You have had Natalia with you for how long?
Well, six years,
but almost seven. Almost seven.
How, you two met her on the neighbor's porch?
Yes.
And my friend called me and was like,
you need to come down here right away.
So I go over there and she said,
she's telling me she's 22.
Like, look at her.
She's not 22.
And I go, are you 22?
She said, yeah, but you could tell
that it was just like, yeah, because I was told yeah.
That's what I'm supposed to say.
Mm-hmm.
So I go, okay.
And she said, I have my own apartment.
And I'm like, no you don't.
And she's like, I do.
And I'm like, show me.
So she took me over to her house
and it was definitely her apartment.
She had a bed in there, she had a TV.
She had like some boxed food in her freezer.
I was like, well, you know, I have a couple kids at home.
Come on down.
You can play with them, talk with us, whatever.
So she came to our house and hung out down there.
And she never left.
She's been with us ever since.
Is that like you to do something like that?
We do help.
When you just find this random person on the street
and say, come hang out with us?
Well, not typically. Yeah.
We help a lot of people, but my motherly heart
was like, there's no way she can take care of herself.
I was like, I can't just leave her there.
How old were you at that time?
I was eight years old.
Maybe almost nine.
So at eight years old, you're living alone
in an apartment.
Yes.
And you're getting your own groceries.
I actually didn't even go grocery shopping.
My landlord took me to like, it was like a gas station
or something, to just to pick up a couple things.
Well, where'd you get your food?
The Barnetts, they had given me like food
that they didn't really eat.
Like canned foods and stuff like that.
And how long had you been in the apartment when you met?
It wasn't that long.
I think maybe about a month and a half.
Okay.
Well, I have a granddaughter about that age,
and I can't imagine her living in an apartment by herself.
What did they say to you when they took you over there
and dropped you off?
They just said, we're gonna get you an apartment
and we're going to Canada.
Did you say, I'm eight?
I didn't know what to say.
I didn't really know what was going on at first
until like after it happened.
Like, I was confused.
Were you scared?
I was.
I didn't really like wanna leave the apartment,
but I had to go to school.
So you went to school?
Yes.
How far was the school?
Maybe about a block away from the house.
So this is a new school?
Yes, an adult school.
Kristine, she had signed me up
right after I moved in, after that day.
And then when you met her,
she was in her second apartment.
Mm-hmm.
And you stayed in that first apartment for a year
at eight years old.
Yes.
It sounds like you were in a group home in the Ukraine.
And you come here when you're six.
And here's what I know about children
that are in group homes.
They're almost always developmentally delayed.
So if you come here from a group home at six,
best case, you're probably functioning developmentally
at four or five.
So you go into an apartment, functioning at six or seven.
A six or seven-year-old child living in an apartment alone
for a year?
That's just not believable to me.
How does that happen?
I think that she groomed her before she did this,
to have her ready for this.
But in terms of activities of daily living,
health, food, stove, working with an oven,
a six-year-old child Right.
Just simply doesn't know
how to do the activities of daily living
for independent existence.
Right, yeah. Well, I know
in the apartment when we met her, she didn't use the stove.
She cooked in the microwave.
Did she teach you a routine?
She didn't really reach me like how
to like take care of myself, but she did say like,
if someone asks you how old you are,
you tell them that you're 22.
And who paid the bills?
Michael.
So all you had to do
was go stay behind that closed door.