A Kansas man was arrested for running a phony autopsy business. The charges consisted of wire fraud, for delivering fake autopsy reports via email, and performing autopsies illegally.
In November 2021, he was convicted of three felonies and three misdemeanors for providing illegal autopsies.
Shawn Parcells, 42, a resident of Topeka and Leawood, Kansas, convinced a customer to give him $5,000 to perform an autopsy. However, it turned out most of his so-called autopsies didn’t involve a pathologist.
“During their most vulnerable state, Mr. Parcells willfully defrauded individuals while they were grieving the loss of a loved one,” said Charles Dayoub, FBI Special Agent in Charge.
The incident led to the federal wire fraud charge, which got him sentenced on Monday, September 19 to almost six years in federal prison, according to the US attorney’s office. This will be followed by three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to ten wire fraud charges in May, and received a plea deal, causing the other nine fraud counts to be dropped.
Turns out that Parcells had no school training to perform autopsies, but he managed to earn more than a million dollars swindled out of 350 unfortunate clients who had lost loved ones.
His business, National Autopsy Services, collected more than 1,600 biological samples, mostly human, as part of his scheme to defraud his customers. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has the samples stored and victims can claim them if they choose to have them back.
Parcells was banned in Kansas from doing autopsies and ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution and fines, plus another quarter of a million dollars to be paid to 82 people that hired him.