Taylor Parker is on death row in Texas after a jury convicted her in 2022 of capital murder for killing Reagan Simmons-Hancock and extracting the unborn baby she was carrying. Parker, who is now imprisoned at Patrick L. O'Daniel Unit in Gatesville, remains there while her case moves through the last stages of review.
The killing ended the life of Simmons-Hancock, who was 21 and expecting her second child, and also took the unborn baby she planned to name Braxlynn. Her young daughter was in the house when Parker returned and carried out the attack. A jury later decided the death sentence fit the crime, and the state has kept the case moving toward execution.
The path to that verdict was shaped by a relationship that looked ordinary from the outside. Parker had photographed Simmons-Hancock's wedding to Homer Hancock in 2019 and stayed socially close enough to be around her again in 2020, when both women said they were pregnant. Parker bought baby clothes, wore a fake pregnancy belly and even persuaded a friend to host a gender reveal party after telling Wade Griffin their baby girl would arrive in September 2020. Behind that story was a hard fact the jury heard: Parker had undergone a hysterectomy and could not have children.
Not long before Simmons-Hancock was due, the two spent time together and Parker said she would be induced the next day. Instead, Parker returned to Simmons-Hancock's house and killed her before extracting the unborn baby. She then tried to pass the child off as her own, called 911 from her car when the baby was not breathing, and was pulled over after telling police she had just given birth and needed a hospital. Doctors determined she had not given birth and took her into custody.
Parker lost an appeal in November 2025, and in May 2026 the Supreme Court declined to review the case. That left her conviction intact and her execution pending in Texas, with no further court action now standing between her and the sentence imposed by the jury. In a February 2025 interview, Parker said, 'I told myself, ‘You didn’t do what they said. It’s lies,’' but added, 'My realization came when I had to face the autopsy photos.'
