In the summer of 1963, a 34-year-old Native American woman named Patsy Ruth SpottedBird, also known by her Kiowa name Kaw Po Mah, vanished from the small city of Hobart, Oklahoma. On June 28th, she was seen for the last time, and then, without a trace or a word, her presence in the lives of those who knew her ceased. Patsy, an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe, was a mother to three sons and a sister, with at least seven siblings. Her disappearance left a void in her family and community, a space filled with unanswered questions that have lingered for decades. At the time she went missing, she was described as being 5'4" tall and weighing 140 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.
The day she was last seen marked the beginning of a long and painful mystery, one that has been shrouded in a frustrating lack of information from the very start.
Decades have passed since Patsy Ruth SpottedBird was last seen, yet the details surrounding her disappearance remain distressingly scarce. There is no public information available about what she was wearing on that final day, nor are there any accounts of her state of mind or any potential reasons for her to have left. The narrative of her life abruptly ends on that late June day, with no further clues to follow. Despite the passage of time, her case has not been forgotten. It was officially added to the Doe Network under the case number 5173DFOK and entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). The Hobart Police Department and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation are the agencies listed as handling her case, a silent testament to the ongoing, albeit cold, investigation.
The case of Patsy Ruth SpottedBird is a somber reminder of the many Indigenous women who have gone missing with little to no public attention. For many years, her story was largely unknown outside of her immediate family and community. The lack of available photographs has made it difficult to bring public awareness to her case. The circumstances of her disappearance are a stark and unsettling void; she was last seen, and then she was gone. This lack of information has been the biggest obstacle in the investigation, leaving law enforcement with very few leads to pursue. The overview of this case is one of a sudden and complete disappearance with no evidence of what may have happened, leaving a family to grapple with an unresolved loss and a community to remember one of their own who vanished without a trace.Last Seen: Jun 28, 1963
