The Ukrainian birth mother of 'abandoned' Natalia Barnett has been found by DailyMailTV, and she has sensationally denied claims her daughter is an adult 'sociopath' masquerading as a child in an emotional interview.
Three foot-tall Natalia, who suffers from a rare form of dwarfism, is at the center of an extraordinary criminal case that has seen her adoptive parents Kristine and Michael Barnett charged with neglect for moving to
Canada without her.
The Barnetts say they are the true victims, however, alleging the cute 'six-year-old' they adopted in 2010 was actually a violent grown up pretending to be a child because of a severe psychiatric illness.
But in a dramatic intervention that threatens to derail the pair's defense, biological mom Anna Volodymyrivna Gava has broken her silence to defend Natalia, after an exhaustive search by DailyMailTV to track her down.
'I know exactly how old she is,' Anna, 40, told DailyMailTV through a translator from her home in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea.
'This girl is my daughter who was born 16 years ago.
'Doctors told me to leave the baby: "Leave her, don’t ruin your life", they said. Both them and my mom told me to leave her.
'They said the baby would never be good, that she would never be able to move, that she would be chained to a chair or to a bed.'
Anna continued: 'She now lives in America with adoptive parents who want to ditch her. I thought everything was okay with her and it turned out that it's not all okay.'
The mother of four other kids has shared with DailyMailTV the deeply distressing story of how she felt forced to surrender her newborn daughter because of the child's severe disabilities.
And wiping away tears, she made a heartfelt plea to Natalia herself: 'Daughter, forgive me for what happened 16 years ago. Visit soon for me to see you.
'We are waiting for you. You have two sisters and two brothers.'
Anna, who had divorced the baby's father before her birth, says she later learned that social services named the girl Natasha, a Ukrainian variation of Natalia.
DailyMailTV reporters saw a document at the orphanage that proved the baby was admitted in October 2003. They were not permitted to copy of picture it.
According to prosecutors, Natalia was indeed a minor child and 'dependent' of the Barnetts when they rented her an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana in 2013 before leaving town and breaking off contact.
'I would like to tell Natasha that I really want to see her. I hope that when she turns 18 she goes to Ukraine and finds me. I would like to hug her and to apologize.'