• Woman found alive after four decades
• Elderly mother arrested over abduction

A woman has been reunited with her family 40 years after going missing, discovering she had been abducted as a child.

The girl, who disappeared at age three, had been taken by her mother, who is now facing charges for the kidnapping.

The missing woman, now 46, expressed shock upon learning from authorities: “You are not who you think you are; you are a missing person.”

Initially living with both parents, the child’s mother took her in 1983 under the pretense of moving for work and preparing a new family home.

Despite early contact with the father, he could not locate his wife or daughter upon arriving at the new state. The mother was added to the FBI’s most-wanted list for parental abductions.

The case was temporarily closed after 17 years due to inability to contact the father, and the daughter’s records were removed from missing persons lists. In 2016, the case was reopened, and age-progressed images led to a tip that located mother and daughter in Florida.

The mother, using a new identity and having remarried, was confirmed through DNA testing with 99.9% certainty as the abducting parent.

She has been extradited to Kentucky to face serious criminal charges, where kidnapping offenses carry no statute of limitations.