A man apparently committed suicide just moments after he was convicted of sodomizing a 14-year-old girl.
A coroner's report and witness accounts indicate that Steve Parsons, 48, of Maryville, Mo., swallowed a cyanide pill inside the courtroom on Thursday just after a jury pronounced him guilty of statutory sodomy, according to KCTV. Minutes later, he was "convulsing" and was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead...
"It’s not common to see someone just fall over dead in the courtroom even though they’ve just been found guilty of a crime,” Sheriff Darrin White, who was in the courtroom when the verdict was read, told Fox4KC.
Parsons placed an overnight delivery of cyanide on June 25, authorities told the St Joseph Post.
The preliminary coroner's report "found evidence of cyanide poisoning," according to the Post.
The investigation is ongoing, but White told the Post he expected the final forensic report to confirm Parsons' death was a suicide.
In June, 2012, an ex-Wall Street trader was captured on film swallowing a cyanide pill that caused his death after he was convicted of arson.