Lady Found Alive After Being Declared Lifeless and Cremated: Report

• A household in Rochester, N.Y., realized the individual that they had cremated was not their lacking beloved one after she was seen alive in Detroit.
• Police initially stated Shanice Crews died of a drug overdose.
• The household now plans to hunt authorized illustration.

A New York household is fuming after studying that the individual that they had cremated was not their lacking beloved one, and that she remains to be alive.

Shanita Hopkins instructed Rochester station WROC-TV on Thursday, April 17, in regards to the ordeal her household has gone by way of since discovering the individual they’ve been mourning for years just isn’t deceased. 

Hopkins’ sister, Shanice Crews, had not been seen or heard from since July 6, 2021. Crews was 28 years previous on the time and had two youngsters.

In April 2024, police alerted Hopkins and her household that Crews’ stays had been discovered that February.

An post-mortem on the time stated Crews died of a drug overdose, with excessive ranges of cocaine present in her system.

Regardless of not having heard from her sister in years, Hopkins did not imagine the circumstances surrounding Crews loss of life. 

“Studying the post-mortem was traumatic,” Hopkins instructed the information station. 

“It’s one factor to listen to it, however then it’s one other factor to really learn it, after which [to see] her title is hooked up to it.” 

The household questioned if Crews really died from an overdose or if she was unknowingly laced with a drug. “Your thoughts simply goes loopy,” she added.

As a result of the physique was extraordinarily decomposed, the household didn’t view what they had been instructed had been Crews’ stays. As an alternative, that they had the physique cremated and held a memorial service for her. 

In November 2024, issues took one other upsetting flip.

Hopkins acquired a random message from somebody she’d by no means met earlier than. That individual shared a current photograph with Crews.

“Ma’am I’m involved, your sister just isn’t useless. She simply volunteered at my occasion as we speak,” the stranger wrote, attaching a photograph together with the message. 

After contacting the police, Hopkins was redirected to the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Workplace, who assured her that Crews’ dental data matched the physique that they had cremated. 

The conflicting accounts weighed closely on the household’s psychological state. 

“We handled the ashes and stuff, we put them in necklaces and we blended my mother with this stranger,” Hopkins stated.

She continued, “You may’t take again the moments the place the cop got here and instructed us Shanice Crews has been discovered useless outdoors, like trash. You may’t take away them preliminary emotions … we are able to’t get that again. We will’t get them seven months again. We will’t get them tears again.”

Hopkins stated the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Workplace has since supplied to pay the household for the cremation and funeral, nevertheless Hopkins stated they’re selecting to lawyer up as a substitute. 

“I nearly really feel like they couldn’t discover out who this was and so they wished to shut a lacking individual’s case,” she instructed the information station.

On the subject of Crews, Hopkins stated whereas their household “can’t power her to speak to us,” she does have a message for her sister.

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“I really like her. I’ve been indignant for — I’m nonetheless indignant, I don’t suppose I’m ever gonna recover from the anger however I understand how it feels to suppose that she was useless,” Hopkins stated. “I simply need her to know that no matter we had happening, it doesn’t even matter. I really like her, that’s it. That’s all I’d need her to know.”

The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Workplace didn’t instantly reply to PEOPLE’s request for remark, however issued the next assertion to WROC:

“The Monroe County Workplace of the Medical Examiner makes use of business customary scientific strategies to establish stays of deceased people in a well timed method and make applicable notifications to households. As a consequence of restrictions on the disclosure of knowledge contained within the data of the Workplace of the Medical Examiner, we’re unable to touch upon particular instances.”