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?

This was left in the comments on the News 18 website

Deborah Jean
The family does not respond because

1. it's an open ongoing case. They don't want it tainted by the media.
2. the CHILD in question is only 16, and a MINOR. She is a very happy, well adjusted young lady, being cared for by a young Christian couple. Her privacy is more important to us than what the public wants. She's been through enough.
3. The husband has already admitted they knew she was a minor. No one ever conveniently mentions that.
4. Yes, you did try to contact me, just like you tried to contact my daughters. The family is ignoring your requests because we simply are not interested in becoming your media circus. Our only concern is for the young lady this involves. Not you, not the public, not the Barnetts.

The Barnetts are going to face repercussions for what they've done. As someone who has watched this young lady grow up I can promise you she is exactly that: a 16 year old young lady that was left alone and abandoned.
It's funny to me how the Barnetts say she has mental issues and is violent. In the 8 years or so she's been where she is this has never shown itself to be the case. Never once. Just a little food for thought.
More food for thought is the fact that she's lost baby teeth, grown boobs, lost her baby fat, and gotten taller.
And that's all I have to say.

The parents say she had pubic hair nobody else. They wouldn’t be being charged with neglect of a child if the police were not sure she was a child.

And the girl is now living with a new family being dressed as a young child again can’t see the link to Deborah jean with the family sharing photos on Facebook.

Glad someone started a thread about this....I nearly did yesterday and didn’t know where to start! It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve read in years.

Are we sue yet whether the girl is a child or an adult with dwarfism? Because I can’t get my head round the fact the court changed her age to 22yo but then the parents have been charged with child abandonment.

Like pp, I’ve read conflicting stuff. But it sounded like one court said she was 22. Parents went to Canada. A different court changed the child’s age back to approx 10yo? So now parents have been charged?

www.wlfi.com/content/news/Friend-Barnetts-were-scammed-into-adoption-girl-was-an-adult-the-whole-time-561149941.html

3 comments - the one I posted was the third one down. I took it from the context that she either was family or knew them. Whole thing's bizarre.

This is just the oddest case.

I find it hard to believe the adoptive family deliberately abandoned her as an 8 year old. Paying for an apartment etc. It would have been easier just to hand her back to Social Services surely?

Oh I know I’ve read the link else where. But I’ve also found her new family on Facebook from a group I’m on and it’s a very very devout (maybe even cult like) Christian family true but there is photos from this year of her dressed like a rather young child ponytail on top of head with pink bows for what should be now what if she was 6 in 2010 she would be what 15/16 now. Maybe I’ve just not found the friend link yet. But the photos still paint a not 15/16 or a late 20’s/30 year old either.

From what I read, the family didn't adopt her from the Ukraine. They were already foster carers and were asked to take her in as an emergency as her last adoption in the US broke down for unspecified reasons. They then adopted her themselves.

They tried to access MH support for her but as she was legally an adult by then, she had to agree and she didn't.

No good deed goes unpunished is true it seems.

Omg

The husband has already admitted they knew she was a minor. No one ever conveniently mentions that.

This is odd because this has been mentioned in several of the articles, but the adoptive parents deny they ever said that.

I do think they must have believed she was an adult. Because they could have just returned her.

Or did they not want this to come out when she has written a parenting book.

All most odd.

It has reminded me of that film - I want to watch it again now.

@OneForMeToo would you mind sending me the link to the profile you've mentioned? I'm not going to reach out obviously, I'm just very interested as this is in the public eye at the moment

The husband has already admitted they knew she was a minor. No one ever conveniently mentions that.

The husband denied ever having said that and that that was falsely attributed to him.

And I also read that she admitted being an adult. But read something else where she denied saying that.

Regarding the DH admitting they knew she was a minor. I read an article where the DH's solicitor said the police questioned him without a lawyer present and he felt they had misrepresented and manipulated what he said.
Even in the photos with the new family, the girl/woman is still small so it seems she does have dwarfism or some other growth issue.
It's odd the adoption agency isn't clarifying her history. Surely they did checks before placing her with the very first family. They'll also know why the first adoption failed.
It's an odd story but I found the adoptive parents' position to be very plausible. They definitely seemed to have a lot of documentation to support it.

Oneforme
Thanks for the info. Perhaps she is dressed as much younger than 15/16 because of the family she’s in - conservative dress code, maybe because she doesn’t want to grow up so to speak due to trauma or some kind of additional needs. Only speculation obvs.

In at least some states in america, you can not just put your child into care of the authorities. They will often refuse to take them.

This is all bizarre. If you search for "Antwon and Cynthia Mans" - who are reported as having applied for her guardianship - on Facebook there are photos from 2018.

In fact if you look up "Cynthia HisoneMans" there are pictures with the girl and her new family from this month.

This is so ridiculously intriguing.

Obviously most of what the Sun writes is bollocks.

I certainly think in some photos she looks older than she was supposed to be. And that in some photos she looks like she has dwarfism, her arms/posture.

I've seen the recent pictures of her now and whilst she does look alot older in one of them, she looks very much like a 16 year old in another with a teenage friend.

So confusing

The US has some very scarily lax adoption laws, and very scary lack of guidelines for what to do when an adoption isn’t working out. There are people who just advertise on the internet and give up their adopted children to strangers. Reuters did a heartbreaking article about it that I really recommend reading to understand how things like this happen there: www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1

The whole thing is so bizarre