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Some true crime cases are disturbing enough on their own — but the details make them unforgettable. Join us as we break down the most chilling revelations from Netflix's "Maternal Instinct," covering the Taylor Parker case, from her elaborate fake pregnancy to the brutal attack on Reagan Simmons-Hancock and the death row verdict that followed.
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00:00Taylor Parker becomes the seventh woman on death row in Texas.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most disturbing details from the Taylor Parker case,
00:09as explored in Netflix's Maternal Instinct.
00:12When everything first happened in 2020, I prayed she'd go to hell.
00:18The emergency birth story immediately fell apart.
00:22New Boston, 911, what's your emergency?
00:25I need an ambulance because I started having my baby.
00:28Okay, stay on the line. I'm going to get you off now.
00:31Okay, stay on the line. Stay on the line. It's going to be okay. Stay on the line.
00:34On October 9, 2020, Taylor Parker was stopped near DeKalb, Texas after driving erratically with a newborn in the car.
00:41She claimed she had just given birth on the side of the road and was trying to get to a
00:44hospital,
00:45but the scene raised red flags almost immediately.
00:48Parker was covered in blood, yet the baby wasn't breathing, and the umbilical cord was still attached.
00:53At McCurtin Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, medical staff quickly grew suspicious.
00:58Parker reportedly resisted being examined, and a doctor later determined she had not recently delivered a child.
01:04The baby in the car was Braxlin Sage Hancock, and the blood wasn't from Parker giving birth.
01:09She's in there. She refuses to have a vaginal check to make sure she's not hemorrhaging.
01:15They've done an ultrasound and HCG, and it doesn't show that she's been pregnant.
01:20They have the placenta.
01:21Where is she?
01:22She is in the room.
01:23She is, no.
01:24Taylor could never have been pregnant.
01:27This is a small town, and she was a patient of ours.
01:31In 2020, we started seeing social media posts about her pregnancy.
01:38When we first found out Taylor was saying that she was pregnant and announced it on Facebook,
01:42we were very confused because we knew that she could not be.
01:46The central claim behind Parker's entire story was medically impossible.
01:50Years earlier, after an ectopic pregnancy and complications involving endometriosis,
01:55doctors had removed her uterus, cervix, and one ovary.
01:59Our first involvement with Taylor was in 2010, I think at the age of 17, for her first pregnancy.
02:06After her second child, she did not want to have any more children,
02:09so she made the decision on permanent sterilization,
02:12physically blocking the tube so that you can't have children anymore.
02:16The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted that Parker had previously asked multiple friends
02:20about serving as surrogates because she wanted more children but couldn't become pregnant herself.
02:24She said, okay, I've accepted that I can't have any more kids.
02:29Would one of y'all want to do it for me?
02:31She said that whoever carried this baby would get a minimum of $50,000.
02:37But how could you have another baby when you didn't even take care of the two kids you had?
02:41Yet in January 2020, she told Wade Griffin that she was expecting his baby.
02:46That lie became the foundation for everything that followed.
02:49Her boyfriend, his family, and her wider social circle were led to believe a child was coming,
02:54while Parker knew from the beginning that no pregnancy existed.
02:57I remember pushing her off me, and she grabbed my hair and hit me,
03:09and she said, you need to wake up, you're lying.
03:13The fake pregnancy had props, photos, and a party.
03:16I mean, she had ultrasounds.
03:19She had the fake belly.
03:21She had enough to make it believable.
03:25To her, it was just, whatever I gotta do.
03:30Whatever I gotta do to keep this man with me.
03:33Parker's fake pregnancy was not limited to verbal claims.
03:36According to the court record, she bought a silicone moon belly online
03:39and ordered a customized ultrasound.
03:41She prepared a nursery in Griffin's home, staged a maternity photo shoot,
03:46held a gender reveal party, and chose a baby name.
03:48Her original due date was in late September 2020, but it passed without a birth.
03:53As the time went on, it got closer and closer to her due date, and it didn't happen.
04:02She had a lot of factors in why she could have missed her due date.
04:06She wasn't eating right, or it might have been not ready yet, or the baby might be too small,
04:11but I didn't really know what to believe.
04:13She then told Griffin she would be induced or have a C-section on October 5th.
04:17When that date also fell apart, Parker said she would instead go to
04:20McCurtin Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma.
04:23By then, the fake pregnancy had become a full production,
04:26complete with milestones, props, and an audience expecting a real baby.
04:30You got your baby, Wade believed you, you proved all these people wrong that said you were lying
04:36for the last 10 months, and you had your aha moment at the expense of that.
04:46Her entire life story was full of falsehoods.
04:49What happened to the car that she gave you?
04:53I had it about three weeks, and she said,
04:56I need y'all to bring the car to Wade's and park it in the driveway.
05:00Patterson Nissan, they're coming to pick it up on a recall.
05:04So I finally called the dealership, and I said, what's going on with my car?
05:08They said, ma'am, that car wasn't paid for.
05:11That's why we came and got it.
05:13The pregnancy hoax sat inside a much larger pattern of deception.
05:16Parker presented herself as coming from a wealthy family and told people she was tied to major
05:21inheritances. At trial, evidence showed she contacted a real estate broker in December 2019,
05:26about a 1,500-acre property in Bowie County, valued at roughly $4.7 million,
05:31claiming she was heir to a syrup company.
05:33We didn't know until after the murder that all of the people that we were trying to make contact with
05:43didn't exist.
05:44Shelly Lynx with Shell Oil, Blake Lawington, that's my lawyer, Uncle Butch.
05:51Other testimony involved claims about being an heiress to the Morton Salt fortune.
05:55Parker also allegedly spun alarming stories to keep Griffin close,
05:59including a claim that her mother had hired the Mexican mafia to kill her.
06:02We just couldn't believe what we were hearing.
06:04The multiple phones that she would text herself from,
06:08the names she would use, the people, just all of the lies.
06:13I still can't understand how someone would think that this was going to work.
06:19She sent her boyfriend on a fake errand.
06:22The plan was, we were both supposed to go load the hogs up, go drop them off,
06:28and then we were going to swing down to the Ida Bell Hospital.
06:31I said, are you ready to leave?
06:33And she said, well, I'm not feeling just too great.
06:36I think I'm going to let you leave with the hogs,
06:39and then I'm going to meet you at the hospital.
06:41I said, well, that wasn't the plan.
06:43On the morning of October 9th, 2020, Parker sent Wade away from home.
06:47According to the court record, she told him to drop off hogs in Winniewood, Oklahoma,
06:52and then meet her at the hospital in Ida Bell.
06:54Instead of going to Ida Bell herself,
06:56Parker drove to Reagan Simmons Hancock's home in New Boston, Texas,
07:00arriving around 7.30 a.m.
07:02I pulled in, and he told me, he said, I didn't order no hogs today.
07:08And I said, there's no way you texted me this morning.
07:12He said, I didn't text nobody.
07:14I said, you didn't text me from this number, so I pulled out my phone.
07:17He said, that's not my number.
07:19The documentary and later reporting say the hogsail Griffin was chasing turned out to be fake.
07:24That detail makes the timing feel especially calculated.
07:28Griffin believed he was part of a birth plan.
07:30In reality, he had been sent out of the way
07:32while Parker moved toward the final stage of her pregnancy lie.
07:35I quit texting her, and he said, I didn't follow up with nothing.
07:38And I said, well, who in the world would have texted me from this number then?
07:42He said, man, I don't know.
07:43Reagan was someone she knew.
07:45My daughter, Reagan had a photographer at her wedding.
07:49I asked how, you know, how she came about and what she had done before.
07:53And she said one of her friends had recommended her,
07:56and she was trying to stay budget friendly.
07:58So this person was ideal for that.
08:02Her name was Taylor Parker.
08:04Reagan Simmons Hancock wasn't a stranger.
08:06She was a 21-year-old wife and young mother from New Boston, Texas,
08:10about 35 weeks pregnant with her second daughter.
08:13Parker knew Reagan was pregnant and had even photographed Reagan's engagement and wedding.
08:17That relationship gives the case an especially bitter edge.
08:20The moments she captured of Reagan and the wedding were absolutely beautiful.
08:26And Taylor made sure she greeted everybody and told everyone who she was and what she was doing there.
08:32And it didn't feel like she was just some random stranger none of us had ever met.
08:37Almost felt like she's a bridesmaid at one point.
08:40She was in all of our selfies.
08:42Reagan had allowed Parker into important moments of her life,
08:45and Parker knew enough about her pregnancy to make her part of the plan prosecutors described at trial.
08:50The crime came from someone Reagan knew,
08:52someone who had been close enough to document her family's happiest milestones.
08:56They had gotten closer, you know, more acquainted throughout this process.
09:01And so Reagan invited her to hang out with everybody after the reception.
09:05She made her feel like just one of us girls.
09:09I still look at all of those photos today
09:12because of how spectacular that day was.
09:16Reagan's toddler was in the home.
09:18I'm still on the phone with 911,
09:20and we realized her daughter was in the house.
09:23Reagan's young daughter was inside the house when her mother was killed.
09:27She was later found physically unharmed,
09:29reportedly under a blanket in her bed.
09:31Reagan's daughter survived,
09:32but the home where she should have been safest
09:34had become the scene of her mother's murder.
09:36And Reagan's daughter is sitting.
09:38When I walk into the room,
09:40she reflexes and draws the covers up.
09:44And then she noticed she's recognized me.
09:46And she jumped up and just ran
09:49and jumped off the bed.
09:51I had to catch her.
09:52Reagan's mother, Jessica Brooks,
09:54discovered her daughter and called 911.
09:56A call later admitted during Parker's trial.
09:59The presence of Reagan's toddler makes the crime feel even more invasive
10:02because it shattered not just one life,
10:04but an entire young family in the most intimate setting possible.
10:08Oh, man, the day she died,
10:11I've never felt anything like that.
10:17It was...
10:18Half of me died.
10:20Half of me died.
10:22And it's not coming back.
10:24The attack was horrifically violent.
10:26And as I kind of stepped back,
10:28and I thought, no, if she's in there and she's hurt
10:31or, you know, she can't answer me,
10:33I need to go in.
10:35The violence against Reagan was extreme.
10:38Crime scene technician Mark Sullivan testified
10:40that Reagan was attacked in several areas of the house
10:42and continued moving while bleeding.
10:44Medical examiner Dr. Melinda Flores testified
10:47that Reagan suffered 113 sharp force injuries.
10:50There's no baby in there.
10:52No.
10:52Reagan also suffered 39 blunt force injuries,
10:55mostly to her face and head.
10:57Dr. Flores testified that some head injuries
10:59indicated she may have been struck with a hammer,
11:01and there was also evidence of possible strangulation.
11:03I was certified as the expert in OB-GYN for the trial,
11:08and Eva and I kind of broke down on the stand
11:12because of how she did it.
11:15Braxlin's brief life became a legal battleground.
11:18A small East Texas community
11:20is grieving the loss of a new Boston mother.
11:22I said, my hope to God, this is not Taylor.
11:26A female suspect was taken into custody in Oklahoma.
11:29I just froze, and I said, I think I know who that is.
11:34That was probably hard.
11:35Do you think that was hard?
11:36Surely not.
11:37Braxlin's status became central
11:38to Parker's capital murder conviction and appeal.
11:41Prosecutors argued that Parker killed Reagan
11:43while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping,
11:45which helped elevate the case to capital murder.
11:47Parker's appellate lawyers challenged
11:49whether Braxlin had been born alive,
11:51arguing that the kidnapping element couldn't stand
11:53if the baby wasn't a living person outside the womb.
11:56The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that argument.
11:59Looks like she killed a woman,
12:01cut her baby out of her,
12:02and then passed it off as being hers.
12:04The court held that a rational juror
12:07could find Braxlin was born alive
12:08based on evidence that paramedics restored a heartbeat
12:11and that doctors described her as viable.
12:13The court also held that even if the jury
12:15had found otherwise,
12:16Parker's actions could still support attempted kidnapping.
12:19The last order given by Judge Tidwell
12:22was take her to death row.
12:24Taylor is on death row.
12:26A heavy, heavy burden feels lifted.
12:29I feel like now we can start trying to heal.
12:33I'm just, I'm overwhelmed with happiness it's over
12:36because she has been such a burden in our life
12:40for so long now
12:42that I haven't been able to really think about my sister
12:46without thinking about her.
12:48Parker was tried in Bowie County's
12:50202nd Judicial District Court
12:52and convicted of capital murder.
12:54On November 9th, 2022,
12:56a jury sentenced her to death.
12:57Her direct appeal was later rejected
12:59by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
13:01And in May, 2026,
13:03the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case.
13:06I watched him cry
13:09and cry.
13:13I love him dearly,
13:14but I really wish he had listened to me.
13:17Parker remains on Texas death row
13:19at the Patrick L. O'Daniel unit in Gatesville
13:22with no execution date set as of June, 2026.
13:25It is a grim final note to a case built on lies,
13:28manipulation, and violence.
13:30Years later,
13:31the legal consequence remains as severe
13:33as the system allows.
13:34The preacher told me
13:38everyone can be forgiven,
13:41just not by us.
13:44Her just answering to God
13:45is all I'm asking at this point.
13:48If she does ask God for forgiveness,
13:52I pray that she means it.
13:54Which part of this case
13:55do you still find the hardest
13:56to wrap your head around?
13:57The lie, the planning, or the aftermath?
14:00Be sure to let us know in the comments.
14:01Let us know in the comments.
14:02Let us see.
14:03Please let us know in this comments.
14:05Let us know in the comments.
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