A North Carolina mother-of-three who vanished from her home in 2001 has been taken into custody days after she was located, with authorities saying she had been living a life out of public view.
Michele Hundley Smith was detained on Wednesday (February 25) in Robeson County and questioned after officers acted on a DWI case dating back to 2001.
Investigators said Smith, now 62, also had an outstanding issue for failing to appear in court, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office told WFMY News 2.
According to local reports, the matter traces back to a citation issued by Eden Police in North Carolina on November 11, 2001. Smith was scheduled to appear in court on December 27, 2001, but she did not show.
That warrant stayed active throughout the years Smith was considered missing.
She is now due in Rockingham County District Court on March 26.
Smith disappeared on December 9, 2001, after telling relatives she was heading to Martinsville, Virginia, to do Christmas shopping. She never returned.
Her family reported her missing to the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, prompting extensive searches in the weeks and months that followed, but no confirmed leads emerged.
After authorities issued an update in 2020 about the case, officials recently announced that Smith had been found within North Carolina.
WFMY News 2 reported that Smith is alive and well, but told authorities she does not want her precise location shared.
Her daughter Amanda, now in her late 30s, wrote on Facebook last week that she was reeling after learning her mother had been alive all this time.
She penned: “I am ecstatic, I am p*****d, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map! Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that because I don’t even know… My initial reaction would be yes absolutely but then I think of all the hurt… But even then … My mom is only human just as we all are.
“Everything I have been through in life, I can absolutely understand taking off and leaving… I am not saying that she gets off scott free without accountability or responsibility bc she absolutely needs to do that… What I am saying is that I am a runner as well and while this isn’t something to be proud of at all, it’s a part of being human.”