Mom of 3 who was found alive after going missing 24 years ago taken into custody

ROBESON COUNTY, NC (WMBF/Gray News) – A mother who made headlines after authorities found her “alive and well” following her 24-year disappearance has been arrested.

The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said Michele Hundley Smith was taken into custody by Robeson County deputies on Monday.

Smith was arrested after the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office asked the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department to take her into custody on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear.

The order stems from a DWI charge on Nov. 11, 2001. The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said Smith failed to appear in court on Dec. 27, 2001, for this charge.

Smith went missing on Dec. 9, 2001, when she was 38 years old. When Smith disappeared, she had a 19-year-old daughter, 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.

Her husband told authorities that Smith had left home to go to Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia, for Christmas shopping and never returned.

The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said that despite countless hours of investigative work and multiple leads, it could not locate Smith. That changed on Feb. 19 when deputies received new information and made contact with Smith, who was “alive and well.”

When she was located, she asked that her whereabouts remain undisclosed.

Smith’s daughter, Amanda, who was 14 when her mother disappeared, created a Facebook page in 2018 to collect tips in her mother’s case.

In a Facebook post, she expressed her feelings after learning that her mother is alive decades later.

“I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” she wrote. “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.”