Fugitive's 18-Year Run Ends On Key West Houseboat

Fugitive's 18-Year Run Ends On Key West Houseboat

A woman who fled federal authorities 18 years ago was arrested Friday in Key West when documents showing her real name got shuffled among bogus forms of identification.

Acting on a lead from the Secret Service, detectives in the Monroe County sheriff's office found Michelle Singleton, 66, living on a houseboat.

Singleton skipped town in Kansas City in 1996 when she was due in court for sentencing on federal payroll check fraud, the sheriff's office announced.

Her true identity slipped out when her actual birth certificate and social security card fell from a file in front of detectives and a Secret Service agent. She was allegedly looking for forged documents to show the investigators.

The search began when the Secret Service's field office in Kansas City sent a photo of Singleton to the sheriff's office in the Keys after determining that she might be there living under the name Catherine Harris.

Authorities claimed that Singleton was planning to sell her houseboat and move to the Dominican Republic at the time of her arrest.

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