A dwarf who tried to kill her parents.. or a little girl of 9?
BY JULIE McCAFFREY reporters@daily record.co.uk KRISTINE Barnett is a devoted mother who adopted a disabled Ukrainian girl and was conned by an adoption agency. Or is she a liar who dumped the girl, fled the country with her biological kids and left her to fend for herself?
That is the question facing lawyers in a case that has gripped America.
Kristine, 45, and her ex-husband Michael, 43, have been charged with abandoning their nineyear-old daughter Natalia Grace, who has dwarfism and is 3ft tall, in their home state of Indiana and relocating to Canada.
But in an astonishing turn of events, Kristine insists Natalia is not a vulnerable child but a 22-year-old sociopath who tried to kill her family.
“Natalia is a woman,” said Kristine. “She had periods. She had adult teeth. She never grew a single inch, which would happen even in a child with dwarfism.
“The doctors all confirmed she was suffering a severe psychological illness only diagnosed in adults. I saw her putting chemicals in my coffee and I asked her, what are you doing? She said, ‘I am trying to poison you’.”
In May 2010, the Barnetts, foster carers who ran a kids’ nursery from their home, collected Natalia from an adoption centre in Florida.
She had a bone growth disorder, vision problems and skeletal abnormalities. But Kristine, already mum to two sons, felt she was the right person to care for her.
She told Daily Mail TV: “I felt that if I had the ability to help another person in the world, then I wanted to do it.”
Kristine and Michael, who have since divorced, were given few details of the girl’s background. She had a Ukrainian birth certificate dated September 4, 2003, making her age six. She had been in the US for two years but her previous adoptive parents had given her up.
Kristine said she soon made startling discoveries, alleging the girl, who needed support to walk, ran unaided on her visit to the beach.
She claimed Natalia had no foreign accent or knowledge of her home country – and added she had a shock when they were home. She said: “I was giving her a bath and I noticed she had full pubic hair.”
Kristine said when Natalia tried to drag her on to an electric fence, she placed her in a psychiatric unit.
Medical reports said the girl was anything from eight to 14 years old. A therapist in 2012 said Natalia told them she was 18. Others said she had described trying to kill family members as fun.
Kristine and Michael won a court application to change Natalia’s age from eight to 22. It meant she was legally an adult.
In 2013, Kristine moved to Canada where her son studied. But in 2014, Natalia told police she had been abandoned.
Another couple applied to become Natalia’s guardians in 2016 but after a judge heard witness reports and saw medical records which he said proved she was an adult, the bid was dropped.
Kristine and Michael, who insist they are innocent, have been charged with abandoning a child.