New York family claims they cremated missing sister only to find out theyd grieved the wrong person

An upstate New York family thought they laid their missing sister to rest years ago — cremating her remains and even mixing them with the ashes of their beloved mom.But three years later, Shanita Hopkins and her family got shocking news: they’d grieved a stranger.“We mixed my mom with this stranger,” Hopkins told told WROC 8 this week referring to her mothers ashes, which the family had put into necklaces. In February 2024, Hopkins and her family were told the decomposed body of their missing sister, Shanice Crews, had been found in an empty Rochester lot.The mother-of-two’s cause of death was a cocaine overdose, according to the autopsy report reviewed by the WROC 8, but Crews, 32, was not into drugs, her sister insisted. “Reading the autopsy was traumatic…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 [own]?” Hopkins, 36, recalled.“Your mind just goes crazy,” she lamented.Nobody in her family had been allowed to see the body because it was badly decomposed, prompting a swift cremation, Hopkins said. The family held a memorial service and funeral for Crews in the summer, mingling what they thought were Crews’ ashes with those of their mom. But things took an astounding turn in November, when Hopkins got a text from an unknown individual from Detroit. “Her first message is ‘ma’am’ – with the picture of my sister – ‘ma’am, I’m concerned, your sister is not dead.She just volunteered at my event today.’ This is just a random message,” Hopkins said.

“My initial reaction was like, ‘What the, what? What am I reading right now?’” A startled Hopkins immediately contacted police, who pointed her to the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office, where personnel insisted Crews’ dental records ha...