THE VILLAGES, Fla. – A woman living under an alias in The Villages was arrested in connection with a 40-year-old kidnapping case involving her daughter.
Debra Newton was taken into custody on custodial interference charges stemming from a 1983 incident in which she allegedly kidnapped her daughter, Michelle, from Kentucky.
Body-camera video released by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office shows deputies in late November at Newton’s home, where both Newton and a neighbor initially thought the situation was a prank.
“We’re here for you, ma’am. Definitely here for you,” one of the deputies in the video can be heard saying.
Moments later, Newton’s neighbor tells her, “They’re teasing you, they have to be teasing,” to which another deputy replies, “Ma’am, we’re not.”
Authorities revealed that Michelle Newton, now 46, had been unaware she was the victim of a crime until about two weeks earlier. The investigation had gone cold after Michelle was removed from the missing child database in 2005.
A breakthrough came when investigators received a Crime Stoppers tip indicating that Debra Newton was residing in The Villages under an assumed identity, according to WHAS.
The custodial interference charges will be prosecuted in Kentucky, where the offense carries no statute of limitations.