Imagine finding out at 45 years old that you are on the missing and endangered child list, and were abducted more than 40 years ago. Even more surprising, your mother was the person who abducted you and is now under arrest for the crime.
That’s what happened when Debra Newton was arrested in The Villages, Florida this week. She stands accused of running away with her daughter, changing their names, and going into hiding back in 1983. It was confirmed by DNA testing:
You’re not who you think you are. You’re a missing person. You’re Michelle Marie Newton,
The entire thing began when Debra Newton abducted Michelle, who was three years old when she and her mother left Louisville, Kentucky to begin a new job in Georgia and prepare a new home for the family.
I know that there are those who would claim that, being the child’s mother, she can’t have abducted her. My response to that is that the Father of that child has rights, and those rights were taken from him when his wife ran off with the kid. I’m glad they finally brought him closure, and did it in a way that he isn’t getting screwed into paying child support.
9 Comments
Old Maine Farmer · December 20, 2025 at 8:57 am
You are right about Father’s rights, unless there are extenuating circumstances, like the father was molesting the child. It would be interesting to know the whole story and why the mother did that before passing judgment. If he were a pedophile, it would be worth going to jail to keep your child safe from him. If she was just a selfish one way and the father did not harm, she deserves prison.
Divemedic · December 20, 2025 at 9:05 am
If that was truly the issue, there is a process for that. It’s called court, where the rights of the father are protected and he gets a chance to defend himself (sometimes, and only to a certain extent) by calling witnesses.
The fact that she just took off with the kid destroys any argument that she makes now. I wouldn’t believe anything she had to say about what the father may or may not have done.
Old Maine Farmer · December 20, 2025 at 12:41 pm
Courts? Lol. Perhaps in some places that might work. But lefty courts protect pedophiles, and most lawyers and judges are lefty. I have heard a ‘children’s attorney’ say that if the child liked it, then sexual interaction between parent and children was ok (California). “Get over it” said the children’s attorney about a 4 year old being sodomized. Do you honestly think that children are protected from pedophiles in courts? Do you think that lesbian and homosexual judges would rule to protect children?
You can look this case up. Vermont and New York. Spiro Zohaides served 3 years in prison for driving a mother and her child to the airport to leave the country. The child was forced by the court to have ‘visitation’ with the mother’s former lesbian partner (they were not married and the child is no relation to the lesbian partner). The child dreaded visits, was being sexually molested by the lesbian partner in the bathtub and started showing signs of sexual molestation. The mother did not want her daughter sexually molested as per the court order, so she left the country. The Christian man who drove her to the airport did three years in prison, as did a Mennonite pastor who also assisted her. The mother and child escaped to another country, where the child was not molested. The courts agreed with your assessment.
Due process in courts? That hasn’t been around for decades. Any parent protecting a child from a pedophile would be destroyed by many court systems. And you are right; no one would believe a word she said. Notice she did not want child support; she could have drained him dry doing that if she were evil.
You might be right; perhaps she is just a scum ball, But you might not be right, and there might be more to the story. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but child sexual trafficking is a big problem in this country. Something to consider.
Divemedic · December 20, 2025 at 4:13 pm
Regardless, that doesn’t grant power to the mother to simply abduct the child. Fathers have rights too, and a father has a larger chance at justice in court over a woman simply carrying out an abduction
Women accuse men of all sorts of things to gain leverage in child dispute cases.
Skeptic · December 20, 2025 at 11:49 am
I’m already seeing the storyline start in comments.
“She left and stole her kid because she was being abuuuuuuuused!”
Of course, from wimminz who haven’t the slightest idea about her, about him, or about anything. Just that “believe all women” nonsense. Throw the book at her.
Old Maine Farmer · December 21, 2025 at 9:38 am
Either way, we have no way of knowing as just people who read the story. “Believe all women”, or “throw the book at her.” Both are wrong. We just don’t know. But if you think you will get justice in the courts, think again.
I will tell you of a man I flew with in the Navy. We sat down to eat together after going to separate squadrons, and he had brought his son, who was about 4 and looked just like him with. Later, his wife dumped him for an enlisted guy, who also turned out to be the biological father of the kid. My friend. was not allowed any visitation despite raising that child for 5 years as his father, and also had to pay child support for a child that was not his. Justice in the courts? Possible but unlikely, for either man or woman or child.
Jester · December 21, 2025 at 8:22 pm
I have a hard time thinking that if there was any evidence the father was abusive even in the early 80s that would not have come out in the wash. Having been one of those Fathers that got ran though the ringer in family court I can tell you the court is stacked in favor of the woman. Something here is not kosher and this woman if this man did not have evidence against him took a lifetime away from the father of that lady. 40 years plus. Gone and taken. No court, no police files, nothing. Just moved. Now if there’s more to this story I’m sure now it will come out but all the same this woman kidnapped the daughter. Period. If there was abuse where is the evidence? Pussy Pass needs to stop as well as all the enablers.
Jax Bungee · December 22, 2025 at 11:44 am
And the child, who NOW finds out she’s not who she thought she was? It’s not like she just signed up to voluntarily change her name – and our names are a very large part of identity. (The news recently covered a kidnapping victim, now in adulthood, who had been abducted from the hospital as a newborn, then taken across state lines)
Polimath · December 22, 2025 at 1:34 pm
A guy I used to know quite well told me a story of how his wife took his girls and moved away and then divorced him. His oldest girl came to find him after many (20) years and told him that she was informed by her mother that he had been abusing his youngest daughter and that is why everyone left. It was all a lie and the ex finally was put into a mental institute by the oldest girl. 20 years and he never knew why she left and took the kids.
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