Brain in bucket and other peculiar incidents involving Kansas man who helped with Michael Brown autopsy
Sliding the bucket across the table and opening the lid, the man urged the lawyer, Michael Hodges, to take it. Hodges declined. The deposition continued.
This might have gone down as just on odd moment in Kansas legal history were it not for the fact that about a year later the defendant, Shawn Parcells, ended up playing an instrumental role in the case of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in August.
Parcells became an overnight media star in August when he assisted in an autopsy commissioned by Brown family. He appeared time and again on major media outlets as a forensic pathology expert. He said over the years he testified in court dozens of times in several states.
But an investigation by CNN that included interviews with attorneys, law enforcement and physicians suggests Parcells isn the expert he seems to be.
And handing a lawyer a brain in a bucket isn the only unusual thing he done.
No signature and a suspect set free
In 2012, Parcells Regional Forensic Services was hired by Andrew County, Missouri, to do an autopsy on Robert Forrester, 74, who doctors said died of a brain bleed. Police suspected manslaughter.
Two days before Forrester death, he told officers that his grandson Bobby Forrester, 23, had hit him in the face and me the f out. told CNN he performed the autopsy on Forrester without a doctor present. cheap oakleys outlet
According to the sheriff incident report, the county coroner he was contacted by a doctor who advised he did not see this autopsy or sign the report as it was showing he did. declined to discuss the case with CNN.
Parcells said he listed Friedlander by mistake on the first page of the report, and the autopsy report was actually done by Dr. George Vandermark, whose name appears on the next page but Vandermark tells CNN he had nothing to do with Forrester autopsy.
The report was never signed. According to the county, without a valid autopsy report signed by a doctor, a cause of death can be officially determined and no one can be prosecuted.
Police took Bobby Forrester, who has a history of psychiatric illness, to a hospital for a four day mental health evaluation. After testing, Bobby Forrester was released from the hospital.
Nine months later, Forrester assaulted his grandmother, who was found lying on the floor bleeding with two swollen black eyes. He now serving a four year sentence for assault.
Parcells insists that the Robert Forrester death investigation was from the start because the dead man body was embalmed prior to the autopsy, and because the sheriff department never turned over records needed for the autopsy report to be completed.
The sheriff office says Parcells never asked for such records.
Parcells, a Kansas native, says he became interested in death at age 12 when his grandfather passed away.
actually started doing autopsies my junior year in high school, he said. been doing this a long time. I love it. after high school, renowned pathologist Michael Baden made a visit to Kansas. Parcells snapped a photo with him.
By college, Parcells said, he was teaching first year residents how to do autopsies. The campus newspaper, The Kansas State Collegian, wrote an article about him in 1999 headlined Curiosity. received a bachelor degree in life sciences from Kansas State in 2003, and he said he was immediately accepted to medical school in the Caribbean, but his wife got pregnant and he wanted her to receive her care in the United States, so he didn attend. fake oakleys outlet
Earlier this year, Parcells LinkedIn page said he expected to start medical school at the International University of the Health Sciences in the Caribbean starting in September 2014. Later, the date was changed to 2015.
When CNN visited Parcells in his Overland Park, Kansas, home, he presented a photo of himself onstage at what appears to be a graduation ceremony at the New York Chiropractic College. Christian Louboutin Replicas
got a master degree in anatomy and physiology, with clinical correlation, he said. Christian Louboutin For Sale
Asked where his diploma was, he replied that it was on the way. coming, he said. mail it to you. next day, at another on camera interview, the conversation went like this: