Original subtitles

foreign

that describes Natalya to me

Enigma

she won't tell us the truth of who she

is we are living with a con artist

sociopath now a story making headlines

around the world is this a child or a

grown woman the Barnett's believed

adoption was a scam all along they

claimed they were tricked into adopting

an adult

he's evil I

I promise

Ramen within five years

isn't it

why

[Music]

she threatened to stab my sons drag

their bodies outside and bury them under

the deck

she tried to poison and kill my wife

she said I pulled a knife on my parents

big deal it's like a serial killer or

something

sound casually they put attempted murder

into a conversation someone's gonna kill

everybody

you've adopted a kid and now they're

trying to kill you I mean it's the stuff

of a horror movie right if you watch the

orphan it's

like the orphan

did you want to hurt

it's all gonna come to light she was a

doll you could tell by looking at her

Natalie was a victim did the barnetts of

the Predators they just literally left

her to the Wolves they don't know that

there's a hundred percent one villain

here because she basically said that

Natalya destroyed their lives

the regardless of her age she was left

feeling abandoned and neglected alone

died he was a child I I know that for

sure because

I'm a little person

I think Christine Barnett if it's our

excuse for a mother

you still need to be on your wall who

just don't know what happened to her and

that was what broke what broke my heart

the most there were a lot of secrets in

that house

his minimum sentence is 3 to 16 years it

doesn't smell right there's something

it smells like

do you know the difference between the

truth and the lie I didn't at the time

no

really just listening to what Christine

told me to tell them you just don't know

what you're Burnett's there was domestic

violence

[Music]

to a puzzle that we couldn't quite

excited you lied because she told you to

lie yes Michael and Christine not only

lied to get her into their family but

they also lied to get rid of her this is

one of the most Twisted cases ever I

know he's not the kind of guy that could

do well if he had to go to prison

[ __ ] look I don't think anyone will ever

get the complete truth so much of this

is a mystery I still don't have concrete

answers somebody's not telling the truth

it is a Web of Lies I'm not sure you

trust anybody in this case

we were all [ __ ] abused we were all

abused

this will never stop

foreign

foreign

[Music]

but life was fantastic I it really was

this is summer 2010. life's great

been married for about 15 years

we have three sons Jacob Wesley and

Ethan financially were doing great we've

got a literal brand new big mansion 5

000 square foot home

in a driveway loaded with cars in it

there's a Lamborghini in my driveway for

God's sakes

we have 13 TVs we've got 14 couches

there was hundreds of thousands of

dollars in the bank account

more importantly we were in a very tight

dead family

it really was

Pinnacle of Life

Michael loved Christine dearly when the

flowers came for their anniversary it

was dozen roses for every year they were

married so

for their 10th anniversary ten dozen

roses Christine and I

realized our oldest son Jacob

burgers or Autism we fought those

downright amazing at the things we could

accomplish I'm Jacob Barnett here with

an introduction to scientific notation I

figured that since I was teaching it to

my two brothers Wesley and Ethan I will

be able to post it onto YouTube

so I'm going to finish this interview d

by DX their oldest son is a genius

and really for schooling faster than I

moved through a pair of shoes

I did not come here to frighten you all

with quad mechanics

not yet

we would get

Ron Michael saying hey did you see the

paper jigs on the front page to

Christine's writing a book it's been

publisher

two divided he has a full scholarship at

the Joint Indiana University Purdue

campus for Jake fun is reciting from

memory the infinite series of numbers

known as Pi

point one four one five nine two six

five three five eight nine seven nine

three two three eight four six two six

four three three Jacobs one of the

smartest people

I've ever heard of

travel the world

Jacob when is 15. got an award from the

Vatican

was where the barnetts lived the garage

was

um where Christine Burnett had her

they care they're all special needs kids

the Barnett Family opened up a

foundation a place where parents and

kids with autism could go be with other

parents and kids with autism and feel

normal

and we were proud of them and they just

seemed so happy together

the barnetts had the picture perfect

wife

so we went from

early 2010

we're blessed with many things

by the time 2014 came around I have 37

cents in my bank account

I have no wife

children

no home

no job

my possessions at that moment was my

card

of clothing

[Music]

if an Italian never entered Our Lives

I never get divorced

worse they ruined our marriage

they interviewed me three times when

they detected in a bulletproof dad what

what are they gonna charge

interesting

don't listen to my voice

we had no idea what we were dealing with

intentions were so incredibly High

it was a very rough time

actually for the children

[Music]

I'm Jake Barnett

since I've last been seen publicly

some ways I think I've regressed

I'm uh my dad's basement right now it's

in Indiana

[Music]

usually I say Natalia is my adopted

sister

say I'm Jacob I'm Natalia's adopted

brother but that particular

um way of introducing myself is kind of

irrelevant because I haven't seen

Natalia in like a decade

I find the situation incredibly

confusing

it's like I want to know what happened

and I want to know the actual like truth

and everyone's motives

at the same time

I don't want to remember that

want to

um

have to

a lot of

childhood

it's uh difficult for me to piece

together what

[Music]

before an Italian we had been married

for about 15 years

easily the best moment in time that our

marriage ever had we risk was so happy

and comfortable that we had gotten to

the point that you know what we started

talking about maybe

maybe there's room here for somebody

else we were going to adopt a little

girl out of Haiti named gilberta and

right before that April father the other

earthquake hit Haiti and suddenly our

hopes were dashed because Haiti shut

down all

so we were ready to adopt but we missed

our window

well out of no

wish ever care

they say hey we know you

we've seen your home study we know that

you have a charity for special needs and

you've been doing that for a decade what

do you think you'd be perfect for the

for this going to be coming to us she's

a little person she has dwarfism no

here's the problem

24 hours to decide

so if you don't come get her on Monday

she's going directly to foster care

Christina I almost took it as a sign

from a ball

now we're jump on plane flying in

Florida

fighting

when I found out I was gonna have a

sister I was really excited

we had some white t-shirts that we we

painted on saying welcome home Natalia

[Music]

we pull up in the town and you know I'll

be honest I was a little taken aback by

the adoption agency location it was in a

run down strip mode

maybe on the wrong side of track

a little house has been converted into

offices didn't look like an adoption

agency at all first thing I'm saying to

my wife is check the address

it just doesn't look right we're gonna

get a child here

oh so we start coming in and they set us

into a little room no bigger than the

size of this room run right now and they

tell us just wait here

Italia's coming soon

you've got to understand with it being a

close adoption the adoption agency was

not willing to share any details of her

before we came down

pictures of her they gave us a Ukrainian

language birth certificate

birth certificates supported six

September 4th 2003 we were all excited

about that

he was also born the summer of

that thought this would be a situation

where they're going to grow and develop

and be twins

Power by ourselves

we signed paperwork pretty quick Sign

Here sign here sign here we hear the

front door open

that's gotta be her

you start peeking Through the Keyhole

there's a little bit of Keyhole to solid

door and we're looking and we're looking

like oh can you can see her

I was really excited for her to come

home

30 minutes go by

and see the door open and we can see the

other family leave and she was about

them before this is her family that

adopted her the first time

Italians Left Behind they had flown in

dropped her off flew up

we never spoke to them and we are just

thinking out how dare these other people

give up on her

worried for the last couple of days

worried sick that our new daughter is

not gonna like us

singing now the door opens

Italians right there she comes running

in

big smile on her face she's happy as can

be and she's shouting mommy daddy mommy

daddy mommy daddy

we're overcome with joy and emotion oh

my gosh that thing

without

the five Great stage

[Music]

she was very small

she had long curly brown hair

she had brown eyes if pronounced

really stood out when she smiled

I remember the way that her

jointed is not the same these hours

because of her dwarfism like her fingers

like sort of

a bit like

but I was overjoyed the day that I

mattered

the fun times I can remember with

Natalya are pretty much from that first

week where we were in Florida

we went with Natalia to Disney World

we were all excited to have her in the

family

Italia seemed happy to join our family

if I was a little girl needing to be

adopted and they came

for me heck yeah jackpot

get to the hotel that night

and Christine's going to give our brand

new

and I hear a shout from the bathroom

this was a I'm not playing around come

here right now Michael

Shout can I get up and go fly into the

bathroom

and

the color's almost gone from her face

it's almost like she's seen a ghost

she's

truly frightened and she just doesn't

icon

like a book

look down

and Natalia had full pubic hair

and

I don't know what to think

is that possible

is that even possible

this person

and six-year-old have full pubic hair I

don't know Google's telling us well

earliest possible time lowest common

denominator eight so we just go okay

look our mission when we were going to

show love and compassion to somebody

that never had it before

doesn't make a difference

I'm Kathy Barnett I'm Michael Barnett's

mother

we found out that Natalia was coming

so excited turn

to treat this child special when they

brought her home they had a very large

party

to welcome her to

beautiful curly dark hair

and Michael was euphoric that day it was

almost as euphoric as the day Jacob was

born and Michael came out of the

delivery room

he's a happy man

you want that there you go plus second

Shield go surely

my name's Kimberly Franklin I am Michael

Barnett's little sister

when I first met Natalia I was you know

totally prepared I knew that she was a

little person and what really struck me

though was that she almost looked like

one of us she had the dark hair and she

really looked like she could have been

my brother's daughter

[Music]

my name is Rachel and I live two doors

down from the barnetts where they used

to live

nosy neighbor that's me

I like to know what's going on in the

neighborhood

[Music]

we were friends with Michael and

Christine

and our kids play together

everybody knew who Natalia was I have

Goosebumps just thinking about when they

walked in with her it was amazing

it was so uplifting to know that this

little girl needed a home and they open

theirs up to her

Christine was smiling you know ear to

ear they were so excited they have three

boys they got a girl

just looking forward to seeing how she'd

react to the park we had across the

street

[Music]

is there a yearbook

so there's Ethan and there's Grace

and the Thai came to our house a lot to

play with my daughter Grace because

they're both sixth first grade

here's Natalya

it's crazy

she's so cute in that picture

it looks like a little girl

once we got back to Indiana and first

with ourselves acceptance of the

situation with Natalya and the pubic

hair

all that mattered was there's a little

girl and

love and needs a home

but duh eventually we had a lot of

escalation

first few months

there was day I came home from work

Christine's got a pair of Natalia's

underwear

Christine asked Natalia to tell me

what's

what's in Italian

[Music]

and I can remember her

physicalness at the time her hands were

just out in front of her like this

said well

I have a period

and I've been hiding it

[Music]

and I I just don't know what's going on

right now

Chris found some thought that she had

used in her underwear and threw them out

the window

Chris was just horrified

she said this

because what have I got myself into and

so I said you need to start finding out

how old she is I heard she had pubic

hair when they when they first got her

and that they found like period

underwear hidden in her room so that

would be the thing that as you know not

a doctor as a Layman I'd be like yeah

that's definitely not a six-year-old

Santa

after I'd first gotten to tell you

or take her to doctors within two months

of getting her that's how I need a foot

surgery because of her condition

Natalia has a very rare form of

dwarfismal dysplasia there's only about

3 400 people like

like just

miraculously

a doctor knew another six-year-old girl

with a spondile epiphygial dysplasia

living in Indiana

who stopped

we're gonna have her meet interact with

somebody just like her

like her how great is that

the other girl comes in

and

for lack of a better term Natalia is

gigantic compared to this other girl

their cranial structures are different

Natalia she's got the full forehead of

an adult she's got to find cheekbones as

an adult

the other girl her head is not developed

at all

there's no way anybody could look at

this picture and say those two are the

same age

so Natalia sees this person it should be

close to the mirror image of her

and realizes

[Music]

we see it

definitely she fills her cheeks with air

blows him out a little so the definition

on her cheekbones disappear

Ed so

that starts to happen

we literally see her head

oh

[Music]

it's almost like you got me

and it's Elva prayers either science

there is she slides traffic dysplasia is

the same as Natalia

and now there are

long

friendship you know where they can grow

up and you know she has somebody to be

able to talk about things that means now

you know something that she

has to feel like she's the only one in

the world later on when we made it for

the play date

immediately Natalia looks physical is

really well developed

an impression

your face doesn't look like a little cat

can't really say an adult

[Music]

so

but she was very bored for talking

like

taking care of the conversation very

well like didn't have no issue I was

saying wow we teach her very good

English

have a reason why I get 46 year old

[Music]

I am Therese and I am 14 years old

[Music]

I was six years old when I met Natalia

it's pretty rare to see someone who has

a disability like me and I wanted to be

friends

[Music]

[Music]

do you have any picture you guys

if I could I could show it to you and

know what you think

definitely I don't think she looked the

same age as me but only I had that baby

look to my face and as

she had kind of gave me like an order

kind of face

look to it

I'm looking at that

old I think she definitely looks like

she's at least

18 20 ish

it definitely looks weird to think about

I was playing with

an adult not a kid my age that I would

wish you fake to age

I feel like that's weird to think that I

was around someone who did that

[Music]

which is not sex

[Music]

we had no idea what we are dealing with

to them it would have looked like they

brought their little girl to a playdate

with a grown-up

and they never reach back out again

[Music]

Natalia told us very little about her

time

in the orphanage

I

are having

belonging from the orphanage like uh

Ukrainian toys she didn't even know very

much about Ukraine like

going early we asked her like oh what's

it like in Ukraine and she said oh it's

always summer there I'm like

okay

you want to tell us something nice

[Music]

you forget what we never hear yeah

it's okay it's all right

we adopted Natalya because

was in danger of never being loved

but every time we ever spoke to Natalia

about hey tell us about the orphanage

tell us about people you've known

[Music]

nothing

so we've asked her about the Ukrainian

language before matter of fact at the

rec center where we had our Sports

league for the autistic kids

the neighboring tenants happens to know

somebody who is born and raised in the

Ukraine

he thought how wonderful would it be for

you to hear your native language your

native tongue for the first

person from the Ukraine comes in

and just immediately starts speaking

Ukrainian

I swear on all things holy

but you were there until almost five

and we actually read six

there was like a set of things that

didn't

add up

we started early in the morning Italia

had no accent

she didn't know that it's really

alphabet

she knew no Ukrainian

you pray a lady starts speaking

Ukrainian to Natalia not a word

I think she knew if she spoke

immediately that we put two and two

together and hear

there's no accent she doesn't know this

didn't speak a word for four days

it's almost like the chick is up

the little playful kid Faith goes away

now we've got

we don't know who she is

we don't know where she's really from

for all I know she had been living in

the Ukraine for 20 years and found a way

out for all I know she's an American

citizen that somehow

oh truth

I truly don't know okay so you tell me

some things that were not true

the dynamic between Natalia and the rest

of the family seemed to shift pretty

early there was a lack of trust

compounded

so that's what you're going to be in the

most trouble for you don't lie

Italian

[Music]

behavioral issues which

certainly the adoption processing

it must be traumatic

abandonment issues are a thing and

abandoned multiple times she was with

another family in America before she

came with us

Natalia was with us for months

that's when we start to witness her dark

side

he had a 2007 Jeep Commander it has

three rows of seats but Natalia could

always try to sit next to my

natural reason

and she would do whatever she could

to upset him

she would purposely

wait until she was next to him in the

car

defecate in the car and put her hand

into it and try to smear it on Ethan

yeah it was a frequent occurrence for

the

soiled surfaces that she wasn't supposed

to what were we doing to bother Ethan I

was smart

with him

that was the life my six-year-old son

had

to the car was like going to the haunted

house

and another thing if we went someplace

in public

she made eye contact with somebody

I'm in the car she would get

it closed door

as soon as I would start to get into my

seat and the car would get into gear

doors open and she's throwing herself

out of the vehicle so people around her

can see

the idea look of a poor helpless little

girl

trying to get back to poor helpless

little girl status

[Music]

she was doing as many things as possible

to cause hurt or harm or mental distress

to the entire family she's been with us

for about five or six months at this

point that's time my boys are six

Natalya

find things that are more important to

them but

to hide them she'd wait to be crossing

the street

and make sure that

the blue is baiting my kids to run in

the traffic so they could run over

I can't put in the words

the day abject horror

horn to go through and live with

[Music]

there certainly was like a lot of fear

what if

an attack that actually arms one of us

a couple of weeks after that

I came home from work

and then taking knives out of the

kitchen and hiding hiding a room Wander

Over bed

I go upstairs

Christine has the knife there's a big

butcher knife

Natalia was lording knives in her room

Catholic intentions to attack us

I asked Natalia Natalia

did you have this under your bed

yes

what were you gonna do with it

I'm going to kill you in your sleep

thank you

Michael and Christine weren't very vocal

about

the stuff at first with Natalya

until it got

overwhelming

and

that's when Christine came and told me

and sat down on my front porch

with Wesley and Ethan and shared what

was going on

Christine was crying she was very upset

saying that Natalia wasn't

who they thought she was and I said well

what do you mean and she said

drives

chennai's in our room

the boys were like yeah yeah this is

really happening yeah

Natalia is really doing that this is the

time when I backed away from them

because I was just in so much shock from

hearing this story I

went to Grace and said you know what we

need to find some new friends to play

with

with that little girl

I don't want anything to do with her

she wasn't welcome in her house

I don't want to try killing my daughter

or me

[Music]

Michael really only told me by the time

they've gone through all these things

that

that he was afraid

he was afraid of what she

would she do or could do or any of that

I knew that there was fear

absolutely we reached out to the

adoption agency as we were noticing all

of these issues and irregularities

they were unhelpful

[Music]

I was lost I was getting no help from

anybody anywhere so we went to

therapists

trying to find guidance trying to figure

out the right diagnosis

it's really the third or fourth

therapist we got to that seemed to

and seem to have in the town

she pulled [ __ ] and nice eyes

you're all in extreme Danger

at that point in time

we already knew that

we've been living that

so we were not stunned

at the door stood at the diagnosis

they were expecting a severe mental

disorder that was out of her control we

were expecting

we are expecting something we were

expecting her to say she hears voices

she's hearing demands tell her to do

this stuff

so she tells us she's a sociopath

[Music]

she does things that you and I would

consider crazy

but it's

she knows what she's doing she's in

control of doing it

it's not the diagnosis

no Central and she can really be held

she's a sociopath

that was the first moment from a

clinician that we heard

can't help here but you're 12 years old

and you're

just down the hallways

when he's living with you who actually

wants to harm you that's very that's a

very scary

and I definitely didn't feel safe around

the town

there was one night

two o'clock in the morning we hear a

noise

Christine nudges me and wakes me up

and I jump up I go look

[Music]

up here I can't find it there

I go down the hall in Italian's room

open the door

[Music]

it's dark

dead set on The Middle

blank look on her face

Natalia what are you doing

I'm waiting

Waiting For What

for you to go to sleep

it's absolutely shocking to hear

that an adopted child was threatening

the lives of her siblings and her

parents I mean does it really disturbing

to hear

[Music]

one night

sleep in bed everything's fine hear a

little noise

I opened my eyes and Natalia is standing

at the foot of the bed

[Music]

what's going on

how much danger are we really in here

was I about to die was Christine about

to die were my kids about to die

[Music]

I opened my eyes and Natalia is standing

at the foot of the bed with a knife in

her hand

no idea what she's thinking

no idea what's going through over her

head

and Frozen

Natalia what are you doing

nothing

[Music]

why are you in here

[Music]

I don't know that's just a blank look

there there's no emotion there there's

no feeling going through her it's just

this blankness

I don't know what I'm doing here

Natalia put that down right now

and she did

the time you go to your room right now

she did

but obviously I

store for the rest of

the rest of the shirt she didn't come

out she didn't emerge something didn't

happen

[Music]

knowing that

that somebody like Natalya

was living two doors down from me and

supposedly

tried to kill her family

thinking that there's a killer in my

neighborhood is

mind-blowing

you think you know everybody

you've lived here for so long you don't

know everybody you don't know anybody

you don't know anything

but it's scary

it's very scary

so we start going to lots of therapy

[Music]

you start going through plausible

deniability

you start to try to convince yourself

she wasn't meaning to harm

this might seem strange we never ever

said let's take her back we thought we

could help things we thought we could

improve things

thank you

I wake up one morning

it is suddenly in happy I want to be

part of

part of it and she asked Christine is

there anything I can do to help you're

doing the dishes can I help do the

dishes

So Christine says sure I'd really

appreciate that thank you Natalia

the dishes off in the sink Christine

goes to the other room for a moment and

she's got a coffee cup sitting on the

counter

and comes back in

I'm staying screens

I come racing downstairs

see a bottle of pledge I see Christine's

coffee cup and Christine tried to drink

it and instantly taste and pledge

[Music]

cleaning supplies have been poured in

the Christine's coffee cup

Christine is screaming at her Natalia

why did you do this

and she just says

split out I'm trying to kill you I'm

trying to poison you

yeah I certainly have that at him

[Music]

the entire time

[Music]

is kind of

[Music]

poisonous

I guess I haven't really figured out a

way to reconcile it to be honest still

working through it

[Music]

[Music]

good morning

[Music]

foreign