A mother of three in North Carolina has been pictured for the first time since she went missing in 2001 after she was arrested for failing to appear in court for a drunk driving charge.
Michele Hundley Smith was photographed after she was taken into custody near the South Carolina border when investigators determined she had an active arrest warrant that was issued when she failed to appear in court over a drunk driving charge in November 2001.
Smith was previously involved in the drunk driving incident one month before she vanished while Christmas shopping in December 2001, according to WFMY.
In the mugshot obtained by Luxury Handbag Shopping, Smith, 62, donned gray hair and appeared teary eyed as she looked away from the camera.
She was arrested by Rockingham County authorities Monday, February 23, and later posted a $2,000 bond, according to legal documents viewed by Us. Smith is next scheduled 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 about two hours away from where her family home is located in Rockingham.
On the day that Smith went missing in 2001, she told her family that she was leaving to go Christmas shopping at a Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia. However, she never returned home and seemingly vanished into thin air.
When she was found on February 20, Smith told authorities she left her family more than two decades ago because of “ongoing domestic issues at the time,” according to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
Authorities also said that Smith asked for the public and her family to not be notified of her whereabouts after she was found.
“At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on February 20, per NBC News. “Her family has been notified that she has been located and informed of this request as well.”
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.
“I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” Hundley wrote via Facebook on Sunday, February 22, after her mother was found. “Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that bc I don’t even know.”
Hundley continued, “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.”
