{"id":559434,"date":"2023-03-04T14:08:36","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T11:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/woman-reported-missing-31-years-ago-found-in-puerto-rico\/"},"modified":"2023-03-04T14:08:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T11:08:36","slug":"woman-reported-missing-31-years-ago-found-in-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/woman-reported-missing-31-years-ago-found-in-puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"#Woman reported missing 31 years ago found in Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a373c642c368\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a373c642c368\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/woman-reported-missing-31-years-ago-found-in-puerto-rico\/#Woman_reported_missing_31_years_ago_found_in_Puerto_Rico\" >Woman reported missing 31 years ago found in Puerto Rico<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Woman_reported_missing_31_years_ago_found_in_Puerto_Rico\"><\/span>Woman reported missing 31 years ago found in Puerto Rico<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) \u2014 A Pennsylvania woman who went missing more than 30 years ago in a case that stumped authorities who later declared her legally dead has been found living in a nursing home in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>Patricia Kopta left behind a husband and siblings and meandered through northern Puerto Rico for a while before she was taken as a person \u201cin need\u201d to the adult care home in 1999, according to details announced at a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> conference this week in Ross Township, where she once lived.<\/p>\n<p>Kopta, once known as a street preacher in her home town, initially kept her past secret while in Puerto Rico. But she began to divulge details as she suffered progressively from dementia, Ross Township Deputy Police Chief Brian Kohlhepp said.<\/p>\n<p>By last year, a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> worker at the home had enough information to alert authorities back home about the now-83-year-old woman. A DNA test has confirmed her identity, Kohlhepp said.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband, Bob Kopta, and her surviving sister, 78-year-old Gloria Smith. filled in details of Kopta\u2019s life at the news conference and in telephone interviews Friday with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p>Patricia Kopta had been nicknamed \u201cThe Sparrow\u201d because of her slight build, and often frequented parking lots and busy roads in the largely residential community of about 31,000 north of Pittsburgh, where she would caution passersby and motorists about the end of the world.<\/p>\n<p>But before she began preaching, Kopta was a straight-A student who became a model and dance instructor. After graduating high school, she worked in finance at a Pittsburgh plate glass company and would attend ballroom dancing events weekly, according to her family.<\/p>\n<p>She would vacation often in Puerto Rico with her friends before she got married, Smith recalled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe just loved the ocean, the beach, the warm sunshine,\u201d Smith told the AP.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said her sister quit her job at the glass company after 10 years because of migraines that doctors blamed on stress. She then got a job as an elevator operator at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when family members noticed a change in her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe said something about seeing an angel there,\u201d Smith recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly afterward, Kopta began preaching and was briefly institutionalized after doctors diagnosed her with \u201cdelusions of grandeur\u201d and said she had signs of schizophrenia. Upon her release, she kept preaching until she vanished in 1992.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI come home one night, and she\u2019s just gone,\u201d Bob Kopta told the AP.<\/p>\n<p>They had been married for 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Kopta, now 86, recalled how they met near a river in Pittsburgh where he had a boat. He gave her and her friends a ride and fell in love. In 1972, they married.<\/p>\n<p>The dis<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>earance stumped authorities and family alike. Police went as far as to consult a psychic, while Kopta recalled his wife once mentioned she would like to go to Puerto Rico because of its balmy weather. So he published ads in Puerto Rican newspapers, but never got a response.<\/p>\n<p>Years went by with no sign of her. He obtained a death declaration about seven years after her disappearance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went through a lot,\u201d said Bob Kopta, a retired truck driver. \u201cEvery time they\u2019d find a body somewhere (I wondered), \u2018Is it Patricia? Is it Patricia?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Patricia Kopta apparently was wandering the island\u2019s northern towns of Naranjito, Corozal and Toa Alta, located just southwest of the capital of San Juan. When she first was taken in at the adult home, she had hinted that she had arrived in Puerto Rico via a cruise ship from Europe, Kohlhepp said.<\/p>\n<p>After a social worker contacted police in Pennsylvania, it took almost a year for DNA samples to confirm that the woman was indeed Patricia Kopta.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a sad thing, but it\u2019s a relief off my mind,\u201d her husband said. \u201cWhen your wife goes missing, you\u2019re a suspect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bob Kopta, who did not remarry, said he doesn\u2019t plan to visit, and that he\u2019s now trying to forget the past, though he\u2019s glad to know she\u2019s being taken care of.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, on the other hand, wants to go to the island to see her older sister. She says she\u2019s been unable to speak to the elder sibling on the phone because she cannot hold a conversation given her dementia. A twin sister of Patricia Kopta died without knowing her fellow twin was still alive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether she knows me or not, I still want to see her and give her a hug and tell her I love her,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI thought maybe she had died.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___ AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/news\/woman-reported-missing-31-years-110836226.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Woman reported missing 31 years ago found in Puerto Rico SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) \u2014 A Pennsylvania woman who went missing more than 30 years ago in a case that stumped authorities who later declared her legally dead has been found living in a nursing home in Puerto Rico. Patricia Kopta left behind a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":559435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/_rLeISICLrbDCo0b7mtMag--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD02NzU-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/hd\/cp-video-transcode\/production\/72257b60-54d9-309f-9cbc-2c0453aea0a3\/2023-03-02\/23-49-08\/361105d0-3f35-590d-b17d-453134b9d59e\/stream_1920x1080x0_v2_3_0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}