Staff and Wire Reports
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The attorney for an Oklahoma City pharmacist facing murder charges said reports obtained Tuesday from the office of the medical examiner determined that the first shot fired during an attempted robbery was possibly fatal.
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater maintains a 16-year-old boy was unconscious but alive when a pharmacist shot him five times, despite new medical evidence that's surfaced in the case.
Pharmacist Jerome Ersland is charged with first-degree murder in the May 2009 shooting death of 16-year-old Antwun Parker inside Reliable Discount Pharmacy in south Oklahoma City. Ersland shot Parker during the attempted robbery.
The new chief medical examiner for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's office is reviewing the autopsy report at the center of the case.
Two senior pathologists called into question the initial findings in the original report.
Dr. Andrew Sibly will determine if the autopsy needs to be amended and is expected to announce his decision later today. The medical examiner's office has released the two handwritten memos written by pathologists Dr. Chai Choi and Dr. Inas Yacoub who reviewed the case after Parker was shot.
Prater said he was frustrated he wasn't informed about Choi and Yacoub's findings in an active case that was scheduled for trial this month.
"Can you tell me why doctors would put handwritten notes like this in a file and not call us and let us know?" said Prater, who learned about the notes during a routine call to the medical examiner's office about a subpoena. "We need to be aware of any documents being generated in the case."
Prater said he plans to meet with both Choi and Yacoub on Monday and discuss their findings further. But he maintains there is physical evidence -- such as the amount of blood discovered in Parker's abdominal and chest cavity -- that he was alive when the second volley of shots were fired.
"It's obvious to me Antwun Parker's heart was beating and he was unconscious on the pharmacy floor," Prater said. "You're not going to have that much blood pumped into his abdominal and chest cavity if his heart was not beating."
Ersland's attorney, Irven Box, already had made a motion to dismiss the charges after meeting with Choi and reviewing her findings. He said the pathologists' notes only bolster his case.
"Our contention is that the first shot killed him," Box said. "The bottom line is, as the district attorney said in one of his statements, if the first shot was fatal, then Mr. Ersland is the hero."
Prosecutors have said Ersland was justified in shooting Parker once in the head -- but went too far when he shot Parker five more times.
Box asked for the case against Ersland to be dropped since the medical examiner on the case at the time of the shooting has since been terminated. Box said there were discrepancies in the autopsy report done on the shooting victim, 16-year-old Antwun Parker. Box said former Medical Examiner Dr. Collie Trant's report stated the first shot Ersland fired was non-fatal, but follow-up investigations done by the medical examiner's office show that as incorrect.
Read Antwun Parker's autopsy report by Dr. Collie Trant
Box said that according to new testimony by another pathologist, Ersland actually fired a lethal shot the first time he fired his gun. The earlier reports labeling his first gunshot as non-fatal led prosecutors to say Ersland's five gunshots to the suspect were unnecessary force.
A hearing on Ersland's motion to dismiss will be held Thursday, Aug. 26. Ersland is scheduled for trial on September 13.
*Irven Box also serves as NEWS 9's legal analyst.
Oklahoma City Pharmacist Jerome Ersland may no longer face murder charges in the fatal shooting of a would-be robber.
The would-be teen robbers are seen on surveillance video tape.
Antwun Parker was shot and killed by pharmacist Jerome Ersland.
