“The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office extends its sincere gratitude to the many agencies and investigators who dedicated substantial time, resources, and unwavering determination to this case over the years,” the police statement added.
“Their persistence and commitment ultimately led to the locating of Michelle Hundley Smith and is a testament to the dedication of the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office and the Criminal Investigations Division, and the many other Law Enforcement agencies that have assisted throughout the years,” the statement concluded.
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A Facebook page about Smith’s case, run by her daughter, Amanda Smith, thanked “everyone for their support” but said that “the personal details are not going to be dived into right now.”
“I will say that my mother chose her new life, and we know she is alive, and for now that is enough. I can’t really think straight right now to make a heartfelt post but again,” Amanda wrote, adding that she plans to rename the Facebook page now that her mother has been located. Instead, Amanda will focus her efforts on highlighting other unsolved missing person’s cases.
“He believes she just took off and left him, and us, that night,” Amanda told NBC News in 2020 of her father’s theory regarding her mother’s disappearance. “And I guess that’s possible. It’s hard to rule out that she just left all of us and started a new life. But there’s also something that nags at me, that something happened to her on her way back home.”
