A recently released Netflix true crime series highlights the chilling case of a Texas woman accused of kidnapping and murder, who allegedly brushed off her actions as merely “one horrible thing.”
Taylor Parker, condemned to death for the 2020 murder of Reagan Simmons-Hancock, lamented her frustrations to her mother about jail conditions. She bemoaned her inability to wear makeup in court and wept over being separated from her children in exclusive jail phone calls obtained by The Sun.
In conversations spanning 2021 to 2022, Parker expressed her exasperation to her mother, Shona Prior, saying, “Mom, they would accuse me of the most trivial offenses right now if they could; that’s the reality of the situation,” she insisted.
She pointed out, “There’s another woman here, and they concocted false charges against her simply because they could, primarily to enhance their image.”
Parker concluded, expressing her disillusionment, “It’s like when you commit one terrible act, they’ll go to any lengths against you.”
Prior hit back, “Well, Taylor, you know, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think you’re thinking about that like you should be thinking about that.”
“I mean, it’s not just you do one horrible thing and they try to throw the book at you.”
Parker sobbed and even told Prior “I’m sorry” but the matriarch wasn’t convinced by the tears.
“I know you did not think about the consequences of your actions. I know that,” she bluntly said.
Parker sobbed she was unable to see her son, but again Prior fired back back, saying, “I’m sure it does, but you know what? I hate to say this, but if you’d have been thinking about the children that you had on earth, you might not be in the situation you’re in.
“But, I mean, that’s what’s done is done. And you have to go forward and deal with the consequences as best you can.”
“You’re not the only one dealing with them. We’re all dealing with them.”
Parker, now 33, crushed Simmons-Hancock’s skull with a hammer and stabbed her more than 100 times in her New Boston home before removing her baby from her womb with a scalpel.
Parker, who faked her own pregnancy in the 10 months leading up to the killing, murdered Simmons-Hancock, 21, after telling her partner she was going to the hospital. She sadistically left the mom to die in front of her daughter, 3, before being arrested while driving the dead infant to an Oklahoma hospital.
Parker was held at the Bi-State Detention Center – a maximum security intake lockup in Texarkana – pre-trial. She is only one of seven women on death row in Texas.
She grumbled about not being able to wear make-up in court and complained the lights in her cell were on 24 hours a day.
Prior appeared to be more sympathetic when her daughter complained about not being able to wear makeup.
“So the thing about it is if they try to discriminate [against] you as a person, that will work in your favor in the long run because they’re not giving you a fair chance,” she said.
“You know, they’re wanting you to look like a homeless criminal.
“They’re not wanting you to look like a human because that would be beneficial to you and detrimental to them.”
Parker, branded an “evil piece of flesh demon” by her victim’s heartbroken mom, was convicted of capital murder in November 2022 after a jury of six men and six women in Bowie County deliberated for less than two hours.
During her trial, prosecutors said that her fake pregnancy scheme was a bid to stop her partner Wade Griffin from leaving her.
Parker — who could not conceive after a hysterectomy — wore pregnancy disguises, faked ultrasounds, posted about her pregnancy online and even threw a gender reveal party for the fake baby.
Dustin Estes, a Special Agent of the Texas Department of Public Safety, testified Parker watched YouTube videos on how to deliver and care for babies.
She was sentenced to death and just weeks before “Maternal Instinct” premiered on Netflix, the Supreme Court said it would not review her conviction and sentence, without explaining.