Taylor Parker was convicted of capital murder in October 2022 and sentenced to death a month later for the 2020 killing of Reagan Simmons-Hancock, who was seven and a half months pregnant. According to trial accounts reported by The Guardian, Parker drove to Simmons-Hancock’s home on the morning of October 9, 2020, attacked the victim with a knife, stabbing her approximately 100 times, and used a scalpel to cut the unborn baby, whom she named Braxlynn, from the womb. The victim’s three-year-old daughter, Kynlee, was found unharmed under a blanket in her bed.
Parker fled the scene with the infant but was pulled over by a state trooper for erratic driving in Idabel, Oklahoma, according to testimony. The trooper found Parker covered in dried blood and holding the dead baby with the umbilical cord still attached. Parker initially claimed she had given birth on the side of the road, but medical staff at a nearby hospital found no signs of recent childbirth. During questioning, Parker admitted to a “physical altercation” with Simmons-Hancock and to taking the baby from her friend’s body.
The case has drawn attention in part because of its rarity. According to forensic psychologist Gary Brucato of Boston College, quoted by The Guardian, fetal abduction through maternal evisceration is a contemporary phenomenon, with just 15 documented cases in the United States from 1987 to 2011 and perhaps 100 worldwide. Brucato described the crime as an “elimination murder” in which the perpetrator has no hard feelings toward the victim but views them as an obstacle to obtaining something they want — in Parker’s case, a baby to pass off as her own.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Parker had elaborately premeditated the crime. The court heard that Parker, who already had two children, had a hysterectomy in 2019 but faked a pregnancy, collecting baby clothes and holding a gender-reveal party to convince her boyfriend, Wade Griffin, that she was expecting. Griffin testified that their relationship was an “emotional rollercoaster” and that Parker promised to deed him 800 acres of land.
A neurologist testifying for the defense said “something is very wrong with her brain” and diagnosed Parker with “frontal lobe syndrome,” a condition involving cognitive, behavioral, emotional and motivational disturbances, according to The Guardian.
On appeal, Parker’s attorneys argued that the baby may not have been alive when removed from the mother’s womb, making the kidnapping charge — the aggravating factor required for a capital murder conviction — legally invalid because a person who has not been born cannot be kidnapped. Caitlin Halpern, who handled Parker’s appeals petition, told The Guardian: “In our view, the evidence at trial clearly showed that, tragically, the infant was not born alive, so as a matter of law could not be victim or target of a kidnapping.”
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that argument, finding that testimony from a flight paramedic and a doctor supported a rational juror conclusion that Braxlynn was born alive. “But Parker is the only witness to know for sure whether Braxlynn was alive,” a point noted in The Guardian’s reporting.
Attorneys also argued that Parker did not receive a fair trial due to extensive media coverage and social media commentary, and that prosecutors portrayed her as “a sexual deviant” and “a terrible mother.” A request to change venue from Bowie County, where the crime and trial occurred, was denied.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case last month. A date of execution has not been scheduled. Parker is one of seven women on death row in Texas, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Halpern acknowledged the difficulty of generating sympathy for Parker given the crime’s brutality, but told The Guardian: “The system doesn’t require empathy. It requires the law to be followed, and we think that really didn’t happen here.”