Natassia Meadows' family is looking for answers after learning the missing 31-year-old's body sat in the Wayne County morgue for seven months without the family's knowledge and then was cremated without their approval.

After days of not hearing from Meadows, her family went into a panic. Dawn Snider, Meadows' godmother, said the family used social media to find out about her goddaughter's whereabouts and hoped she would answer her cell phone, but to no avail.

"I was throwing messages out on Facebook and then her phone; it went from ringing to going straight to voicemail," said Snider, according to ClickOnDetroit.com.

A body was found inside a home on Appoline Street in Detroit on Oct. 17, 2019, with the ID on the body belonging to Natassia L. Smith. The autopsy results confirmed the woman passed away due to an accidental drug overdose.

After discovery, her body was sent to the Wayne County morgue, where it would sit for seven months.

After providing the Romulus police photos of Meadows, Snider filed a missing persons report.

She recalls her last encounter with her goddaughter was on Oct. 13, 2019.

"She turned around, she came back, she kissed me. And it was so sad. I was like, 'I'm gonna see you again.' And she laughed. That was it. So I never saw her again," Snider said.

Before her death, Meadows pursued a GED and stayed with her godparents in the Romulus area to focus and leave her troubled past behind, which involved losing her children in a custody battle and drug issues.

"She was going to Romulus for adult education, and she found a full-time job," Snider said.

Calls were made to the morgue from Snider, Meadows' mother, and the Romulus police department. They received no answers about the missing mom.

Snider explains how she and Meadows' mother continued to call the morgue to describe her missing goddaughter, detailing her three tattoos and using other names she went by, like "Meadows," "Tasha" or "Smith."

Marilyn Lewis, Meadows' mother, recounts her conversation with the morgue, who continued to claim they did not have her daughter's body in their possession.

During the summer, the inspector general of Michigan called the Meadows family about the missing Romulus resident's complaint about fraud on her bridge card. The family informed the inspector general that she'd been missing.

"I'm like, 'Sir, she's missing. I don't know where she is; we've been looking for her, we can't find her,'" Snider said.

Days after the call, the morgue notified the family that Lewis' daughter had died and was cremated.

According to Wayne County, her body was cremated in May 2020.

Lewis was able to get in contact with the morgue and questioned the disconnect. The morgue responded, saying it was an "accident."

"All they're saying is it's an accident," Lewis said. "I called the same morgue and got told she also went by Natasha Smith and she had tattoos. I told them all her tattoos; they said they didn't have her."

Wayne County commissioners are holding meetings to see what went wrong and if any similar instances occurred in the past.

County Commission Chair Alisha Bell said she sends her deepest condolences to the family.

"I want to give my sincerest condolences to the mother and the family. I'm going to really look into seeing what happened," Bell said.

"What I would like to hear from the medical examiner is just what the procedures are in place and if we need to tighten them up."

"If that was my daughter, I would be livid," said Commissioner Ray Basham, who is working to learn if there were similar cases. We need to learn and grow from a bad experience that was horrific for a family. But it doesn't bode well for the Wayne County morgue."

Dr. Carl Schmidt, Wayne County medical examiner, said he believes the Wayne County morgue followed protocols correctly.

"I think everything was done right. … The woman in question was never in our database, she is identified as Natasha Smith. She has an official state ID that says Natasha Smith," Schmidt said. "As we know, they never offered the name, the name Natasha Smith."

Schmidt continued to defend the morgue, saying, "I don't know of any database manager that captures tattoos in a separate database field that is served. That's up to the computer people to do but it would add another complication and it would be another data entry."

Lewis said she hopes her story will help her family find justice, and that she doesn't want another family to go through the same ordeal.

"I want everybody who has a daughter who is missing to know what is going on. This ain't just right," Lewis said. "I don't want anyone else to go through what we are going through."

Alisha-Bell

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