A Pennsylvania lady who vanished over 30 years ago has been located residing in a nursing facility in Puerto Rico. Her disappearance first baffled officials, who eventually proclaimed her legally dead.
Last week in Ross Township, where Patricia Kopta had lived, it was disclosed at a press conference that in 1999, she had left behind a husband and siblings and wandered across northern Puerto Rico before being transported as a person “in need” to the adult care facility.
For a while in Puerto Rico, Kopta hid the fact that she had been a street preacher in her own town. Deputy Chief Brian Kohlhepp of the Ross Township Police Department stated that as the woman’s dementia worsened, she began to open up.
The social worker at the facility had enough information on the 83-year-old woman by last year to notify authorities in her own country. Kohlhepp said that the results of the DNA test proved her to be who she claimed she was.
Bob Kopta, her husband, and Gloria Smith, her 78-year-old surviving sister, spoke at a news conference and over the phone with The Associated Press on Friday, filling in information about Kopta’s life.
Patricia Kopta, known as “The Sparrow” because to her little stature, would regularly stand in parking lots and on busy roads in the mostly residential neighbourhood of around 31,000 people north of Pittsburgh and warn people about the impending end of the world.
Kopta used to be an honour roll student who excelled as a model and dance teacher before she ever stepped foot in a pulpit. Her loved ones say that when she finished high school she worked as a financial analyst for a Pittsburgh plate glass firm and went to ballroom dance events on a weekly basis.
Smith recounted that before she was married, she and her friends regularly travelled to Puerto Rico for vacation.
“She really liked the water, the beach, and the nice weather,” Smith told the AP.
According to Smith, her sister left her work at the glass industry after 10 years because of migraines that physicians attributed to stress. She then secured employment with The Art Institute of Pittsburgh as an elevator operator.
When her loved ones saw this shift in her behaviour, they knew something was wrong.
According to Smith’s recollection, the woman mentioned an angel.
The next year, Kopta began preaching, and physicians diagnosed her with “delusions of grandeur” and stated she was showing indications of schizophrenia. After being set free, she continued her preaching until her disappearance in 1992.
“I come home one night, and she’s just gone,” Bob Kopta told the Associated Press.
They celebrated 20 years of marriage.
Kopta, now 86 years old, claimed that they first met along a river in Pittsburgh, where he kept a boat. The man fell in love with the woman he picked up with her companions. These couple tied the knot in 1972.
Both police and family members were at a loss to explain the disappearance. The police even consulted a psychic, while Kopta remembered his wife wishing they could vacation in Puerto Rico because of the pleasant climate there. He then took to advertising in Puerto Rican publications, only to be met with silence.
There was no trace of her for many years. Around seven years after she vanished, he had a death certificate issued in her honour.
“I went through a lot,” said former truck driver Bob Kopta. When a body was discovered, I always thought, “Is it Patricia? Is that Patricia?'”
Around the same time, Patricia Kopta was most likely sight-seeing in Naranjito, Corozal, and Toa Alta, three small villages in the island’s north that are located about sixty miles southwest of San Juan. According to Kohlhepp, the woman had suggested she had come to Puerto Rico from Europe via cruise ship when she was originally taken in at the adult home.
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