:42

she also really enjoys playing with the kids.

55:46

It's really, really confusing. So

55:48

the neighbours also say that Michael was the

55:50

only one who really seemed to come and

55:53

visit Natalia and those who lived

55:55

nearby couldn't believe that this man who

55:57

drove a flash yellow Lamborghini made his

55:59

disabled daughter live in a place like

56:01

that on her own. So eventually, the

56:03

neighbours called the Department for Child Protective

56:05

Services, but since Natalia was now 22

56:07

years old, it

56:10

was passed over to Adult Protective Services. Over

56:13

the months that followed, things didn't get much better

56:15

for Natalia in the apartment complex. Neighbours

56:17

felt bad for her because she seemed lonely.

56:20

They also found her increasingly odd. She'd

56:23

wait on people's door stands, like Hannah said she'd

56:25

go into people's houses when they weren't there. She'd

56:28

tell them openly about having taken a knife

56:30

to her parents, trying to poison them

56:32

and having tried to kill them. People

56:34

were creeped out, and flirted complaining

56:36

about her to the agency that managed the

56:38

properties. One day, Natalia even

56:40

called 911 on herself. Jesus.

56:59

Yeah, so as you can hear, scary, scary

57:01

courses, you do understand that people like want

57:04

to be good people. They want

57:06

to help this person. But they're also

57:08

really creeped out by her. There

57:10

are very specific allegations made by

57:12

the neighbours that Natalia offered sex

57:15

to the older men who lived

57:17

there. Totally freaking out. And

57:20

sometimes, when she played with the little

57:22

boys, the parents said that they caught

57:24

her being inappropriate in how she was touching them.

57:27

And possibly the confusion arises here because

57:30

if Natalia was a child, then children

57:32

playing together, wrestling, roughhousing, no one is

57:34

going to bat an eyelid. But Natalia

57:36

is telling everyone that she's 22. So

57:40

to have a grown woman playing with your

57:42

kids like that would be disturbing. And

57:44

then on the flip side, if she was

57:46

a child, offering sex to men, again, feels

57:48

indicative of someone who has experienced

57:51

sexual abuse. But if she was

57:53

an adult, the playing with children could be indicative

57:55

of some level of arrested development. It literally is

57:57

just like layer upon layer upon layer. I mean,

57:59

please. The only thing I'm sure about

58:01

is that she's incredibly disturbed. Incredibly

58:04

so. And like something has happened

58:07

that we're not aware of. But she doesn't

58:09

talk about it. So

58:11

we can't know which is the case. We can't know

58:14

if she was a child or if she was an

58:16

adult or why she told people

58:18

that she was 22, if she wasn't really.

58:20

The only reason I can think is like I said,

58:22

Natalia just did what she was told to by the bonnet

58:24

for fear of what would happen if she didn't. Or

58:27

because she is a child who

58:29

was institutionalized, therefore maybe she does just

58:31

sort of go along with what she's

58:33

being told to some extent. I don't

58:35

know. It's really confusing. But

58:37

whatever the situation was, when Natalia's one

58:39

year lease was up due to the

58:41

number of complaints against her, the

58:43

lease wasn't renewed. So Christine and Michael

58:46

moved her into a new flat. This

58:48

time in Tippecanoe County, last

58:51

yet. And the flat

58:53

they moved her into was in a neighborhood

58:55

that was significantly more rough. They

58:58

also put her in a second floor flat

59:00

with no lift. In the American documentary, obviously,

59:02

they say in a first floor flat. And

59:04

I'm like, what's the big deal? Because

59:06

Americans say ground floor, first floor, second floor.

59:09

A second floor, but it's two Americans.

59:11

It's first floor. Because we just say first floor, second floor. And

59:13

I do think it is one of the few things that we

59:15

have got wrong and they have got wrong. So

59:18

yeah, she's on the second floor. She's

59:20

on the first. She's on the

59:23

second floor off the ground. So

59:27

with this whole like second floor flat

59:29

situation, whether Natalia was a child or

59:31

not, her physical disabilities were definitely not

59:33

being catered for here. But the Barnett's seemingly

59:35

had bigger things to worry me. Because

59:38

at the same time that they moved her into a new flat, 14

59:42

year old Jake had just been accepted onto a

59:44

master's program at the Perimeter

59:46

Institute in Ontario, Canada. Smashed

59:49

it well though. Thank you. And the whole

59:51

family was going to be going with him. Of

59:53

course, minus Natalia. And before

59:55

they left, they enrolled Natalia for an adult

59:57

GED class at a local college. gave

1:00:00

her back her cell phone that they had previously

1:00:02

confiscated. But they returned

1:00:04

it with all of the contacts deleted. And

1:00:07

then they fucked off to Canada. A

1:00:09

few weeks later, the Barnettes got a call from

1:00:11

Natalia's college saying that she'd stopped turning up to

1:00:14

class and they weren't really sure why. Doesn't

1:00:16

look like the Barnettes did loads to

1:00:18

try and check up on their daughter. Because

1:00:21

they were totally shocked when a few

1:00:23

days later the college called them saying don't

1:00:25

worry we found her she's

1:00:27

with a woman called Cynthia Mann. So

1:00:31

Christine finds Cynthia and calls her

1:00:33

and Cynthia tells her that yes Natalia is

1:00:36

with her and her family now and she's

1:00:38

fine. But when the Barnettes

1:00:40

discover that Cynthia has rerouted all of

1:00:42

Natalia's social security payments to herself and

1:00:45

sublet the apartment and was

1:00:47

taking that cash too, Christine was

1:00:50

pissed. She even called the police to

1:00:52

check on the situation. But as far as

1:00:54

the police could tell Natalia was indeed fine.

1:00:57

But that didn't stop Christine calling Cynthia

1:00:59

from Canada on a regular basis

1:01:01

accusing her of using Natalia for money

1:01:04

and telling her that Natalia wasn't all

1:01:06

she seemed. Saying she's

1:01:09

already had sex and been to a psych

1:01:11

ward. Which if she's 22 years

1:01:13

old what's the big fucking issue? Right she's already

1:01:15

had sex Christine. And also

1:01:17

all Christine wants is for Natalia to be

1:01:19

in someone else's hands so it's happened why

1:01:21

are you so worried about it? I think

1:01:23

it's because if you watch what they're doing

1:01:26

they try everything they can to isolate Natalia.

1:01:29

We'll go on to discover why they choose in

1:01:31

particular the flat and the area that they choose

1:01:34

to put Natalia in. But I think even

1:01:36

the last flat that they had put her in I

1:01:38

think they started to worry that all of these neighbours

1:01:40

were paying too much attention to Natalia. Right. When they

1:01:42

give her the phone back they give it back with

1:01:44

all of the contacts deleted. I think they

1:01:46

just wanted to like get abducted or murdered or die or

1:01:48

like set the house on fire or something. Even the fact

1:01:50

that they sign her up for GED classes. I'm like I

1:01:53

don't think they've done that at the goodness of their heart.

1:01:55

I think they've done it because she leaves the house every

1:01:57

day maybe something will happen. Maybe somebody will snatch her up

1:01:59

thinking. she's a kid and fucking murder her. Like,

1:02:01

I really think they just wanted her to go away.

1:02:04

They do not want her with anybody else because they

1:02:06

do not want her talking about what

1:02:08

they've done. And I

1:02:11

don't really think it's about the money either because

1:02:14

firstly, they're bazonka-loaded and

1:02:16

Natalia's rent was being paid using her

1:02:19

social security payments. So if

1:02:21

Natalia's living somewhere else, they

1:02:23

don't have to really bother doing that. So again, why? How

1:02:26

much money are you going to be getting from

1:02:28

like disabled social security that it's like worth causing

1:02:30

this fuss and like still being entangled in Natalia's

1:02:32

life? Like, if she's 22 now and she's gone

1:02:34

to live with another family and you're in Canada,

1:02:37

why not leave that alone? Yeah.

1:02:39

We think it's because Christine was a woman

1:02:42

very preoccupied with her image and,

1:02:44

as usual, power and control. And

1:02:47

by Natalia living with someone else, it made

1:02:49

her look like she was still a dependent

1:02:51

person, someone who needed taking care of. And

1:02:53

that doesn't look very good when Christine and the

1:02:55

whole family have fucked off to Canada, leaving

1:02:57

her in an apartment on her own and never going to see

1:02:59

her. The Barnettes always seem very

1:03:02

concerned with keeping Natalia isolated. At

1:03:04

the first apartment complex, they didn't like that the

1:03:07

neighbours were helping Natalia. In a

1:03:09

video that the Barnettes shot themselves that's in

1:03:11

the Discovery Plus documentary, the Barnettes

1:03:13

are questioning Natalia on where some

1:03:15

of the food in her flat has come from. She's

1:03:18

reluctant to tell them, but eventually she does say

1:03:21

that the neighbours bought it for her again.

1:03:24

Is it a fear that all of this reflects

1:03:26

badly on them or because they

1:03:28

don't want Natalia speaking to anyone and spilling

1:03:30

their secrets and telling people what they've done

1:03:32

to her? That's what I'm

1:03:34

leaning to, is that if she goes back into care,

1:03:36

she's going to spill. If she's hanging

1:03:38

out with other people, she's going to say that's

1:03:41

their fear, I think. Oh, absolutely. And if other

1:03:43

people like neighbours are taking pity on her, Cynthia

1:03:45

Mann is taking pity on her, they're helping her,

1:03:48

bringing her groceries, moving her into their

1:03:50

house, it makes you look like you

1:03:52

abandoned somebody who needs help, not

1:03:54

somebody who's 22 and just

1:03:56

so happens to have dwarfism but doesn't

1:03:59

need it. Any support can live a

1:04:01

totally independent life and go off to college and not worry

1:04:03

about anything. It completely flies in the

1:04:05

face of that, which makes you look like

1:04:07

a fucking terrible person. But if

1:04:09

that was their concern, nothing about what

1:04:11

they had done would stay secret for

1:04:14

long. Because in 2014, Michael

1:04:16

and Christine got divorced. Christine

1:04:19

stayed in Canada with the boys, and Michael returned to

1:04:21

the US. And in September 2019,

1:04:24

Michael and Christine Barnett were both

1:04:26

finally charged with neglect of a

1:04:28

dependent causing bodily injury and

1:04:31

conspiracy to commit neglect of an

1:04:33

independent. So these

1:04:35

charges are brought against them

1:04:38

because Natalia makes a complaint

1:04:40

at last. And, you know,

1:04:42

I think some people initially

1:04:44

watching the documentary will think that

1:04:46

Cynthia Mann is some sort

1:04:49

of con woman who's after this money. I

1:04:51

do not think that is the case at all.

1:04:53

I think Cynthia Mann and her husband, Anton, actually

1:04:56

genuinely care about Natalia. Because

1:04:58

every day that she goes to this trial that we're going

1:05:00

to go talk about, Cynthia Mann is with her. And,

1:05:03

you know, she's still in her life, Natalia

1:05:05

is still living with her. They do care about

1:05:07

her. So it's only after Natalia has sort

1:05:09

of been with this family for a while that she feels

1:05:11

ready to make this complaint to the police. And that's when

1:05:14

these charges are made. And almost

1:05:16

immediately after these charges were made against Christine

1:05:18

and Michael. Under

1:05:20

a whole fucking glory full of buffers.

1:05:23

Because he now says that Christine would beat Natalia

1:05:25

on a daily basis. He

1:05:28

claimed that he'd come home and Christine

1:05:30

would almost every day be playing the

1:05:33

who are you game with Natalia? Where

1:05:35

she would punish Natalia by making her stand

1:05:37

with her arms up against the wall for

1:05:39

hours. Or simply by beating the shit out of her after

1:05:41

berating Natalia to tell her the truth about who she was. Christine

1:05:45

would do things like give her a pen and pad and

1:05:47

be like write down the name of every single person you've

1:05:49

ever lived with. Write down your entire backstory. And

1:05:51

Natalia would just keep saying, and if she does, to

1:05:53

this day I don't know, I don't know, I don't

1:05:55

know. And Christine would just use

1:05:57

physical punishment to write down her story. for

1:06:00

harbor, but not for a convoy to killing the

1:06:02

tree. So Michael also said to prosecutors

1:06:04

that he was willing to say all of this

1:06:07

at trial to testify against his ex-wife in exchange

1:06:09

for the charges against him to be reduced. And

1:06:12

to be honest, Michael kind of had some

1:06:14

receipts. He had text exchanges between

1:06:17

himself and his wife, in which Michael clearly

1:06:19

says to Christine that she's been

1:06:21

beating Natalia, and Christine in

1:06:23

her replies defends her actions. She

1:06:25

never denies anything, and these are

1:06:27

contemporaneous tips. But in

1:06:30

classic Michael Barnett style, he goes way

1:06:32

too far with placing himself as the

1:06:34

victim. He claimed that he was

1:06:36

a victim of sexual abuse by Christine,

1:06:39

because she used sex as a

1:06:41

weapon and withheld it from him to

1:06:43

punish him. He literally says

1:06:45

that. Grow up with no, like,

1:06:49

I don't even know what the word

1:06:51

is, like no sense of self-awareness. He

1:06:53

constantly says that he is a victim.

1:06:55

Christine also abused him, abused the boys,

1:06:57

abused everybody. She was the main

1:06:59

sort of ringleader in this. I

1:07:02

believe that to an extent. But

1:07:05

Michael Barnett is absolutely complicit in everything that

1:07:07

happened in that house, because he's a weak

1:07:09

man. Yes, yeah. But to say that he

1:07:11

is a victim of sexual abuse because his

1:07:13

wife withheld sex as a punishment for him,

1:07:16

that's a toxic trait. It's not sexual abuse,

1:07:18

Michael. Yeah, exactly. You're a fucking idiot. And

1:07:22

you're complaining about that while you had a person

1:07:24

in your house, whatever age she was with the

1:07:26

disability who was being physically abused by your

1:07:28

wife. So shut the fuck up. But

1:07:31

in the documentary, Jake, who, like I

1:07:33

said, now lives in Michael's basement, and

1:07:35

I'm like, free Jake. He's

1:07:38

now estranged from his mother, Christine. And

1:07:40

I do think he's a far, far

1:07:42

more reliable witness. And he also

1:07:44

says in the documentary that he knows his

1:07:46

mum wasn't innocent, but that he still

1:07:48

has to try and protect her. He explains

1:07:50

that he's tried to talk to Christine about everything

1:07:52

that happened and that all he wanted was an

1:07:54

apology, but that he didn't get one. And

1:07:57

that tells you everything you need to know about Christine Barnett.

1:08:00

What specifically Jake is referring to here

1:08:02

when he wants an apology? Well,

1:08:04

it becomes clear during the course of

1:08:06

the documentary that Natalia wasn't the only one

1:08:08

who was victimised by Christine. Jake

1:08:11

admits that his mum made

1:08:13

him urinate and defecate on

1:08:15

Natalia's bed and on her

1:08:17

belongings as punishment when

1:08:19

Natalia didn't follow Christine's rules.

1:08:22

What? That's horrific! And

1:08:25

he looks so filled with

1:08:27

shame and horrified when

1:08:29

he tells that story about what

1:08:31

he was made to do. And

1:08:34

the documentary, in a jinx-esque

1:08:36

moment, even caught some

1:08:38

stuff that Jake says off-camera into a

1:08:41

hot mic. And basically, I

1:08:43

want you guys to go watch the documentary because it

1:08:46

is flawed in the sense that it

1:08:48

is very one-sided from Michael's perspective. But,

1:08:51

like, you know, they've done good

1:08:53

work producing it. Basically, what he's

1:08:55

referring to is an incident of kicking

1:08:57

down the stairs. Given

1:09:00

all of the accusations, prosecutors decided

1:09:02

to try Michael and Christine separately.

1:09:05

I think they figured out that they had a better

1:09:07

shot at conviction with separate rules. They

1:09:09

started with Michael. His trial kicked off

1:09:11

on the 23rd of October, 2022. The

1:09:14

entire trial was based on whether or not

1:09:17

Michael had abandoned his adopted

1:09:19

daughter Natalia. The problem

1:09:21

was that Natalia's legal age was now

1:09:23

32. And

1:09:26

the question of whether she really was 22 or

1:09:30

a minor when the Barnett's left her in that apartment in 2012 was

1:09:32

not allowed to be brought up in court at all. Nope.

1:09:36

It wasn't even to be a part of

1:09:38

the question hanging in the air. Nothing

1:09:40

was to be mentioned about that. So

1:09:43

as far as everybody knows, she was 22. Including

1:09:46

the jury. As far as the

1:09:48

jury could tell, Natalia had a disability when

1:09:50

she was abandoned by Michael and Christine, but

1:09:52

she was also 22 and legally an adult.

1:09:55

So the jury were basically being forced to decide

1:09:58

if Natalia was too vulnerable. to have

1:10:00

been left. It was nothing

1:10:02

to do with how old she was. Yep, it was

1:10:04

never ever a decision based on her age. And

1:10:07

in the documentary you get a behind-the-scenes

1:10:09

look at Michael's defense team

1:10:12

preparing for his trial. And

1:10:14

honestly they are all as fucking weird

1:10:16

and over-acty as he is. It's like

1:10:19

painful to watch the last like episode

1:10:21

and a half of that series because

1:10:23

they just they make me cringe so hard.

1:10:26

But they do find out quite a lot

1:10:28

about Christine during discovery. Like

1:10:31

the fact that while she and Michael were still

1:10:33

married Christine had been having an affair with another

1:10:35

man. Physical affair. And

1:10:38

she'd also been sending pretty explicit texts

1:10:41

and raunchy pictures of herself to a

1:10:43

number of other men. So

1:10:45

the bottom line is that Michael found out a

1:10:48

lot of shit about Christine and

1:10:50

he was fucking raging. Michael's

1:10:53

attorney told him repeatedly, however

1:10:56

you might feel about her now, do not

1:10:58

bring up Christine, your wife, at

1:11:00

trial. They literally scream

1:11:02

at him. But Michael just

1:11:05

could not help himself. He told

1:11:07

the court that Christine had told him we'll

1:11:09

put her in Lafayette because it's a white trash town

1:11:11

and no one will care or worry about her. This

1:11:14

is a bad, bad move. Bad move.

1:11:16

Because he was married to

1:11:18

Christine at the time. So he's

1:11:21

basically admitting in court that

1:11:23

they did abandon her and that

1:11:25

they as a couple specifically chose an

1:11:27

area to leave Natalia where they thought

1:11:30

that they would get away with it. He's

1:11:33

looking so stupid. Why

1:11:35

would you say that? Why would you say that?

1:11:37

I just don't know. And

1:11:39

at Michael's trial Natalia took the stand herself.

1:11:43

When she was questioned about the entire situation

1:11:46

she just kept saying again and

1:11:48

again, I don't remember. Now

1:11:50

look, if you consider the possibility that she was

1:11:52

actually a child when a lot of the things

1:11:54

that she was being questioned about at trial had

1:11:56

happened, it kind of does make sense that

1:11:59

she may not be able to... remember. But

1:12:02

to jurors who weren't even

1:12:04

aware of the age dispute, not

1:12:06

only is it not allowed to be brought up, they're not even

1:12:08

aware that there was an issue with her age, because age is

1:12:11

22 at the time. Her

1:12:13

claiming not to remember anything looks

1:12:16

really weird and looking suspicious, especially

1:12:19

seeing as it was her that had brought the

1:12:21

case against Michael. So

1:12:23

eventually Michael was found not guilty.

1:12:25

Rage. Yeah. Rage,

1:12:27

rage, rage. Rage all over the page. And

1:12:30

unbelievably, all charges against

1:12:32

Christine were also eventually dropped

1:12:35

when the prosecution decided that they didn't

1:12:37

have enough evidence against it. After

1:12:40

Michael's trial in 2019, our

1:12:42

favourite non-Doctor Doctor got involved. That's

1:12:45

right. Dr Phil, Dr

1:12:47

Phil and all of his hundreds

1:12:50

of millions, landed an exclusive interview

1:12:52

with Natalia and her new family, Cynthia

1:12:54

Mann and her husband Anton. And

1:12:57

this interview, obviously, focuses very heavily

1:13:00

on Natalia's age. After

1:13:02

this episode aired, jurors from Michael

1:13:04

Barnett's trial were horrified. Some

1:13:06

of them even said that if they had known

1:13:09

there was a possibility that Natalia was under 16

1:13:11

when the family left her, they would have

1:13:13

found Michael guilty. But that's

1:13:15

double jeopardy. Let's

1:13:17

talk about that Dr Phil episode in a bit more detail.

1:13:19

You have probably seen clips of it, I know I have.

1:13:22

And begrudgingly, we do have to say that

1:13:24

Dr Phil does quite a good job here.

1:13:27

He's kind, gentle, sympathetic, but

1:13:29

still manages to ask Natalia important

1:13:31

probing questions. And Natalia

1:13:33

just repeats what she did in court. She

1:13:35

just says, I don't remember, to almost all

1:13:37

of Dr Phil's questions. And while

1:13:40

you could say it was because she was

1:13:42

young when it happened, you also

1:13:44

have to admit that in historic child abuse

1:13:46

cases, adult survivors can recall the

1:13:48

details of what happened to them

1:13:50

quite often. But Natalia just won't

1:13:52

say anything. them

1:14:00

put her back in the system, then Natalia

1:14:02

just repeatedly says, I don't know.

1:14:05

Basically she tells the story of this foster

1:14:07

family who had her who gave her back and

1:14:09

she says this, she says I was

1:14:11

very close to my foster brother there and we used

1:14:13

to ruffle. Then one day I landed on

1:14:15

his arm weird and his mum was like, I

1:14:17

can't do this anymore. And

1:14:19

that's when they gave her back to

1:14:22

the system. And when Dr.

1:14:24

Phil asks her, what do

1:14:26

you think she meant by this? And

1:14:29

she said, I can't do this anymore. Natalia

1:14:31

just says, I don't know. She

1:14:34

won't even speculate on people's motivations.

1:14:37

Like this isn't something she's being

1:14:39

asked to remember. She's just being

1:14:41

asked to reflect upon why

1:14:43

that situation may have

1:14:45

come about. But she just says, I don't know. And

1:14:48

that does come across a bit weird. But

1:14:50

then again, she was in the system and

1:14:53

looked after children have a lot of challenges

1:14:55

to overcome. In my past life,

1:14:57

many, many years ago, obviously I used to

1:14:59

produce child protection conferences, we used to do

1:15:02

specific events on looked after children because the

1:15:04

challenges they have to overcome are

1:15:06

immense. And often when they're moved

1:15:08

from home to home family to family,

1:15:10

each time they have to readjust, learn

1:15:12

a brand new set of rules and

1:15:14

culture of that house and fit into

1:15:16

a group of brand new people. There's

1:15:18

a reason that children who leave care

1:15:20

suffer from the highest levels of suicide

1:15:22

in this country and in the worst that

1:15:24

nobody ever talks about that. And

1:15:27

this kind of trauma can lead to what

1:15:29

you see in Natalia. She has very contained

1:15:32

emotional responses and a very

1:15:34

shallow affect. She doesn't

1:15:36

come across as totally believable during the

1:15:38

Dr. Phil interview. And at times, she

1:15:40

definitely pretends to cry, which does

1:15:42

come across as manipulative. And

1:15:45

as empathetic beings, we hate shallow affect.

1:15:47

It's like we cannot stand it, but it's

1:15:49

also something she can't Again,

1:15:51

we're not saying that all people

1:15:54

who are in care exhibit behaviors

1:15:56

like these, but it's likely that it was

1:15:58

in care that Natalia learned to

1:16:00

somewhat shut down her emotions and mimic

1:16:02

behaviours just to get by. So,

1:16:05

question ruined. Lightning round to sudden

1:16:07

death. Is Natalia Grace

1:16:10

leaving? Pass. I don't know. No,

1:16:12

I don't know. And if you watched the Doctor

1:16:14

Full interview, she only denies

1:16:16

things that are really easy

1:16:18

to prove. Everything else

1:16:20

she says, I don't know. I don't remember.

1:16:23

And it is strange. Question

1:16:25

number two. Was she a child when the

1:16:27

Barnetts adopted her? I'm

1:16:29

going to go with props. I don't know

1:16:32

how old, but I would say, you know

1:16:34

what? I'm going to go for 14. OK. So,

1:16:37

not six and certainly not in her 20s. And

1:16:41

we've got another hard evidence reason to think of

1:16:43

this. A PI went to

1:16:45

Ukraine to find Natalia's birth mother and

1:16:48

they proved it was her with a DNA test.

1:16:50

And that woman was not even old enough

1:16:53

to have a 22-year-old daughter. She'd have

1:16:55

had to have her daughter when she was like seven.

1:16:57

Right. For Natalia Grace to have been 22 in 2012. So

1:17:01

that, you know, we can just put back to

1:17:03

bed immediately. And the fact

1:17:05

that she hasn't automatically had her birth certificate

1:17:07

changed and been legally reaged in the US

1:17:10

based on that fact alone is shocking. Yeah.

1:17:12

So, yeah, look, I'm

1:17:15

going to tell you what I think

1:17:17

happened. Right. I think that Natalia was

1:17:19

probably six or seven when

1:17:21

she first came to the US in 2008. And

1:17:24

that's when she was adopted by the Saccones. And

1:17:27

I think that because in

1:17:29

her picture that was taken when she entered the

1:17:32

US, Natalia has missing

1:17:34

front teeth. And, you know,

1:17:36

we mentioned earlier about the adult teeth situation, like this

1:17:38

is where we're coming back to. And

1:17:41

six or seven is usually the age

1:17:43

that children lose those teeth. You lose

1:17:45

your molars much later, but you lose

1:17:48

those front teeth around age six or seven. So

1:17:50

let's say she's seven. Worst

1:17:53

case in 2008. That

1:17:55

means that in 2010, when the

1:17:57

bonnets came onto the scene, Natalia would...

1:18:00

probably have been around age eight or nine.

1:18:02

Let's go with nine to give, you know,

1:18:04

the top end. Meaning

1:18:07

if you're nine that the pubic hair and

1:18:09

periods, although never corroborated by anybody else other

1:18:11

than the bonnets, which is important to say,

1:18:13

and her current family, Cynthia Mann says that

1:18:15

she's never had a period since she's been

1:18:17

with her, the periods and the pubic

1:18:19

hair could have been true because she was

1:18:21

nine years old and it fits within the

1:18:23

normal range of time that that happens. So

1:18:25

if we follow that same pattern of thinking,

1:18:27

that means that by the time the bonnets

1:18:30

abandoned her in 2012, Natalia

1:18:32

Grace was probably 10 or 12.

1:18:34

And you know, if she was 12 and

1:18:37

she was being forced to live

1:18:39

in a room with absolutely no

1:18:41

like account taken for her disabilities,

1:18:43

it's still too. Absolutely.

1:18:46

Absolutely. The robotical how

1:18:48

she managed to survive is quite frankly

1:18:50

beyond me. And the other thing is

1:18:53

if this was all a con, if this was a

1:18:55

con run by Natalia Grace in order to just you

1:18:57

know, have the easy life and live with an American

1:18:59

family and like be looked after like she was a

1:19:01

little kid. I think it is weird

1:19:03

that in the Dr. Phil interview, which you

1:19:05

can think what you want about Dr. Phil

1:19:07

is the only thing we have where it's

1:19:10

completely Natalia opportunity to speak freely to

1:19:12

say whatever she wants. Natalia never really points

1:19:14

out her disability for pity or to add

1:19:16

to whatever con people might accuse her of

1:19:18

running. If I was her, I

1:19:20

would double down hard on the disability. I would double

1:19:23

down hard on the fact that I was a child

1:19:25

when they left me, but she kind of doesn't really

1:19:27

do. Now I'm not

1:19:29

saying again that Natalia is totally as

1:19:31

innocent, but it wouldn't melt as she

1:19:33

puts herself across in the interview either.

1:19:35

Because we have to admit that there

1:19:38

was a pattern of behavior from Natalia that

1:19:40

was witnessed by multiple unconnected people. The

1:19:42

Barnett's have difficulties with her.

1:19:44

The Succone's had difficulties with her. The Foster

1:19:46

family she was placed with had difficulties with

1:19:49

her. And all of the people that live

1:19:51

near her in that first flat had found

1:19:53

her behavior to be strange. She

1:19:56

made people feel uncomfortable and she did inappropriate things,

1:19:58

but again, she was a child. child who

1:20:01

was my factory abused." So

1:20:03

it could be that Natalia was just a damaged

1:20:05

child who needed a lot more support

1:20:07

than she got. And then the age issue

1:20:09

raised by the Branettes muddied the waters. But

1:20:12

when you watch Natalia in the

1:20:14

Dr Phil interview, it is odd. For

1:20:17

example, when she's watching a clip of Christine

1:20:19

talking about things like the pledge poisoning attempt

1:20:21

and the knives, there's no look of anger

1:20:23

on Natalia's face. Someone was

1:20:25

making wild accusations about me or saying

1:20:27

things that were absolutely not true. I'd

1:20:30

be furious. And also Natalia

1:20:32

never actually denies that she poured lemon

1:20:34

bludge into Christine's coffee or that she

1:20:36

tried to pull her into the electric

1:20:38

fence at the dairy farm that day.

1:20:40

She also never denies the knife situation

1:20:42

or, you know, the whole standing in

1:20:44

her bedroom telling them she was waiting until

1:20:46

they go to bed. She never denies any of it. And

1:20:49

she even says that what the

1:20:51

documentary people heard was quote,

1:20:53

Christine's side. Natalia doesn't say that it's

1:20:55

not true. And she doesn't call Christine

1:20:58

a liar, which again, I don't

1:21:00

know. I don't know. I would say, why

1:21:02

wouldn't you make a full-throated accusation and

1:21:05

say she is a liar. These are

1:21:07

lies. They are not true. She doesn't

1:21:09

say that. She says that's Christine's side.

1:21:12

Even when Phil in the interview

1:21:15

asks Natalia how she managed for

1:21:17

all that time living on her own. Natalia

1:21:19

is quite nonchalant about the whole thing. If

1:21:22

she really had been born in 2003, as Natalia maintains to be the

1:21:26

case, she would have been just eight

1:21:28

years old when she was left. But

1:21:30

somehow she fed herself, took herself to

1:21:33

school, sorry, took herself to adult college,

1:21:35

lived in flats that again had no

1:21:37

modifications made for her disability. But somehow

1:21:39

she managed. It's not impossible.

1:21:41

I grant you that. But it

1:21:43

is weird. And in the

1:21:45

interview, she just says it wasn't that

1:21:47

long. But it was that long. She

1:21:49

was there for like a year in the first few.

1:21:52

So why does she say it wasn't that long? Is it

1:21:54

because she is older and she was

1:21:56

capable of like taking care of herself and she doesn't

1:21:58

want it to seem like. she did

1:22:00

take care of herself for that long on her own.

1:22:02

I don't know, it's really confusing. It's

1:22:05

also worth pointing out something that Phil himself mentions, which

1:22:07

I know to be true. Children

1:22:10

who have been institutionalized, or in

1:22:12

care, tend to have a developmental

1:22:14

delay. So they tend to

1:22:16

operate developmentally at an age a few years

1:22:18

younger than they actually are. And

1:22:21

this makes sense. That level of disruption in the early years

1:22:23

to a child is going to make it harder for them

1:22:25

to progress at the same rate as their peers. Now

1:22:28

obviously with work, that gap can be closed

1:22:30

over time. But if Natalia was

1:22:32

eight when she was left in that

1:22:34

flat on her own, she

1:22:37

was probably developmentally more like a six-year-old. And

1:22:40

I don't have that much experience with children,

1:22:42

but ACD's nephew is six years old. I

1:22:45

cannot imagine for one single second

1:22:47

him living alone and looking after

1:22:49

himself. But then

1:22:51

again, kids are adaptable. So I don't

1:22:53

know. And like, I'm not saying

1:22:55

that what she did wasn't impressive, but she

1:22:58

didn't look after herself. She wasn't clean. She

1:23:00

was showing up at people's houses saying she

1:23:02

was hungry. Like, that's quite childlike behavior to

1:23:04

me. So

1:23:06

essentially, as usual, the

1:23:09

reality is somewhere in between the two

1:23:11

stories. Somewhere in the middle

1:23:13

of what the Barnett's claim and what Natalia says. I

1:23:16

don't think she was as young as she said she

1:23:18

was. But again, to lie about

1:23:20

her age probably wasn't a choice that she was

1:23:22

in control of. It was probably a choice made

1:23:25

by people at the adoption center who were trying

1:23:27

to get rid of her. And

1:23:29

as for the poisoning attempts and the knives in her room

1:23:31

and threats of violence and murder, Natalia

1:23:33

is someone who spent her entire life

1:23:35

no doubt feeling completely powerless, absolutely

1:23:38

no control. So these were probably

1:23:40

tactics that she used in the face of

1:23:42

an abusive woman like Christine to

1:23:44

protect herself. And there are a lot

1:23:47

of people who've been through a lot less who've done

1:23:49

much worse. Oh, absolutely. I think the

1:23:51

impulsivity, the inability to predict outcomes and the

1:23:53

shallow effects that you see in Natalia, they

1:23:55

are all signs of trauma.

1:23:58

Mm-hmm. They

1:24:00

may have led to her doing weird stuff

1:24:02

if, for example, the inappropriate behaviour with other

1:24:04

kids in sexually provocative ways she was with

1:24:06

some men is true, they are

1:24:08

again signs of trauma and not necessarily

1:24:11

signs that she was fucking homicidal. And

1:24:13

I think the worst thing about this case is absolutely,

1:24:16

I do think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

1:24:18

Natalia isn't innocent. She

1:24:21

was at some point an innocent

1:24:23

child. She was clearly abused. I

1:24:25

do think the Barnett's adopted her were well over

1:24:27

their heads and didn't know what to do. And

1:24:30

they made the worst possible series of

1:24:32

choices. Yeah. Christine Barnett is

1:24:34

an abusive woman who should be in prison. I

1:24:37

also believe Michael Barnett should be because he witnessed it

1:24:39

on a daily basis and did nothing to stop it.

1:24:42

And I think that the worst thing about this entire

1:24:44

story is that I think the adoption centre wanted to

1:24:46

get rid of her because I think they found it

1:24:48

difficult to place in a home because of

1:24:50

her behavioural issues. And the state

1:24:52

is absolutely complicit in what happened in

1:24:55

Natalia Grace. If she had just

1:24:57

been placed with any other family,

1:24:59

I think they either would have found her behaviour really

1:25:01

challenging and given her back into the adoption centre or

1:25:04

they would have found a way to cope. That wasn't

1:25:06

this. Yeah. Appalling. They're

1:25:08

appalling people. They're appalling people and what you have

1:25:11

here is a child who was traumatised, most likely

1:25:13

sexually abused, God knows what happened to her in

1:25:15

that Ukrainian orphanage. I don't think she was telling

1:25:17

the truth about her age but like you said, I don't think it

1:25:19

was a decision made by her. And

1:25:21

Christina Michael Barnett should be fucking behind bars.

1:25:25

And that's it. And that's the truth. And

1:25:27

that is the truth. And I think in the

1:25:29

documentary, a lot of people say, there's more than

1:25:32

one villain in this story. I

1:25:34

don't think Natalia Grace is a villain. I

1:25:36

think she's an incredibly damaged person. And

1:25:38

it's just shocking to me that nobody

1:25:40

blames the state for what happened here.

1:25:43

The judge is the one who legally reaged

1:25:45

her to be 22 years old with not

1:25:47

an iota of actual evidence. So

1:25:50

that's where I would place the blame

1:25:52

as well as on Christina Michael

1:25:54

Barnett who can go to fucking hell.

1:25:57

So that is it guys? Yeah. It's

1:25:59

a lot. It is a lot. Hurrah!

1:26:02

Goodbye! Bye! Okay,

1:26:05

we're back. What

1:26:08

do we say? Where

1:26:13

do we start with this documentary

1:26:15

series? There are so many points

1:26:17

of potential entry. Firstly, let's

1:26:19

be clear, we are not sponsored

1:26:21

by Natalia Grace Speaks. This

1:26:24

isn't an ad and we are also not just going

1:26:26

to do a blow by blow of the

1:26:28

whole entire documentary. It wouldn't be fair and

1:26:30

I also have absolutely no desire to do it. So

1:26:33

go watch Natalia Grace Speaks if

1:26:35

you are really interested in this

1:26:37

story because they have done a

1:26:39

good job of giving Natalia Grace

1:26:41

an almost seemingly never-ending platform to tell

1:26:44

her story. And yes, that's a

1:26:46

good thing because you want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

1:26:49

So what we're going to do here is talk

1:26:51

about what for us has changed, if anything, after

1:26:53

watching all six of them episodes. And

1:26:56

I don't know if a huge amount has

1:26:58

changed for me in all honesty. So I

1:27:00

did re-listen to our episode that you guys

1:27:02

just listened to if you are following correct

1:27:05

procedure. I did re-listen to that after watching

1:27:07

and I was like, oh, am I going

1:27:09

to cringe watching? And I was like, oh,

1:27:11

am I going to cringe at

1:27:14

some of our takes based on now what she's

1:27:16

saying? And I am glad to say, no,

1:27:18

no, no, cringe I did not because

1:27:21

I actually think the time

1:27:23

that we piece together, the idea that we had

1:27:25

the analysis that we had was pretty much

1:27:28

on par with what was revealed in this particular documentary.

1:27:30

Like I said, we did learn some new things which

1:27:33

we're going to talk about, but not a

1:27:35

huge amount has changed for me. So

1:27:38

let's address the key question. The

1:27:40

question above all questions. Was

1:27:42

Natalia Grace a child when she

1:27:44

was in the care of the bonnets? As

1:27:48

you will have heard in the episode, we always

1:27:50

thought that Natalia was a child. Maybe

1:27:52

she was a bit older than the bonnets believed her to

1:27:55

be, but not by much a couple of years at most.

1:27:58

Which would be par for the course with an international. In

1:28:02

this series, we see Natalia finally

1:28:04

getting a DNA test done to

1:28:07

determine her true chronological age.

1:28:10

And they found her age now to be

1:28:12

22. Which

1:28:15

would mean that when Natalia was

1:28:17

adopted by the Barnettes, she would

1:28:19

have been around the age of

1:28:22

8 years old. Not 6

1:28:24

as her passport said, but certainly

1:28:26

not a sociopathic adult. And

1:28:29

I think that is one of the key

1:28:31

questions at the heart of this entire case.

1:28:33

And yes, again, very glad that we

1:28:35

left what we could leave ambiguous where we

1:28:37

didn't have the evidence to say anything. And

1:28:40

one of the questions that is raised from

1:28:42

this is, why didn't they

1:28:44

just do this DNA test that

1:28:46

they did in this series before?

1:28:49

And yeah, you could say that maybe

1:28:51

that technology wasn't there 14 years ago

1:28:54

when the Barnettes first had Natalia adopted

1:28:56

into their family. That's kind

1:28:58

of the nicest analysis I can have of

1:29:00

that. But don't worry, I have

1:29:02

lots of not nice analysis because there is a

1:29:05

lot of very much more important things still

1:29:07

to scream about. Firstly, the

1:29:10

fact is that you discover in this

1:29:12

documentary that both Michael and

1:29:14

Christine Barnett repeatedly lied

1:29:16

in the original documentary

1:29:19

about, very specifically, the

1:29:22

adoption agency that they used to

1:29:25

find Natalia. If

1:29:27

you just listen to the episode, you will

1:29:29

know that we refer multiple times to an

1:29:31

adoption agency called Shepherd's Cat. That

1:29:34

was not actually the adoption agency that

1:29:36

was used by the

1:29:38

Barnettes to adopt Natalia. The

1:29:41

actual agency, as we find out

1:29:43

in this documentary, is called Gateway

1:29:45

Woods. Now that seems like

1:29:47

a strange lie. Why would you say the

1:29:49

name of one adoption agency over the

1:29:52

other? Well, it

1:29:54

turns out that Gateway Woods

1:29:56

has all of the fucking

1:29:58

receipts. They told

1:30:01

the Barnettes when they

1:30:03

adopted Natalia that she

1:30:05

was most likely between

1:30:07

the ages of 9 years old and 11 years

1:30:10

old, and that they weren't 100%

1:30:12

sure of her exact age, they made that very

1:30:14

clear in this documentary, they show you the papers

1:30:16

that they sent back. And

1:30:19

they also, Gateway was told the Barnettes

1:30:21

that this age range between 9 and

1:30:23

11 years old had been

1:30:25

verified by a doctor named Dr.

1:30:28

Andrew Riggs. In

1:30:30

the episode that you will have just heard,

1:30:32

we say things like, it was very hard

1:30:34

for anybody to specifically age her because of

1:30:36

the condition she had, because there wasn't a

1:30:38

big enough sample size of children with that

1:30:40

condition, it can be difficult to age children

1:30:43

or even adults, it's not as simple as

1:30:45

just like, oh, tick, tick, tick, a

1:30:47

blood test, here you go, this is how I'll do

1:30:49

it. And that's basically what true diagnostics does with the

1:30:51

DNA test in this documentary. I

1:30:55

do have to say that Dr. Andrew Riggs,

1:30:57

a man that verified Natalia's age as being

1:30:59

between 9 and 11 years old, was an

1:31:01

endocrinologist with a specialism in dwarfism.

1:31:05

So it's about as good an answer

1:31:08

as you're gonna get and Gateway Woods

1:31:10

gave it to the Barnettes. Now

1:31:12

Dr. Andrew Riggs actually evaluated Natalia's hormonal

1:31:15

levels specifically to do with growth issues

1:31:17

and also did a bone scan to

1:31:19

assess her age. So he didn't just

1:31:21

take a look at her and guess,

1:31:24

he did do his due diligence and

1:31:26

he gave them a pretty narrow range, 9 to 11.

1:31:30

But the Barnettes act like this

1:31:32

never ever happened, like there had

1:31:35

never been any age verification and

1:31:37

like they had never ever been

1:31:39

told that there might be some

1:31:41

slight uncertainty about Natalia's specific

1:31:43

age. That is a number one lie that

1:31:46

we find out pretty quickly in this series.

1:31:48

And it's a very, very clear lie because

1:31:51

in the documentary we see the paperwork that

1:31:53

the Barnettes were given when they adopted

1:31:55

Natalia. And then you find

1:31:57

out that in 2011 Christine took

1:31:59

Natalia to a dentist. That

1:32:02

dentist X-rayed Natalia's teeth because that's what

1:32:04

dentists do, and that dentist still has

1:32:07

the X-rays. Which he shows you in

1:32:09

the documentary. Natalia Grace,

1:32:12

in 2011, very

1:32:14

clearly still had 12 baby

1:32:17

teeth left in her mouth. You can literally

1:32:19

see them. You can see them. That's

1:32:22

indisputable. It's not something she could

1:32:25

have faked. And it

1:32:27

also makes her about eight or nine. Bang on

1:32:29

the age that Dr Riggs had told the Barnettes

1:32:31

that he thought that she won. The

1:32:34

idea that in 2011 Natalia could

1:32:36

have been 15 is completely implausible.

1:32:38

But Christine told everyone that after this

1:32:40

appointment the dentist told her that Natalia

1:32:42

had all of her adult teeth. One

1:32:45

thing I would draw people's attention to.

1:32:48

When something as weird as this story

1:32:51

happens, it is

1:32:53

always a perfect storm from all angles.

1:32:55

Like there is always shit

1:32:57

going on on both sides. So

1:32:59

then we get into the story of the

1:33:02

pubic hair and the bath and all of

1:33:04

the other wild accusations that the Barnettes made

1:33:06

against Natalia. In

1:33:08

this documentary, she either refutes them

1:33:11

or, like she did when she went

1:33:13

on the Dr Phil interview, says that she doesn't remember.

1:33:16

Now again, like with the Dr Phil thing, and

1:33:19

I said in that episode, why does she

1:33:21

say she doesn't remember? She would have

1:33:24

been eight, nine, ten, eleven around the

1:33:26

time that she was with the Barnettes.

1:33:28

Why wouldn't you just say it didn't happen?

1:33:30

They talked specifically about Christine giving her a

1:33:33

bath after the Disneyland visit, seeing the pubic

1:33:35

hair, calling Michael and being like, oh my

1:33:37

god, she's got full pubic hair. Natalia just

1:33:39

says she doesn't remember that happening. But

1:33:43

I do wonder why she just doesn't say that didn't

1:33:45

happen. Maybe I'm digging too much

1:33:47

into the semantics of it. But something she

1:33:49

still does now say that never happened, but

1:33:51

something she just says, I don't remember. Which

1:33:54

again, is very much like the same stance that

1:33:56

we had when we recorded the episode. But

1:33:58

again, she was just a tr- How

1:34:01

much you want to dig into that like I don't know?

1:34:03

It's quite possible that she

1:34:05

just doesn't remember. We

1:34:07

can safely say now that she was a

1:34:09

child, so of course it is possible that she doesn't remember. Apparently,

1:34:11

do you remember when you were a kid and your parents would

1:34:14

be like, oh, what did you do at school? You'd be like,

1:34:16

I don't know. That's the thing,

1:34:18

because that's where your brain works when you're a kid.

1:34:20

Sometimes children generally don't remember what they've done at school. Yeah.

1:34:23

And so it's entirely possible that Natalia

1:34:25

doesn't remember. I guess it's weird

1:34:27

with her the inconsistencies because some think she's

1:34:29

very adamant didn't happen and some think she's

1:34:31

very adamant did happen, but then some think

1:34:33

she's just like, I don't remember. Kids

1:34:36

are also inconsistent, and I'm not a

1:34:38

therapist or a doctor. I

1:34:41

thought you were here. And I'm not inconsistent. And

1:34:43

I'm not a child. Having

1:34:47

said that, Natalia is odd. She's odd

1:34:49

to watch, and you do find yourself

1:34:51

flitting between thinking that she's so

1:34:53

well composed for someone who's been through so much. But

1:34:57

then again, she does have a weird affect.

1:35:00

She is emotionally a bit off. But

1:35:02

again, she has been through so much, so how could she

1:35:04

not be slightly unusual because of all of

1:35:06

that? I know. When you watch it, and

1:35:09

I feel awful saying it because I do

1:35:11

genuinely think she was a child. It's not

1:35:13

even a matter of opinion. It's a matter

1:35:16

of fact that she was a child. I

1:35:19

also very much believe her about a lot of the

1:35:21

abuse that Christine Barnett did to her, which we'll get

1:35:23

into. But yes, there are points

1:35:25

where she's telling stories, and there's

1:35:28

something a bit uncanny about her when she's

1:35:30

telling the story. And

1:35:32

again, that is very

1:35:34

likely to be the case because she is

1:35:36

so incredibly different because of all of the trauma. We

1:35:39

find out a lot more about things

1:35:41

that happened to Natalia Grace in this

1:35:43

particular series of documentaries. For example, in

1:35:45

the original episode we did, we hypothesized

1:35:47

that perhaps she had been a victim

1:35:49

of child sexual abuse because some

1:35:51

of the sexually explicit

1:35:53

things that she was accused of saying,

1:35:56

particularly at LaRue Carter Hospital where she

1:35:58

was admitted by Christine Barnett. Again,

1:36:01

she doesn't dispute the fact that she

1:36:03

said it. She says she can't remember and she

1:36:05

says if she did say those things, she

1:36:08

did it because she heard it somewhere and she was

1:36:10

exposed to something sexual and maybe something's written to her.

1:36:13

The closest we get to anything from

1:36:15

Natalia revealing maybe what happened to her

1:36:17

particularly when she was still in that

1:36:19

Ukrainian orphanage was that she

1:36:21

does mention a man who may have done

1:36:23

something to her at some point by putting

1:36:26

a cloth over her face and touching her.

1:36:29

She doesn't elaborate on it but

1:36:31

the FBI agent to who she talks about

1:36:33

this to is like, I wouldn't

1:36:35

be surprised at all if something like

1:36:37

that had happened to her. I'd be

1:36:39

more surprised if she hadn't been sexually

1:36:41

abused. So that made her perhaps

1:36:44

present herself in a certain way that made her

1:36:46

seem older than she was. Again,

1:36:48

we don't get any harder, fast answers but

1:36:50

if you go watch the documentary, it is

1:36:52

heavily implied to and repeatedly they come back

1:36:54

to this theme that Natalia was a victim of

1:36:56

sexual abuse. That

1:36:59

was all going on. Now

1:37:02

Michael Barnett on the other hand, because

1:37:04

a lot of the time when you're looking at Natalia, you

1:37:06

are like, wow, she's so together. Michael

1:37:08

Barnett on the other hand, who makes

1:37:10

his appearance in this particular documentary series

1:37:12

once again, I can't help

1:37:14

but feel like for the first three

1:37:16

episodes, I was like, you're just making this worse and worse

1:37:19

for yourself. Why did you come on this show? Now

1:37:22

I could only imagine that he did it

1:37:24

because he thinks that he needs to defend

1:37:26

himself and also probably because he

1:37:29

thinks he can manipulate the situation because

1:37:31

he thinks he's such a good actor.

1:37:36

To me and probably to most

1:37:38

people watching, Michael Barnett does come

1:37:41

across as once again, incredibly histrionic,

1:37:43

incredibly unreliable and just

1:37:45

as unhinged as before. One

1:37:48

of the key moments where he really doesn't

1:37:50

help himself is what he accused

1:37:52

Natalia of doing with her periods to hide

1:37:54

them. He says that she

1:37:56

was eating it. I was

1:37:59

almost sick. when he hears this. I'm

1:38:01

like, you're a grown man, you're a grown

1:38:03

man, you're so vile. Yes,

1:38:06

horrendous. And we also found out about

1:38:08

the alleged assaults that Christine Barnett perpetrated

1:38:10

against Natalia when she was just a

1:38:12

child, like forcing her to use a

1:38:14

tampon even though Natalia claims that

1:38:16

she hadn't even started menstruating. If

1:38:19

it's true, that's completely deranged

1:38:22

and an absolutely vile form

1:38:24

of abuse. How

1:38:27

is she not in prison? Christine Barnett,

1:38:30

not Barnett anymore, I don't know what her name is, because

1:38:32

Sarah Michael got divorced. She now lives in Florida.

1:38:35

No charges have been brought against her after all

1:38:37

of the charges of neglect and child abuse were

1:38:39

dropped. Well, not child abuse because they

1:38:41

successfully got Natalia re-aged. So neglect

1:38:43

of a dependent were dropped against

1:38:45

her in 2023 and she is living

1:38:47

her life. And yet there are

1:38:49

lots of accusations in this. Again, go watch the

1:38:52

documentary for the full range of them but Natalia

1:38:54

also says that she was mist by

1:38:57

Christine Barnett. Twice. And

1:39:00

it's just horrific, the idea that this

1:39:02

child, at most who

1:39:04

was 10 years old, maybe 11,

1:39:07

was maced by a grown woman twice.

1:39:09

And in it, again, the lies Michael

1:39:11

Barnett says that he only found out

1:39:13

about the macing last year from Jacob,

1:39:16

who is their son. Yeah, right. Bullshit,

1:39:18

there is video evidence of him saying

1:39:21

that he knew about the macing two years

1:39:23

ago. So when he knew about it, we

1:39:26

don't know, but it certainly wasn't as

1:39:28

recently as last year. And Michael Barnett,

1:39:30

again, continues to just lie throughout

1:39:33

this documentary. But

1:39:35

sticking with what else we learnt, Natalia

1:39:39

is still, I believe, in

1:39:41

the care of the man's family, Cynthia and Antoine.

1:39:43