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Our story began with the unsettling birth of a far too tiny baby girl. It read like a tragic romance novel, following one woman's journey to finding love against all odds and amidst a vicious family feud. Together, we celebrated and sympathized with Taylor, desperately hoping for a happy ending. Of course, deep down, we knew that it was well beyond the bounds of possibility. What we didn't know at the time
was why. After the shockingly gruesome murders of Reagan Simmons Hancock and her precious unborn child, Braxlyn Sage, a jarring revelation was made. Taylor Renee Parker was not the victim in her story. She was the villain. She preyed upon Reagan, ingratiating herself with the pregnant mother under the guise of friendship, before gutting her like a fish and abducting her baby from her gaping belly.
Taylor was caught bloody-handed and booked into jail the very same day that Reagan's mutilated body was discovered, but sadly, it was too late to save little Braxlyn Sage. The daughter Reagan would never meet passed away behind the locked doors of a neonatal ward just hours later. The unspeakable tragedy was more than enough to spark nationwide outrage and media attention. However, unbeknownst to all at the time,
It was only the beginning. The horrific events of October 9th, 2020, served as a catalyst for Taylor's unraveling. You see, she had lied about far more than just her pregnancy and for far longer than anyone could have imagined. Her infatuation with Wade warped into an obsession and, within weeks of meeting, she was willing to do and say anything to make him love her.
Taylor, the spider of our story, spun a web of lies so sprawling and complex that it ensnared not only Wade, but people from all walks of life. Skeptics were forced to question their own sanity, whilst those who believed her outlandish stories were utterly spellbound. Some were in awe, many felt sorry for her.
Others feared for their lives. Wade, on the other hand, didn't know what or who to believe. Taylor had lured him in with the promise of a better life and posed as people, both real and imagined, to poison his mind. When her promises proved to be empty and their relationship inevitably soured, she gaslit Wade and fabricated a murderous vendetta to save face and make him stay. She smoothed things over with money that would never come,
babies that would never be born, and deals that would never bear fruit. Every time Wade caught on to Taylor's schemes, she always knew precisely what to say and who to blame. And so the cycle continued. Each lie was bolstered with another until her story became so sensational, Wade couldn't tell reality from fiction.
It remained that way until state prosecutors put in motion a grueling pursuit of justice, and they finally uncovered the truth about Taylor Parker. Part 1: The Truth About Taylor Parker
On September 12th, 2022, nearly two years after her arrest, our spider went to trial for capital murder, murder, and kidnapping. In Texas, capital murder is considered the state's most egregious crime and is the only felony punishable by death. In the first phase of a capital murder trial, the jury must decide if the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances.
In Taylor's case, that part was easy. The evidence was irrefutable. During the first week of the trial, the prosecution presented its case against her, and it was nothing short of sensational. Taylor's true nature was laid bare, along with her previously unknown history of lies, faked illnesses, and manipulation.
The 29-year-old mother of two dabbed her eyes with a tissue as prosecutors told the jury that evidence will show she stabbed Reagan over 100 times before ripping Braxland Sage from her belly. Not out of the desperation for a baby of her own, but simply to stop Wade from leaving her. In fact, the prosecution pointed out that she didn't even want another child.
Dr. Christopher Mason, Taylor's former OB/GYN, took the stand to shed some light on this revelation. He explained that his colleagues at the Northeast Texas Women's Clinic had seen Taylor's social media posts about her apparent pregnancy. They were bound by patient confidentiality and couldn't share her medical records. However, they could warn the hospital.
They immediately alerted Titus Regional Medical Center and recommended that precautions be taken to secure the neonatal wards. You see, they knew that Taylor was lying. Dr. Mason testified that, back in August of 2015, she was rushed into surgery to find the source of some unexplained bleeding.
it turned out to be endometriosis and an ectopic pregnancy. The damage was so extensive that a partial hysterectomy was the only option, leaving Taylor unable to bear children. Dr. Mason would know. He performed the procedure himself. Whilst it was certainly a tragic outcome, the OB-GYN noted that Taylor had already voluntarily chosen to have her tubes tied,
One year earlier, after having her second child with her ex-husband, Tommy Wakase, she decided that she didn't want to have any more and opted for tubal ligation. Tommy would go on to testify that Taylor got gastric bypass surgery later that same year. Everything changed after that.
The mother of two lost interest in her family. She begged Tommy to buy her a Jeep he couldn't afford and spent her weekends with the local Jeep club. She was never home, leaving Tommy to look after the children. The couple lived paycheck to paycheck because of her spending habits and their relationship began to strain.
According to Tommy, Taylor was a pathological liar with a penchant for feigning medical issues. Whenever people were paying attention, she was sick and feeble. However, when she thought no one was watching, she was perfectly fine.
Taylor spent thousands of dollars on tests for multiple sclerosis. She bounced from specialist to specialist when the results came back negative, determined to get a diagnosis that didn't exist and the sympathy that came with it. Every week, she was sick and bedridden, but every Friday, she was itching to spend the weekend away with the Jeep club. Eventually, Tommy found out why.
Taylor was having an affair. He immediately filed for a divorce and prepared for what he thought would be a nasty custody battle. However, for once, Taylor didn't fight back. It turns out that Connie Griffin was right to be skeptical of the so-called devoted mother.
Taylor never had a stroke, nor was she coerced into signing her parental rights away by a county judge. She had arrived at the divorce hearing uninterested and without an attorney, and stated on the record that she didn't want custody of her four-year-old son. In truth, it should have come as no surprise. Though her social media profiles were littered with posts about her children, Taylor was more interested in men than being a mother.
She didn't pay a dime of child support and rushed the divorce proceedings, determined to finalize everything in time to marry her second husband, Hunter Parker. Hunter was called as a witness for the state and took the stand in the first week of her trial. During his testimony, he described a failing marriage and the lengths Taylor went to save it, telling the jury that she faked serious illnesses and seizures to manipulate him into staying.
Shockingly, he recounted that she even tried to talk him into having a baby with her, until a doctor let the truth slip out about her fertility, that is. This episode is brought to you by Acorns. Imagine if every purchase you made could help build your financial future effortlessly. Thanks to Acorns, this
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Part 2: The Birth of a Baby Snatcher Hunter revealed that he only found out about Taylor's inability to bear children after they got married, when a doctor mentioned it during another unnecessary trip to the ER.
Of course, she refused to discuss the matter any further. It wasn't in her nature to take accountability for her actions. Instead, she latched onto the idea of surrogacy, which is the arrangement in which a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child on behalf of another person or couple. This is when the Taylor that we have come to know was born. Now, I need to stress that she didn't actually want a baby.
Taylor had abandoned her son, Trey, with Tommy, and constantly left her daughter, Emerson, with Shona, her mother and apparent mortal enemy. Having another child was simply a means to an end. In her twisted mind, Taylor genuinely believed that a baby would save her marriage with Hunter. She felt that it would tether him to her forever, and she wasn't taking no for an answer.
Taylor constantly pressured Hunter about surrogacy, but he wasn't interested. They just didn't have the money. So, she hatched what would later become her signature scheme. Taylor convinced her then-husband that they could pay a surrogate to carry their child using money she apparently inherited from her grandmother. And so, it begins.
According to Hunter, Taylor told him that a man named Tim Hightower would collect the cash from her inheritance and deliver it to them with no questions asked. Sure enough, soon after their conversation, he received a text message from Tim, who prosecutors believed was actually Taylor using a spoofed number. She cunningly set up a meeting with Hunter for the handover, likely whilst in the very same room as him, and immediately got busy looking for a surrogate.
Her former friends, Mackenzie Bright and Abby Bell, took the stand that same day to testify against her and rehash what they now considered to be a brush with death. Both women reported that Taylor had told them a very different story about her hysterectomy. And what I can only assume was some bizarre attempt at garnering their sympathy. She claimed that her uterus was removed after being eaten up by cancer, not endometriosis.
The women recalled her being frustrated by her infertility and desperate to produce a baby for her new husband, prompting her to approach them with an unusual request. Taylor offered each woman more than $100,000 to be her surrogate. Though both politely declined, she later grew unnaturally invested in their personal pregnancies.
Mackenzie Bright revealed that she struggled to fall pregnant herself, testifying that Taylor became obsessive with her fertility journey and made a point of going to every single appointment with her. As if that wasn't ominous enough, it came out that Taylor was thrilled when Mackenzie eventually conceived, but beside herself with excitement when she heard that her friend was expecting a girl. When it came to Abby Bell's pregnancy, however, she showed far less enthusiasm.
The court heard that Taylor was just as delighted when Abby fell pregnant, until she found out that her friend was having a boy, that is. Thankfully, both women went on to give birth without interference. But Taylor wasn't ready to give up just yet. Lindsey Brown, a former coworker, testified that she, too, was targeted in Taylor's surrogacy scheme.
Lindsay told the court that she had confided in Taylor about the trauma of having to bury her baby after miscarrying several months earlier. "She preyed on me." The woman sobbed as she recalled how the mother of two tried to use her own tragedy against her. Lindsay explained that Taylor pretended to understand her pain and claimed that she had lost a baby girl to complications that occurred after giving birth.
Without missing a beat, she followed her fabricated and calculated confession up with a particularly intensive proposal. Taylor offered Lindsay $20,000 to carry a baby for her and Hunter. She later backtracked and declared that they had found and impregnated a surrogate.
There was one problem though. According to Taylor, she and Hunter had miraculously managed to conceive a child of their own. She then made a cruel, tone-deaf comment, telling Lindsay that she hoped their surrogate miscarried.
No one can be sure, but it seems that Taylor's sudden change of heart stemmed from her failure to secure a willing surrogate before Hunter uncovered her lies. You see, on the day of the handover, her then-husband arrived at the agreed-upon meeting point, but Tim Hightower never showed up. Part 3: A Natural Born Con Artist
Hunter immediately suspected that he was being duped, prompting him to confront Taylor about Tim Hightower and her supposed inheritance. Naturally, she had an explanation at the ready,
He testified that she claimed Tim had gotten into a car accident on the way to their meeting point and, according to her, the paramedics who arrived at the scene made off with the money. At that point in Hunter's testimony, First Assistant District Attorney Kelly Crisp asked him whether he truly believed Taylor's far-fetched story. He didn't, but that certainly didn't stop his then-wife from trying to change his mind.
Hunter explained that Tim Hightower, who we now know to be Taylor, texted him a picture of a blue duffel bag bursting with cash to prove that the inheritance was real. However, that only made him more suspicious. Hunter testified that he immediately Googled blue duffel bag full of money, and the first result that popped up was the very same image he had received. The sheer audacity of it elicited a few hushed snickers from those in the gallery.
I don't blame them. Taylor's scams seemed so poorly put together. Many wondered how she ever got away with them, but as they say, hindsight is always 20-20. You see, Taylor was a natural con artist and a pathological liar who lied frequently and often unnecessarily. She concocted stories that were so detailed, sensational, and in some cases, tragic, that it was hard to believe anyone would be bold enough to make them up.
Sometimes she lied to get her way or to escape blame. Other times she seemingly lied just for the hell of it. Hunter had been lucky to untangle himself from Taylor's web when he did. By the time Wade got caught up in it, her scheming was far more sophisticated than ever before.
She texted Wade from different numbers using spoofing apps, set up several fake email addresses, and forged official documents to make her lies seem more convincing, and she reassured him when things got rocky. In many instances, Taylor actually used her network of aliases to text and email herself, preserving the illusion of innocence she had so painstakingly crafted.
She impersonated her own relatives and posed as a host of completely fabricated characters, each of whom had their own background story. Wade was trapped in a world of Taylor's own creation, one the prosecutors picked apart in court, lie by lie. To begin with, it was blatantly obvious to those close to the then-couple that Taylor was far more serious about the relationship than Wade.
She was ready for marriage the moment they met, and became hell-bent on making herself indispensable. In a matter of weeks, Taylor had muscled her way into Wade's life and business. She took over his finances, cared for his livestock, managed his household, and even made plans to expand Circle G Farms to include a wild animal processing facility.
However, to Taylor's dismay, four months passed and Wade was still adamant to take it slow. Who could blame him? He barely knew her. Undeterred, she decided to force his hand with a lie just as cruel as it was unsustainable. In August of 2019, Taylor told Wade that she was pregnant with twins. Upon hearing the news, he felt obligated to stand by his new girlfriend and Taylor lapped it up.
However, her one-sided satisfaction was short-lived. Perhaps it dawned on her that, in nine months' time, she would be expected to give birth to twins that didn't exist. Maybe she realized that falling pregnant wasn't enough to make Wade love her. Whatever the case, Taylor decided that it was high time for a miscarriage. Her father, Mark, never totaled his brush hog, nor did he text Wade to ask for help towing it.
Jace, the family friend who was apparently helping him, didn't even exist. Taylor impersonated her father and made the whole thing up so that she could lose the twins in the most dramatic and traumatic way possible, by getting whipped in the stomach by a snapped towing cable. Wade went out of his way to support her as she played the part of the grieving mother.
Naturally, Taylor savored every morsel of his attention, but that too was short-lived. You see, in the aftermath of all tragedies in life, the world continues to spin, the sun never ceases to rise and set, and people tend to move on. Taylor's bogus miscarriage was no different, but life's certainties mattered little to her. She had ways of getting what she wanted, and she wanted Wade.
Part Four: Reason and Rationality There was no question that Taylor had viciously slaughtered Reagan and caused the death of baby Braxlyn Sage. Even her defense attorney, Jeff Harrelson, didn't deny it. How could he? The evidence was glaring.
With this in mind, his argument focused on what he called fairness. In the first two weeks of Taylor's trial, Harrelson repeatedly reminded the jury to let reason, rationality, and the law guide their decisions, not their emotional responses to the graphic evidence presented. The defense attorney sought to secure a life sentence for his client rather than the lethal injection. It was a Hail Mary of sorts, one the state used to its advantage,
Prosecutors continually laid bare the lies and machinations that ultimately became the catalysts for Taylor's monstrous crimes. They stressed that, in order to understand what happened on October 9th, 2020, the jury must first understand the calculated premeditation that led to it. The prosecution exposed lie after lie to fully capture the true danger Taylor posed to the public.
knowing that reason and rationality would result in a punishment befitting her deadly inclinations.
Unsurprisingly, it came out that Taylor was no heir to the Blackburn syrup fortune, nor was she rolling in fossil fuel royalties. Her mother's side of the family did have some land with oil wells on it, but the royalties they received were nowhere near the millions she had boasted about. Not to mention both her mother and her grandparents would need to pass away before she saw a dime of it anyway.
It seems that Taylor masqueraded as a millionaire in the hopes of buying Wade's love, but her make-believe money had to come from somewhere. So, she manipulated him into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars he didn't have. She promised that she would pay him back and showed him fake emails from fabricated bank representatives as proof.
However, when those wire transfers never materialized, Taylor scrambled to save face, and Mandy Boyd was born. Taylor used the frequently misspelled alias to impersonate her mother, Shona Pryor. As it turns out, the real Shona never abused nor resented her daughter. According to her, they were on good terms, so much so that she often looked after Taylor's children throughout her relationship with Wade.
Shona had no idea that her daughter was writing fake checks in their family's name and assuming her identity. In fact, it came out in court that she had nothing to do with any of the couple's hardships. It had been Taylor all along. Prosecutors revealed that Taylor fabricated Mandy Boyd to escape culpability for her lies and create a common enemy in Shona, which united her and Wade as a couple.
Through long, rambling emails, she fed him information that supported her claims and gave him all the answers he needed to dismiss anyone who said otherwise. It was enough to reassure Wade. However, others were far from convinced. Concerned loved ones tried to warn him that he was being conned, but their efforts were in vain.
Taylor turned weight against the friends and family who dared question her inheritance, playing the victim and impersonating her own relatives to prove its existence. When those same relatives found out and tried to contact him themselves, Taylor silenced them. She took his phone and told him that she had a friend in IT who had agreed to load anti-hacking software onto it.
Supposedly, she wanted to stop Shona from tracking him but, in reality, she simply blocked real family members' numbers and social media profiles. At that stage, Taylor had near complete control over Wade. Frustratingly, however, she still didn't have his heart, prompting her to spin her most audacious story yet. In late 2019, mere months into their relationship,
Taylor told Wade that Shona had hired members of the Mexican mafia to execute her. She claimed that a high-ranking law enforcement agent named Coburn had tipped her off about the hit and warned her that she was in imminent danger. Of course, like most of Taylor's stories, it was a complete and utter fabrication, one she somehow managed to fool others into believing. Part 5. Answers for Everything
Prosecutors told the court that Special Agent Coburn did not exist and that the real Shona had not hired a hitman. It had all been a ruse concocted by Taylor to manipulate Wade into letting her and her 10-year-old daughter Emerson move in with him. As you know, despite the absurdity of her story, it worked and Wade wasn't the only one who fell for it.
Angela Pate, the wife of Wade's boss, Roger Pate, took the stand as a witness to testify how even she, a reputable chiropractor, was fooled by Taylor's lies.
"You never doubted her. She had answers for everything," Angela stated. The chiropractor explained that she became caught up in Taylor's delusions after letting her hide out at their home. She never met Coburn, nor did she ever see the undercover officers who were apparently stationed outside on around-the-clock security detail. However, she did see the text messages they sent Taylor, letting her know when it was safe to leave.
Of course, the prosecution made it clear that Taylor was simply texting herself through spoofing apps. But Angela didn't know that at the time. "It was so real and it was so chaotic," Angela told the court in between sobs. In fact, Taylor's act was convincing enough that the Pates genuinely believed their own lives were in danger. Eventually, the couple couldn't live in fear any longer, prompting them to go to the authorities for help.
They spoke with Chief Bobby Jordan of the Texarkana Police Department, who went on to take the stand after Angela. He testified that, although there were certainly red flags, even he thought that Taylor's story sounded plausible. No one could believe that someone would go to such extremes to lie for seemingly no reason, even a chief of police. Of course, Taylor did have a reason for lying, more than one in fact, but they would only find that out during her trial.
The prosecution told the court that the made-up murder-for-hire plot served multiple purposes, one of which was killing off Mandy Boyd. You see, Taylor had once again taken it too far. Wade was drowning in debt and fed up with waiting for wire transfers that would never come. Blaming Shona for their financial woes was no longer enough to keep the inevitable at bay. Wade was fixing to leave Taylor, and she knew it.
So, instead of scaling back on her schemes, she came up with another one. Taylor hatched a plan to get rid of fake Shona so that she could get access to her fake family fortune. She told Wade, the Griffins, and the Pates that her mother had been arrested by the FBI after a dramatic shootout, which, of course, was conveniently kept out of the news. Taylor then went on to claim that Shona had hung herself while in custody.
Just like that, her fabricated inheritance was once again at her disposal and she had big plans for it.
In a desperate attempt to give Wade a reason to stay, Taylor told him that she wanted to invest in some property, which brings us back to Rusty Lowe and the promise of Pecan Point. The real estate agent took the stand and told the court how Taylor, who was but a humble office clerk, tried to pull off a $20 million property deal and how he nearly fell for it, despite it being riddled with red flags. Part Six: The Problem of Pecan Point
To begin with, Rusty testified that Taylor was unusually urgent about her interest in Pecan Point and seemed eager to rush the process. He thought nothing of it at the time, until Taylor and Wade showed up to view the property in a 2009 Toyota Corolla, a car that he said didn't match the situation. It was enough to raise an eyebrow, but Rusty wasn't one to judge.
"We always give people the benefit of the doubt," he explained. Even so, the real estate agent was obligated to vet all potential buyers. Rusty spent the next four months trying to verify that the couple had the funds required for the earnest payment. He needed $200,000 upfront, but that shouldn't have been a problem considering Taylor was an heiress with deep pockets and even deeper oil wells. If only he had known.
The money Taylor promised never materialized, and Rusty quickly grew weary. He had been corresponding with bank executives over email, but whenever he tried to call, they never picked up. His suspicions only intensified when it became clear that Taylor's boyfriend couldn't get answers from her either. Rusty told the court that Wade called him a few times to ask if the money had come through, his concern painfully obvious.
Then, a $7 million wire transfer from Taylor's inheritance fell through. She claimed that the funds would come from her fossil fuel royalties. However, when Rusty had a land man look over her oil and gas leases, they proved to be fake. With more than $1 million in commission at stake, he refused to give up and reached out to Shelley Links, who was supposedly Taylor's representative from Shell Western Global.
Shelley attested to the existence of nearly $370 million in wire transfers, but fell silent shortly afterward. I'm not surprised, considering her emails came from an AOL address, which was unusual for the representative of a global petrochemical corporation.
Undeterred, Rusty persisted through months of delays, questionable checks, and claims of a multimillion dollar land mogul uncle until Taylor finally put him out of his misery the following year. In April of 2020, for the very first time, she came clean. Well, partially at least.
Taylor called the deal off, confessing that everything was fake. The oil and gas leases, the royalties, and the inheritance were completely fabricated. Shelley Links, the bank executives, and even her uncle Butch never existed. It was all a lie. That much was true, but that's about the extent of Taylor's truthfulness.
Rusty testified that she blamed it all on her mother, saying that Shona had duped her into believing she was an heiress. You see, after breaking the news of the Pecan Point deal to Wade's family back in late 2019, Taylor started to feel the pressure. Rusty had understandably refused to hand over the rights to the property without an earnest payment, foiling her plans. The deal was going nowhere and Wade was getting more disillusioned by the second.
Taylor had to think fast. So, she brought Mandy Boyd back from the dead in preparation for the inevitable. Once again, our spider managed to sidestep the consequences of her actions, but in doing so, she solved one problem by creating another. The fake Shona's resurrection only complicated matters, just before Christmas, no less. Taylor had planned to take Wade to a family get-together at her Aunt Molly's house, and the real Shona was going to be there.
With little time for damage control, Taylor hastily told Wade that Coburn had lied about her mother's suicide and promptly threw him into the deep end. Now, dear listeners, things are about to make sense.
The real Shona would later testify about what really happened that day, explaining that Taylor had shown up unannounced with her new boyfriend. She never introduced Wade to her relatives, many of whom knew about the lies she had been telling him and exclaimed that they could only stay for a few minutes. Shona wasn't the source of the strange silence and uncomfortable stares. It was Taylor.
After their particularly awkward entrance, Taylor dragged Wade into a back bedroom to wrap gifts. In truth, she wanted to separate him from her mother, who wasn't impressed. Whilst on the stand, Shona confessed that she did get angry and barge into the room, but only because the couple chose to hide rather than spend their limited time with family. She had no idea that Wade thought she was a monster or that she had just proved Taylor right.
Part 7: Playing the Part Throughout Taylor's trial, her defense team never categorically denied the lies and schemes she was accused of. Instead, Harrelson hinted at the possibility that she was mentally unstable and passed the buck to her victims for believing her ridiculous stories in the first place. It was a cheap move but, frankly, he had few other options. The defense was fighting a losing battle,
Harrelson went on to condemn the inaction of those who suspected that Taylor wasn't pregnant, questioning why they didn't go to the police to report it. One investigator countered his line of inquiry, testifying that it's not illegal to fake a pregnancy, nor can you arrest someone on the suspicion that they might commit a crime. He was followed by District Attorney Kelly Crisp, who addressed Harrelson's insinuations of insanity by pointing out a particularly telling fact:
"If Ms. Parker was incompetent, we would not be in this courtroom. Ms. Parker is not insane, or we would not be having this jury trial," Crisp noted. The prosecution went on to call countless witnesses to the stand to illustrate just how convincing Taylor's pregnancy scam had been, the staggering extremes she went to, and how it all culminated in the horrific events of October 9th, 2020.
That same year, just nine months earlier, Taylor and Wade's relationship was at its rockiest. He would barely look at her, let alone touch her. Fake checks were bouncing, farm equipment was being repossessed, and Wade was falling further into debt. The inheritance scam had run its course, so Taylor resorted to the only lie that had ever given him a reason to stay. She told Wade she was pregnant, again.
This time, however, she was determined to see it through to the bloody end. Taylor impersonated her real aunt, Katie Jo, and texted herself about the fabricated subdivision of family land to lull Wade into a false sense of security. Then, she devised her deadliest scheme yet, resulting in the largest and longest capital murder trial Bowie County has ever seen.
First, Taylor made up a due date, announced that she was pregnant on social media, and set about finding a way to prove it. She played the part of the pregnant mother and planned a gender reveal party with Stephanie Ott. Taylor later handed her a gender confirmation document that supposedly came from the Northeast Texas Women's Clinic. Of course, it was a forgery, and an obvious one at that.
When her friend questioned why it was dated 2016, Taylor claimed that it was one of 324 misprints. Suspicious, Stephanie actually called the clinic herself, replied a confused receptionist. She later testified about the incident in court, explaining that she never confronted Taylor because she didn't know about the hysterectomy.
Stephanie went on to host the gender reveal party, despite her reservations, and it turned out to be a resounding success. Wade warmed up to the idea of being a father, and even chose the name Clancy Gale. Unfortunately, however, his excitement only fanned the flames. Taylor relished in Wade's newfound affection and attention, prompting her to take increasingly drastic measures to preserve it.
She faked pregnancy symptoms, forged test results and doctor's recommendations, and fabricated OB-GYN visits. Taylor booked a few real appointments to keep the illusion alive, knowing that, because of COVID-19 restrictions, anyone who joined her wouldn't get past the waiting room.
She showed off old ultrasound scans from her pregnancy with Emerson, making sure to cut off her daughter's name and checked into the Northeast Texas Women's Clinic on social media to make it seem more convincing. The clinic staff later gave testimony in her trial, explaining that they couldn't call her out because of patient privacy laws. More so, they believed that Taylor's fake pregnancy, like the countless others they had dealt with, would end in a fake miscarriage.
If only it had. At that stage in her scheme, Taylor was in her element. She thrived on the attention she received from the labyrinth of lies she had created. But, as you know, people started to talk. Though Taylor acted pregnant, she certainly didn't look pregnant. And Wade began to wonder. Part 8. Looking the Part Taylor's act was Oscar-worthy.
She complained of swollen ankles, cradled her stomach, and pressed Wade's hands against it to feel what she claimed was kicking. Of course, he felt nothing. He also saw nothing. Taylor's belly wasn't growing, and rumors were starting to circulate. Wade confided in Roger Pate about his worries, only to have them dismissed. Taylor had somehow managed to convince the Pates that they had felt her non-existent baby move.
Perhaps it was gas. Maybe it was just their imagination. Either way, it was enough to convince Wade, but Taylor knew that it was only a matter of time. She couldn't continue hiding behind her weight and the pates. She needed a baby bump, so she decided to buy one. The prosecution told the jury that Taylor bought a prosthetic pregnancy belly online and, in doing so, bought herself more time.
You see, a miscarriage wasn't enough to stop Wade from leaving her. Taylor was hell-bent on having a newborn baby in her arms by September 22nd, no matter who she stole it from. However, for her plan to work, she had to smother any doubts about her pregnancy. In early April of 2020, Taylor somehow got her hands on a pregnancy verification letter. It belonged to an unnamed nurse who was conveniently due on the very same day that she claimed to be.
Taylor asked Angela Paith to print it out, likely thinking that she wouldn't notice that the nurse who signed off on it was also listed as the patient. Unsurprisingly, she did. When the chiropractor confronted her about it, Taylor panicked and insisted that Shona had a mole infiltrate the clinic and alter it. She backed up her outlandish claim by sending Angela an email from Mandy Boyd that confirmed it. But the damage was done.
Angela was concerned, prompting her to convince Taylor to get a urine test at another clinic called Health Express. Astonishingly, after going in alone with nothing but her purse, Taylor returned holding a letter that confirmed she was pregnant and due on September 22nd. The prosecution presented both letters to the jury during her trial, but had no explanation for how she faked the second one. What they did have, however, were the true results of her urine test.
it had come back negative. Of course, no one knew that at the time. Taylor had Wade completely convinced that she was pregnant, but even then, she still couldn't get him to love her. He just didn't feel the same way. Any normal woman would know when to walk away. Of course, Taylor was anything but normal. She feigned a rare blood-clotting disorder and claimed it was affecting their make-believe baby's heart.
Tiffany Maynard, one of Wade's neighbors, testified that Taylor said her doctor planned to shock the baby's heart at birth. Unsurprisingly, it was all a ploy to guilt Wade into loving her, lest she miscarry from the stress he was supposedly causing her. It worked. By their August maternity shoot, Wade was grinning and bearing it as he cradled what we now know to be a fake silicone pregnancy belly.
Satisfied, Taylor continued documenting her journey on social media. However, to her dismay, she didn't get the response she was fishing for. A few of their friends took to Facebook to accuse her of faking her pregnancy in a last-ditch attempt at making Wade see reason, but he was too far gone by then. In fact, he was so brainwashed that, when an anonymous texter exposed the truth about Taylor, he brushed it off as one of Shona's schemes.
Perhaps if he had taken heed of the texter's desperate warning, we wouldn't be here today. Because prosecutors later revealed that the text was actually sent by Taylor's ex-husband, Tommy Wacasey. I know for a fact she isn't pregnant and is running out of time. I'm concerned how far she might go with this. All hospitals are on high alert because she may go to the extent of stealing a child, it read.
Crisp argued that Tommy's text was a pivotal moment in the timeline leading up to the murders. Phone records show that Wade sent a screenshot of it to Taylor and just 15 minutes later, she was Googling out of hospital births. Her plan to come up with a baby was slowly coming together, but there was one thing missing. Taylor needed to find a mother.