After more than 40 years, a woman is reunited with her Kentucky family after allegedly being abducted by her mother

Joseph Newton and his daughter Michelle Newton reunite after more than 40 years apart. WLKY

Three-year-old Michelle “Shelley” Newton poses for the camera in a sailor’s outfit, smiling wide, showing the gap between her two front baby teeth in an undated missing persons flyer from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

“Michelle was taken by her Mother,” it reads.

Now, Michelle, 46, is on a path to healing. Her mother is facing one charge.

The toddler’s vanishing took place in spring 1983, after her mother Debra Newton claimed she was “relocating to Georgia” from Louisville, Kentucky, “to begin a new job and prepare a new home for the family,” according to a Monday news release from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

CNN affiliate WLKY spoke to Joseph Newton, Debra’s husband and