A family in Rochester, New York, wants the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office to pay. The office mistakenly told the family of Shanice Crews that she was dead. In July 2021, Shanice’s family reported her missing after she suddenly disappeared, leaving two children behind. In April 2024 — nearly three years later — police told the family that she was dead.
Police claimed they had found her body in a Rochester parking lot. They determined that she had died in February 2024, and that the cause of death was acute cocaine intoxication.
But in November 2024, seven months after Crews had been declared dead, Shanita Hopkins received a message that read, “Ma’am I’m concerned your sister is not dead.”
Authorities did not allow the family to view the body due to its advanced decomposition.
As a result, the family cremated the body swiftly. Then, Hopkins received the message. “Her first message is ‘ma’am’ — with the picture of my sister — ‘ma’am I’m concerned, your sister is not dead,’” Hopkins recounts. “’She just volunteered at my event today’……this is just a random message,” Hopkins added, “My initial reaction was like … what the … what? what am I reading right now?!”
‘Your mind just goes crazy,’ Hopkins said of her sister’s presumed death.
Crews’ family always had a hard time reconciling the nature of her death. “Reading the autopsy was traumatic,” Hopkins told Rochester First. “That was it’s one thing to hear it, you know what I’m saying, but then it’s another thing to actually read it, and then her name is attached to it. So we thinking, this is how she died. And then we’re trying to think, did somebody like lace her, or is she doing this on her? It’s so much that goes into it. Your mind just goes crazy.”
DNA testing determined the remains did not belong to Shanice.
Shanice Crews in fact, was not dead. Instead, she was alive and well in Detroit. The family reached out to the medical examiner’s office, which assured them that the dental records were a match for Shanice Crews. Hopkins showed them the text messages and the office launched an investigation.
“We went the next day,” Hopkins said. “They wanted my youngest sister, because her and Shanice has the same mom and dad, and then they wanted her son. So both of them went and they did a DNA test, and when the results came back, they said it wasn’t, it wasn’t a match,” Hopkins says. The remains did not belong to Crews.
‘We can’t get them tears back,’ Hopkins said.
The family said this mistake has cost them. “We dealt with the ashes and stuff — we put them in necklaces and we mixed my mom with this stranger … yes,” Hopkins said. “You can’t take back the moments where the cop came and told us Shanice Crews has been found dead on outside, like trash. You can’t take away them initial feelings, you know, like we can’t get that back. We can’t get them seven months back. We can’t get them tears back,” she said.
Hopkins believes the medical examiner’s office just wanted to solve a case.
The medical examiner’s office has offered to pay for the cost of cremation and funeral expenses. But Hopkins says that’s not enough. The family has hired a lawyer.
“After I came and told you that my sister was alive and for you to tell me that her dental records are identical to the dental records y’all are looking at is just a lie — like you’re lying to my face,” Hopkins said. “So I don’t know. I almost feel like they just — they couldn’t find out who this was and they wanted to close a missing person’s case.”
Hopkins said the medical examiner’s office has since confiscated the ashes. Hopkins said the family is looking into being compensated for the roller coaster ride they’ve been on.
“If it’s for anything it’s just really for pain and suffering, because this is crazy,” Hopkins said. “And then my nephew is still going, we’re all still dealing with this. And then it’s, you know, now we can’t force her to talk to us, so that’s so at this point, she’s just still a missing person to us, but she’s alive and well.”
‘I love her,’ Hopkins said when asked what she would say to her sister.
The family has reached out to the Detroit Police Department. When Rochester First asked Hopkins what she would say to her sister if given the chance, she said, “I love her. I’ve been angry for … I’m still angry — I don’t think I’m ever gonna get over the anger but I know how it feels … I’m sorry … I know how it feels to think that she was dead and that, I just want her to know that. I just want her to know that whatever we had going on, it doesn’t even matter. Like I love her, that’s it. That’s all I would want her to know.”
