{"id":142649,"date":"2026-02-23T13:41:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/142649\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:41:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:41:28","slug":"north-carolina-mom-of-3-who-vanished-24-years-ago-found-alive-living-new-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/142649\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina mom of 3 who vanished 24 years ago found alive, living new life"},"content":{"rendered":"

A North Carolina mother of three who vanished over two decades ago was found alive and living a new life \u2014 leaving her family reeling with questions over her whereabouts, according to authorities and reports.<\/p>\n

Michele Lyn Hundley Smith, then 38, disappeared in December 2001 after leaving her home in Eden to do Christmas shopping at a Kmart in Virginia, according to the Rockingham County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/a><\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s \u201ctroubling\u201d disappearance prompted multiple agencies across North Carolina and Virginia, including the FBI, to search for the mother of three for \u201ccountless\u201d hours and pursue multiple investigative leads, cops said.<\/p>\n

\"MichelleMichelle Hundley Smith was found alive and well on Friday after vanishing over two decades ago. Facebook<\/p>\n

A missing person flyer distributed at the time of her disappearance noted she should be considered \u201cendangered\u201d and \u201cwould not leave her kids by choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roughly 24 years later, Smith was found \u201calive and well\u201d at an undisclosed location in North Carolina on Friday after officers received a tip, authorities announced.<\/p>\n

Her current whereabouts will not be disclosed, though her family has been notified that she has been located, police said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of want to go outside and scream, \u2018She\u2019s alive, she\u2019s alive,’\u201d Smith\u2019s cousin\u00a0Barbara Byrd told\u00a0WFMYNews 2<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest question is to her \u2026 what happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?\u201d Byrd said.<\/p>\n

\"CollageSmith\u2019s \u201ctroubling\u201d disappearance prompted multiple agencies across North Carolina and Virginia, including the FBI, to search for the mother of three. Facebook<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought Michele was dead. I knew she was alive. It\u2019s just a feeling that I had my whole life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy statement posted to Facebook<\/a> on Sunday, one of Smith\u2019s shocked children wrote that \u201cthese last couple of days \u2026 have been a whirlwind of emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as my opinions and feelings on my mom \u2026 I am ecstatic, I am p\u2014ed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map! Will I have a relationship once more with my mom?\u201d she said in the statement posted on a Facebook account dedicated to finding her missing mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly I can\u2019t answer that because I don\u2019t even\u00a0know. My initial reaction would be yes, absolutely, but then I think of all the hurt \u2026 But even then, my mom is only human, just as we all are,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my mom was a part of my daily life, she showed me a love and bond that will never ever be forgotten. There were mother-daughter arguments of course, but right now all I can remember are the smiles we shared, the times together that were happy, and the love I felt!\u201d<\/p>\n

The motive for Smith\u2019s disappearance is not immediately clear. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A North Carolina mother of three who vanished over two decades ago was found alive and living a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7373,9,11,10,1064,16703,58],"class_list":["post-142649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-missing-persons","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-north-carolina","tag-search-and-rescue","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}