Taylor Rene Parker is an American young woman convicted of capital murder and kidnapping for killing a pregnant mother, Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, and abducting her unborn child, in 2020.The perpetrator, Taylor bludgeoned and killed Reagan, who was 35 weeks pregnant at the time, before she abducted the unborn fetus, by cutting her out of the victim’s abdomen, but the baby did not survive. Parker had previously lied to her boyfriend Wade about being pregnant nine months leading up to the murder of Reagan, and even faked her pregnancy to multiple people. Taylor was charged, tried and found guilty of capital murder, and sentenced to death on November 9, 2022.

• Born: 1992, Bowie County, Texas
• Crime date: October 9, 2020
• Victim: Reagan Simmons-Hancock and her unborn daughter, Braxlynn Sage Hancock
• Conviction: Capital murder and kidnapping (2022)
• Sentence: Death, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 2022

Who is Taylor Parker

Taylor Parker, 27 years old at the time, first befriended Reagan Hancock while working as her engagement and wedding photographer. Parker became a mother at the age of 17, and after breaking up with the father of her first child, Parker had a second child, a son, at age 21 during her first marriage to another man. Following complications from an ectopic pregnancy after a failed tubal ligation, she underwent a hysterectomy, leaving her unable to have more children. After divorcing her first husband in 2017, Taylor was married a second time in 2018. Throughout her second marriage, Parker tried to seek her friends’ help to serve as surrogate mothers as she hoped to have more children despite her hysterectomy. She even offered them 50 000$ to carry her baby. Her second marriage would also end with a divorce in 2019. At that time, her best friend decided to distance herself from Taylor.

After her second divorce, Taylor began dating a man, Wade, she met at a rodeo in 2019. Despite having worked at a staffing agency and OB-GYN clinic, Parker falsely claimed to be the heiress to a large fortune valued at 8 millions dollars. She kept telling everyone that she was going to inherit a very large amount of money. As ignorant and naive as can be, Wade and his family believed her lies and the couple started going on a mindless spending spree.

• 87 000$ Truck
• Cattle
• 20 000$ Side by side
• 80 000$ tractor
• A brand New Nissan Altima 2020 For the mother

Not too long after, oh guess what happened ? Taylor’s mother’s car got repossessed and she was in complete shock. At the same time, Taylor and Wade were trying to get a 4 millions dollar property.

As I am watching the documentary on Netflix and seeing pictures of Wade’s dog disgusting enclosures, and underweight dogs, should be charged with animal abuse.

As time goes by, big surprise, the money isn’t coming like it was supposed to. I just don’t understand what Taylor found in Wade. He is a hard worker, I will give him that.. but the lies just to make this guy happy and try to keep him ? Of course since the money wasn’t coming, Wade started to lose interest in Taylor. Shortly after, Taylor became pregnant. Taylor started faking pregnancy paperwork, like lab tests, ultrasounds. One can assume that she “became pregnant” to try to keep Wade at her side.

Not long after, Wade and Taylor would start getting hateful text messages from different phone numbers, that of course Taylor was making up. I don’t understand what happened to this girl to be so messed up and become such a compulsive liar. She was pretty, could’ve had anyone she wanted and have a nice life. She used her own mother to tell such disgusting lies to anyone in her entourage, I feel bad for the mother being described as a monster.

Over the next nine months, she sustained the deception using a silicone pregnancy belly and fake ultrasound images, even hosting a gender reveal party and maternity photoshoot. Parker’s first ex-husband later testified that he had anonymously warned her boyfriend about the false pregnancy and alleged that she had been unfaithful during their seven-year marriage and treated their son poorly.

By late September 2020, Taylor had not given birth despite claiming her due date had passed. She told her boyfriend she would deliver via C-section or induction at Titus Regional Medical Center in Texas on October 5. After a fire at her boyfriend’s house and a bomb threat at the hospital, she changed her story, claiming she would instead give birth at McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, on October 9, 2020, the same date she committed the murder of Reagan.

The Kidnapping

On October 9, 2020, she murdered 21-year-old Reagan Hancock, about 35 weeks pregnant, at Hancock’s home in New Boston, Texas. She beat, strangled, and stabbed the victim before cutting the baby from her womb and fleeing with the newborn. She called 911 on her way to the hospital and soon after, a Texas state trooper stopped Parker near the Oklahoma border. She claimed to have just given birth, performing CPR on the infant. At the hospital, medical staff quickly determined she had not delivered a baby. The medical staff, doing everything they could to not let her leave, until investigators show up. Investigators uncovered evidence of months of deception, including fake ultrasound images, social-media posts, and fabricated medical records meant to sustain the illusion of pregnancy.

I can’t even imagine the pain Reagan’s mother must’ve felt, discovering her daughter in such a state. The father of Reagan was in a state of shock and felt pure terror at the sight of his daughter. What kind of monster can do such a thing ? It baffles me that there are people on this planet, able to do such a terrible act toward another human, in desperate times, when they put themselves in such a situation in the first place. The act also happened in front of Reagan’s 3 years old daughter. That poor baby girl never had a chance in life because of a sick woman.

What baffles me more is, why did Wade even bother starting a relationship with Taylor if he never loved her ? That makes no sense at all and, Taylor needing attention from him, and mental state led her to commit an atrocious act. Was it because he just wanted the 8 million dollars ? Was it greed ? He admitted in the documentary to never loving Taylor. Why would you agree to be with someone if you don’t love them besides the promise of a huge amount of cash ?

Trial and sentence

In 2022, a jury in Bowie County found Parker guilty of capital murder and kidnapping after hearing testimony from more than 140 witnesses. Prosecutors argued the murder was premeditated and “heinous.” The jury deliberated less than an hour before sentencing her to death on November 9, 2022.

Current status and aftermath

As of 2026, Parker, age 33, is one of seven women on Texas’s death row at the Patrick L. O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville. Her appeals to overturn the kidnapping conviction and death sentence were denied in 2025, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review. The crime remains a touchstone in discussions of coercive deception and mental-health pathology in extreme maternal-identity cases. I know a lot of people are against the death penalty, but personally, in cases like this, I am not. Reagan’s life was cut hort. The baby never had a chance and was literally cut out of the womb… Why should Taylor get a chance to live ?