Wabaunsee County, KS (KCTV) — Shawn Parcells was scheduled to be sentenced for criminal charges of felony theft and criminal desecration in Wabaunsee County, KS this morning, but he was a no-show at the county courthouse.
Parcells faces numerous county, state and federal charges for his autopsy work. Prosecutors say he lacks the credentials to perform them and even pretended to be a doctor in some cases. He’s been the focus of more than a dozen KCTV5 investigative reports.
But while people waiting for proceedings at the Wabaunsee County courthouse, Parcells sat in federal custody for violating the terms of his bond.
Among those waiting this morning was Roger Boltz. He lost his wife, Melody, seven years ago. At the time, Parcells worked for the county. An autopsy was order, but never completed.
“I’m tired of it, you know,” Roger Boltz told us. “He’s a sleazeball and a liar. That’s just the way it is.”
Boltz calls the entire process frustrating, starting with Parcells’ lab. Parcells allowed KCTV5 inside the lab three years ago. He thought it would help prove his lab was a legitimate business.
But Roger Boltz wasn’t convinced.
“I thought, Dr. Jekyll- Hyde type of guy, you know?” said Boltz. “It was like Frankenstein’s laboratory. Stuff in jars. People in the back room laying on tables. You know, this ought to be the first clue right here that you’re not legitimate, you know.”
Boltz has watched as charges piled up against Parcells.
Parcells is expected to plead guilty to 10 federal charges later in March. And those Consumer Protection Act violations in Kansas involve 82 consumers. After his lab was shut down, all the samples Parcells had collected were returned to families.
Boltz believes Parcells doesn’t understand the trauma he’s caused families.
“Every time he walks in the courtroom, he wants to wave (at us),” said Boltz. “Who both look at each other, like ‘Are you serious?’”
Information KCTV5 uncovered was shocking and heartbreaking. Family after family told us they would never get answers.
At one point, Shawn Parcells even sat down with us to try to explain his actions.
“I tell people all the time I almost became a neurosurgeon,” Parcells told us in 2019. “That doesn’t mean I’m a doctor. That doesn’t mean that I was in medical school. I really did almost do that.”
