This story is really bizarre. An Indiana couple adopted a girl from Ukraine that had dwarfism. While giving her a bath, they discovered she had pubic hair, and decided she could not be six years old, as they were led to believe. They decided that she was about 14 years older, in spite of the girl's claims, and had her birth certificate legally changed to make her 20. Three years later, they rented an apartment in a nearby town and left her there, and the rest of the family moved to Canada. The nine-year-old had to fend for herself. She started living with a family three years later and they later adopted her. Further medical tests indicated that she was about 9 or 10 years old when she was abandoned in the apartment. The parents later claimed that the child tried to kill them several times. Two things: 1) Ukrainians are really tough and independent people. 2) What kind of legal system lets adoptive parents bail out on their child by taking their word for it that the child is 14 years older than she was claimed to be at the time of adoption? Natalia Grace Barnett’s DNA Test Confirms Her Real Age: ‘This Proves I Was Not Lying’ There seems to be too much neglect in the system, too many people not doing their jobs when they should be protecting the welfare of adopted children. It's mind-boggling that a judge would accept the parent's decision that the child was three times older than she was supposed to be, and change a birth certificate based on that.
Not the first time something like this has happened although this is undoubtedly the most bizarre. There have been numerous other instances in which Americans have adopted children from Eastern European countries and when the children turned out to have had serious mental and/or physical problems the adoptive parents have tried to nullify the adoptions. When Children Adopted Abroad Come With Too Many Troubles (Published 1996) Return To Sender" true story of adoptee sent back to Romania Families in Crisis: When Foreign Adoption Goes Wrong
Yeah, I remember reading a story a few years ago that was in response to either this or another story about parents trying to give back a child they'd adopted. The parents caught a lot of flak but the story I read included a handful of other parents describing the hell they'd been through with their own adopted children. Obviously, simply dropping her off in an apartment is pretty immoral.
I remember the story from Tennessee was that a six-year-old adopted child tried to kill his siblings, so the parents tried to take him back to Russia and dump him off. They never contacted Child Protective Services or any other government agency to try to get help. I do know from personal experience that an international adoption requires 2-3 followup visits from a social worker contracted through the adoption agency. Typically, a child like this would classify as special needs, so you could get additional assistance from county agencies. We had a team of cognitive development specialists visit the house and "play games" with our daughter at age 2 to see if she could figure out certain puzzles, understand English, follow basic instructions, etc.
I watched a documentary series on this. I gotta say that it was legitimately hard to figure out her age. The parents and their other child weren't the only folks who spoke out against her. That doesn't make it right, but it was actually really difficult to tell if she was an adult or child. I don't know if she actually tried to harm them or kill them, as the people making the claim were very biased (the parents who were accused of a crime), but folks outside the family (and even unconnected to the family) spoke about the girl being off in a way that made them feel unsafe.
My argument is that a judge should not have taken the parents' word for it that the girl was 14 years older than was originally claimed. He could have ordered medical tests, evaluations, and other things to be more certain of the child's actual age. The judge shouldn't just go by the seat of his pants to make decisions when there are options available to get more information. Judges are supposed to be more intelligent than that.
My recollection is that the judge didn't. He relied on a report from a doctor. (Although, I don't want to be seen as defending judges. There are too many folks on the bench who are reckless, unconcerned with what the law requires, not that smart, and/or a tyrannical jerk.) Also want to be clear that I'm not sanctioning what the original "parents" did. They were bad people. Merely saying the documentary series is quite interesting and really makes you question your own judgment.
