A mother-of-three who went missing more than two decades ago has been found 'alive and well', police have announced.
Michele Hundley Smith disappeared after heading out to do some Christmas shopping in Martinsville, Virginia, in December 2001 - leaving her family fearing the worst.
Her vanishing act sparked an 'extensive investigation' spanning 24 years, and officials have now located her, but she does not want to disclose her current whereabouts.
Smith was 38 years old when she went missing on 9 December, 2001, after leaving her home in Eden, North Carolina, to go to a K-Mart department store in Martinsville.
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She never returned, prompting her panicked husband to report her missing a few weeks later.
Detectives in both Virginia and North Carolina stayed on the case for over two decades, while multiple agencies including the FBI also looked into Smith's disappearance.
Her family members - including her children who were aged 19, 14 and seven when she went missing - also continued to search for her.
Earlier this month, investigators 'received new information' about her disappearance and managed to make contact with Smith, who is now 62, the following day.
The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office then announced that she had been tracked down to an 'undisclosed location within North Carolina'.
Authorities said she was 'alive and well' in a statement on 20 February, which added: "At her request, her current whereabouts will remain undisclosed."
Her loved ones have been left with a host of unanswered questions, with her cousin Barbara Byrd telling WFMYNews 2: "I kind of want to go outside and scream, 'She’s alive, she’s alive!' My biggest question is to her...What happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?'
"I understand and respect that she doesn’t want any of us to contact her. I’m not angry. The biggest answer I had today was she was alive. Nothing else matters right at this moment."
Smith's daughter, Amanda, also detailed the myriad of emotions she was feeling about her missing mother being found in a Facebook post.
It read in part: "I am ecstatic, I am pissed, 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."
In 2020, Amanda told Dateline how Smith's disappearance had impacted her life.
"I’ll never forget that first Christmas without her," she said, as per NBC. "We didn’t even care about presents or anything - our mom was gone. Nothing was ever the same after that.
"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.
"It wasn’t unusual for her to go shopping in the evenings. And she often went to Martinsville to shop. We expected her back within a couple of hours. But she never came home."
Amanda said the following years of her life were something of a 'blur', adding: "Detectives would be in and out of our lives, asking questions, working off whatever tips they got. But nothing ever led to my mom."
She also explained how her father, who went on to remarry, believed that Smith had 'just took off and left him, and us, that night'.
"And I guess that’s possible," Amanda added. "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."
A Facebook page set up to aid the search for Smith, titled Bring Michele Hundley Smith Home, explained that she had been driving her forest green 1995 Pontiac Trans Sport van when she vanished.
It states that she 'would have never left her children by choice' and how her family were left frantically searching for leads.
The page said: "We are desperate for answers and we are asking for community support and assistance in trying to find the truth on what happened to Michele and why she mysteriously vanished never to be seen again."
According to reports, the online group will now be used to help the search for other missing people.
Olivia Burke