A viral video captured a moment that turned out to be nothing theatrical at all: a woman in her sixties was actually being taken into custody for a kidnapping she’d committed 42 years earlier.
In the clip, Debra Newton—who had been living under the name Sharon Nearly—was chatting with a neighbor while walking her dog on a November 24 evening at her residence in the Villages. The Sheriff’s Department’s deputies pulled up and began to circle the house.
The neighbor, who had never anticipated that the officers were coming for Newton, joked loudly, “Uh, oh — they’re coming for you, Sharon!” Her friend replied, “They don’t want me!” before she turned to Newton and asked, nervously, “What’s up?”
A leader officer clarified that they were indeed there to arrest her, citing a warrant. Despite the explanation, the neighbor still seemed to think it was a prank, approaching Newton and saying, “They’re teasing you, they have to be teasing.” The deputy calmly responded, “Ma’am, we’re not,” and she finally realized that her friend was in serious trouble.
Newton had been listed as a former “Top 8 Most Wanted parental‑kidnapping fugitive” by the FBI. She believed she had moved with her daughter to Georgia to start a fresh life. The plan dissolved when her husband arrived and, after that, she vanished with her daughter.
Michelle Marie “Mickey” Newton—now a 46‑year‑old—was unaware of her mother’s disappearance. She had been raised under a different identity and had no clue that she had been abducted until a Florida police investigation in 2025 located her.
For decades, her father, Joseph Newton, had been searching for them. In 2005, Michelle was removed from missing children databases, unaware of the truth. The case was reopened in 2016 at a family request, and investigators finally reunited father and daughter in 2025.
In the week before her arrest, police had broken the life‑shattering news to Michelle, telling her, “You’re not who you think you are. You’re a missing person. You’re Michelle Marie Newton.”
A little later, the parents reunited for Thanksgiving, and Michelle said she bears no ill‑will towards her mother. “I think there’s a lot of healing that’s got to happen between my mom and I, and she has an opportunity to connect with family that’s missed her more than she realizes,” she told ABC News.
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