Jury on Orphan Natalia Grace Neglect Case Calls Verdict ‘Huge Miscarriage of Justice’

The closing chapter of the story of Natalia Grace, the Ukrainian orphan who made headlines for her adoptive family’s claims she was actually an adult woman hellbent on killing them, followed Michael’s case to its conclusion and beyond.

As part of that journey, viewers learned just how many factors of this bizarre case were not allowed to be part of the prosecutions case against Michael — and how the jury felt about their verdict once they began to learn all the things they didn’t know.

A quick refresher: Michael and Kristina Barnett claimed Natalia — who was born with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia — came to them through an adoption agency in 2010 and were told she was six at the time. But they began to doubt her age and, in June 2012, Marion County Superior Court agreed to legally change the girl’s birth record to indicate she was born in 1989 and not 2003.

Shortly after, the Barnetts set her up with an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana, while they moved with their three sons to Canada. According to her new birthdate, she would have been in her 20s at the time … but not even 10 years old based on her Ukrainian birth record.

She eventually befriended nearby residents Antwon and Cynthia Mans, who took her in to their own home. The Barnetts, meanwhile, were charged and arrested for neglect in 2019, but claimed Barnett was not actually a child. Michael was cleared of all four neglect charges he was facing on October 27, 2022, while the charges against Kristine were dismissed in March 2023.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about both cases — a challenge for the defense attorneys and a major blow for the prosecution — was that the question of Natalia’s age was not allowed to be a part of the case at all. And yet, her age at the time she was abandoned could change everything.

After all if her birth date is truly 2003, as supported by her biological mother and Ukrainian birth record, then she was a minor child when the Barnetts abandoned her to live on her own in an apartment. As it stood, though, her legal age placed her as an adult.

But that’s not the only thing that was’t allowed, as Michael himself detailed in the documentary as he was heading in for the final day of his trial.

“We’re not allowed to talk about adoption. We’re not allowed to talk about age. We’re not allowed to talk about mental health records. We’re not allowed to talk about her stating to us and saying she wanted to kill us. We’re not allowed to talk about the statement that she didn’t want to be around us anymore,” Michael detailed. “We’re coming down to the teeniest circumstantial evidence from 12 years ago.”

In other words, they basically stripped away all the details of the case that captured the imagination of the nation and it was left as a simple case of a parent abandoning their child with special needs. With so little to base their verdict on, and with such clear guidelines, the jury quickly acquitted Michael on all charges.

Beth Karash, a legal expert who provided insight throughout the docuseries, called Michael’s acquittal a “complete victory,” but “not vindication.” Instead, she said, “Michael got lucky. Michael dodged a bullet. Jurors did not have all the facts. They based their decision on the limited information that they were given.”

She said that she’d love to be able to ask the jury what verdict they would have rendered “had they known Natalia was an elementary-school-aged child when she was left to fend for herself. A child.” So the producers did just that.

The jury foreperson, Jayne Parker, made it clear that even before they handed down their verdict, the jury was struggling with the constraints put on them by the judge.

“During the trial, there’s tons of questions that really never got answered,” she said. “As we started the deliberation process, 100 percent of the jurors — 100 percent — definitely believed that Michael Barnett was guilty of abandoning her.”

“But because the judge was very, very clear on what we had to follow, people were just like, ‘Ugh, we have to “Not guilty.” Ugh.’ And that was the tone in the room,” she continued, ‘Oh my god. He’s gonna be “Not guilty,”‘ You know, ‘this sucks.'”

Things got even worse after the trial, as Jayne said she then tuned in to Natalia’s appearance on “Dr. Phil” where she insisted she was not an adult, despite what her “re-aged” birth certificate might read.

Of the episode, Jayne said, “It seems to show that Natalia actually is closer to 19 now, which would have made her nine at the time she was left in that apartment. That’s crazy. You just think, ‘What a creepy guy. Who does that with his daughter?'”

She went on to say, “If that’s true, and that we weren’t given that information, that seems like a huge miscarriage of justice. We felt that Michael Barnett had really gotten away with abandoning and neglecting his child. And none of us felt good about that.”

Michael was immediately subpoenaed to testify in the then-upcoming trial against his wife Kristine, with him adamantly hoping that she would be found guilty and have to serve jail time. Throughout the docuseries, he painted her as a manipulator and abuser of the entire family.

That never came to pass, though, as the docuseries closed by sharing that prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case against Kristine citing insufficient evidence. The motion was granted, bringing an end, of sorts, to this story. Or at least this version of the story.

Michael also shared what he says was the last exchange between him and Natalia, which happened in the courtroom after he was acquitted of all charges. He said the courtroom thinned out until it was just him and Natalia left.

“So as we’re having this moment together, we lock eyes. She just looks at and me and does, like, a little wave,” Michael said. “A little wave back from me. And I mouthed something to her, and I think she was able to get it. I just simply said, ‘This is hard. I’m sorry.'”

With Michael’s story coming to a close, ID is prepping the next chapter of “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace” dubbed “Natalia Speaks.” In a teaser for this new chapter, the network says that with legal proceedings over and a gag order lifted, Natalia is finally free to tell her side of the story.

“The things that Michael has said that I’ve done is a lie,” Natalia says in the first teaser. “I want to tell people what really happened because I didn’t get that chance.” ID’s “Natalia Speaks” is coming later this summer.