VIDEO | Decades after disappearing with her child, Kentucky mom arrested in Florida under fake name

A woman was arrested decades after police say she disappeared with her own child out of Louisville, Kentucky, leaving the child’s father in the dark.

But earlier this month, the woman’s past caught up with her, and she was arrested in Florida.

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Joe Newton and his wife, Debra, were preparing to move to Georgia in 1983, but when Joe came home, Debra had taken off with their 3-year-old daughter, Michelle.

After the pair disappeared, Joe searched for the two. For years, the family didn’t know if Michelle was alive.

After her arrest, Michelle reconnected with Joe, the father she never knew, and they exclusively spoke with sister station WLKY. The last time he saw her was in 1983. | Read their story here.

“She’s always been in our hearts. I cannot explain that moment of that woman walking in and getting to put my arms back around my daughter,” Joe said.

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According to investigators, the case finally cracked open this year after a Crime Stoppers tip in Florida, where her mother, Debra Leigh Newton, was living.

Body camera video captured the moment deputies approached a woman whose real identity is Debra Newton, but who her community knew as Sharon Neely.

Deputies roll up to her on a sunny day as she’s outside walking her dog, with neighbors nearby.

One even joked, “They’re coming for you, Sharon!” referring to Debra.

Watch the full video provided by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office in the video player above.

She was eventually handcuffed and put into the police car.

Debra was sent back to Jefferson County in Louisville, Kentucky, where she appeared in court Monday. She has been arraigned on a felony charge of custodial interference. Felony custodial-kidnapping charges carry no statute of limitations in Kentucky. She is due back in court in January.

Despite life turning upside down, Michelle showed no anger toward her mother. She said she wants to heal and move forward.

“My intention is to support them both through this and trying to navigate and help them both just wrap it up so that we can all heal and hopefully, you know, there’s just apologies and start healing,” she said.

After more than 40 years, woman reunites with family after allegedly being abducted by her mom

BySydney Bishop, CNN 

Police body-camera captures the moment a Florida woman was arrested for allegedly abducting her own daughter more than 40 years ago.

MARION COUNTY, Fla. — Three-year-old Michelle “Shelley” Newton poses for the camera in a sailor’s outfit, smiling wide, showing the gap between her two front baby teeth in an undated missing persons flyer from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

“Michelle was taken by her Mother,” it reads.

Now, Michelle, 46, is on a path to healing. Her mother is facing one charge.

The toddler’s vanishing took place in spring 1983, after her mother Debra Newton claimed she was “relocating to Georgia” from Louisville, Kentucky, “to begin a new job and prepare a new home for the family,” according to a Monday news release from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

CNN affiliate WLKY spoke to Joseph Newton, Debra’s husband and Michelle’s father, in 1986 after three years of searching for his daughter. He said the plan had been to move to Georgia. Debra took Michelle early, he added.

When he got there, he said they were gone.

Sometime between 1984 and 1985, a “final phone call” occurred between Debra and Joseph Newton, according to the sheriff’s office. Then, “both mother and daughter vanished.”

A custodial-interference indictment warrant soon followed.

“Wouldn’t you want your child back? At least to see her grow up?” Joseph Newton asked WLKY nearly four decades ago.

Police at one point thought it was possible Michelle was in Clayton County, Georgia, a suburban county almost 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta, according to the flyer.

Despite no signs of Michelle or her mother and Debra’s inclusion on the FBI’s “Top 8 Most Wanted parental-kidnapping fugitives,” Michelle’s case was dismissed in 2000 when “the Commonwealth” of Kentucky could not reach her father, the release said.

Five years later, Michelle, who would have been in her 20s, was removed from national child missing databases, according to the sheriff’s office.

The undated missing persons flyer says Michelle’s entry in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children system and Debra’s warrant for custodial interference were recalled in 2005 “due to inaccurate information.”

The case was reindicted in 2016 after a family member “prompted detectives to reexamine the case.”

Resolution leads to reunion

Earlier this year, 66-year-old Debra Newton had been spotted in Marion County, Florida, going by a different name.

When a Crime Stoppers tip identified the woman as a possible match, a US Marshals Task Force detective compared a recent photo to a 1983 image of Debra, and a Jefferson County detective “confirmed the resemblance,” the release said.

Authorities collected DNA from Debra’s sister in Louisville, and it showed a “99.9% match” to the woman in Florida.

When police arrived at her door, Michelle told WLKY that officers officially broke the news, “You’re not who you think you are. You’re a missing person. You’re Michelle Marie Newton.”

Michelle, who had been living under a different identity, called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office upon discovering her true family history, according to the release.

On the other side of that phone call was a reunion with family she hadn’t seen in decades, including her father.

“She told us she didn’t realize she was a victim until she saw everything she had missed,” Chief Deputy Col. Steve Healey said.

“She’s always been in our heart,” Joseph Newton told CNN affiliate 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. It was just like seeing her when she was first born. It was like an angel.”

The resolution of a case spanning more than 40 years reflects a legacy of “extraordinary” detective work from the sheriff’s office, Healey said in the release, including its long-held philosophy that “no family seeking help is ever turned away.”

Healey says it also proves the importance of one courageous tipster. “People think calling in tips is ‘snitching.’ It isn’t,” he said. “You’re helping victims. You’re helping families. This case proves that one phone call can change a life.”

A family member of Debra’s traveled to Kentucky and posted her bond.

She has been arraigned on a felony charge of custodial interference, according to the Commonwealth’s Attorney Office in Jefferson County. Felony custodial-kidnapping charges carry no statute of limitations in Kentucky.

CNN has reached out to the Louisville-Jefferson County public defender’s office for comment on Debra Newton’s legal representation.

Debra Newton voluntarily appeared in court for her arraignment in Louisville, the release states.

Both Michelle and Joseph Newton were in attendance.

Michelle doesn’t appear to be taking sides. She told WLKY: “My 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.”