'Orphan' in real life? Dad shares how he discovered his 'adopted child' is a murderous 22-year-old
If you watched the 2009 psycho-thriller Orphan, chances are, you were surprised—angry even—when the vicious main character Esther revealed that she's a 33-year-old woman posing as an innocent 12-year-old girl.
In case you didn't know, the film's eerie and suspenseful plot is not limited to the movies. Take it from Michael Barnett and his ex-wife Kristine who adopted an orphan named Natalia Grace from Ukraine.
When the couple took Natalia under their care back in April 2010, they thought that the six-year-old has dwarfism, a bone growth disorder that causes a person to be disproportionately short.
But beneath her unassuming child-like facade, Natalia was hiding the identity of a cold-blooded 22-year-old, just like Esther in Orphan and its prequel First Kill.
Her adoptive parents gave a look at how they discovered her true age and disturbing behavior in a six-part documentary series, titled The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which premiered on U.S. TV channel Investigative Discovery on May 29.
According to The Mirror, the show features Michael and Kristine's shocking claims on how the then 22-year-old "masqueraded as a child with intent to harm them."
In the show's trailer released last month, Michael recounted how they and their three biological sons were "all abused" by Natalia.
"One night, I opened my eyes and Natalia is standing at the foot of the bed with a knife in her hand," Michael recalled.
He previously opened up about this and some of Natalia's misdeeds in an interview with This Morning that was carried by Daily Express. He said that while Natalia was holding the knife, she had a very blank look on her face, and she's just standing there with a knife."
Natalia, on the other hand, denied Michael's claims in a 2019 interview with Dr. Phil McGraw in Good Morning America.
She said, "If I ever went in their room, it was to wake them up because I was either scared of a nightmare or something like that."
"But I never went in their room, I didn't... " she continued, noting how she thought she "found the right family" in the Barnetts.
In addition to what seemed to be a living nightmare for Michael, the parent also revealed that they would often find knives around the house, which were planted by Natalia for her own use.
"Certain things would start to become missing in the home, we'd find knives under her bed," Michael said.
In addition, he said that "[Natalia] would put thumbtacks face up on our stairs so when we'd walk up and down stairs, we'd be stepping on thumbtacks."
There was also an instance where Natalia "tried to poison and kill" Kristine by pouring house cleaner into her coffee. When the mother asked their "adopted child" why she was doing this, Natalia simply said, "I'm trying to kill you."
This is in addition to shoving Kristine on an electric fence and threatening to stab her elder brothers.
"I definitely didn't feel safe around Natalia," her eldest brother Jacob said in the trailer for the series. "I was just scared," he added.
Natalie's story first made headlines in September 2019, when Michael and Kristine—who have since been divorced—were charged with neglect of a dependent for abandoning Natalia in a Lafayette apartment as they relocated to Canada in 2013.
Before the couple moved out of their home in Indiana, they have already changed Natalia's birth year from Sept. 4, 2003 to Sept. 4, 1989 on her birth certificate, with a court judge's approval. This made Natalia 22 years old by the time they adopted her.
Following the news of the charges against the Barnetts, Michael and Kristine separately appeared on several talk shows in the U.S. and Europe to share their respective side of the story.
Three years later, on Oct. 27, 2022, Michael was not found guilty of the charges. Kristine was likewise acquitted in March 2023, with the jury stating that there was insufficient evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
Natalia, on the other hand, still lives in Indiana with her new guardians, Antwon and Cynthia Mans, who took her in way back 2016 amid alll the controversies she was facing.