The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Shocking Revelations and Twist Ending Shocked Production

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The second season of ID's The Curious Case of Natalia Grace concluded with a surprise ending, leaving audiences with more questions about the story of Ukrainian orphan Natalia Grace. The six-episode series, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, is a follow-up to the 2023 docuseries that focused on Natalia's adoptive parents, Kristine and Michael Barnett, and their claim that the child, who'd been diagnosed with the rare dwarfism condition spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, was actually an adult woman who terrorized their family from 2010-2013.

In the three-night special, Natalia tells her side of the story as she seeks answers about her real age and why no one in the Indiana community where she alleges she was victimized by the Barnetts intervened, including Michael, whom she confronts face-to-face for the first time in the final two episodes of the series. The series ends with an unexpected call, which led to the shocking development being included in the finale.

The first episode of the series answers the biggest question around Natalia's identity: her true age. TruDiagnostic, a medical lab specializing in biological aging, determined Natalia to be 22 years old, aligning with the estimation provided by Dr. Timothy Gossweiler, a dentist who determined Natalia was between the ages of 6 and 9. This refutes Natalia's legal age of 34, a result of the Barnett's successful petitioning of the Marion County court in 2012 to change her birth records to indicate a 1989 birth date.

The series attempts to answer the question of the Barnett's motives for wanting the world to believe Natalia was a grown woman when they adopted her in 2010. They were looking to exploit her the way they had their older son Jacob, an autistic child prodigy. When Kristine realized she couldn't capitalize off of Natalia, she unleashed a plan to have her removed from their home. The Barnetts were charged with neglect of a dependent in 2019 but were later found not guilty.

Natalia details a slew of alleged abuses at the hands of Kristine, including being pepper sprayed twice in the eyes and being forced to take a medication overdose, among other incidents. Part of the mystery concerning Natalia's age has to do with the lack of a Ukrainian birth certificate, and there are allegations that she may have been trafficked.

Perhaps the most shocking detail to come out of the series was revealed in the final 90 seconds of the season two finale. Natalia's new adoptive parents, Bishop Antwon Mans and his wife Cynthia, allege that their daughter is now wreaking havoc on their lives. This twist ending certainly begs for more of the story to be told.

"Natalia Speaks is one of those projects where the further we dug in, the more twists and turns we uncovered," Jason Sarlanis, president of Turner Networks, ID & HLN, linear and streaming, tells THR. "Our viewers are so invested in Natalia's case we felt our series needed to reflect the constantly shifting truth of her situation. One thing has always proven to be true with Natalia's story -- nothing is ever what it seems."

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