Natalia Grace is coming face-to-face with Michael Barnett. In a clip from the upcoming three-part docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, Natalia confronts her former adoptive father.
“Why did you adopt me in the first place? Why?” Natalia asks Michael, who, alongside along with his then-wife Kristine, adopted Natalia in 2010 with the assumption that she was a 6-year-old orphaned woman from Ukraine.
Finally, the then-couple, who did not know Natalia had a type of dwarfism referred to as spondyloepiphyseal, turned suspicious that she was an grownup who needed to hurt them and their kids. The Barnetts quickly had Natalia’s authorized age modified from 6 to 22, earlier than shifting to Canada and leaving Natalia behind in an Indiana house.
Michael and Kristine, who are actually divorced, have been ultimately charged with abandoning Natalia. Michael was discovered not responsible of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent in 2022, whereas prices towards Kristine have been dropped in March 2023.
“Many of these questions there’s not going to be a single answer to,” Michael says. “Look, I’ve learned recently you and I have the same monster. Kristine. We are here because we both were incredible victims of an otherworldly type of abuse.”
Natalia questions Michael on how he was a sufferer, and he alleges, “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.”
As for a way he was threatened, Michael claims, “Her favorite threat was taking the boys away from me and making sure I would never see them ever again.”
Natalia pushes again, asking Michael why he by no means left his marriage.
“That’s the best question ever. I tried,” he says. “These answers aren’t going to be what you’re looking for to a degree, but I tried to leave her no less than 10 times. I ended up in the hospital regularly over it.”
“Why did you marry her?” Natalia asks Michael.
“That’s a hell of a question,” he responds.
Michael’s use of the phrase “hell” then prompts somebody off digicam to ask him to not curse, setting off a bickering match between Michael and others behind the scenes. Finally fed up, Michael removes his mic and walks off the set.
Natalia Speaks dives headfirst into the questions, controversies, and secrets and techniques unearthed in The Curious Case, which premiered earlier this yr, however this time, with Natalia sharing her facet of the story.
The docuseries retraces her adoption saga and Michael and Kristine’s allegations from Natalia’s perspective, providing perception into what actually went on behind closed doorways within the Barnett dwelling and the way a lot reality there’s to their allegations.
Natalia Speaks additionally options beforehand unseen proof and pictures, in addition to new theories and testimony from an array of voices, together with the retired FBI brokers who initially investigated Natalia’s case, genetic specialists who assist decide Natalia’s true age, and the Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Jackie Starbuck, who prosecuted Michael in his October 2022 trial.
Moreover, the docuseries sheds mild into Natalia’s subsequent chapter, providing a portrait of her life along with her new adoptive household and unique interviews along with her adoptive mother and father, Bishop Antown and Christina Manns.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks will premiere throughout three consecutive nights on ID starting Monday, Jan. 1, airing nightly from 11th of September p.m. ET/PT.
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