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| Shawn Parcells |
Topeka native Shawn Parcells, who allegedly illegally obtained funds from at least 375 clients who came to him seeking autopsies, has been indicted on 10 counts of federal wire fraud.
According to a news release Wednesday from U.S. Attorney for Kansas Stephen McAllister, the indictment in the case against Parcells, 41, also seeks to recover over $1 million in fees paid to Parcells by his clients.
Prosecutors said Parcells, of Leawood, falsely led his clients to believe they would receive an autopsy report from a pathologist, the indictment said.
The indictment said that in most of those cases, there was no pathologist involved in the autopsies. Parcells wasn’t a certified physician or pathologist.
Parcells owned National Autopsy Services in Topeka, where he provided private autopsy services, McAllister said.
Clients using the service typically paid Parcells $3,000 plus expenses up front for a full pathological study and diagnosis of the cause of death of a family member.
From 1996 to 2003, Parcells worked as a pathologist’s assistant for the Jackson County, Mo., Medical Examiner’s Office.
The indictment said that from May 11, 2016, to May 5, 2019, Parcells received funds from at least 375 clients for a total of over $1.1 million but never provided a full report in most of the cases.
Parcells could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on each count, if convicted.
Parcells is a Topeka native and a 1998 graduate of Topeka West High School, according to previous Topeka Capital-Journal reporting.
Parcells made news in 2014 when he and another private professional conducted an autopsy on Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on behalf of his family.
In March 2019, a court order temporarily banned Parcells from conducting autopsies in Kansas while the Kansas Attorney General’s Office pursued a civil lawsuit.
The Kansas Board of Healing Arts in April 2019 filed one criminal and two civil lawsuits against Parcells. The board alleged that he independently performed autopsies, made medical diagnoses and represented himself as a medical examiner and pathologist.
Parcells in 2019 questioned the board’s jurisdiction and said because he wasn’t a health care or medical provider he fell outside the board’s authority.
He also contended that his use of “P.A.” was lawful because he worked as a pathologist’s assistant and denied ever referring to himself as a physician.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parcells hoped
to sample corpses to determine if they were infected with the
coronavirus. A district court judge banned Parcells in May from doing
so.
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