‘Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter’ Zeroes In on Allegations Around Natalia’s Adoptive Family
The third and final season of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace begins with Natalia’s adoptive parents, Bishop Antwon and Cynthia Mans, questioning her behavior just six months after they became legal guardians of the 21-year-old who has a rare form of dwarfism known as spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita and had been in their care since 2014.
“If she’s gonna destroy herself, she needs to do it herself; she don’t need help,” Cynthia is heard telling the producers of the ID docuseries, Shannon and Eric Evangelista, over the phone as she and her husband express their desire to talk about the latest status of their family unit on camera. “[Natalia] wants to leave now.”
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Natalia’s motives for no longer wanting to live with the Manses is the focus of the first half of the four-part follow-up to 2023’s The Curious Case of Natalia Grace and 2024’s The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks as the character of the bishop and his wife comes into question. Similar to the first two seasons of the series that focused on Natalia’s unsettling relationship with her former adoptive parents Michael and Kristine Barnett, she’s now at odds with her new adoptive family. However, this time, in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter, Natalia has an ally in Vincent and Nicole DePaul, a husband and wife with a form of dwarfism who previously attempted to adopt her and who now help her escape from the Manses.
All of this is captured in the new season of the docuseries, which continues and concludes on Tuesday.
“We didn’t even know that we were continuing the story,” ID President Jason Sarlanis previously told The Hollywood Reporter of putting together the four-part, two night The Final Chapter. “All we knew when we got that phone call from Eric and Shannon about this voicemail they received was we had to do right by our audience.”
Even more twists follow when Natalia is no longer in the care of the Mans family and it’s discovered that she’s still allowing them to profit off of her financially and is potentially covering up other alleged abuses, which she denies. “Me and my parents are fine,” Natalia states in the documentary following her escape. “Just because I’m not living with my family doesn’t mean they’re not my family.”
Below are five revelations from parts one and two of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter.
Natalia’s Boyfriend Was the Source of Contention in the Mans Home
When producers arrive in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Mans family has relocated, Antwon states that he, his wife and Natalia have “come to an understanding.” He and Cynthia then recount how they found Facebook messages between Natalia and her boyfriend Neil, a man she met online who lives in the U.K., in which he told her that the Manses were spiritually manipulating her and using her for her money, and she told him that she wants to leave their home.
“This guy just completely flipped Natalia’s mind against her family, and she was completely manipulated in that moment,” Cynthia says as Natalia sits silently next to Antwon. Eventually, Natalia says, “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t me. My mom told me, ‘this is not you; this is not my baby.’ I never once thought about wanting to move out or anything like that until I started talking to [Neil].” Later Natalia adds, “I will admit my mistakes. I thought I was in love, and it wasn’t right. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” The Evangelistas told THR in a prior interview that they weren’t allowed to talk with Natalia independently during that visit. “The Manses were very protective over us being allowed to speak to her alone at that point,” Eric said.
Neil Facilitates Natalia’s Escape, With the New DePaul Family
Despite the change of heart Natalia conveyed in front of Antwon and Cynthia, she continued communication with her boyfriend Neil, who then sent their text conversations relaying Natalia’s desire to leave the Manses to Nicole. “I said I want to go and they said I was being mental,” one forwarded message read. Nicole then sent a message to Natalia through duo lingo offering her help. “I wanna see you and Neil!!” Natalia responded to which Nicole replied, “We can come get you.”
Nicole’s husband Vincent expressed initial doubts about his wife’s plan. ” ‘Officially, I’m on the record as I don’t think you should do this,’ he literally said that to me,” Nicole says in the doc. The DePauls first spent time with Natalia in 2009 when they were considering adopting her. However, the adoption fell through, and Natalia was taken in by the Barnett family who later made the salacious claim that she was an adult woman posing as a child, setting off a yearslong battle of Natalia, who was initially adopted from Ukraine, attempting to prove her real age. (Her legal birth date has since been established as Sept. 4, 2003.) “She was a lovely kid when she was here 14 years ago, but I’m concerned because she’s practically a stranger and obviously we want to be safe,” Vincent tells his wife. Nicole, however, expressing guilt she and her husband weren’t able to take Natalia in the first time, says she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she knew she could do something and didn’t, so she moves forward with her plan to get Natalia out of the Mans household at the end of episode one.
Natalia and Nicole DePaul Plot Her Escape During a Church Service
Natalia told Nicole she could escape by excusing herself to the bathroom at the beginning of an evening church service so Nicole and her daughter Mackenzie fly to Nashville three days before Christmas 2023 to take Natalia back to live with them in upstate New York at the start of episode two. Nicole hired a driver and told producers they could capture the rescue mission. “We literally had no lead time at all,” Shannon Evangelista told THR in the prior interview, with Eric noting they were given 24-hour notice of the plot at most. Cameras filmed the entire scene, from Natalia walking out of the church and into the DePaul’s car, to her emotional breakdown as they head to the airport. “I can’t believe I did this. My dad is gonna flip. My mom is probably having a panic attack right now,” she tells Nicole. Natalia then calls Neil to express her gratitude. “I am so, so thankful you found me. I love you so much,” she tells him.
Moments later, Natalia sends Cynthia a text that reads, “Mom, I’m sorry but I left. I am with the DePauls and I can’t handle being cut off from the world like that. I don’t want to hurt you, but I need to do this. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.” Cynthia immediately calls Natalia and then sends texts asking her to call her back when she doesn’t answer. According to Nicole, the conversation then takes a concerning turn. “Cynthia asks, ‘are you safe?’ and then she asks, ‘well what about your social security, am I still going to be your payee?’ ” she claims the texts read.
Fostering Children Appears to be Antwon and Cynthia Mans’ Sole Source of Income
The alleged question highlights a claim made early in episode one by Indianapolis, Indiana, attorney Terrance Kinnard, who represented Michael Barnett during his legal issues with Natalia. According to Kinnard, he and his team conducted a thorough investigation into Natalia’s new adoptive family and came to a definitive conclusion. “Clearly the Mans are grifters,” Kinnard says in the doc. “They’re hustlers, they’re charlatans, they’re con artists. Antwon Mans purposely selects his victims based on their disability. He takes control of their money by becoming what’s called a payee. Their whole financial situation is based on the government funding that those people get.”
In episode two, legal expert Beth Karas — who will lead ID’s spinoff series spawned by Natalia’s story — says Natalia has been giving all of her money to the Manses for the past decade. A Sept. 16, 2014, FBI Child Crimes Specialist Interview with Natalia shows her explaining to an agent that her $700 monthly benefits check goes toward rent money, tithes and offerings at church, and clothes and food, acknowledging none of the money stays with her as she doesn’t have a savings account. “Based upon what we know right now in our investigation, there’s no other source of income for Cynthia and Antwon Mans than what they get from fostering children, and a lot of children over the years,” Karas states, noting disability benefits have increased since 2014 and the Manses have had between 8-10 children in their care through the years.
Tensions begin to rise in the DePaul household when Nicole tells Natalia she’s going to CashApp her $100, and she discovers the account Natalia gave her is actually Cynthia’s. “Cynthia and Antwon, they steal from Natalia and now I feel like they’re stealing from me,” Nicole states. In a heated exchange with Cynthia, Nicole asks why Natalia’s never been listed as her own benefits payee and Cynthia tells her that’s none of her business. Later in the episode, producers show clips of interviews they’ve conducted with other parents whose children have been in Antwon and Cynthia’s care to the DePauls. One of those individuals is Crawfordville, Indiana, resident Robert Madewell whose 7-year-old son the Manses watched from 2019-2022. He claims during that time Cynthia asked him to sign guardianship over to her on three separate occasions. “I believe Miss Cynthia wanted my kid so she could get a check off of him,” Madewell says in the doc.
The Manses May Have Physically Abused Natalia and Other Children
Madewell’s concerns about the Manses don’t stop at potential financial exploitation. His son, whose identity is concealed in the documentary, claims Cynthia would cause him to urinate on himself by not letting him go to the bathroom when he asked and that she was also physical with him and other children in their care, including Natalia. “Miss Cynthia would whoop me; she would hit me on the bottom and they were very violent,” he states on camera. “She had a belt she would whoop us with… each one at a time and she would sometimes slap Natalia in the face.”
Anna Lewin, a friend of the Manses who signed her rights to her kids over to them when she and her ex-husband began to have marital issues, told producers a very different story in the documentary. “Cynthia and Antwon Mans gave Natalia the best living situation they could and the Mans family was the best thing that ever happened to her,” she says. “Their parenting was on point. There was never anything that I was worried about… their strictness, their disciple was nowhere near on the verge of abuse.” However, her latest statement contradicts what she told producers in a prior phone interview in which she’s heard saying, “Natalia used to get beat on all the time. They were violent to her. Cynthia sometimes. Antwon more so.” According to her ex-husband Matthew Newlin, who also claims to have witnessed Antwon beat Natalia, Anna is scared to tell the truth about the Manses because her children are in their care. When asked whether she or any other children in the Manses’ home were abused, Natalia tells producers, “I do not want to talk about that.”
THR reached out to the Lafayette, Indiana, Police Department about the allegations and received the following statement from Sergeant Shawn Verma over email, “We do not have any active cases with Antwon and Cynthia Mans regarding abuse. There was a case in 2020 which was transferred to Crawfordsville PD that involved [the] Antwon and Cynthia Mans residence.” Requests for comment from the Crawfordsville Police Department were not returned at the time of this article. The Mans also did not respond to THR‘s requests for an interview; they also did not respond to producers when they reached out regarding the new allegations of abuse.
“We were communicating with them and were very forthright about every allegation that was ever made,” Shannon told THR in a prior interview. “They were given detailed information. They just ultimately chose not to respond to those allegations.”
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The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter airs Jan. 6 and 7 from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT and will stream on Max. Read THR‘s interview with producers Shannon and Eric Evangelista.
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