Couple adopt 6 year old Ukrainian child who turns out to be 22 year old adult sociopath

[Amouse1]

I saw this online today and it's blown my mind, what are your thoughts?

In summary, a couple adopt what they believed to be a 6 year old Ukrainian child who was later found to be approx 22 after bone density tests etc.

The 'child' reportedly tried to hurt the family, doing things like trying to push the mother into an electric fence, pouring bleach in drinks and standing over people in the night threatening to kill them. The girl was found out to be an adult, diagnosed as a sociopath with a severe mental illness, and put on medication.

The family moved to Canada leaving the girl behind and have now been charged with abandonment, even though the girl is legally an adult.

This is just one of the many articles about it.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/9991243/mum-adopted-girl-dwarfism-kristine-barnett/

I can't grasp how this could have happened, or what to believe?

Can someone do a clicky link please first one isn't clicky for me.

Doesn't she have some sort of bone disorder? Maybe the bone scans can't be relied upon

I haven't seen the film orphan but a couple of the articles quoted it as being just like that yes.

From what I've read the girl has since been evicted from the flat that the adoptive parents were renting for her and she hasn't been seen since.

So, so strange.

I think the key information lays with the adoption agency surely, I don't understand why there's nothing from them in all of this or the previous adopters.

It's strange that no one else has had come forward, what was she doing previously.

My local paper has just reported about Katrice, about 20 minutes ago.

I read this story earlier today. More holes than Swiss cheese. It's so bizarre!

Sadly in the article I read a lot of the behaviours described are very typical of a very traumatised child.
Luckily adoption in the UK involves a lot of training for the potential parents about the effects of trauma on babies, children and those in utero.
The American system leaves me cold.

Also she was apparently diagnosed with a mental health disorder that only affects adults. But no mentioning of what it was.

If I had to guess. I think they struggled with her. It was suggested that she was older by a doctor and they jumped in and believed that as it gave them an out.

Though that doesn't account for fact that she had been through puberty but surely there could be some other disorder might cause that?

It sounds far fetched - from both sides to be honest. An 8 year old is unlikely to have full set of adult teeth, periods and public hair. The bleach, threats etc are pretty wild. If - as the newspapers say - she has done this before then won’t her fingerprints be on record?

A very odd story. It seems strange to me that they were not expecting their child to have severe MH issues having been adopted from the Ukraine.

International adoption rules seem very lax in the US - even when I was looking into this 20+ year ago it was the norm that adopters would pay for completely independent medical assessment before the paperwork was finalised.

However regardless of the adoptee's actual age - it is clear that she would have been very vulnerable with MH/learning disability issues - and yet she was essentially dumped without support while the family moved abroad.

It looks like due to the lax adoption system in the USA they get to go and buy choose a child from Ukraine and naively think all it takes is love.

Child is deeply disturbed, possibly also physically disabled and they abandon her after having her declared an adult. Even if they paid her rent she clearly has a lot of problems which would make looking after herself impossible. The telegraph article said she is still only 3 feet tall, suggesting either severe neglect or disability. I find it hard to believe a Dr wouldn't have picked up on dwarfism for years.

An 8 year old is unlikely to have full set of adult teeth, periods and public hair.

Not really, sadly severe sexual abuse can bring on early puberty, as was the case with the little pregnant 5 year old girl from Peru.

Police have been digging up a garden in Swindon looking for Katrice Lee, which is bizarre

^ as she went missing in Germany

Adoption in America is really weird, isn’t it? There is this weirdly kind of imperialistic attitude in some circles about collecting children to adopt. ‘We’ll have one from
Russia, one with Down’s syndrome, one from Africa...’ It all seems a bit unregulated.

5 - poor wee soul. I had no idea. I guess this girl/woman has such a collection of physical, emotional and mental issues it will be hard for professionals to untangle it all. The parents didn’t ask for help with her? Don’t the agencies have a duty of care for their children?

But then just watch the documentary - I think it’s called ‘3 identical strangers’ about triplets who were adopted by 3 families in New York and the despicable activities by the private adoption agency.

A very sad story. Seems clear to me the adopted parents fabricated "evidence" to fit a story that would allow them to legitimately leave the child behind when they moved. Quite possibly overwhelmed by the challenges the girl presented, they convinced themselves she was older. Although I suspect they are not as compassionate as they have presented themselves previously...

She came to them suddenly after a failed adoption in the US. It wasn't like they had a lot of time to prepare and ask questions.

After they set her up with the apartment etc , she then disappeared and showed up with another family who tried to adopt her as a little girl. The court then upheld the evidence saying she was an adult and the 3rd adoption fell apart.

The oddest thing was that the family got a Ukrainian friend to speak to her in her mother tongue and she couldn't understand the language or cultural references. But she had only been in the US two years by then.

It's a weird story for sure.

I don't understand how she was able to fend for herself in the flat alone, as she has been painted as somebody with physical disabilities as well as mental health problems, unable to care for herself.

How could she live alone for three years? For even three months?

The other family that tried to adopt her, how did they come to meet her?

So many questions and such confusing and limited information available.

Whatever her age she's clearly extremely vulnerable and it's worrying that nobody seems to know where she is

What on earth did I just read??

The American adoption system is nuts. We have newborns from vulnerable teenagers flogged to the highest bidder, babies plucked from all four corners of the globe collected up and this woman got a phonecall one day and decided to adopt a traumatised child then fucked off and left her. Bizarre. And needs a massive overhaul.

If I recall correctly the foster/adopted parents paid a care company to check in on her, make sure she ate, and cleaned etc.

As for her present whereabouts, again I may be wrong, but I believe the case came back to light when another family noticed this was going on and tried to have her placed in their care. That was when they learned her age was changed and they started court proceedings to have her correct (e.g juvenile) age reinstated

I cant believe any of this it sounds too fictitious

How could someone live in a flat - alone - for 3 months without the neighbours calling social services. If she was a child then it would be obvious to neighbours - or maybe she is an adult and knew to ‘act’ like one around curious neighbours so that they wouldn’t call social services.