According to Findlaw, there is no statute of limitations for murder or other felonies for which you can get death or life imprisonment.
For misdemeanors, it's either 1 or to years depending on the severity. If you're continuously not in the state, then three years gets added.
So according to the reference at the link, statute of limitations should have expired a long time ago. She probably thought that for $80, it was not worth fighting.
There seems to be a lot of (unnecessary) confusion surrounding this, so I’ll spell it out to both of you here.
1), Wal-Mart is no way culpable, or the target of a potential suit, as Wal-Mart’s sole part in this was originally calling the police when the theft took place. Given the lack of severity of the offense, she was no doubt issued a summons and sent on her way. Possibly, she was was taken in, processed, and sent on her way. Either way, a distinction without relevance. She’s in trouble because whether via citation or from the bench during arraignment, she was given a summons to appear in court at a future date, which she ignored.
2), There is no statute of limitations on outstanding warrants. The statute of limitations limits the time after a crime has been committed that a charge may be filed. Once a charge is filed, it remains legally active until it is resolved one way or another. That can be anything from a verdict either way, to the court receiving a certificate of death.
3), The outstanding warrant had nothing to do with the theft of a pack of cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if the original charge is murder one, or jay walking. When a bench warrant is issued for failure to appear, it stays on the books forever. The failure to appear is a much more serious charge than the original theft of the pack cigarettes.