“You’re not who you think you are,” police told her.
In November, a 46-year-old Florida woman came home from work and found police waiting for her. What they said next changed her life.
“You’re not who you think you are,” she was told. “You’re a missing person. You’re Michelle Marie Newton.”
Newton, who had lived her life under a different name, was unaware that her mother, Deborah Lee Newton, left Kentucky with her 43 years ago as she and her husband Joe were getting ready to move to Georgia, and then disappeared, according to WLKY-TV in Kentucky.
She didn’t know she had been in the national missing-child database for more than two decades. She didn’t know her mother had been on the FBI’s “Top 8 Most Wanted parental-kidnapping fugitives” list.
She also didn’t know she had a dad who’s been waiting four decades to see her again. They were reunited soon after.
Here’s what to know.
Who is Michelle Newton?
Michelle Marie Newton is the daughter of Joe and Deborah Newton, taken by her mother 43 years ago.
Until a few weeks ago, she was unknowingly living under a different name in Marion County, Florida.
What happened to Michelle Newton?
In the spring of 1983, the Newtons were planning to move to Georgia from their home in Louisville, Kentucky. Deborah left early “to begin a new job and prepare a new home for the family,” according to a news release from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, as reported by WLKY and other sources.
When Joe Newton arrived, Deborah and their 3-year-old daughter Michelle were gone.
There was a “final phone call” between the couple sometime between 1984 and 1985, the sheriff’s office said, and then “both mother and daughter vanished.”
Flyers for Michelle went up, suggesting areas in Georgia where she might be, and she was added to the missing-child database. Deborah was named in a custodial-interference indictment and an FBI Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution warrant.
However, years passed and the case was dismissed in 2000 when the Commonwealth of Kentucky could not reach her father, WLKY reported. Michelle Newton was removed from the missing-children list a few years later.
In 2016, a family member urged detectives to reexamine the case, and a grand jury re-indicted Deborah Newton in 2017.
Earlier this year, investigators received a Crime Stoppers tip from someone in Florida, suggesting that the now-66-year-old woman under a different name was Deborah Newton. A U.S. Marshals Task Force detective compared a recent photo to a 1983 picture and according to the sheriff’s office release, a Jefferson County detective confirmed it, WLKY said.
DNA samples from Deborah Newton’s sister in Louisville showed a “99.9% match” to the woman in Florida, investigators said.
After she was notified of her actual family, Michelle Newton contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and spoke to her father. They arranged to reunite.
“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. It was just like seeing her when she was first born. It was like an angel.”
What was Deborah Newton charged with?
Newton has been arraigned with a felony charge of custodial interference. She is expected in court Jan. 23, WLKY said.
Felony custodial kidnapping does not carry a statute of limitations in Kentucky.
Both Michelle and Joe Newton were at Deborah Newton’s arraignment, WLKY said.
“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,” Michelle Newton said.
(This story was updated to meet our standards.)
