Original subtitles

[theme music playing]

The Curious Case of Natalia Grace,

Natalia Speaks.

Even now, so many questions still unanswered.

What in the world did we just witness with our own eyes?

So much to unpack and all questions answered

hopefully tonight,

directly from the team

who put these documentaries together,

the producers and investigators

behind this amazing case.

We will have never-before-seen footage

here exactly what it was like to be in those rooms

during the show's most explosive moments.

And we get firsthand accounts of some shocking times

behind the scenes, an action-packed show.

But first, as always, investigative reporter,

Mara S. Campo, and private investigator,

Derrick Levasseur,

what do you make of that last minute bombshell?

It's like... I feel like my head exploded.

I was so excited and happy for Natalia

that it seemed like she had finally found her family

and all the siblings and all the love she was getting,

and then you hear that things may not be

as great as they seem.

My heart broke for her.

But then, it also raises questions.

You know, Natalia has been the common denominator

in all of these families, so what's going on?

Yeah. When I saw the Mans and the dynamic

they had with Natalia, I said, "This is it.

She's found her forever home."

And then that last 30 seconds, I was just sitting there

watching it going, I can't believe it.

-[Nancy] Like bombed. -[Derrick] Yup.

Felt like a bomb just dropped,

because we go through the entire series

looking for her to be happy,

finding out, what is the truth?

How old is she?

Is she a con artist? Is she a child?

All these questions just hitting you

and you see a resolution.

In the end, you think you know the answer

and then bam, your head just blows open.

[Mara] You know, she got her name changed,

she got adopted formally.

It seemed like the happy ending

that everybody was waiting for for her.

But it also reminded me of the fact

that everything she's been through,

you know, we just learned

in this series recently, her true age.

Up until now, that was the big mystery.

Is this an adult psychopath

posing as a child or is this really a child?

Now we know this was a child all along.

So let's say she is a problem child.

She is a problem for the Mans family,

after everything she's been through,

you can certainly understand why she's traumatized.

And I think Beth Karas, who's joining us here

in just a bit explains the challenges of this case best

after working on it for years.

Let's hear what she had to say.

I have been on a rollercoaster with this case, right?

I had been up and down one side,

the other side seeing things from both sides,

trying to figure out, who's telling the truth?

Is Michael lying?

Is Natalia lying?

Or maybe they are both victims of the same monster.

Incredible. And like I was saying

before that little clip, you know,

it's one of those things where we can acknowledge

what she went through. I think the Barnetts...

I agree with you, Michael, Kristine,

I got no use for 'em.

But the reality is, with all these other families

seeing some of the things, especially with the bombshell

we just talked about at the end,

could it be true that she experienced a horrific childhood,

but there may have been some things from her childhood

that led her to these behaviors,

which obviously not--

[Nancy] I gotta back you up just a moment.

-[Derrick] Hit me with it. -When you're talking about,

who's telling the truth,

the moment that Barnett,

Michael Barnett comes in,

and he's blinking and he's twisting

and he won't look at her and he won't look at the camera,

he won't look at anybody, you can tell right then

he's about to drop a lie.

So, can I just ask you,

why would they lie about anything?

Why would they "re-age"?

Who made that term up anyway?

What is re-age?

That is a lie.

That is a fraud.

I can't listen to anything those two people say

because they lie from the beginning.

[Mara] Well, no, you're absolutely right.

And when you now think about everything

that we've heard from them

in the context of the fact that they knew,

we know that they had exams,

they had the dental exam, they had hospital exams

that confirmed Natalia's true age

and they still moved forward with the re-age.

When I heard that dentist say,

"She's got baby teeth, people."

That was it for me.

I didn't need to hear anything else.

Guys, one of the biggest takeaways of Natalia Speaks,

is that Michael and Kristine Barnett

knew Natalia was a child.

Let's listen to Natalia's dentist

who confirms her age.

[Dr. Gossweiler] This is way too many baby teeth

to be an adult.

It's indisputable.

You can't fake teeth coming in like this.

So when Mom and Natalia left,

Mom knew that Natalia was around eight or nine,

which is right in the range

of what she said that she was.

Oh, her age was... They legally changed her age?

Oh, they tried to... Oh, I wasn't aware of that.

And what was it changed to?

Oh, really?

Twenty-two.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's a... That's a big jump.

Nothing on the x-ray that we took

that would show that she could be anywhere

near 15 years older.

Wow. That seems crazy.

So Kristine Barnett knew Natalia's age

when she started telling people

that she suspected Natalia was an adult.

And here is the timeline of the exams.

So in June of 2010,

this is months after they've picked her up,

even before the adoption was finalized,

there was an exam that said her estimated age

was eight years old.

In May of 2011, she had this dental exam

that we just heard from the dentist.

June of 2012, she had another exam,

which included an endocrinologist

that said that she was about 10 or 11 years old.

And that same year, they had her re-aged to 22.

[Nancy] Why do we keep saying re-age?

Is that, number one, even a word?

But what it boils down to me

is an official lie

on court documents that you fill out.

That is fraud. That is a crime.

And I can't help but wonder,

"Why would you lie about the age of this little child

unless you were doing something nefarious,

something wrong?"

So therefore, I can't believe anything

either one of them say.

I think the series did a great job

of pointing out a potential motive, right?

We're seeing in this, as you just laid out here

with the dentist, the previous doctor,

they all confirmed her age.

It really wasn't up for that much debate.

But Kristine wanted to create this another child prodigy

just like her son, Jacob.

And when that didn't pan out, she realized

there was no other book deal in her future

and decided, "Listen, we gotta re-age her

to get her out of the house

'cause this is not what I had planned."

So it's unfortunate that that's the situation.

Well, another lie told by the Barnetts

that was exposed in this documentary

is what really happened at the dairy farm

the day Kristine says Natalia tried to push her

into an electric fence.

A never-before-seen footage, we hear from Natalia

on what she says really happened.

She says, this was right after Kristine made her stand

in one place for several days,

which is very painful for someone

with this type of dwarfism, with nothing to eat or drink.

Here's Natalia, who by the way,

was under a gag order during the criminal trial,

which is why we haven't heard from her until now.

She told me, "Natalia, you need to get up."

I told her, "I can't."

My feet were actually bleeding too,

because I started getting holes in the shoes that I had.

I couldn't get up anymore.

I was already sick throwing up blood

because I haven't ate.

I'm dehydrated, starved.

I was sick as a dog.

She just kept telling me, "You need to get up."

She tried to help me get up,

and we both fell.

And as soon as we went down,

she said, "Why did you try to throw me into the electric fence?"

"I didn't try to throw you into an electric fence."

And then someone that works at the farm saw it,

and they called the police because I got sick

and I was throwing up blood.

And Natalia says she was taken to the hospital

and treated for dehydration.

You know, there was also the knife incident,

Michael waking up in the middle of the night

with Natalia standing at the foot of the bed

holding a knife.

Is that true?

This is what Natalia says.

For one...

their bed was literally at the height

of, like, right here when I was really little.

And you're all saying I was standing

at the end of the bed?

I could barely even see over the bed post that they had.

Second, I ain't that strong.

I'm an 8-year-old, 37-pound little girl.

If I tried to even stab you or anything,

I wouldn't have been able to do it.

And literally, I can't... Like, I can't even grip it.

It's just... It's loose in my hand

and I can't hold it for that long.

And it gets tiring

because I'm pretty much, like, using the muscle

that I can't really use.

Bottom line, what she just said,

she would not even have the physical capability

to drag the mom into an electric fence

or to commit, say, stabbing attack on her parents.

I just don't see it.

Well, I think what the Barnetts did

very successfully was play on existing fears

and misunderstandings that people have

about those with dwarfism.

If this was not a child with dwarfism,

would anyone look at a 7-year-old and say,

"Oh, they're terrorizing that entire family.

They are stalking them at night with knives."

[Nancy] A really good point, Mara.

They may be 22 years old, there would be no question.

So they played on these existing fears.

They ripped plot lines from movie, The Orphan,

and it was successful.

It made people question

whether this was a demon-possessed child

or a sociopathic adult pretending to be a child.

[Nancy] Okay. That never happened to me.

I just thought she may have been lying about her age.

[Mara] But still a sociopathic adult...

-Yes. -masquerading as a child.

-That's pretty scary. -Yup.

-Yes, you're right. -Yeah. Absolutely.

Something else I found really interesting in all of this

is the comparisons between these stories the Barnett's told about Natalia

and the movie, The Orphan.

Now, as Natalia points out,

this movie is about a Russian girl

adopted by an American family,

and the story told by Kristine Barnett

perfectly mirrors the movie.

If we can pull up some of the trailer?

Now, you can see it for yourself.

Something's happening to cause Esther to feel this way.

[screaming]

[Sister Abigail]I think there's something wrong with Esther.

We need to know what we're dealing with.

Trouble does have a way of finding her.

[Kate] What kind of trouble?

[eerie music playing]

And as you can see, the similarities are striking,

a Russian girl, Natalia's Ukrainian.

Older than she appears,

threatening behavior against other children in the family,

standing by the bed with a knife.

All these stories the Barnetts told, all just like the movie.

[Nancy] So if you have to pick between Michael Barnett

and Natalia Grace, I think I'd have to go

-with believing Natalia... -[Derrick] Agreed.

[Nancy] before him.

Wouldn't you agree with that about the knife incident?

Yeah. Well, we've seen, I mean the... These...

The series has brilliantly laid out

so many contradictions.

I'll call them things that he claims that are not--

-[Nancy] You mean lies? -Well, they're... You know--

[Nancy] Because I will call it what it is.

But he's continuing to claim them,

for example, saying that he never met the adoptive family.

And she said, "Well, you were back there in the room

with them for quite some time."

So... And you were on an email thread with them.

So why are you saying that this was a closed adoption,

you didn't even know their names?

So they've done a very good job

of laying out the fact that Michael is far

from truthful and forthcoming.

And so whether or not, we know Natalia's telling the truth,

we know Michael is a liar.

Well, this is what the Barnetts say...

Well, Michael Barnett, he goes,

"Look, there was the birth family,

then there were the Ciccones,

then there were the Barnetts,

and now we're on the fourth family

and they have problems.

So do all the families have the problem

or does Natalia Grace have the problem?

That's what they're gonna be arguing.

Yeah, I think it's... And that's what I was going through earlier.

It could be a combination of both where...

Like you said, the... From what Natalia had been through,

she may be lied here and there,

but absolutely these families

had some ulterior motive for sure.

So now we have seen evidence.

The Barnetts did know Natalia's age,

lied about it, and allegedly abused Natalia.

Why no charges against the mom?

Up next, Beth Karas joins us

to talk about that and never-before-seen footage

from inside the court case.

And later, what about that last twist,

the phone call from the Mans?

Why do they too

want to get rid of Natalia Grace?

Is everybody lying except her?

And does it change anything we believe

about Natalia Grace?

We have seemingly seen proof

the Barnetts knew Natalia was a child

when they left her to live alone in an apartment,

but the Barnetts are walking free.

And now, never-before-seen footage

of what happened right after Michael Barnett's found

not guilty on neglect charges.

During the trial, I remember seeing Michael,

and when I looked at him, he looked straight at me.

And he smiled at me,

like just...

And I'm just like, "What?

You know what you did?

Like, you really... You're gonna smile?

You're gonna smile at me?"

It felt so torturous

that we knew he was guilty

and he was able to walk away.

There was no justice served.

It felt degrading. It felt gross.

It was almost like being raped.

That's what happened

immediately after Michael Barnett was found not guilty.

But Kristine never faced Lady Justice.

And with us now, investigative reporter

and long-time colleague, Beth Karas,

legal analyst and narrator throughout the documentary,

Beth Karas, thank you so much for being with us.

Why is Kristine Barnett walking free?

It's so nice to be here with you,

all of you, thank you.

This is quite a ride, this whole story.

Kristine was charged along with Michael.

The cases were severed, he was tried first I...

And he was given a subpoena,

he was gonna testify against her presumably, right?

He'd be compelled to testify against her,

but otherwise the evidence was the same.

A new prosecution team took over

and I suspect they thought,

"Yeah. It's the same evidence.

Even with Michael, he has credibility issues.

We probably can't prove it.

We don't wanna just waste our resources

and go through this again."

But it's interesting because the jury foreperson told us

that everybody believed that he was guilty,

but the way the judge charged them,

they had to find him not guilty,

which to me sounds like they...

It felt she was a dependent, as a disabled person,

but she did... She survived, right?

I mean, she did get a little bit of help,

so maybe it didn't rise to the level

of, you know, complete abandonment.

I mean, she never was... Her life wasn't in danger.

She was never close to death for example.

Well, but they weren't allowed to raise the question

about her age...

Oh, no, the judge kept her out.

-Right. And so he-- -Which is the whole point to me, Mara.

Right. But then the defense very successfully argued,

"This is an adult.

She's capable of taking care of herself.

And she can choose to be estranged from her family

if she wants to."

But now that we know

that she was in fact a child at that time,

can they face charges of child abuse, child neglect?

And now that we know they knew her age,

are they guilty of defrauding the court?

[Kara] Well, that, I definitely believe

they perpetrated fraud on the court.

The statute of limitations has probably expired on that,

but I don't know for sure.

Kristine's case was dismissed with prejudice.

Now at that time, the dismissal

was for the abandonment of a dependent.

Can they resurrect the charges depend...

Abandonment of a child?

Maybe. But again the statute of limitations

is it's... Has probably expired.

Speaking of the abuse, you gotta think about

Natalia's story about her being pepper sprayed

by Kristine as a form of compliance.

Watch this.

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

and Kristine tried 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.

[ominous music playing]

[Natalia] But I was stuck.

And...

I guess she just got so mad

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

And she pepper sprayed me

right in the face.

She's like, "That's what it's gonna feel like

every time that you do this."

Yeah. And like as I was saying,

we have experiences before as a police officer,

we have to be pepper sprayed as part of our training.

I can tell you it's extremely painful,

to have a situation where you're using this

as a form of punishment, I can't imagine it to a child.

You know, not only with the Barnetts, re-age,

i.e. lie, lie on official documents.

Why did they wanna get rid of her, Beth?

And why did the judge go along with it?

And in one stroke of the pen,

I believe you said this in the documentary, it was really good.

She went from being a 7 or 8-year-old

to being able to buy booze,

vote, and what else did you say?

-It was really good. -Drive a car.

[Nancy] That, yes, that's what you said.

Right. All of a sudden an adult.

Would... And then abandon with no coping mechanisms

in an apartment that wasn't modified

for a disabled small person,

it just broke my heart to see that.

Well, the whole re-aging,

we think, we can only sort of interpret their conduct,

their actions, we don't... We're not inside their heads

was that, she became an albatross

or... And she became a burden,

she needed a lot of medical care.

She was gonna be expensive, she wasn't the genius

that Kristine hoped she would be

so she could have another Spark book, Spark Two.

You know, it just... It didn't work out.

And so rather than risk her reputation

which was growing at the time

in a... In a... In certain circles,

she said, "Let's just get rid of her.

Let's not give her back up for adoption,

because that will hurt her reputation

that she gave away."

Oh, wait, I'm starting to see it.

So it would ruin her reputation

as this activist.

-[Beth] Supermom. -[Derrick] Supermom.

Yes.

So you think that's the motive,

because that actually suddenly fits for me?

Yes, and we do get some of that from Michael,

because Michael does say that Kristine was very concerned

about her image like... She had written out a one...

You remember this in the--

She called herself the Oprah of Autism, right?

Right. And that she said she wrote all the reasons

why she qualified for sainthood.

And all of the money she got,

more than half a million dollars

-for the book was her money... -[Derrick] The Spark.

not his and he had to help support the family,

but that money was hers.

I mean, she was a very selfish person, it appears

from everything Michael has--

So then, in her mind, she had to change her age

and put her away in an apartment

as opposed to just putting her back up for adoption.

Yeah. Or get her institutionalized permanently,

or get her in prison, something like that.

Or something worse,

put her in an apartment complex like that?

Well, what gets me is how young Natalia Grace was

during all of this.

The lead prosecutor on the abandonment case,

Jackie Starbuck sums up how old she was,

during all of the lies told by the Barnetts.

So if all of that is true about her age,

that means Natalia came into the country in 2008

when she was four, almost five.

Adopted by the Barnetts in 2010 when she was seven.

Natalia was eight when the age change petition was filed

and was placed in the apartment in Westfield.

In July of 2013

when she was placed in the Lafayette apartment,

she would've been nine

a few months shy of turning 10.

What that means is that Natalia was a child

living on her own.

A child this age living all on her own?

Can you imagine a child living alone

by themselves at just eight years old?

What was that like? Next.

And the highly-charged meetings

between Natalia Grace and Michael Barnett,

what was it like to be in those rooms?

[man] And God is in control.

You understand that?

-That's it? God is in control. -No. No, that was it.

We're not gonna... We're not gonna do anything with...

-I tried, I tried, I tried... -we're gonna do... It's okay.

I tried, I tried, I tried, I tried.

[theme music playing]

I've got two children

and it would be a cold day in H-E-L-L,

I would leave them alone,

especially at night.

So much can go sideways

and they didn't like to be alone,

I cannot imagine them

living in an apartment

by themselves, feeding themselves,

taking care of themselves at age eight.

What if they got sick?

What if there was an intruder?

What if they were hungry or they were tired

and they were afraid?

Not to mention an overwhelming sense of abandonment.

And that's seemingly what happened here.

My long-time colleague, Beth Karas,

explains how the Barnetts had Natalia "re-aged."

The only medical professionals

who believe that Natalia

was an adult was the family doctor,

McLaren and a social worker,

therapist, Susan Whitten,

and they were the basis

for the application to re-age Natalia.

We're talking about

making her twenty-two from eight,

so that with a stroke of his pen,

overnight, she is eligible to drink,

drive, and vote, okay?

Like that is highly unusual.

Now, along with Beth Karas, Ken Maxwell,

the EP of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace

and also the investigator at the heart of it all.

It is a real honor to meet you

because when I first heard about the story,

I thought, "Ah, a grown woman from Ukraine

has committed a fraud. Next."

Then I found out the horrible, uncomfortable,

upsetting truth that it wasn't a con,

it was just really a little girl

who was "re-aged" as Beth Karas has been saying,

it's horrible.

Absolutely horrendous

to put a child like that in the predicament

that she was placed in,

with no safety of cover at all

into an apartment that, uh,

put her age aside for a second,

as a disabled person

to not have the type

of accessories and equipment

in an apartment that would facilitate

a person of her stature to do simple things.

To use the toilet, to reach a shelf,

to use the stove,

it's just absolutely horrendous

to put a young child

-in that type of predicament. -[Nancy] It's heartbreaking.

And in this case, Michael Barnett

tries to make himself the equal of Natalia

in terms of being a victim.

Bot had the same monster,

but he's a grown man and we're talking about

a disabled child with dwarfism.

This certainly, many would argue, Ken,

did not make Michael look good,

-none of this. -[Ken] No. Yeah.

Was it hard to get him to talk to you

and why do you think he wanted to do this?

Well, first of all, I agree with you,

there's no equivalency whatsoever

in terms of victimology

between Natalia and Michael Barnett.

He's a grown adult.

He was a husband of Kristine.

He had an absolute duty to intercede at a minimum

witnessing physical abuse

and the kinds of abuse that Natalia went through.

But in terms of Michael and what motivated him,

I think both with respect to Michael

and we didn't have an opportunity to speak

-to Kristine and she may know. -[Derrick] Mmm-hmm.

[Ken] There's a constant need for validation,

he's in the public arena,

he certainly likes the camera

in terms of how he emotes,

sometimes very, very energetically

and emotionally,

and so I think he likes that attention,

-to be honest with you. -[Derrick and Nancy] Yeah.

And some people in that predicament,

as weird as it may sound to some people,

like the limelight.

So here's what got me.

So as you said, her age was changed from 8 to 22.

So Natalya was eight, nine years old

living in an apartment alone.

Let's listen to what she describes.

I remember my power actually being shut off

in the Lafayette apartment

for, like, a week and it was in the middle of summer,

like, it was burning hot.

I remember, like, everything in the fridge went bad, like,

and I couldn't go grocery shopping.

And I was scared.

I was really scared.

Like I could've died.

I grew up way too early,

I've had to learn lessons

that I should've learned

when maybe, like, just now turning 20.

I should be learning those life's lessons.

It felt literally, like,

I had to grow up overnight.

And for me too, it was hearing how dangerous

that neighborhood was

when Natalia and Cynthia went back

to the Lafayette apartment, watch what happened.

So she had to do all this on her own

when she was so much more smaller and...

-Yeah. -and less stable.

You know, she was...

-[gunshot] -Jesus, that scared me.

-[Natalia] Are you for real? -[Cynthia laughs]

-[producer] What was that? -Please tell me

that was a firework.

-I was eight. -Nine and a half?

I was eight. I turned nine when I met you guys.

-Okay. So nine years old. -Yeah.

And she was walking through this area herself.

Anything coulda happened.

I thank God it though.

-[gunshot] -Jesus.

-[gunshot] -Oh. Okay.

I'm ready to go.

Incredible to hear that.

And by the way, we had talked about this,

you know, during our briefing, Mara,

and you had talked about actually visiting this area.

-We-- -Yeah. I've... I visited this neighborhood.

I went to the apartment while I was reporting

on this story several years ago.

We... I went in what's called "door-knocking"

when you're a reporter you're trying to get information

from people. This... They're not exaggerating.

This is an incredibly sketchy neighborhood.

I was afraid to door-knock there

and then my fears were confirmed

by some of the people who answered doors.

It blows my mind that a 9-year-old

was living there alone and... But for the grace of God,

nothing terrible happened to her.

[Beth] With no skills,

she wasn't going to school.

And at one point,

when her electricity was turned off

and Michael was like texting with Kristine,

I mean, she's like, "She's an adult,

she can figure it out."

"She can figure it out on her own."

That's what Kristine's response was,

"She can figure it out."

And really, Michael was instrumental

in getting the power restored and getting her a phone,

because they had taken her phone too.

They didn't want her to have any kind of contact.

[Nancy] Wait, so at that time, she had no phone?

-No, they have taken it. -For a period.

For a period of time.

Am I supposed to like him

because he got the power turned back on

in the apartment he put her in

with a gunfire outside, that guy?

Yeah. I'm not feeling any more warm feelings

toward him for that.

More with Beth and Ken

and more on "Dad" Michael Barnett,

like the moment he describes

watching wife Kristine beat Natalia Grace.

Beatings

were similar to this...

[grunts]

[Nancy] Plus, about that phone call

from the Mans,

what happened to this outwardly loving family?

[theme music playing]

I would love to get into some of the moments

where we see Michael Barnett getting,

I guess I would describe it as very emotional.

Like the moment he left the first meeting with Natalia

as his lawyer and Antwon Mans started having words.

Let's look at that.

It's okay.

-[man] And God is in control. -No.

-[man] You understand that? -That's not.

-[man] God is in control. -No. No, that was it.

[man] We're not gonna... We're not gonna do anything

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

-It's okay. -I tried. I tried.

I tried. I tried. I tried.

I tried, and I tried, and I tried

to get rid of that monster, that piece of...

I'm trying to talk through everything in thickness.

-[Antwon] Let me, let me... Let me talk to you. -No. No, no.

-[Antwon] Let talk to you. Hold on a second. -No. No.

-[Antwon] Let me talk to you. -[Michael] No.

[Antwon] Come here for a second.

[Michael] No. I can't... I tried--

Right. We're trying... Let me... Let me speak

to you for a second.

Can I do that?

Hold on, hold on. Let him... Let him do that.

Let him do that.

Yeah. That was a really interesting moment.

And there was that moment when Michael wanted to show

a time when he says Kristine was beating Natalia.

So he gets on the floor to demonstrate,

take a look at this.

The beatings

were similar to this...

[grunts]

Oh, my goodness.

Beth, what do you make of that display?

You know, I can't see that enough.

I don't understand why he actually punched the floor.

Why couldn't he just sort of demonstrate without--

And didn't I tell you that he was hurt?

He's hurt himself doing that.

But I guess he made his point.

I mean, like, as Ken was describing,

I mean, Michael likes the camera.

He emotes a lot.

If you remember the end of season one,

it ends as the credits are rolling with him saying,

"You know, what... Which Michael do you want,

like the emotional one? I can give you the tears."

Like he can turn it on and off real fast.

That's how season one ended with the credits rolling.

-Remember? He's like... -[Ken] Yeah. Yeah.

"I'll give you the tears if you want."

-I'm paraphrasing. -[Nancy] I'm so unimpressed.

And I'm just thinking about the way he carried on

when he yanked his mic off.

If he would act like that

in a room full of producers

and in front of his daughter, Natalia Grace,

what would he do behind closed doors?

And he says he didn't know about any of the re-aging,

that it's all Kristine,

that he didn't go to the doctor's appointments.

He got all of this secondhand knowledge.

Uh-uh, I don't believe that,

-but that's what he says. -[Ken] Yeah.

Well, you wouldn't find Michael's picture

next to the definition of veracity

in anybody's dictionary.

We have caught him in misrepresentations

and that you have to think they're purposeful.

The incident at the creamery,

initially he told us that he observed the whole thing.

-[Nancy] Mmm-hmm. -And he actually heard

a verbiage, and, you know,

about, "I wanna kill that SOB," you know, with, um,

referring to Kristine.

And then later on he changed at 180 degrees

that he didn't see what was happening.

[Nancy]He was "in the forest."

[Ken] It was... Yes. On his way back

from where they milked the cows.

There's an another instance where he told us

that they took Natalia out of grade school,

which she was doing quite well, by the way,

because she was running over children

with her wheelchair.

Well, we interviewed...

I interviewed after the state police did,

her first grade teacher.

A highly-credible person who said, "Ken,

I'm telling you right now,

that is a lot of lies and nonsense.

I was her teacher.

If we knew that she was running kids over

with her wheelchair,

you know, if she was doing that,

I'd be the first to to know.

She was a very well-behaved child,

typical first grader."

So, you know, he has been caught before

in a be-kind misrepresentations.

And you have to think when people lie,

and somebody with my experience interviewing

thousands of people through the years,

there's always a reason, an underlying motive.

It's hard to get yourself into their brain,

into their mindset exactly why.

In this case,

it would be sheer speculation.

However, when you look at that scene of him

really dramatically pounding that floor,

this is the way you beat a little person

who has disabilities,

keep in mind that when he was first approached

by the Indiana State Police,

Investigator Davenport in his backyard,

this is prior to his arrest,

almost immediately he threw his wife, Kristine,

under the bus,

telling the state police

how Kristine inflict beatings.

Now, when he gets that dramatic,

is he trying to deflect...

-[Derrick] Mmm-hmm. -attention away from him

and his, at a minimum,

indirect/latent role

in allowing this physical abuse

to happen to a helpless child, right?

Or he's... Is he doing it just for the cameras

or a combination of both?

Yeah. What is the truth?

Our guests are staying right here with us.

More emotional bombshells

when Natalia Grace and Michael Barnett

come together for the first time

since that stunning court verdict.

What really happened in that explosive meeting?

And what do the filmmakers think of that

phone call from the Mans?

[theme music playing]

We are back with Beth and Ken,

who along with Shannon and Eric Evangelista,

created this incredible documentary series

about this bizarre story.

And now, more never-before-seen

footage of Michael Barnett with his attorney

just before he meets Natalia Grace again

after that horrible court battle.

[Terrance] You're going into this interview with your daughter.

-Uh-huh. -How do you feel about that?

[sighs]

Last night, very strange.

Felt the same way

as the night before I was going to meet Natalia

for the first time and adopt Natalia

-for the first time. -[Terrance] Really?

There's that exact same

little flutter of apprehension

because I don't know what they're gonna be thinking.

Is this something you feel like you have to do?

[Michael sighs]

I feel like I'm compelled to.

I'm not... It's not I have to.

No one's pointing a gun to me saying,

"You must do this!"

But, this needs to be done.

It needs to be done mainly,

honestly, from her point of view first.

It needs to be done from my point of view.

Look, we...

There are a lot of blanks

between she and I

that we can fill in for each other.

Okay.

Ken, what really happened

with both sides before the meeting?

What did they think was going to happen?

Well, they knew there was gonna be a confrontation

of some sort, but they were trying to...

Both sides trying to mitigate

the amount of confrontation.

Michael's attorney, who's very adept,

laid it out to him in terms of how Michael looks

in the world of...

The court of public opinion.

And of course, Natalia wants an opportunity

to tell her side of the story as well

'cause she didn't have that opportunity at trial.

So they both had something to gain from this

in terms of informing the public,

educating the public.

So those kinds of discussions went on.

And they were sensitive discussions.

It didn't happen overnight.

It took some convincing and cajoling and not...

I wouldn't say arm-twisting,

but certainly in a euphemistic type of way.

A little bit of arm-twisting,

"Listen, this is your opportunity

to tell what really happened here."

[Nancy]What do you think, Beth?

Well, I wanted to point out

that just like the jury

could not hear about the re-aging of Natalia,

that topic could not be discussed

in this confrontation either,

which I found really interesting.

And what happened there?

I wasn't part of these negotiations.

Yeah.

So the ground rules going in,

that was number one ground rule

that Natalia was not allowed to bring up

any questions about the re-aging.

And the concern there was litigation,

obviously, 'cause that's still open

in terms of Natalia

entertaining civil litigation against the Barnetts.

So that was the ground rule.

As we got into it,

that ground rule was quickly broken

when Natalia started asking some questions about age.

And Michael put his hands up, said,

"Didn't anybody brief her? Didn't...

Did anybody tell her she's not supposed to ask me

about those questions."

So that came up.

But that's... Let's face it, that's key.

And that's the crux of this whole story.

How old was this person?

Was she a child? Was she an adult?

Why was the court

misled to be kind

in terms of getting her re-aged the first time?

And the motive why is speculative.

But all... We were hoping with this confrontation

that we would get more answers to those questions.

And it wasn't entirely satisfactory,

-to be honest with you. -No. Not at all

because I still want vengeance.

Well, Michael just acted like a victim the whole time too.

He apologized for what Kristine had done,

but I don't recall him taking any real [indistinct]

Never once. He blamed everything on her

and ultimately the ending for now anyway.

I'm overly sorry about what she did to you.

I am horrified by what she has done to you.

I am sorry I wasn't stronger and didn't stop her.

I...

I wasn't.

I...

I just wasn't.

I forgive you.

You don't have to.

I don't forgive me.

You should.

Can I pray for you?

Please.

So this was the part for me in the episode

where I felt like I had a reveal to Michael's...

His ambitions for this interview.

He wanted that right there

because as soon as he got it,

it was like, "Hey, thank you. I'm on my way out."

In the moment he's like, "Oh, I don't forgive myself."

But when he got outside, shades go on,

"You know what? All is forgiven."

-Done and done. -I don't think so, Michael.

I don't think so.

So I said to myself right there,

"That's what he was looking for.

He's satisfied." And that just tells me,

in my opinion, he didn't go in there with a genuine...

Really wanting to fix this thing.

And he got down and he kneeled on the floor

and let her pray over him regarding forgiveness?

Uh-uh. And now, that bombshell phone call

from the Mans family. Listen.

Ken, I just can't believe it.

Right when we thought

everything was going to work out

for Natalia Grace,

and now this bombshell phone call.

When did that happen?

We got that call just two weeks ago.

It was a wrap. We had it in the can.

It was absolutely a mad scramble.

We would be remiss not to include that.

We'd be misleading the viewers as documentarians.

We had to put a little bit of that call

into the end of the show.

What's gonna happen to Natalia?

That's the new question to be answered.

We are all over this

in terms of this totally unexpected development.

It's not finished. This saga is continuing.

And, I mean, I don't know if we'll be back

with more to tell you about it,

but we're still... We're gonna follow the story

-and hope that there is more to tell. -Can you tell us anything

about the circumstances of the call?

Do we know why they called?

Really? I can get into that at this juncture,

it's a little bit premature?

But there's a hint in that phone call

where Antwon Mans says,

"And she's done other things in this house."

-[Derrick] Yeah. -[Nancy] Uh-oh.

Well, what are those other things?

For me, I leave it with Natalia

has been through some things, some dramatic things

that I wouldn't wish on anyone,

and I hope that going forward,

whether we get to see it on TV or not,

she finds what she's looking for

because it's amazing that she's gotten this far in life

-with what she's been through. -Exactly.

-It's absolutely amazing. -And just think about it,

this would... This would destroy anybody

much less a little disabled girl,

seven, eight years old.

I just can't believe this is happening

all over again for her.

Beth and Ken, thank you so much.

And again, a reminder, if you missed

any of The Curious Case in Natalia Grace, Natalia Speaks,

it replays right here on ID Discovery,

plus on Max.

Thank you for joining us

for Mara, Derrick, and myself,

goodnight, [indistinct]

[theme music playing]