Patricia Kopta, now 83, was living in Pittsburgh with her husband when she disappeared in 1992. She was found in a nursing home.
By Maeliss Innocenti for Le Point
© CNN Screenshot
Published on
Subscriber-only audio playback
AT In the summer of 1992, Patricia Kopta, then aged 52, disappeared without saying a word, leaving her husband and sisters in complete limbo. She was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the time. The police never found her and Bob, her husband, declared her legally dead after several years of fruitless searches.
But Patricia, who preached in the street and predicted the end of the world before disappearing, is very much alive. She was found in a Puerto Rico nursing home, CNN and Sky News report. Her husband had gone looking for her, and had even criss-crossed Puerto Rico since she loved the sun and said she wanted to go and live there. So he looked for him there without ever finding his trace.
Patricia Kopta, who suffers from dementia, was admitted to this retirement home in June 1999, seven years after her disappearance. No one had ever managed to identify her until then since she refused to talk about her past with the orderlies.
A gap of seven years in his life
According to the local newspaper Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Friday, March 3, she allegedly told doctors that she had spent time on a cruise ship and was arriving from Europe. Information that the authorities have not been able to confirm. Between the moment of her disappearance and the day she was taken into care in this establishment, seven years passed during which no one knows what she may have done or experienced. Police only said in a statement that she was seen wandering around the towns of Naranjito, Corozal and Toa Alta before being placed.
READ ALSOThe beautiful story of a love letter found 72 years laterOver the years, Patricia’s mental health deteriorated and, in her delirium, she let loose bits of information about her past, allowing the supervising staff to piece together the puzzle little by little. DNA tests confirmed his identity. Her husband and last sister – her twin died six years ago – hoped to bring her home to Pittsburgh. But in a rare moment of lucidity, Patricia indicated that she wanted to stay where she was.
READ ALSOGermany’s oldest overboard bottle found