The heartbreaking story of a missing North Carolina mother of three has reached a shocking conclusion.
For 24 years, Michele Lyn Hundley Smith was considered “endangered” after going missing during a Christmas shopping trip in December 2001. What should have been a quick jaunt to a Virginia Kmart ended in a “troubling” disappearance for a mother described as someone who “would not leave her kids by choice.”
After over two decades of searching, Smith has been found “alive and well” in an undisclosed location, authorities announced.
“I kind of want to go outside and scream, ‘She’s alive, she’s alive,’” said Smith’s cousin Barbara Byrd. “My biggest question is to her … what happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?”
“I never thought Michele was dead. I knew she was alive. It’s just a feeling that I had my whole life,” Byrd added.
One of Smith’s children posted a statement to a Facebook page that had been dedicated to bringing the mother home, sharing the tidal wave of emotions that came with the case’s bizarre conclusion.
“These last couple of days, well not even a full 48 hours have been a whirlwind of emotions. I am still not in the right state of mind to make a clear post but I will say that anyone who reads this please please leave your accusations and assumptions in your head,” they wrote, addressing the many theories that sprang forth after the details of Smith’s discovery were announced. “You are free to think whatever of course, just please don’t put them out there for my family to see. Please respect my family bc we are hurting and going through a lot. My dad has been through so many accusations since all the way back then… Even before social media was big, where we live in a small town, there were many ppl acting as if they just knew he was involved… Well he wasn’t! Ofcourse I never thought he was… Even when I would ponder it for a second, bc I pondered so many different scenarios, I always knew that there was no way that he could do something like that for many reasons and the biggest being bc my father could never continue to lie to us for decades.”
“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. Everyone is entitled their opinions but please remember that my father has been proven innocent. My dad is a great man and honestly, the fact that he is human just as I am human and you are human,… He’s close to being a super hero in my eyes and he ALWAYS will be,” the post continued.
The writer shared that they are experiencing a lot of different emotions following the news.
“I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!” they said. “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.”
“Everything I have been through in life, I can absolutely understand taking off and leaving… I am not saying that she gets off scott free without accountability or responsibility bc she absolutely needs to do that… What I am saying is that I am a runner as well and while this isn’t something to be proud of at all, it’s a part of being human. Each one of us humans have our faults, we each have a shadow part and we each deserve the chance to better ourselves and to heal from our past,” they wrote, expressing a lot of grace given the shocking situation. “I may completely forgive my mother at some point or it may be too much to forgive and I only try moving forward best I can, and I may choose to forget everything completely or I may never be able to forget… Well I mean nobody ever just forgets this kind of pain but I mean forget it enough to go on with life… My heart, soul and spirit says that I will forgive and I will never forget but I will be able to see it as a pain that no longer controls me. Right now, my head says that would be insane… But as I mentioned above, life is too short and we each are only human, we each make mistakes and have caused other souls pain in our time on this earth.”
The page owner will be using the platform to advocate for the searches for other missing people in the future. It is still unclear why Smith left her home and never returned.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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