Woman Abducted at Age 3 in 1983 Found Alive After 40 Years — and Her Mother Is Now Charged

A Crime Stoppers tip led police to track down a woman who had been missing since she was a child in 1983 – and arrest her mother for allegedly kidnapping her.

Michelle Newton was just three years old when she and her mother, Debra Newton, left Louisville, Ky., on April 2, 1983, for what Debra allegedly told her then-husband, Joe Newton, was a new job in Georgia, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in a release on Monday, Dec. 14, WLKY, WFTV9 and Fox35 Orlando report.

Then the pair vanished.

Authorities alleged that Debra had abducted Michelle, setting off a years-long search for the young mother and daughter. At one point, Debra was deemed one of the FBI’s Top 8 Most Wanted parental-kidnapping fugitives. 

On Nov. 24, Debra, 66, was arrested in The Villages, Fla., and charged with custodial interference, Fox 35 Orlando reports.

In body cam footage released by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and shown on WESH2's Facebook page, Debra is shocked when deputies pull up at the driveway of her house.

In the video, a friend jokes, “They’re coming for you, Sharon!” -- the name Debra had allegedly been using after leaving Kentucky.

After Debra jokes that the deputies were there for her dog, one deputy says to her, “We’re here for you, ma’am. We’re definitely here for you.”

He explained that they had a warrant for her arrest in connection with a missing child case out of Kentucky.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said as she was cuffed.

Following her arrest, Michelle, now 46, was reunited with her father.

“She’s always been in our heart,” Joseph Newton told WLKY. “I can’t explain that moment of walking in and getting to put my arms back around my daughter.”

“I wouldn’t trade that moment for anything," Joseph said. "It was just like seeing her when she was first born. It was like an angel.”

At first, Joseph didn’t realize anything was amiss, since his wife allegedly claimed she was “relocating to Georgia” from Louisville “to begin a new job and prepare a new home for the family,” the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in the news release.

Joseph was supposed to go with them to Georgia, but Debra Newton left early with their daughter, he told WLKY in 1986.

The last time he spoke to his wife was sometime between 1984 and 1985, he told the outlet. Then he never heard from her again.

The search for Debra and Michelle continued until 2000, when the case was dismissed after prosecutors were unable to reach the father, WFTV9 reports.

In 2005, Michelle was removed from the nationwide missing child databases, according to the JCSO.

No leads were forthcoming, even after a family member asked officials to reopen the case in 2016.

Then the case blew wide open in 2025, when a Crime Stoppers tipster allegedly recognized Debra as a woman who was living in The Villages in Florida, WFTV9 reports.

Debra had remarried and was using the name Sharon Nealy, according to WFTV9.

Michelle, who was raised under another name, had no idea that she had been missing.

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Debra was arraigned in court in Louisville and was released after a relative posted her bond, CNN reports.

Michelle and her father were in court for the proceedings, according to CNN.

She told WLKY that her intention “is to support them both through this and try to navigate and help them both just wrap it up so that we can all heal.”

It is unclear whether Debra has an attorney who can comment on her behalf.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and the  Louisville-Jefferson County public defender’s office did not respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.