Investigation Discovery
Natalia Grace Breaks Silence After Being Accused of Trying to Kill Adoptive Parents
Ukrainian orphan Natalia Grace broke her silence after she was accused of trying to kill her adoptive parents Michael Barnett and Kristine Barnett.
“I was never in y’all’s room with a knife,” Natalia, 20, told Michael in the trailer for the upcoming six-part series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, which will premiere on January 1 on ID Network.
However, Michael stood by his claim and said, “I know what I saw.”
“In every lie is a hidden truth, but you’ve got to dig enough to be able to see it,” Natalia replied. “They’re not going to get away with this. This is my side of the story. Do I look like a monster to you?”
Michael and Kristine previously shared their claims in ID network’s The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which premiered in May. The former couple explained they believed Natalia was 6 years old when they adopted her in 2010. After they noticed her alleged behavioral issues and mature features on her body, Michael and Kristine speculated that she was older than she claims and had a severe form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SEDc).
Not only was Natalia accused of lying about her age, but Michael also claimed that she made several threats and attempts to kill or harm him, Kristine and their three biological sons Jacob, Wesley and Ethan. Some of the incidents included Natalia allegedly standing over their bed with a knife, her attempting to poison Kristine’s coffee with household cleaner and her pushing Kristine into an electric fence.
After Natalia lived with the family for two years, Michael and Kristine petitioned to have her birthday legally changed from September 4, 2003, to September 4, 1989. The changed birthday would have meant that she was 23 years old in 2012. The Barnett family then rented Natalia an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana, before they moved to Canada.
Despite believing that Natalia was legally an adult when they abandoned her, Michael and Kristine were hit with charges of neglect of a dependent in September 2019. Michael was found not guilty in October 2022, while the charges against Kristine were dropped in March.
Those interested in the case previously heard Natalia tease her side of the scandal in a trailer for The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks released on May 31.
“It’s very frustrating to hear everything that’s being said from Kristine and Michael because I already don’t know who I am, and I want to know who I am, what happened to me,” she said in the teaser clip, obtained by Entertainment Tonight. “But I’m hearing all this stuff that never actually happened from Kristine and Michael.”
Natalia added that the claims were “shocking” and “frustrating” because they were “not true.”
“And people are believing what Kristine and Michael are saying without even hearing my side,” the Ukraine native said. “This is my side of the story, and I’m gonna say what happened because I never got a chance to say what happened. Y’all have heard Kristine and Michael and what they have said, but you need to hear both sides in order to know what really happened.”
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