ROCHESTER, N.Y. ( WROC ) – A New York family is navigating an emotional journey after learning their loved one, whom officials declared dead last year, is actually alive and living out of state.
Shanita Hopkins reached out to Nexstar’s WROC with a very unusual situation. Her family had filed a missing person’s report for her sister, Shanice Crews, in July 2021. They were concerned because she left two children behind and cut off all communication.
In April 2024, police told the family their sister had died two months prior, in February, in an empty lot in Rochester, New York. The cause of death, according to the autopsy report, was a drug overdose with extremely high levels of cocaine in the body. Despite her sister being missing for three years at this point, Hopkins said cocaine wasn’t something she had been involved with…