The North Carolina woman who went missing back in 2001 ended up just over two and a half hours away in a different town, where she lived a “very quiet” new life, a neighbor exclusively tells Luxury Handbag Shopping.
Us spoke to one of Michele Hundley Smith‘s neighbors in the small town of St. Pauls, who said she learned about the missing mom’s double life on Facebook.
“I talk to her quite often, but didn’t know her background,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be named. “I never had any problems with her. She’s very quiet.”
The neighborhood consists of houses that are widely spaced out.
St. Pauls has a population of just over 2,000 people and earned the nickname “The Small Town with a Big Heart.”
Authorities said Smith was last seen by her family on December 9, 2001, as she left her home in Eden, North Carolina, to do some Christmas shopping a few miles away in Virginia. But Smith, then 38, never returned, leaving behind her husband and their three kids.
Smith’s loved ones filed a formal missing person’s report for her, and “an extensive investigation was immediately launched,” police said in a statement released over the weekend. However, Smith had remained in the same state the whole time.
Smith, now 62, was found safe and sound on Friday, February 20, after the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division “received new information regarding Michele Hundley Smith and her disappearance.”
A statement from police said that “detectives immediately followed up on the lead and began further investigative efforts.” In time, two detectives approached the missing mom and confirmed it was her. She reportedly told the investigators she left because of unspecified “domestic issues” and asked investigators to keep her location a secret — even from her relatives.
But a 2001 arrest came back to haunt Smith after the news of her being found safe was reported widely, making her new hometown of St. Pauls public.
Smith was nearly unrecognizable in her mugshot after being arrested on Monday, February 23, on an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court for a drunk driving charge stemming from a stop in November 2001. She was due in court a month after she disappeared.
She posted a $2,000 bond for her release and is due to appear in the county’s district court on March 26.
Smith has seemingly been living in a trailer park in one of the poorest sections of North Carolina, which is only 165 miles away from where her family home is located in Rockingham.
While Smith claimed that her family had issues before her disappearance, her daughter, Amanda Hundley, previously said her mother struggled with a drinking problem.
She added that she was fired from a veterinary practice for “drinking on the job” when she appeared on “The Vanished Podcast.” Authorities said that no prior domestic reports were found on file and there was no evidence of foul play from the family’s home before Smith went missing.
While Smith seemingly wants to keep her distance from her family, Hundley took to social media to say she wants a family reunion despite past conflicts with her mother.
