Previously missing woman Michele Hundley Smith had an emotional reunion with her daughter outside of the Rockingham County Courthouse 24 years after she disappeared.
Smith, 62, reunited with her daughter, Amanda Smith, outside the Rockingham County courthouse on Thursday, March 26. The sweet moment was captured by WFMY cameras, which showed the mother-daughter duo hugging in an emotional embrace.
Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page said that Smith told investigators she initially left her home in December 2001 due to an ongoing domestic dispute, according to the outlet.
Her whereabouts were confirmed on February 20, which was just one day after the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office received a tip about her location.
At the time of her disappearance, Smith had an active arrest warrant that was issued against her when she failed to appear in court over a drunk driving charge in November 2001.
After she was found in February, Smith was taken into custody and was photographed for the first time in over two decades.
Smith was arrested by Rockingham County authorities on February 23 and later posted a $2,000 bond, according to legal documents viewed by Luxury Handbag Shopping. She was then scheduled to appear in the county’s district court on March 26, which was when the reunion with Amanda took place.
Smith seemingly spent the past two decades living in a trailer park in one of the poorest sections of North Carolina. Her home was located about two hours away from where she previously lived with her family in Rockingham.
On the day that Smith went missing in 2001, Smith told her family that she was going Christmas shopping at a Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia. She never returned home and seemingly vanished.
In the years that her mother was missing, Amanda never gave up on finding Smith. While appearing on “The Vanished Podcast,” she said that her mother struggled with a drinking problem and said she had been fired from a veterinary practice for “drinking on the job.”
On February 22, Amanda took to Facebook to reflect on her mother’s disappearance and said that her father had faced small-town scrutiny after she went missing.
“Where we live [is] a small town, there were many [people] acting as if they just knew he was involved,” Amanda wrote. “Well, he wasn’t! Of course, I never thought he was. Even when I would ponder it for a second, [because] I pondered so many different scenarios. I always knew that there was no way that he could do something like that for many reasons and the biggest being [because] my father could never continue to lie to us for decades.”
Amanda added that her parents’ “marriage had issues,” though Smith “did not leave simply [because] of a bad marriage.”
“Everyone is entitled [to] their opinions but please remember that my father has been proven innocent,” she said. “My dad is a great man.”
Amanda added, “Both my dad and my mom deserve to have their choices and their feelings respected as well.”
In addition to Amanda, Smith shares two other children with her husband, Randy Smith.
