An East County household plans a memorial for his or her teenage daughter who died earlier this yr of a suspected fentanyl overdose can also be attempting to determine why it took them this lengthy to seek out closure.
The physique of 16-year-old Cassidy Hopwood was discovered again in March, nevertheless it was just a few days in the past her household discovered her physique had been within the morgue for months unidentified.
“She was nothing wanting good. I do know each mother or father says that about their child, however she actually was nothing wanting good,” Cassidy’s father Garren Hopwood mentioned.
Garren Hopwood is struggling to come back to phrases that his solely daughter is now gone.
“She was my little lady. She was individuals’s good friend, she was individuals’s sister,” he mentioned.
Cassidy was reported lacking to the El Cajon Police Division in February.
Her father, grandmother and a nonprofit group, the Rad Motion, had been working since then to try to discover Cassidy. It was the Medical Examiner’s Workplace who referred to as the household to say she had been recognized.
“The Medical Examiner contacted my mother-in-law and that’s how all of us discovered. We haven’t heard from the police division,” Garren Hopwood mentioned.
For months, Cassidy’s father and his household had been holding out hope that Cassidy was nonetheless alive. He spent days handing out lacking particular person flyers. They might chase leads that turned up nothing. The truth that Cassidy was on the Medical Examiner’s Workplace for months provides frustration to the ache the household is already feeling.
“A lacking individuals report and two weeks later they discover a physique and nothing occurs about it. How did they not put two and two collectively?” Garren Hopwood mentioned.
It is nonetheless unclear why it took months to establish a lady who was discovered only a few miles from the place she was reported lacking. Whereas Cassidy Hopwood’s household continues to seek for solutions, they’re hoping her identification will carry some closure to an extremely painful chapter of their lives.
La Mesa police do not imagine foul play was concerned in Cassidy’s loss of life however they nonetheless need to speak to anybody who would possibly know what occurred to her earlier than she died.
