Daughter was ‘heartbroken’ after Michelle Hundley Smith requested her location not be disclosed to family she had walked away from
A North Carolina woman says she was simultaneously “ecstatic … pissed … [and] heartbroken” to learn authorities recently found her mother living safely and well – while also wanting her location kept secret – more than 24 years after she suddenly vanished from her family.
“I am all over the map!” Amanda Smith, the daughter of Michelle Hundley Smith, wrote in a lengthy statement on a social media page dedicated to searching for her mother. “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 … Even then, my mom is only human, just as well all are.”
Amanda Smith’s search for Michelle had previously received national media attention as recently as 2020, when the daughter – among other things – told NBC News that “nothing was ever the same” after her mother seemingly disappeared from their home in Eden, North Carolina, on 9 December 2001.
