Medical Conditions According to her husband, Kopta has paranoid schizophrenia. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. There are nearly 90,000 missing persons in the U.S. alone, at any given time. Brian David Mitchell, who had gone by "Emmanuel" to the Smart family, abducted Smart while she slept in bed next to her younger sister, Mary Katherine, who pretended to sleep so that the intruder would not harm them. The Secret War in Afghanistan. Years later in 2011, her mother confessed over drinks she had kidnapped her daughter, and her friends looked it up and contacted her real father and the authorities in the United States. "She's being well taken care of. Although many of these missing persons are often found alive, individuals who remain missing for longer periods of time often have a higher chance of foul play being involved. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images. Gloria Smith, Patricia's sister, said, "I don't believe it. After a custody battle, Benjamin Harris Todd won custody of his daughter, Savanna Todd, when he claimed his wife was bi-polar and abusive. Missing persons cases that ended in tragedy and remain unsolved to this day include the disappearance and suspected homicide of; Hannah Truelove, Kurt Sova, and Adam Walsh. Lists of fascinating and bizarre real cases that continue to stump detectives and amateur sleuths. Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were thought to be dead after being kidnapped by sex fiend Ariel Castro and held at his Ohio home for up to 11 years. Though the woman refused to share her personal life with anyone - years later, suffering from dementia, she started to divulge details. In 2011, after 18 years, she was found living two states down in Southern California with a totally new family. He is thrilled to tell your stories in his hometown! I googled him every couple of months to see if hes ever surface and apparently hes in Tampa now living in a state funded apartment in not-the-best-place but thank god hes housed and okay. Statistics for those missing persons who are never found are not easily accessible, most likely because the number is relative to ongoing investigations as well as how long the individual has been missing for. . She was kidnapped by Phillip Garrido. That's because his story became famous only after it was fictionalized and he was rebranded "Robinson Crusoe." According to Smithsonian, Selkirk was really only sort-of missing. Mar 2, 2023. It probably would have bankrupted them if they could even have navigated the system that far. 9 Weird Mormon Rules & Beliefs That Make Them Different from Other Communities, 8 Most Notable Cases Of Harlequin Baby That Will Give You Goosebumps, 10 Facts About Tree Octopus That Will Soon Disappear, 20 Bizarre Publicity Stunts by Brands to Attract Potential Customers, 10 Strangest Stars in the Universe That Have Bizarre Properties, 10 Strange Jobs That Might Pay You More Than Your Current Earnings. Alexander Selkirk is one of history's most famous missing persons, but there's a good chance you don't recognize his name. When he got up at 6am she had disappeared. The gentleman behind us, you're looking at, that is Robert McDonough.'. He left at 31 and she at 18. Whenever someone goes missing, its a tragic and terrifying event. She was repeatedly raped and told several lies. Eventually, in 2013, the young women were found and rescued from his grasp. The two contacted the authorities, and then the investigation was done. One day, when Nguyen Thi Van was 16 years old, she came home late. Patterson's guilty plea spares Jayme from having to testify. While none of that worked, she was right where he thought she might be. https://www.wtae.com/article/ross-township-missing-person-case/43164930#. It was in 1984 when a student name Petra Pazsitka was found missing. A little over three months later, authorities tracked down Berchtold. Her sister stated Kopta was often mistreated by the strangers she approached. I think thatd be a good way to find out, but maybe not all fingerprints are on a database? Steven Stayner, a second grader in 1972, was walking home from school one day and completely vanished. A woman first reported missing from Ross Township decades ago has been found alive and well in Puerto Rico. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Her aunt, Sue Allard, told reporters she had expected any news about her niece to be the worst: "I just cannot believe this." Steven Stayner, while walking home from school, went missing. The persons loved ones go through a tremendous amount of anxiety and fear, wondering what happened. The number of missing individuals in the year was 5,620. Went Missing: August 1971; Status: Found Alive; Melissa Highsmith, now 53, was allegedly abducted when she was just 22 months old by a woman who answered her family's newspaper ad seeking a babysitter. When the skis and ski-poles of student Steven Kubacki were found in the snow near Lake Michigan, in February 1978, it was assumed he had drowned in the freezing water. Only 14 years old, Smart was taken from her home for 9 months. And most cases will remain cold, as people disappear into different lives, some filled with unimaginable terrors. List25 is a registered trademark. Berchtold said he was to be the father. After texting the following morning that she was getting back on the road, communication suddenly stopped. Man. Paula Jean Welden disappeared in the "Bennington Triangle" in 1946. She told others she would die a martyr on the streets when she was too tired to walk any longer. Though he never found his wife, she ended up being right where he thought. She joined the search party of fifty people all trying to find her. We believe the more resources we can provide to digital volunteers and citizen solvers mean more citizen detective communities. They were finally reunited with their families in 2013 after Berry managed to scream for help through the front door and alert a neighbour. It cost me a lot of money. Except, she wasnt really dead. She had been gone for 21 years before she eventually escaped back to Vietnam thanks to the help of a truck driver. Ross Township Deputy Police Chief Brian Kohlhepp said an Interpol agent and a social worker from Puerto Rico contacted. She's now 83 years old. / CBS Pittsburgh. Lucky are those who went missing and then came back alive. Or how her life wouldve turned out if her symptoms were tended to early on. Sellars' boyfriend, Jonothan Vick, had long been a suspect in an unsolved 1995 rape and murder. Lucy tried to take her kids, but he wouldnt let her, so she left and started the new phase of her life. When he heard a woman found out she was snatched as a baby, he did some digging of his own to see if the same happened to him. Its unknown how she ended up with Gault. Further investigations revealed Hood, who suffered from mental illness all her life, was alive and living with a new family in Florida. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Sometimes timing is everything, the reporter said to camera. If they are delusional, guarded or lost cognitive or language abilities (stroke or other traumas) to recall details of their pasts, they effectively become ghosts. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He was gone for 23 years before an investigator found him through a Medicare record. Upon investigation, police found this matter as a murder case. You can only imagine! Amberly Ann Mendoza, killed in 1996. Investigators say she has been living in an adult care home in Puerto Rico. Castro repeatedly raped the girls and fathered a child with one. You wont believe it, but the US alone has around 90,000 missing people at a time. It is a terrifying experience that cant be imagined. I didn't believe it. On July 5, 2018, she sent her family a textsaying she was pulling over in a grocery store parking lotto sleep in her car. Call toll-free: 1-800-222-FIND (1-800-222-3463) Featured Missing Children and Adult Cases The number of active missing person cases averages around 20,000 in California. It's not clear how many go missing in the wild. Kopta was well known as a street preacher in Pittsburgh in the years prior to her disappearance. Unfortunately, he passed away in an accident when he was 24 years old. It was a total shock. Photo: Metaweb/ GNU Free Documentation License. Julian had no idea he was a missing person. In the United States alone, there are over 200,000 unsolved cold cases, some of which are decades old, and others occurred more recently. When there was a baseball game going on, when a concert was going on, she would be talking to people," Robert Kopta said about his wife. Using their database of missing children, they discovered that her real name was Carlina White and she had been abducted as a newborn baby, nineteen days after her birth, from Harlem Hospital in New York. He never managed to live a normal life after this incident. At 28, Lula Gillespie-Miller gave birth to her third child, but feeling she was too young to be a mother, gave them up to her parents and took off in 1974. Here's 10 cases where missing people were found alive. Natasha Yi, the wife of Wild 94.9 host Jeffrey Vandergrift who has been reported missing for six days, said recently discovered information "leads us to believe JV will not be coming back." At least once she was beaten and robbed of her jewelry, and she had a vision that she would eventually be beaten to death. (3.1). Eventually, they were able to get an investigator to go digging. Considering how easy it is to get lost in these areas, it normally wouldn't raise an eye. Bergdahl pled guilty and was sentenced to no prison time, a dishonorable discharge, a $1,000 forfeiture, and a reduction in rank from sergeant to private. "Shock. Through DNA samples, they confirmed a match. Glad her family has closure. It . Paranoid schizophrenia. After an 11-day search, the boy was found locked in his parents' basement. DNA samples were able to confirm the woman was Kopta, police said. Missing people found alive are stories that capture the nation's attention whenever they break. He told his employer that he would be coming late for work, but he never showed up. On June 30th, 2009, U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl vanished while serving in Afghanistan. Rather than heading back to his troop, he stayed in the village, got married, and changed his name toSheikh Abdullah. Those who work at the facility said the woman was found to be in need of care on June 30, 1999. . On February 25, 1957, around 10:30 a.m., Bellmawr, New Jersey resident, four-year-old Mary Jane Barker, disappeared along with her playmate's four-month-old black spaniel puppy. ROBERT McDonough, 75, who had been missing for 14 hours was found after approached news team reporting from the scene A news crew in Maine, US, reporting on a missing 73-year-old man were. The accused kidnapper's mother, according to a neighbor, is "totally distraught" over her son's supposed actions. Carneys parents spent years searching for him. Subsequently, Bobby Hernandez was arrested and tried in court for kidnapping. In 2002, a former handyman, hired by Smart's parents, broke into their home. Steve Carter, 35, always knew something didnt add up with his childhood. ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WPXI) - A Pennsylvania man who has been searching for his wife for over 30 years has just learned that she is alive and well and has been living in Puerto Rico for decades. ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) - A Pittsburgh street preacher known as "The Sparrow" was found living in Puerto Rico more than three decades after she went missing, Ross Township police announced on Thursday. Confused, she confronted her mother, Ann Pettway, who told her she had been abandoned by her mum at birth. A lot of the old timers have stories about her. An unidentified woman on an Icelandic tour went missing and a search party quickly was underway to find her. Apparently, Johnsons husband had been abusive and had multiple affairs. CNN . Melvin Uphoff and Jacquelyn Rains-Kracman, a couple from Nebraska, had been missing for over 44 years. Parnel abused him and gave him drugs and alcohol. ATM thieves use glue and 'tap' function to drain accounts at Chase, Big Bear begins running out food and fuel as ski resorts remain open, Do not to buy Raspberry Rally cookies from eBay, Girl Scouts say. He was abducted by Kenneth Parnell, a convicted pedophile, who told Steven to call him Dad. Stayner was told his parents didnt want him anymore and even that hed been adopted. You can bring closure to the families of loved ones by providing key information about the whereabouts of missing persons. Later, his father was arrested for kidnapping. Ross Police were contacted by an Interpol agent and a social worker who believed Kopta was alive, living in an adult care facility in the U.S. territory. I didnt believe it. The missing persons case didn't turn up much for weeks and then one of Michele's co-workers, 21 year-old Heather Sellars, went missing as well, and things started to get strange. 17, 2022) Missing since Nov. 19, 2021. While heavy fog initially hampered search efforts, eventually two hikers in Big Sur, Californianoticed the wrecked remains of Hernandez's SUV at the bottom of a cliff. Suddenly, he became a ward of the state and was later adopted by the Carters. It's a missing persons case that's sat unsolved inside Ross Township . "We were contacted by an agent from Interpol as well as a social worker from Puerto Rico who believed they had her in an adult care home in Puerto Rico," Ross Township Police Deputy Chief Brian Kohlhepp said. It's a missing persons case that's sat unsolved inside Ross Township . Shortly after, she was arrested and Savanna learned the truth. In reality, he dosed her and took her to Mexico, where he then married her. Sadly, both missing persons and murder cold cases continue to go unsolved today. Michele Whitaker Name: Michele Whitaker Reported missing:August 16, 2002 Status:Found alive in August 2008 Michele Whitakerwas last seen in Spartanburg, South Carolina on August 16, 2002. Eventually, he was taken in by a church and thats how he ended up using Medicare with the real name he had finally remembered. Where did they go and what happened to them? Kohlhepp said as Kopta aged, she began to open up, and those in Puerto Rico made the connection and contacted Ross Township police. The team, 12 boys ranging from 11-16 years old, took shelter in a cave during a downpour. Its sad, but short of holding him against his will I dont know what else they could do. A social security discrepancy brought him up in the missing person database. Later, it was found that Arthur lived in different parts of the country with fake names. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The couple took away all clothes and bolted her into a wooden lean-to in the garden, telling her vicious dogs were guarding the door. After 30 years, he started having flashbacks and remembered his name. Sounds like metal health issues. She left her Point Place home between 8-9 pm in her white 1978 Honda Civic without her diabetes medication and less than $10 in cash. It was in 2011 when her mother confessed that she kidnapped her daughter and contacted her father and authorities in the country. There are 850 sets of unidentified human remains across Australia. Ann Pettway was jailed for 12 years for child abduction and at 23, Carlina was finally reunited with her real parents with mum Joy exclaiming, "I can finally sleep. As the FBI investigated, they discovered that Berchtold had intimate relationships with Jan's parents just to get close to her. At age 19,Harold Wayne Lovell cleaned John Wayne Gacys pool and then totally disappeared soon after. Marco's body was found a week later in the Elbe river, and he had a concrete block attached to his legs with rope. His mother put out a missing person report but they didnt find him until Julian was 18 and applying for college. Sometime between the hours of 11:30 p.m. on March 8 and 10:45 a.m. on March 9, 1996, someone entered 10-year-old Amberly Ann . But, 34 years later, Lovell was found living in Fort Lauderdale, working odd jobs. Berchtold pretended to be her father and enrolled her in an all-girls Catholic school. There were 4,058 adults and 1,56 children in this group. Cantellop attributed Eller's ability to survive to her experience with nature. A massive man-hunt ensued but no body was found and her case was considered a murder. He had no idea how much time had passed until he bought a newspaper and saw the date. If youre interested in the popular true crime series Unsolved Mysteries, you might find yourself looking not only into the cases theyve covered, but also cases they covered that have been solved since the episode first aired.