Woman who held vigil outside White House for decades dies

Concepcion Picciotto, the protester who maintained a peace vigil outside the White House for more than three decades, a demonstration widely considered to be the longest-running act of political protest in U.S. history, died Monday in a shelter for homeless women in Washington. She was believed to be 80.

She had recently suffered a fall, but the cause of death was not known, said Schroeder Stribling, the shelter's executive director.

Ms. Picciotto — a Spanish immigrant known to many as "Connie" or "Conchita" — was the primary guardian of the antinuclear proliferation vigil stationed along Pennsylvania Avenue.

In a 2013 profile in the Washington Post, Ms. Picciotto said that she spent more than 30 years of her life outside the White House "to stop the world from being destroyed."

Through her presence, she hoped to remind others to take whatever action they could, however small, to help end wars and stop violence, particularly against children.

Ms. Picciotto, a diminutive woman perpetually clad in a helmet and headscarf, was a curious and at times controversial figure in Washington. Fellow activists lauded her as a heroine. Critics and even casual passers-by, reading her hand-lettered signs, dismissed her as foolish, perhaps unwell. Ms. Picciotto was quick to share elaborate accounts of persecution by the government, which she considered responsible for many of her physical ailments.

Ellen Thomas, a demonstrator who protested alongside Ms. Picciotto for decades, told the Post in 2013 that the truth was somewhere in between. She acknowledged that there were "issues that haven't been addressed" where Ms. Picciotto's mental health was concerned, but lauded her dedication and stamina.

She spoke little of her life before 1960, when she emigrated to New York City and worked as a receptionist for the economic and commercial office of the Spanish Embassy. She met an Italian who became her husband in 1969, with whom she adopted an infant daughter, she said.

Ms. Picciotto first came to the White House in 1979, she said, after she came to believe that her husband had orchestrated an illegal adoption and arranged to have Ms. Picciotto separated from their child and committed. She believed she was the target of a web of conspiracies — involving doctors, lawyers and the government — and hoped that elected officials could help get her daughter back.

But that never happened. Ms. Picciotto said she last saw the child when the girl was a toddler.

She had just given up on reconnecting with her daughter when she met William Thomas, a self-described wanderer, philosopher and peace activist who founded the peace vigil along Pennsylvania Avenue. Ms. Picciotto joined Thomas there in 1981, and the two became a fixture in the park. He died in 2009.