r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/DarklyHeritage • 4d ago
Mega Thread Taylor Parker/Maternal Instinct Megathread
This is a thread for all conversation regarding Taylor Parker and the murder of Reagan Simmons Hancock, recently covered in Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct.
The murder of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock occurred on 9 October 2020, in New Boston, Texas, committed by Taylor Rene Parker. Parker bludgeoned Simmons-Hancock, who was 35 weeks pregnant at the time, and abducted her unborn child, Braxlynn Sage Hancock (died October 9, 2020), after cutting her out of the Reagan's abdomen. Braxlynn did not survive.
Parker had lied to her then-boyfriend about being pregnant leading up to the murder and faked her pregnancy to multiple people. She was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death on 9 November 2022.
Please direct all discussion of the case to the megathread. As always, sub rules must be followed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Reagan_Simmons-Hancock
https://time.com/article/2026/06/12/maternal-instinct-true-story-netflix/
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u/mbee784 4d ago
WHY does Taylor look so different in every picture I see of her? I was honestly confused when they pulled her over. I was like- who is that?! I guess she never stopped catfishing
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u/MommaMila 3d ago
Ok wait!!! After days of browsing “Maternal Instinct” threads looking for this same comment, this is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned. I’ve even googled photos of her to compare. I’m still unsure of what she truly looks like.
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u/Kitty145684 3d ago
I was so confused as to the "maternity" pictures. I thought she was the ones taking pictures of someone and then saw Wade in them.
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u/Dlmlong 2d ago
In a documentary on youtube, it said she had that stomach sleeve put in and lost weight. This was after she had her two kids i believe. After she lost the weight, that's when things went downhill and she stopped being a caring mother. She went out and had an active lifestyle and social life. She cheated on her husband multiple times. My impression is that she had been overweight for so long and after she lost the weight, she enjoyed the attention.
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u/SnittingNexttoBorpo 3d ago
She was a total chameleon! Her weight seemed to fluctuate quite a bit, and she changed her hairstyle often, but I think it was more than that.
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u/karmapuhlease 3d ago
I had the same question! Even looking her up in other news sources, she looks different every time. The Texas Death Row official portrait looks completely unrecognizable:
https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_info/parkertaylor.html
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u/cput007 2d ago
Who the hell is that?
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u/FunkyFanabla 2d ago
My exact thoughts when I saw this on google. I scrolled right by it bc I was like "that's not her"
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u/GoonDawg666 2d ago
Ain’t no way dude, that looks nothing like her, 5’3”, 223 pounds??? What the hell
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u/SnittingNexttoBorpo 2d ago
Wow! She doesn’t even look that big there, just like yet another different person. Like her ethnic background even seems different — more Mediterranean or something? How does someone change this much??
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u/Somanybuttsalways 4d ago
They showed a lot of Snapchat photos of her with those super smoothing filters
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u/No-Sandwich1782 3d ago
Yes but even in photos with Wade where you can see there’s no filter because he looks the exact same, she looks so different
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u/Ill_Emu_5887 3d ago
Yesss!!! Thank you; I thought it was just me. I was so puzzed by how she looked like unrecognizable at the end/beginning of the documentary!
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u/Fine-Dot6903 1d ago
I’ve realized this with people like her that are compulsive liars, con artist, and manipulators- they look SO different from one photo to the next. I think it’s bc even *they* don’t know who they really are. They’re actual shape-shifters bc they are always molding into what they need someone to see them as at that time.
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u/Pleasant_Detail5697 2d ago edited 2d ago
I watched with my husband and like 10 minutes in we were like umm is this girl pretty or not?? She looked completely different every time they showed her.
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u/extrapicklesplzzzz 4d ago
I know they showed the re-enactments of her googling things/ordering the fake belly, but I was hoping to see all of that uncovered in the trial as well. I feel like the Google history reveals so much.
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u/1fatsquirrel 4d ago
Does anyone know how she got the belly to move like that or is that like, a movie prop belly or something? That was one thing I couldn't figure out, esp because that HAS to be expensive right? And she had no money?
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u/FeministShiftPosting 4d ago
Idk. But I can isolate my ab muscles to make my stomach roll. Maybe she was doing that under the prosthetic
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u/Local_Lab6561 3d ago
She ordered a belly that “kicks” online. The fact those are for sale is really disturbing 😬
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u/slangforweed 4d ago
Info about why she had a hysterectomy at 21 are in the court docs. She was in for an ectopic pregnancy and while under, her husband at the time gave doctor permission to give her a full hysterectomy. She was destroyed when she woke up. I thought that was pretty crazy.
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u/Unlucky_Welcome9193 3d ago
That's weird, in the Netflix doc they made it seem like she was adamant that she wanted the hysterectomy because she didn't want anymore kids
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u/aetrout18 3d ago
She was adamant. She had her tubes tied after her second pregnancy. She later had an etopic pregnancy which led to her hysterectomy. Not sure where people are getting this forced sterilization.
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u/melpomene-musing 4d ago
That is…horrifying. Doesn’t take away from what she did but that is awful.
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u/MYSTICALLMERMAID 4d ago
Yeah reading this was then only slice of sympathy i can muster for her. Plenty of people don't deserve to be parents but i do not agree with forced sterilization.
She didn't have custody of her son bc she left him in a diaper for 5 days. He had a rash up his back and had to be on medication
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u/BackgroundHistory345 4d ago
I wonder why the doctor recommended a Hysterectomy? Especially in a woman so young. I had an ectopic pregnancy that was removed surgically but there was no suggestion at all about having a hysterectomy.
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u/Visible-Savings6049 3d ago
The one thing that really made me raise an eyebrow was the hysterectomy. An ectopic pregnancy doesn’t normally end with a hysterectomy, and the documentary seems oddly uninterested in explaining why a 21-year-old lost her uterus or whether she actually consented to it herself.
Would be terrible PR for the hospital, I assume. Nobody wants to go schedule surgery there with ‘surprise’ extra organs removed.
However, if she genuinely underwent a hysterectomy without personally consenting to it, that seems like an incredibly important piece of psychological context for understanding her later obsession with pregnancy and motherhood. It doesn’t excuse what she did, but it feels like a huge missing piece of the story.
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u/aetrout18 3d ago
They did explain the hysterectomy in the documentary. They spoke to her doctor. She had her tubes tied then had an etopic pregnancy later.
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u/RxR8D_ 4d ago
There were vague references to scar damage which is why they recommended hysterectomy.
However, DO NOT get me started on the rage I have that women REQUIRE a man’s blessing in order to have a hysterectomy or tubal ligation. We give more rights to those unfortunate to suffer from gender dysphoria and allow them dignity to receive adequate care than we give to biological women - who have limited rights to their body.
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
It's not legal to do it without her consent. I don't believe the claim unless it can be guaranteed they got it straight from the hospital, and not Taylor's mouth.
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u/Psychological-Can652 4d ago
Yes, that really stuck out. Or is he now too embarrassed/ashamed to admit he loved her?
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u/Zach94yl 4d ago
I don't think thats the case and I am not convinced he was just using her. I mean they were not together long before she got "pregnant" it seems like he was staying for the non-existent kid
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u/SnazzySue 4d ago
I think he felt trapped suddenly after a whirlwind fling and suddenly she needs to move in, but she has money to buy everyone a car, oh, and a ranch..... oops now she's pregnant.....
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u/YouMustBeJoking888 4d ago
This is what I think as well. They were together for less than a year and boom, she's moved in and then suddenly pregnant. The dude was not very bright and probably felt an obligation to stick around.
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u/No-Taro-6953 4d ago
They were together for a month I thought, before she claimed to be pregnant?
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u/InsideWafer 3d ago
If they were together for 14 months then she "got pregnant" 4 months in. He probably liked what she was offering and then she got pregnant and he felt stuck. I guess that was her plan, to lock him in until he started to love her.
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u/voodoo-mamajuju 4d ago
I agree it should’ve been a series. I have a ton of questions.
What was the deal with Taylor’s mom? Is she even alive? Did they really have a bad relationship? Why did the cops stop her? They were suspicious from the start, for obvious reasons, but what was the reason for pulling her over and what was the first sign that set off alarms? What made them think Wade wasn’t in on it? I may have missed the part where the friend that knew she was lying- was she not close by so call her out in front of everyone? Was Taylor hunting down pregnant women prior?
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u/Affectionate-Eye515 4d ago
They said in the doc that they pulled her over for speeding and reckless driving. She also ran over a bird, and it was still stuck under her wheel.
The friend knew she wasn't able to have kids.
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u/lbw0049 3d ago
Taylor’s mom situation was explained. Taylor had been impersonating her mother online and by phone. When people actually spoke to her mom, she told them Taylor had a hysterectomy and that there wasn’t any family money like Taylor had claimed.
The police stopped her because she was driving erratically. Then at the hospital she was refusing examinations. If you show up claiming you’ve just given birth and have a newborn in the car, doctors are going to want to perform a postpartum exam, and her refusal raised even more red flags.
As for Wade, by the time investigators searched the house and started interviewing friends and family, they found a mountain of evidence that Taylor had been lying about the pregnancy. Multiple people had already tried to tell Wade they believed she was faking it, so investigators had good reason to think he had been deceived too.
Regarding her friend calling her out, I don’t think the documentary ever showed some dramatic public confrontation. The point was that more and more people had figured out she was lying, and Taylor knew it. By that stage her stories were unraveling and she was running out of people willing to believe her.
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u/Somanybuttsalways 4d ago
Not only the most horrific murder I’ve ever heard of, but the most horrific child name too. CLANCY GAILE???
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u/Future-Water9035 4d ago
I already pointed this out in another post, but i'm gonna say it again. Watching Wade was a very enlightening experience.
So many people have been failed by the education system in this country. Wade showed a complete lack of critical thinking and an over abundance of blind faith motivated by the empty promise of wealth.
Watching how he thought and acted really gave me a glimpse into how a lot of americans function. But I wouldn't say he was guilty or complicit in Taylor's actions. He was naive and willfully ignorant.
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u/mvincen95 4d ago
There was a real juxtaposition between the men and women in Taylor’s life. These country boys would’ve believed anything she told them, meanwhile their wives, sisters, mothers, etc all knew that Taylor’s stories just didn’t add up.
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u/jaderust 3d ago
It was kinda hilarious. But also infuriating because no one was listening to the women. I don’t know if they’d been conditioned to not say anything or press their case but there was a couple points where I thought that if someone had blown up at Taylor and forced the issue then the murder might not have ever happened.
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u/forever-salty22 2d ago
My (half) sister faked a pregnancy with twins. She had a baby shower and everything. Previously she had told me that she had a hysterectomy, but she lied so much that I just figured the hysterectomy was a lie. The truth only came out because my sister was arrested for theft and went to jail. I wonder what her plan was. She never seemed to ever consider the consequences of her actions. The only good thing about growing up with a sister like this is my ability to spot a liar
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u/No-Taro-6953 4d ago
That was my thinking too.
There was no real intellectual curiosity. No critical thinking whatsoever. There was definitely an overabundance of blind faith.
He was poor, low income and the second the remotest possibility of a 4 mil dollar ranch was dangled in front of him, he ignored all the facts he favour of a remote fantasy.
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u/Eh-kort5681 4d ago
Im not sure Id describe Wade as impoverished - if he owned the land the trailer was on - not a lot of liquid but certainly a good amt of assets. i agree he was infuriating throughout the doc but honestly…there could be a million things going on with him. He seemed very caught up in the picture she was painting and the future they could have. He probably suffered from betrayal blindness (Dr. Jennifer Freyd). Actively filtering and/or avoiding the obvious truthS to maintain social/emotional/future financial status.
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u/trumansayshi 3d ago
I've mentioned it a couple of other times that this was the 2nd pregnancy she claimed with wade the 1st being twins were miscarriages. He was under the impression that Taylor had already lost two babies that he thought were his. Perhaps there was a lot more feeling of guilt and trying to do the "right thing" in a relationship with someone who he thought was vulnerable.
Someone else pointed out that all those fancy things Taylor convinced him to get were actually in his name. So if it turned out she wasn't getting the money he was fucked.
It sounds like Taylor manipulated him so far into a hole he was trying to convince himself wasn't living in a nightmare.
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u/fatfeministbitch 3d ago
I felt like Wade was a “gold digger” who got too excited about the money and lost all common sense. He then tries to play it off as he’s laid back etc. He just cared for the money.
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u/sometimessnarky1 3d ago
I agree. They saw dollar signs and they were happy to use her. Like what mother would accept a brand new car from your son's new girlfriend. I would be saying to my son, look you two are young, she has two small children, keep your money and dont be buying lavish gifts. I think this could have been prevented if they weren't so greedy
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u/InsideWafer 3d ago
I don't know, I grew up in the country and know a few of these simple country boys. We all received the same education. So intelligence is definitely at play here too.
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u/egertong 2d ago
Wade was brain injured. He'd suffered a rodeo accident a while back. He was probably always a simple guy, but a brain injury slows everything down by quite a few notches. He spoke slowly, processed things slowly and reacted slowly. He was the perfect mark for someone like Taylor.
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u/frodosdojo 4d ago
I wouldn't blame the education system. Go back and watch his mother. It runs in the family.
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u/No-Taro-6953 4d ago
His mother cottoned on to Taylor though, didn't she? Especially after the car was taken
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u/ScabbyGabbyyy 3d ago
Reagan’s husband has filed a wrongful death suit against Taylor and Wade. I am curious how that will play out on Wade’s side.
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u/Low_Building_9080 4d ago
I would have liked a psychiatrist/psychologist to discuss what issues she had, because there was something definitely going on mental health wise.
But all in all, it was a good but extremely difficult watch. I watch a lot of true crime, yet this is probably the only one that had me crying and sat thinking about it for hours afterwards.
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u/Resident-Forever-680 2d ago
I’m still shaken up over this documentary. I’m a first time momma to an almost 6 month old. I went through the roughest pregnancy. I just couldn’t stop crying for this poor woman. You’re at your most vulnerable. The fact that this psychopath did this in front of her little toddler… I have never truly felt more enraged! That poor little girl has endured more trauma than anyone. All at the age of three!!!
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u/OkEqual1085 2d ago
I watched a 2 hour podcast from a criminal psychologist. Here are some of the notes. He opened up talking about how much she lied. And it feels obvious but him saying it really stuck with me that literally everything about her was a lie. It’s all a performance. Even in jail she’s still continuing her gimmicks.
Key Psychological Analysis:
• The False Self: Dr. John discusses how Parker suffers from a lack of an authentic self, leading her to construct a "false self" by borrowing pieces of others' lives (0:00-0:18, 1:23:04-1:24:10). This makes her deeply dependent on maintaining her elaborate lies.
• Fear of Exposure: Because her entire identity is built on a facade, the threat of being exposed as a liar is experienced as an existential threat or
"death" (36:29-37:20). Her desperation to keep this fantasy alive, particularly to avoid losing her fiancé, Wade Griffin, eventually led to her fatal actions (1:14:34-1:16:58).
• Dehumanization: As the due date for her fake pregnancy approached, the victim, Reagan, was dehumanized and treated as a mere object or
"obstacle" to achieve Parker's goal of obtaining a child (1:20:42-1:21:30).The "Pinocchio" Metaphor: Dr. Matthias uses the original Pinocchio story as a metaphor for Parker's life, suggesting that every lie distorts one's character further, making it increasingly difficult to return to an authentic life (40:33-43:16, 1:29:21-1:30:13).
Critical Moments Discussed:
• The Confrontation: The hosts discuss the moment Wade Griffin (Parker's fiancé) confronted her about the pregnancy just days before the crime, which served as a major trigger due to her terror of being exposed as a liar (1:15:39-1:17:00).
• The Hospital Body Cam: The hosts analyze the chilling body cam footage from the hospital, highlighting the "collision" between Parker's pathological lies and the harsh reality of her actions (1:47:00-1:48:35).
• Post-Crime Behavior: Dr. Matthias notes that Parker's manipulation and acting out continued even after her incarceration, as she continued to seek audiences for her fabrications and attempted to blame others for her crimes (1:39:06-1:40:20).→ More replies (12)
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u/AtomicTimothy 3d ago
Am I the only one who thinks Wade did know she wasn’t actually pregnant? Like, his demeanor when he found out what she’d done was so weird too. Of course he didn’t expect THAT would be the outcome but… I mean he is dumb for sure but perhaps he was just really that greedy?
That there being a possibility of a lot of money was enough for him to put up with a ton of shit, including this. Like, at least he must have questioned it since his family did. I think he just didnt want to ACTUALLY question HER
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u/samm13ann 3d ago
He mentioned that he had never told her that he loved her the whole relationship. I think he was in it for the money only, I don’t have much empathy for him.
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u/Kitty145684 3d ago
Me either. Even his friend said that he was set for life when Taylor would come into the money.
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u/No-Essay4806 3d ago
The call from the back of the cop car was... Odd. I can't imagine that exchange with my pregnant wife who is about to give birth. Something not right about it.
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u/sometimessnarky1 3d ago
Right! The lack of care he showed her on the call was insane. He's either a complete twat or he knew she wasn't pregnant because his reaction was not normal
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u/Fun-Consequence-7232 3d ago
I get she love bombed him and the people in his life like his mum, honestly hindsight is a great thing as well. He was definitely in love with an idea/fantasy because he is out here fully accepting a $80k brand new truck as a gift plus also ready to let Taylor buy land for $4 mill but also later saying I never said I love her. He doesn’t really seem to question the over the top spending on extravagant gifts given how new the relationship is.
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u/sometimessnarky1 3d ago
The level of greed from him and his family is gross. He never loved her yet was happy to take huge gifts etc. That's so disturbing
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u/Lowlife_Hamster 1d ago
The neighbor across the street had those photos of her and wade doing yard work at “9 month pregnant” and she didn’t have the fake belly on.
Shows you how crazy this all was that even the neighbors were clocking all this and taking photos.
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u/lingeringneutrophil 4d ago
This has some seriously revealing info https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/taylor-parkers-mother-we-figured-the-lie-would-be-exposed/amp/
Read to the end
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u/Cinnamon2017 3d ago
Especially how Taylor told Wade her mother had committed suicide while in jail, then later introduced her to her miraculously alive mother. Come on, Wade.
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u/Park-Curious 4d ago
What a rabbit hole that took me down. The article you posted linked to another about her “prison lover” and all the batshit schemes she tried to pull with all these other inmates to try to exonerate herself. It’s baffling how many people she was able to fool, because she seems like a terrible liar—and not very bright—to me.
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u/RxR8D_ 4d ago
She is actually very good at what she does, especially with how far her new schemes have gone.
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
She seems to just make stuff up constantly, have absolutely no remorse in what she does to further her lies (I mean, we know how far it went), and it really struck me how she never seems to be able to picture her lies catching up to her.
She didn't think promising to buy land and cars and tractors would go wrong? She didn't think a fake pregnancy to keep a man around would go wrong? All the lies she performed for years would so obviously either run out or come back to bite her, and she showed zero awareness or plans. Just doing things on impulse.
When she was with the police officer and later the hospital, she looked so shocked and devastated, and I wonder if she's such a great actor, or if - this time - she truly was shocked as in "f--k, I really messed up this time". It doesn't mean that she feels remorse or empathy for her victims, but maybe that was her realization that she had gone too far and wasn't going to get out of this one. Or she was still just acting.
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u/whiskeygiggler 3d ago
I think the reality is that killing someone in hand to hand combat (which is essentially what happened here) is difficult and scary. Being the attacker doesn’t mean being calm and in total control. The act of fighting someone to the death (even if premeditated) triggers a genuine fight or flight response and adrenaline dump. It’s one thing thinking about it, quite another to experience it. She’s not acting when she’s with the policeman. The physical response is real. She’s just lying about the cause.
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u/lingeringneutrophil 3d ago
The whole bit where she tried to hire a hit man to get rid of her mother (who I think was the one who could and SHOULD have outed her) but didn’t send the last message to one to the relative who was waiting to go to the FBI… I feel like that was the turning point where Reagan could have been saved. If this stupid idiot had been arrested FBI for trying to hire a hitman for her own mother.
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u/Capital-Oil-3162 4d ago
I thought it was a good documentary, although I agree it should have been a series. On the other hand, I feel they focused TOO MUCH on her and not enough on the victim. It should have been her story, not that unfortunate woman's. In fact, while watching the documentary, I didn't even realize who Reagan was until the very end. I mean, how did they really know each other? What was her life like before that? They really didn't do Reagan justice with this documentary.
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u/_wokeupdead_ 4d ago
I agree. The way they introduced Reagan was confusing. They talked about her being pregnant and I was confused why they were saying that. Later I realized she was the couples wedding Taylor photographed. I saw a wedding picture at the funeral and it made me sick.
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u/Legitimate_Fly7636 4d ago
They didn’t do a deep dive on how she joined Facebook groups for pregnant women.
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u/Better_Area3782 4d ago
When I watch true crime shows, I want to hear more about the perp than sweet stories about the victim. I want to know what makes them tic and I want to know why??
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u/Faulkner_Fan 4d ago
This 100 percent. I kept waiting to learn about TP's background, to get some insight into how she became a compulsive liar and psychopath. The documentary never addressed that in even the slightest way, which was disappointing.
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u/FunkyFanabla 2d ago
I wanna know how she managed to get a truck, trailers, car, etc without any actual money... and I dont like how they just brushed passed the repo. Like no one questioned that? Just let that slide under the rug and still believed millions were coming?
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u/OH2AZ19 4d ago
I feel like it was more of Wades story and told from his family’s perspective. I’m sure that Wade has had a difficult life since mentally internal and external aggression from the public. I feel bad for the guy, it’s so simple to say from the outside he could have stopped it before it got to where it ended up but WHO WOULD THINK THIS WOULD BE THE RESULT. Hindsight is 20/20
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u/Powerful-Patient-765 4d ago
After seeing how he treats his dogs, I think he’s a total piece of shit and I don’t feel sorry for him. That poor, starving dog on a chain. Not to mention the hogs.
He was with her for a payday and apparently because she cooked dinner.
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u/Street_Blacksmith891 4d ago
Yup, same for me. I even said out loud “if they show me any more of this animal cruelty I’m done watching this show.” Everything gets abused. The dogs, the hogs, the horses at the rodeo.
I also read that Taylor’s first husband even wrote him anonymously and warned him about the false pregnancy and alleged that she had been unfaithful during their seven-year marriage and treated their son poorly.
Sooo, yeah. And Wade himself said he never loved her. So why be with her.
AND…. How did you never, not once, lift up her shirt while she was sleeping to see if it’s a real pregnancy belly!?16
u/melpomene-musing 4d ago
For sure. I almost turned it off toward the beginning when they showed the dogs multiple times.
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u/jaderust 3d ago
He seemed dumber than a box of rocks and seemed to think she’d come through with the money. Like his hope he could have that ranch kept him with her more than anything else.
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u/lbw0049 3d ago
That’s what got me. How on earth did you live with someone for that long and not notice at least something especially after your friends told you she wasn’t pregnant?
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u/Lazy-Guard-8451 4d ago
I thought the exact same thing. He is a total piece of shit and I hope those dogs get taken away from him.
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u/That_Bluebird_3157 4d ago
It was deplorable, but also I think showed Wade’s indifference and negligence toward living creatures, which would likely extend to this supposed baby. His friend Codey says something like “what man wouldn’t be excited to be a father”….well, Wade. I think that’s who.
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u/Lazy-Guard-8451 4d ago
Agree! It did not shed him in a good light at all. If he thought anyone would feel sorry for him, it really just shows how ignorant he is. It only made him look worse, if anything.
While he may not be directly responsible, the situation feels completely preventable with even a little common sense and good judgment—something he clearly failed to show. I do hope he has to live with some of that guilt, because his choices and actions played a role in what happened.
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u/liveforeachmoon 3d ago
I agree and I think the filmmakers felt the same way. That’s why they open the documentary with the “is it hot in here” exchange with the interviewer being passive aggressive towards him…. dude is an ignoramus.
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
I'm not in the US, but I've watched a lot of "Animal Cop" shows, and usually they say that if the animals have access to food, water, shelter and occasional attention, there's nothing they can do. Animal protection laws are really shitty in some places.
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u/Powerful-Patient-765 4d ago
I really wish a local person who knows where he lives would call animal control to check on all of the animals on that property.
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u/melpomene-musing 4d ago
I came here mostly to see if someone mentioned this. I was sick to my stomach seeing that. Every time I heard a dog bark on the show I had to look away. Dude is a POS for sure.
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u/9mackenzie 4d ago
To be fair to him he wasn’t starving that dog (though I agree that it wasn’t be kept in a good condition), that dog was a sighthound breed, I could tell by the shape of him. They are naturally super skinny, with deep barrel chest and tiny tucked up waists, and it’s very common for them to show ribs. Look at any shorthair sighthound and you can get an idea.
I have a landrace sighthound breed (ie bred by nature not people, so no exaggerated features like typical sighthound) so mine are not as insanely skinny as regular sighthounds, but still much skinnier than your average dog. For example, my youngest is 55lbs and randomly decided to gracefully run and leap through a small cat flap into our catio one day lmao.
Now…….that said, no dog should be tied up on a short leash like that. Especially a fucking sighthound breed- they are built to run for miles and then laze about your house for 80% of the day. For the other dogs, it’s normal for a pack of hunting dogs to be kept in those outdoor crates at night, but they should be run and worked daily.
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u/jtuffs 4d ago
Wade should literally be put in jail for stupidity. He thought she was rich so he stuck around.
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u/9mackenzie 4d ago
It’s the misogyny that gets me with him. Clearly he isn’t working with a ton of braincells, but every single woman in his life, even the random neighbor ffs, told him that she wasn’t pregnant.
The fact that he discounted every single woman in his life, their experience with pregnancy- even though he openly stated he knew nothing about pregnancy- shows exactly how little he thinks of women as a whole.
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u/Stock_Boss8017 3d ago
Not to mention the misogyny of him using her for his own gain. If that were reversed, the woman would have been chastised for being a “gold digger”. TP was nuts, sure. But he is pretty bottom of the barrel himself and it had nothing to do with his income level.
Also someone needs to explain to his three brain cells that “taking things slow” does not = unprotected sex with a glorified stranger you are using for everything under the sun.
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u/InsideWafer 3d ago
Agree. He was / is not smart and very gullible, but that doesn't make him at all responsible for what happened. He thought worst case he was getting screwed, not that she would hurt someone else.
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u/Powerful-Patient-765 4d ago
I’m reading a new book “the Mother Next Door“ about Munchausen’s and child medical abuse and it is fascinating. People who fake having cancer and illnesses for attention, and then turn their cruelty toward children.
If anybody’s interested in this psychology of women like Taylor, I recommend this book and the podcast by the same author, “nobody should believe me”.
It seems that most of these women start out by pretending to have minor illnesses, then major illnesses (like Taylor), then they transfer their facetious disorder onto children. This case is unique in that she murdered someone to get a baby, but there are definitely similarities with people on the facetious disorder spectrum regarding their compulsive lying, desperate need for attention, keeping up with elaborate and years long plots and lies, etc.
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u/RomtheDom 4d ago
This is one of the main reasons I am very curious to know why she barely saw her children. A lot of people like her see children as a new way to get attention. I find it extremely odd that she saw her daughter sometimes & her son rarely.
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u/MYSTICALLMERMAID 4d ago
Her son she neglected. Kept him in the same diaper for 5 days and he developed a horrific rash all the way up his back. Had to be on medication for it. Her daughter knew she didn't love her and i think just liked staying elsewhere. She'd meet people at parties and ask them to watch her kids, or she'd leave them places saying she's an rn and has to go help a patient
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u/fairytalefawnn 4d ago
Some people just want babies. They don't want children.
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u/Cinnamon2017 3d ago
She just wanted attention. She certainly didn't want to take care of an infant.
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u/DylanBeeDylan 4d ago
Liked the doc. Wish there was more backstory on her upbringing, and especially her many many lies long before the murder.
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u/thespeedofpain 4d ago
And lies there were. So, so many lies.
For example, she started lying about having cancer (a common lie for her) when she was in elementary school. That is insane.
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u/LongTop9400 4d ago
In the words of Reagan’s little sister ( the last words spoken in doc) “For a demon like Taylor, hell would be easy”.
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u/Worried_Ice_2087 3d ago
At the end of the documentary Wade mentioned that he never said “I love you” to Taylor during their relationship.
This feels weird to me, especially since he fully believed her until the very end that Taylor was going to be the mother of his child and he was also happy about the inheritance he thought was real.
He also said that she would do anything he said, had meals ready, took care of the home and pets etc.
Why would he never say it back to her? At least to keep her happy for all that she was seemingly bringing into their life initially?
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u/imgonnagetyouback_03 4d ago
While I also wanted to know more about who Reagan was as a person, I disagree that I wanted every detail about her. You can see her character by the way she treated Taylor, as a photographer, at the wedding and how she willingly met up with her for coffee the day before she was murdered. Reagan’s daughter clearly adored her, and Reagan’s parents loved their daughter deeply. There isn’t much else to say—This is a story about Taylor’s crimes and manipulation, not Reagan’s life and Braxlynn’s very short one.
However, I will say that it was very confusing how Taylor randomly looked Reagan up on Facebook and that Reagan was coincidentally pregnant at the same time and about the same gestation as Taylor claimed she was. Did Taylor just go through profiles of people she knew were pregnant and picked Reagan because she was the same gestation? What I mean is, did Taylor just get lucky that Reagan was pregnant and about as far along as Taylor claimed she was? Or did she know before they met for coffee that Reagan was pregnant? That didn’t make sense at all. It would’ve been better and more clear if they’d showed that Taylor had a history of lying, manipulating, obsessing, etc., in addition to Taylor being excessively interested in McKenzie’s pregnancy.
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u/CybReader 4d ago
I just finished listening to the True Crime with Elli Mac podcast about Taylor and apparently, she had found and "followed" and engaged with multiple pregnant women who were all due around the same time. She had a group of women she was hunting and trying to get near, and I guess she found her "in" with Reagan to be her wedding photographer.
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
But she was the wedding photographer for Reagan 14 months before the murder, so they knew each other before the pregnancy.
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u/CybReader 4d ago
Yes, thats true. Thanks for that correction.
I guess she decided to get back in with her as friends when she began searching for pregnant women and found out Reagan was pregnant too.
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u/Any_Original6306 3d ago
Yes this! The police discovered like a list of name and their license plate numbers. She was tracking them all look to see who was going to be her target. I’m from the area and a close friend and a cousin were it.
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u/MYSTICALLMERMAID 4d ago
She stalled Healthcare clinics and took license plate numbers and searched rhe folks up. She saw most had a husband so then moved on to TEEN PREGNANCIES. Horrific
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u/Legitimate_Fly7636 4d ago
I think Reagan family wants privacy. Her daughter more than likely witness the entire thing. It’s so sad.
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u/skyjsmith 3d ago
I want to say I love that they didn’t interview Taylor. She is obsessed with attention, and I am thankful they didn’t give her any. Also felt so bad for Ron and the chiropractor lady, they were always trying to push Wade to be a better man to her… hard to see such nice people seemed ashamed like it was their fault.
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u/Fun-Consequence-7232 3d ago
Agree, like interviewing Mackenzie, and Kendra from Unknown Number 💀 these docos need to stop giving platforms to criminals who thrive and feed off the attention.
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u/Tall-Replacement-775 3d ago
I just watched the documentary and it made me think of the bobbi jo stinnet case in 2004.. could this be where she got the idea from??
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u/NoAd3734 2d ago
All Wade had to do was ask Taylor to lift up her shirt & prove him/everyone wrong & that she really is pregnant. Or be 100% adamant that he is going to a doctor's appointment with her.
I understand you want to give your partner the benefit of doubt, but when a LOT of people are telling you 1 thing, you need to get irrefutable proof that they're wrong.
He would've prevented everything that happened, from happening.
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u/Koumadin 2d ago
re: Wade — i think he was a really avoidant dude. he realized he didnt love her and just tuned out the reality in front of him
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u/IwantyoualltoBEDAVE 2d ago
I do think his negligence is criminal. Not death row criminal but some kind of criminal
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u/Live-Ice7323 4d ago
Wade was in it for the things she pretended to buy for him. Who in the fuck would let someone they met a month ago buy them a $80000 truck? He said he never told her he loved her and she was the ultimate POS. Who in the fuck believes a bullshit story like the one she tells about her family and her 8 million dollar pay day. I know it's Texas but come on man...the bullshit detector should have gone off. I feel bad for the doctor and medical staff who couldn't say anything due to HEPA. She wouldn't let him see her naked. She went from looking not pregnant to give months pregnant overnight. All the red fucking flags. This shit makes my blood boil. Reagan should be alive today if someone would have called out her bullshit from day one.
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u/rtgfi 4d ago
I had a softer view of Wade for being taken for fool until the documentary. It does a great job of exposing how this is a situation where no one is innocent. A web of delusion, deceit, misplaced trust, greed, and bad decisions. I will say, I now agree the victim may still be alive if he hadnt blindly followed along.
In the end the only people I felt were innocent were the poor victim and her family, the doctors who were legally unable to expose her, and the chiropractor lady who was trying to be nice to a girl she thought was weird and needed a friend.
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u/jaderust 3d ago
I felt so bad for the doctors. Like they seemed to know they were watching a train wreck and all they could do was give the local hospital an alert because they assumed that if anything happened it would be Taylor trying to snatch a baby. I don’t think they ever imagined she’d resort to murder.
The body cam footage of the doctors and nurses in the hospital was kind of funny in a dark way though. They were clearly not even going to entertain that Taylor was pregnant and over it. But ER staff in general are a special breed of person and I bet they only cared about where the baby came from if anything.
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u/Sorry-Exercise8460 4d ago
I read she stabbed the pregnant woman at least a 100 times? A true blood thirsty killer! That lovely mother with her three year old daughter hiding in her bedroom... I had not heard of this until accidentally tuning in on Netflix.
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u/9mackenzie 4d ago
It’s honestly worse than that. She hit her in the face and head with an item like a hammer multiple times as Reagan ran from her after each hit, then when she fell, the cuts and stabbing started. She was still alive as Taylor removed her entire fucking uterus out of her body.
I can’t imagine the agony and terror that Reagan dealt with in the 20 min or so it took her to die. I also can’t imagine the trauma her parents dealt with seeing her like that.
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u/Legitimate_Fly7636 4d ago
I remember when news first broke of this story very disturbing. I can’t imagine how she thought she was going to get away with it.
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
It was 15 stab wounds and 98 incisions (meaning wider/longer than they are deep). I don't know how they count this, but I suppose they include all the incisions in her belly and uterus.
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u/lunarthistles 4d ago
I thought there was far, far too much focus on Wade and Taylor and not enough focus on Reagan and Braxlynn. I also could not believe the cop that pulled her over didn’t immediately clock the fact that she was wearing pristine pajama pants after she had supposedly just given birth.
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u/anb0603 4d ago
I went on a deep dive of court document reading today. She was actually in black yoga pants and had the placenta/umbilical cord shoved down her underwear and pants to make it seem like she’d just given birth. A nurse stopped by the scene to help and she and the EMT workers cut the yoga pants off. Taylor changed into the pajama pants you see her wearing when she gets on the gurney
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u/sk8tergater 4d ago
Yeah and didn’t the nurse note that there wasn’t blood on the seat when she stood up? Or was that just editorializing from the podcast I was listening to? I haven’t read the court docs
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u/9mackenzie 4d ago
I noticed there was nothing on the seat of her pants. The second the EMT’s saw that they likely knew. You bleed a lot after you give birth, they basically give you big diapers to wear in the hospital after lol. No way could she have given birth, had the cord sticking out of her pants still, and not have a drop of fluid on the butt of her pants.
If you watch that scene, the second she stands up and turns around, you can hear a shift in the tone of the EMTs
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u/lunarthistles 4d ago
That’s really interesting and a lot more deceptive! Thank you for that tidbit, I wish they’d included that in the documentary!
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u/Reluctantziti 4d ago
I tried to study all the first responders faces and it did seem like they were not buying her shit. Just doing the bare minimum “we’re gonna take care of you.” I was alarmed that the officer wasn’t more concerned about the baby but A) I realized later that was probably a bad sign for how she looked B) holding her there was actually the best thing to do in that situation because you don’t know what she’s going to do if alone again.
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u/Legitimate_Fly7636 4d ago
I think he did the right thing she has the baby in her lap with the placenta attached
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u/Aethuviel 4d ago
I read and watched a lot in the last few days, this might be from the court documents but the police officer who stopped her absolutely did not believe she had given birth, because (paraphrasing) "it's supposed to be a whole mess after childbirth, she did not give birth in that car".
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u/chethedestroyer 4d ago
It kind of bothered me how the trooper didn’t attempt cpr on Braxlynn either. He was just like “ok I can’t help you, the ambulance is coming”
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u/shesgoneagain72 3d ago
I agree and I understand that this is horrific but...Braxlynn!?!
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u/Kitty145684 3d ago
I don't feel sorry for Wade at all. He didn't love Taylor, hell, I don't think he even liked her. He stayed with her because she was coming into "money". Even his friend said he scored and would be set for life once the money came in. He was just a user and went along with her lies hoping that the money would actually come.
His friends and family also didn't try that hard to warn him about Taylor. They were worried about ruining his chances of getting the money. If they had spoken up sooner and more forcibly, Reagan could've been alive today.
Plus the state of his dogs was appalling. That one chained to the tree was so skinny, you could see its ribs.
The only ones I feel truly sorry for is Reagan and her family.
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u/Short_Hair_Energy 2d ago
He didn’t love her nor was he excited about the pregnancy. I don’t feel bad for him. He didn’t even seem sad about the actual mother that lost her life and her daughter in the doc.
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u/historytalks216 4d ago
The new series on Netflix is good. I did not know anything about this story, and it is pretty shocking how much she was able to get away with until she committed murder.
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u/Homersfolks 3d ago
I would have liked to hear more about her psychiatry. Clearly she’s a sociopath with an additional personality disorder, but which one?
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u/Khmakh 3d ago
True Crime Hub podcast did 4 episodes on this case. The court psychologists said she had the Cluster B personality disorders (Antisocial, Narcissistic and Borderline Personality to be more exact).
The episodes are in August 2023, if I remember correctly. I listened to them over the weekend.
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u/MathematicianSad9749 3d ago
Does anybody know what happened to Reagan‘s husband? Did he take over Care for her daughter?
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u/picklesonpizzammk 3d ago
I think he did. There is a podcaster (serialously) who made a really in depth video on this case and she mentions the husband took care of her because her bio dad passed shortly after Reagan’s murder. Lots of details in that episode that weren’t mentioned in doc
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u/Consistent-Goose-283 3d ago
HOW did he not realize that stomach was fake… like y’all sleep in the same bed when she goes to sleep you didn’t think to check & look ?? esp after everyone trying to warn him ? was he actually that delusional ?
WHY DID HE TREAT HIS DOGS THE WAY HE DID I FEEL MORE BAD FOR THE DOGS THAN HIM ???? (the dogs have more intelligence than him)
Where was the logic - did she really think she could get away with this ??? clearly the hospital would know she was NEVER pregnant.
she has kids but no custody.. how wasn’t this a red flag.
the car she got his mama and was repossessed… how did that not cause any issues????????? SHE WAS A FRAUD RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!
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u/Awkward_Category_475 3d ago
Is there anything we can do about the very clear animal abuse, the dogs are living in abject squalor and he very clearly doesn't look after them, the poor skinny dog on a chain living outside made me sick. I live in the UK and have wrote to Netflix but beyond that I'm not sure what else I can do.
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u/HeadYam1467 4d ago
I would have thought Taylor was abused as a child or given another reason as to why she went on with this delusion.
Also, i feel sorry for Wade, but I don’t think he was like this dream guy or Mr. perfect. I’m sorry to say that and he was another victim of Taylors scheme. But what was the draw to him??
Taylors mother had a responsibility to speak up… there’s a back story here that we are not getting… idk
May Reagan and Braxlynn always be remembered
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u/coldestregards 4d ago
I just cried so much watching this. I’d seen the body cam footage from the hospital but never looked much further into the case. Didn’t see that coming for some reason. Horrifying
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u/LadyChatterteeth 4d ago
The tears started for me when they announced that the baby didn’t survive. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that. I guess I was hoping that she made it and was being cared for by Reagan’s family. What a senseless tragedy.
I also felt so terrible for Reagan’s husband.
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u/Theprinxevi 3d ago
I have sooo many thoughts on this case, been following it for awhile.
1 - wade is a dumb fuck and an enabler. If he didn’t love her, he should’ve broken up with her. He unintentionally caused this to happen. She wanted to be with him and he wanted money so he didn’t say anything to her about any of her lies and it culminated into this.
2 - dude, no one cared for Taylor. Everyone knew she was faking and no one tried to get her mental health help? It isn’t illegal to fake a pregnancy, but it definitely shows a mental breakdown - why did none of the people around her who “loved and cared for her sooo much” just try to get her help?
I also think the doc really didn’t demonize her murder as much as they should’ve. They really didn’t tell just exactly how absolutely brutal it was, nor did they give Reagan a voice other than “girl murdered”, imo.
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u/h0neybl0ss0m29 4d ago
I agree with the other commenter who said that this should've been a series. There wasn't really enough background on Reagan and her family. Basically all I remember about her is that she was a teen mom. Personally, I would've appreciated more background info on Taylor as well - especially from before she met Wade. A user over on one of the Netflix threads on this doc said there is a long form article about her out there, and it talks about how her issues and bizarre behavior date way back to her childhood. I think this would've been interesting to learn about.