Sheila abandons adopted 11y/o, claims girl was actually 22y/o sociopath

All right, ya big scaredy-cats, we know Halloween isn’t here for another month or so, but if this story isn’t one that gets the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention, we reckon you’ve either got balls of steel or a cast-iron uterus. Deadset, this is the kind of story that’s already convinced us not to adopt. Worse than that, though, after you’ve read it, you’ll never trust any kid ever again…

All right, that’s a big call, and we’ll get to justifying it, but before we move on, we need to let you know this story’s a bloody epic.

We’re gonna give you the highlights, but it’s a twisting, turning tale where you just don’t know who to root for.

Credit: Chris Bott for Daily Mail

Anyway, we’ll start with the most basic point: Kristine Barnett, an author of parenting books and mother to a child genius, has been hit with some pretty heavy charges of child abuse. Specifically, prosecutors are claiming she abandoned her nine-year-old adopted daughter and left her to her own devices.

Barnett, though, reckons, “I am being charged by the state of Indiana for crimes against a child when the state of Indiana has determined multiple times that Natalia was an adult.”

“She was standing over people in the middle of the night. You couldn’t go to sleep. We had to hide all the sharp objects. I saw her putting chemicals, bleach, Windex something like that, in my coffee and I asked her, what are you doing? She said, “I am trying to poison you.” The media is painting me to be a child abuser but there is no child here. Natalia was a woman. She had periods. She had adult teeth. She never grew a single inch, which would happen even with a child with dwarfism.”

Credit: Kristine Barnett

Obviously, you’re thinking hang on a f**ken minute, how can the court say she’s an adult? Well, Natalia, who they adopted when she was ‘6’ suffers from a rare form of dwarfism that makes her look like a child. And, er, yeah, nah, it didn’t take Kristine long to get suss on Natalia either.

“I was giving her a bath and I noticed that she had full pubic hair. I was so shocked. I had just been told she was a six year old and it was very apparent she wasn’t. At the time I ran a little school and I remember she said to me, these children are exhausting, I don’t know how you do it. I was like, you’re supposed to be a child yourself. It was like something another mom would say as she dropped her kids off. It’s very hard to decipher how old she is because she has such a unique look. But at that time I started to believe she was probably a teenager.”

Credit: Kristine Barnett

By 2011, Natalia was completely off the rails. She was making death threats, smearing bodily fluids on walls and even trying to harm family members. Shortly after she tried to push Kristine into an electric fence, she was sent into psychiatric care, but that wasn’t until several tests found she was far older than she claimed. A judge changed her birth certificate from 2003 – 1989.

In psychiatric care, Natalia supposedly claimed that trying to kill her parents was fun, but even after her release, Kristine reckons she paid Natalia’s rent for a year and moved to Canada to focus on her child prodigy Jake.

And this is where the problems have returned. Natalia vanished and stopped returning calls. Kristine reckons she was posing as a child and trying to take another family for another ride.

“I had found a little pink dress in her closet and a little pink bicycle parked beside her house. I would have forced her back into treatment but I couldn’t do that any longer because she was an adult. She discontinued communication with me. What I did get was a letter in the mail stating that she had changed Michael from the beneficiary of her social security income to someone else. The last time we spoke on the phone, she told me she was cooking spaghetti for her new family.”

Credit: CBS

And then came the bombshell. Another family tried to adopt Natalia, believing she was a child. The Barnetts fought this in court, adamant the daughter who’d tried to murder them was an adult. Despite conflicting test results, the judge upheld that Natalia was actually an adult and was too old to be adopted.

None of which has prevented Kristine from being charged with child abuse for ‘abandoning’ Natalia when she went to Canada.

“I did not abandon anyone. I went to Canada to further my son’s education. These accusations are absolutely devastating. I have been cooperative the whole time. I have been truthful with people the whole time. From day one this was a mission of love. But when you bring a child into your home, you expect them to be a child. ‘To be accused of this is a unconscionable to me. It’s just horrifying.”

Credit: Kristine Barnett

Now, this is where we mention that the original article is obviously pretty sympathetic to Kristine, and if everything is as it seems and the doctors and judges are spot on, this is some pretty horrifying stuff. But, what if there’s a plot twist though and Kristine is actually trying to twist the tale so she looks like the victim?

And according to police, ‘Michael Barnett admitted Kristine Barnett told Natalia to tell others Natalia looks young but was actually 22.’

The plot, it seems, thickens.

Final thought: Obviously, we don’t know what to believe, but here’s the bit where we bring it back. If this is all true and Natalia can convince people that she’s actually a kid – while she tries to poison them – how do you know your kids are actually kids and not murderous adults? What about those whippersnappers in your neighbourhood? Your nieces and nephews? That kid crawling into your bed at night, or even, standing right behind you right now? Faaaaaarrrrrkkkkk!!!!!

Just in case you missed it, here’s one of Ozzy’s latest commentary videos…Ozzy Man Reviews: Pandas Part 2

H/T: DAILY MAIL.