Man At Center of Michael Brown’s Autopsy Has Dubious Past and Sketchy Credentials (Videos at link)

The Missouri Torch ^ | August 19, 2014 | Duane Lester

[beaversmom]

Professor Shawn Parcells is a forensic pathologist assistant and medical investigator from Kansas City. He explained to the world how 18 year old Michael Brown died.

Parcells was hired by the Brown family’s attorneys. But, he says he motivated by a quest for the truth for loved ones who have been left with only the revolting image of a bullet-riddled body left lying in the street.

“The Brown family has been left out in the dark. At the end of the day, they’ve been left out in the dark.” said Shawn Parcells.

He says that officer shot Brown from a distance beyond, “close range” or 1-2 feet; the bullets striking brown from the front.

“If you put your hands up like this your trying to block yourself, it could come from the front. You put your hands up like this it could also come from the front.” said Shawn Parcells.

But it wasn’t that long ago he was the focus of a lengthy expose in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The May 2013 article stated that according to coroners and medical examiners in Missouri, Parcells “has inflated his qualifications and performed autopsies without a medical license.” That worried some coroners, who felt Parcells’ could “jeopardize criminal cases, potentially allowing a murderer to go free.”

Last month, John Beger, the prosecutor in Phelps County, asked to delay a murder case, just two weeks before it was set for trial, because of questions about blood work handled by Parcells’ company for a toxicology report in a drug death.

Beger filed the motion after Dr. Edward Friedlander was deposed on April 8. Friedlander is one of the pathologists who formerly worked for Parcells; the doctor’s name was signed on a report listing the cause of death in the case as a heroin overdose.

Friedlander, however, “testified that he had not signed the report, that it was not his signature on the report, that he had not been consulted concerning the death,” the document said. It added that he “had not authorized anyone else to put his signature on the report and that he had no knowledge of the case.”

The case was continued and is now set for a five-day trial beginning June 24.

Neither Friedlander nor Beger would comment. Parcells said he had no knowledge of what Friedlander said because he was not at the deposition.

Similar questions have surfaced in a domestic assault case in Andrew County, in northwestern Missouri. Police say they are looking into an autopsy performed in August 2012.

According to the autopsy report, Dr. George Vandermark was the forensic pathologist on the case. But the report lists Friedlander as the pathologist who reviewed and signed the paperwork.

Grant Gillett, a detective with the Andrew County Sheriff’s Department, said that he was present at the autopsy and that neither Vandermark nor Friedlander had been there. He said Parcells and a female assistant were the only ones present.

Parcells said he had no idea how Friedlander’s name got on the document.

“In fact, he wasn’t even working for our group then,” he said. “I am not sure how that report got his name on it, unless someone changed the name on it.”

Parcells said that even though Vandermark was not at the autopsy, he did review photos, tissues and other tests. He added that the report was incomplete.

Regarding the allegations of doing autopsies without a license, Noah Mays, the former coroner of Gentry County, said he actually witness Parcells do an autopsy by himself:

last summer, Mays said, he and a sheriff’s deputy traveled to Topeka, with a corpse, an apparent suicide. Parcells had agreed to handle the autopsy, he said. They met Parcells at a facility he owns behind a funeral home, in the basement of an old carriage house.

Every other time Mays had attended an autopsy by Parcells’ company, a pathologist had been present. But not this time. Parcells was doing the work by himself, Mays said.

“We asked him multiple times ‘Is this cool? Is this kosher? What’s going on? Is this legal?’ and he says, ‘Oh yeah, I do it all the time; it’s fine.’ ”

The lingering controversy surrounding Parcells was a frequent topic of discussion at the Missouri coroners’ annual fall meeting last year and at the recent spring meeting, Mays and other coroners said.

“People were saying pretty much that he was just cutting them open, signing the paper, and the rest is your problem,” said Mays.

Oh, and about those inflated credentials:

...a few months ago, his LinkedIn profile stated he had been a graduate student at the University of Florida for two years, but he acknowledges that he never attended a class there.

Currently, he lists New York Chiropractic College under his education, but he just finished his first trimester as an online student. He also lists himself as a professor at Wichita State University, but Jean Brickell, chair of medical technology there, said Parcells only assisted at a clinical site one time.

Parcells said he was not trying to misrepresent his education.

Really?

And from his LinkedIn profile, still:

Read More at link...

[lonevoice]

Which is why I included a sarcasm tag on the post, on the off chance that the inherent sarcasm wasn’t obvious.

[Eagles6]

Exactly

[Nifster]

I was agreeing with you guess I should have started with that

[lonevoice]

Thanks!