Michelle Handley Smith, mother missing since 2001, found alive
Twenty-four years later, a missing North Carolina mother has been found alive and asked not to be contacted by her family.
The mother at the center of the disappearance of a 24-year-old North Carolina man has been arrested on an outstanding warrant, authorities announced on February 26th.
The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Facebook post that Michelle Hundley-Smith was arrested by the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office for failure to appear in court stemming from a November 2001 DUI charge issued by the Eden Police Department. The last missed court date was in December 2001, according to court records.
Handley Smith, who went missing while out Christmas shopping 24 years ago, has been found “alive and well” in an undisclosed area of North Carolina, Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office investigators announced in a Feb. 20 news release.
The arrest was made on February 25, according to a Facebook post. Mr. Smith posted bail and was released. A hearing is scheduled for March 26, according to court records, but it is unclear whether Smith has hired an attorney.
USA TODAY reached out to Capt. Jonathan Cheek of the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, who reiterated what was said in the post.
What happened to Michelle Handley Smith?
Handley Smith was 38 years old when he left his Greensboro-area home to do Christmas shopping at a nearby Kmart on Dec. 9, 2001, two days before he missed a court appearance, the sheriff’s office said.
Her family last saw her around 8:30 p.m. when she left her home in Eden, North Carolina, about 56 miles north of Greensboro, to go shopping in Martinsville, Virginia, about 27 miles away. She was reported missing on December 31, 2001.
According to the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, multiple agencies participated in the decades-long manhunt for Hundley-Smith, including the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The sheriff’s office also shared posts asking for information in connection with her disappearance cases in 2020 and 2021, noting there was a cash reward for clues.
Sheriff Sam Page of the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office previously told USA TODAY. The information came from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a computerized index of missing person and criminal information that allows law enforcement agencies to exchange information.
The sheriff said another agency entered information about Hundley-Smith and Rockingham County officials were notified.
When asked, Page said that to his knowledge, the missing woman was not living under a new name. A more likely scenario is that she may have recently enrolled in some service and later alerted authorities.
