Shawn Parcells: Forensic Imposter
The history of forensic science is also the history of pseudoscience, phony experts and bogus courtroom testimony. Fakes and charlatans have flourished in the fields of handwriting identification, DNA analysis, forensic toxicology, firearms identification, latent fingerprint analysis, blood spatter interpretation and forensic pathology.
These forensic pretenders work in crime labs, police departments and in coroners' and medical examiners' offices. They also practice as private consultants and independent contractors. Within the private sector these experts from hell often charge less than their qualified counterparts and tailor their findings to meet the needs of the people paying their fees.
Most forensic impersonators work in the shadows until they become involved in a celebrated case. Once in the public limelight they are often exposed for who they are. That doesn't mean, however, that they slink, disgraced, into forensic oblivion. When the smoke clears most of them return with revised, phony credentials and continue to screw up the criminal justice system with their bogus work. They get away with this because in the U.S. there is very little oversight in the field of forensic science.
Shawn Parcells
Shawn Parcells, after graduating in 2003 with a degree in life science from Kansas State University, was accepted into a medical school in the Caribbean. He did not attend the school because he and his wife were expecting a baby. So instead of becoming a physician and acquiring extra training in forensic pathology, Mr. Parcells started a company in Overland Park, Kansas called Regional Forensic Services.
Mr. Parcells, calling himself a forensic pathologist's assistant, offered his services to police departments, coroners and medical examiners. He was not certified as a forensic pathology assistant because no such field is recognized within the forensic science profession.
In Kansas and Missouri Parcells testified in homicide trials as an expert witness on issues dealing with forensic cause of death. Even more disturbing, he performed autopsies without the presence or supervision of a real forensic pathologist.
On his Linkedln page Shawn Parcells claimed to be an adjunct professor at Washburn State University in Topeka, Kansas. He also claimed to have earned a master's degree from New York Chiropractic College. (Like that would qualify him to perform autopsies.)
A deputy sheriff in Missouri claimed that Parcells held himself out to be a doctor. If true, this comprised a criminal offense. The laws in Missouri and Kansas were not clear on whether it was legal for a person without a medical degree to perform an autopsy.
In August 2014, in the wake of the Michael Brown police-involved shooting case in Ferguson, Missouri, Shawn Parcells came out of the shadows when he assisted Dr. Michael Baden perform an autopsy on Mr. Brown at the request of his family. (Dr. Baden was a world renowned forensic pathologist and Fox News contributor.)
Following the Brown autopsy Mr. Parcells made himself a TV authority on the 18-year-old's death by appearing on CNN, Fox News and several other television networks. In watching those interviews very few people would be under the impression that Dr. Baden's assistant was not a forensic pathologist. He came off as being quite authoritative on the subject of Michael Brown's shooting death.
Parcells' media exposure ultimately led to an investigation by CNN regarding his credentials as a cause of death expert. On November 24, 2014 Shawn Parcells sat for a television interview conducted by a CNN correspondent. He admitted having performed autopsies on his own, and when asked how he had acquired his expertise, said, "by watching pathologists and assisting them at various morgues." In some cases he was paid, other times not, he said.
Parcells, when asked about his master's degree from the chiropractic school said he couldn't produce the diploma because it had not arrived in the mail. According to the CNN interviewer, when an inquiry was made at Washburn State University regarding his adjunct professorship a spokesperson for the school said he "is not now and has never been a member of the Washburn University faculty." According to the school official Parcells had once spoken to two groups of nursing students about the role of a forensic pathologist's assistant. He was not paid for his presentation.
Over the next several years Shawn Parcells continued to function and do business as a forensic pathologist, and by 2019 his false claims and deceptive business practices caught up to him. In March 2019 a judge in Shawnee County, Kansas temporarily banned Parcells and his Topeka based company, National Autopsy Services, from conducting autopsies and forensic pathology services. The shutdown would remain in place until a lawsuit against Parcells filed by the state attorney general Derek Schmidt was resolved. The suit alleged violations of the state's consumer protection and false claims act.
In April 2019 the Kansas Board of Healing Arts filed a suit against Shawn Parcells in connection with his alleged false claims of being a physician, a pathologist and a medical examiner. The board asked a judge to shut down Parcells' operation.
The above administrative actions were prompted by an investigation conducted by journalists with the Kansas City News Channel, KCTV5. Reporters spoke to families who had hired Parcells to perform private autopsies in disputed cause and manner of death cases. According to Parcells' accusers he took their money in return for autopsy reports that were full of errors and completely useless. Some of his accusers said Parcells didn't even give them a report. All of his victims were under the impression Parcells was a certified forensic pathologist.
Shawn Parcells, in an email to the KCTV5 investigative team, defended himself by claiming the complainants misunderstood him; that he did not offer "medical reviews" but "scientific reviews." He wrote: "People are missing the point here and it's hurting science. It is only delaying us and because I do work for the defense no one likes me and wants me gone because I actually make the other side do their job." Parcells called his forensic reports "pathophysiological" reports, documents that merely offered his analysis on why a person died. According to Parcells this was not work that required a medical doctor.
Shawn Parcells must have known, however, that the families who hired him needed a valid autopsy for insurance and other legal reasons, something his so-called pathophysiological report didn't accomplish.
In Wabaunsee County, Kansas Shawn Parcells faced criminal charges of theft and desecration of bodies. Moreover, the state attorney general had filed a civil case against him for violating the False Claims and Consumer Protection Acts. The state had also shut down Parcells' National Autopsy Services in Topeka.
In May 2019 reporters with the CBS television affiliate in Kansas City, accompanied by Parcells, toured his closed Topeka forensic lab. In the facility reporters saw a large quantity of tissue specimens and body parts from autopsies he conducted in Kansas and other states.
In Illinois, Kane County Coroner Rob Russell, president of the Association of Illinois Coroners and Medical Examiners, told the CBS reporters that in his state, where Shawn Parcells had performed autopsies, it was illegal for a non-physician to do such work. On Parcells' website he listed an office in a Naperville funeral home. While the Naperville funeral director had allowed Parcells to conduct autopsies there, Parcells didn't maintain an office at that location. The funeral director told the reporters that he had been under the belief that Parcells was a physician.
In November 2019, based upon an order from a Shawnee County, Kansas judge, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment took control of Parcells' closed National Autopsy Services in Topeka. The agency was ordered to conduct an inventory of the biological samples and release them to requesting families. The rest would be held in storage. Parcells' attorney Eric Kjorlie did not oppose the takeover because his client was no longer able to maintain the facility.
At this point in the Shawn Parcells saga, one would assume the forensic pretender's career was over. This, however, given the history of such cases, was not a safe assumption.
In April 2020, not one to miss an opportunity to make money in a field in which he was not qualified, Shawn Parcells was back at it again. He was caught trying to sell coronavirus tests to people desperate to known if their loved ones had died of COVID-19.
On grounds Parcells' COVID-19 testing violated the conditions set by the Kansas judge that prohibited him from working with human remains the Kansas attorney general, on May 6, 2020, filed a restraining order preventing this practice. In November 2020, a federal grand jury sitting in Topeka, Kansas indicted Shawn Parcells of wire fraud in connection with his firm National Autopsy Services. According to the indictment, he had charged clients $3,000 upfront for pathology reports. At least 375 clients had paid him more than $1 million in fees between May 2016 and May 2019. He faced up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000 on each fraud count. Following his arrest he was released on bail. In December 2020, Mr. Parcells filed notice that he intended to plead guilty to the federal charges. A few months later he was arrested and placed into federal custody for violating the terms of his federal bond. In May 2022 Shawn Parcells pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud and related offenses. Seven months later the judge sentenced him to five years nine months in prison.
