IN - Couple charged with abandonment of adopted child after legally changing her age, Sept 2019 #2 *not guilty*

[jjenny]

I posted the screenshots of the age change petition. They came from the video in this news report Warrants issued for Indianapolis parents accused of abandoning adopted daughter

Oh wow. Per that article, the petition claimed N. had schizophrenia and needed an appropriate adult care for it.

 

[Meloni88]

Oh wow. Per that article, the petition claimed N. had schizophrenia and needed an appropriate adult care for it.

Yeah and I don't think the parents have mentioned schizophrenia in their interviews. I know Kristine didn't. She's changed it to psychopathy and the schizophrenia diagnosis is suddenly unimportant. Presumably because children can have that.

 

[jjenny]

The variations of each type can get complex but the three main types are very distinct and she is textbook DTD. The hand and foot deformities are the major giveaway as well as her ears. Matthew Roloff has DTD. Compare his hands/feet/legs to his wife (achondroplasia) and Jen from the Little Couple who does have SED. Google image search babies with diastrophic dysplasia.

Already done all of that.

 

[Meloni88]

Already done all of that.

I was responding to Linda.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Going through the Prosecutor's witness list again.
I thought the PRIOR ARRESTING OFFICERS had to be for the Barnett’s-

Nope- from the Dr. Phil show we learned Kristine had Natalia call the police on herself, and she WAS HANDCUFFED & ARRESTED and released later.

Their testimony should be real interesting ...

 

[gitana1]

The Barnett’s are toast IMO

It’s bad when I WAS CONVINCED BEYOND ALL DOUBT given my admitted bias and bending over backwards trying to defend the Barnett’s. I was convinced prior to Dr. Phil.
Watching Natalia on Dr. Phil she proved she IS A VERY CREDIBLE WITNESS.
There’s no way the Barnett’s can escape conviction IMO

Glad to hear she seemed credible on that show. It’s easy to twist what people say on a highly edited show like that. I feel the producers made her appearance purposefully ambiguous. Also, the stills they used made her look strange. And the clips were sensational.

 

[gitana1]

So the age is determined by bone scans by examining the growth plates which eventually close when a child stops growing. Since N. has dwarfism, her growth plates are probably not the same as that of a child without dwarfism, which probably makes it harder to be very accurate to determine her age by bone scans. I presume because she is growing less, her growth plates are closing sooner than of a person without dwarfism, which is why she would come slightly older on bone scans than her birth certificate says (but still not an adult). If they can't very accurately determine her age by bone scans, what in the world led the judge to rule her to be an adult? What evidence suggested she was 22 and not 8 or 9? It's just mind bogging that it happened and now they can't change her age back to that of a child.

"As kids grow, growth plates change in appearance on the X-ray images and become thinner, eventually disappearing (this is what is called "closed growth plates"). Because they look different at each age, a doctor can assign a bone age based on the appearance of the bones and growth plates. A child's bone age (also called the skeletal age) is assigned by determining which of the standard X-ray images in the atlas most closely match the appearance of the child's bones on the X-ray."
X-Ray Exam: Bone Age Study (for Parents) - KidsHealth

And she had an endocrinologist assess her age. From Wikipedia:

Endocrinology (from endocrine + -ology) is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones.

 

[Meloni88]

I looked up at different types of dwarfism also. I don't think it's that easy to tell between different types. Here is the short article on different types of dwarfism. N. on Dr. Phil said she has diastrophic dysplasia and scoliosis. Scoliosis would actually be one of the features of diastrophic dysplasia. Definitely N's scoliosis got a lot worse over the years, since earlier photos show her spine to be much more straight.
Dwarfism: Types, causes, and information

Maybe it's not so easy for a layperson but a doctor has no excuse. Especially one writing a letter to a judge about a patient providing medical evidence for a petition that will severely disrupt her life. If he doesn't know the difference between the major types of dwarfism he shouldnt be diagnosing a dwarfism type in a legal document.

 

[gitana1]

Does anyone have a copy of the charging documents? Usually they are public. I can’t find them. Just the charging info is online but don’t like to actual documents, I find it hard to believe no media didn’t publish it as much as it’s been talked about.
A few red flags; Michael Barnett original story; an adoption agency from Florida called Unsolicited and said they had a child for them and 24 hours later she was theirs despite strict Florida Laws

Kristine Barnett says she found clothes on Natalia’s suggested she was having her period. Okay.. so.. did you ever take her to the gynecologist? Have the talk with her?

How does one scam agencies into talking them into adopting them out? How does that happen??

I am sure there were behavior problems.. any child bounced around that much would have issues. And then for Dr Phil to say she was vague about all the families.. duh.. she was under 6 years old.

Yes. Probable Cause Affidavit

 

[Dawn Day]

Going through the Prosecutor's witness list again.
I thought the PRIOR ARRESTING OFFICERS had to be for the Barnett’s-

Nope- from the Dr. Phil show we learned Kristine had Natalia call the police on herself, and she WAS HANDCUFFED & ARRESTED and released later.

Their testimony should be real interesting ...

GOOD CATCH!!

 

[Linda7NJ]

I also take back every single suspicion I had about the Mann’s.

I love their Facebook - seems to me, since the day they laid eyes on Natalia, they treated her like family and opened their hearts and home. She’s in every family photo, events, impromptu family pics. She was even in the delivery room for the birth of her brother.

STARK CONTRAST to the Barnett’s...

 

[gitana1]

Very good points.
I am waiting for the one of the naysayers to tell us how you scam adoption agencies into adopting you out. The Ophan Movie came out a year or so before the Barnett’s did this to Natalia. I would think if she was an adult a con artist, she wouldn’t want to be adopted, she would want $$$$
Michael Barnett story makes no sense.

That’s what I’ve been saying but it’s like screaming into the wind! I don’t understand how that isn’t at least a third or fourth thought when examining this case.

She came here at 5-6. Must have been on a plane. From the Ukraine. With the ciccones likely awaiting her arrival at the airport.

And how does she accomplish that? How does she fool the adoption agencies either in the Ukraine or in the US or both? And to what end?

The insane Barnett’s say she couldn’t speak Ukrainian and had no accent when they got her. So it sounds like they think she was an American adult scam artist. So how the hell did that work? Live here and somehow gather money for a plane trip and then create a fake Ukrainian adoption agency or orphanage that she pretends to correspond as with an American adoption agency? I mean the logistics don’t make a lick of sense.

And they never explain why. What’s she scamming? They call her a fraud. They also call her mentally ill. Which one? If she’s mentally ill she’s got to be highly functional in order to be able to engage in fraudulent adoption proceedings and create or help create false paperwork. And for what?

The only ones making money seem to be the adoption agencies and lawyers. And the Ukrainian government. She shows no signs of having any funds. She ended up living the last 6 years with a working class family who work at fast food and praise Jesus. Is that the high life she was aspiring to with this scam?

Are they saying instead that she somehow scammed because she likes to pretend to be a child? Like those weirdos who claim to be someone’s lost child because they don’t have a family or don’t like their own lives? Ok. Great. If so, why would she let them bathe her that very first night when they claim to have “discovered” she had pubic hair growth?

She would know the jig would be up immediately because she was supposedly “pretending” to be six or so. And earlier with the Ciccones who never claimed she had pubic hair she would’ve been 5. Surely they helped her bathe as well. So this makes no sense.

And why haven’t the Ciccones claimed she was a fully developed adult? And why did the DuPaul’s state definitively that she was not?

None of the Barnett narrative makes a lick of sense when you think about it for a second or two.

 

[Linda7NJ]

As usual, I’m annoyed & frustrates with Dr. Phil and reminded why I haven’t watched since the John & Burke Ramsey fiasco

 

[gitana1]

The judge took only the word and evidence of the Barnetts because they had N locked up before the proceedings so that an ex parte would eliminate any evidence coming from N

I don’t know about that but she was a kid at the time. Around 9-10? So she wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to get representation and file an objection.

A court appointed attorney should’ve represented her interests in that proceeding.

Apparently there was one for the second proceeding in 2016 but he couldn’t make headway because the court wasn’t going to challenge the first determination.

 

[gitana1]

I still can't get over Dr McLaren diagnosing her with the wrong type of dwarfism. We'd all been talking about her having SED because of his letter so I didn't really look into it but he couldn't even get that part right. The three most common forms of dwarfism are achondroplasia, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), and diastrophic dysplasia (DTD) and they all have very distinct features. Looking over the actual diagnostic criteria she has all the classic signs of DTD, not SED. There's no excuse for that mistake. Did he win his medical license in a raffle?? Or did he just never actually see her in person??

 

[Linda7NJ]

That’s what I’ve been saying but it’s like screaming into the wind! I don’t understand how that isn’t at least a third or fourth thought when examining this case.

She came here at 5-6. Must have been on a plane. From the Ukraine. With the ciccones likely awaiting her arrival at the airport.

And how does she accomplish that? How does she fool the adoption agencies either in the Ukraine or in the US or both? And to what end?

The insane Barnett’s say she couldn’t speak Ukrainian and had no accent when they got her. So it sounds like they think she was an American adult scam artist. So how the hell did that work? Live here and somehow gather money for a plane trip and then create a fake Ukrainian adoption agency or orphanage that she pretends to correspond as with an American adoption agency? I mean the logistics don’t make a lick of sense.

And they never explain why. What’s she scamming? They call her a fraud. They also call her mentally ill. Which one? If she’s mentally ill she’s got to be highly functional in order to be able to engage in fraudulent adoption proceedings and create or help create false paperwork. And for what?

The only ones making money seem to be the adoption agencies and lawyers. And the Ukrainian government. She shows no signs of having any funds. She ended up living the last 6 years with a working class family who work at fast food and praise Jesus. Is that the high life she was aspiring to with this scam?

Are they saying instead that she somehow scammed because she likes to pretend to be a child? Like those weirdos who claim to be someone’s lost child because they don’t have a family or don’t like their own lives? Ok. Great. If so, why would she let them bathe her that very first night when they claim to have “discovered” she had pubic hair growth?

She would know the jig would be up immediately because she was supposedly “pretending” to be six or so. And earlier with the Ciccones who never claimed she had pubic hair she would’ve been 5. Surely they helped her bathe as well. So this makes no sense.

And why haven’t the Ciccones claimed she was a fully developed adult? And why did the DuPaul’s state definitively that she was not?

None of the Barnett narrative makes a lick of sense when you think about it for a second or two.

You, of course are correct.

 

[gitana1]

I don't think this Dr. M. is a specialist on dwarfism by any means. I am amazed the judge apparently used his claims at least in part as a reason to rule N. was an adult.

Yes and he didn’t even diagnose her or officially assess her. He just wrote a “letter” with the equivalent of lay opinion and hearsay. He should be censured for that.

He’s a general practice doctor.

 

[gitana1]

You don't need to be a specialist to differentiate between them was my point. It's quite basic. Especially when she has all the symptoms of DTD. The cauliflower ear, the malpositioned hallux and pollux, curved short fingers etc. Those things are not associated with SED. They have normal hands and feet typically. It would have taken him ten minutes to look it up and familiarize himself with the differences.

And she had records!! I mean the DuPaul’s have them. This guy just did a favor for a friend. He’s unprofessional.

 

[mickey2942]

As usual, I’m annoyed & frustrates with Dr. Phil and reminded why I haven’t watched since the John & Burke Ramsey fiasco

I am surprised that Dr. Phil is not sued more often, and that his license is still active (apparently it is not). There are so many ethics issue that I see on Dr. Phil, I am not impressed, ever since he was on Oprah, and puts himself forward as an "expert" on every single disorder and situation.

Fortunately, I never see his show. I saw it once or twice, and felt that he should be charged with malfeasance.
Dr. Phil's latest scandal part of a controversial history

 

[Meloni88]

You really have to turn yourself in knots to make this remotely believable. The not speaking Ukranian thing is baffling too. Firstly Mykolaiv is in the Russian speaking part of Ukraine. They know her place of birth but didnt look up anything about the place their daughter was born?? Part of their petition to change her age cited Ukraine not having reliable records but now they suggest she isnt from Ukraine anyway? But she found a woman in Ukraine who looks just like her to pretend to be her mother and go along with it?