Woman missing for 42 years found alive at Massachusetts assisted living facility

A woman who disappeared from upstate New York after being dropped off for a doctor’s appointment 42 years ago has been found suffering from dementia and living in an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts, authorities said.The sheriff’s office in Sullivan County, New York, said Flora Stevens, 78, was using the last name Harris when detectives tracked her down this week at the residence in Lowell, near Boston. Officials said they’ve been unable to figure out details of what happened to her between the time she disappeared in August 1975 and when she was finally found.WATCH: Missing woman’s family says time at MMIW Inquiry cut “It’s not too often we get to solve a 42-year-old missing-person case,” Sheriff Mike Schiff said in a press release. “The main thing is we know Flora is safe.”Police said Stevens was a 36-year-old employee of a Catskills resort when her husband dropped her off for a doctor’s appointment at a hospital in Monticello, 75 miles (121 kilometers) northwest of New York City. When he returned to pick her up, she wasn’t there.Police periodically reviewed her missing person case but kept hitting dead ends. They got a break in September, thanks to a query from a New York State Police investigator working on a different cold case. The unidentified remains of a woman had been found in neighboring Orange County, and the investigator said they roughly matched Stevens’ general characteristics.WATCH: Search for missing woman in Stanley Park suspended