The Truth to Whether Natalia Grace Is in Jail After Her Adopted Family Claimed She Was a ‘Sociopath’
With renewed interest on the case because of the new Hulu show, Natalia Grace‘s life is in the spotlight again. Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian-born girl with a rare form of dwarfism, was adopted by Kristine Barnett and her husband Michael in 2010, but the couple soon came to believe that instead of being a child, she was actually an adult with intent to harm them.
The couple abandoned Natalia Grace in an apartment by herself in 2013 after they believed she wasn’t her actual age. They also successfully petitioned the court to change her birth date from 2003 to 1989. Prosecutors investigating the neglect case later found evidence that supported the 2003 birth date, including Natalia Grace’s birth mother, meaning Natalia Grace was only 10 years old when she was left to live on her own.
Years later, Natalia Grace came out with her own docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which exposed the truth with an actual DNA test that she was 21 years old at the time of filming. She even confronted her former adoptive father Michael. “I had the same monster you did,” Michael said in the docuseries. “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.”
Is Natalia Grace in Jail?
Natalia Grace never went to jail. On the other hand, her mother and father Kristine and Michael Barrett were in jail for neglect. Kristine Barrett wrote in a Facebook post in 2024, “For people wondering if I have been to jail, yes. I was booked into the Tippecanoe County Jail. I faced charges and these same allegations at that time.”
“It was a case that should not have been brought,” Kristine continued, saying that she and her ex-husband Michael had been charged with “various levels of causing bodily harm to Natalia due to these allegations.”
“If there had been any abuse of Natalia or evidence of it, I would have been found guilty of it and I would be in jail,” she added. “The fact that these false allegations are occurring after a trial with evidence which was dismissed is disturbing. It’s like being assumed guilty after being proven innocent.”
She also claimed her innocence and denied that she and Michael abused Natalia. “Natalia was a very much loved and cared for member of my family,” she wrote on Facebook. “She was not abused by anyone in my family. If there had been any abuse of Natalia or evidence of it, I would have been found guilty of it, and I would be in jail.”
“I believe Natalia takes advantage of that sympathy to manipulate people,” she continued. “I believe this because I sat through numerous hospital visits and therapy visits trying to understand and help Natalia and thinking we might be able to find the root of the issue. In the end, I learned she is a sociopath.”
Where is Natalia Grace now?
Natalia Grace is currently living in upstate New York with Nicole and Vince DePaul, who attempted to adopt Natalia in 2009 and have a form of dwarfism. Natalia left her previous family the Mans, after she accused them of abuse.
At the end of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, the family accuses Natalia of becoming the “enemy of the house.” Documentary producers found that several of the Manses neighbors claimed that they saw Natalia being abused. The tensions were exacerbated after Natalia started an online relationship with a man named Neil from the U.K.
“At first it was bumpy because the Mans were still involved. They were calling Natalia constantly and trying to wheel her back in,” Nicole told People about the transition between families. “It was just this constant thing where we were walking a fine line of not doing too much. See, she just came from this house that basically was ruled by a dictator, so I didn’t want to tell her what to do.”
Natalia is also trying to get her GED, her driver’s license and is aiming to start a family. “I’m a girl who loves kids and wants to get married and have children,” she said. “But one of my biggest things is not making promises I can’t keep. I’ve had too many promises that have been broken. I’m just ready to move on.”
