1 of 1 Kopta before disappearing (left) and after being found (right) — Photo: Ross Township Police Kopta before disappearing (left) and after being found (right) — Photo: Ross Township Police
A Pennsylvania woman who disappeared more than 31 years ago in a case that baffled authorities, who later pronounced her legally dead, has been found in a Puerto Rico nursing home.
Patricia Kopta left her husband and siblings and wandered around northern Puerto Rico for a while before being placed in a nursing home in 1999 as a “needy” person, Ross Township police revealed at a news conference.
Known as a street preacher in her hometown, Kopta initially kept her past in Puerto Rico a secret. However, because she suffers from dementia, the American began to reveal personal details.
In 2022, a social worker at the shelter had enough information to alert her country’s authorities to the now 83yearold woman. A DNA test confirmed his identity, Ross Township Deputy Police Chief Brian Kohlhepp said Thursday.
Her husband Bob Kopta and sister Gloria Smith, 78, provided details of Kopta’s life at the news conference and in telephone interviews with the Associated Press on Friday.
Patricia Kopta was nicknamed “The Sparrow” because of her slim build. Before he disappeared, the American was in parking lots and busy streets in the residential community north of Pittsburgh, which has around 31,000 inhabitants, and warned passersby and drivers of the end of the world.
But before she started preaching, Kopta was an excellent student who became a model and a dance teacher. After high school, she worked in finance for a glass company in Pittsburgh and attended weekly ballroom dancing.
Before her marriage, she vacationed with her friends in Puerto Rico. “He loved the sea, the beach, the warm sun,” Smith told the AP.
Smith added that her sister quit her job at the glass company after 10 years because of migraines that doctors blamed on stress. Kopta then took a job as an elevator operator at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
Then his relatives noticed a change. “She said she saw an angel there,” Smith said.
Soon after, Kopta began preaching and was briefly committed to an institution after doctors diagnosed her with “megalomania” and found she had signs of schizophrenia. After her release, she continued to preach until she disappeared in 1992.
“I came home one night and she had just left,” said Bob Kopta.
The disappearance left the authorities and family perplexed, and the police even consulted a media outlet. Kopta’s husband later recalled that his wife had once mentioned that she would like to go to Puerto Rico because of the mild climate, so she placed advertisements in Puerto Rican newspapers but never got a response.
Years passed without a trace of her. Kopta received a death certificate about seven years after his wife’s disappearance.
“I’ve been through a lot,” said Bob Kopta, a retired truck driver. “Every time they found a body somewhere [eu me perguntava]: “Is it Patricia? Is it Patricia?’”