Much has changed since Victoria Prokopovitz vanished a year ago, but one constant remains: Her family is determined to find out what happened to her.
Police and volunteers searching the area around her Pittsfield home have found no sign of the 60-year-old grandmother, who disappeared the night of April 25, 2013.
Family members and friends plan a candlelight vigil and other events this week to mark the one-year anniversary of her disappearance — and of their painstaking search for answers. Family and friends are embarking on the second year by doubling their efforts to uncover the truth.
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“I can’t sit back and just do nothing,” daughter Marsha Loritz said. “I need to find my mom.”
Prokopovitz, who vanished from her home without taking any money, identification or vehicle, has a history of mental health issues and past suicide attempts.Without evidence of her condition or whereabouts, police are stumped about whether there has been foul play or if there is another explanation.
“It’s one of those frustrating cases,” Brown County Sheriff John Gossage said. “We just don’t know.”
Prokopovitz, who lives with her husband and an adult son, was last seen the night of April 25, 2013, at her home in the 5100 block of Kunesh Road in Pittsfield. Family reported her missing the next morning when they discovered she was gone.
Searchers have scoured nearby fields, wooded areas and a quarry several times.
Sherri Jo Lucas, president of the volunteer group Rapid Search and Rescue, said she has come to believe that someone has information about Prokopovitz’s whereabouts and is not coming forward. If Prokopovitz had just wandered away by herself, Lucas said searchers would have recovered some evidence by now.
“We’ve just been there and been there and been there,” she said. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
Family members say Prokopovitz did not have access to a vehicle at the time of her disappearance.
A reward for information about her whereabouts is increasing from $1,000 to $2,500 because of donations. Family members also have hung posters, created websites, distributed wristbands and sent countless emails asking for help.
Their next move may be hiring a private investigator.
Stacy Deer, the missing woman’s other daughter, said she hopes the one-year anniversary will cause people to think again about whether they have seen Prokopovitz or whether they can remember any clues from past conversations with her.
Deer admitted she is starting to lose hope that the family will ever solve the mystery.
“There are all these questions we don’t have answers for,” she said. “I don’t know where else to go from here.”
The family has received support and assistance from a growing network of friends, some of whom have become just as obsessed as the family with uncovering the truth.
“It just breaks my heart every day,” said Rhonda Schmidt, a family friend from Pulaski.
At the Rite Place restaurant in Bellevue, owner Julie VanRite has hung posters, distributed fliers and helped with fundraisers. A longtime family friend, VanRite said people in the community are eager to help when they realize that Prokopovitz is missing and that the search has been going on for a year.
“It’s hard enough having a parent gone, but not knowing where they are out there,” VanRite said. “Let’s just try to find her and bring her home.”
