Just days after being found following a 24-year disappearance, North Carolina mother Michele Hundley Smith was arrested Wednesday for a decades-old DUI.
Smith, 62, was taken into custody in Robeson County after investigators discovered she had an active order for arrest for failure to appear related to a DWI charge from 2001, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to WFMY News 2.
Authorities said Smith’s outstanding arrest order stemmed from a citation issued by Eden police in North Carolina on November 11, 2001. She had failed to appear in court on December 27, 2001, prompting the warrant that remained active while she was missing.
Smith posted the required bond and is scheduled to appear in Rockingham County District Court on March 26.
The Independent has contacted the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
Smith’s arrest follows a major breakthrough in her decades-long missing person case, which saw extensive searches by local, state and federal authorities, including the FBI, as her whereabouts remained unknown for over 20 years. Authorities said Smith’s information was recently entered into a national database, which helped detectives track her down.
Investigators located her in person on February 20 and confirmed she was alive and safe, living in North Carolina outside Rockingham County. New records show she resides in St. Pauls, about 20 miles south of Fayetteville, WFMY News 2 reports.
Smith was reported missing in December 2001 after her husband said she left their Eden home to go Christmas shopping at a K‑Mart in Martinsville, Virginia, and never returned. At the time, she was 38 years old and the mother of three children, then ages 19, 14, and 7.
Upon being located, Smith told investigators she left her family years ago due to ongoing domestic issues at the time, though no prior official reports confirmed such issues before her disappearance, according to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
Rockingham County District Attorney Katie Gregg told WFMY News 2 that there is not enough evidence to file charges related to Smith’s disappearance, such as abandonment.
Smith’s discovery has provided long-awaited closure for her family. Her daughter, Amanda, now in her late 30s, launched a Facebook page in 2018 to gather tips and keep the case in the public eye.
“To all concerned… My mom has been found and is alive. It is shared everywhere and I will maybe say more later on but right now I am emotionally drained and all over the place,” Amanda A. Hundley wrote in a Facebook post on February 21.
“I will say there are many that owe my father a apology but also he wishes to be left alone now and I think that is the least everyone can do.”
