A new Netflix documentary, Maternal Instinct, has brought renewed attention to the case of Taylor Parker, a Texas woman sentenced to death for murdering her pregnant friend and cutting the unborn baby from her womb. Parker, now 34, was convicted in 2022 for the October 2020 killing of Reagan Simmons-Hancock, who was seven and a half months pregnant. Parker removed the baby, Braxlynn, using a scalpel, but the infant died.
Parker was arrested shortly after the crime, covered in blood, with the dead baby in her lap. She confessed at an Oklahoma hospital where she sought a check-up. At trial, her defence did not deny the act but argued against the death penalty. Prosecutors said Parker had faked her own pregnancy and planned the abduction for months to keep her boyfriend, Wade Griffin, who believed she was pregnant.
Griffin testified that Parker claimed to be heir to the Blackburn syrup fortune and promised him land. She had had a hysterectomy in 2019, which she hid from him. On the day of the murder, Parker drove to Simmons-Hancock's home, stabbed her about 100 times, and cut the baby from her womb. The victim's three-year-old daughter was found unharmed.
Parker was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2022. Her appeals argued that the baby may not have been alive when removed, making the kidnapping charge invalid, and that media coverage prejudiced her trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld her conviction, and the US Supreme Court declined to review her case last month. No execution date has been set.
Parker is one of only seven women on Texas death row. Fetal abductions by maternal evisceration are extremely rare, with only 15 documented in the US between 1987 and 2011. The documentary explores the case and Parker's mental state, with a neurologist testifying she had 'frontal lobe syndrome'.
