A Pennsylvania “street preacher” who mysteriously disappeared greater than thirty years ago has been found alive in a Puerto Rico nursing home, authorities and her family said Friday.
“I don’t imagine that. It was a complete shock.” – Patricia Kopta’s sister, Gloria Smith, told ABC 7. “We actually thought he was dead all these years.”
Kopta suddenly disappeared from the streets of Pittsburgh in 1992 on the age of 52 – confusing her husband, siblings and law enforcement, who eventually declared her dead.
She eventually checked herself into an adult care center in 1999, initially telling staff she had flown to Puerto Rico on a cruise ship from Europe, Ross Township Police Deputy Chief Brian Kohlhepp told CBS Pittsburgh.
But when she began to suffer from dementia, some details of her life escaped the social employee, who contacted an Interpol official.
This officer contacted Kohlhepp, and the identity of the missing girl was later confirmed by a DNA sample. Months later, the police notified her husband, Bob, that his long-lost wife had been found nearly 2,000 miles away.
![Side by side Patricia Kopta as a young woman and an older woman](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000007604187.jpg?w=1024)
“I come home one night and he or she’s just gone and nobody knows where she is.” – Bob he said during a police press conference Thursday.
“It has been occurring for almost 31 years now and it’s bad. It cost me quite a lot of money. I even placed an ad in a Puerto Rican newspaper looking for her.”
He said Smith, who’s now 83, was battling mental health issues when she disappeared – and sometimes spoke of going to Puerto Rico where it’s warm.
He said she was a neighborhood street preacher nicknamed Patty and referred to as “The Sparrow” who often hung around the town outside.
![Patricia Kopta](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000007604186.jpg?w=1024)
Smith said the past 31 years have been painful for her family.
“It was hard for all of us because my mother, she [other] My sister and I were continually frightened about her,” she said.
But she said she hoped to pay her aging sister a visit in the south.
“We’re very completely satisfied and I hope I get to see her,” she said.