Orphan Natalia Grace’s Neighbors Detail Her Bizarre Behavior

At least that’s what a number of the people who lived next to her after her adoptive parents moved her into an apartment building on her own after having her age legally changed from six to 22 made it sound in ID’s new “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace.”

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 her own apartment.

On the third episode of ID’s six-part docuseries, which aired Tuesday night, Michael Barnett explained that after the re-aging process, Kristine took Natalia apartment hunting and found a place for her to live on her own in Westfield, Indiana. Kristine allegedly paid for the first three months upfront, while the two said they gave her furniture and set her up with groceries as well.

It wasn’t long until Natalia — who was either around 10 or in her early 20s — started to make quite the impression on her neighbors.

One married couple who lived in a home across the street, Melanie and Toby Miles, said that while they first thought she was “just a little kid,” they believed that wasn’t the case after speaking with her. Another neighbor, Andrew Rice, said he also “didn’t necessarily think she was a child at first” either, claiming Natalia even told them she was 26 at the time. All three of them mentioned how disheveled she looked, as Rice also said she “emitted” an “unpleasant body odor” as well.

Toby said it was clear she “needed some help,” regardless of her age … while most of the neighbors said her family rarely visited. Another neighbor, Sue McCallum, said Natalia’s adoptive mother Kristina would just leave groceries for her on the sidewalk, for Natalia to carry in herself … and was shocked to learn the girl was on food stamps after seeing her parents’ nice cars.

“Having Natalia live by you, at first it was okay,” said McCallum, who then said having her as a neighbor became “like a Hitchcock movie” — as they all did their best to avoid her, never knowing when she would pop up.

“She was really a pest to everybody. Nobody liked her, nobody. They kind of felt sorry for her, but they were leery about her and really didn’t want her around,” McCallum continued, claiming many neighbors called the building manager as well to complain about her behavior.

“It was always in the back of your mind, is she gonna be around, is she watching?” said Toby, who claimed Natalia would also call incessantly — so much so that his wife had to “enforce boundaries a little bit more,” or as best they could.

“I think people were creeped out by her. She was the talk of the town,” added the building manager, who admitted Grace “may have been a child” due to some of her “child-like” behavior. Another neighbor, however, said Natalia “was scary” and “you could just tell she was an adult person … she wasn’t a little 11-year-old girl they left there.”

The behavior continued, the neighbors continued, claiming she would show up at their door steps or even inside their homes uninvited, looking for food. She also allegedly confirmed some of the alarming claims her adoptive parents made about wanting to killing them and her adoptive siblings.

“One day we got to talking and I said, ‘Why aren’t you living with your mom and dad?’ She goes, ‘Oh, they’re afraid of me … because I took a knife to them one night,'” said McCallum. “She had this strange look in her eye like it’s a normal thing.”

“I stood over them with a knife so they took all the knives away. I tried to poison them, so I had to live in the garage for a while,” Toby said she told him, saying her demeanor was “like a serial killer or something, how casually they put attempted murder into a conversation.” The interaction left him wondering, “If I break up with you, are you gonna go crazy? Are you gonna be standing over my bed at the end of the night, with a knife?”

The neighbors also expressed concern about her behavior around men and young boys.

“She would want to know when our son would be home. Not our daughter, our son. That’s when things went from uncomfortable to weird and almost borderline inappropriate,” said Toby. “It just got to a point where we felt uncomfortable as parents.”

McCallum’s grandson said Natalia also made him feel “uncomfortable” when they were playing video games and he threw her out of the apartment. “I thought how dare you try to do anything to my grandson. I just wanted to go after her,” said McCallum, who banned the boy from letting her in her home again, before warning Toby and Michelle as well.

One neighbor, who wasn’t named and whose face wasn’t shown, also alleged they witnessed Natalia playing with a young boy, before she “started undoing his pants.” Though she claimed the boy’s father confronted her, the dad declined to comment on the matter in the documentary.

“She seemed to hang around all the older, real old guys a lot and she was talking sexual things to them,” said McCallum.

For her part, in a video from a 2022 pre-trial interview, Natalia said she never harmed any neighbor’s children. After getting a number of complaints, the building manager decided not to renew her lease.

“They got her out. Everybody was so relieved. Everybody was really happy to see her go. I think she’s a little possessed. She presents herself like a nice person but she’s really evil and devious,” said McCallum. “People think she’s small, she’s deformed, she can’t possibly do all this stuff everyone’s saying. But they’re wrong and she did do it. It is scary Natalia could still be doing this. I don’t think she stopped, she’s always finding another person to manipulate.”

“I was there, I lived it, I lived through it. I still don’t have concrete answers. I don’t know how old she is,” Toby said at the end of the hour.

Natalie was later moved by her mother to a new apartment in Lafayette, Indiana while her adoptive family moved to Canada.

“I didn’t know where we were going, she just took me,” Natalia said of the move in that same pre-trial interview. “We went and looked at an apartment. Kristine told me that’s where I would be living. I wanted to live with Kristine. I wanted to be with family, who I thought was my family. I didn’t know how to be by myself.”

While in Lafayette, Natalia 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.