WENTWORTH, N.C. — Reunited — at last.
The North Carolina mom who disappeared for 24 years came face-to-face with her daughter in an emotional, caught-on-camera moment decades in the making.
Michele Lyn Hundley Smith tearfully hugged her daughter, Amanda, outside the Rockingham County Courthouse on Thursday morning.
“Where is she?” Smith asked reporters just moments before laying eyes on her daughter.
The mom, now 62, bizarrely resurfaced late last month after local authorities managed to track her down on a decades-old DWI warrant.
Her forgiving daughter showed up at court to support her mother as she answered to the charge.
The twisted saga dates back to 2001 when Smith suddenly disappeared without a trace — abandoning her kids, ages 19, 14, and 8, just before Christmas, after she was slapped with the DWI charge.
Her disappearance, which was described as “troubling” at the time, sparked a multi-agency search for the missing mom.
Missing person flyers noted she should be considered “endangered” and “would not leave her kids by choice.”
Authorities ultimately tracked down living a secret new life, some three hours away, on Feb. 20 after a tip-off about her whereabouts.
The mother-daughter duo made contact in the weeks after she resurfaced, but hadn’t seen each other in person until Thursday.
“We’ve talked a few times and texted. Nothing too personal cause it was over the phone, but she knew I was coming today,” Amanda said shortly before being reunited with her mom.
She insisted she had forgiven her wayward parent – despite spending much of her life trying to locate her.
“Life’s so short … I’m not going to hold any grudge. Stuff happens,” Amanda said.
