Though not all the facts of this shocking 2019 case are clear, one thing is already clear enough: this is messed up.
And no matter who is right in the end, the results are equally appalling: either a couple abandoned their 9-year-old daughter, which they had previously adopted, or an adult woman with dwarfism put herself in adoption to gain access to the intimate life of a family, and hurt it from the inside.
That is what each of the parts (Natalia Barnett, the Ukrainian-born adopted daughter of the Barnett family, and the Barnett parents themselves) claim in this confusing tale of lies, deceit, and abandonment.
But despite the weirdness of the story and the gag orders that the courts have imposed on those involved, some facts have come to light.
And to make things more transparent, we’ll review ten facts about the case of Natalia Barnett, the woman with dwarfism whose parents claim was twenty-two years old at the moment of her adoption.
10 /10 Who Are The Barnetts
Kristine and Michael Barnett were in 2010 a Christian couple from Indiana (they have since then divorced, though remain in amicable terms), who had a reasonably large home for their family of four: them, and their three other sons.
The father, Michael, later stated in an interview that he felt “blessed” for having such an abundance of space and wanted to give a chance to someone else of sharing the family’s happiness, whereas Kristine, before 2019, was better known as a special-needs parenting writer of significant success. They seemed like the ideal adopting parents, and maybe they were. Or not?
9 /10 And Who Is Natalia?
In turn, Natalia Barnett was either seven to eight years old or twenty-two years old during the time of her adoption in 2010.
She had arrived in the United States from Ukraine as part of an international adoption program, through which she was paired with the Barnetts.
Natalia suffers from a rare medical condition named spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, which, in short, gives her a particular sort of dwarfism and some congenital malformations in the hip, spine, and knees. For this reason, she needs assistance walking, even today.