For more than two decades, the disappearance of a North Carolina mother of three left a family suspended between hope and grief, and kept investigators returning to the same unanswered questions about what happened in the days before Christmas 2001.
On Friday, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said Michele Hundley Smith, now 62, has been located alive in North Carolina after authorities received new information that led detectives to make contact with her at an undisclosed location.
“On [Feb. 20], Sgt. A. Disher and Detective C. Worley made contact with Michele Hundley Smith at an undisclosed location within North Carolina, alive and well,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement quoted by People. “At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed.”
Officials said Smith’s family has been notified that she has been located and informed that her current location will not be released. Authorities have not publicly detailed what information led to the breakthrough, and the motive for her disappearance remains unclear.
Smith was 38 when she vanished, from Eden in Rockingham County, near the Virginia state line. Investigators have said she left home to go Christmas shopping and never returned. In accounts repeated by local and national outlets over the years, she was believed to have travelled to a Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia, a short drive from her home.
Her husband reported her missing in late December 2001, according to People’s summary of the sheriff’s office account of the investigation. The case quickly grew from a missing person report into a long-running search that drew in multiple agencies and left relatives clinging to the possibility that she was still alive.
The sheriff’s office statement, as quoted by People, described an “extensive investigation” launched immediately after Smith was reported missing and said the case prompted collaboration with multiple agencies across North Carolina and Virginia. People quoted the sheriff’s office as saying the investigation drew the involvement of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Those details reflect the scale of law enforcement attention that can follow a disappearance with few clear leads, particularly when relatives and authorities believe the missing person may be in danger. Early information circulated about Smith’s case included warnings that she could be “endangered” and suggestions that she would not have left her children willingly, according to reporting in the New York Post about the case and the renewed attention following her discovery.
The news that Smith is alive has brought relief without resolution, reopening old wounds while raising new questions about why she disappeared and how she remained out of contact for so long. People reported that relatives continued searching for Smith for years, and that one of her children created a Facebook page in 2018 aimed at gathering tips and keeping public attention on the case.
In public comments carried by People and the New York Post, family members described a surge of conflicting emotions.
Barbara Byrd, Smith’s cousin, told WFMY, as quoted by People, that the news landed with a jolt that felt almost impossible to absorb. “I kind of want to go outside and scream, ‘She’s alive, she’s alive,’” Byrd said. “My biggest question is to her … What happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?”
Byrd also described trying to hold two realities at once: the satisfaction of finally knowing Smith is alive, and the grief of not understanding what drove her to vanish. People reported Byrd said she respected Smith’s wish for privacy and added, “The biggest answer I had today was she was alive. Nothing else matters right at this moment.”
One of Smith’s children, writing on social media in a lengthy statement quoted in both People and the New York Post, conveyed the same turmoil more directly, describing emotions that swung from joy to anger to heartbreak. “I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” the child wrote, according to People’s account. “Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that because 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.”
The statement also reflected the pull of memory, recalling a mother-daughter bond that, for a child, existed before the disappearance and has continued to shape how the family understands what was lost. The New York Post reported the child wrote about remembering “the smiles we shared” and “the love I felt” during the time Smith was part of daily life.
Authorities have not said whether Smith lived under her own name, whether she received assistance in leaving, or whether she faced threats that might explain why she did not contact her family. Nor have they said whether any criminal investigation remains open beyond confirming she is safe. In some missing-person cases, law enforcement will close an active investigation once a missing adult is located and found to be acting of their own free will, though police can still examine whether any crimes occurred around the disappearance.
A long-running public record of the case has now been updated to reflect its resolution. The Charley Project, a database that tracks missing-person cases, lists Smith’s case as resolved and notes she was found alive in North Carolina in February 2026 and does not want her location shared.
The sheriff’s office has framed the discovery as the result of a fresh lead received this month, a reminder of how older cases can change suddenly after years of stagnation. People reported law enforcement said they received a tip about her location on 19 February and later met with her in person.
But while the breakthrough answers the most basic question, it does not settle the most painful ones for relatives: how a mother could disappear for nearly a quarter-century, and what happened in the hours and days after she last left home.
For now, Smith’s whereabouts will remain private, her family says it has been informed she is alive, and investigators have offered few further details, beyond a confirmation that one of the most enduring mysteries in their community has taken an unexpected turn.