Missing Huntington Woman Found Dead Of Heroin Overdose

HUNTINGTON, NY — A young woman missing from Huntington, who grew up in East Quogue and attended Westhampton Beach High School, has been found dead of an overdose in Philadelphia, her heartbroken mother said Wednesday.

Isabelle Bighta, 30, was reported missing while traveling home from visiting friends out of state, Suffolk Police reported on Sept. 12.

Bighta was visiting friends in New Jersey and was dropped off at a bus station on 30th Street in Philadelphia on Aug. 31. Bighta told friends she was taking a 6:10 p.m. bus to return to her home in Huntington but she never arrived. She then was reported missing to Suffolk County Police on Sept. 6.

Anna Bighta, who also lives in Huntington, said her daughter was found dead in Philadelphia on Sept. 1, but had no identification, so it took some time for her mother to be located after she was identified by fingerprints.

Overwhelmed with the news — she got the call Tuesday that no mother should ever have to bear — Bighta spoke to Patch Wednesday morning.

"I'm numb," she said. "It's such a shock. I still can't believe it — but I know it's true."

Her daughter, she said, was addicted to heroin. "Lately, she was in a downward spiral," going from hospital to detox to rehab. "She didn't want to live. She told me, 'I want to die. I don't want to live. I have no life.'"

Her father's death from cancer in Poland only added to her daughter's despair, "pulled her down further," Bighta said. "I feel like she's at peace now, because she was struggling with this so badly. The drug was bigger than she was."

When friends in the East Quogue and Westhampton found out their friend, whom they called "Izzy," was missing, they and her mom were devastated, said friend Amanda Hubbard. Friends shared a post more than 1,000 times on Facebook, in hopes of bringing her home safely.

But hearts were broken Tuesday as news spread that Izzy had lost her battle.

Remembering her daughter, Bighta said she was "so good-hearted, always helpful. If anyone was in trouble, she was always there. She was so intelligent, so smart, she learned everything in five minutes."

Her daughter, she said, loved music and life.

But then, she said, her daughter was pulled into the grip of heroin's deadly addiction: "She was like a lost soul. The heroin took over. She couldn't fight this. It overwhelmed her."

Her voice breaking, Bighta described the agony of losing her daughter, even in the months before her death, to a drug so deadly it stole her, right before her eyes.

"I lived by the phone. She called from the street, from the hospital, from detox, from rehab. In the end, she was interested in nothing. I'd ask her to go to the movies, to go shopping, to eat, and she always said 'no,'" she said. "She gave up."

When her daughter was in treatment, Bighta accompanied her, too many times, to funerals of young friends who'd died, lost their own battles. "They had their whole lives in front of them. But this disease needs to be controlled."

Opioids are too readily dispensed by doctors and hospitals, Bighta said. "We have to do something," she said.

And now, the weeks of waiting for word have ended in tragedy for Bighta. During the time that her daughter was missing, she said, "I couldn't do anything. I was just sitting in this house, looking at the phone."

Blinded by the news, Bighta, said she was numb with grief, making funeral arrangements for her beautiful daughter. "I feel destroyed."

Patch photo courtesy Bighta family.