A couple from Indiana has faced accusations of neglect after they left the little adopted girl and left the country.
Detectives filed charges against Michael and Christine Barnett on Wednesday after several years of investigation. According to the documents of the case and the allegations to the district attorney’s office to Tippecanoe, the couple adopted a little girl from Ukraine in 2010.
The girl herself admitted to detectives that she suffers from dwarfism (dwarfism).
She told me that she lived with Barnett 2 years after the adoption in their home in the County of Hamilton. Then in 2013, according to her, the couple had rented for her an apartment in Lafayette and left her there alone while the rest of the family moved to Canada. After the pair left, they never communicated with a foster daughter.
According to court records, Michael Barnett told me that they changed the legal age of a child from 8 to 22 in June 2012. Husband and wife also stated that rented an apartment in Lafayette because the child had no other contacts or friends in the state or nearby areas. They left the daughter in the apartment alone for the period from July 2013 to February 2016.
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In the court materials there are also medical records from children’s hospital Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, which show that the girl was examined on 3 June 2010, and it was found that it for about 8 years. Later medical records 2012 also show that investigated the development of the skeleton of a girl in the same hospital and it was found that at that time her age was about 11 years old.
Michael told the detectives that his wife told the girl to tell other people that it «looks small», but actually she’s 22, although he admitted that knew about the results of the medical examination and knew she was still a child when he and his wife threw it in 2013.
Michael also told the detectives that they were paying rent for an apartment in Lafayette, but more than anything financial the girl did not help with since he dumped her.
Michael and Christine Barnett charged with 2 cases of neglect, including abandonment of a dependent person in danger and abandonment or severe restriction of freedom of a dependent person.
The investigation is still ongoing.
