Forensics Expert who Pushed the Michael Brown "Hands Up" Story is, In Fact, Not Qualified or Certified

Parcells became an overnight media star in August when he assisted in an autopsy commissioned by Brown’s family. He appeared time and again on major media outlets as a forensic pathology expert. He said over the years he’s 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’t the expert he seems to be . . .

Parcells, a Kansas native, says he became interested in death at age 12 when his grandfather passed away.

“I actually started doing autopsies my junior year in high school,” he said. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I love it.”

Right 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 “Morbid Curiosity.”

He received a bachelor’s 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’t attend.

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.

“I got a master’s degree in anatomy and physiology, with clinical correlation,” he said.

Asked where his diploma was, he replied that it was on the way. “It’s coming,” he said. “They mail it to you.”

The next day, at another on-camera interview, the conversation went like this:

CNN: So that master’s degree in New York, you have that degree?

Parcells: I will have it next month, yes.

CNN: I don’t mean the piece of paper. I mean have you been conferred that degree?

Parcells: Yes, I will. Next month.

CNN: Right now, as we speak, you have that degree?

Parcells: No, I do not.

Parcells doesn’t claim to have any specific license or certification to do the work he does. He knows how to do autopsies from “on-the-job training,” watching pathologists and assisting them at various morgues, he said . . .

He certainly sounded knowledgeable and authoritative on August 18 when he presented the findings of the Michael Brown autopsy to a nationally televised news conference.

[Dr. Michael] Baden, who conducted the autopsy, spoke first, and then introduced Parcells, saying he “has been instrumental in the autopsy evaluation.”

“First of all, I’m Professor Shawn Parcells,” Parcells said as he stood to address the reporters.

On his LinkedIn page and to CNN, Parcells said he’s an adjunct professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas — but a spokeswoman for the university told CNN that’s not true.

“(Parcells) is not now and has never been a member of the Washburn University faculty,” university spokeswoman Michaela Saunders wrote in an email to CNN, adding that at one point, Parcells spoke without receiving pay to two groups of nursing students about the role of a pathologist’s assistant and gave a PowerPoint presentation and answered students’ questions.

Law enforcement officials in other parts of Missouri say Parcells misrepresented himself as a doctor:

Grant Gillett, a deputy sheriff in Andrew County, Missouri, said Parcells told them he was a doctor — a pathologist specifically — when he walked into the funeral home to do the Forrester autopsy.

Dustin Jeffers, who was also a deputy at the time, said Parcells identified himself as a doctor. The Andrew County Sheriff’s Office incident report refers to him as “Pathologist Shawn Parcells” and “Dr. Shawn Parcells Pathologist.”