A 70-year-old woman who had been living under an assumed name in a Mesa retirement community has been arrested in connection with the theft of $106,000 from a Washington state credit union 26 years ago.

Police said employees arrived at a Kennewick credit union on Valentine's Day 1983 to find the safe open and $106,000 missing.

Employee Barbara Kurz, a married mother of four, was also missing and immediately became a suspect. Her car was found abandoned and partially burned in Pendleton, Ore., the same day as the theft.

Several days after she disappeared, she called her husband and one of her daughters and claimed she had been kidnapped. That apparently was the last contact she had with her family.

Recently, investigators from the Kennewick Police Department started looking at the case again.

Using different combinations of Kurz's name with the help of online database searches, investigators found out that she was living in Mesa, police reports said.

Mesa and Kennewick police took Kurz into custody at the Sunrise Village retirement community, 5402 E. McKellips Road in Mesa, according to a police report.

She was arrested on a warrant for first-degree theft.

She is currently being held in a Maricopa County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail and will face extradition to Washington.

"It will be nice to bring this gal back to justice and have her held accountable for her actions 26 years ago," Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg said.

A representative for Sunrise Village said Kurz had lived at the community under the name Rene Fulgham since 1992. She worked as a caretaker for one of the residents and never stood out or gave anyone a reason to suspect her past, the representative said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.