In , the couple moved to Canada so that their highly gifted autistic son Jacob, now 21, could attend the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario - but left Natalia behind in the apartment. The family is understood to have cut all contact with the girl with the exception of sending rent money each month. Police say she managed to survive by befriending neighbours before eventually being interviewed by officers a year after she was abandoned. Following a five-year investigation, the Barnetts were charged last week with two counts of neglect of a dependent.

According to court documents filed this month in Tippecanoe County, Kristine and Michael Barnett adopted a Ukrainian-born girl with dwarfism in and abandoned her three years later in Lafayette, Indiana, when they moved to Canada with their other children. Charged with neglect of a dependent, both were released on bond last week from the Tippecanoe County Jail last week. They just knew she needed a home immediately because her previous adoptive parents gave her up for undisclosed reasons. She had a sophisticated vocabulary, she shunned other children, and she had a menstrual period. They took the girl to a family physician who had bone density tests done to help determine her actual age.

Please refresh the page and retry. Kristine Barnett and ex-husband Michael Barnett were charged with neglect after leaving Ukraine-born Natalie Grace in an apartment shortly before the family moved to Canada in The letter, which Indiana University Health have not confirmed as genuine, states that she had adult teeth and had begun menstruating.