Michelle Lyn Hundley Smith, Rockingham County, North Carolina mom of three, who vanished without a trace 24 years ago, found ‘alive,’ leaving family with unanswered questions and feelings of elation and hurt and confusion.
A North Carolina mother of three who vanished over two decades ago was found alive and living a new life has led to her former family expressing relief along with heartbreak as they wrestle with the woman’s decision to leave and start a new life.
Michelle Lyn Hundley Smith, 62, who was first reported missing on Dec. 31, 2001, according to a release from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office on Friday was located after detectives ‘received new information’ about her disappearance.
‘On [Feb. 20], Sgt. A. Disher and Detective C. Worley made contact with Michele Hundley Smith at an undisclosed location within North Carolina, alive and well,’ the sheriff’s office announced. ‘At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed.’
What happened to missing Rockingham County, N.C mom?
Officials said that Smith’s family was notified that she had been located, and they were informed about her request to keep her whereabouts undisclosed.
Smith, from Eden, N.C., was 38 years old at the time of her initial disappearance.
Smith’s husband was the first person to report her missing back in 2001, investigators said. She had left her home to go Christmas shopping at a K-Mart in Martinsville, Va., on Dec. 9 — about 17 miles away from her home in Eden, only to never return.
An investigation into the missing woman’s disappearance yielded no results. Over the years the woman’s family wondered if the missing wife and mother of three had run into foul play, had chosen to leave of her own accord or had simply gone on an adventure or finding her own path?
Of intrigue is why the woman’s family had waited until New Year’s Eve ( a further 22 days passing) before reporting their mother missing? And what that may have inferred about family dynamics and perhaps the mother of three’s decision to leave?
Offering clues, Thought Catalog posted, ‘She was also struggling with alcoholism, a struggle that had recently cost her her job at a local veterinarian clinic and was either a reaction to or the cause of problems within her marriage.’
Mixed feelings of elation and despair upon missing mom turning up 24 years later
Over the ensuing years, the woman’s case drew media attention along with the collaboration of multiple agencies across North Carolina and Virginia, including the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),’ People Mag reported.
Smith’s family who continued to believe the missing woman might still be alive maintained their search for the missing mom.
Her daughter created a Facebook page in 2018 to collect tips in the case, and other family members, including Smith’s cousin, Barbara Byrd, have been outspoken in the media about keeping the investigation going.
Unsolved questions as family at least now knows missing wife and mom is still alive
In a lengthy statement shared on social media, Smith’s daughter Amanda expressed her complicated feelings upon learning that her mother is alive.
‘I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!’ wrote the daughter in part. “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.”
Speaking to WFMY after the news broke that her cousin had been located, Byrd expressed her confusion about the missing person case.
‘I kind of want to go outside and scream, ‘She’s alive, she’s alive,’’ Byrd said. ‘My biggest question is to her … What happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?’
‘I understand and respect that she doesn’t want any of us to contact her. I’m not angry,’ she continued. ‘The biggest answer I had today was she was alive. Nothing else matters right at this moment.’
