A North Carolina woman who was missing for 24 years was found alive in February 2026 and was shortly arrested after that on an old warrant from the year 2001.
The woman named Michele Hundley Smith disappeared in December of 2001 when she was only 38 years old after leaving her residence to go Christmas shopping.
{img}She is said to have never returned and was even reported missing. For nearly two decades, local, state, and federal authorities, including the FBI, were looking for her, and the case remained unsolved.
Earlier that same month, law enforcement received new data that led them to make face-to-face contact with Smith at another undisclosed location in North Carolina, confirming more about how she was alive and well.
{img}She even asked more about her whereabouts, not to be shared publicly or with her loved ones.
Smith was taken into custody yesterday in Roberson County on an outstanding failure to appear warrant linked to a driving while impaired or DWI charge from November 2001. She missed a court date in December, so this warrant remained active for all those years.