“I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SISTER” — THE THREE WEEKS BEFORE PAMELA CISNEROS APPEARED IN TIMES SQUARE

To her family, Pamela Cisneros was not the woman the public saw in Times Square.

She was a mother of three.

A woman who had earned a master’s degree in psychology.

A Queens native who had struggled with mental-health issues in the past, but whose family believed she had reached a period of greater stability.

She had worked at an immigration law firm and was trying to rebuild her life after the collapse of her marriage.

Then came August 31.

And everything changed.

THE WOMAN HER FAMILY REMEMBERS

Pamela, 49, was fatally shot by NYPD officers after police said she attacked two strangers with large knives in Times Square.

Investigators described the attack as random and unprovoked.

A 68-year-old man was stabbed and survived.

Then 32-year-old Bank of America vice president Erin Piacenti was attacked and later died from her injuries.

Police said Pamela refused repeated commands to drop the knives before officers shot her.

But her family says the person they knew did not appear to be heading toward such an ending.

Her brother Patrick Peralta told the New York Post that he was shocked by what happened.

“I don’t know what happened with her,” he said.

And now, the family is looking back at the weeks immediately before the attack.

THREE WEEKS BEFORE TIMES SQUARE

The date that keeps standing out is August 10.

That was reportedly the last time Patrick saw his sister.

He had seen her at a family gathering for their stepfather’s birthday.

According to his account, there was no obvious warning that something catastrophic was about to happen.

She appeared to be okay.

Her father, Mario Cisneros, also told ABC7 that he had seen Pamela about a week before the attack and said she appeared fine. He said she had been receiving monthly medication injections for a mental-health condition.

Then something changed.

Patrick said Pamela stopped coming to visit their mother.

The family called her.

She told them she was fine.

But it would be one of the last times they heard reassurance from her before the events that shocked New York.

“NO ONE SAW THIS COMING”

Pamela’s relatives have described her as someone who had dealt with serious mental-health difficulties before.

Police had previous mental-health-related encounters with her in 2018 and 2019, according to reporting. Her family said she had received treatment and, for a period, appeared to be doing better.

Her brother also said he had never known her to be violent.

That is what makes the final weeks so difficult for those who knew her.

There was no single moment the family can point to and say:

“That was when everything changed.”

Instead, there are fragments.

A missed visit.

A reassuring phone call.

A woman who seemed stable to relatives.

And then, three weeks later, a chaotic scene in the middle of Times Square.

THE WARNING SIGNS — OR THE SIGNS NO ONE COULD SEE?

Investigators have not publicly established exactly what caused Pamela’s behavior to change.

Her family has raised questions about her mental-health treatment, while her brother has suggested she may have stopped taking medication.

But that remains a family theory — not an established explanation for the attack.

Authorities have not announced a definitive motive.

Police have described the Times Square attack as apparently random and unprovoked, and officials have not indicated that it was connected to terrorism.

That distinction matters.

Because knowing that someone struggled with mental health does not, by itself, explain or predict violent behavior.

THE OTHER FAMILY LEFT BEHIND

While Pamela’s family searches for answers about what happened to her, another family is grieving an entirely different tragedy.

Erin Piacenti, 32, had recently returned to work after maternity leave.

She and her husband, Frank, had recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary and purchased a home in New Jersey.

Their infant daughter is now growing up without her mother.

Two families.

Two completely different stories.

And one devastating afternoon that connected them forever.

WHAT HAPPENED DURING THOSE THREE WEEKS?

That may be the question Pamela’s family is left asking.

On August 10, her brother said she appeared okay.

By August 31, police were confronting her in one of the busiest places in New York after an apparently random attack.

Between those two dates lies a period her family may never fully understand.

What changed?

Was there a warning sign they missed?

Was there a change in her treatment?

Was something happening privately that nobody close to her knew about?

Or was the transformation simply impossible for those around her to see?

Those questions remain unanswered.

And for Pamela’s family, the hardest part may be knowing that the sister and daughter they remember is now forever linked to the woman millions saw in Times Square.

“I can’t understand what happened to my sister.”

Three weeks may separate the Pamela her family remembered from the Pamela who appeared in Times Square.

But the answers to what happened during those three weeks may never be fully known.