Texas Woman Who Killed a Pregnant Mom to Take Her Unborn Baby Found Guilty

Bowie County in Texas was rocked last year following the murder of 21-year-old pregnant woman Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock. And now, after weeks of trial, a Texas jury has found her killer, Taylor Rene Parker, guilty of both murder and capital murder.

According to CNN, Parker killed the victim to take her baby and claim it as her own. After killing the pregnant mother, Parker cut her stomach open and took the unborn baby. Court records have shown that the baby also died after being forcefully taken from the mother's womb.

Texas Killer Told Her Boyfriend She was Pregnant, Even Held a Gender Reveal Party

Before the murder, Taylor Rene Parker reportedly told her boyfriend and others that she was pregnant. They even held a gender reveal party for her supposed baby.

She then went away on October 9, 2020, telling her boyfriend that she was going to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, and preregistering for labor there. However, she did not go to Oklahoma but went to Texas instead to commit her brutal and gruesome act.

That same morning, Simmons-Hancock's mother called the police to report that her daughter had been killed. The mother said her daughter had a large slice in her abdomen, and the baby was already gone.

State troopers stopped Parker in Dekalb, Texas, where they discovered the killer holding the baby with the umbilical cord coming from her pants and still connected to the infant.

They then took her to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where hospital staff found that Parker did not give birth to the baby.

The baby later died, and Parker was found to be the cause of the baby's death as she "did not have consent to leave the home with the child and due to the inability to provide necessary care to the child," the affidavit noted.

The Trial That Shocked Texas

According to NBC News, the guilty verdict on Monday came after an hour of deliberation between the jury of six men and six women. They heard some grisly testimony from witnesses and agreed that Taylor Rene Parker was not just responsible for the death of the mother but the baby as well.

During the trial, Parker's attorney tried to dismiss a kidnapping charge, which would have lowered her capital murder charge to murder. Attorney Jeff Harrelson argued that the baby was never alive, so the kidnapping count was not valid. "You can't kidnap a person who has not been born alive," he argued.

However, the prosecutors presented medical professionals who testified that the baby still had a heartbeat when it was born. In addition, they showed how much pain the victim must have felt as she was still alive when Parker cut up her abdomen to extract the infant, according to CBS News.

The punishment phase of the trial will begin on October 12. Parker is now facing a possibility of a life sentence or even the death penalty.

The trial has shocked many in Texas, not only how grisly the murders were but also because Taylor Parker was revealed to be an expert conman linked to various other schemes.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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