Taylor Rene Parker, 29 is found to be guilty of the murder of the 21-year-old victim, Reagan Micelle Simmons-Hancock in the home of the victim located in New Boston in October 2020.
The Bowie County jury deliberated about an hour before determining Parker guilty of murder and kidnapping of the infant girl who was cut from the womb. She later passed away.
The defense team insisted that the baby wasn’t alive and demanded that the kidnapping case be dismissed. This would have reduced the capital murder accusation to murder.
“That’s the reason why in our opening statements we took so long to discuss definitions. It is not possible to kidnap someone who has never been born living,” attorney Jeff Harrelson stated during his final argument.
However, the prosecution claimed that several medical experts had testified the baby was heart-beat at the time she was born.
Parker had battered Simmons-Hancock’s skull several times using the hammer, then she stabbed and cut her over 100 times before taking her baby boy from the womb using scalpel.
The defendant who faking her own pregnancy for a period of nearly 10 months, was able to research ways to fake pregnancy. She also watched a number of videos about delivering babies prematurely at 35 weeks. That is how much Simmons-Hancock was at the time she was murdered.
In the days prior to shooting, Parker was hiding herself in order to appear pregnant as well as faked ultrasounds. She then published social media posts claiming she was expecting and also was announcing her gender.
Parker was unable to conceive after her operation to remove her hysterectomy.
According to the prosecution they found that she had made up her story about her pregnancy so that her boyfriend could stay with her. She also told him she was going to induce her to have a baby on the day she murdered Simmons-Hancock.
“In the last two weeks it has become so than it is now,” Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards told the jury. “She’s lying and a manipulator, and she’s now going to be held accountable.”
Richards told the jury that the defendant was battered in the head for at least five times in such power that it pushed her skull and cranium.
“The discomfort Reagan probably felt at the time Taylor began cutting her abdomen, from hip from hip … unimaginable,” Richards said. “When Taylor had the baby and Reagan was alive at the time, this is when Taylor began slashing and cutting. Taylor can’t let her go. There was no quick death. Taylor just continued to cut her. I think Reagan was not going to die fast enough to allow Taylor to leave her body and continue to her plan.”
Simmons-Hancock was a mother of three at the time of her death.
Prosecutors have requested execution for Parker. Jurors will decide during a sentencing hearing scheduled on October 12 whether or not to decide to sentence Parker for death, or life in prison without parole.
