The rumpled, hunchbacked figure shuffled across the road before dawn Friday in Fort Worth. A man in a Jeep pulled over and jumped out.

"LaCheryl!" he yelled.

She stopped and turned.

"Oh my gosh," he said. "I am so glad to see you."

The woman didn't know it, but she was supposed to be dead.

At least, thousands of people close to Dallas' LGBT community thought she was.

LaCheryl Wilson, 64, is a homeless woman with mental health issues who has hung around the Oak Lawn neighborhood for the past three decades. Sometimes kind, sometimes hostile, she has acquired a nickname over the years: "Crazy Mary." The moniker might be a little rough, but the community loves her.

LaCheryl Wilson, 64, is affectionately known as "Crazy Mary" to the Oak Lawn LGBT community. (Chris Cantu)

A few years back, someone started a Facebook page, "Crazy Mary: Queen of Oak Lawn," dedicated to sharing stories about the "Oak Lawn institution ... this lady without a home who roams our lovely gayborhood." There, more than 1,400 people would post photos of the woman, and report on giving her cash, cigarettes and her favorite beverage, Dr Pepper — always with no ice. Some brought her food, or in cold weather, blankets and coats. They'd also share when she was screaming at customers at Kroger, or yelling into a cafe. They'd ask people to pray for her.

It was also on that page where her death was first reported. During the summer, people posted asking where Wilson was. It had been four months without any sightings of her. In early October, a member of the group wrote that she'd died. Maybe an infection, he'd heard.

Immediately, people went into mourning. They wrote of their grief. They were thankful that she was now in a better place.

Tributes poured in. Someone posted a video of Pearl Jam performing the song "Crazy Mary."

People discussed holding a memorial service for her at the Legacy of Love monument at the corner of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs. On Oct. 8, a group of friends laid a bouquet of yellow and red roses there with a cigarette, a dollar bill and a note that read "To LaCheryl "Mary" — We will always love you!"

The Dallas Voice, a publication that covers the gay community, published a story reporting Wilson's death on Oct. 9, citing no official sources. Usually, news outlets only publish deaths after confirming them with family or the authorities. In this case, however, David Taffet, the Voice writer on the article, said official confirmation was difficult because Wilson's family didn't seem to be engaged with her life, and none of the police departments or medical examiners he'd called had any record of her.

LaCheryl Wilson, 64, a homeless woman known as "Crazy Mary," was a fixture of the Oak Lawn community for at least three decades. (Gary Hostetler)

Taffet called a Dallas cop he knew. The officer had heard Wilson died too but wasn't sure if it was true. In the end, Taffet said, he decided to post the news online because he didn't want to allow the beloved local character's death to go by without proper recognition.

The story went up with the headline "LaCheryl Wilson — also known as "Crazy Mary" — passes away."

The story was widely shared, and readers posted their memories of her online.

There was the time she shuffled into an IHOP at 2 a.m., miles from her usual haunts, and the waitresses grew annoyed with her. A patron who'd been out partying in Oak Lawn recognized her and bought her a grilled cheese and fries. When the food arrived, she "flashed the biggest snaggle-tooth smile I had ever seen," he wrote on The Dallas Voice's comments section.

"RIP Mary," he wrote. "You'll never be hungry or in need of shelter again."

On Oct. 16, Taffet posted a story with the headline, "Did we get it wrong on death of Oak Lawn homeless woman?" He detailed his calls to the police, medical examiners and hospitals that didn't turn up any answers.

"At this point we are still unable to confirm or deny her death," he wrote.

Not only was her death hard to verify, but the details of her life story are also elusive. Everyone has heard some version of some rumor — that she was once married, and her husband died, sending her into a bad spiral. Or, that she was once a wealthy stock trader who was a regular at Sue Ellen's, a lesbian bar, who turned to drugs after losing all her money.

The only definitive details The Dallas Morning News could find for Wilson were gleaned through her arrest records. Many were related to her mental illness, court records show — over and over, she was ordered to stay away from Starbucks, or Cafe Brazil, or Whole Foods, and then she'd later return, and someone would call the cops.

She was first arrested at age 26, in 1978, for criminal mischief, according to Dallas County court records. After that, she was locked up for prostitution in 1982 and theft in 1989. But the vast majority of her arrests were for criminal trespass — at least nine times between 1985 and 2014.

Court records show she's been ordered to undergo mental health treatment at various state hospitals off and on for years. Her most recent stint was in 2014, when she was found mentally incompetent to stand trial for trespassing at Starbucks on Lemmon Avenue. Her case was transferred to civil court to determine whether she should be committed to a mental health or residential care facility. Evidently, she was freed at some point and returned to the streets.

Some Oak Lawn regulars were relieved when they heard Wilson was dead. She could now rest.

"It was very sad because she's been a fixture in the community, but it was also like, maybe she's finally at peace for whatever's been going on in her head," said James Love, 45, who performs as a drag queen named Cassie Nova. He said when he worked at Hunky's Bar in the 1990s, Wilson would ask customers on the patio for a smoke. "One guy said he went to give her a cigarette and she slapped the [expletive] out of him."

After Taffet's new story raising questions about her condition, the Facebook group turned to speculation over whether Wilson was, in fact, dead. Some wrote they were angry at The Voice for misleading them.

Taffet said he was sorry for rushing to publish.

"It was done more out of love for her," Taffet said. "I guess we got it wrong. We weren't trying to harm anybody."

One woman, Tabitha McLaurin, wrote that Wilson was now "officially 'legendary' status": "She's joined the ranks of Tupac and Elvis in that regard. I feel she's still alive, but just the fact of this much controversy over whether she is or not is a statement to how ubiquitous and famous she is! We are racking our brains as a group and Mary is (hopefully) somewhere just chillin, no worries and no idea all of this is going on!"

Apparently, that's exactly what happened.

Around 6:30 a.m. Friday, Trevor Lofton, a member of the Oak Lawn community, was on his way to his accounting job in Fort Worth.

Lofton, 51, had known Wilson for years, and cared deeply for her. In March, he posted to the Facebook page that he'd seen Wilson outside Starbucks, gave her some cash and talked briefly, but that day was "not one of her good days. Dear God please keep her safe today!"

As he drove down Jones Street passing by the train station Friday, he saw her. He'd recognize that hunched silhouette and bouncy shuffle anywhere. Relief flooded over him. She was alive.

He looked into her eyes and told her how happy he was to see her.

"Well, that's good," she replied with a blank stare under her blue beanie hat.

"There are a lot of people that have been concerned about you," he told her.

She didn't seem to understand. She mumbled some things Lofton couldn't hear, then mentioned she needed money to catch a train. He gave her the few dollars he had in his wallet. As she shuffled away, he snapped a photo of her and posted it to the Facebook page.

A photo taken Oct. 20, 2017, at the TRE station in Fort Worth is said to be of LaCheryl Wlson, aka "Crazy Mary." (Trevor Lofton)

A nearby security guard called out to Lofton, saying the woman had been over there for four months. He asked if Lofton knew her.

Yeah, Lofton explained, his eyes welling with tears. "She's a staple in Oak Lawn," he said, and people there care about her.