Rochester Family Cremates Missing Woman After Being Told She Was Dead, Only to Learn That She’s Really Alive
A Rochester, New York, family is now suing after they say police told them their missing daughter died, when she was really alive in another state.
Black News 
For three years, Mark Crews carried the weight of a father’s worst nightmare, a missing daughter and unanswered questions. He believed he had finally brought his daughter, Shanice Crews, home after the Rochester Police Department identified a body found in a wooded area as hers. But that closure was a lie.
It all started in July 2021, when Shanice dropped off her two children to family members in Rochester, New York, and vanished, local channel News 10 reported. Her family was concerned because she left two children behind and cut off all communication, RochesterFirst.com reported last year.
Crews searched for his daughter for three years who he believed ventured to Detroit with a religious cult, and reported her missing. He even went as far as hiring a private investigator to find her, to now avail.
That is, until April 2024 when a police officer told Crews that his daughter died in February after a suspected overdose, and that her body had been found along Hudson Avenue in Rochester, according to RochesterFirst.com. Even a forensic dentist confirmed the recovered body was Shanice using dental records because the corpse was so badly decomposed.
Shanice’s sister, Shanita, told the outlet no one was allowed to view the body due to how badly it was decomposed, prompting a swift cremation. The family was given ashes—which they kept in a purple urn next to their mother— held a memorial service and began the grieving process. Months later, everything changed.
A complete stranger from Michigan sent Shanita a Facebook photo dated November 2024 of Shanice alive and volunteering in Detroit, RochesterFirst.com reported.
“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. My initial reaction was like, ‘What the…what? What am I reading right now?,’” Shanita said.
Following questions to the police and an investigation by the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office, a DNA test confirmed the cremated remains were not Shanice. “We dealt with the ashes and stuff– we put them in necklaces and we mixed my mom with this stranger,” Shanita recalled.
“I almost feel like they couldn’t find out who this was and they wanted to close a missing person’s case. That’s almost how I feel,” Shanita said, noting the Medical Examiner’s Office asked for the ashes back. “The [Medical Examiner’s Office] did say that you know we can compensate you for everything that you all spent on the memorial and the cremation and stuff – but my family was like, no we need to get a lawyer.”
The family secured Joseph W. Belluck, who said in a statement that the ordeal “is almost incomprehensible” and the mistake “egregious.” He added, “The officials who misled them must answer for what they did.”
And in an effort to make them answer, the Crews’ family is suing the City of Rochester, the Rochester Police Department, Monroe County and Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office. The lawsuit is to hold them accountable through compensation for funeral expenses and emotional distress.
Shanita had a message to her sister, Shanice: “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.”
