Jose Manuel Martinez: Cartel Hit Man

     Most contract killers are inexpensive amateurs who get caught after their first murder. Their more professional counterparts, career criminals, mostly carry out their murder assignments for organized crime bosses. These hit men are harder to catch because they operate in the shadows of the underworld. But every so often a cold-blooded killer like 51-year-old Jose Manuel Martinez emerges from the shadows.

     In late 2013 authorities on the Mexican-Arizona border arrested Martinez as he tried to cross into the U.S. A warrant for his arrest had been issued out of Lawrence County, Alabama where he was charged with murdering a man execution style in 2013. According to the authorities in Alabama, Manuel Martinez shot the victim because of a disparaging remark he made about Martinez's sister.

     Authorities in Florida also wanted Martinez in connection with a pair of murders in 2006. In California, where Martinez spent brief periods in state prison for drug and theft convictions, the police considered him a suspect in a series of home-invasion robberies. These crimes took place in late 2012 and early 2013.

     Martinez lived on and off in Richgrove, California, a small farming community in Tulare County in the central part of the state about 40 miles north of Bakersfield.

     While incarcerated in the Lawrence County Jail in Alabama where he awaited his June 2014 murder trial, Martinez told detectives that over the past 35 years he operated as a hit man for a Mexican drug cartel. According to Martinez he murdered forty men since 1980.

     On April 8, 2014 prosecutors in two central California counties--Tulare and Kern--charged Martinez with eleven contract killings committed between 1980 and 2011. Nine of the murders took place in Tulare County and two in Kern County. A prosecutor in Santa Barbara County in southern California charged Martinez with the ninth California murder. 

     Manuel Martinez confessed to the following contract killings:

     On October 21, 1980 Martinez shot 23-year-old David Bedolla to death near Lindsay, California. Bedolla was driving to work with his wife, brother and brother-in-law in his car.

     Martinez, on October 1, 1982 shot two ranch workers near Santa Ynez, California. Thirty-year-old Sylvester Ayon died in the shooting. The other ranch hand, a 17-year-old, survived his bullet wounds.

     On October 19, 1982, 22-year-old Raul Gonzales disappeared from his home in the Tulare County town of Earlimart. A rancher in nearby Portersville found Gonzales' body in a field two days after Martinez had shot him to death.

     Another resident of Earlimart, 29-year-old Domingo Perez, went missing from his home on April 8, 1995. Six weeks later a farm worker stumbled upon his bullet-ridden body in an orange grove north of Martinez's home town of Richgrove.

     On the night of February 14, 2000, Manuel Martinez entered the Pixley, California home of 56-year-old Santiago Perez and shot him to death as he slept in his bed. The victim's four young children were in the house when Martinez murdered him.

     Jose Alvarado, a 25-year-old from Kern County, was found shot to death on a dirt road outside of McFarland, California. Martinez executed him by shooting him point blank in the head. This murder took place on February 15, 2007.

     Also in Kern County, Martinez, on March 23, 2009, shot 52-year-old Juan Baustista to death. Martinez committed this murder in an orange grove near McFarland, California.

     On September 27, 2009, in Earlimart, Martinez abducted 45-year-old Joaquin Baragan. Three days later a rancher found the victim's body on the bank of the Deer Creek Canal outside of town. Baragan had been shot in the back of the head.

     Gonzalo Urquieta, another Earlimart resident, was kidnapped by Martinez on February 15, 2011. Two days later, the 54-year-old's body was found in an orange grove near Richgrove. He had been shot numerous times at close range.

     In June 2014 Manuel Martinez pleaded guilty to the 2013 murder in Alabama. The Lawrence County judge sentenced him to 50 years in prison.

     In October 2015 Martinez pleaded guilty in California to the nine Tulare County murders. He also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of another man in that jurisdiction. On November 3, 2015 the Tulare County judge sentenced this serial killer to ten consecutive life sentences.

The Girl the State of Georgia Failed to Protect

     In 2004 prosecutors in Gwinnett County Georgia charged Emani Moss with assaulting his girlfriend. The couple had a one-year old girl who was named Emani after her father. Because Mr. Moss attacked his girlfriend in front of their daughter the prosecutor also charged him with second-degree child cruelty. In return for his guilty plea the judge sentenced Mr. Moss to probation.

     Six years after the domestic assault, Emani Moss and his daughter resided in Lawrenceville, an unincorporated suburb of Atlanta. Mr. Moss's new girlfriend, Tiffany Nicole Brown lived in the apartment with them. In March 2010 the six-year-old girl told a teacher at Cooper Elementary School that she was afraid to go home with her bad report card.

     Emani's fear of being punished at home prompted an inquiry by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. After finding evidence of abuse the child protection agency turned the case over to the Gwinnett County Police Department.

     Gwinnett County investigators determined that Tiffany Brown had repeatedly beaten the girl with a belt. On Emani's body doctors found scars, abrasions, scabs and bruises on her chest, arms, back and legs. A Gwinnett County prosecutor charged Tiffany Nicole Brown, an elementary school teacher, with first-degree child cruelty. The girl's father was charged with child cruelty as well.

     Pursuant to an agreement with the prosecutor, Tiffany Brown was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree child cruelty in return for probation. Because the couple promised to take parenting classes the charges against Mr. Moss were dropped. (The child services agency signed-off on the plea bargain.) Everybody came out ahead in the deal except the child who remained exposed to abuse. 

     In July 2012 Gwinnett County detectives opened another child abuse case involving Mr. Moss and Tiffany whom he had since married. When investigators were unable to find sufficient evidence to back up the girl's claim that she had been beaten and denied food as punishment, the police closed the case. Shortly after being abandoned again by the government the nine-year-old ran away from home. After finding her the authorities not only returned the child to her private hell, they charged her as a runaway juvenile.

     At four in the morning on Saturday November 1, 2013 Mr. Moss called 911 from the Coventry Pointe apartment complex in Lawrenceville. He told the 911 dispatcher that his daughter had consumed some kind of poison and died. He said he was thinking of committing suicide.

     Gwinnett County police officers encountered Mr. Moss standing in the breezeway outside the apartment complex. The 30-year-old led the officers to a trash can in the recreation area. Inside the garbage bin officers discovered the badly burned body of a girl. The girl in the trash was ten-year-old Emani Moss.

     The county medical examiner's office ruled the girl's death a homicide. According to the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, she died of starvation. Her body had been burned postmortem. The medical examiner did not believe she had been poisoned.  (A toxicology report would later confirm the lack of poison in the girl's system.) According to the pathologist the dead girl endured periods of up to twelve days without food. She had been dead about three days.

     Emani and Tiffany Moss, charged with first-degree murder, cruelty to children and concealing a body, were booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center. The magistrate denied them bail.

     On June 8, 2015 Emani Moss pleaded guilty to the charge of felony-murder. As part of the plea bargain deal he agreed to testify against his wife Tiffany. Detectives believed that Tiffany had been the driving force behind the murder. Mr. Moss, according to investigators, played a passive role in his daughter's torture and death. He failed to protect her. In return for his plea Emani Moss was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If found guilty Tiffany Moss faced the death penalty.

     In November 2017 Tiffany Moss fired her two state appointed attorneys after they recommended that she plead guilty in return for a life sentence. She asked the court to allow her to represent herself.

     In May 2022, after representing herself at the murder trial, the Gwinnett County Jury found Tiffany Moss guilty as charged. Her sentence: death by lethal injection.

The Randolph Maidens Murder Case

     In April 2013 Dr. Rachael F. Maidens, a successful orthodontist, resided with her husband Randolph and their two-year-old daughter Natalie in a $900,000 home inside a gated 600-acre subdivision in Brentwood, an affluent suburb outside of Nashville, Tennessee. The Brentwood native had attended Father Ryan High School, Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham Alabama and the University of Florida College of Dental Medicine. She began practicing orthodontics in her hometown in 2006.

     Randolph Maidens, the 34-year-old orthodontist's husband, worked for a biotech firm called Dendreon as a regional pharmaceutical sales manager. Rachael, her family and Randolph Maidens' fellow employees were concerned that the 42-year-old salesman had, over the past several weeks, lost control of himself. Maidens had been drinking heavily and fighting with his wife. In February 2013 police in Brentwood arrested him for driving under the influence.

     Randolph and Rachael Maidens while attending a Dendreon Company conference at the Dolphin Resort at Walt Disney World argued in front of other pharmaceutical company employees and their spouses. Randolph, in a drunken rage, smashed glasses and screamed that he was going to kill Rachael. The out-of-control sales manager, when fellow employees tried to settle him down, started throwing punches. The police came and took Mr. Maidens into custody. Charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct he spent the night in jail. Three days later Mr. Maidens returned to work.

     At 5:50 PM on Sunday April 21, 2013, Rachael Maidens' mother, Elizabeth Frisbi, concerned that Randolph had become suicidal, asked officers with the Brentwood Police Department to make a welfare check at the couple's home in the Governors Club subdivision.

     When the officers entered the house they encountered two-year-old Natalie who said, "Daddy gone. Daddy gone." In a second floor bedroom they found Rachael who had been shot to death. Randolph was not in the dwelling.

     In the kitchen police officers discovered a note in which Randolph apologized for what he had done to his wife. In the murder scene note Randolph Maiden wrote that he wanted his daughter Natalie placed into the custody of Rachael's parents.

     Fearing that an armed madman was on the loose, police officers evacuated the homes in the vicinity of the murder and locked down the subdivision. At 6:30 the next morning officers arrested Randolph Maidens when he returned to his house on Governors Way. He did not resist arrest and was not armed.

     In the trunk of Maidens' car officers discovered $87,200 in cash. In the house they had found $8,500 in 100-dollar bills.

     Charged with first-degree murder, two counts of evidence tampering and child neglect, officers booked Maidens into the Williamson County Jail. Two days later a judge set his bail at $2.5 million.

     Shortly after Maidens' arrest his attorneys petitioned the court for a bail reduction. In June 2013 the judge reduced Maidens' bail to $750,000. With the help of a bonding agency Maidens gained his release by posting his bail. Corrections officers fitted the suspect with a GPS tracking device and the judge prohibited Maidens from contacting his daughter or members of his dead wife's family.

     At a preliminary hearing on June 25, 2013 Mr. Maidens pleaded not guilty to all charges. In November a Williamson County judge announced that in December 2013 a date would be set for Maidens' murder trial.

     On January 7, 2014 Williamson County Judge Timothy Easter revoked Randolph Maidens' bond and sent him back to jail. The judge took this action because on December 10, 2013 Davidson County Sheriff Office deputies arrested Maidens at his apartment complex for public intoxication. (The charge was later dropped.) District Attorney Kim Helper filed the revocation motion on grounds that Maidens was a threat to public safety.

     On September 15, 2014 Randolph Maidens pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of his wife Rachael. In his plea statement he said, "And to Rachael, I promised to love and cherish you and I betrayed all of that. I will live with the anguish forever. No prison is worse than what I inflicted on myself. To all of Rachael's family and friends, I am truly sorry for all the pain and for all the moments that could have been."

     Judge Timothy Easter sentenced the 35-year-old Maidens to 25 years in prison. 

The Meth Contaminated Home

     Methamphetamine is an addictive synthetic stimulant that causes the brain to release a surge of dopamine that depending upon how it is ingested and its potency creates a high that lasts from a few minutes to 24 hours. Meth comes in two forms, powder and rock. The powder can be snorted, smoked, eaten or dissolved into a drink. Rock, the crystalized form of the drug, is usually smoked or injected. One hit of the drug costs between $25 and $80. 

     Meth is addictive because it depletes the brain of dopamine. Once this happens users are unable to experience pleasure without the chemicals. Addicts who try to quit become depressed and in some cases psychotic. The prolonged use of meth permanently destroys the brain and can cause heart attacks and strokes.

     Manufacturing or "cooking" meth is a multi-step operation that takes 48 hours to complete. The process produces toxic fumes and there is always the potential for an explosion. There are a handful of large commercial super labs and thousands of small home laboratories. Super labs, like the one featured on the AMC TV series "Breaking Bad" are staffed by trained chemists who purchase the key ingredients--ephedrine and pseudoephedrine--in bulk from chemical suppliers. A super lab can manufacture more than 100,000 does per cook.

     Amateur meth cooks who operate home labs use chemicals derived from over-the-counter cold, cough and allergy medicines. These shade-tree chemists acquire ingredients such as ammonia and lye from everyday household items. For example, they can obtain red phosphorus by scraping it off matches. The operator of a home meth lab can only produce about 300 doses a cook, enough product for himself and a few sales.

     The vast majority of meth factories raided by narcotics officers are amateur operations. Because of the highly toxic nature of meth production these sites have to be professionally scrubbed.

The Bates Family

     Unfortunately for John Bates, his wife Jessie and their 7-year-old son, the state of Washington didn't have a meth disclosure law in 2007 when they purchased a house for $235,000 in Suquamish, a town near Seattle. Shortly after moving into the dwelling their son Tyler developed breathing problems. Mr. Bates developed a variety of unexplained symptoms and his wife kept getting horrible skin rashes. The family and their physicians didn't have a clue what was causing these ailments until a neighbor, 18 months after the onset of the illnesses, casually mentioned that the former occupant of the home had made his living cooking meth.

     A state inspection of the Bates home revealed that toxic chemicals had soaked into the carpets, walls, studs and flooring. Instead of shelling out $90,000 to replace the contaminated areas of the house, the Bates demolished the place and built a new home on the two-acre lot. The project cost them $184,000.

     The Bates regained their health and the state of Washington passed a residential meth lab disclosure law.  

The Sylvie Cachay Bathtub Murder Case

     Sylvie Cachay grew up as the daughter of a Peruvian-born physician who practiced in Arlington, Virginia. She studied fashion design in New York City and worked for clothing designers Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfinger and Victoria's Secret. In 2006 Cachay started her own swimsuit line called Syla. She resided in a So Ho apartment in Manhattan's meatpacking district.

     Early in 2010 the 33-year-old swimwear designer met 24-year-old Nicholas Brooks, a college dropout and unemployed party-boy with a history of patronizing prostitutes, consuming large amounts of alcohol and smoking marijuana. Nicholas Brooks' father Joseph Brooks achieved a bit of fame by writing the 1970s hit song, "You Light Up My Life." The songwriter supported his son's party-boy lifestyle until 2009 when the elder Brooks was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting several women, most of whom were aspiring actresses. (In 2011 Joseph Brooks, facing the chance of a long stretch in prison, committed suicide.)

     Because of Nicholas Brooks' debauched lifestyle funded by Sylvie Cachay's credit cards, the couple had a turbulent relationship. They frequently broke up and then got back together again.

     On the morning of December 8, 2010 Sylvie Cachay sent Nicholas Brooks an email that read: "Nick, for the past six months I have supported you financially and emotionally. I am speaking with my credit card company and the police and I am going to tell them that I never allowed you to use my card. I don't care. Have fun in jail."

     Later on the day of Cachay's angry email the couple made up in her apartment. That night just after midnight they walked to the SoHo House, a luxury hotel not far from Cachay's dwelling. They checked into their room at 12:30 AM.

     Shortly after Cachay and Brooks checked in to the SoHo House a hotel employee heard a man and a woman arguing loudly in their room. Thirty minutes later Nicholas Brooks left the suite and was seen eating a steak in the hotel's dining room. Upon finishing his meal he and a man who had come to the lobby to meet him left the hotel. A short time later they were having drinks at a nightclub called Employees Only.

     At three in the morning of December 9, 2010, about two and a half hours after Cachay and Brooks checked in to the SoHo House, a guest on the floor below complained to the front dest about water leaking through the ceiling. Hotel employees entered Cachay's room and found her dead in the overflowing bathtub. One of the stunned hotel employees called 911.

     New York City homicide detectives, when they arrived at the hotel found the swimsuit designer in the bathtub wearing a sweater and a pair of underwear. The officers didn't notice any signs of physical trauma on the dead woman's body. At five-thirty that morning while the death scene investigators were still in the hotel room Nicholas Brooks returned to the suite. He agreed to be questioned at a nearby NYPD precinct station.

     Brooks admitted to his questioners that he and his dead girlfriend had been arguing in the hotel room before he left to eat his steak. After that he and a friend went out for drinks at a nearby nightclub. He said that when he left the hotel room she was alive.

     Following the autopsy a forensic pathologist with the New York City Medical Examiner's Office ruled that Sylvie Cachay died of asphyxia due to strangulation and drowning. The manner of death in her case was ruled criminal homicide.

     New York City detectives arrested Nicholas Brooks on January 4, 2011 on the charge of first-degree murder. At his arraignment hearing the magistrate denied the murder suspect bail. Brooks entered a plea of not guilty.

     The Cachay-Brooks murder trial got underway in New York City on June 7, 2013. In his opening remarks to the jury the assistant district attorney laid out the prosecution's theory of the case: the unemployed playboy had been using the victim to fund his taste for prostitutes, alcohol, marijuana and expensive nights out on the town. When she threatened to cut him off and report him to the police he strangled or drowned her to death in the hotel bathtub.

     The New York City Medical Examiner's Office forensic pathologist took the stand early in the trial. According to the pathologist, "Bruises on the victim's neck, bleeding in her eyes and abrasions inside her mouth were injuries consistent with [homicidal] asphyxiation."

     Through several prosecution witnesses the assistant district attorney presented the jury with emails in which Sylvie Cachay complained to her friends about Brooks' drinking, drug use and late-night partying. In these emails she referred to the defendant as "the kid I'm dating," as her "man-boy" or as a "stoner" who had quit his job at a cupcake shop.

     The Brooks defense, through a forensic pathologist from Syosset, New York presented evidence that Cachay's death had been accidental. According to Dr. Gerard Catanese the victim drowned in the tub because she had sedatives, anti-depressants and muscle relaxers in her system. "That combination of drugs," Dr. Catanese said, "could account for her falling asleep, losing consciousness and sinking under the water and ultimately dying."

     On July 11, 2013, the jury relying solely on circumstantial evidence found Nicholas Brooks guilty of first-degree murder. As the verdict was read friends of Sylvie Cachay in the courtroom cheered loudly. 

     The judge sentenced Nicholas Brooks to 25 years to life. Five years later an appellate court denied Brooks' appeal.

Shawn Parcells: Forensic Imposter

     The history of forensic science is also the history of pseudoscience, phony experts and bogus courtroom testimony. Fakes and charlatans have flourished in the fields of handwriting identification, DNA analysis, forensic toxicology, firearms identification, latent fingerprint analysis, blood spatter interpretation and forensic pathology.

     These forensic pretenders work in crime labs, police departments and in coroners' and medical examiners' offices. They also practice as private consultants and independent contractors. Within the private sector these experts from hell often charge less than their qualified counterparts and tailor their findings to meet the needs of the people paying their fees.

     Most forensic impersonators work in the shadows until they become involved in a celebrated case. Once in the public limelight they are often exposed for who they are. That doesn't mean, however, that they slink, disgraced, into forensic oblivion. When the smoke clears most of them return with revised, phony credentials and continue to screw up the criminal justice system with their bogus work. They get away with this because in the U.S. there is very little oversight in the field of forensic science.

Shawn Parcells

     Shawn Parcells, after graduating in 2003 with a degree in life science from Kansas State University, was accepted into a medical school in the Caribbean. He did not attend the school because he and his wife were expecting a baby. So instead of becoming a physician and acquiring extra training in forensic pathology, Mr. Parcells started a company in Overland Park, Kansas called Regional Forensic Services.

     Mr. Parcells, calling himself a forensic pathologist's assistant, offered his services to police departments, coroners and medical examiners. He was not certified as a forensic pathology assistant because no such field is recognized within the forensic science profession.

     In Kansas and Missouri Parcells testified in homicide trials as an expert witness on issues dealing with forensic cause of death. Even more disturbing, he performed autopsies without the presence or supervision of a real forensic pathologist.

     On his Linkedln page Shawn Parcells claimed to be an adjunct professor at Washburn State University in Topeka, Kansas. He also claimed to have earned a master's degree from New York Chiropractic College. (Like that would qualify him to perform autopsies.)

     A deputy sheriff in Missouri claimed that Mr. Parcells held himself out to be a doctor. If true, this comprised a criminal offense. The laws in Missouri and Kansas were not clear on whether it was legal for a person without a medical degree to perform an autopsy.

     In August 2014, in the wake of the Michael Brown police-involved shooting case in Ferguson, Missouri, Shawn Parcells came out of the shadows when he assisted Dr. Michael Baden perform an autopsy on Mr. Brown at the request of his family. (Dr. Baden was a world renowned forensic pathologist and Fox News contributor.)

     Following the Brown autopsy Mr. Parcells made himself a TV authority on the 18-year-old's death by appearing on CNN, Fox News and several other television networks. In watching those interviews very few people would be under the impression that Dr. Baden's assistant was not a forensic pathologist. He came off as being quite authoritative on the subject of Michael Brown's shooting death.

     Parcells' media exposure ultimately led to an investigation by CNN regarding his credentials as a cause of death expert. On November 24, 2014 he sat for a television interview conducted by a CNN correspondent. He admitted having performed autopsies on his own, and when asked how he had acquired his expertise, said, "by watching pathologists and assisting them at various morgues." In some cases he was paid, other times not, he said.

     Parcells, when asked about his master's degree from the chiropractic school said he couldn't produce the diploma because it had not arrived in the mail. According to the CNN interviewer, when an inquiry was made at Washburn State University regarding his adjunct professorship a spokesperson for the school said he "is not now and has never been a member of the Washburn University faculty." According to the school official Parcells had once spoken to two groups of nursing students about the role of a forensic pathologist's assistant. He was not paid for his presentation.

   Over the next several years Shawn Parcells continued to function and do business as a forensic pathologist, and by 2019 his false claims and deceptive business practices caught up to him. In March 2019 a judge in Shawnee County, Kansas temporarily banned Parcells and his Topeka based company, National Autopsy Services, from conducting autopsies and forensic pathology services. The shutdown would remain in place until a lawsuit against Parcells filed by the state attorney general Derek Schmidt was resolved. The suit alleged violations of the state's consumer protection and false claims act.

     In April 2019 the Kansas Board of Healing Arts filed a suit against Shawn Parcells in connection with his alleged false claims of being a physician, a pathologist and a medical examiner. The board asked a judge to shut down Parcells' operation.

    The above administrative actions were prompted by an investigation conducted by journalists with the Kansas City News Channel, KCTV5. Reporters spoke to families who hired Mr. Parcells to perform private autopsies in disputed cause and manner of death cases. According to Parcells' accusers he took their money in return for autopsy reports that were full of errors and completely useless. Some of his accusers said Parcells didn't even give them a report. All of his victims were under the impression he was a certified forensic pathologist.

     Shawn Parcells, in an email to the KCTV5 investigative team, defended himself by claiming the complainants misunderstood him; that he did not offer "medical reviews" but "scientific reviews." He wrote: "People are missing the point here and it's hurting science. It is only delaying us and because I do work for the defense no one likes me and wants me gone because I actually make the other side do their job." Parcells called his forensic reports "pathophysiological" reports, documents that merely offered his analysis on why a person died. According to Parcells this was not work that required a medical doctor.

     Shawn Parcells must have known the families who hired him needed a valid autopsy for insurance and other legal reasons, something his so-called pathophysiological report didn't accomplish.

     In Wabaunsee County, Kansas Shawn Parcells faced criminal charges of theft and desecration of bodies. Moreover, the state attorney general filed a civil case against him for violating the False Claims and Consumer Protection Acts. The state also shut down Parcells' National Autopsy Services in Topeka.

     In May 2019 reporters with the CBS television affiliate in Kansas City, accompanied by Parcells,  toured his closed Topeka forensic lab. In the facility reporters saw a large quantity of tissue specimens and body parts from autopsies he conducted in Kansas and other states.

     In Illinois, Kane County Coroner Rob Russell, president of the Association of Illinois Coroners and Medical Examiners, told the CBS reporters that in his state, where Shawn Parcells had performed autopsies, it was illegal for a non-physician to do such work. On Parcells' website he listed an office in a Naperville funeral home. While the Naperville funeral director allowed him to conduct autopsies there, Parcells didn't maintain an office at that location. The funeral director told the reporters he had been under the belief that Parcells was a physician.

     In November 2019, based upon an order from a Shawnee County, Kansas judge, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment took control of Parcells' closed National Autopsy Services in Topeka. The agency was ordered to conduct an inventory of the biological samples and release them to requesting families. The rest would be held in storage. Parcells' attorney Eric Kjorlie did not oppose the takeover because his client was no longer able to maintain the facility.

     At this point in the Shawn Parcells saga, one would assume the forensic pretender's career was over. This, however, given the history of such cases, was not a safe assumption.

     In April 2020, not one to miss an opportunity to make money in a field in which he was not qualified, Shawn Parcells was back at it again. He was caught trying to sell coronavirus tests to people desperate to known if their loved ones had died of COVID-19.

     On grounds Parcells' COVID-19 testing violated the conditions set by the Kansas judge that prohibited him from working with human remains, the Kansas attorney general, on May 6, 2020, filed a restraining order preventing this practice.

     In November 2020 a federal grand jury sitting in Topeka, Kansas indicted Shawn Parcells of wire fraud in connection with his firm National Autopsy Services. According to the indictment he charged clients $3,000 upfront for pathology reports. At least 375 clients paid him more than $1 million in fees between May 2016 and May 2019. He faced up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000 on each fraud count. Following his arrest he was released on bail. 

     In December 2020, Mr. Parcells filed notice that he intended to plead guilty to the federal charges. A few months later he was arrested and placed into federal custody for violating the terms of his federal bond.

     In May 2022 Shawn Parcells pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud and related offenses. Seven months later the judge sentenced him to five years nine months in prison.

Forensic Pathology and Cause and Manner of Death

     Forensic pathologists are physicians educated and trained to determine the cause and manner of death in cases involving violent, sudden or unexplained fatalities. The cause of death is the medical reason the person died. One cause of death is asphyxia--lack of oxygen to the brain. It occurs as a result of drowning, suffocation, manual strangulation, strangulation by ligature (such as a rope, belt, or length of cloth) crushing or carbon monoxide poisoning. Other causes of death include blunt force trauma, gunshot wound, stabbing, slashing, poisoning, heart attack, stroke, or a sickness such as cancer, pneumonia or heart disease.

     For the forensic pathologist the most difficult task often involves detecting the manner of death--natural, accidental, suicidal or homicidal. This is because the manner of death isn't always revealed by the physical condition of the body. For example, a death resulting from a drug overdose could be the result of homicide, suicide or accident. Knowing exactly how the fatal drug got into the victim's system requires additional information, data that usually comes from a police investigation. A death investigator, for example, will try to find out if the overdose victim had a history of drug abuse or if there were signs of a struggle at the scene of the death. Had this victim attempted suicide in the past? Did the victim leave a suicide note? Did someone have a compelling motive to kill this person? Is there evidence of a love triangle, life insurance fraud, hatred or revenge? These are basic investigative leads that could help a forensic pathologist determine the manner of death.

     When the circumstances of a suspicious death are not ascertained or are sketchy, and the death is not an obvious homicide, the medical examiner might classify the manner of death as "undetermined." Drug overdose cases that are only slightly suspicious and therefore not thoroughly investigated often go into the books as either accidents or suicides. This is true of other forms of slightly suspicious death. Because a body is found dead in the water doesn't necessarily mean this person drowned. This victim could have been murdered and then dumped into the water. Even in a death by drowning, the person could have died after being criminally thrown from a boat or off a pier.

     There are more sudden, violent and unexplained deaths in the United States than the nation's four hundred or so board-certified forensic pathologists can handle. This gruesome workload ideally should require at least a thousand forensic pathologists. As a result of this personnel shortage not every death that calls for an autopsy receives one. Because there is also a shortage of qualified criminal investigators, not every death that requires an investigation gets the attention it deserves. This means we don't know exactly how many people in this country are murdered every year. Of the cases known to be criminal homicides about half go unsolved. This is one of the many failures of our criminal justice system. 

Score One For The Devil: The Arkansas Church Murder Case

     Every once in awhile you hear of a homicide that reminds you that regardless of who you are, where you are or what you are doing, you can be murdered. It's a sobering thought, but it's true. There are people among us, ordinary looking people, folks pushing carts at Walmart, driving around in SUVs, watching their kids play soccer, sitting in movie theaters and eating in restaurants, that for little or no reason, will take your life. As Charles Lindbergh said after the kidnapping and murder of his son in 1932, life is like war.

     On Sunday morning June 6, 2010, Patrick Bourassa, a 34-year-old drifter with a shaved head, an ordinary face and a tattoo on his chest featuring three skulls and a flaming dragon, was driving in eastern Arkansas on Highway 64. Average height, thin and clean-cut, Mr. Bourassa, if placed in a group of men his age wouldn't stand out. Originally from Danielson, Connecticut, he had recently worked in a Dotham, Alabama barbecue restaurant and had tended bar in Phoenix, Arizona and Wichita, Kansas.

     At eight-thirty that Sunday morning as Patrick Bourassa drove west toward the small town of Hamlin, Arkansas, 80-year-old Lillian Wilson was alone inside the Central Methodist Church. She had gone there to pick-up donation baskets used to collect money for victims of a recent storm. As Bourassa approached the town his car broke down. Leaving the vehicle along the highway he walked to the church and forced his way into the building.

     About an  hour after Bourassa broke into the Methodist Church he pulled into a nearby Citgo station driving Lillian Wilson's car. A few miles down the highway from the gas station he used Wilson's credit card to buy food at a Sonic convenience store.

     As Patrick Bourassa drove west through Arkansas, the pastor of the Central Methodist Church discovered Lillian Wilson's body lying on the floor between two pews. She had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy brass cross.

     On Thursday of that week police officers arrested Bourassa in Bremerton, Washington located on Kitsap Peninsula west of Seattle. He still possessed Lillian Wilson's car and admitted to the arresting officers that he murdered the old woman in an Arkansas church.

     On June 16, 2010, after waiving extradition, Mr. Bourassa and his attorney stood before a judge in Wynne, Arkansas. Advised he had been charged with capital murder and several lesser charges, he pleaded not guilty. The murder suspect awaited trial without bail in the Cross County Jail.

     On Monday, April 2, 2012 in Wynne, Arkansas, the jury selection phase of Bourassa's capital murder trial got underway. A week later the prosecutor showed the jury a video-tape of the defendant re-enacting how he had picked the brass cross off the communion table and used it to beat Lillian Wilson to death. In response to why he had killed an old woman he didn't know, Bourassa said it was because he became enraged when she told him that God loved him and would forgive him.

     Bourassa's attorneys did not dispute the fact their client killed Lillian Wilson. It was their mission to convince the jury to find Bourassa guilty of a lesser homicide charge in order to save him from execution. To get that result the defense put two expert witnesses on the stand. A psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist testified that Bourassa was genetically predisposed to violence. These mental health practitioners told the jury the defendant suffered childhood abuse and was bipolar. Moreover, he had a personality disorder. Because these experts were not saying that Bourassa was not guilty by virtue of legal insanity, the relevance of this testimony was not clear. Surely they were not trying to make the jurors feel sorry for this man.

     On April 13, 2012, after four hours of deliberation, the jury found Patrick Bourassa guilty of capital murder. The defendant, at the reading of the verdict showed no emotion. Having found Patrick Bourassa guilty the jury had to either sentence him to life in prison or death. The next day, after deliberating two hours, the jury sentenced Bourassa to life without parole. The jurors spared this killer's life because they didn't think Lillian Wilson, the woman he had murdered, approved of the death sentence. 

The Ron Jeremy Sexual Assault Case: The Legacy of a Former Porn Star

     Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, born in 1953 into a middle class family, grew up in Queens, New York. Following a stint as a school teacher he tried to establish a career as an actor on Broadway. When that didn't pan out the chubby, five-foot six aspiring actor moved to the Los Angeles area to pursue a career in the film industry. Hyatt, now going under the name Ron Jeremy, found his place as a Hollywood actor when in 1979 the 26-year-old appeared in his first porn flick. (According to porn film fans, inches that would have made Jeremy six-foot three, ended up elsewhere. For the porn industry he was tall in the right place.)

     By 2018, having appeared in more than 2,200 adult films, Ron Jeremy, having acquired the nickname "Hedgehog" because of his stature and hairy body, had become an icon in the porn business. According to the Guinness Book of World Records he held the record in the category "Most Appearances in Adult Films." Moreover, his fame reached beyond the porn community into popular culture where, through endorsements and his "acting," he became a multi-millionaire. In 2001 Jeremy was the subject of a documentary called "Porn Star: The Legacy of Ron Jeremy."

     On November 15, 2017 Rolling Stone published an article by EJ Dickson that discussed a June 2017 YouTube video posted by a woman named Ginger Banks. In that ten-minute clip Banks told the stories of several women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Ron Jeremy.

     Ron Jeremy's attorney attempted to get Rolling Stone to retract the damning piece, but the magazine stood behind the reporting.

     In 2018, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Special Victims Bureau launched an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Ron Jeremy.

     On June 23, 2020, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies arrested the former porn star. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office charged Jeremy with raping a 25-year-old woman in her home in West Hollywood in May 2014. He also faced charges related to the sexual assault, on separate occasions, of two women in a West Hollywood bar. The alleged assaults of these women, ages 33 and 46, took place in 2017. The final charge involved the alleged rape, in the same bar, of a 30-year-old woman. This offense allegedly occurred in July 2019.

     The 67-year-old former porn star, incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Jail under $6.6 million bond, pleaded not guilty to all charges. If convicted as charged he faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

     On August 31, 2020, Ron Jeremy was back in court to face 20 additional sexual assault charges involving 13 women ages 15 to 56. The oldest alleged crime took place in 2004.

     The new charges included six counts of sexual battery by restraint, five counts of forcible rape, three counts of forcible oral copulation and two counts of forcible penetration by a foreign object. Ron Jeremy also stood accused of one count each of sodomy assault with intent to commit rape, penetration by a foreign object on an unconscious or sleeping victim and lewd conduct with a 15-year-old girl.

     The most recent sexual allegation against Ron Jeremy took place on January 1, 2020 when he allegedly assaulted a 21-year-old woman outside a business in West Hollywood.

     Ron Jeremy pleaded not guilty to the August 31, 2020 sexual assault charges.

     In January 2023 a judge found Jeremy incompetent to stand trial due to "neurocognative decline." Nine months later the 70-year-old defendant, with dementia and declining health, was released from his jail cell in Los Angeles to a private residence. In November 2023, Ron Jeremy was found incompetent to stand trial.

The Police Killing of David Hooks

     David Hooks, a respected and successful businessman lived with Teresa his wife of 25 years in an upper-middle class neighborhood in East Dublin, Georgia. Hooks' construction company did a lot of work on area military bases such as Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart. This meant that he passed background investigations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security and the ATF.

     On September 22, 2014 a meth-addled burglar named Rodney Garrett broke into Mr. Hooks' pickup truck. The burglar then stole the family's Lincoln Aviator SUV. The next day Mr. Garrett surrendered to deputies with the Laurens County Sheriff's Office.

     Perhaps to curry favor with the police, Rodney Garrett told deputies that in Mr. Hooks' pickup he came across a bag that he opened hoping to find cash. Instead he found 20 grams of methamphetamine and a digital scale. Before searching Mr. Hooks' house for drugs officers knew they would need more than the word of a meth-addicted burglar and car thief to get a judge to sign off on a warrant. In an effort to bolster this unreliable evidence a deputy sheriff told the issuing magistrate that in 2009 another snitch said he supplied David Hooks with meth and that Mr. Hooks had resold it.

     The local magistrate, based on the word of a meth-using thief in trouble with the law, and the six-year-old word of another snitch in another case that had gone nowhere, issued a warrant to search 

David Hooks' residence for methamphetamine. By no stretch of the imagination was this warrant based upon sufficient probable cause.

     To execute the Hooks drug warrant the sheriff, in an enforcement overkill, deployed eight members of a SRT (Special Response Team) to raid the dwelling with officers armed with assault weapons and dressed in SWAT-like combat boots, helmets and flack-jackets.

     At eleven in the morning of September 24, 2014, just two days after Rodney Garrett broke into Mr. Hooks' pickup truck and stole his SUV, Teresa Hooks, while on the second-floor of her house heard vehicles coming up the driveway. She looked out the window and saw several masked men with rifles advancing on the residence.

     Teresa Hooks ran downstairs into a first-floor bedroom where her husband was sleeping. She shook him awake and screamed, "the burglars are back!" Mr. Hooks jumped out of bed, grabbed his shotgun and walked out of the bedroom as members of the raiding party broke down his back door and stormed into the house. In the course of the home intrusion officers fired eighteen shots. Mr. Hooks did not discharge his weapon. At some point in the raid he was shot twice and died on the spot.

     According to the official police version of the fatal shooting of a man in his own home, Mr. Hooks came to the door armed with a shotgun. Officers reported they broke into the dwelling after knocking and announcing their presence. When Mr. Hooks refused to lower his weapon the officers had no choice but to shoot him dead. 

     A 44-hour search of the Hooks residence by deputy sheriffs and officers with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation failed to produce drugs or any other evidence of crime.

     On October 2, 2014 the Hooks family attorney, Mitch Shook, told reporters that the police had forced their way into the house without knocking or announcing themselves to execute a search warrant based upon bogus informant information. The attorney said Mr. David Hooks had been a respected businessman who had never used or sold drugs. The police, according to Mr. Shook, had no business raiding this house and killing this decent man.

     Attorney Shook on December 11, 2014 made a startling announcement: When the police shot Mr. Hooks in the back and in the back of the head he was lying face-down on the floor. The attorney said he asked the FBI to launch an investigation into the case.

     In July 2015 a Laurens County grand jury declined to indict any officers in the David Hooks killing. According to a crime lab toxicology report David Hooks at the time of his death had methamphetamine in his system.

     The FBI decided not to launch an investigation into this SWAT related shooting death.