The trial has begun in the brutal 2020 killing of a pregnant 21-year-old woman named Reagan Simmons-Hancock and the scalpel kidnapping of her unborn baby. The child died soon afterward.
Simmons-Hancock was allegedly killed by Taylor Rene Parker, who faked her pregnancy and befriended the pregnant Simmons-Hancock, fully intending to kill her and take her child.
A state detective testified that Parker viewed numerous videos of babies born at the 35-week mark. Simmons-Hancock just happened to be 35 weeks pregnant when she was murdered.
“My opinion is Taylor Parker faked her pregnancy. She planned and carried out the murder of Reagan,” Special Agent Estes of the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDP), testified.
Parker’s lawyer, Jeff Harrelson, retorted, “You can see somebody looked them up, but you don’t know why. You can have a theory.”
FAST (alleged) FACTS
- Parker’s boyfriend wanted a baby. She was too afraid to tell him that she’d had a hysterectomy after having two kids and she feared he would leave her.
- Parker then faked her pregnancy for months, going so far as to have a gender reveal party and posting phony ultrasounds pictures on social media. She then began to look for a pregnant woman to befriend.
- She found Reagan Simmons-Hancock and began a friendship.
- When Simmons-Hancock was 35 weeks pregnant, she was found stabbed roughly 100 times and her head had been crushed with a hammer. Blood was all over the room, furniture, walls, and appliances.
- Simmons-Hancock’s three year-old-daughter watched her mother’s vicious murder.
- Parker watched a video on how to deliver a 35-month child on the day of the murder. Simmons-Hancock was found with a large incision made by a scalpel across her body.
- Parker was pulled over as she fled with the baby. She told the police officer she has just given birth and he escorted her to a hospital in Oklahoma, roughly 46 miles from the murder site. The policeman seems to have had no idea a murder had taken place.
- Parker planned to meet her boyfriend at the hospital the day after her murder. She claimed she would give birth that day.
Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Kelley Crisp opened the trial by telling the jury that Parker, who also uses the last names Morton and Griffin, is an “actress of the highest order.”
“The lies and fraud go on and on,” Crisp hammered. “The layers of fraud are staggering. You are going to have to understand the fraud to understand what happened on Oct. 9. This started months and months ahead of time until it passed the point of no return, and it ended up in homicide.”
“She was obsessed with [boyfriend] Wade, and you could tell he didn’t feel the same way,” Parker’s former friend, Angela Tate testified. “She was trying to buy him. When she was with him, she would totally glow and light up the whole room. He was everything to her. She would do anything for him.”
There was also testimony about an “inheritance” that may or may not exist. Parker also allegedly attempted to buy a ranch but the deal fizzled when she couldn’t come up with the money.
If convicted, Parker is facing life in prison, if not the death penalty.