The Taylor Parker Case | Part 4
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In September 2022, the truth about Taylor Parker was very publicly exposed after she sliced her way into the true crime hall of shame.

The web of lies she had so deviously spun was untangled before the state, the proverbial judge, jury, and potentially executioner, leaving her defense team quite literally fighting for her life. Capital punishment is a controversial subject, to say the least. It has long been brandished as a political weapon and aimed almost exclusively at the poor and people of color.

That said, in very rare cases, it may just be the only line of defense against those who cannot be rehabilitated. If the world of true crime has taught me anything, it's that the monsters we once feared were hiding beneath our beds, have been walking around among us all along. There are people on this planet who are more predator than human, and Taylor Renee Parker is one of those people.

In early 2020, Taylor told the world that she was pregnant, an announcement that came complete with a gender reveal party, ultrasound scans from past pregnancies, fake test results, and a prosthetic pregnancy belly. It was enough to convince Wade, but as her fabricated due date neared, her scheme took a dark turn, culminating in the first fetal abduction case in the history of Texas.

Two years later, Taylor was taken to trial for butchering Reagan Simmons Hancock and ripping her unborn baby from her womb, an act so heinously vile that she faced the death penalty. The prosecution made it clear that Taylor wasn't driven mad by her desperation to have a baby of her own. She already had two, both of whom she persistently pawned off onto relatives.

The cold, hard truth is that Taylor murdered Reagan and the daughter she would never meet for one singular purpose: to stop Wade from leaving her. The defense could do little in the face of such glaring evidence against their client. Though in the midst of the guilt phase of Taylor's trial, her attorney never once proclaimed her innocence. There was no point. Jeff Harrelson's only concern was sidestepping a death sentence.

He blamed her victims for believing her wild stories and insinuated that she was mentally unstable, but that too was a wasted effort. The prosecution went on to prove that Taylor acted with staggering premeditated clarity. They showed that after Wade sent her a screenshot of Tommy Wakase's anonymous warning. She revealed her true predatory nature as she stalked her unsuspecting prey. Part one, the hunt.

In the final two weeks of Taylor's trial, the jury heard testimony from an expert in call records and geolocation analysis. A timeline emerged that detailed Taylor's frantic search for a pregnant mother, illustrating how she resorted to increasingly desperate measures to find a baby before her fake due date. According to the expert, after she found out that local hospitals were onto her, the hunt was on.

"It was a frenzy from that point forward," said Detective Kevin Berklio of the Texarkana Police Department. He testified that Taylor's travels and search activity intensified in the weeks leading up to the murders. She scoured Google for information on how to get a birth certificate and looked up several OB/GYN clinics and maternity stores before visiting them in person, scouting each location for potential prey almost daily.

Ominously, it seems like she might have been successful. On September 22nd, 2020, the very day Taylor claimed she was due to give birth, she tried to strike a deal for 150 wild hogs with Scott Robinson, the owner of Side by Side Ranch. Of course, it was never about the money. It was all a deadly distraction. Taylor orchestrated the deal to keep Wade busy so that she could execute the final horrific phase of her plan.

Thankfully, however, Scott wasn't easily fooled and the deal fell through. Taylor's due date came and went and skepticism mounted, leaving her more desperate than ever

Two women who worked at an OB-GYN clinic in Paris, Texas, witnessed it for themselves. They testified that, on September 30th, Taylor waddled in for a checkup as a new patient, but didn't make it further than the lobby. She broke down in tears, crying that her soldier husband recently died in combat, and her mother had just bailed on the appointment. The clinic staff offered to do an ultrasound to cheer her up, but...

But, strangely, she didn't seem interested in seeing her baby. Later, they found Taylor sitting outside the back entrance of the clinic, her watchful eyes glued to the pregnant patients who came and went. The prosecution alleged that she was looking for a victim, but, in the end, she settled on one closer to home, Reagan Simmons Hancock. Taylor had reached out to her a few days earlier under the guise of needing a friend. Now, all she needed was a plan.

Taylor told Wade that she was scheduled to be induced on October 5th at Titus Regional Medical Center. Of course, that simply isn't how deliveries work, but he didn't know that. He also didn't know that Taylor never planned on stepping foot inside that hospital. Thanks to Tommy's anonymous text message, she knew that she wouldn't make it past reception. Taylor was simply buying herself more time as she closed in on Reagan.

However, once again, she had solved one problem with another, prompting her to pose as Mandy Boyd and lay the foundations to foil it all. Taylor sent scathing emails to both Wade and herself, claiming that a bomb threat would be called in that day and vowing that she would be blamed for it. Sure enough, on October 5th, chaos conveniently ensued in more ways than one.

A fire was intentionally set beneath Wade's cabin and a bomb threat was made to the hospital, sabotaging Taylor's second fake due date, just as she had planned. The prosecution inevitably exposed her scheme in court, though they couldn't prove that she started the fire. They could, however, connect her to the bomb threat

An investigator from the Mount Pleasant Police Department testified that Taylor had called it in, a revelation that was supported by her own aunt, Molly Glass, who worked at the pharmacy in Titus Regional Medical Center. Molly would later tell the jury that she had long been suspicious of her niece's stories. You see, she knew the owners of Pecan Point and was well aware that Taylor was unable to bear any more children.

Molly had tried to confront her niece about the lies she was posting on social media, but unsurprisingly, she didn't take it well. Taylor promptly blocked Molly on all platforms, cutting all contact with her. Of course, this only confirmed her suspicions. Months later, when the bomb threat was made, Molly immediately called her boss and insisted that her niece was behind it.

However, with no evidence to prove it at the time, Taylor got away scot-free. Prosecutors argued that she then spent the next few days circling her prey. Detective Berklio analyzed her cell phone data, telling the jurors that it revealed a disturbing piece of evidence. Taylor had done a trial run the day before the deadly fetal abduction.

The geolocation analysis showed that she went to the same locations around Reagan's home at the same times on October 8th and 9th. Berklio testified that, during her trial run, Taylor paid a surprise visit to the Hancock household. She came bearing gifts, but, in truth, she was almost certainly scoping it out.

Taylor left shortly before 10:00 p.m. and prepared for the coming onslaught well into the early morning hours of October 9th, using her burner phone. When Wade woke, ready to drive to Side-by-Side Ranch for the bogus hog deal, she feigned cramps and convinced him to make the trip without her. You see, Taylor was well aware that she had botched the deal weeks earlier, but it made for the perfect distraction nonetheless.

She continued plotting her attack after Wade left and at 4:28 AM, her searches took a dark turn. Taylor began watching YouTube videos on C-sections. As if that wasn't incriminating enough, she moved on to clips about giving birth at 35 weeks, which was precisely how far along Reagan had been.

Less than an hour later, Taylor left her home and drove to an Easy Mart where she was captured by a surveillance camera, calmly putting gas in Wade's Toyota Corolla. She then popped into the McDonald's next door to grab a quick bite to eat, blatantly unbothered by the vile crime she was about to commit. According to Detective Berklio, a few hours later, Reagan was dead and Braxland Sage was gone.

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Part 2: 8 Minutes On the 13th day of Taylor's trial, after three weeks of testimony from more than 140 witnesses, closing arguments were finally presented. Each side was given one hour, which the prosecution used to its fullest potential.

They maintained that the evidence proved Taylor was a liar, master manipulator, and an actress of the highest order who intentionally planned to kill Reagan and take her baby. Prosecutors recounted her desperation to prove everyone wrong and stop Wade from leaving her, no matter the cost. They reminded the jury about the timeline that illustrated her motive, her meticulous preparation, and her predatory hunt to find a mother before her fake due date.

Then, Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards drove Taylor's inhumanity home by walking the jury through the cruel, calculated manner in which she had mutilated and murdered Reagan. The attorney stressed that, even after repeatedly bludgeoning her in the skull with the back and front end of a hammer, Taylor continued, despite the wild howls of agony and terror.

She then performed a crude C-section she had learned from the YouTube videos she watched in advance, slitting Reagan from hip to hip whilst the 21-year-old was still alive. Even then, Taylor continued, she ripped the uterus from her victim's body and sliced it open to steal the baby that was still growing within. When Taylor had the baby and Reagan Hancock was still alive,

That's when Taylor Parker started slashing and cutting because she couldn't leave her alive. It was no quick death, said Richards. The attorney went on, determined to fully capture the depths of Taylor's depravity. Richards referenced earlier testimony given by a crime scene investigator who had revealed in court that Reagan's head was all but decapitated.

and her neck riddled with deep, bloodless gashes. The investigator had explained that the wounds didn't bleed because the 21-year-old was already dead or, at the very least, dying. "She just kept cutting her. "I guess Reagan wouldn't die fast enough for Taylor "to get out of there and finish her plan," Richards noted.

The attorney then pointed out that Taylor was of sound enough mind to try and cover her tracks. She changed her clothes and wiped most of the blood from her body using a bathing suit that belonged to three-year-old Kindly Hancock, who was still in the house at that time.

The black jacket, crewneck shirt, and sandals Taylor had been wearing in the surveillance footage from the Easy Mart were never found. Neither were the murder weapons, Reagan's cell phone, and the prosthetic pregnancy belly. Taylor disposed of everything, all whilst baby Braxlyn Sage battled for her life. "That's what she was worried about, not the baby. Getting rid of evidence," Richards explained.

The attorney addressed the jury for almost an hour before Jeff Harrelson presented his case, which lasted a mere eight minutes. He immediately fell back on the defense's main argument

the definition of a person according to Texas law. For kidnapping, it's a human being who has been born and is alive. It's our position that you can't kidnap someone unless they've been born and alive, Harris encountered. He then pleaded with the jury to acquit Taylor of the kidnapping charge, once again asking them to let the law guide their decisions, even if they didn't like it.

His strategy was a simple one. A defendant can only be convicted of capital murder if the homicide was committed alongside aggravating circumstances, such as kidnapping.

Should Taylor be acquitted of the latter, she would only face a first degree murder conviction and subsequently dodge the death penalty. Of course, the prosecution wasn't going to let that happen. First Assistant District Attorney Kelly Crisp rebutted Harrelson's claims and stated that the only evidence the defense had that Braxland Sage wasn't alive was Taylor's word.

The attorney insisted that Reagan's baby was born the moment she was cut out of her mother's stomach and had clung to life well after receiving emergency medical treatment. Jurors were reminded that Braxland Sage had a heartbeat whilst in intensive care, which wouldn't have been possible if she was stillborn.

According to the hospital staff's testimonies, her official time of death was listed as 1:22 p.m. on October 9th, 2020, hours after Reagan's body was found. There was simply no denying it. After Crisp's incredibly powerful rebuttal, a jury of six men and six women retired for their deliberations. They returned with a unanimous verdict less than one hour later.

On October 3rd, 2022, 29-year-old Taylor Renee Parker was found guilty of capital murder and the death of Reagan Simmons Hancock and the kidnapping and murder of her unborn baby, Braxland Sage Hancock. Taylor betrayed no emotion as her verdict was read out. Perhaps she had already accepted the inevitable or more likely, she was quietly devising a way to escape death row as the second stage of her trial loomed.

The Penalty Phase. Part Three: A Matter of Life and Death. On October 12th, just nine days after being found guilty, Taylor was back in court facing the very same jurors who convicted her. This time, however, she was squaring up with a lethal injection too. You see, in the penalty phase of a capital murder trial, the matter at hand is quite literally life or death.

Every week, the jury was presented with previously undisclosed testimony and evidence meant to aid them in sealing Taylor's fate. In the end, they would have to decide whether to sentence her to life in prison without the possibility of parole or death.

The trial went on to unfold over four-day weeks, giving all involved a much-needed respite from the onslaught of sickening and emotionally disturbing evidence. The shorter weeks also gave each side more time to prepare for the coming battle, something the defense was in desperate need of. That same day, opening statements were presented, and Harrelson attempted to paint Taylor as a victim.

he tried to elicit sympathy from the jury, explaining that she was an unwell, flawed human, but a human being nonetheless. The defense attorney blamed mental illness and a series of life events for shaping who Taylor became, vowing that testimony would prove it

Harrelson then appealed to the jury to consider the full picture as the defense presented it, without letting their emotions cloud their judgment. "Justice, to me, is doing what's called for under the circumstances, regardless of the emotional aspect of it. That's what separates us from the mob with torches and pitchforks," he declared. Harrelson made a compelling argument.

However, as Chris so poignantly illustrated in her opening statement, emotions had nothing to do with it. The state of Texas believes the law and the evidence only point to one verdict, and that's the death penalty.

"Your verdict will not come from emotion. It will come from the evidence," she countered. Crisp reminded the jury of the evidence presented in the guilt phase of Taylor's trial, which exposed the disturbing extreme she was willing to go to simply get her way, regardless of the lives she ruined and took in the process. The attorney pointed out that Taylor wasn't just good at playing the victim, she was great at it.

Crisp warned that she would continue playing the part in prison, and that very courtroom to get what she wanted, and she wanted life. Of course, the likelihood of that dwindled by the second. The prosecution was armed with a legion of witnesses and evidence which proved that Taylor had committed her crimes amidst a flurry of aggravating circumstances, making a death sentence the only viable verdict.

This included gruesome testimony from expert witnesses who would detail the barbaric, inhumane torture Taylor inflicted upon Reagan whilst she was still alive, and the evidence left behind inside her body. The prosecution continued giving the jury a taste of what was in their arsenal, including geolocation data that showed Taylor spent time dumping evidence in a river whilst Braxland Sage was dying.

They cited her history of faking illnesses, which continued whilst in prison, and the medical records that disproved her claims.

That's not all. According to prosecutors, Taylor masterminded a sophisticated scheme to frame a fellow inmate and relished her newfound infamy. She showed an unnatural interest in the coverage of her trial and frequently begged prison guards to let her stay up late so that she could watch herself on the news. "She thinks she's going to be famous," Crisp sighed. The prosecution had, once again, presented a particularly persuasive argument.

Even so, the defense clapped back. Harrelson insisted that Taylor was mentally disturbed and blamed her actions on neurological problems. Of course, the prosecution was prepared for this too. Part Four: Darkness Incarnate The following day, prosecutors called a forensic psychologist to the stand, Dr. Michael Arambula. He testified that Taylor was not disturbed when she murdered Reagan and her unborn baby.

Dr. Arambula stated, as a forensic psychologist, he has worked with several women who were convicted of killing others, including their own children and partners.

Dr. Arambula testified that, in those cases, there were clear indications of instability and severe mental illness. However, in Taylor's case, neither were present. She's considered a fetal abductor, a rare category of female killers who planned their crimes in excruciating detail and with sustained lucidity.

Instead, Dr. Arambula reported that Taylor's actions leading up to, during, and after her crimes were reminiscent of a mixture of cluster B personality disorders, not insanity. These include clinical narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, and sociopathy, the latter of which is marked by a disregard for others, an inability to feel guilt or remorse, and the absence of empathy.

According to Dr. Arambula, this is precisely what Taylor displayed. The forensic psychologist insisted that this wasn't a crime of passion committed in the heat of the moment.

It was premeditated and carried out with a cold callousness devoid of any humanity, empathy or remorse. Dr. Arambola's testimony was followed by that of Taylor's jailhouse therapist, Makesha Parrish. She told the court how our spider had managed to manipulate her way to top dog status in prison.

Apparently, it was Taylor's aptitude for always getting what she wanted, even from correctional officers, that earned her that reputation. Parrish testified that it was a frustrating situation, one which proved she was not your typical inmate. Whilst most of her peers were drug addicts and criminals with impaired mental functioning, Taylor was smart and appeared to thrive in prison. There was one thing missing though, men.

Parrish told the jury that Taylor often complained about the overabundance of estrogen and yearned for male companionship. She was lonely. However, she certainly wasn't sorry. This became painfully obvious to Parrish the day before the first anniversary of Reagan and Braxland Sage's murders. According to her, Taylor seemed upset, which led her to believe they were getting somewhere. They weren't.

As it turns out, she was simply concerned that people would badmouth her on social media. Parrish reported that Taylor never opened up about the murders during their sessions and preferred to avoid the subject altogether. In fact, she actually suggested that someone else was responsible, insisting that she loved Reagan, though she never said her name. I lost someone too, Taylor had sniffled.

It was an uncomfortable moment for Parrish, but nothing in comparison to when she caught a glimpse of our spider's true nature. The therapist recounted the disturbing incident, which occurred when Taylor was told that her hands had to remain handcuffed behind her back during their sessions. According to Parrish, Taylor went completely dark, her face distorted with rage and her eyes blackened, becoming almost feral.

The sudden switch in her demeanor was unsettling to say the least. "Going forward, I knew I had to be careful." Parrish shuddered. It seems that she wasn't the only one. In testimony from the previous day, Taylor's former manager from an Ameripak plant attested to the darkness she hid within.

Mark Holmes told the jury that she would switch from being sugary sweet and flirtatious to threatening in a matter of seconds, something he experienced himself the day he fired her.

Taylor had been working in their human resources department for just a few months before she was let go after a series of lies were exposed. According to Holmes, her dark behavior was menacing enough that he feared she might do something crazy. "I was watching her hand and her purse because it would not surprise me," he said.

Holmes went on to testify about Taylor's lies and inappropriate behavior, which included stories of being a cancer survivor, losing a non-existent sister to suicide, and demands for shorter weeks due to her fake high-risk pregnancy. He was followed by Kelsey Turner, a former coworker from the same plant.

She told the jury how Taylor had manipulated her into calling Wade and posing as an assistant manager at the bank to back up the claims of multi-million dollar wire transfers. Astonishingly, Taylor predicted that she would be nervous about the whole thing and provided her with a ready-made script.

Kelsey explained that she immediately regretted it, but at the time, she genuinely believed that the wire transfers were real. Even so, when Taylor begged her to make another call, she refused. Not that it mattered. One can only assume that Kelsey wasn't the first or the last unwitting coworker to become ensnared in our spider's web because, after Taylor had been fired, an unnerving discovery was made.

There, tucked away in her desk, were more scripts. Now, at that point in Taylor's trial, this revelation came as no surprise to the jury. Her audacity was unparalleled and, frankly, they expected nothing less. What they didn't expect, however, was the relentless scheming and criminal behavior she engaged in whilst in prison, despite facing the death penalty. Part 5: A Lost Cause

According to CRISP, Taylor showed no interest in changing her ways over the two years she was incarcerated at the Bowie County Jail. In fact, she was so devious, disruptive, and difficult that the facility was actually forced to amend its policies and procedures. Taylor had every opportunity to prove that she deserved a second chance. Instead, all she did was prove that she was a lost cause.

Crisp told the court that Taylor continuously caused chaos and confusion. She fabricated issues with other inmates and even went as far as going after correctional officers when she didn't get her way. According to court documents, Taylor filed a series of complaints against staff members for alleged mistreatment and discrimination.

After those grievances were inevitably proven to be unfounded, she threatened to file lawsuits against the officers as individuals. When that didn't work, she resorted to barely concealed threats of violence. It's abundantly clear that Taylor was desperate to maintain some semblance of power and control by victimizing herself. She wanted sympathy and special treatment, which she tried to secure through needless malingering and demands for unnecessary medical care.

Prosecutors revealed that, in one instance, Taylor insisted on having an oxygen tank in her jail cell. However, she was never seen using it, prompting the facility to arrange medical testing. Unsurprisingly, the results proved that Taylor had no need for it in the first place. It was simply another scam to add to her already expansive list, one which continued to grow throughout her incarceration.

On October 19th, 2022, during the fourth day of the penalty phase, the court heard jail calls between Taylor and her mother. In one recorded call, Shona encouraged her daughter to intentionally trigger a migraine to manipulate staff into turning off the lights in her cell, which were kept on at all times for safety and security reasons. Like mother, like daughter, apparently.

In another particularly incriminating call, the pair discussed the garnishment of Taylor's inmate account and devised a scheme to sabotage it. In essence, the state was seizing some of her money to pay back the medical bills she had racked up after years of feigning illnesses. Astonishingly, Shona was more than happy to collude with Taylor to get around it.

She agreed to buy commissary items for her daughter under the names of other inmates and give them a cut of the goods as compensation for their cooperation. This inevitably gave Taylor some sway within the prison walls, which she immediately exploited.

In the second week of the penalty phase, the prosecution unveiled a colossal scheme she concocted behind bars by preying on jail trustees or inmates whose good behavior had earned them privileges. She tricked them into doing her bidding by insisting that she had been wrongly convicted. To sweeten the deal, Taylor showered them with commissary items her mother had bought

promised them thousands of dollars, and vowed to get them legal help, claiming that she was wealthy and an heir to the Morton Salt fortune. Of course, the trustees eventually realized that they were being used and turned on her, exposing her scheme to jail staff and agreeing to testify against her in court. One of those trustees was Lana Addison, Taylor's spurned jailhouse lover. Part 6. History is Written by the Villains

Lana told the jury Taylor claimed that her lies about inheriting millions of dollars had caught the attention of local gangsters who began monitoring her using surveillance equipment. That's how they found out that she planned to visit Reagan on the morning of October 9th, 2020. Supposedly, on her way there, Taylor noticed a car on the side of the road with its hazards on and pulled over to help.

That's the last thing she remembered. She said she came to in the back of a car with a bunch of strangers before realizing that she had been drugged. She claimed to fall in and out of consciousness throughout the ordeal, but did manage to remember the names of some of her kidnappers, Kodiak, J-Dog, and Fat Boy. When Taylor next regained consciousness, she was on the floor of the Hancock's laundry room.

She told Lana that she heard a bunch of commotion and tried to get up, but she was still too disoriented to move. Somehow, however, she managed to crawl into the kitchen where she saw Reagan being savagely attacked by the gangsters. Suddenly, someone swung something at her. She tried to block the blow, which broke her hand, and everything went black.

Taylor claimed that she came around just as the gang was leaving and got to her feet, slipping in something warm and wet. It was blood. Reagan's blood. The gangsters had apparently beaten the pregnant 21-year-old to a pulp and left her to die.

Taylor told Lana that she broke down crying at the sight of her best friend bleeding out on the floor. Then, according to her, Reagan did something extraordinary. She allegedly begged Taylor to cut Braxland sage from her belly because she felt like her body was dying. Conveniently, not only did Taylor have a scalpel in Wade's car that was somehow parked outside, but she also claimed to have experience performing C-sections on his livestock.

That said, she told Lana that she couldn't bring herself to do it to her dying friend. Until Reagan literally forced her hand, that is. Supposedly, the 21-year-old grabbed Taylor's broken hand, which held the scalpel, and shoved the blade into her own abdomen, slicing it from hip to hip herself. According to Taylor, Braxland Sage's leg popped out, allowing her to pull the newborn from Reagan's belly.

Lana testified that, after insisting that she saved Braxlyn Sage, Taylor played the part of the humble hero and declared that she held her up to Regan in triumph. "Look, here's your baby girl. Look, we did it." She supposedly sobbed. According to her, Regan smiled before taking her final breath. Taylor then turned her attention to Braxlyn Sage. Apparently, the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and she was blue.

Taylor allegedly performed CPR on her, but it wasn't working. So she grabbed the unresponsive newborn, got in her car, and headed straight for the hospital. The rest is, unfortunately, history. One Taylor sought to rewrite around Hannah Hollander. Hannah was a meth addict with suicidal tendencies who was only incarcerated for a short period of time. According to testimony, she was scared to be there and was often heard crying in her cell.

Taylor, who was housed next door, told Lana that the addict's voice had jogged her memory. Hannah was one of the kidnappers. After apparently confronting her about it, Taylor then claimed that Hannah had confessed to murdering Reagan. That's not all. Lana was later handed a novel that contained a series of obscure notes which, according to Taylor, revealed Hannah's intentions to have killed her. It was all lies, but, of course, it worked.

Lana explained that she believed it all because of Taylor's unsettling ability to keep track of countless characters, details, and storylines, and recall it all on the spot.

As it turns out, she wasn't alone. Taylor roped several other unwitting trustees into her scheme, including Phyllis Dawson and Shauna Ree Yeager. Phyllis told the jury that she was offered $5,000 to find witnesses when she got out and was given strict instructions to feed them a fabricated alibi that lined up with the story Taylor had told Lana. These instructions came in the form of cryptic notes hidden within a puzzle book, which the prosecution presented in court.

Taylor then offered Phyllis a further $15,000 to smuggle a 10-page confession letter out of jail upon being released. It mirrored her newest version of events and contained details about the murders that only the perpetrator could have known.

She wanted the trustee to make copies and distribute them to the media, claiming that it had been written by Hannah, but the evidence presented in court proved otherwise. It came out that not only was the letter written in Taylor's hand, but it was covered in her fingerprints, and hers alone. Next on the stand was Shonarie Yeager, who testified that she too had been offered thousands of dollars to do Taylor's bidding.

According to the trustee, she was given a 13-page confession letter that was just as incriminating as the last, complete with previously unknown details about the crime. Supposedly, it had also been written by Hannah. In truth, Taylor had forged it after spending hours practicing her victim's handwriting. She then asked Shauna Reed to pass it on to another trustee and have her rewrite it in her own hand.

Once complete, Shana Rhee was instructed to smuggle it out of jail when she was released and send copies to local news outlets, the Bowie County Sheriff's Office, and Jeff Harrelson himself. Thinking she had the trustees fooled, our spider attempted to lure yet another pawn into her scheme, Kaylee Bromsey, a fellow inmate.

Caylee testified that Taylor tried to bribe her into planting a suicide note in Hannah's cell and pretending to find it before handing it over to the guards. Of course, it was just another one of Taylor's forgeries. She had written it to make her fake confession letter seem more convincing and posed as Hannah, claiming that she couldn't live with herself after murdering Reagan. Caylee testified that Taylor also instructed her to plant evidence when she got out.

Those instructions were hidden in a notebook, along with a few strands of hair. Taylor wanted Kaylee to plant the hair inside a beanie and leave it on the side of the road where she was supposedly abducted by Hannah and her cohorts. Alarmingly, that notebook and the DNA evidence hidden within were given to Kaylee by a guard. Part 7. Listening, Watching, Waiting

At the time, Kaylee was sharing a segregated cell with Taylor after getting into a fight with another inmate. She spent three weeks trapped with our Spider, who quietly coaxed her into opening up about her personal life.

Kaylee testified that Taylor then used that information to convince her that her family had turned against her, leaving her confused, isolated, and easily manipulated. She very nearly lost her mind in that concrete cage, but was saved by a sickening revelation. As a brave survivor of sexual abuse, she explained that Taylor's behavior was all too familiar. She was being groomed.

Kaylee immediately grew fearful of her cellmate. She testified that Taylor had a darkness within her, similar to that of someone who would stand over a body and say, "Look what you made me do!" She became desperate to move to a different cell, lest she end up like Hannah Hollander, or worse, Reagan Hancock. There was one problem though. Taylor was always right there, listening, watching, waiting.

So, Kaylee hatched a plan of her own. She wrote a note in secret begging for help, held it up for a guard to read, and made a daring escape that only reinforced the prosecution's argument. Taylor was dangerous.

They drove this point home by bringing two expert witnesses to the stand, who wrapped up the second week of the penalty phase by revealing the waking nightmare Reagan and Braxland Sage endured. I must warn you, dear listeners, what you are about to hear may haunt you for years to come. First up was Dr. Christopher Mason, Taylor's former OBGYN, who was questioned about the crude C-section she performed.

He explained that such a procedure is usually done later in the pregnancy when the uterus is lower down in the abdomen. In this case, Reagan was only 35 weeks along, meaning that her uterus would have been wedged within her diaphragm. "It would be very, very brutal to pull that uterus out," Dr. Mason noted. He tried to describe the sheer animalistic force Taylor must have used to remove it whilst Reagan was fighting back but trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

On cross-examination, the defense asked Dr. Mason whether Taylor's endometriosis, ectopic pregnancy, and subsequent hysterectomy could have been traumatic for her. Of course, he replied that it certainly could have been, but any hopes of garnering sympathy for their client were dashed when Lauren Richards revealed an unsettling fact.

Taylor had a syringe full of a powerful animal tranquilizer in her purse. Yet, she opted to slice Reagan open without it. "Administering that would have been a lot more humane than what she did," Richards shuddered. The next expert witness to take the stand was Dr. Stephen Hastings, the medical examiner who performed Braxland Sage's autopsy. Jurors were forced to view pictures of Reagan's mangled placenta as he explained the damage it suffered in agonizing detail.

According to Dr. Hastings, its condition indicated that Taylor had violently ripped it from her victim's body before stuffing it inside her own yoga pants to fool first responders. Unfortunately for all in attendance that day, that wasn't even close to the worst of it.

The court heard, for the very first time, that fragments of purple press-on fingernails were found embedded inside the placenta. That gruesome piece of evidence told a disturbing story that is forever etched into my mind, one Richards revealed with a single decisive question. She asked Dr. Hastings whether it proved that Reagan was alive during what she called a forced extraction. He nodded grimly before clarifying that the fragments belonged to Reagan herself.

Dr. Hastings explained that for her own fingernails to break off inside her own placenta, she had to have been alive and horrifically fighting over it with Taylor.

Her testimony proved that Taylor was cruel, merciless, and, above all, dangerous. That said, the prosecution sought to prove that locking her away for life wouldn't change that. So, they called on Amber Monk, one of the correctional officers who had been targeted by Taylor. Monk explained that Taylor's constant threats of lawsuits and grievance investigations scared some of the other officers into submission.

She was allowed to pass notes, stockpile contraband, and spend an unusual amount of time outside of her cell. Taylor's imprisonment and conviction did nothing to curb her alarming behavior, a sentiment that was echoed by a series of prison officials who took to the stand in the following week.

They testified that Taylor would continue to wreak havoc in jail if she got life in prison, and reminded the jury that, should she be put on death row, she would live an isolated, locked-down life until her eventual execution. The officials then insisted that she posed a serious threat to the jail security, staff, and inmates, and all but begged the jury to sentence her to death. Part 8: Life or Lethal Injection

As the trial of Taylor Parker came to an end, the nightmarish evidence of the penalty phase finally tapered off, leaving a noticeably shaken jury in its wake. Still, their ordeal wasn't over just yet. On November 9th, 2022, each side presented their closing arguments, and the jury was left with one final question to answer: life or lethal injection?

Lauren Richards addressed the court first, asking the jury to consider what case, if not that one, was worthy of the death penalty. The attorney followed up with an elaborate PowerPoint presentation that laid bare Taylor's outlandish lies, inconsistent stories, scapegoating, and calculated scheming, all of which occurred after her arrest.

Richard used it to remind the jury of a crucial question they would face in their death penalty deliberations: whether Taylor posed a future danger or not. She stressed the infinite possibilities that a life sentence offered our Spider, especially when served in an institution that depended upon order and with other inmates who were easily led. The defense, on the other hand, decided to remind the jury of something else entirely: Taylor's apparent humanity.

Jeff Harrelson, once again, told the court that Taylor was flawed, but human. Then, once again, he placed the blame for her actions squarely on the shoulders of others. Honestly, there was little else he could do to help her case at that point.

Harrelson condemned Taylor's family and the systems she relied on for failing her, arguing that several people knew she was faking her pregnancy and talked about it openly, but never did anything about it. He then pointed out that the Bowie County Jail never took any disciplinary action against Taylor, insinuating that the prosecution and jail staff exaggerated their accusations. Astonishingly, Harrelson also attempted to undermine the expert witnesses,

Earlier in the trial, they had testified that Taylor's potent mix of pathological lying and personality disorders proved that she was dangerous, then and in the future. Harrelson, of course, disagreed, but the evidence spoke for itself, and the prosecution was determined to make it heard.

Kelly Crisp clapped back with a ferocious rebuttal that included a particularly gory crime scene photo of Reagan's body. She rehashed the horrors Taylor inflicted upon the pregnant 21-year-old, stressing that every aspect of the crime was committed with clarity, intent, and sophisticated premeditation. That's all evidence of future danger, Crisp barked.

The attorney's argument was so raw and passionate that, by the end of it, family members were crying and consoling each other and, for the first time in two months of trial, Taylor was openly sobbing. In that moment, it was abundantly clear to all in the gallery that a life sentence simply wouldn't suffice. Perhaps even to Taylor herself.

Even so, it was up to the jury to decide. At 11:13 a.m., the very same jury that convicted Taylor retired to deliberate on her fate. A little over one hour later, they returned with their verdict. As Judge John Tidwell read it aloud, a heavy silence swept through the courtroom. Taylor remained still, barely breathing or blinking.

"You have been found guilty of capital murder and punished by Texas law to death," he declared. The moment those words left Judge Tidwell's lips, Taylor finally cracked. She broke down in tears, her hands shaking violently as they were handcuffed behind her back. For the very first time, Taylor wasn't in control.

No amount of malingering, manipulating, or scheming could save her now. Stripped of her fantastical stories, she was ushered to the stand and forced to face the consequences of her actions.

Not as a millionaire heiress, nor victim, but as Taylor Renee Parker, a convicted murderer and the seventh woman on death row in Texas. She stood at the same stand from which her lies were laid bare and endured the emotional victim impact statements of her victim's loved ones. None were more poignant or passionate than that of Jessica Brooks. The grieving mother posed a question to Taylor, which I can only hope keeps her up at night.

Reagan was one of the very few people on this earth who cared about you. Now who cares about you? Jessica asked. Once all who had suffered at Taylor's hands had their say, our spider was taken to death row, where she still sits today, listening, watching, waiting.