Original subtitles

During the gag order,

I couldn't talk to Michael, at all.

So, once the gag order was lifted,

he reached out and said he wanted to talk.

It's been years since I talked to him.

I'm like, "Okay, I'll hear him out."

Because, you know, I had a lot of questions.

I have a lot of questions.

Let's see what he has to say.

I feel like I have to do this.

You know, I feel like I'm compelled to do this. You know, like...

I have to finish this.

I just want everybody to be happy,

and heal and live their lives.

I'm not here to lie, I'm not here to hide,

I'm not here to scream, I'm not here to curse.

But in the end, a bad guy wouldn't be here today doing this.

I'm not a bad guy.

-You're ready to let God have his way. -Amen.

This is it.

We here.

God take you to it, he gonna take you through it.

That's right.

So I want you to go in there,

and say everything that is on your heart.

Everything that you have suffered.

Everything that you have dealt with.

It is okay to be angry.

Be confident, walk in there.

Because God's got you. I got you.

So I want you to go in there,

and be not afraid.

Because that devil is a liar!

In the name of Jesus.

It was the weirdest moment for reconciliation.

Everyone's there, wanting to see these two family members come back together,

after several years.

Michael is sitting there, excited.

Well, God let everything be purged today

in the name of Jesus, and let the record be cleared up.

Because God's got the highest court in the land, that's the truth!

Where we go, God is in control.

Antwon Mans, he begins to give this impactful speech,

indicating that this was Natalia's moment.

That she should go in and be on the attack.

That she should be confrontational.

It was as if he was giving the Al Pacino speech in Any Given Sunday.

"Every inch is your inch.

Every mile is your mile."

I ain't got no fear. It's gonna be holy around here.

"Go in there and get the truth."

That devil's a liar!

A complete liar!

"Make him come to your will.

"God is in control."

Where we go, God's in control.

It was...

unusual, to say the least.

And we just ask God that He would continue to shine a light upon this situation.

In Jesus' name,

amen.

Let's do this,

-Antwon, how are you? -How're you doing?

Hi.

Why are we here, Michael?

Why are we here? That's... That's...

Well, if you're talking philosophically,

I can't say the word right...

That's probably something more for the bishop over here.

But, why are we here?

No, like, I wanna know why did you adopt me in the first place.

Why?

My name is Brandon Davenport,

a detective with Indiana State Police,

and the primary investigator for the Natalia Barnett case.

Everybody that gets involved in this investigation

always start out as, "Man, it's a really crazy story."

I was first contacted in 2019,

by a doctor that had reported

a child that came to their facility.

And the documents didn't really add up to

exactly who they were talking to.

She living with the Mans family, at the time.

And this girl, who had dwarfism,

and her ID card, even if it was expired

was saying that she was an adult when she was clearly a child.

Natalia deserves her story to be told, truthfully.

Natalia deserves justice.

But I don't know if justice means that, you know,

anybody goes to jail.

That's not my place.

I'm an investigator and I just put the facts together.

And it's really a very unfair thing that's happened.

The lines that were pushed onto her,

the world should know

that it's not true.

She was a child.

When it comes to Barnetts, let's talk about their motive.

You know, if you were saying that somebody that has money and power and influence

and then pretends to be,

like, everything's picture perfect,

if they're more than likely to get away with something,

there's always that possibility.

I really think that every child has a brilliant potential inside of them.

And I've been working with many, many children, not just Jacob.

And in each one of them, I see this little spark.

Michael alleged that Kristine thought

she had turned Jacob into a genius.

And so, by adopting a special needs child,

she could show that she could do this again.

And he alleged that when that didn't turn out just the way that Kristine wanted,

that's why Natalia didn't fit into Kristine's narrative.

Kristine was writing a book, which was ultimately called The Spark,

about the academic success of her oldest son, Jacob.

So, here's the timeline regarding the book.

The Barnetts adopt Natalia in 2010.

Kristine signs a book deal in 2011,

and the book is published in 2013.

So this whole time that Natalia is part of the Barnett household,

Kristine is really working hard to maintain her image.

Now, look. We know Kristine was no stranger

to making money off her kids.

She has made a ton off of Jacob.

In 2009, Jacob's Place,

the daycare center that Kristine and Michael ran,

made over $100,000.

With The Spark, she made at least $500,000 just on the book deal.

And then there were donations.

That's enough to build an empire.

There was also a movie deal in the works.

Rosamund Pike was supposed to play Kristine.

Kristine had a web presence of some kind

where she was influencing people

to pay her amounts of money

to have a phone call with her

and get some help.

Kristine's organization was pretty successful,

very early on.

She boasted do her friend about a $60,000 loan

and a non-refundable $35,000 "payment" she received.

Do you know how much money

Kristine Barnett made off the sale of her book?

The advance on the book was $600,000.

I have no knowledge of any residuals after the fact

because we got divorced very soon thereafter.

Oh, that's hers.

I was to support the family. Anything that she made was for her.

This book that she wrote,

there's a fraction of the earnings

which were...

supposed to go to her.

and 'cause, like, I'm a pretty big subject of the book...

I mean, I'm on the cover, so.

Like, there was a fraction of the money that was supposed to go to me.

And so, she was, you know, trusted with...

With, you know, making sure that

that money was spent appropriately.

And you know that... It was spent.

I didn't... I didn't get a cent of it.

It's on the order of $200,000

that was supposed to go to me but didn't.

She left him with about five bucks.

To his words, "She left me enough money to get a cup of coffee."

Who does that?

If I were to write a book about my child,

and there was a large check that was sent to me,

with the promise

that a fraction of it would go to the child,

I would absolutely save it for them.

And I'd find, like...

you know, the part of criteria for existence

is I need to be able to sustain myself.

I... I asked her about it, and then she sort of...

She came at me with the excuse

of, "Oh, I used that money so that you could

"go to school in Canada."

You know, at that point, I just hung up on her.

Kristine said that adopting me was this mission of love.

And never once did I see any love.

I felt like it was a mission of, like, boosting her ego...

type of thing.

I felt like she just wanted people

to be, like, "Oh, my goodness!

"She's this amazing person.

"She just adopted a little girl from Ukraine

who has dwarfism,

and has all these different medical issues

and everything like that.

You know, she's a great mom for wanting to help somebody, right?"

In 2019,

years after she got rid of Natalia,

Kristine is reaching out to numerous people

soliciting donations to support

the international campaign to end the use

of seclusion, restraint,

physical and verbal abuse of children with disabilities.

Something doesn't sound right, here.

She's even asking Freddie Gill for his help

because of his status as a leader in the community.

Kristine Barnett was like... She was an amazing person.

She would send me text messages like...

She's inviting me to

"Join the campaign to end the...

To end the, uh,

physical and verbal abuse of children with disabilities."

Um, what?

So, it's like a mask.

Like, just put on a mask,

have this really nice smile.

This, "I'm a great mom."

But then it's like pull that mask off,

this is who she really is.

Like, your true colors.

Kristine was a monster.

I didn't know what she was gonna do next.

Based upon Kristine's actions,

it certainly appears that she had big plans for Natalia.

She wanted her to be the next spark.

Kristine is going to use Natalia's physical disability

to make money, as well as her mental faculties.

Maybe she's a genius, like Jacob.

Because Kristine made a lot of money off of Jacob.

And now, it's Natalia's turn.

Hi.

When I was first adopted by the Barnetts,

I really thought that they were gonna be my family.

I really wanted a dad and a mom

that actually accepts my disabilities

and loves me as their daughter.

I used to, like, watch a lot of TV shows where

a mom and her daughter were very close.

I thought that Kristine was gonna be the mom that I always wanted.

When I first got to the Barnetts' house,

I remember that Kristine and Michael had both shown me around,

and then they took me to my room

where there was, like, this big dollhouse

and this princess bed,

and everything like that.

They showed me my closet,

which was a walk-in closet. I was, like, "Whoa.'

And they even...

Like, they lowered the shelves and everything for me

so I could be able to get my clothes.

You know, I was just so happy.

There was a park, right across the street.

We would hang out, we would play games and everything.

It was so much fun.

And I was going to school. I was in first grade.

I was so excited

because I wanted to go to school for as long as I could remember.

I loved my classmates. I loved my friends.

And, like, I loved my first grade teacher.

The Barnetts pushed this philosophy that Natalia

is really, really smart, reading these advanced books.

You know, listen, as an investigator,

I don't go by some whimsical information.

You know, I wanna know.

I'm gonna ask those... I'm gonna ask those questions.

- Hey, how are you? - Good, how are you?

I'm not doing too bad.

So you worked at an elementary school

during the same time

that Natalia Barnett went there.

Kristine had brought it to your attention

that they were questioning how old Natalia was.

Did you ever question Natalia's age? Or did you...

Is she a prodigy?

I mean, is she a standout student

that she's so smart that she shouldn't be there?

I was over there one day and Kristine just looked at Natalia

and she said, "Can you read?" She said, "Of course, I can read. I'm not stupid."

And this is not a little girl's voice.

And so Kris gave her a Cosmopolitan magazine,

and put it down in front of her.

Opened to an article,

and Natalia started reading as well as you or I could.

How does someone at six

read a Cosmo magazine?

Natalia, being able to read an article out of Cosmo,

I mean, how many times did she read that article

before she recorded her?

People can make a video

look however they wanna make it look.

But the question then becomes "Why?"

We're talking about a little girl's life that had changed forever

because certain statements were made.

She was reading an advanced book.

Well, here's what I do know.

Gateway Woods, you know, who gets the medical records

from Boston Hospital also identified

that Natalia's abilities, her aptitude,

were very, very similar to the age that we believe she is.

The school, I talked to the officials there, I talked to the teachers,

and they loved this kid.

They said,

"I mean, she may have been able to handle second grade,

"but we felt first grade was more appropriate."

Kristine could be pretty feisty.

We heard reports that were concerning to us

about how Natalia's parents interacted with her

They sounded like they were mean to her, honestly.

And so, if we ever brought anything like that up with Kristine,

she just flipped.

Kristine was like

"I'm taking her out of school."

She took my friends out of my life.

Just cut 'em off. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye

to any of my friends from school.

Nobody.

I didn't understand that

my whole life was being controlled

on who I talked to and everything.

I didn't understand why, really, I got taken out of school.

All I was told was because they were getting phone calls.

And I was hurting people with my wheelchair,

running them over and everything.

No, I wasn't.

Kristine took Natalia out of school

to home school her at "Barnett Academy".

This is the same place

where Jacob's transcripts say he was educated.

At "Barnett Academy".

And Michael filed a police report

alleging fraud

because Kristine passed him

in Japanese, and he couldn't speak it,

and gave him an A in making spaghetti.

I met with Michael Barnett.

And, you know, I didn't approach him

with the expectation I was gonna arrest him.

You know, I was investigating

this particular issue.

He could have... He could have stopped the conversation

but I think he had a lot that he wanted to resolve, also.

This transcript was

pretty ridiculous.

However, Jacob was a genius.

Natalia was not a genius.

Doesn't matter. Kristine was trying to pass off

Natalia as being able to perform

academic skills that she didn't have!

According to Kristine,

Natalia could even pass a GED,

if given the test.

Kristine thought she had turned Jacob into a genius.

She saved him when no-one else could.

And according to what Michael said,

that's what Kristine planned to do with Natalia.

But the problem was that

Natalia didn't fit into the narrative.

I was only, like, six or seven years old.

And Kristine tries to give me a physics paper

and I'm like, "I don't know what I'm doing."

Like, I don't... Like, "What is this?"

And she's like, "I know you know this.

"And you're gonna do it."

And then she walked away.

But I was stuck.

And...

I guess she just got so mad

because I was telling, like, "I don't know this."

And she pepper sprayed me.

Right in the face.

She said, "That's what it's gonna feel like every time that you do this."

I started rubbing my eyes. She said "Don't do that.

It's just gonna make it worse."

And she, literally, would not let me wash it off

or anything. She wouldn't help me.

All I know is I wanna get this off my eyes.

This hurts!

But she didn't care that she pepper sprayed me.

She doesn't care that I was crying because it hurts.

She literally did it for not knowing high school math.

I'm getting pepper sprayed.

I was seven years old. I was supposed to be in first grade.

And she took me out of first grade.

All I knew was how to be scared.

That was my normal.

But everything was just about to get even worse.

Within seven months of adopting Natalia,

Kristine realized Natalia was an average student.

She wasn't the genius that Jacob was.

So, Kristine's plan is failing big time

and Natalia is a money pit.

Because she needs a lot of surgery

for her medical problems.

Ever since I was really little,

I've needed surgeries.

I was with the Barnetts for just a little while

but I had my surgery on my feet.

We had had her for six months.

Her feet would lock in place, her Achilles needed to be, I think, cut

and loosened so she could move her foot around.

The only thing I remember mostly

is just going into a surgery room

'cause it's like, all light.

And then getting two shots in my arms and I'm out.

And then next thing I know, I have

casts on my feet.

When I had my surgery, there was a lot of rough nights with that.

And I remember being in so much pain

that I had to take pain medicine

or else I couldn't get rid of it.

I always called Kristine,

because, you know, she's my mom.

You know, moms are supposed to be able to take care of their kids.

Michael was actually the one that gave me my medicine.

And then he left.

And I was able to go back to sleep after that.

I started thinking

if maybe Kristine and Michael just didn't want to take care of me

when they found out how many surgeries I needed.

And the fact that

it would have been a long recovery process with all of them.

And, like, maybe she felt like she was gonna be stuck,

instead of being able to go out there

and, like, show off her son.

I mean, everybody that we know that has diastrophic dysplasia

has, you know, usually a group of surgeries,

you know, probably close to around five years old.

-Actually sooner, as a baby, for the club feet. -Sometimes sooner now,

as a baby, with the club feet, right.

It was clear to them that she needed,

you know, lots of surgeries

to her lower extremities

to straighten them.

The Barnetts gave her a surgery on her ankle.

But one surgery on her ankle is like

a drop in the bucket

for what we need. And, you know...

Every single thing costs money.

Maybe that's part of the problem with the Barnetts.

Because all of a sudden, they start having problems.

Are you surprised? I'm not.

Like, literally, my feet...

This one, the way my feet are shaped,

and the way I walk,

especially with my right foot,

it twists.

So, it would literally be like scraping the bottom part of the shoe.

And that's why I've had to get special made shoes

because I can't wear normal shoes.

They're at least, like, $30,000.

These are my second pair. They last for a pretty long time.

I actually had to get these patched up because of how much I used them.

Every doctor I see, they're like,

"Okay, we're gonna have to do special made this

"or special made that." I'm like...

Everything I need has to be special made.

Were you ever specifically told by the adoption agency

that Natalia may require surgeries?

By the adoption agency? No.

You know, I guess, like, in a sense

they did kinda cause the pain that I have now

Because I couldn't get my surgeries

because the doctors didn't know what to do.

Like, there was just no way. Like, they told me

"We don't know if we should treat you as a kid,

"or do a treatment as an adult."

Like, "We don't know."

I'm Veronica Maxwell. I'm a retired FBI agent.

I served for 28 years in the Agency

and investigated terrorism,

counter intelligence, organized crime,

drugs and crimes against children,

where I was exposed to scenarios

not unlike some of the aspects of Natalia Barnett.

Dealing with cases regarding minors,

I believe I am a very compassionate person.

And I always ran towards the danger.

It was my job to go and hunt down the truth.

The Natalia case intrigues me

because you have this person who is extremely fragile.

And it is so complicated, it involves travel from other countries.

It involves numerous adults.

It sounds like there may have been a point

where the Barnetts realized that Natalia was...

Was starting to be a burden.

Kristine Barnett was a person who needed to achieve her goal

with respect to her children,

and how other people view her

and maintain a certain reputation.

And she wasn't gonna back down.

This child is really in her way right now.

Kristine just started going off every day, about something.

That's literally how it felt.

Because every time Kristine came,

she was yelling at me about something.

It felt like the littlest stuff that I did

was gonna turn into something crazy when it shouldn't have.

And then that's when she started saying

that I took stuff from the boys.

Because they couldn't find, like, two books and some cars.

Natalia would find things that were important to them,

like a Hot Wheel car,

she'd hide them, she'd wait to be crossing the street,

she would throw them into the street and make sure the boys saw it.

So they'd run in the traffic, so they'd get run over.

I didn't take anything.

I told Kristine, I didn't take any of their stuff.

And she just told me I was lying.

I was not there when she threw one of the kids' toys.

I heard about that from the boys.

Not just from Kris.

I did hear that story from the boys.

The boys shared that with me.

She treated the boys like they were her sons.

She treated them like a normal mom would.

But with me, it was like...

It was like I always did something wrong.

I was seven years old.

And I was just trying to be a normal kid.

And it was like

in Kristine's eyes I was doing something wrong, every step I took.

Honestly, I can't even remember if she even said "I love you" to me.

Kristine and Natalia are not bonding.

They don't like each other.

And Natalia is going to cost Kristine

what seems to be the one thing she cares about most.

Money.

I do believe that the Barnetts

probably did want me in the beginning.

But I think only once they'd actually seen me,

and they'd seen my disabilities,

I think it kinda was just like,

"Well, maybe, like, we can't. Like, maybe we can't."

But the thing is though,

if you felt like you couldn't,

why didn't you send me back?

Or maybe even try to find somebody that did want me

and maybe I could have been in a safer place.

Instead of trying to feel like,

"Oh, we gotta keep this reputation.

This is a little girl with dwarfism,

who has so many special needs,

so, you know we gotta keep her.

Just so that way people will be like,

'Hey, why did you send her back?'"

I think it was because they were just trying to keep a good reputation.

Kristine's plan is failing.

Not only is Natalia not a genius,

but she costs a lot.

In fact, she's a financial drain on Kristine.

She's not a genius. She's not the next spark.

Kristine wants to get rid of Natalia.

But we also know that she's made a half a million dollars

on her image as Supermom.

So how is she supposed to get rid of

this child she adopted,

who is disabled,

and still preserve her image?

And so, it seems like Natalia is now

the invisible daughter.

And Kristine is trying to erase her from the family.

The Sparkwas being written and published

while Natalia was part of the family.

The initial drafts

talked about the family's adoption of Natalia.

But the final book,

the ghostwriter Laura Tucker,

she was told to take all mentions of adoption,

dwarf or dwarfism,

and Natalia, out of the book.

The final book does not mention Natalia in any way, shape or form.

I do believe that Kristine did try to hide me from the world.

One time, we went to the park across the street.

She put me in the stroller and she had a blanket over me.

And the boys got to go play and everything like that.

I was stuck in the stroller.

Someone came by and was like,

"Does she wanna go out and play and stuff?"

"Oh, no she's sleeping."

When I'm like wide awake. I'm hearing everything,

wanting to go play.

She's literally lying to people and saying, "Oh, she's sleeping."

She didn't want people to know that I existed.

I felt like I was this problem child.

She just, like, flat out hated me.

I do not believe Kristine should have that title of "World's Greatest Mom."

Because she was never the "World's Greatest Mom" to me.

I saw a difference in Kristine

with Natalia.

Her pride that she had for her boys

wasn't the same pride that she had for her.

I almost feel like she was locking herself in the house,

with Natalia

trying to fix her.

Make her like Kristine wanted.

And Natalia's a stubborn girl.

It seems, at this point,

Kristine cannot admit that she's a failure as a parent.

Kristine was hell-bent on protecting her brand and her business.

And when one plan failed,

she concocted another one.

That's how her mind worked.

Kristine turned Natalia into a puppet she could control.

She needed complete control

over everything that Natalia said and did.

I don't remember exactly when Kristine started

trying to make me look like an adult.

She just started telling me

"You're older than what you're saying."

I didn't understand what that meant.

And then, she was like,

"You need to start saying that you're 22."

I didn't understand why she wanted me to tell people

I was 22.

The Barnetts

were looking for a disabled child

to groom a certain way.

Kristine Barnett appeared to be

the primary motivator

of the plan to get rid of Natalia.

Natalia was, in fact, going to perpetuate

the idea that she's older,

at the age where she could live independently.

This is the best scenario that Kristine Barnett could come up with

and save face.

I have seen a lot of people

trying to brainwash their child

to speak their lies for them,

to create the illusion

that something is real,

when, in fact, it's just a made-up story.

And the child becomes that story.

That fake story.

Kristine Barnett wants her daughter

talking about herself as a 22-year-old.

She wants the doctors to hear it.

She wants all the authorities to hear

the story that she's come up with.

And she was gonna do whatever it took

to break Natalia down.

And she had to really employ drastic measures.

Everybody thought Kristine was this amazing mom,

who loved having special needs kids,

who loved helping people, and everything.

But they don't know what Kristine actually did.

Kristine was the one that beat me.

Michael watched me...

get beat.

Three times he watched me get beat,

and didn't do anything.

Why would you...

Why are we here, Michael?

Why are we here? That's... That's...

Well, if you're talking philosophically...

No, like, I wanna know

why did you adopt me in the first place.

Why?

Many of these questions, there's not gonna be a single answer to.

Look.

I've learned recently, you and I had the same monster.

And...

We are here...

because we both

were incredible victims

of an otherworldly type of abuse.

Okay, first...

I'm gonna say, please don't cuss.

I'll do my best. I... I...

I speak a certain way. I'll do my best.

Second, what do you mean by you were a victim?

Oh, God.

This is all stuff you don't know.

Well, you wanna elaborate?

Yeah, I do. You wanna give me time to do it?

This is not easy.

I...

had the same monster you did.

I was exceptionally controlled

and put down,

and threatened.

Was minimalized.

Anything that was who I was, was ripped from me.

And I was guided and instructed to

be exactly what

she wanted me to be.

What do you mean by "threatened"?

Um...

Her favorite threat was

taking the boys away from me

and making sure I would never see them ever again.

-Um... -Why didn't you leave?

That's the best question ever.

I tried.

And this is... These answers are not gonna be

what you're looking for, to a degree, but...

I tried to leave her no less than 10 times.

I ended up in a hospital

regularly over it.

Why did you marry her?

-I'm sorry? -Let's not use curse words.

I know you probably, you talk like this on a regular basis, maybe.

But we try to keep a clean environment.

So let's please respect that.

This is really hard. I don't--

That sounds crazy, right? "Don't be a Christian"?

See, you can't impose your beliefs...

I don't wanna have fights.

Jesus is our man, you understand that?

Guys, it's okay.

God is in control.

-Do you understand this? -Guys, I'm out.

- I ask this... - God is in control.

- No, no. That's it. -We're not. We'll not do anything.

-Michael... -I tried. I tried.

-Okay, enough. -I tried. I tried. I tried. I tried. I tried.

I tried. I tried.

And I tried. And I tried to get rid of that mug and...

And I'm trying to talk to her so that I can fix this.

- Let me-- Let me talk to you. -No. No.

-Let me talk to you. Hold on a second. -No.

-Let me talk to you. -No.

-Come here for a second. -No.

No.

I came here to try to find...

Let me speak to you for a second.

- I cannot do this. - Hold on, hold on.

Let him do that. Let him do that.

I got it. I got it.

Michael, come here for a second, man.

I'm not here to degrade you. Hey, come here.

-I'm not here... -God would not do to me

what happened? Leave me alone!

No, listen to me.

If there was a God, he would let me die.

-He would have let me die! -He don't want you to die because he loves you.

All I wanted was just to talk to him.

Ask my questions.

-God loves you. -Please get away from me.

I would like you to get away from me.

-Step away from me. -All right.

He shouldn't have talked to my dad that way.

All my dad asked was that he didn't cuss.

Just have some respect.

My dad has the right to ask that.

Just like I do.

I don't understand.

We're not gonna put up with no spirits up in this house though.

Period.

Where we go, God's in control.