One of the Natalia's childhood neighbors cut off her daughter's friendship with the orphan after her adoptive mother claimed the girl had thoughts of murder; on new docuseries, Natalia demands to know why the woman believed her mom's claims.
Natalia Grace wants to know why so many people believed she was an orphan intent on killing her adoptive family, confronting one neighbor who believed her parents claims on a new docuseries.
Grace first made headlines after the family who adopted her changed her birthdate to make her substantially older, before placing her in her own apartment. Parents Michael and Kristine Barnett -- who didn't believe Natalia was actually a child and was instead a woman in her 20s out to kill them and their children -- were later arrested for neglect, but cleared of the charges.
Rachel Ambler appeared on ID's The Curious Case of Natalia Grace earlier this year, claiming she was warned about the girl's behavior by Kristine before forbidding her daughter to play with her anymore. "I don't want her trying to kill my daughter or me," Ambler said at the time.
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View StoryNow, the network has a new followup series, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, in which Natalia gets to ask Amber why she was so quick to believe Kristine's story.
"What did Kristine tell you when she came here?" Natalia first asks Ambler during the series' fourth episode, which TooFab has seen.
"She came over and she was crying ... she was like, 'Natalia's putting thumbtacks on the steps,' she said, 'Hiding knives in the mattress,'" Ambler replied. "That's what scared me and I just sat here in such shock, so I was like, what?"
Natalia was livid.
"They've tried to paint me as this crazy person. And literally, I'm a kid wanting to play with other kids and everybody is looking at me as a 22 year old, so they're all creeped out and thinking I'm going to be a pedophile to a kid," she exclaimed, saying it hurt that her friendship with Ambler's daughter was "just cut off" without explanation.
"I didn't know why, all I knew was I missed my best friend," she said. "I was a kid and you didn't think twice about it, didn't think twice about the fact she looks like a little girl, how are they saying she's an adult? You just took their word for it. Nobody investigated."
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View Story"Why didn't you ask about it? Did you ask?!" Natalia then asked, as Ambler said she she ask the parents, but not Natalia herself. She admitted that she should have, before being asked why Kristine's story was "so easy to believe."
"I didn't want to believe any of it, but I felt like she pushed me to believe it. They are good talkers," said the neighbor.
Natalia then told Ambler about how Kristine had allegedly tried to "overdose" her on medication, which caused the neighbor's jaw to drop. As Natalia asked whether she ever hurt the woman's daughter, Gracie, Ambler said she didn't and even said as much to her adoptive parents.
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View Story"Why did you believe it through? Do I look like a murderer to you?" wondered Natalia.
"Honey, if I knew what was going on, I should have asked, I would have snatched you up in a heartbeat," Ambler told her. "I'm not gonna lie, I think I was kind of scared of her and what she could do. I'm very ashamed of it. I had no reason not to believe her. She manipulated me. I'm angry as well, trust me."
She added that hearing everything Natalia had to say only confirmed her belief Kristine was a "horrible, horrible human being. Hands down."
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks will premiere across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1, airing nightly from 9-11PM ET/PT. See more coverage below!