North Carolina woman forgives mom for disappearing without a word 24 years ago | North Carolina
A North Carolina woman whose mother was missing without a word for 24 years until authorities managed to find her alive and well was reunited with her and said she forgave her.
“I know things aren’t black and white; there’s a whole gray area,” Amanda Smith said of her mother, Michele Hundley Smith, 62, after embracing outside the courthouse on Thursday. “I mean, look, life is too short for me to hold a grudge against her because she’s my mother.”
The Smiths’ reunion served as a footnote of sorts to a story that attracted days of national media attention on Feb. 20, when North Carolina’s Rockingham County sheriff’s office announced it had tracked down Michele after she was reported missing in December 2001.
Michele’s then-husband reported that the last time he saw her, she talked about going shopping, but neither he nor his minivan returned. Over the years, Rockingham lawmakers have worked with numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies in North Carolina and Virginia to describe Michele’s disappearance as “disturbing,” but to no avail.
Then on Feb. 19, the Rockingham sheriff’s office said it received a tip on Michele’s whereabouts. Investigators immediately followed up, contacted Michele, who lived in another part of North Carolina, and announced they found her healthy and safe. Sam Page, Rockingham’s sheriff, said Michele told him unspecified “domestic issues” prompted her to disappear and also reportedly did not want her location to be disclosed.
Rockingham prosecutors later declined to file criminal charges due to Michele’s long disappearance. But a few days after he was found, Rockingham authorities arrested him on a warrant issued after he failed to appear in court in an alleged DWI case dating back to November 2001.
Amanda, who was 14 when her mother left and maintains a social media page dedicated to her search, appeared at Michelle’s hearing in the unsolved case on Thursday.
They embraced outside the Rockingham courthouse in front of the local station’s news camera. WXII. Amanda later described the moment on camera, saying other family members chose to “make individual decisions about the relationship they wanted to have” with her mother.
Speaking on her own behalf, Amanda said: “We only have one life and I want my mum to be in that life too.”
local news source WGHP Amanda was reportedly asked openly if she had forgiven Michele for breaking up.
“Yes, yes,” Amanda was quoted as replying. “We all go through things. I understand. Life happens and we all go through things.”
