Kansas man accused of tricking grieving families and performing illegal autopsies
When Larry Windholz lost his wife of 41 years, it devastated his life. She was supposed to be in the hospital for just a few days to get treatment for a brain stem bleed.
But 61-year-old Karen Windholz’s time was cut short when he suspects a hospital staffer punctured one of her lungs during a feeding tube insertion. Within 10 days — on May 13, 2017 — his beloved wife was dead.
And Windholz was left looking for answers.
Windholz wanted an autopsy to determine Karen’s cause of death but didn’t trust the hospital to do it. So he sought advice and received the name of a Kansas man who promised he would travel anywhere to perform a private autopsy for a fee: Shawn Parcells.
Now, 22 months later, Windholz is out $3,000 and still has no autopsy report despite repeated promises from Parcells that it soon would be on its way to the couple’s El Dorado home.
And Parcells, 37, is facing criminal charges accusing him of stealing money and desecrating bodies as well as a civil lawsuit that calls his business practices into question.
“We’ve been fighting him (Parcells) for almost two years,” he said. “All I asked was for a report. And now I’ll probably never get a report.”
His wife was his soul mate, he said.
“We went on a blind date in 1976 and got married seven weeks later. That’s love,” said Windholz, 68.
“I’d never met anybody like her.”
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt this week announced that a Shawnee County District Court judge agreed to bar Parcells and his affiliated companies from performing more autopsies, forensic pathology and tissue recovery services in Kansas until the civil lawsuit is resolved. Schmidt’s office filed the suit last Friday following a two-year investigation. It alleges 14 violations of the Kansas False Claims Act and Kansas Consumer Protection Act violations involving three customers.
On the same day the AG’s Office filed the lawsuit, Parcells turned himself into the Wabaunsee County authorities after he was charged with three counts of felony theft and three misdemeanor counts of criminal desecration.
Each of the felony counts carries a possible prison sentence of 5 to 17 months and up to a $100,000 fine. The misdemeanor counts each carry a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Eric Kjorlie, a Topeka-based attorney representing Parcells, said he and his client are considering next steps.
“We are still reviewing criminal bond conditions and civil TRO (temporary restraining order) to assess and determine the best course of action — to include determining the best course of action within and outside the State of Kansas which includes my Client’s obvious need to perform professional services to ensure completion of expert witness summaries and reports for existing clients — subject to Court supervision and approval as necessary to perform and/or referral to and/or to complete by other forensic clinical anatomists.”
The attorney general’s civil lawsuit centers largely on an oral agreement Parcells had with Wabaunsee County Coroner Diana Katt to perform at least 14 coroner-ordered autopsies between 2012 and 2015. But it also mentions three cases where individuals paid Parcells for private autopsies that were never performed.
Recent KCTV-5 reports indicate more than 20 families across the country who hired Parcells feel defrauded. The AG’s Office has received at least seven complaints.
In Kansas, coroner-ordered autopsies are to be performed by qualified pathologists. The AG’s Office in its suit described Parcells as a self-taught pathology assistant with no formal education, degree or license in the healing arts. He is not a physician but some families who asked Parcells’ business to conduct the autopsies believed he had medical qualifications and was licensed to perform the exams.
Some thought Parcells was a professor, the lawsuit said, because he referred to himself as “Professor Lynn.” Lynn is Parcells’ middle name.
Windholz’s troubles aren’t a part of the AG’s filing. He says he didn’t speak with Schmidt’s office until Monday. He said he paid Parcells $3,000 to perform his wife’s autopsy at a Butler County funeral home.
Parcells promised her case would be wrapped up within a few days, Windholz said.
Karen’s body was cremated about a week later, eliminating the chance for a second autopsy.
“I didn’t realize that her body was getting desecrated. Since he owned his own business, I thought he was upright and truthful,” Windholz said.
“It’s hard to wrap my head around what’s going on and what happened.”
Parcells advertises autopsy and tissue recovery services online at www.nationalautopsyservices.com. His business, National Forensic Autopsy and Toxicology Services, lists four office locations in Kansas: a corporate site at 827 S.W. Topeka Blvd. in Topeka, and satellite offices in Topeka, Overland Park and Wichita.
The Wichita location gives an Old Town address — 216 N. Mosley — that’s home to the Labor Party, which offers shared office space and mailing services geared toward creative professionals who have paid memberships. Labor Party founder Kenton Hansen said he didn’t know Parcells was using the address and that his name “doesn’t show up” in membership records.
The address to the Topeka satellite office is an alley adjacent to a rented building where Parcells supposedly performed some of the autopsies, according to the AG’s lawsuit.
Other office locations listed on Parcells’ website include addresses to funeral homes across the country and a North Carolina technical community college.
Here’s how AG’s lawsuit and the restraining order say Parcells cheated Wabaunsee County out of taxpayer dollars, jeopardized investigations and ripped off grieving families:
Katt, the longtime Wabaunsee County coroner, had a verbal contract with Parcells to perform coroner-ordered autopsies from 2012 to 2015. She was not a pathologist herself, but as coroner was responsible for investigating deaths, ordering autopsies and completing death certificates. Parcells told Katt that his business contracted with pathologists to perform autopsies and prepare the associated reports.
During that three-year period, Parcells and his business were asked to perform at least 14 coroner-ordered autopsies and billed the county $16,560 for the procedures, pathology and related services purportedly authorized by Katt. His invoices were paid out of the county’s general fund.
But those autopsies weren’t performed according to state law because there was no licensed pathologist or medical doctor present, assisting or supervising Parcells.
Instead, Parcells’ practice was to perform autopsies at funeral homes, outside medical settings and without witnesses.
He put the names of two real pathologists — Dr. Zhongxue Hua and Dr. Edward Friedlander — on at least some of the coroner-ordered autopsy reports for Wabaunsee County even though they weren’t present for the procedures.
Families who sought out Parcells to perform private autopsies on their loved ones thought he had the appropriate medical qualifications and licenses needed to conduct autopsies and give a medical opinion about the cause and manner of death because of the advertising on his website and because he referred to himself professor.
His website refers to his company as “the unbiased experts.”
All of the autopsy reports were written on Parcells’ letterhead and he used a variety of letters after his name that suggested he held titles and degrees that he actually did not have. Those include BS, MSHAPI, PA, PhD-C, Forensic Clinical Anatomist, Chief Medical Investigator, and Board Eligible Forensic, and Neuro and Infectious Disease Epidemiologist.
When the attorney general’s office questioned Parcells about the Wabaunsee County claims and bills on Jan. 11, 2018, Parcells gave a sworn statement acknowledging occasions where “no reports were prepared to document” the coroner-ordered autopsies he received payment for and that the autopsies were done without a qualified pathologist. Some reports that were prepared weren’t dated, signed, offered no opinion on the cause of death or didn’t include toxicology results.
In Tuesday’s court order, Shawnee County District Court Judge Franklin Theis wrote that more “unknowing customers” are at risk of falling for Parcells’ “ongoing fraudulent business practices” because his website advertises his willingness to travel anywhere, at any time, to provide autopsy services. He said the autopsy reports are “essentially worthless” and “not admissible as evidence.”
He ordered Parcells’ website and his social media pages that promote his business be shut down.
This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Kansas man accused of tricking grieving families and performing illegal autopsies."