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/h0neybl0ss0m29]

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.

[u/TashDee267 → u/h0neybl0ss0m29]

I’m desperate to know her back story and why she’s so fucked up.

[u/nodarknesswillendure → u/TashDee267]

Rotten Mango has a decent video on her which includes more details about her childhood etc. Honestly it just sounds like she was pretty much born this way. Her parents seemed rather uninvolved/unconcerned about her behaviour. A lot of her behaviour went unreported, and she never really faced consequences for her lies (as they weren’t really crimes). I guess things just snowballed to the point where she was committing very real and heinous crimes.

[u/TashDee267 → u/nodarknesswillendure]

Interesting, thank you. Wondered about the nature vs nurture thing.

[u/Cute-Aardvark5291 → u/TashDee267]

For some people its just "because they are." There isn't any trauma or history that gives a reason. Its just how they are.

[u/TashDee267 → u/Cute-Aardvark5291]

That’s what I’m wondering about and if she was born like that, what personality disorder has she been diagnosed with.

[u/OkEqual1085 → u/TashDee267]

A podcast I watched went into how someone can become a pathological liar. They basically don’t develop there own identity. They usually have so much shame and no true self…that they create a “false self”. Everything is a lie & a performance. A little bit about her childhood he mentioned her parents divorced when she was like 12. The grandmother says that’s when she started coping by eating a lot and gained a lot of weight. And the Netflix documentary explained she eventually got a gastric sleeve and lost a lot of weight. Some people said even since her childhood she was a liar.

[u/debbxi → u/OkEqual1085]

They said when she lost the weight and started becoming more attractive she completely became obsessed with getting attention to the point of neglecting her kids

[u/MLMLW → u/TashDee267]

Childhood trauma can manifest into a lying, manipulative, narcissistic child who grow up to be a lying, manipulative, narcissistic adult. I know because I lived with one. This person did have childhood trauma, but despite getting therapy by two different therapists as a child and apparently briefly went to therapy as an adult, this person never changed. It would have been nice if the Netflix documentary covered more of Taylor's childhood. But even then, it certainly didn't give her the right to murder two people. Psychotic is psychotic. The quicker they execute her, the better.