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A woman from North Carolina, missing for over twenty years, has been found and revealed that she left her family because of “domestic issues,” according to the sheriff handling the case.
Michele Hundley Smith vanished on December 9, 2001, after informing her family she was heading to a K-Mart in Virginia for Christmas shopping. The mother of three’s location remained unknown for years, until the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office announced on February 20 that she was found “alive and well” at an undisclosed location in North Carolina, as per a statement from the department.
New insights into Smith’s decision to leave her family 24 years ago have emerged from Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, who told People that there were no signs of foul play involved in her disappearance.
“According to Ms. Smith,” Page disclosed, “she mentioned leaving due to ongoing domestic issues at the time.”
Smith chose not to give further details or expand on her statement, he added.
According to Page, the sheriff’s office had no records of prior domestic issues involving Smith before she disappeared.
Smith—who was discovered after investigators received a new tip in the case—has chosen to keep her current whereabouts undisclosed, but Page was hopeful the development could provide her family with some answers.
“Everybody has someone that cares about them, everybody has someone that loves them,” he said. “I can’t imagine if I was missing a loved one for years and didn’t know and didn’t know. I know you assume the worst.”
When Smith was contacted, Page said she was in “good health.”
He credited the investigators involved with the cold case for finally finding resolution.
“Our goal is to try to resolve the cases, solve the cases to provide closure, to bring the bad guys to justice,” he told People, “and on this particular case to find that person that’s missing and hopefully they’ll be in a safe situation.”
Oxygen reached out to Page for additional comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
Smith’s daughter shared her reaction to learning her mother was alive on a Facebook page set up to aid in the search effort.
“As far as my opinions and feelings on my mom… I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” she wrote. “Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that bc I don’t even know… 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.”
She went on to say that when her mom had been a part of her life she had “showed me a love and bond that will never ever be forgotten.”
“I may completely forgive my mother at some point,” she wrote, “or it may be too much to forgive and I only try moving forward best I can.”