Daughter reunites with mother who went missing 24 years ago while Christmas shopping: ‘It was wild’

2 hours ago

WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News Staff,

ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, N.C. (WXLV) — A woman in North Carolina was reunited with her mother who went missing 24 years ago.

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

For the first time since she was 14, Amanda Smith was able to hug her mother, Michele Hundley Smith, outside a courthouse Thursday morning.

“It was weird, it was wild, it was emotional. I didn’t really know what to feel,” Amanda Smith said. “I ran up to her, hugged her, we cried a little, but then we had to rush in.”

The moment was cut short, as Michele Hundley Smith was due in court for a 2001 DWI case.

“[Our first hug] could have been a different setting, but she lives so far away,” Amanda Smith said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be what we wanted at first, but it will be.”

Michele Hundley Smith was reported missing in December 2001. Rockingham County deputies said the mother of three went on a Christmas shopping trip to Kmart and never came back.

For more than two decades, multiple agencies searched for her. But on Feb. 20, detectives finally made contact and learned she had left of her own accord.

Missing Mom

When Michele Hundley Smith was found, she told deputies she left due to domestic issues. Her daughter said she forgives her.

“I understand life happens, and we all go through things,” Amanda Smith said. “Life is too short for me to hold a grudge against her, because she’s my mom.”

But while Amanda Smith is still processing her mother being alive, Michele Hundley Smith still faces a pending charge of failing to appear in a 2001 DWI case.