Patricia Kopta, Missing for 30 Years, Found in Puerto Rico Nursing Home
The mystery of Patricia Kopta’s disappearance has been solved after more than 30 years. Kopta, once known as a street preacher in her hometown in Ross Township, Pennsylvania, was found alive in a nursing home in Puerto Rico.
Kopta, now 83, was taken as a person “in need” to the adult care home in 1999, according to details announced at a news conference this week in Ross Township. Initially, Kopta kept her past secret while in Puerto Rico, but she began to divulge details as she suffered progressively from dementia. By last year, a social worker at the home had enough information to alert authorities back home about the woman. A DNA test has confirmed her identity.
Kopta, nicknamed “The Sparrow” due to her slight build, 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 attended ballroom dancing events weekly, according to her family.
She would vacation often in Puerto Rico with her friends before she got married. However, her husband, Bob Kopta, and her surviving sister, Gloria Smith, noticed a change in her after she quit her job at the glass company and got a job as an elevator operator. It was around this time that she began preaching.
Kopta was briefly institutionalized after doctors diagnosed her with “delusions of grandeur” and said she had signs of schizophrenia. Upon her release, she kept preaching until she vanished in 1992.
For years, Kopta’s disappearance stumped authorities and family alike. But it was eventually revealed that she had been wandering the island’s northern towns before being taken in at the adult home.
Bob 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.
Bob Kopta, a retired truck driver, obtained a death declaration about seven years after his wife’s disappearance.
The family is now relieved to have closure after 30 years of not knowing what happened to Kopta. Bob Kopta said he doesn’t plan to visit her in Puerto Rico, but Gloria Smith wants to go and give her a hug and tell her she loves her.
