It’s a news item that confusingly resonates with the film’s script. Esther, the story of an adult who pretends to be a child and terrorizes her adoptive family. This terrifying heroine of cinema returns to the screens this August 17, 2022 with the release of the prequel, Esther 2still with the incredible Isabelle Fuhrman in the leading role.
In 2019, a case exposed in the American media echoed the pitch of this horror film. Natalia Grace Barnett has hit the headlines because of the accusations her adoptive family made against her. Nicknamed the “sociopathic dwarf”, she was adopted by Kristine and Michael Barnett. They then accused her of having knowingly lied about her age at the time of the adoption (according to them, she was 21 and not 6) but also of attempted poisoning. They then put her in an apartment alone and abandoned her. A dispatch from the Associated Press assured, however, that the child was 11 years old at the time of the facts.
Natalia’s biological mother, Anna Volodymyrivna Gava, originally from Ukraine, then confided in the English newspaper The Sun. She claimed that her child was 16 years old today and that she suffers from a rare form of dwarfism. Why had she abandoned her daughter when she was born? She said that when she was born, her mother and the doctors told her “give it up, don’t waste your life” knowing that she could not afford surgery to help her daughter lead a better life. Anna had indeed learned at six months of pregnancy that Natalia suffered from a “complex pathology”. She assures that her daughter is well born in 2003 and is now 16 years old.
Knowing that she had been adopted in the United States, Anna Volodymyrivna Gava thought her daughter was happy with her new family in the United States. “My daughter, forgive me for what happened 16 years ago“, she implored in the columns of the Sun. “Come back to me quickly so that I can see you. We are waiting for you. You have two sisters and two brothers.“
Interviewed in turn by the famous Dr. Phil in the United States, Natalia denied all the accusations, in particular that of having wanted to attempt the life of her ex-adoptive parents. She was adopted by another American couple with five children, whose father is a pastor. Six weeks after the case was filed which accuses the Barnett couple of negligence, media coverage had become so intense that a gag order barring defendants, prosecutors, lawyers and Natalia from speaking about the case was issued. applied. The case is still ongoing.