A family’s search for a mother who vanished decades ago ended with news that she was “alive and well” — but she still doesn’t want them to know where she is.
Michele Hundley Smith, who was 38 when she was reported missing in 2001, was found safe and sound last week but doesn't want her whereabouts disclosed to her family or anyone else, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said.
“At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement Friday, the day authorities found her in North Carolina. “Her family has been notified that she has been located and informed of this request as well."
Smith has two daughters and a son, daughter Amanda Smith said on Facebook in 2021.
On Tuesday, Sheriff Sam Page said Smith didn’t explicitly say she didn’t want her family to contact her, but he said he is unaware of any contact between the parties since she was located. Page said the family needs time to heal, and he offered his prayers.
Page said Smith indicated there were "domestic issues" before she left of her own accord, but he said the sheriff’s office has no records related to such issues before she departed.
Detectives have been in contact with the district attorney’s office and are conducting a full review of the case, he said.
Smith left her Rockingham County home after 8 p.m. Dec. 9, 2001, to go Christmas shopping in nearby Virginia, according to the sheriff’s office and her family. She was officially reported missing Dec. 31, 2001.
Amanda Smith was critical of authorities over the years, urging them to search woods between their home and her mother's shopping destination in Virginia.
She said her family is experiencing a range of emotions after having learned Smith is safe.
Amanda Smith has acknowledged that her parents weren’t perfect. In a 2020 interview, she told "Dateline" that her father believed Smith could have "just took off and left him, and us, that night.”
“And I guess that’s possible," she said at the time. "It’s hard to rule out that she just left all of us and started a new life."
On Sunday, Amanda Smith posted a statement to a Facebook page she created years ago to keep her mother's missing person case alive. She defended her father and described a "whirlwind of emotions" after her mother was found safe.
"My father has been through so much and I want it made clear that while their marriage had issues (just as many marriages go through) that my mom did not leave simply bc of a bad marriage," she wrote.
She said a possible reunion with her mother wasn’t assured.
"I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!" Amanda Smith said. "Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly, I can't answer that bc I don't even know."
