Shanice Crews, declared dead and cremated after a supposed overdose, has been found alive—exposing deep cracks in how America handles death verification.
At a Glance
- Shanice Crews, thought dead, discovered alive in Detroit
- Family unknowingly cremated an unidentified woman
- DNA test proved the remains weren’t Shanice’s
- Incident mirrors other deadly identification errors
Shocking Mistake: Cremated Stranger, Sister Still Alive
A Rochester, New York family is demanding justice after learning that their sister, Shanice Crews—believed to have died months earlier from a drug overdose—was alive and living in Detroit. Authorities had misidentified a deceased woman as Shanice, relying on dental records. The family, trusting the process, held a funeral and cremated the body.
The truth came out when someone spotted Shanice in Detroit and shared a photo with her family. A DNA test later confirmed their worst fear—not that Shanice was gone, but that the ashes they buried belonged to a stranger. As Newsweek reports, Shanice’s family now faces emotional turmoil, institutional silence, and a frantic search for the real identity of the cremated woman.
Watch 13WHAM’s report on the incident at Woman Found Living in Detroit After Being Declared Dead.
This Isn’t the First Time
The eerie echo of another high-profile failure makes the Crews case even more disturbing. In 2020, Timesha Beauchamp, a 20-year-old woman from Southfield, Michigan, was pronounced dead by paramedics. Her body was sent to a funeral home—only for staff to discover she was still alive.
According to NBC News, Timesha had suffered massive brain damage due to the premature declaration. She later died from her injuries. Her family sued the city for $50 million, calling out what they said was fatal negligence. “She died as a result of massive brain damage that was suffered when Southfield paramedics wrongly declared her dead,” said family attorney Geoffrey Fieger.
A System Under Fire
These aren’t isolated incidents—they’re symptoms of a larger systemic failure. In Shanice’s case, the reliance on incomplete verification processes led to a grieving family unknowingly spreading ashes of a stranger. “We put them in necklaces and mixed them with my mom’s,” a family member told WDKX, underscoring the deeply personal toll this mistake has taken.
The family is now pursuing legal action and demanding a full investigation. “Reading the autopsy was traumatic,” said Shanita Hopkins, Crews’ sister, in Newsweek’s coverage. “Then her name is attached to it… thinking this is how she died.”
This tragic mix-up, and others like it, shine a harsh light on the cracks in our institutions. Lives are being lost—or mistaken for lost—because of systems that are outdated, error-prone, and insufficiently verified.
