Curious case of Natalia Grace?

[Lecka]

Finished…. I’m wondering if the adoptive dad paid for his legal team with money from The Spark.  

[KidsHappen]

I went into this with no skin in the game. I had never heard of this case and had no preconceived notions. I have watched the whole series now. To me it was immediately obvious that she was a child and that her age was more or less correct. Her first pictures showed that she had baby teeth, they had later pictures of her showing her front teeth missing and then finally pictures showing her with her adult teeth that looked like she hadn't quiet grown into them yet like your average ten to twelve year old. She had a passport with her picture and birth date. It is really not that easy to get a fake passport. 

Her early pictures look like a toddler and then a child. The rest of the pictures look like maybe a ten to twelve year old. She never looks like an adult. Even when they show her as a teen/young adult when she is talking to authorities she still looks very young for her age. I cannot believe that anyone actually mistook her for an adult. 

She may have had precocious puberty (i.e. public hair and a little later breast buds) but it sounds like it turned out that the part about her already having her period was made up. Even if it wasn't it is possible to be pubescent at six. The youngest age for a person to give birth was five years old. If she was already pubescent that would explain why she didn't grown much in the next 3 years or so. Once a girl is pubescent they only grow a few more inches before adulthood. Also when you see her later as a teen or young adult she has grown a few more inches. If she had already been an adult she would not have grown any more.

I do believe that she had some mental health problems due to being orphaned, adopted, shopped around, readopted and eventually abandoned. She probably started with an attachment disorder and then the trauma of the abuse she suffered. Many of the pictures and videos of her show the affect of someone who had been traumatised and abused. I believe that the things she said to other people were drilled into her by her mother. I based some of this on another documentary I watched about a five year old girl who was a sociopath and really did want to murder her parents. Their affects are totally different. 

As far as the language issue. She was in an orphanage. She was probably not spoken to very much. Then she was adopted to her previous family for at least a year. It is entirely possible that she had language development issues and learned to speak late therefore only speaking her native language for a short amount of time and then forgetting it in a few years. And being young she probably picked up English much easier than if she was an adult. Video of her reading seemed appropriate for her age. She was not reading as well as an adult.

Some of her so called behavior issues were not consistent with her being an adult of enough intelligence to scam this family. Very few adult would purposely soil themselves and smear it on others and at other times act perfectly normally. She didn't seem to continue having this problem once she was living alone. Her behavior while living alone is entirely consistent with a ten year old with all of the issues that she had. After she moved in with the final family and was with them for five years she did not continue to have the all of the problems that she had before. They did not fear for themselves or their other children. 

The father came across as overly dramatic and it became apparent that he was lying and trying to cover his butt. The son did not seem autistic to me either in his younger videos or as an adult. He did seem traumatised and depressed. It becomes obvious that the mother was the primary abuser not only of the girl but of the entire household really. It seems that she took an almost immediate dislike to the girl and was not prepared to deal with all the issues that the girl had. Based on the things said about her it strikes me that she probably had mental health issues as well.  

I don't see any actual evidence of any doctors saying that she was older than her stated age nor any LEOs recommending re-ageing her. The most unbelievable part of the entire thing is the judge arbitrarily doing so and to such a large degree. That is really the mystery of it all. To me there was no mystery about her age or even her behaviors after all she had been through. I also don't see any mystery in the family's actions or the fact that CPS didn't take action sooner. I am not saying that either was ok or normal just that abuse does happen and often falls through the cracks. If it wasn't for the judge this would just be a story of abuse of a child that is unfortunately all too common, still a dramatic story but certainly not a mystery. I can only hope that Natalia is getting some money from the series and all the other media about her case. And I hope to God that the father is not making any money off this. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by KidsHappen

[Rosla]

OMG! What a weird story! I don't know how I missed it. I'm not a big fan of such series though. 

But I wonder how a woman can be confused with a little girl, even if she has dwarfism.

It seems that we will never find out the truth.

[Janeway]

So they found the biological mom and a birth certificate, but do they know for sure that it is this girl’s birth certificate and not a different child born to this woman?

[KidsHappen]

4 hours ago, Janeway said:

So they found the biological mom and a birth certificate, but do they know for sure that it is this girl’s birth certificate and not a different child born to this woman?

Well her family members were interviewed and they said it was the same child plus she had this child pretty young and would have been ten years old when she had her if she was as old as the judge said. I also believe that they had prints from birth and when she got her passport. I can't see any logical reason to question her age in the first place. 

[Lecka]

There’s actually so much evidence that these two crazy people made up the whole re-aging thing.

 

The Dad kept claiming that a deceased police officer instigated a lot of the re-aging thing, and then the tv show found that this police officer said in his report he believed the girl was her official age (and not an adult).  
 

The Dad also claimed the primary care was instigating it, that seems not to be the case.

 

They showed an interview with someone who had done a bone scan and showed her to have open growth plates who said “she was not an adult when I examined her.”

 

These are just some more examples.  
 

It does not come across as too mysterious, with the evidence shown.

 

I was not sure if the wife was the primary abuser, though?  Because the husband is a known liar, I couldn’t tell if he might have been lying about that claim.  

[Lecka]

Also, the biological mother said she had 5 kids in Ukraine and only adopted this little girl.  She didn’t have another child who was adopted.  She also had her Ukrainian birth certificate.

 

The dad explains away her passport photo by saying “maybe that’s not even a picture of her.”  Ummmm…..  if all the other evidence pointed that way, I would say, “maybe.”  But all the other evidence points towards him being somebody who would say something like that because it was convenient to him.  He is caught in so many lies, and threatens to break a laptop in a way that comes across like — that’s just business as usual for him.  It makes his claim that “maybe that’s not her in the passport photo with baby teeth” is made up.  
 

There does not seem to be any evidence after discounting — stuff some known liars made up.  
 

I’m also wondering if the mom faked a lot of stuff with the older son, too.  I wonder if she coached him somehow to fake being a genius.  But I don’t see how she could have if he was going to college classes at age 10.  But then maybe there’s some truth to it, or maybe she exaggerated details and coached him.  It’s a really messed up thing to do to him, too, if so.  He was made to participate in the abuse of this little girl, too, in some way, shape, or form.  (He admitted one thing and seemed deeply ashamed of it.). I think maybe he felt really guilty about it and his dad was convincing him to be interviewed.  I don’t know what was going on with that, but it came across very troubling.  

[SKL]

I guess I feel there must have been some evidence of something if a judge re-aged her by 14 years.  That's pretty extreme, don't you think?  What would have motivated a judge to do that on zero evidence?  Especially in a case where a bad decision would lead to child neglect?

It's not at all uncommon for birth and other official records in international adoptions to be inaccurate, whether due to fraud or other reasons.  Especially in countries that are known for rampant adoption fraud, bribery, etc, of which Ukraine is one.  I could believe several years' age difference, especially if the puberty symptoms were documented in medical records.  The reasons they gave for the judge's 14 years don't make sense to me, but like everything else, there could be more to the story.

I just haven't found anything on the internet that appears to be responsibly produced about this girl.  There doesn't seem to be much interest in finding or giving weight to the pertinent facts ... or at least admitting up front "he says this, but there is zero proof of it."

[Lecka]

My impression is that the primary care doctor went along with the parents, and then the parents went to court with a document from the primary care, and then exaggerated that.

 

I get it seems like it shouldn’t have happened, but it appears this is what happened.

 

The re-aging appears to have been handled as an administrative process the parents went in and requested, it didn’t appear to have anything where the judge would know about abuse or anything like that. 
 

It appears the parents took in a report they asked for from primary care, and took it in.  
 

If the girl was even there — it’s too easy to think the mom (or both parents) had told her what to say!!!!!!!  

[Lecka]

Frankly these parents are convincing.

I don’t think it’s surprising at all a judge would — rubber stamp their re-aging request, or that they talked the primary care into whatever paper he gave them.

 

It was played up in the show, why was it only from the primary care and not from other specialists who might have done a bone scan?  And they found someone to say he did one and she had open growth plates.  
 

 

Oh, but the parents didn’t mention that to the judge!  
 

I can see thinking the default thought of “why would a judge do that,” but there is more information.

 

It’s also just clearly wrong that she was the age the parents made up for her to be, based on every other thing.  

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, Lecka said:

My impression is that the primary care doctor went along with the parents, and then the parents went to court with a document from the primary care, and then exaggerated that.

OK then my question would be why a primary care doctor would prepare such a document, if there weren't significant signs that this child was not an ~8yo (at that time).  What evil human being would knowingly do that to a child?  Or are people saying the "primary care doctor" was an imposter?  If so, that would be an incredible risk for the parents to take.  Were lawyers also involved?  So many questions ....

It just seems more logical to think she was a little older, very intelligent, and had precocious puberty.  And at the time they didn't have a way to confirm a realistic age range.

[Lecka]

The mom also got the oldest son on tv and was saying he created an independent, alternative theory of relativity before the age of 13.  
 

How did she do that?

 

Is it true because it was said on tv on shows I consider reputable?  
 

I do not think everything she said about him is true.  
 

Because I’m interested in The Spark I have looked back a little, and it appears every claim she made about her son was taken at face value and came across believably to everyone at the time.

 

But now I think it’s extremely questionable that it’s all true and the way she presented it.  

[SKL]

Just now, Lecka said:

The mom also got the oldest son on tv and was saying he created an independent, alternative theory of relativity before the age of 13.  
 

How did she do that?

 

Is it true because it was said on tv on shows I consider reputable?  
 

I do not think everything she said about him is true.  
 

Because I’m interested in The Spark I have looked back a little, and it appears every claim she made about her son was taken at face value and came across believably to everyone at the time.

 

But now I think it’s extremely questionable that it’s all true and the way she presented it.  

It's one thing to get random strangers to believe fibs about your kids.  It's another to get a judge to legally take away a little girl's rights to be cared for.

[Lecka]

What I’m saying is the parents talked the primary care into it and he didn’t realize the ramifications.

They are convincing people, it would totally fit for that to be the case.

 

I think it shows a lack of judgment but definitely not evil.  
 

I also think it’s possible that the parents told him “oh, the other specialists told us x, but we’re having trouble getting the records.  Could you write this paper for us?”

 

Or something like that.  

[Lecka]

I mean, if there’s a reason to think it besides thinking “I wish this mistake wasn’t made” I don’t know it.

If the parents go in and tell the judge “this is the right thing, she’s an adult, she wants to do adult things and this is holding her back,” isn’t the default to believe it?

If she really were an adult — the re-aging would have been a good thing for her!  

[SKL]

Just now, Lecka said:

What I’m saying is the parents talked the primary care into it and he didn’t realize the ramifications.

 I call BS on this.  How can you not realize the ramifications of throwing a little, physically disabled, mentally ill girl into the street?

[maize]

7 minutes ago, Lecka said:

 

If the parents go in and tell the judge “this is the right thing, she’s an adult, she wants to do adult things and this is holding her back,” isn’t the default to believe it?

If she really were an adult — the re-aging would have been a good thing for her!  

This actually makes sense.

Based on stuff with the older son, coaching kids on what to say to present a particular desired impression may have been standard operating procedure in the family. I can totally see the parents coaching Natalia on what to say to the judge or anyone else involved.

A ten year old could easily be led to think that living life as an emancipated adult would be grand! She could qualify for government support benefits because of disability, and live life independently without parents telling her what to do!

Honestly, there are probably a fair number of ten year olds who would go along with that if it were presented to them as desirable, and if they were unhappy with their current circumstances.

The parents seem to be expert manipulators. 

[Heartstrings]

21 minutes ago, SKL said:

 I call BS on this.  How can you not realize the ramifications of throwing a little, physically disabled, mentally ill girl into the street?

Did the doctor know that would be the result?  He could have thought they were a loving family who was still going to support her.  He may have had no idea they would abandon her.  That does show a show lack of imagination on his part, but I think we tend to assume others are going to act the way we would act.  

[SKL]

4 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Did the doctor know that would be the result?  He could have thought they were a loving family who was still going to support her.  He may have had no idea they would abandon her.  That does show a show lack of imagination on his part, but I think we tend to assume others are going to act the way we would act.  

I agree he may not have known the parents' intentions (or how they'd misuse the info later), but I still question how any doctor would make such a drastic decision without some pretty good proof.  If we're saying she had precocious symptoms that made the doc think she was older, I could believe that.  If we're saying the doc took the parents' word for it without seeing symptoms, I don't believe that.

[Farrar]

38 minutes ago, SKL said:

 I call BS on this.  How can you not realize the ramifications of throwing a little, physically disabled, mentally ill girl into the street?

The way that the series presented it, the doctor testified that she might have been re-aged for the adoption and that there were some signs of that. Which, especially based on the stuff the parents were saying, I guess there were. But some of that seems to have been made up. And the doctor would have had no reason to question the parents, at least not necessarily. I don't know that it was a doctor with a longtime association with them.

So then he testified to that possibility, but according to the series, it was the judge who chose the age. And he based it on the idea that because she had not grown in height since they adopted her, she must have been 18 at that point, so then he added the number of years that she had lived with them and came up with 22.

It's just... given that she may have had precocious puberty or something similar and that she was also a little person who simply wasn't destined to grow up at all in the first place... this seems like a very specious way to decide. It was not the doctor's recommendation either - again, at least the way the series presented it. The doctor said it was possible, the judge took it and ran with it. Again, because the parents are conniving liars. They spent a good bit of time trying to convince people she was this psychotic danger to their family who was a con artist. 

[SKL]

Now that I think about it, it may also be that an "independent adult" on public assistance has more access to mental health care than a dependent child.  This could have been a motivating factor up to a point.  But not to the point where a doctor would knowingly declare a 10yo to be an adult.

For good reasons (privacy), we won't ever really know the whole story.

Maybe this case will prompt some changes in how legal re-aging is done.

[maize]

31 minutes ago, Farrar said:

The way that the series presented it, the doctor testified that she might have been re-aged for the adoption and that there were some signs of that. Which, especially based on the stuff the parents were saying, I guess there were. But some of that seems to have been made up. And the doctor would have had no reason to question the parents, at least not necessarily. I don't know that it was a doctor with a longtime association with them.

So then he testified to that possibility, but according to the series, it was the judge who chose the age. And he based it on the idea that because she had not grown in height since they adopted her, she must have been 18 at that point, so then he added the number of years that she had lived with them and came up with 22.

 

That's such a preposterous, incompetently clueless presumption. Most normal females are done growing well before 18. I was my adult height by about age 13, and while I hit puberty a bit on the young side it wasn't early enough to be considered precocious.

[Drama Llama]

5 minutes ago, maize said:

That's such a preposterous, incompetently clueless presumption. Most normal females are done growing well before 18. I was my adult height by about age 13, and while I hit puberty a bit on the young side it wasn't early enough to be considered precocious.

The fact that this decision, which had huge implications for Natalia Grace's safety and quality of life, was made largely by someone with so little medical knowledge that they didn't know that males and females finish puberty at different ages is appalling.  

From the beginning of the documentary, there were so many points where it just didn't make sense.  The fact that no one seems to had heard of precocious puberty.  The fact that no one seemed to have any idea how trauma and attachment impact children.  The fact that someone apparently diagnosed an 8 year old, who at that point everyone thought was 8, as a "sociopath" when the diagnostic criteria include being over 18.  It's horrifying and heartbreaking and very confusing. 

I am also confused by the fact that the makers of the documentary clearly show by the end that they believe that she really was six, and yet they show all sorts of videos of her as a child, and yet they blur out the faces of her same age siblings.  Why do the boys get protected when she doesn't?  

It makes me think of the case in Virginia where the marine and his wife convinced a judge who clearly knew nothing about international law to sign off on the adoption of a little girl from Afghanistan.  

[SKL]

16 minutes ago, BandH said:

I am also confused by the fact that the makers of the documentary clearly show by the end that they believe that she really was six, and yet they show all sorts of videos of her as a child, and yet they blur out the faces of her same age siblings.  Why do the boys get protected when she doesn't? 

Agree.  This is just one of a long list of horrible choices made in this documentary affecting a child.

I guess because she is "legally an adult," none of it matters to some people.  I mean $$$$, right?

ETA I guess she's not a child now even if her real birth date was 2003.  So anything goes I guess?

Edited June 14, 2023 by SKL

[Farrar]

I think this highlights how judges with little scientific knowledge are often called upon to make medical and scientific judgments and they often don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not totally sure what the fix is for that. Helping people understand that we need to trust experts would help. But not necessarily enough.

[luuknam]

1 hour ago, maize said:

That's such a preposterous, incompetently clueless presumption. Most normal females are done growing well before 18. I was my adult height by about age 13, and while I hit puberty a bit on the young side it wasn't early enough to be considered precocious.

This, and I didn't even get my first period until I was 12. My passport (which I first got at 17) even has me listed as 2.5 cm taller than I am because the person at the desk figured that "surely you'll still grow a bit," so they rounded up (and didn't subtract the height of the shoes I was wearing either), because I'm rather short by Dutch standards. I was thinking that it was extremely unlikely I'd still grow since I hadn't grown in years (even from 12 to 13 I only grew like half an inch), but figured it was pretty funny so went with it.  

I wonder how the bar association feels about judges lacking, well, judgment. But, it sounds like the judge didn't misinterpret the law but only was grossly incompetent wrt biology and psychology, so... probably another dead end? 

[Terabith]

I actually had precocious puberty. I had breasts (a C cup) by kindergarten at age five.  I got my period at the end of second grade, and I was my full adult height of 5’7” by a year or so later.  I was over five feet for my entire elementary school career, and by fourth grade, I required specialized sizes for bras.  I did, in fact, look like an adult by age eight or nine, even in pictures in retrospect.  Or at least an older teen.  
 

What people don’t really know about precocious puberty is that the brain changes of adolescence occur too.  I thought abstractly, the way SWB describes logic stage, from kindergarten on, although I guess that could also be related to giftedness.  I had pubertal mood swings, which I guess could have been early symptoms of my depression and anxiety.  I had crushes on people.  Honestly the most sexual desire I’ve ever experienced was in first and second grade.  It’s a complex thing with repercussions that go beyond the obvious.  I had bone age x-rays, repeatedly, and my bone age was always many years older than I was. 
 

So, I can imagine a situation where a kid who had precocious puberty and also had a physical disability affecting growth that the relationship between precocious puberty and dwarfism is poorly understood, coupled with a kid who has serious trauma and coming from a country where reported birth dates can legitimately be questionable, could result in a situation where a reasonable doctor could say, “There is reason to question this child’s actual age.”  Especially since the doctor didn’t give an age he thought she was., and also with how persuasive the parents are at manipulation. What is horrifying is that a judge who knows NOTHING would arbitrarily decide an age to assign a kid.  That points to staggering issues in our justice system.  
 

But also, even if she had been, in actuality an adult, what I can’t get over is that it was okay to just abandon someone with no education, no skills, and significant physical and mental disabilities to just fend for herself in an apartment.  How is it not illegal to abandon a vulnerable person like that?  
 

And, are the proceeds of this show going to Natalia?  Did she consent to this?  It feels like one more thing that is exploiting a kid (even if 19 or 20 now) who has spent her entire life being exploited.  

[MercyA]

@luuknam, welcome back!! 🙂 

[Drama Llama]

Two more things to take into account

Precocious puberty is more common in children who experience prenatal and neonatal malnutrition, and prenatal and neonatal malnutrition are common in kids who end up in institutions, as poverty is often a factor in adoption.  

Sexually precocious behavior is more common in kids who have attachment problems and/or have experienced sexual abuse and both attachment problems and sexual abuse are common issues when kids are institutionalized, particularly kids with disabilities.

 

[Heartstrings]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

I agree he may not have known the parents' intentions (or how they'd misuse the info later), but I still question how any doctor would make such a drastic decision without some pretty good proof.  If we're saying she had precocious symptoms that made the doc think she was older, I could believe that.  If we're saying the doc took the parents' word for it without seeing symptoms, I don't believe that.

I agree with that.  I don’t like the idea that these parents manipulated a doctor and a judge to this extent.  It’s crazy.  

[Farrar]

25 minutes ago, BandH said:

Two more things to take into account

Precocious puberty is more common in children who experience prenatal and neonatal malnutrition, and prenatal and neonatal malnutrition are common in kids who end up in institutions, as poverty is often a factor in adoption.  

Sexually precocious behavior is more common in kids who have attachment problems and/or have experienced sexual abuse and both attachment problems and sexual abuse are common issues when kids are institutionalized, particularly kids with disabilities.

 

I was bothered that the documentary didn't bring either of these facts up.

[Farrar]

I wonder if general awareness of some of the issues that some families have faced with adoption, especially later and international adoptions is actually normalizing poor adoptive parent behavior. Like, did the judge think, ah, yes, this is a thing that happens in some adoptions, that some of "these kids" are psychos and the poor, abused parents need to be protected. And have that influence his decision to some extent.

[OH_Homeschooler]

5 hours ago, SKL said:

 I call BS on this.  How can you not realize the ramifications of throwing a little, physically disabled, mentally ill girl into the street?

Why do doctors give out antibiotics when they know something isn't a bacterial infection? Because they want to shut the parents up. This is not a scenario most doctors would ever encounter even once in their career. How could they even consider the child would be thrown out on the street, when we're watching this after it all happened and can't believe that it happened?  

And the parents are likely narcissists (wouldn't want to do any arm chair diagnosing here, but come on!). Narcissists are by nature charming and convincing when they want to manipulate others. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by OH_Homeschooler

[OH_Homeschooler]

14 hours ago, Janeway said:

So they found the biological mom and a birth certificate, but do they know for sure that it is this girl’s birth certificate and not a different child born to this woman?

Occam's Razor is a thing. 

[Faith-manor]

7 hours ago, Farrar said:

The way that the series presented it, the doctor testified that she might have been re-aged for the adoption and that there were some signs of that. Which, especially based on the stuff the parents were saying, I guess there were. But some of that seems to have been made up. And the doctor would have had no reason to question the parents, at least not necessarily. I don't know that it was a doctor with a longtime association with them.

So then he testified to that possibility, but according to the series, it was the judge who chose the age. And he based it on the idea that because she had not grown in height since they adopted her, she must have been 18 at that point, so then he added the number of years that she had lived with them and came up with 22.

It's just... given that she may have had precocious puberty or something similar and that she was also a little person who simply wasn't destined to grow up at all in the first place... this seems like a very specious way to decide. It was not the doctor's recommendation either - again, at least the way the series presented it. The doctor said it was possible, the judge took it and ran with it. Again, because the parents are conniving liars. They spent a good bit of time trying to convince people she was this psychotic danger to their family who was a con artist. 

This is what happens when people who went to law school make medical decisions instead of the folks who went to med school. He didn't have to take a single doctor at his/her word and then make up an age. He could have said, "I will not re-age her until I see reports from a consensus of a team of doctors from Cleveland Clinic, Mayo, St. Judes, John Hopkins, St. Joseph/U of Mi" etc. Pick any number of really high reputation medical teaching hospitals, and then say when the pediatricians, orthopedists, gynecological, endos, and behavioral pediatric psychs come back and issue their findings, make a determination. Sigh. We see what has been happening all over the U.S. when judges and politicians decide to make medical decisions out an abundance of medical ignorance.

I don't really know for sure about the adoptee. Strange things have definitely happened with international adoptions. But I think likely there is a lot of made up crap from these two parents which doesn't lend itself to thinking they are remotely truthful about it at all. I keep going back to just how skeevy and creepy that dad comes off. My instincts tell me there is something seriously wrong with him, and that the wife is an enabler.

[katilac]

12 hours ago, Lecka said:

 I’m also wondering if the mom faked a lot of stuff with the older son, too.  I wonder if she coached him somehow to fake being a genius.  But I don’t see how she could have if he was going to college classes at age 10.  But then maybe there’s some truth to it, or maybe she exaggerated details and coached him.    

Nah, it's pretty hard to dispute that he's radically intelligent. You can't coach a kid into genius, and universities and research centers don't admit kids on mommy's say-so. 

That part being true doesn't mean she wasn't also crazy and abusive. 

9 hours ago, BandH said:

 I am also confused by the fact that the makers of the documentary clearly show by the end that they believe that she really was six, and yet they show all sorts of videos of her as a child, and yet they blur out the faces of her same age siblings.  Why do the boys get protected when she doesn't?  

Did they blur out Jake as a minor or just the other two boys? I haven't seen it, but I was wondering if they showed Jake and Natalie because they'fe both been voluntarily public as adults, and the other boys have not. 

I'd guess it's because she has voluntarily given many interviews

[Janeway]

8 hours ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Occam's Razor is a thing. 

What is Occam's Razor?

[EKS]

26 minutes ago, Janeway said:

What is Occam's Razor?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

[Lecka]

I do feel like — information about Jacob is 95% from his mom.  And there is a limited amount of someone else verifying what she has said.  Well, his mom could snow two people who have no reason to be skeptical.

 

Who knows if he has done everything she says.

It could be true, but when somebody has lied so much, why not lie about two kids.  And one’s a genius and one’s deviant.  

It’s really messed up if she has done this to him.  
 

They sure didn’t do any kind of “what are you doing now” in the show.  He appears to be living in his dad’s basement at present.  
 

I think the mom actually is enough of a ????? person to create this for her son so she can be the mother of a genius, who was the only one who understood how to nurture his special talent.  Then she is special and gets a lot of attention.  
 

It would be bizarre but it would almost be more bizarre if they were doing this sick stuff with Natalya and meanwhile everything else was totally healthy in the home.  I would almost find that more disturbing I think!  
 

I hope this tv show is an avenue for him to see that how his parents are is not okay.  And that it’s not his fault!!!!!!  They made him do things when he was a young teen.  Edit: or they influenced him to do things 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Lecka

[KidsHappen]

15 hours ago, SKL said:

OK then my question would be why a primary care doctor would prepare such a document, if there weren't significant signs that this child was not an ~8yo (at that time).  What evil human being would knowingly do that to a child?  Or are people saying the "primary care doctor" was an imposter?  If so, that would be an incredible risk for the parents to take.  Were lawyers also involved?  So many questions ....

It just seems more logical to think she was a little older, very intelligent, and had precocious puberty.  And at the time they didn't have a way to confirm a realistic age range.

The PCP in question died more than five years ago so it is not possible to get any more information from him but in her medical records he states that she is the age that was stated on her passport and there was no mention of re-aging her. The only person that claims to have heard him say that is the parents (well the father really, I don't know of anything being said by the mother). They did not present any paperwork signed by the doctor saying that her age was wrong.

[KidsHappen]

15 hours ago, SKL said:

I agree he may not have known the parents' intentions (or how they'd misuse the info later), but I still question how any doctor would make such a drastic decision without some pretty good proof.  If we're saying she had precocious symptoms that made the doc think she was older, I could believe that.  If we're saying the doc took the parents' word for it without seeing symptoms, I don't believe that.

There is no evidence that the doctor ever thought that she was older. No paperwork, nothing in her medical records. There is just the word of basically the father that the doctor said this. It really does appear that the judge independently and arbitrarily made this decision without any input from any doctors, social workers, counselors or anyone else. I do not have a hard time believing that especially given all the judges making decisions in regards to women healthcare these days which they are obviously not qualified to make. This is what happens when we allow politicians, lawmakers and judges to pass law and judgement on things they know nothing about. 

[SKL]

6 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

There is no evidence that the doctor ever thought that she was older. No paperwork, nothing in her medical records. There is just the word of basically the father that the doctor said this. It really does appear that the judge independently and arbitrarily made this decision without any input from any doctors, social workers, counselors or anyone else. I do not have a hard time believing that especially given all the judges making decisions in regards to women healthcare these days which they are obviously not qualified to make. This is what happens when we allow politicians, lawmakers and judges to pass law and judgement on things they know nothing about. 

I don't think we have all the information that was presented to the judge.  I find it unbelievable that a judge would do that on zero evidence besides the parents' word.  Just because the documentary didn't show us every paper doesn't mean they didn't exist to be shown to the judge.

I suppose anything is technically possible.  No docs, fake docs, real docs that we don't get to see.  But realistic?  As much as some of us love to hate our justice system, there are limits to believability.  I'd have to hear it from the judge or see it in the court documents before believing that the judge blindly accepted the parents' word with no additional evidence at all.

And frankly, we shouldn't be seeing a lot of what has been shown to us.  This should be a child abuse investigation, not a freaking circus.

[KidsHappen]

8 minutes ago, SKL said:

I don't think we have all the information that was presented to the judge.  I find it unbelievable that a judge would do that on zero evidence besides the parents' word.  Just because the documentary didn't show us every paper doesn't mean they didn't exist to be shown to the judge.

I suppose anything is technically possible.  No docs, fake docs, real docs that we don't get to see.  But realistic?  As much as some of us love to hate our justice system, there are limits to believability.  I'd have to hear it from the judge or see it in the court documents before believing that the judge blindly accepted the parents' word with no additional evidence at all.

And frankly, we shouldn't be seeing a lot of what has been shown to us.  This should be a child abuse investigation, not a freaking circus.

I agree that we don't have all of the information that was presented to the judge but they did have her medical records from that doctor that stated she was the age presented and we have the word of the detective that finally investigated the case and he said there was no evidence supporting re-aging her. It is possible that the judge had other information that we do not know about but based on everything I have seen and read I find it easier to believe that there was one bad judge (either through ignorance, incompetence or malice) than that that there were multiple people in error.  But you are right anything is possible. I also agree that it should not have been such a media spectacle unless Natalia herself wanted it brought to light. 

And just as an aside I have had experience with many bad doctors and no bad judges so it's not like I am naturally inclined to believe judges are intrinsically bad and doctors are intrinsically good. Nor do I hate the justice system but events of late do lead me to believe that it is realistic to believe that judges are making decisions on things they are not qualified to decide on their own and that what is legal and what is scientifically correct are not necessarily the same thing. 

[Farrar]

I found what was presented to the judge and what happened around that a little unclear in the documentary. We mostly just have the summary from the legal "expert" who gives commentary. I forget exactly what was said, but at one point, I know something was said about the doctor's evidence at trial. But that may not have been testimony. It could have just been a note or something. The legal expert does say pretty clearly that it was the judge's call and the judge's "formula" for determining her age.

I'm sure the vagueness was on purpose. The documentary wanted to leave viewers guessing. I get that they were trying to tell a story and I appreciate the slow reveal in some documentaries. It's nice when they can use storytelling to give something a twist. But in this case, it was a lot of episodes where they gave credence to a false theory and muddied understanding of the truth. And then they left out other context they could have brought, such as information about precocious puberty or the course of development for most little people. That's information the viewer has to provide for themself in watching. Even some thing, like that she had not actually developed breasts or begun her period until later and that those might have been lies told by the mother, were things only revealed in questioning others. It was framed in a really screwed up way.

[KidsHappen]

7 hours ago, Farrar said:

I found what was presented to the judge and what happened around that a little unclear in the documentary. We mostly just have the summary from the legal "expert" who gives commentary. I forget exactly what was said, but at one point, I know something was said about the doctor's evidence at trial. But that may not have been testimony. It could have just been a note or something. The legal expert does say pretty clearly that it was the judge's call and the judge's "formula" for determining her age.

I'm sure the vagueness was on purpose. The documentary wanted to leave viewers guessing. I get that they were trying to tell a story and I appreciate the slow reveal in some documentaries. It's nice when they can use storytelling to give something a twist. But in this case, it was a lot of episodes where they gave credence to a false theory and muddied understanding of the truth. And then they left out other context they could have brought, such as information about precocious puberty or the course of development for most little people. That's information the viewer has to provide for themself in watching. Even some thing, like that she had not actually developed breasts or begun her period until later and that those might have been lies told by the mother, were things only revealed in questioning others. It was framed in a really screwed up way.

I agree. I think that they could have cut a lot of what was in the series and maybe presented it as this is what the parents said and this is what we found to be true with additional information about why the someone might have thought differently based on her own particular situation.

[Sugarcoat Free]

Ugh. This woman gets on my last nerve. At 22 years of age, she was completely complicit in whatever fraud the Barnetts engaged in, and once she stopped living with them, she should have been IMMEDIATELY deported back to Russia, thanking God on the plane ride back, that she didn't face criminal charges.

She says that SHE "wants to see people pay for what they've done?" Be that as it may, I'd like to see HER held accountable for her role in all of this.

[Emmasnonie702]

Just finished watching the first two episodes of "Natalia Speaks" (Season 2 of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace). I was floored. The first season was heartbreaking but, I think this second season will clear up a lot of things. The thing that stuck with me is "she was reading an article in Cosmopolitan magazine at 6 years old. What 6 year old can do that"? Um, me. I could do that. It wasn't Cosmo but, at 6 years old, I could easily read any article in just about any publication. I was reading and writing at 4 and by 6, chapter books, articles, whatever, was not a problem. Being able to read a seemingly "advanced" written work is not evidence that a person is an adult. And this Michael Barnett is a nut case. I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't started watching season 2 but the guys a straight up lunatic. Can't wait for the next 4 episodes to drop tonight and tomorrow night.