A woman who was declared dead in the United States after she went missing for more than three decades has been found alive in Puerto Rico. Patricia Kopta, then 52, disappeared suddenly in 1992 from Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, US after her husband came home and she was nowhere to be seen.
The unsolved case went cold and police eventually declared her dead, the Mirror reports. However, the elderly woman, who suffers with dementia, has now been found alive in Puerto Rico aged 83 after she lent her real identity and background slip to a social worker.
Patricia's sister Gloria Smith said “I don’t believe it. It was a total shock. We really thought she was dead all those years.
"We didn’t expect it. It was a very big shock to know that she was alive.” Patricia had entered a care home in 1999 after telling staff she'd come to Puerto Rico from Europe on a cruise ship, Police Chief Brian Kohlhepp told CBS Pittsburgh.
He said Patricia had been found wandering the streets alone before going into the home but she refused to discuss her private life. However, a suspicious worker contacted Interpol when she recently began to give away some details of her past.
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After nine months of an Interpol investigation and studying DNA samples, Patricia's real identity was revealed. Her husband Bob says he had always suspected that Patricia, who had been a street preacher in Pittsburgh, had gone to Puerto Rico as she had been struggling with her mental health and had always spoken of going there for the heat.
He told a news conference: “I come home one night, and she’s just gone, and nobody knows where she’s at. It’s been going on almost 31 years it’s been bad.
"It cost me a lot of money, I even put advertisements down in the paper in Puerto Rico looking for her.” Patricia's sister Gloria said she is 'so happy' to learn that her sister is alive and is looking forward to visiting her in Puerto Rico after what had been a difficult time for the family.
She said: “It was hard on all of us because my mother, her [other] sister and myself worried about her constantly. We’re so happy and I hope I can get down to see her.”
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