Just days after being found following a 24-year disappearance, North Carolina mother Michele Hundley Smith was arrested Wednesday for a decades-old DUI.
Smith, 62, was taken into custody in Robeson County after investigators discovered she had an active order for arrest for failure to appear related to a DWI charge from 2001, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to WFMY News 2. The Sheriff’s Office released her mugshot Thursday.
Authorities said Smith’s outstanding arrest order stemmed from a citation issued by Eden police in North Carolina on November 11, 2001. She had failed to appear in court on December 27, 2001, prompting the warrant that remained active while she was missing.
Smith posted the required bond and is scheduled to appear in Rockingham County District Court on March 26.
The Independent has contacted the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
Smith’s arrest follows a major breakthrough in her decades-long missing person case, which saw extensive searches by local, state and federal authorities, including the FBI, as her whereabouts remained unknown for over 20 years. Authorities said Smith’s information was recently entered into a national database, which helped detectives track her down.
Investigators located her in person on February 20 and confirmed she was alive and safe, living in North Carolina outside Rockingham County. New records show she resides in St. Pauls, about 20 miles south of Fayetteville, WFMY News 2 reports.
Smith was reported missing in December 2001 after her husband said she left their Eden home to go Christmas shopping at a K‑Mart in Martinsville, Virginia, and never returned. At the time, she was 38 years old and the mother of three children, then ages 19, 14, and 7.
Upon being located, Smith told investigators she left her family years ago due to ongoing domestic issues at the time, though no prior official reports confirmed such issues before her disappearance, according to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
Rockingham County District Attorney Katie Gregg told WFMY News 2 that there is not enough evidence to file charges related to Smith’s disappearance, such as abandonment.
Smith’s discovery has provided long-awaited closure for her family. Her daughter, Amanda, now in her late 30s, launched a Facebook page in 2018 to gather tips and keep the case in the public eye. She shared a lengthy statement on February 22 expressing her emotions upon discovering that her mother is alive after many decades.
“I am ecstatic, I am p*****d, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” Amanda said. “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,” she added.
