transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor.
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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
[00:30] Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 491 of the True Crime All The Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
Speaker 2:
[00:39] Hey, I'm doing good. And you?
Speaker 3:
[00:41] I'm doing great.
Speaker 2:
[00:41] Awesome.
Speaker 3:
[00:42] We just had some Jersey Mike cheesesteaks.
Speaker 2:
[00:45] We did.
Speaker 3:
[00:46] And now we're ready to get recording.
Speaker 2:
[00:48] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[00:49] So we're talking about Michele Hundley Smith. In February, 2026, Michele Hundley Smith was found in Robeson County, North Carolina, after being missing for 24 years.
Speaker 2:
[01:04] That's a long time to be missing. Yeah. To be found. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[01:07] To be found later on.
Speaker 2:
[01:08] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[01:09] She left home to go Christmas shopping in December, 2001, and her family didn't hear or see from her again until the authorities finally located her.
Speaker 2:
[01:21] I mean, there's time as I've been Christmas shopping that I wanted to disappear, but not like this.
Speaker 3:
[01:25] Well, right before you had to take out your wallet and pay for whatever it was that you were going to buy. But I'm getting out of here.
Speaker 2:
[01:33] I hear that ching ching, ching ching at the cash register. You know, even now, a lot of them are quiet.
Speaker 3:
[01:40] I was going to say, I don't think I hear that sound anymore.
Speaker 2:
[01:43] In my head, I still hear the ching ching, ching ching.
Speaker 3:
[01:46] Yeah, I don't hear that. But you know, you and I do have an unsolved podcast.
Speaker 2:
[01:51] We do.
Speaker 3:
[01:52] Totally separate, right, from True Crime All The Time. And obviously, we are talking about, in many instances, people being missing for 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years.
Speaker 2:
[02:05] Yeah, and we just, last week, we did one where she has been missing for 30 years.
Speaker 3:
[02:09] Yeah. So this is amazing for someone to be found after 24 years.
Speaker 2:
[02:15] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[02:15] In 2001, 38-year-old Michele Hundley Smith lived in Stoneville, North Carolina, with her husband Randy and their two children. Their oldest daughter was 19 and no longer living at home.
Speaker 2:
[02:28] You ever been to Stoneville?
Speaker 3:
[02:29] I have not.
Speaker 2:
[02:30] Right next door to Rockville. Is it?
Speaker 3:
[02:34] Which is a stone throw from Pebbleville?
Speaker 2:
[02:37] Yep, and just over the hill where Boulder is, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[02:42] I do love North Carolina, though.
Speaker 2:
[02:43] Yeah, I do too.
Speaker 3:
[02:45] You and I went to North Carolina.
Speaker 2:
[02:46] We did.
Speaker 3:
[02:47] One time, it was fun.
Speaker 2:
[02:48] It was fun. It was a good time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[02:51] A lot of great lakes and a lot of great fishing lakes in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:
[02:57] Nice mountains, some views.
Speaker 3:
[02:59] And some big, big homes that we toured.
Speaker 2:
[03:02] Yes, we did. Not for us.
Speaker 3:
[03:05] No, they weren't ours, but... Now, I don't know what it's like to have your oldest, out of the house at 19. Now, this is 2001.
Speaker 2:
[03:19] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[03:19] I think in the last 25 years, things have changed quite a bit on that front.
Speaker 2:
[03:27] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[03:27] I think kids are staying at home longer. I saw a graphic on the news the other day that said, like 58 or 60% of parents are supporting their kid. They're Gen Z kids. But hey, I'm happy to do it. I like having my daughter home.
Speaker 2:
[03:48] Yeah. I know it makes you happy that she's here, her and her fiance's here, and it helps them out too.
Speaker 3:
[03:57] Yeah. They're saving up to buy a house. And I know they'll leave, but it's nice. Because she's been off to college for four years, so it's nice getting to spend some time with her before she officially leaves for good.
Speaker 2:
[04:11] I did read a stat that there's an increase of podcast co-hosts moving in with the co-host, with the other co-hosts or the host.
Speaker 3:
[04:22] I did not read about that.
Speaker 2:
[04:23] Yeah, that the host is offering the co-host free room and board.
Speaker 3:
[04:29] On top of what is already a free meal at least once a week, if not twice a week?
Speaker 2:
[04:34] It's just more frequent.
Speaker 3:
[04:35] Okay. Yeah, that will not be happening. So Michele was described as a loving mother. Her daughter Amanda recalled that she cooked their favorite meals and was always there to meet them when they got off the bus. Around 8 p.m. on December 9, 2001, Michele left home to go Christmas shopping at Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia, which was just a 30-minute drive from their home.
Speaker 2:
[05:00] Kmart, the old blue light specials.
Speaker 3:
[05:02] Yeah, you know, kind of a staple for us, right? Growing up, go to Kmart, maybe get a slushie. They always have like a little concession stand.
Speaker 2:
[05:12] Exactly.
Speaker 3:
[05:13] We could get a slushie. Michele's daughter Amanda explained that it was normal for Michele to go shopping in the evenings because she stayed home with the kids while her husband worked as a truck driver. And she often went to Martinsville to shop.
Speaker 2:
[05:29] If you're stuck inside all day with the kiddos, or just stuck at home, that's your opportunity to get out for a little bit. Why not? Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[05:39] You can't be stuck at home all the time.
Speaker 2:
[05:40] No.
Speaker 3:
[05:41] I'm also getting the sense that this town where they live is not huge, right?
Speaker 2:
[05:48] Right.
Speaker 3:
[05:49] Because they have to go to a different town for like the Kmart and different types of shopping.
Speaker 2:
[05:57] Kind of like where I live. I have to go.
Speaker 3:
[05:59] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[06:00] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[06:00] Michele kissed her husband and kids good night and drove away in her vehicle. They expected Michele to return in a couple of hours, but she didn't. And we go through this all the time. We're at home. A family member says, I'm going to run down to the grocery store. I'm going to go to Walmart nowadays because there's no Kmarts around anymore. They're going to go to Best Buy or wherever it is. Is there really a thought in your mind that, okay, that person's not going to come back? I don't think most of us think that way. Or if we did, we wouldn't be able to function.
Speaker 2:
[06:43] No, we wouldn't.
Speaker 3:
[06:43] We'd be scared to death that we wouldn't want people to leave the house. Amanda's father, Randy, woke her up around 1230 a.m. He seemed worried about Michele. And I get that, right? That's four and a half hours. It's probably a mom who has to get up early with the kids. Probably normally doesn't stay out to past midnight or anything like that. But it was reported that there was some trouble in Michele's marriage. In a 2018 interview, Amanda shared that her parents fought often, and her mother was hiding the full extent of her drinking from her husband. She also claimed that Michele lost a job due to her drinking. And sometimes their fights turned physical, and Michele slept separately on a living room chair. Amanda also said that both of her parents were unfaithful. So, I mean, you know, probably hard to talk about your mom in that way, but, you know, giving us some insight into what each of them were kind of going through, but then also the marriage dynamic. And you just wonder, you know, how bad was the drinking and what role did it ultimately play?
Speaker 2:
[08:11] You know, did the bad marriage feed the drinking or the drinking caused the bad marriage, right?
Speaker 3:
[08:16] And the unfaithfulness on both sides, yeah. On November 11, 2011, the Eden, North Carolina Police Department issued Michele a citation for driving while impaired and a civil revocation of her driver's license. And, you know, I watch a lot of the YouTube videos. I talk about them all the time. But I always like the ones where there's, you know, a police officer pulls someone over and everything just kind of goes sideways. A lot of those involve people who are impaired, right? Because their judgment is not what it would normally be and they don't want to comply. They don't want to get out of the car and things go south in a hurry.
Speaker 2:
[09:02] They think they did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3:
[09:03] Yeah, sometimes. Michele failed to appear in court that December and an arrest warrant was issued on December 27, 2001. Michele's family didn't report her missing immediately because she had left home before. After arguing with her husband, she typically went to her mother's house and would return either the next day or just a few days later. But this time, Michele was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2:
[09:32] But I get it. You know, if that's kind of typical for her to go to her mom's for a few days, then you probably wouldn't want to jump right away to call in the police because you're thinking, well, we had an argument. She got upset with me. So now she's going to be over at her mom's and she'll be back in a day or two. Then we can patch it up.
Speaker 3:
[09:55] Yeah, it's something you and I analyze a lot in unsolved cases and on TCAT as well. But at what point do people start to get worried? And at what point do they make the decision that they're going to alert the police? And there are times when I think, oh my gosh, I would have never waited that long in certain instances. This one, I feel like it's a little different. First of all, we're talking about a grown adult, right? We're not talking about somebody under the age of 18, who can't make their own decisions. But like you said, we're also talking about a person with a history of kind of leaving the house for periods of time, cooling off, staying away for a little bit. So I think that would give you some pause. Because my thoughts always that, you know, people don't want to be wrong when they're calling the police.
Speaker 2:
[10:57] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[10:57] You don't want to call the police and have all these people show up and then the person come back while they're there. Or, you know, you find out that nothing's wrong. They're just, they're cooling off at their mom's house.
Speaker 2:
[11:10] Could you make the case, though, that maybe you call the in-laws just to say, hey, we had a little fight. Did she go over there? Is she there?
Speaker 3:
[11:19] Yeah, I think you could definitely make that. That argument.
Speaker 2:
[11:22] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[11:23] She didn't come home for Christmas with her children. And to me, that's a big difference, right? Going to your mom's and cooling off for a day or two versus not coming home by Christmas and spending that with your children.
Speaker 2:
[11:41] Knowing how important that family time is.
Speaker 3:
[11:44] Yeah, and she was very close to her kids, right? She stayed home, she watched the kids. Amanda told Dateline, I'll never forget that first Christmas without her. We didn't even care about presents or anything. Our mom was gone. Nothing was ever the same after that.
Speaker 2:
[12:02] It would be tough. It would be tough to lose your mom, meaning missing, at any time of the year. But like around a holiday.
Speaker 3:
[12:11] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[12:11] Or around a birthday. Right? It's going to really stick with you, I think a little bit more.
Speaker 3:
[12:16] It is because, you know, as is in this case, she doesn't come home for years. So every Christmas is going to be a reminder, right? Of what happened on December 31st, 2001. The family reported Michele missing to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office. Local searches were conducted, but neither Michele nor her vehicle were found. Amanda was only 14 years old when her mother went missing and her younger brother was not even 8 years old.
Speaker 2:
[12:50] Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:
[12:51] Amanda told Dateline, it affected all of our lives, but I think I took it the hardest. My mom, we were best friends. She was a really good mother, you know, but then became more of a friend when I got older. And I have two daughters, you have a daughter. I'm very close with my daughters, but I don't think there's any doubt that they have a very close relationship with my wife.
Speaker 2:
[13:18] Oh, for sure.
Speaker 3:
[13:19] You know, there's just something about a daughter and a mother bond. Now, it can be very rocky during those teenage years.
Speaker 2:
[13:28] Right.
Speaker 3:
[13:29] And it was for both of my girls. But then, can you get over that? And then they, you know, they become very tight. And that's where we're at now. And maybe they were a little closer with me during the teenage years, because they were butting heads so much with mom, but now it's definitely switched.
Speaker 2:
[13:48] Yeah, they have their little tight network.
Speaker 3:
[13:51] Yeah, absolutely. And they, you know, they can tell things to mom that they probably don't want to tell me. And let's face it, I probably don't want to hear, you know?
Speaker 2:
[14:02] Yeah, I get that. I really do.
Speaker 3:
[14:05] There's just certain things I would just, I'll be okay if I never find out about.
Speaker 2:
[14:11] Yeah, just leave it with your wife to deal with. Yeah. But I was thinking about this, you know? She's 14, the brother is eight. So I feel like there'd be a lot of pressure on her to kind of be like the mom to her brother.
Speaker 3:
[14:27] That's a great point. I mean, she's gonna have to step up and probably grow up a lot faster than she would have. If her mom was still around. Local, state and federal agencies spent years looking for Michele. And there was a lot of speculation about what happened to her. Some believed Michele's husband was involved. Others alleged that Michele's family helped her start a new life. And okay, I could see both of those, right? The husband is always gonna be in the crosshairs when someone goes missing and or is hurt. We talked about the relationship, maybe being rocky, not being great. Could you see a scenario where, you know, Michele confides in her family that she's gotta get away or something bad is going to happen and they help her start a new life? Yeah, I think you can see that, but you still have the factor of the kids.
Speaker 2:
[15:32] I guess it has to be so bad at home that you, as much as you love your kids, you have no choice but to leave.
Speaker 3:
[15:45] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[15:45] But then as a parent, you know, then you have to hope that whatever is happening to you doesn't shift to them.
Speaker 3:
[15:55] And again, we kind of go through a lot of this on Unsolved, right? I understand where there could be a scenario where that would happen, but you're telling me that you wouldn't want to try to get in touch with your kids at some point, let them know they're okay, do it in a way that, you know, maybe your husband, if he was abusive or whatever the situation was, he didn't find out. It's hard for me to think that a loving mother could just say one day, you know what, I'm leaving and I can't do it anymore and I'm okay not seeing my kids anymore.
Speaker 2:
[16:36] And good luck to them.
Speaker 3:
[16:37] Yeah, that's tough for me. Not saying it doesn't happen, it's just tough for me. Amanda recalled, years were a blur after that. Detectives would be in and out of our lives, asking questions, working off whatever tips they got, but nothing ever led to my mom. And this is something that we bring up quite a bit. It's like the roller coaster of emotions. In an investigation that drags on for years, in a lot of cases, okay, a tip comes in, you're feeling high, right? You're feeling like something's about ready to break, and then that tip gets kind of busted or debunked or whatever, and then you're low again. Yeah. And it's these highs and lows that I just think has to be really tough on some of these families.
Speaker 2:
[17:29] Tear you up.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 3:
[19:00] As an adult, Amanda became more active in the search for her mother. She created the Bring Michele Hundley Smith Home Facebook page to share photos and updates. She told Dateline in 2020 that her father had since remarried and was still in their family home in Stoneville. He has health problems and struggles to talk about Michele. According to Amanda, he believes she just took off and left him that night. And I guess that's possible. According to her, she said it's hard to rule out that she just left us all and started a new life. But there's also something that nags at me that something happened to her on the way back home. And I think if I was a kid, I'd be having those same thoughts.
Speaker 2:
[19:48] Yeah, of course you would.
Speaker 3:
[19:49] It just kind of goes back to, I just can't imagine my mom would just leave us like that.
Speaker 2:
[19:56] Yeah, it'd be strange, right? I mean, like I think about, can my mom do that? And I, no, I don't think she could have ever done that.
Speaker 3:
[20:03] Yeah, the other thing I did want to talk about briefly is just the, kind of the age of social media and what it's done for allowing people to very quickly and inexpensively, you know, get the word out.
Speaker 2:
[20:20] That's very true.
Speaker 3:
[20:21] About the case of a missing loved one. And you think about pre-internet, okay, maybe you're putting up flyers, maybe you're lucky enough to get, you know, the local news channel to do a story.
Speaker 2:
[20:38] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[20:39] Outside of that, there just wasn't a lot that you could do on your own. The social media, it just has opened up so many different avenues. And let's not forget about, you know, the True Crime Podcast, documentaries, things like that.
Speaker 2:
[20:56] I know on my Instagram, I follow several, like, true crime notification type of sites. And I know that I get this missing person one that they must put out 20, 30 new missing person cases a day.
Speaker 3:
[21:15] That's scary thought.
Speaker 2:
[21:16] It is, you know. And as you scroll through them, it just, I just always end up shaking my head thinking, man, you know, why so many? Why so many? Scary.
Speaker 3:
[21:29] Amanda told Dateline that she just wanted answers. If she said, if she contacted me right now, I would, well, I'd have a lot of questions, but she's still my mother. I would accept her back. I want her to know that. And I would just be happy that she's alive. My hope is that she's out there somewhere. She'll see this and reach out. I just wanted to know that I would accept her and welcome her back with open arms. And I, you know, you kind of get the sense from that statement that, yeah, they do believe that she just kind of on her own or of her own free will just took off and left them.
Speaker 2:
[22:09] It's just sad to think that your kids would feel that way.
Speaker 3:
[22:13] Well, what else should they do? There's really only a couple of choices, right? Either someone leaves voluntarily or something bad happened to them. And maybe that first one is easier to think, because in that scenario, she's most likely still alive, she's okay. Now, it hurts because she left us. But maybe that's better than the alternative. On December 9, 2020, the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office issued a press release asking the public for information about Michele's disappearance. But five more years passed without any updates. And, you know, again, going back to our experience with unsolved cases, you know, cases go cold. A lot of times they don't really get worked unless a new tip comes in.
Speaker 2:
[23:12] Right.
Speaker 3:
[23:12] Because they've exhausted everything they have.
Speaker 2:
[23:15] Yeah, they have nothing else to go on.
Speaker 3:
[23:16] Yeah, so unless something new comes in, there's really no direction to go, nothing to look at. And it's not unusual for every, you know, so often for them to put out some type of plea to the public for information. But I mean, how often does it happen?
Speaker 2:
[23:34] Right.
Speaker 3:
[23:34] How much or how often does it come in? On February 19th, 2026, the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office received new information that Michele, now 62 years old, was alive. I mean, this is a bombshell.
Speaker 2:
[23:51] It would be. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:
[23:53] I think for everyone involved, right? The police, obviously the family, when they learn of it, because it's just not the norm. It does happen, and we've seen some recent examples of it, including this one, but it's just not the norm. Most of the time, when people are gone for 20, 30 years, when they do finally figure out what happened to them, it's not a good scenario, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:
[24:22] I'm just thinking, you know, when that call came in on February 19th, it had to be like freaking out, like, Yeah. Hey, we got this case, it's going to probably be solved now.
Speaker 3:
[24:33] So detectives made contact with her on February 20th in Robeson County, North Carolina, which is about 175 miles southeast of Rockingham County.
Speaker 2:
[24:45] Not that far, right?
Speaker 3:
[24:46] Not that far.
Speaker 2:
[24:47] Two and a half hour drive?
Speaker 3:
[24:48] No, this is a person who didn't go clear across the country, right? Didn't go to California. Michele asked the detectives to keep her location private, but the police did inform her family that she was alive and well.
Speaker 2:
[25:03] Yeah, because they should know. I mean, that's a weird thing, right? Because she wants her location private. The family deserves to know she's alive. But then now, as the kids would sit there and think, wait a minute, if she's alive, but she doesn't want, doesn't know where she's at.
Speaker 3:
[25:24] Yeah. I mean, I can only imagine what that feeling would be like, because it can't be good.
Speaker 2:
[25:31] No.
Speaker 3:
[25:32] It can't be good at all. The Sheriff's Office said in a statement released via Facebook, what began as a troubling missing person report in late 2001 has now reached a conclusion. For more than two decades, the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office remained steadfast in its commitment to seeking answers. On February 19th, 2026, the County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division received new information regarding Michele Hundley Smith and her disappearance. Detectives immediately followed up on the lead and began further investigative efforts. On February 20th, 2026, Sergeant Disher and Detective Worley made contact with Smith at an undisclosed location within North Carolina, and she was alive and well. At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed. Her family has been notified that she has been located and informed of this request as well. So, I mean, also, they're putting this out on Facebook.
Speaker 2:
[26:39] Right.
Speaker 3:
[26:40] I just talked about the age of social media. Well, the authorities use it too.
Speaker 2:
[26:46] Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:
[26:47] Because it can reach such a wide audience so quickly.
Speaker 2:
[26:52] Yeah, I mean, within not even minutes, within seconds, it can be in front of so many people on their Facebook feed or whatever social media they have.
Speaker 3:
[27:03] Yeah. It used to be, if you weren't sitting around the TV to watch Walter Cronkite, you didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2:
[27:10] Well, that's true.
Speaker 3:
[27:11] But now, everybody has a phone.
Speaker 2:
[27:13] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[27:14] And the news is up to the minute.
Speaker 2:
[27:18] It cycles.
Speaker 3:
[27:19] And it's so fast.
Speaker 2:
[27:21] Now, the problem with that is, now you have to filter what is real, what is not real.
Speaker 3:
[27:28] Yeah. And now you got AI.
Speaker 2:
[27:30] AI on top of it.
Speaker 3:
[27:31] Which makes it even harder. Yeah. Yeah, we're kind of, I think, in some cases on overload.
Speaker 2:
[27:38] For sure.
Speaker 3:
[27:38] It's like almost too much information is coming at you, and now you got to worry about what's real and what's not real. Michele's daughter posted on Facebook the following day, her NBC, I will say that my mother chose her new life, and we know she's alive, and for now, that's enough.
Speaker 2:
[27:59] You know, that's really big of the daughter to say. Yeah, you know, it really is.
Speaker 3:
[28:03] Because we just talked about it, right? It's got to be such a tough situation. I could see on the one hand, you're very happy to find out that your mother's alive, but then immediately you're thinking, well, why would she do this to us? I don't know how a person couldn't, you know, have those thoughts.
Speaker 2:
[28:23] Just for me, it would be rough. I think it would stew on me. I mean, all night, the next day, I would just, it would just stew. And I'd be like...
Speaker 3:
[28:31] So what are you saying? It would stew?
Speaker 2:
[28:32] It would stew. I'd say, I've got things that I need to get off my chest.
Speaker 3:
[28:38] Well, and I think you have questions you want answered.
Speaker 2:
[28:41] Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
[28:42] But Michele doesn't want contact at this point, which means you can't ask those questions, you can't get those answers. So that's got to be tough as well. Amanda made a longer post on February 22nd, defending both of her parents. She wrote, my dad has been through so many accusations since all the way back then. My father's been through so much and I want it made clear that while their marriage has issues, just as many marriages go through, that my mom did not leave simply because of a bad marriage. As far as my opinions and feelings on my mom, I'm ecstatic, I'm pissed, I'm heartbroken, I'm all over the map.
Speaker 2:
[29:27] I can see that.
Speaker 3:
[29:28] We'll have a relationship once more with my mom question. Honestly, I can't answer that because I don't even know. Yeah. I mean, I think you're right on the money. Understandably, to be going through this very wide range of emotions.
Speaker 2:
[29:46] Yeah, roller coaster.
Speaker 3:
[29:47] I'm happy, I'm pissed, I'm heartbroken, I'm mad. I mean, it's just, you name it. She went on to say, I can absolutely understand taking off and leaving. I'm not saying that she gets off scot-free without accountability or responsibility. So I think that's kind of part of the gamut of emotions.
Speaker 2:
[30:11] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[30:13] I can understand it, I'm not happy about it. Can I have a relationship with her? I don't know, because she's not going to get off scot-free.
Speaker 2:
[30:23] Right. There's some conversations that are going to have to occur.
Speaker 3:
[30:28] Yeah. And there's going to be repercussions. Now, what those are comes down to the individual people involved. Can you forgive? Because that's a tough thing.
Speaker 2:
[30:40] It will be tough.
Speaker 3:
[30:41] There are a lot of things that I would not be able to forget. Also, I'm probably not the most forgiving person in the world anyway.
Speaker 2:
[30:50] That's true.
Speaker 3:
[30:51] I think you would agree with that.
Speaker 2:
[30:52] Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
[30:53] But there are some things that, and I do tend to hold grudges way longer than most people.
Speaker 2:
[31:01] Just a tad. Just a tad.
Speaker 3:
[31:03] So when people say they've forgiven their son or daughter's killer, OK, you are a much bigger person than I am.
Speaker 2:
[31:17] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[31:17] Because I know in my heart, that's just not something I'd be able to do.
Speaker 2:
[31:22] I agree with you. I don't I don't know if you could. Do you, like I said, do you?
Speaker 3:
[31:26] I hold grudges for pretty petty things. So if you're talking about something like that, no, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:
[31:34] I remember you had one last year. I was like, well, is everything OK now? No. I'm like, oh, still holding that grudge on that person. Yep. OK.
Speaker 3:
[31:43] They go 10, 15 years.
Speaker 2:
[31:45] It went longer than I ever thought.
Speaker 3:
[31:47] We don't know. On February 25, 2026, Michele was taken into custody in Robeson County for the 2001 failure to appear charge and was granted bond. The DA requested a formal review of Michele's case to determine if additional charges should be filed. So after this news came out that she'd been found, law enforcement and Michele's family spoke to the media. Sheriff Sam Page told WRAL that persistence, technology and collaboration with other law enforcement agencies was paramount in finding Michele. And again, we mentioned it, right? She's like just a few hours away.
Speaker 2:
[32:32] Yeah, not very far.
Speaker 3:
[32:34] It's kind of amazing that you can just go a couple of hours away and not be found out or noticed or whatever in 20 some years.
Speaker 2:
[32:43] That just blows me away.
Speaker 3:
[32:45] It does. Page has been sheriff since 1998 and said his office has made many efforts to find Michele. He said it's not stopped. We continue to advertise, put information out, advertise for crime stoppers and let people know that we're trying to solve this case. We need help. We need that piece to the puzzle. Again, that's what you hear people talk about in unsolved cases all the time. Page said Michele asked them originally not to contact her family, and they honored that after locating Michele, the sheriff's department conducted an investigation into whether she could face additional charges. Investigators considered possible abandonment charges, but Page said that at this point, they don't have evidence or reason to support charging Michele with anything else.
Speaker 2:
[33:36] Yeah, she's an adult, she voluntarily left, I guess.
Speaker 3:
[33:41] Yeah, it's not a crime to up and leave. Now, if she was supposed to appear in court and didn't do that, that's something. Sheriff's Captain Jonathan Cheek told A&E that the National Crime Information Center database got an alert about Michele on February 19th, 2026, after an agency entered her information. And that's kind of what I was saying, right? Not only are you just a couple of hours away, but look at the technology that's evolved since she disappeared.
Speaker 2:
[34:20] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[34:21] All these databases, all the things that we do in our life that leave a digital footprint or could put us in a database somewhere. She had to have been really careful for all those years, I would think.
Speaker 2:
[34:39] Just to be cautious that she doesn't pop up somewhere.
Speaker 3:
[34:42] Yeah, if she didn't want to be found, which obviously she didn't. In an interview with NBC, Captain Cheek said that Michele indicated there were domestic issues before she left of her own accord. The Sheriff's Office had no records related to such issues before she disappeared. A&E reported that Michele was in a relationship with a long-haul trucker for many years. They lived in his truck before they returned to North Carolina in 2013.
Speaker 2:
[35:12] That's one way to stay off the radar.
Speaker 3:
[35:13] Yeah, I think if, number one, you don't have to get a job, you know, because a lot of jobs, you got to fill out paperwork, you got to provide, you know, documents, things like that. Now, there are some jobs where maybe you can get paid under the table and that, but those are less and less every year, I think. But to your point, if you're kind of just traveling around the country with a long-haul trucker, maybe you can stay off the grid pretty easily.
Speaker 2:
[35:46] Yeah, I think expenses are low, you know, besides the cost of the rig.
Speaker 3:
[35:53] Which I'm assuming he already had or was paying for. Captain Cheek also told A&E that Michele didn't use an alias. When somebody goes missing for this period of time, we always assume that they may have changed their names. She just went back to her maiden name.
Speaker 2:
[36:10] She was like, I'm just going to go back to my maiden name, I'm going to live two and a half hours away from here. Good luck finding me.
Speaker 3:
[36:18] Even more shocking that she wasn't found out earlier, when asked by the Charlotte Observer why she disappeared, Michele said, I had my own demons at the time, and I was in my own head, and I had my reasons. Pretty cryptic, you're not really answering the question. One of Michele's neighbors in her rural community in Robeson County said that Michele had lived there for years and lived a quiet life with a man whom she said was her husband. And there is something to be said for living a quiet life, kind of keeping your head down, if you're on the run.
Speaker 2:
[37:00] I was going to say, you kind of have to do that if you're on the run, if you don't want to be found. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[37:05] Which again, I do not think she did. This was not something she wanted. This person said she only spoke to her neighbor a few times. And when asked why she didn't get out of the house much, she said she kept to herself because her husband recently died and she was alone. A man was seen living with Michele until he passed away in 2024. According to public records, one neighbor told the New York Post that their community wasn't a good place to hide because everyone knows everyone, but they didn't know Michele's past. So again, a couple of hours away, you pick kind of a small town where everybody knows everyone.
Speaker 2:
[37:48] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[37:49] It just didn't seem like the smartest way to go about it if you're trying to stay under the radar, not be found, but yet it worked for like 25 years.
Speaker 2:
[38:01] Seems a little questionable, but like you said, it worked for.
Speaker 3:
[38:05] She didn't steal someone's identity. No, she just went back to using her maiden name. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Michele provided further explanation regarding her mindset at the time of her disappearance. She said, I know that I made the news, but I honestly 100 percent never knew that I was loved or wanted. When I left the mental state I was in, I thought it was my only choice. I was just not in the mental state to stay. My children were not abandoned. They were left with their father to care for them. My main thing is I want everybody to know. I'm in contact with my daughter Amanda. I'm starting with Amanda because she's the one reaching out to me, and she wants to start with her. She's the only one right now I'm in contact with. So I do want to break that down a little bit. I get it. She's saying, her mental state was not good at all. And she is making the argument that her kids weren't abandoned because the father was there.
Speaker 2:
[39:10] Right. They still had another parent.
Speaker 3:
[39:12] But you could make the argument that she abandoned them.
Speaker 2:
[39:15] Yeah, you could.
Speaker 3:
[39:16] Yeah. And now she might not want to admit that, but I'm sure the kids felt that way.
Speaker 2:
[39:23] I'm sure that's probably maybe why the son hasn't reached out yet.
Speaker 3:
[39:28] Probably. Michele also said it broke her heart when she learned how long her daughter and other searched for her. When I found out, it broke me. That's why I'm trying to rebuild something with her, because what she did shows how much I really was loved.
Speaker 2:
[39:43] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[39:44] And okay, maybe she really didn't think that the family, anyone in the family loved her. I don't know. It's just hard to imagine that you'd be shocked to learn that these people were looking for you.
Speaker 2:
[39:58] You know, Michelle was saying, look, I was not in a good spot. Mentally, I was, I needed to leave. That's how bad I was. And so you have to kind of think as her, if she was in such a bad spot mentally, that the only option she had was, I either have to leave here or something really bad is going to happen. That would be worse than her leaving. That's the way I think you kind of have to look at it, because outside of that...
Speaker 3:
[40:28] It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:
[40:29] It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 3:
[40:30] But here's the thing. For me, what doesn't make sense is, okay, you felt like you had to leave. At a certain point, though, do you not have to reach out to your loved ones just to let them know that you're alive?
Speaker 2:
[40:46] Yeah, I think...
Speaker 3:
[40:47] You don't have to tell them where you are.
Speaker 2:
[40:48] No.
Speaker 3:
[40:49] You don't have to come back. You don't even have to have a relationship, but to not even drop a letter in the mail.
Speaker 2:
[40:57] You're exactly right.
Speaker 3:
[40:59] That really blows my mind.
Speaker 2:
[41:01] But they're mine at ease, you know, as best as you can. Yeah. I left. It wasn't because of you, you know, or your brother, but I had to leave.
Speaker 3:
[41:10] I mean, she was with the long-haul trucker. She could have dropped it in the mail.
Speaker 2:
[41:15] Anywhere.
Speaker 3:
[41:15] Ten states away.
Speaker 2:
[41:17] Exactly.
Speaker 3:
[41:17] They would have never known or had any idea where she was. So that part for me is a little tough to understand.
Speaker 2:
[41:24] I get that.
Speaker 3:
[41:26] Michele insisted that she hadn't seen the pictures, billboards, news or other media about her over the years. She was shocked when detectives came to her home saying, if I had any idea, I would have already called them and let them know I was okay. I didn't have to go back if I didn't want to. I could have just let my kids know I was okay. I would have never put them through that. I thought leaving them was better for them.
Speaker 2:
[41:57] I think a lot of people were going to have a hard time with that statement that she didn't know.
Speaker 3:
[42:05] Being only, especially being only a couple hours away. And then later on is, like I said, the proliferation of social media and stuff like that. It's just, it's hard to believe.
Speaker 2:
[42:16] It's like, did you never look up your name to see what was going on? Did you never look up your daughter or your son's name and see some associated articles or something? That's the kind of things, you know, people at home are going to be asking, right? Yeah. You're saying you never knew, really?
Speaker 3:
[42:36] She explained that when she did learn about it, it was hard to watch all the media coverage. And it took her a day just to process everything. When asked about initial reports that she didn't want family to contact her, she said, it wasn't that I didn't want to be contacted. I just didn't want anyone to know where I was until I had been able to talk with everyone.
Speaker 2:
[42:58] That's fair. You know, if you need to, you want to reach out to your daughter, your son, your husband, whoever, right? If you need to do that before they find out, you know, where you're at, you just wanted to get that out of the way and be that person that delivers that news. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[43:19] Michele's brothers told the Daily Mail in a joint statement that they had forgiven her and looked forward to possibly reconnecting, saying, we want Michele to know that we are so glad she's alive. We love her. We're not mad at her. All is forgiven. We would love to be in contact with her, but we understand that she has decided she doesn't want contact as of now. And we respect her wishes. So we talked about, you know, you don't let your kids know that you're alive. We now know she had a couple of brothers, or has a couple of brothers, didn't drop them a line, didn't call them. Now, again, it could go back to the overall mental state, because I think that's what she said. It definitely can't be just all around the relationship with her husband. Because her brothers didn't have anything to do with that. The kids, they probably didn't really have anything to do with that. So now, did that relationship put her in such a bad mental state that she just didn't want to talk to him? Maybe. I don't know. It's hard for me, but I can't say it didn't happen, because I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[44:33] And, you know, 2001 versus today, I mean, 25 years later, mental illness has made a lot of changes.
Speaker 3:
[44:43] Well, yeah, we know a lot more about mental health than we did 25 years ago. Michele's son, Randall Smith, who was only eight when she disappeared, told the Daily Mail, she's nothing more than a stranger to me now. I'm not angry with her, because that's a wasted emotion. But I really don't have any emotions. But I don't wish her any ill. So he's basically saying, I'm not mad at her, I just don't feel anything towards her.
Speaker 2:
[45:12] Basically, I don't care about it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[45:15] But I'm not mad at her.
Speaker 2:
[45:16] Well, that's his right. I mean, he had to deal with what happened for all that time, and he chose whatever path he wanted to move forward. And that's where he's going to stay. That's some reason one day he wakes up and says, you know what? Maybe I want to talk to her.
Speaker 3:
[45:34] Yeah, and he might. He might. But you can't blame him.
Speaker 2:
[45:38] No.
Speaker 3:
[45:40] I don't blame any of the people in the family for whatever emotions they have.
Speaker 2:
[45:47] Yeah, I mean, you... Michele causes those emotions on her kids. She did.
Speaker 3:
[45:54] Randall, a happily married father of two, also said that his life turned out good, and he learned to be self-sufficient. Perhaps, their lives would have been more normal if Michele stayed, but he was overall happy with how his life turned out. So he's got a lot of positivity.
Speaker 2:
[46:11] Sure does.
Speaker 3:
[46:13] At least around that. When asked if he wanted to contact Michele, he said, no, not really. She's been gone this long, and for someone to meet my children is a privilege. In my eyes, that's not one she deserves.
Speaker 2:
[46:30] I think she's going to have to warm herself back into his life first before she can get into her grandkids life.
Speaker 3:
[46:40] Yeah, I think it could be a long road. Because let's face it, 25 years is a long time.
Speaker 2:
[46:47] It is. And that road might not ever open.
Speaker 3:
[46:51] No. That pain may never go away. Randall responded to the allegations of domestic abuse in the home and insisted his father did not abuse Michele. He was a good father. And other than Michele's drinking, they had a normal childhood. While they did argue about Michele's drinking, it was because her husband wanted her to get help. Randall said she would just blow up, get angry. The threat of not being able to drink was too scary for her. And I could understand that for many people who have an issue with alcohol. No, I've never had. I used to drink. I don't even drink anymore. But even when I drank, I didn't need to drink. And I don't know what that would be like. If you just couldn't go a day, an hour, however long without needing to have a drink. I mean, that's an addiction that can really take hold of some people.
Speaker 2:
[47:55] It really can. No, I mean, it's one of those ones that it's very hard, from what I understand, very hard to let go of, very hard to shake. I mean, that's why they have, you know, meeting places everywhere, right? Support groups. And you hear people about, you know, they get their chip after so many months, years. But then you also hear about how they lost that chip because it just took some stressful event and then to their life to change that again.
Speaker 3:
[48:26] And then had to work to start kind of all over.
Speaker 2:
[48:28] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[48:29] Randall believes in Michele's drinking and the fear of losing her license played a large part in her leaving. He said that months after she left, they found gallon bottles of alcohol hidden under an old building on the property.
Speaker 2:
[48:44] Yeah. That's a severe problem.
Speaker 3:
[48:47] Yeah. Somebody who has a serious problem with alcohol. He said her departure was planned because she packed jewelry. Jewelry? I have a hard time saying jewelry.
Speaker 2:
[48:55] Jewelry.
Speaker 3:
[48:56] And clothes weeks before she left. He said, I can't say it was a shock at first because she had done it before. It was just something in her nature to run. He also said that after Michele left for the last time, the family discovered that she had allegedly not paid the bills, including the payments for her husband's 18-wheeler truck.
Speaker 2:
[49:18] Oh, so not paying that, kind of leaving him maybe stranded. That's his way he makes his money. That's not good. And if he's going to have to take care of these kids.
Speaker 3:
[49:29] And I just wonder if maybe she was setting aside a nest egg because she knew she was getting ready to leave. When they found the late notices, he could only afford to pay the household bills and had to send his truck back.
Speaker 2:
[49:42] That's rough.
Speaker 3:
[49:43] Very rough if that's how you make your living. The Daily Mail reported additional details about Michele's life during the years she was missing. She met her partner, Randy Johnson, in Texarkana and lived with him on the road. They returned to North Carolina where Randy died in November 2024. Michele said that Randy Johnson was someone who found me when I needed help. I traveled for years, we got together, and he kind of built me back up, made me feel like I was worth something. Randy never pressed her for details about her past, but eventually she said, I just told him what I went through. On March 26, 2026, Michele reunited with her daughter, Amanda, outside the Rockingham County Courthouse, where Michele appeared for her arraignment. Amanda told WXII outside the courthouse, oh, I know everything is not black and white. There's a whole gray area. Life's too short for me to hold a grudge against her because she's my mom. We only get one life, and I want my mom in it.
Speaker 2:
[50:48] What a great attitude.
Speaker 3:
[50:49] It is. I don't know that everybody can do it, and I'm not sure that her brother can do it. Because we haven't heard a lot about him other than to say he really doesn't feel too many emotions about his mom at all.
Speaker 2:
[51:07] That's just right, and maybe that's the direction he's going to go with it, and that's what will bring him peace. Meanwhile, if Michele's daughter wants to have that relationship with her and she is willing to do it, and looking past it because she just really wants to have a mom in her life again, I think it's going to not be easy, but hopefully for them, it works out.
Speaker 3:
[51:31] Yeah. Michele's next court date is set for April 23rd of this year, which will be about a week after this episode comes out.
Speaker 2:
[51:39] Not too long away.
Speaker 3:
[51:41] Yeah, I guess as we wrap this one up, Gibbs is definitely a different type of episode for us. There's no murder. Nobody gets killed.
Speaker 2:
[51:49] No.
Speaker 3:
[51:50] Is it even really a crime? Now, she had some criminal stuff going on that she still has to work on, so there is crime involved. But the leaving, unless they charge her with some things like abandonment or something like that, as an adult, even as a mother, you technically, I think, can just pick up and leave.
Speaker 2:
[52:18] We could have did this case, like you said, last year, and talked about how this mom of two went missing and has not yet been found, 20 some years later, still missing.
Speaker 3:
[52:32] And I can tell you, I know what my thoughts would have been if we had done that.
Speaker 2:
[52:39] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[52:40] And it would have been that she met with foul play.
Speaker 2:
[52:42] Yeah, very, very possible.
Speaker 3:
[52:45] Because in my mind, I'm thinking, what mother just up and leaves her kids and doesn't even drop them a line or some way to communicate to them that she stole a lot.
Speaker 2:
[52:59] And how many times have we said that, where the mom goes missing, has young kids at home, and we say, no way she would ever do that. She loved her kids. Well, here's the time where it did happen.
Speaker 3:
[53:15] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[53:15] And so then you think, okay, all those cases is one of those potentially where the mom actually did just pick up and go because she had she mentally or whatever the issue was, could no longer be there.
Speaker 3:
[53:29] Yeah, I mean, it could be. I still think that by and large, most of the time, these people are not leaving voluntarily.
Speaker 2:
[53:39] Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:
[53:40] I still believe that, but there's always going to be outliers. And this is one of them. So it's still right now a little unclear why Michele just kind of up and left her life behind. And there's still a lot more to come, right? It remains to be seen how much she and her family want to reveal to the media in the coming months. Like I said, she's got a court date next month. I think this is one of those cases where there's still some things to come out down the road. Maybe she'll give a little more clarity on why she left. You know, as of right now, she just has kind of said, she just wasn't in the mental state to be there. She had to get away.
Speaker 2:
[54:31] Maybe that won't come out to her daughter. It could be. You know, because it's so private that, hey, no matter what I say out on the media, I'm not going to be portrayed good. So, you know, let's keep this between me and you and let's move our life forward.
Speaker 3:
[54:46] Yeah, I could see some things coming out, some truths that there's really no reason to tell everybody.
Speaker 2:
[54:53] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[54:54] I mean, she doesn't owe anything to the public.
Speaker 2:
[54:58] No, not at all.
Speaker 3:
[54:59] Now, you could make the argument, and I would, that she owes it to her kids.
Speaker 2:
[55:04] For sure.
Speaker 3:
[55:05] Because she did really put them through what to me is an unnecessary hell. Thinking your mom either A abandoned you, right? Which is what turned out to be true, or thinking that your mom is dead.
Speaker 2:
[55:25] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[55:25] And was abducted and or killed by someone. Neither of those scenarios is conducive to a good childhood.
Speaker 2:
[55:35] No, you're right.
Speaker 3:
[55:37] Now, I hope that both of these kids are not kids anymore. They're grown. I hope they're all doing great, but that it has to affect you, something like that. And now it has to affect you in a different way. Once you learn that, you know, number one, your mom's alive. And then number two, she really did just up and leave.
Speaker 2:
[56:01] Yeah. It was her choice. She made that choice. Now she has to live with the outcome of it.
Speaker 3:
[56:09] And maybe they can smooth everything out and she can get to meet her grandkids and life will go on.
Speaker 2:
[56:18] I hope so for everybody.
Speaker 3:
[56:19] Yeah, I do too. But that's it for our episode on Michele Hundley and another episode of True Crime All The Time. You got anything?
Speaker 2:
[56:29] Nope. All right.
Speaker 3:
[56:30] So for Mike, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.