Texas mom finds missing daughter after 2 months
THE BRONX (WPIX) — The Texas mother of a New York City woman missing for two months found her 31-year-old daughter Monday afternoon.
“She was with a Honduran family,” Noemy Brinson said about her daughter, Dulce Lopez. “They took her in for five days.”
Brinson and her daughter are Honduran immigrants who first lived in the Bronx after emigrating. Most of the family has been living in Longview, Texas, for the last 20 years. Lopez moved back to the Bronx about a year ago after getting a job as a receptionist.
“She was for two months on the street,” Brinson said about her daughter, who had suffered some kind of mental health episode. “No shelter could take her with no ID.”
The grateful mother sent WPIX a photo of Lopez kissing her mom’s cheek. Another photo showed the two embracing.
Lopez lost contact with her family shortly after Thanksgiving. They said she sounded very stressed and scared during a Nov. 28 phone call because she was having difficulties with a new boyfriend. The couple had been living in a basement apartment in the Bronx. The mother said she learned an ambulance had shown up at the apartment because Lopez was having some kind of breakdown.
Her mother flew to New York on Dec. 19 after several Bronx women contacted her on Facebook. They said her daughter was sitting outside a deli on Bainbridge Avenue calling herself “Beyonce.” A Dec. 16 surveillance video from the store showed Lopez looking very out of sorts, although the mole on her left cheek was very distinctive. Lopez was gone by the time her mother arrived in New York.
Brinson had spent weeks walking Bronx streets and riding the subways in search of her daughter. At one point, she received a tip about a sighting on Broadway and West 103rd Street in Manhattan, asking family members to take her there.
This past week, Brinson moved her search to the Broadway Junction transit hub in Brooklyn after hearing reports her daughter was riding the “C” train.
Brinson said her daughter called her this morning from the Bronx family’s home, unaware that her mother had been searching for weeks. Lopez reportedly told her mother she was afraid her boyfriend would find her.
“She saw flyers,” Brinson told WPIX. “She thought it was her boyfriend looking for her.”
Brinson said she went to the Bronx home Monday and reunited with her daughter.
“I ran to her and we hugged,” the joyful mother said. “When we FaceTimed with the family in Texas, we all cried.”
Brinson said her daughter was often riding trains during the last two months, traveling between the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
“She was outside for the big snow,” the mother said. “She said, ‘Oh my God, today I’m going to die.'”
“She doesn’t even want to go outside right now,” the mother added.
But Brinson said she’s taking her daughter home to Texas later this week.
“Last night, at like 3 in the morning, I was praying for hours on my knees,” the mother said. “I cannot take anymore,” Brinson recalled saying to God. “Tomorrow, I have to receive the news.”
The phone call came Monday morning.
Brinson said her daughter was resting Monday evening, still recovering from her ordeal.
“I’m so happy it’s a happy ending,” Brinson told WPIX. “There are so many tragedies.”