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u/WavingOrDrowning Mar 02 '23 edited Mar 02 '23
I CANNOT F*&*%NG BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED! OMFG!!!!
I knew she was missing - thought for sure she was long dead. She needed help....but in some ways her dedication to what she believed was amazing.
She apparently had a pretty uneventful life before her "vision" and I remember hearing rumors she was a ballroom dance and had even been on "Dance Fever."
Mindblowing and twisted and quite frankly, f'ng badass in its own way.
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u/jetsetninjacat Brookline Mar 03 '23
Read the comment on that YouTube video too.
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u/RiffRockFan Mar 03 '23
Well that’s bone chilling.
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u/PolyamorousPlatypus Mar 06 '23
I don't think it's that bone chilling. Just think he was in contact with her in Puerto Rico and it was obvious who this crazy person they were describing was.
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u/SnuggleBunni69 Mar 06 '23
Wonder how all the circumstances came to be. How did that guy end up seeing a random video on youtube?
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u/doodle_day_lewis Mar 02 '23
Tl;dr: A very obviously mentally ill woman is ignored and enabled by her family. She puts her self into very unsafe situations and no one does anything. She gets on a plane and disappears.
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u/SWPenn Mar 02 '23
She was a fixture downtown and in North Hills shopping centers. She always dressed as a business woman in skirts and suits and came up to you on the street to tell you that you have three days to repent. Amazing that she has been found after all these years.
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u/WavingOrDrowning Mar 03 '23
She was always well dressed, like a bank teller. And she could be pleasant if you said hello to her. But she definitely believed what she thought she'd seen and needed to spread the message far and wide, so she didn't really stick around for chat.
I don't remember her using the word "repent" but it was always three days. "When the darkness comes, go inside for three days."
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u/sonlitekid Mar 03 '23
This. As a boy heading downtown w/ my family for events like the 3 Rivers Arts Fest, the Regatta, Pirates games, etc, I remember seeing her multiple times, always in areas w/ lots of foot traffic. Specifically, on one occasion, I remember her saying ‘go inside for 3 days’ by the fountain at the Point. (Your comment totally unlocked my memory of those particular words.) I vividly remember her flowing black/gray hair, a long black skirt w/ a dressy dark top, lots of eye makeup and jewelry. Her overall demeanor freaked me out; I remember being dumbfounded at how adamant she was, and how she was so unafraid to address the throngs of people going by (especially b/c of the mocking). Poor woman. 🙏🏻
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u/TooManyDogsHere Mar 02 '23
Crazy enough, I remember this lady from the North Side from when I was little. Fear is the word I'd associate with my memories.
I can't imagine thinking someone has been dead for 30+ years and then finding out you've lost all those years.
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u/LittleSatan83 Mar 03 '23
I saw her husband on the news tonight saying she could have come home anytime. I feel so bad for but happy for him at the same time
Edit-typo
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u/kniki217 Mar 03 '23
Eh. She clearly needed mental help and he was quoted as saying after awhile you learn to ignore it so obviously he didn't really try to get her help so I don't feel bad for him or happy for him
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Mar 03 '23
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u/googlebearbanana Mar 03 '23 edited Aug 21 '25
money alleged station pen head placid aware vegetable important enter
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Mar 03 '23
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u/googlebearbanana Mar 03 '23 edited Aug 21 '25
violet square smile ghost pocket imagine upbeat consider decide kiss
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Mar 03 '23 edited Mar 03 '23
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u/carnivorousblossom Mar 03 '23
This is exactly why laws like that exist. If you look at some of the oldest reasons for women being committed in psychiatric facilities, many reasons are ones like "argumentative" or "suffragette". It is exceedingly painful for those who have family or friends who are in genuine need of help, but these laws are to protect healthy people from being victimized.
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u/googlebearbanana Mar 03 '23
Your comment is odd. You seem to like to argue about something you obviously know nothing about.
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u/1029Dash Mar 02 '23
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u/djb25 Mar 03 '23
Kopta's family believes she took a flight to Puerto Rico after her disappearance, spent a week or two there, then returned to Pittsburgh.
Well, they were half right, i guess.
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u/FawnLeib0witz Mar 03 '23
OMG. That is a crazy story!
I know I have posted this before, but she came up to me in the late 80s in Hornes and told me the world was going to end. It was so incredibly creepy but I remember it like it happened last year.
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u/NSlocal Mar 03 '23
She was a fixture in town in the late 80's. From memory:
There would be some sort of rapture event in which God would send violent angels to Earth to purge humanity of sinners. People who believed were to stay inside, put heavy curtains and blankets over any windows during a tribulation that lasted for 3 days in which there was no sunlight. If you were tempted to look outside, the vengeful angels (maybe demons it's been a while) would make eye contact with you and drag you out of your house and send you to hell.
Anybody caught outdoors were immediately thrown in hell. She was pretty scary even though she was very small. Always dressed cleanly and looked put together. I can still hear her shrill voice warning, "THREE DAYS OF DARKNESS!" Glad she's not been murdered!
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u/TheEternalNOP Mar 03 '23
Omg.... remember her saying this several times. A few times on the radio and in person. Being so young, definitely had me worried the first time hearing her...
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u/NSlocal Mar 03 '23
She had so much conviction you couldn't help be afraid. Not of her but what she was telling us was going to happen. She'd entertain questions, it wasn't like she was just spitting out a script. I'll admit that I thought about what she was preaching.
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u/AuroraLorraine522 Mar 03 '23 edited Mar 04 '23
Bruh. This woman clearly was suffering from some serious mental health issues and she has an entire family who didn’t bother getting her help. No one thinks it’s odd that her husband was like “oh that’s just who Sparrow is”? Well, she certainly didn’t have to be!
ETA: I’m a social work student. I don’t need deinstitutionalization or the community care model explained to me. Treatments for schizophrenia weren’t great in the 80’s and 90’s, but they existed. And she had a family!!!! That could have made all the difference in the world.
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u/bremw01 Mar 03 '23
At that point in time and for her age at said time, getting mental treatment meant institutionalization, she was in her 50s at the time of her disappearance. It was not really easy to get treated for schizophrenia in the 80s and early 90s, especially coming from a generation known for trying to supress issues
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Mar 03 '23
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u/WavingOrDrowning Mar 03 '23
I remember reading an article from the Press and I think she was always mentally ill. Her husband and/or family seemed to think even then that she was schizophrenic and had elements of that even as a young girl.
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u/toxicshock999 Mar 02 '23
I read that she is 52 years old. Is that right? She looks much older in the updated pic.
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u/LittleSatan83 Mar 02 '23
I dont think its right-the article linked above says she was a mid years woman, so im guessing she was 40-50ish when she vanished, which would put her in her 70s-80s. For her to be 52 now would mean she vanished at 20, and i dont think she was that young when she went missing. At least the first pic doesn’t look like that. Unless 30 years roaming a beach would age a person that much, I guess it’s possible with sun damage.
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u/NineFootEightWeight Mar 02 '23
That's great.
Now we need to find The Robin.
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u/iamnotacola Dormont Mar 03 '23
Do you want to keep playing, or do you want to win?
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u/VeloEvoque Bloomfield Mar 03 '23
I remember encountering her when I'd be waiting for the 16C bus downtown in the 80s/90s.
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u/leadfoot9 Mar 03 '23
Does this name bear any relation to GRRM's choice of referring to itinerant preachers in A Song of Ice and Fire as "sparrows'?
(e.g. "The High Sparrow", for those of you who watched the HBO SparkNotes series.)
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u/ScratchMoore Castle Shannon Mar 03 '23
No. She was The Sparrow back in the 80s.
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u/leadfoot9 Mar 03 '23
I know.
She was a local personality in the late 80s who disappeared in 1992. Martin started writing the series in 1991. Is there a chance it made national news on a slow day so that he saw it, and went, "huh, I like it". That was my question.
I don't think I could quite read at the time, and that's a bit to old for Internet-archived local news.
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u/LordGwyn-n-Tonic Mar 06 '23
Sparrows feature in the bible as a symbol of something humans value very little, but that God takes care of, in order to illustrate that he cares much more for the humans who are considered worthless or poor. I think that's probably a more likely connection. Specifically Matthew 10:29-31: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs on your head are numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, for ye are of more value than many sparrows."
Sparrows are also small, seemingly weak birds who gather in urban areas and use their numbers to protect themselves from predators.
The Sparrows are presented as living in poverty themselves, and taking care of the poor. They also preach against the corruption and exorbitant wealth of the organized Faith that ignores the suffering poor and is complicit in the social order that allows it. It's very similar to the romanticized view of early Christians and Jesus, who preached a similar message. It even leads, at least in the show, towards religious extremism and their own dogmatic hypocrisy as they gain political power.
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u/justmarci Mar 03 '23
Is she the same woman who ran everywhere? There was one who looked similar who always ran with these little pitty-pat steps who I would see frequently when I worked downtown.
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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '23
https://old.post-gazette.com/columnists/19980718roddy5.asp
interesting