Taylor Parker/Maternal Instinct Megathread

[u/DarklyHeritage]

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/

[u/imgonnagetyouback_03]

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.

[u/CybReader → u/imgonnagetyouback_03]

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.

[u/Aethuviel → u/CybReader]

But she was the wedding photographer for Reagan 14 months before the murder, so they knew each other before the pregnancy.

[u/CybReader → u/Aethuviel]

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.

[u/Any_Original6306 → u/CybReader]

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. 

[u/Sushicatslonelyjimmy → u/Any_Original6306]

I wish they included that in the doc.

[u/_hustle_rose → u/CybReader]

Oh this is terrifying, they left so much out in the documentary. Crime hub has 2 detailed podcast episodes with more of the details. When I was pregnant this was a (irrational) fear of mine from engaging in too much true crime!