5 Fascinating Tales of People who were Found Alive After Vanishing

Every year, millions of people vanish without a trace.

Often, these people had loving families and partners who cared for them, making their sudden disappearance feel as though something ominous had happened to them.

After all, why would someone willingly choose to leave their seemingly comfortable life?

In missing person cases, the individual’s absence leaves many families struggling to find answers, and in many cases, the trail goes cold.

In this instance, the missing person is often presumed or even declared dead.

Among these tragic stories are some intriguing tales of the missing eventually turning up alive and well, sometimes after decades of their initial vanishing.

Although rare, these stories offer a fascinating glimpse of the dead coming back to life—sort of.

John Darwin, Nicknamed “Canoe Man”

In the spring of 2002, a prison officer named John Darwin from the North East of England inexplicably vanished while kayaking off the coast of Seaton Carew in County Durham.

**Photograph of John Darwin and his wife.**

He was due to work that day, but the alarm was raised when he didn’t show up. He’d never not turned up for work before, and his family was quickly contacted.

The search was on to find John.

It was discovered that he had been in his kayak that morning, and a large search of the coast ensued. Specially trained rescue teams scoured miles and miles of sea, though the search didn’t turn up anything.

However, on March 22, the day after his vanishing, John’s wrecked canoe was discovered. Despite the calm sea, it seemed John had found himself in trouble.

His family was devastated, including his wife Anne and their two sons.

Eventually, in 2003, John was declared dead, presumed to have tragically drowned at sea.

Despite his wife’s apparent heartache over the situation, behind the scenes, she and John were orchestrating one of the boldest deceits in fraudsters’ history.

Unbeknownst to everyone, including their sons, John was very much alive.

In fact, he was living just feet away from the Darwin family home. He and his wife had concocted a plan to fake his passing and acquire his life insurance policy, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Eventually, the pair planned to use the money to set up a new life together in Panama. They even traveled there together to look at properties, with John using a fake passport to get abroad.

While in the UK, John lived in secret. He would move covertly between the family home and his tiny bedsit, ensuring nobody saw him.

However, one of the bedsit’s other tenants spotted John flitting from one building to the other and confronted him, telling him he thought he was dead.

John told the bewildered tenant not to tell anyone he was still alive, and amazingly, the tenant agreed. This allowed John and Anne’s plan to carry on for years longer.

However, in 2007, the pair figured the net was closing in on them. The police had grown suspicious of Anne’s spending and her plans to move to another country, so they began monitoring her.

John decided to lie to cover up his fake death: he walked into a London police station, claiming to have no memory of the past five years.

Even if the police did believe this, which they didn’t, the tall tale quickly fell apart when a photo was released online showing him and Anne smiling together in Panama years after he’d supposedly perished. The jig was up.

The depth of the deceit shocked everyone, not least John’s two sons. Despite initially being elated about him being alive, they quickly decided they wanted nothing more to do with him.

The Darwin’s were swiftly arrested and subsequently convicted of fraud. Both were jailed, though they are now free, albeit divorced.

Ishinosuke Uwano: Believed To Have Perished In WWII

For decades, Japanese soldier Ishinosuke Uwano was thought to have passed away after battling in World War II.

**Photo of Ishinosuke Uwano in his later years. Image via Wikipedia.**

He was stationed on Sakhalin Island, an island that Russia seized from Japan in the final days of the Pacific war, and was still alive when the conflict came to an end in 1945.

However, despite the war being over, Ishinosuke never made it back home to his family.

As the months and years passed, Ishinosuke’s family began to doubt if he’d ever return home.

Although he’d seemingly made it through the war, it seemed as if something awful had taken place before he was able to make his way home.

In 2000, 45 years after the war had ended, he was declared dead. His name was engraved on the family headstone, and the remaining Uwano family members were left to mourn Ishinosuke’s passing.

However, little did they know he wasn’t dead at all. He’d set up a home in the north of Ukraine, deciding not to contact his family or loved ones to let them know he was alive.

He wound up getting married and having three children. He learned to speak Ukrainian and adopted a new way of life.

However, in 2006, Ishinosuke began feeling a little homesick. He missed Japanese cherry blossoms and felt the urge to visit his parents’ graves.

By this point, Ishinosuke was 83 and had been missing and presumed dead for over six decades.

So, Ishinosuke, along with one of his sons, made his way back to Japan after contacting the Japanese embassy and explaining the bizarre situation. For the first time in 60 years, Ishinosuke was reunited with his surviving family members.

He only stayed 10 days before returning to Ukraine, which he considers his homeland.

The Sad Story of Patricia Kopta, Missing for Three Decades

Patricia Kopta, a Pittsburgh woman nicknamed “The Sparrow” due to her small frame, disappeared without a trace in 1992.

**Patricia Kopta before and after she vanished.**

Patricia had been a straight-A student in her youth and fell into modeling after graduating. According to those who knew her, she was intelligent, caring, and keen to explore the world.

When she started showing signs of mental illness in her 40s, her friends and family were surprised.

It appeared to have come out of nowhere, and suddenly, Patricia took to becoming a street preacher, warning pedestrians and passersby of the end of the world.

By all accounts, she was approachable and friendly while preaching and never pressured people with her religious fervor.

Still, at one point, she was taken to a mental health facility and diagnosed with schizophrenia, though the experience made Patricia fearful of being institutionalized. Then, in 1992, she vanished without a trace.

Her husband and her friends had not heard from her again, nor did the many people who often chatted with her on the streets of Pittsburgh.

Bob Kopta spent years hoping his wife would return but had to admit that, in all likelihood, something terrible had happened to Patricia. In his own words, he believed someone had taken her life.

The Kopta family mourned the loss of their loved one, though they weren’t able to get the closure they needed. She was declared dead, though no body had been found.

Then, in 2023, a surprise twist brought a bittersweet conclusion to the case.

By way of DNA testing, law enforcement discovered Patricia had been alive all this time in a nursing home in Puerto Rico. By this point, she was in her 80s and had been diagnosed with dementia.

She had made her way to Puerto Rico—a place she’d previously visited and loved—and set up home. However, her mental state continued to decline, and in 1999, she was placed in a care home.

She has been in live-in care since then. Her husband, aware his wife will no longer recognize him, has since stated he’s grateful she didn’t suffer a terrible end like he’d imagined and was thankful she’d been taken care of in the decades they were apart.

As of writing, Patricia remains in Puerto Rico, and her remaining family has made visits.

Gone for 11 Years: The Tale Of Brenda Heist

Sometimes, life gets tough, and we wish we could run away and start anew. Most of us never carry out this fleeting thought. However, in 2002, Brenda Heist did just that and vanished into thin air.

In her wake were her two young children and her soon-to-be ex-husband.

The day she disappeared had started out normal: She did the laundry, defrosted the kids’ dinner, and dropped them off at school.

Then, she headed to the park and found herself on a bench in tears.

Life had gotten on top of her: She was divorcing, her finances were in tatters, and she saw no way out. By chance, a group of strangers saw the woman alone and crying.

Nobody knows the exact conversion that took place next, but it seems the group—who were hitchhiking their way to Florida—convinced Brenda to join them.

It perhaps seemed like a good idea at the time, and Brenda knew her husband would take good care of their children. So, she made her escape with a group of strangers.

Life in Florida wasn’t exactly postcard-worthy for Brenda, though. Times were just as tough for her, and she struggled to get regular work, often living a transient, hand-to-mouth lifestyle.

Sometimes, she’d manage to get a place in a homeless shelter; other times, she had to camp out under bridges. Now and again, she’d work as a waitress, but with no fixed abode and no means of travel, she often wouldn’t stick to these jobs.

Back home in Pennsylvania, her children were confused and heartbroken over what had happened to their mother.

In fact, their father—Brenda’s ex-husband—had been under suspicion of ending her life, though no charges were ever brought.

For over 11 years, Brenda lived a difficult life in Florida, and as the years passed, her health noticeably declined.

While she’d managed to avoid contacting her family, it got to the point where she couldn’t let her children believe she was dead, so she eventually turned herself into the police in 2013.

Naturally, her resurgence was met with anger by her ex-husband, who had been given a $100,000 insurance payout after she’d been declared dead.

Sadly, her children also felt the same anger toward her, and as of writing, their relationship remains unrepaired.

Brenda Heist has since stated she regrets running away from her problems.

Rochom P’ngieng: The “Jungle Woman”

The story of Rochom P’ngieng, often called the “jungle woman” or “the Cambodian Jungle Girl,” is both intriguing and tragic.

In 2007, Rochom was found wandering by villagers in Ratanakiri, a province in the northeast of Cambodia, in the jungle. She was in her 20s or 30s, naked, malnourished, and unable to communicate.

News of the startling find made its way to other villages, and eventually, a man came forward to claim she was his long-lost daughter.

He said that in 1989, at the age of eight, Rochom was herding water buffalo with him near the family’s village. He believed, at the time, that she had drowned or been killed that day but was sure the woman from the jungle was his child.

He was even able to identify some scars she had endured prior to her vanishing; the woman had these same scars.

Rochom could not verify the validity of the man’s claims since she was unable to communicate, but she was sent to live with his family.

She rarely walked upright, preferring to walk on all fours, and refused to wear clothing, often taking it off as soon as she was given it. She showed signs of trauma and had marks on her limbs as if she’d been kept restrained or in captivity.

She could use a spoon, although she often refused to eat rice and often made attempts to run away to the jungle.

Her father died in 2013, after which another man came forward to say Rochom was, in fact, his biological child who had run away in 2006. This would mean she had only spent one year in the jungle as opposed to the two decades originally thought.

Rochom was sent to live with this man in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province, though it’s unclear if any DNA testing has been carried out.

As of writing, Rochom is still unable to communicate, though the new family insists she has never been able to speak and has dealt with mental health struggles her whole life.