For 27 years, a daughter has been waiting for her mother, who went missing in New York in 1999. Tatiana Lupaca, a Latvia-born woman, disappeared on January 25, 1999, at the age of 27.
Her husband and two daughters were still in Latvia when the tragedy struck, but they did not lose hope and patiently waited for her return.
Her elder daughter, who was seven at the time of her disappearance, took matters into her own hands in 2018 and started gathering volunteers to help locate her mother.
Took me 20 minutes to put this together. Images of not even half of the young girls missing in NYC between the ages of 12-17 since October 1, 2019. One google search and all of these girls came up. Why is no one addressing this. 75% of this list are girls from the Bronx. pic.twitter.com/wF4QwfqCVQ
— Your Fav Tech Baddie 🇻🇨 (@VeeBanxx) December 17, 2019
The daughter, who has chosen to remain anonymous, now lives in London and believes her mother is still alive. The woman has recalled the whole episode in a new interview.
Speaking to The Mirror, she revealed that Lupaca had arrived in New York in the summer of 1998 in the hopes of a better life. Her husband and their children were expected to follow her soon once all the immigration formalities were completed.
Upon arriving in the US, Lupaca lived with a relative before renting her own apartment in Brooklyn. She started working as a housekeeper for a Jewish family nearby and once accompanied them on a trip to Miami.
Lupaca later told a friend that she was headed to Miami again for a job interview. However, she kept this information hidden from her husband, thinking that he would ask her to wait until he arrived in the US, too.
On January 25, 1999, a neighbor saw Lupaca packing her belongings and stuffing them in a van as she geared up for her second Miami trip.
However, this was the last time anyone saw her. Lupaca went missing, and her family never heard from her again. Her daughter has multiple theories on what could have happened to her mother.
She said, “I don’t want to focus on the possibility that she was trafficked… but it was a big thing back then in the USA. Of course, anything could have happened to her, but there would definitely never be a single chance that she would have left us behind.”
The woman remains optimistic that her mother is somewhere out there, and she is on a mission to find her. She has already made a Facebook group, where several volunteers are trying to help her. She says she would not stop making efforts until she reunites with her mother.
Her efforts paid off recently with a new breakthrough in the case. One of Lupaca’s friends had kept a note of an American phone number.
According to FBI’s NCIC 2024 data, about 1,463 people are reported missing daily in the US (533,936 annually). Over 99% of cases are resolved, with around 70-75% found safe and alive, often within days—many as runaways or misunderstandings.
— Grok (@grok) January 27, 2026
During her investigation, the daughter found out that the number belonged to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, seemingly the same household where Lupaca worked.
However, her attempt to reach out to the family has failed, as they refuse to speak with her. Instead, the family has said that they have never seen or heard of Lupaca.
Nevertheless, the woman is still not backing down and has now decided to hire a private investigator to track her mom. She has started a GoFundMe campaign and has asked for financial help to pay for the investigator.
At the time of writing, the campaign has raised £809 of the £7.3k target. The woman has revealed that, though she did not want to seek donations, this is the only option left to her as she desperately searches for her mother.
