A 29-year-old woman, Taylor Rene Parker has been convicted of a capital murder in the killing of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, 21, and her infant daughter in New Boston two years ago.
Rene Parker
from Texas was sentenced to death on Wednesday, 9 November, 2022, for the murder of Reagan and her infant daughter.
On 9 October, 2020, Parker crushed Simmons-Hancock’s skull with a hammer and stabbed her more than 100 times in her home before removing her baby from her womb with a scalpel.
Parker fled with the baby girl who later died.
In the 10 months leading up to the murder, Parker had faked her own pregnancy in an elaborate scheme to prevent her boyfriend from leaving her, prosecutors said.
She wore pregnancy disguises, faked ultrasounds, posted about her pregnancy online and even threw a gender reveal party for the fake baby.
Parker, who could not conceive after a hysterectomy, told her boyfriend she would be induced to deliver the baby on the day of the murder.
Prosecutors said she intensively researched how to fake a pregnancy and watched numerous videos on delivering babies at 35 weeks, which is how far along Simmons-Hancock was when she was killed.
A jury of six men and six women in Bowie County deliberated for less than two hours on Wednesday, 9 November, 2022, before handing down the death sentence for Parker, TXK Today reported.
Emily Simmons, the victim’s sister, said to Parker in an emotional victim impact statement before jurors began deliberating: “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.
“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.”
Simmons-Hancock’s mother, Jessica Brooks, called Parker an “evil piece of flesh demon.”
The heartbroken mum said: “My baby was alive still fighting for her babies when you tore her open and ripped her baby from her stomach.”
After her sentencing, Parker was slated to be moved to the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where the state houses its female death row inmates, court officials told TXK
