Taylor Parker: Texas 'womb raider' who killed pregnant friend and ripped out her fetus gets death penalty
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DALLAS, TEXAS: A Texas woman who murdered her pregnant friend by ripping out her fetus was given the death penalty on Wednesday, November 9. Taylor Rene Parker, 29, was convicted of capital murder on October 3 in the gruesome killing of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, 21, and her unborn daughter in New Boston in October 2020.
About 150 miles east of Dallas in Bowie County, a jury of six men and six women deliberated for less than two hours before handing down the death sentence for the 29-year-old. “My only biological sister. You need to understand what you took from me and my family. No more celebrating her birthday. I was barely 19 when I got the call my sister was gone,” Emily Simmons, the victim’s sister, said to Parker in an emotional victim impact statement before jurors began deliberating, the Texarkana Gazette reported. “She will never be my maid of honor. If I visit my sister I have to go to a graveyard and see a headstone. I will never get a text or phone call her from again.”'
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Jessica Brooks, the mother of Simmons-Hancock, called Parker an “evil piece of flesh demon.” “My baby was alive still fighting for her babies when you tore her open and ripped her baby from her stomach,” the heartbroken mom said. Prosecutors said Parker, who could not conceive after a hysterectomy, had faked her own pregnancy in an elaborate scheme to prevent her boyfriend from leaving her in the 10 months leading up to the murder. She wore pregnancy disguises, faked ultrasounds, posted about her pregnancy online, and even threw a gender reveal party for the fake baby.
Texas Woman Taylor Rene Parker 29, Allegedly Stabbed Mom-to-Be 100 Times, Then Tried to Steal Baby from Womb, allegedly killing her pregnant friend and then removing the child from the victim's womb and trying to pass the child off as her own.🤬 and😭 "When will the lunacy stop!" pic.twitter.com/MhQ1vXHZKL
— Sumner (@renmusb1) September 13, 2022
Parker told her boyfriend she would be induced to deliver the baby on the day of the murder. MEAWW previously reported that a state police investigator testified during the trial that Parker did thorough research on how to fake a pregnancy convincingly. She watched a video on the physical exam of a premature infant who was delivered at 35 weeks on the day of the killing, Special Agent Dustin Estes said. After committing the murder, Parker was stopped by a Texas state trooper in DeKalb, Texas, 12 miles northwest of the crime scene. She told the official the child was hers and that she had given birth on the side of the road but the baby was not breathing. Parker was taken to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where the baby was declared dead.
Taylor Rene Parker has pleaded not guilty to capital murder and kidnapping in the October 2020 deaths of 21-year-old Regan Michelle Simmons-Hancock and the daughter who died after being cut from her mother’s womb. pic.twitter.com/5C8JkU4R3C
— Vlemx4u (@vlemx4u) September 13, 2022
Parker crushed Simmons-Hancock’s skull with a hammer on the morning of October 9, 2020 and stabbed her more than 100 times in her home before removing her baby from her womb with a scalpel. She earned the nickname 'womb raider' following the attack about two years ago. Parker was slated to be moved to the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where the state houses its female death row inmates, after her sentencing. She is entitled to appeal her sentence.