Mom-of-three who vanished 24 years ago arrested just days after she was found alive and living secret life

A mother-of-three who went missing from her home in North Carolina in 2001 has been detained just days after she was discovered and authorities uncovered she had been living a secret life.

Michele Hundley Smith was arrested on Wednesday (February 25) and taken in for questioning in Robeson County after police detained her on a DWI charge from way back in 2001.

Investigators discovered Smith, now 62, was up for arrest for failure to appear, according to Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, who confirmed the news to WFMY News 2.

Local media reports that Smith's arrest relates to a citation issued by Eden Police in North Carolina on November 11, 2001. She was meant to appear in court on December 27, 2001, but was nowhere to be seen.

Smith was detained this week (Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office)

The arrest warrant remained active during all the years the mother-of-three was missing.

She is set to appear in Rockingham County District Court in just a few weeks on March 26.

It was on December 9 of 2001 when Smith told her family she was going Christmas shopping in Martinsville, Virginia, but she never returned home.

Her family reported her missing to Rockingham County Sheriff's Office, with widespread search efforts taking place in the weeks and months that followed to no prevail.

After providing an update in 2020 regarding the missing person, authorities remarkably revealed recently that they'd found Smith in her home state of North Carolina.

WFMY News 2 reported that Smith is alive and well but told authorities she doesn't want anyone to know exactly where she is.

Her daughter, Amanda, who is now in her late 30s, took to Facebook last week to detail her shock at discovering her mother is alive after all this time.

The mother-of-three had been missing for over 24 years (Rockingham County Sheriff's Office)

She penned: "I am ecstatic, I am p*****d, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map! 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... 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."