"My Life WAS Normal" — Daughter Reveals Debra Newton's Lies

"Uh oh, they're coming for you, Sharon! I'm real quick!"

“She's been wanted since the '80s for kidnapping her daughter Michelle. In fact, she was on the”

FBI's top 8 most wanted list for parental kidnapping. It's a question you'll have been asking since

my first interview with Michelle back in December. She couldn't share it with me back then because

it's because of the investigation. You get a hold onto your seats for this one because she's unraveling her mother's 40-plus years of lies. But before we get into that, a little background for those who don't know this story. Just imagine finding out at 46 that you're not who you thought you are. There's police at your door asking for your DNA and your mom is sitting in jail. Her arrest is going viral while your head is spinning. Then you meet your real dad and he smells

just like you. And you find out he's been looking for you for 42 years. Mine blown. Like and

“subscribe so you don't miss any interviews like this one. And you can catch up with interviews from”

Michelle and two of her three dads. Michelle is so good to see you again. I really am grateful

that you're letting us in on this amazing part of your life. You are a road warrior at this point.

Yeah. I feel like I'm driving all the time back and forth and Kentucky and it's just it's constant. But it's good. It's it's for a good reason. So I am grateful for the ability that I can just pick up and go and do what I need to do. Yeah. Well, and I'll say you've got you've got so much to look forward to even though it's a difficult time. You've got so much to look forward to because so many people are our part of your life now. Yeah. It's been a roller coaster

but in a good way. You know every time I go down to Kentucky, I'm meeting different people or

spending more time or deep diving into just stories and pictures in the past and it's been a really

wonderful thing. The the piece that we heard from your dad about the facial recognition, you can only imagine how I just my ears just went like this and I was like what I was told it was a woman that actually got into facial recognition as a hobby and she liked it so much that she went out about her own computers and stuff and actually opened us business and she worked looking for criminals and missing the exploited children and if she gets a match, she

goes to whoever that that might be but she's come across the voters that we had sent out 47 years ago and actually got a hit on our mom and they were pretty certain at that time that it was hard and that's when they asked for the DNA. She started over to the proper authorities and they went from there. This is unbelievable. Yeah, I mean for me when I look at the facial recognition and some of the the drawings and sketches that were done even like the age progression for myself it

it seems to resemble my mom more and I'm wondering if that was what we've seen but AI has come so far. I mean I've been playing around with some of those tools myself right now as I'm kind of deep diving into some of the other parts of this story that haven't been really released yet and trying to dig in on my own. So the tools and the software is crazy. The accuracy of some of it is really impressive. Again I haven't seen any of the photos that this anonymous tipster had come up with

but it seems to have worked so Michelle the where we dropped off our conversation last there was a lot to look forward to for you for hopefully for your mom to come to terms with what had happened and then the interrogation video drops. We have a whole episode about Debra Newton's interrogation video and she makes some big accusations about Michelle's father Joe. Here's just a bit of what she said.

“Was there any other type of domestic abuse or anything like that? Anything else going on?”

Yeah. Yeah. What will happen? He would hurt me. He would hit me. He would hurt me. He would force me. But most of was the threat. It really puts all of this into perspective. That wasn't what you were expecting was it. No, it was it was very raw and hard to watch and then just invasive. There was a lot of stuff that was in there. Even just my personal information that I really did not expect to

different than what I was told just several weeks before from her. So there's a lot of contradictions there. I'm still trying to work through all that. Yeah. It was like all of a sudden what should have been a moment of truth and reconciliation became myered and a false narrative. Yeah. I mean, I'm still sorting through that. It's hard to, it's hard to even address.

“I think there's a lot of stuff that was set there that's just muddled or confused or has my dad”

referenced maybe something that she was told to say. It's hard to, it's hard to even watch it or

digest it. So the year convinced that that was just nonsense basically that part of it.

I don't want to say nonsense. I think there's so much in that with her and the things that I have seen and heard from her over my entire lifetime that just they don't make sense. There's so many lies. It's someone else had reached out to me at one point very early on who had been through a very similar situation almost 40 years of missing had been taken by a parent and some of the best advice she gave to me was to take nothing as as truth. It's almost like sorting through an entire

beach of sand and you're taking one grain at a time and examining it which one is real which one's not and I feel like that's kind of where I'm at. So everything that I'm doing right now is just

trying to be in the moment. I am, I told you last time we talked. I am very factual. So if I can see

proof, if I can look at an FBI document or a testimony or a receipt of something that actually happened and I can say yes, this is valid, then I can put that in my little pile of truths. Everything else I have to kind of leave over here right now and just let it hang out. You know who would love to talk to? I don't know if you've seen her on my show, but Dr. Lara Petlar. She's got a stop light. She's got a green yellow red stop light and everything green is good to

go. It's a fact. Yellow is the, I don't know and the red is the, yeah, this isn't here. Let's show it out. When you were saying that I was like, you are a stop light person. You're going to

look, now these, you're very, you are, you're very methodical from what I've already bought a yellow.

That's, that's the challenge. You know, there's a lot of yellow. There's, there's the person that I have grown up with. There is the instant reaction when all this happened. You know, it's the week that this happened. I mean, when you're talking about my entire world just flipping

“upside down three times, really, or it is when the interrogation happened. Is that what you're saying?”

Like, no, just even when I found this out, you know, and everyone's asking how do you feel and I'm like, well, I'm over the moon. I found my dad. I found my family. I'm terrified for my mom. You know, you have a lot of emotions going on and everyone's like, oh, how was your life? My life was normal. As you step out of this and as you start really processing and you start thinking through things and and really examining details and facts, you start to kind of question,

what really is normal? What really was what I thought was normal? What was truth? What was lies? So now it's just this whole big spider web horn. It's nest, whatever you want to call it, of just facts, details, lies, myths. I've got a kind of sorted all that. So I'm trying to be very hesitant about what I say is actually regarding like her own testimony or her own interrogation video. I wouldn't want to sit here and say, well, all of this is a lie. I just know that there's a lot that

doesn't align with what was told to be personally from her. So that part of it, I have to kind of reconcile and, you know, that's, that's going to just take time. I can't, I can't do that process without her. And unfortunately, we have not been speaking. So that's, that's just going to, time. Would you be comfortable to tell me why you stop talking? Is there is no why? It's a matter of someone picking up the phone and actually making the effort. And there's only so many times

I'm going to continue to do that until that communication just stops. It's not my job to chase her right now. I feel like at this point, if she wants to talk, she'll make that effort and she'll talk.

“So do you think she knows what the truth is? Yes, and no. That complicated. It is that complicated, yeah.”

Do you think you're going to get to the truth, Michelle? I think I will find it through my own resources or as much of it as I can, whether that is with her assistance or not, is truly in her

And again, there's so much of this. I'm dancing around because we're still at a place where I can't in-depth talk about some of the pieces that my dad had alluded to. Yeah, and hopefully, again, she'll, she'll open up and talk about that part truthfully when she's ready.

“Michelle, has your feelings towards your mom changed?”

Not really. Like, I forgive my mom, right? And I love my mom. There's no change there. She's just my mother. You can't replace that. You get that dynamic, that one person that brought you into this

world. There is a million more questions than I had two, three months ago when they started.

And I thought it would be the other way around. But the longer I sit with it, the harder it is to navigate some of the anger, some of the issues that come up, some of the, just the why. I mean, as a mom myself, there's so many places where I try to put myself in her shoes. And for the longest time growing up because of the stories I was told, it was easy enough for me to say, okay, I'm going to put my curiosity on the back burner. And some of the memories that I had

that I thought were of my dad that really weren't of my dad. So, I think that piece of it is, again, it's just sorting the greens to sand right now. It's, you know, I have good days and bad. There's a lot of sadness. A lot of sadness. I can't tell you there's, there's not a single day where I'm not saying somewhere in privacy of my home crying about it. There's a lot of good

have this amazing family. And, you know, my dad is phenomenal. His wife who I call Mama Beth.

She's sitting over here kind of out in the, the side, but she's been my rock. And, you know, there's days where I kind of go off the handle. And I'm angry. And both of them are the first ones to tell me calm down that you're Mama. You know, that's where I'm. Here, do you want her to come into the shot? Does she want to be in the shot right now? She says she didn't do her hair, but she's beautiful. You come on over here. Come, just for a sec. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here.

You're human. No. What's this? It's a family story. I just feel like I want to see, like if I hear somebody sniffling off in the corners, this woman has the biggest heart. And I will tell you

that my dad would not be sitting here. If it wasn't for her, fully in him into the heart,

it's just pulling up and then taking care of him and just making sure that he's been healthy. I mean, they've been together for almost 15 years. 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. And she's, she's just got a article. She's, she's a good person. Really good person. Yeah. I can see that. And, you know, what I also see is, um, you know, a kill in me. Um, you know, I see a family that's starting to, like, find ways to communicate and to, um, and to share stories. But there's so much that has to be

“processed. You have to let the emotions just sort of weigh over you. Yeah. And it doesn't stop. I mean,”

I'll have days where I'm really great. And then I'll have days where I'm, I'm mid-conversation with a customer about something that has nothing to do with any of this. I'm at work. And I'm bursting into tears for no good reason. You know, it's just, uh, it's this weird little cycle that kind of just goes around the ground. And I'll tell you, this family is a whole. I have yet to have anybody who said anything negative. My aunt, um, last I saw her. She sat down and she said,

you know, one of the hardest things is that the door would still have been open for your mom. Like, even now, after all this time, the door would have been open. And it, it's the same for her family, her sister, my cousins. Everyone has said, like, let's just move on. Let's forgive. There's a place for her here. We would like her to be part of our life. I'd told her this over and over. I can't, I can't force a fence to get mended. I'll all I could do is if you're trying to be a bridge.

But I feel like I'm being shut out right now. So it's just going to take time. You know, she needs time too. She's got home. Things to process and go through. I can't even imagine

“what she's feeling, what she's handling. We, we had talked about some of it, but I think there's”

also a lot of fear. There's judgment. There's, you know, it's a lot. And I don't want her to be floating out there. I'm the ocean by herself. Like, I want to be there. But I can't force her in. And at this point, it's kind of her to want to talk or to come back into the situation. So Beth, it's even watching all this unfold. I mean, just give me your, like, what did you think when you found out that Michelle had been found? I cried. Joe had called me. I was at work. I'm a nurse. I was at work

and sitting in my desk. And he called and he said, they found her and I said, what? He said,

"Are you okay?" And I'm not, no, I said, after 43 years, they found Shelley. And I just wanted

to hug and of course I was at work. He called. But it was one of the greatest days to watch her husband fill a hole again because of PCM was missing. It was just, it's amazing. I just, she's all emotion- I love her. She's big hearts all over the place. I just, like, I all these big hearts around me. It's unbelievable. Yep. And I mean, I don't see this thing about the story that it just kills me is that I don't see the anger. I know they're moments where both of you

all just want to get mad. But I don't see that. What I see is gratitude and love, like, overwhelmingly

larger than any anger that there could be. You know, I don't know her mother. I've never met her

mother, never, you know, but I don't hate her. I mean, I totally, I said, I would never, ever say

“anything to you to disrespect your mother. She is your mother. I think in her mind, I mean,”

she did what she did. I don't know. I don't understand that. You know, she is Shelley's mother. And I mean, I don't hate her. I mean, no. I mean, there's, you did treat this still kind of unraveling, right? Like we still got to figure out what the hell happened. But I did want to ask, I mean, Michelle, the charges are very serious against her mom, like against Deborah. I mean, they're very serious. We're looking at a felony as your dad explains so well, you know, this moved into a

felony. We're looking at jail. We're looking at prison time if this doesn't get sorted out. Am I right? The charge in Kentucky, the felony charge typically comes with a 1 to 5 years sentence. However, the time frame is so far back. The, the, the details, a lot of the details have been lost or, or lost a translation. You've had really four generations of people working on this

“and gone through four or five detectives, four or five sets of prosecutors. So I think at this point,”

there's so much that's removed that that it's a very great area. It's a very, very area. And no one is over here saying that we want her to do time in jail. That's the last thing I think anybody wants. My dad said it quite beautifully. He really just wanted an apology and some kind of attraction. She can't give me back 43 years. She can't give her daughter back, but she could apologize. She could say she was sorry. She could do that. I don't think that's that's a hard ask. I just,

I think that's actually pretty pretty generous under the circumstances. And like he said, it's 43 years. You can't get it back. Like you mentioned about gratitude, but that's really

“all that I have room for at this point. I think for the whole family, the anger and the”

hate, although it does, that the anger definitely pops up in moments where you just have these, I call them Ouch moments where it's like, okay, well, there's something that he didn't get to be part of or I didn't get to be part of. And at the same time, you watch all the stuff going on around the world and what people are going through and real issues, though, the people have. And I'm thinking, he's alive. I have this family that's loving and supportive. There's so much

to be happy for that I can't stay in the, the, the anger. So it does come up, but you kind of just sort through it and say, okay, well, I'm going to move that to the side right now because it's not

going to do any good. And then, you know, forgiveness is one of those things I've always said for

goodness is peace should give yourself. So that was an easy thing. It's, it's not going to do me any good to sit here and be mad and hold onto it, be angry at her because for what, you know, it just doesn't, it doesn't fix anything or help anything. And she's my mom. So at the end of the day, like, that's always the person I would pick up the phone and call all every day. Hey, something happened. I don't know how to work through this or my kids did this. What would you have

done? So that piece of my life, I'm going to mourn that until it comes back, you know? So Michelle, you told me last time that you were going through your own personal

forward way. Passport credit cards. Social security tax. Are you, are you okay?

“It's okay. Is the federal government cooperating with his nons, you know, this total”

nightmare of, like, identity? There's not a lot of resources to go to in a situation like this. And it's a very great area. Nobody seems to really know what to do with it. So I do have an advocate from the FBI who's been assigned. We're starting that process and working through. I've turned in my, my multiple birth certificates. I've turned in my information and data and everything that I have. I'm sure it's going to pan out at some point, but it's going to be a very long and

painful process. And not, you know, it's, even though it's not something that I did, it's

something that I have to, unfortunately, take the time and work through and the expenses and work through. And I'm sure at some point, it'll all get fixed. But I've, I've knocked with some other folks who have been in, again, not the same situation, but somewhat similar. You know, you've got a social security number, which is mine, but it's not Michelle Newton's. So there's that. There's Michelle Newton doesn't have a social security number. I've got to kind of merge it all together,

work it out, figure out which identity who am I, you know, which name am I going to use. So it,

a lot, a lot to be unfolded and I'm sure it's going to take a long time. I guess you'll be at

March 27th, that's our next, I will, I will, I will not miss the date. March 27th is the next big date for Deborah, as we're sitting here in early March, Deborah's out on bond. And her next

“court appearance is that March 27th date. What do you want to get out of that?”

Um, based on what I saw this last time around, it's really just the initial deciding what do we have to move forward and how do we move forward? So I would just love some direction in general. That would be great just to know at least what's happening next. I feel right now like it's kind of just all floating in the wind and you're unsure of what's happening from day to day. So I'd like to know what the progression is going to be going forward. How long this

is going to take? If you could talk to your mama, if she watches us, let's say that. What would you like her to know? Um, that I love her. And I wish that she would just talk to you. Yeah. It's a very beautiful place to be in, because I didn't ask for it. So it's almost like a double down, you know, let's hope that she watches us and picks up the fan. Okay. I hope so. I don't know. I kind of feel like if, um, if you picked up and left everything

once before, I don't know that I'm going to be any different. I hope so, but I don't know that that's going to be a case. Yeah, there's some, there's some strange balls up there. The mind is the tricky

“place to live. It is, and I think that you need help navigating that sometimes, and that's,”

that's all that I really want to do is just be a resource and help her through it, you know. Resources are out there to get that help. Accent them to her. We're going to leave it there for now, and we're going to stay with your story. And I'm just so grateful that y'all could take the time today. I know you have a big road trip ahead of you to go do some fun things. And, um, and I hope you have some quality time while you're there. Please are still investigating this. And as we told you,

Deborah's going back to court at the end of this month. These are federal charges. And please drop a comment below. I want to hear what you think about Joe's parental custody rights. You know, that was a big issue for him back in the 80s and, and how that's changed. Do you think that what happened to Joe back then? And his ability to find Michelle would be the same today. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Like and subscribe and be sure to follow us at currently obsessed for more conversations

like this.