The man who opened his front door to a knock and a bullet is the same county judge who once ruled on how old Natalia Grace would be in the eyes of Indiana law. Police say they do not yet know why he was targeted.
An Afternoon Shooting at a Judge’s Front Door
Tippecanoe County Judge Steven P. Meyer and his wife, Kimberly Meyer, were shot inside their Lafayette, Indiana, home in the early afternoon, according to reporting by Fox News Digital. Dispatch audio obtained by the outlet indicates a person came to the front entrance, then a gunshot was fired through the door.
Authorities told Fox News Digital that Steven Meyer was struck in the arm and Kimberly Meyer was hit in the hip. Both were taken for medical treatment and were described as being in stable condition.
Lafayette police have said publicly that the shooter remains at large. No arrest has been announced, and investigators have not released a physical description of any suspect. Fox News Digital reported that shell casings were recovered at the scene, and that dispatch audio captured the suspect speaking briefly before the shot was fired, although police have not attributed any motive to that statement.
In a written statement provided after the attack, Kimberly Meyer thanked investigators and local residents for their response. According to Fox News Digital, she said, “I have great confidence in the Lafayette Police Department’s investigation and want to thank all the agencies involved for their work. We are also incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from the community; everyone has been so kind and compassionate.”
Police have asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact the Lafayette Police Department at 765-807-1200. As of the reporting cited here, they have not publicly identified a person of interest.
Indiana judge and his wife shot at their home https://t.co/qrYKDJaMBL pic.twitter.com/iq2Y70r5L5
— The Independent (@Independent) January 20, 2026
The Judge and the Natalia Grace Case
Judge Meyer was already a familiar name in Indiana court coverage before the shooting. He presided over the neglect case against Michael and Kristine Barnett, the former adoptive parents of Natalia Grace, whose disputed age and disability became the center of an international media story.
According to court records described by multiple outlets, including Fox News Digital, the Barnetts adopted Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian orphan with a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, in 2010. They believed she was about 6 years old at the time.
Within months, the Barnetts came to claim that Natalia was actually an adult who had misrepresented her age. They pointed to her small physical stature, the lack of reliable birth documents from her reported birthplace in Ukraine, and behavior they described as threatening.
In the Investigation Discovery series “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks,” as summarized in Fox News reporting, Michael Barnett alleged that Natalia engaged in dangerous conduct inside their home. “She threatened to stab my sons, drag their bodies outside and bury them underneath the deck,” he said in the documentary.
Natalia Grace has rejected those accusations. In the same series, she alleged that she was mistreated while living with the Barnetts and said she was frightened of them. She described being pepper-sprayed and overmedicated, and told producers, “In every lie is a hidden truth, but you’ve gotta dig enough to be able to see it. They’re not going to get away with this. This is my side of the story.”
Underlying the family conflict was a key legal step. In 2012, the Barnetts successfully petitioned a Marion County court to change Natalia Grace’s legal birth year from 2003 to 1989, according to Fox News Digital and prior local reporting. The order made her legally 22 years old in Indiana, even as debate about her biological age continued in the public sphere.
Neglect Charges and Judge Meyer’s Role
Several years after the age-change ruling, prosecutors charged Michael and Kristine Barnett with multiple counts of neglect of a dependent. The charges, filed in 2019, focused on their decision to obtain an apartment for Natalia in Lafayette and leave the state while she remained there, despite her disability.
As described in Fox News coverage of the case, a neighbor later told investigators that Natalia struggled to perform basic tasks in the apartment, including cooking and managing household chores. Those observations helped support the argument that she still functioned in many ways as a child, regardless of the legal birth year change.
Judge Meyer handled key pretrial and trial decisions. According to The Exponent, a Purdue University student newspaper that closely followed the case, Meyer ruled that participants in Michael Barnett’s trial had to refer to Natalia Grace as an adult, reflecting the earlier Marion County court order on her legal age. He also issued a gag order on the parties after the Barnetts appeared on a national television program to discuss the dispute, a move intended to keep the criminal proceedings focused on evidence inside the courtroom. The Exponent reported those rulings from the Tippecanoe County courthouse.
A jury found Michael Barnett not guilty in 2022, according to Fox News Digital and local coverage at the time. In 2023, Judge Meyer dismissed the remaining charges against Kristine Barnett. As a result, neither parent stands convicted in the neglect case arising from their care of Natalia Grace.
Natalia herself has not been charged with a crime related to the Barnetts. Public records show that she has taken part in media projects, including the Investigation Discovery series, to present her perspective on the family’s allegations and the legal fight over her age.
No Public Link Between the Shooting and the Case
Because of Judge Meyer’s role in the closely watched Barnett proceedings, early coverage of the shooting at his home has emphasized that connection. Yet law enforcement and court records available at this time do not establish any link between the attack and the Natalia Grace case.
Fox News Digital, which first highlighted the overlap, reported that police have not named Natalia Grace as a suspect in the shooting and that she has not been charged in relation to the incident. The outlet also noted that Michael and Kristine Barnett did not respond to its requests for comment on the shooting, and that reporters were unable to reach Natalia for comment.
Investigators have not announced any working theory about the motive. They have also not indicated whether they are reviewing Judge Meyer’s past cases more broadly to determine if any party in a prior proceeding might have a grievance. That type of review is standard in attacks on judicial officers, but it typically unfolds out of public view.
Nationally, concerns about threats and violence directed at judges have been rising for years. The United States Marshals Service, which protects federal judges, has repeatedly reported thousands of potential threats or inappropriate communications annually. Those figures cover federal officials, not county-level judges such as Meyer, but they illustrate the security risks that can accompany high-profile judicial work.
A Case With Two Open Files
The shooting at the Meyers’ home and the long-running dispute over Natalia Grace now sit side by side in the public record, linked by one judge’s name and a shared setting in Tippecanoe County. For now, police have treated them as separate matters.
On one side are unresolved questions about who knocked on a Lafayette front door, why that visitor opened fire, and how long it will take investigators to locate a suspect. On the other side are lingering disputes over what happened inside a family more than a decade ago, and what it meant for a court to declare a young woman an adult on paper while her own account describes her as vulnerable and dependent.
What is documented at this point is limited. Judge Steven Meyer and his wife are recovering from their injuries. The Barnett neglect case has been closed in criminal court. The person who came to the Meyers’ door in the middle of the day has not been publicly identified, leaving the question of motive on hold in a city that now has one more open case file.
