Woman who murdered pregnant friend and ripped baby from womb sentenced to death

A woman convicted of murdering a heavily pregnant friend and ripping out her unborn baby has been handed the death penalty.

Taylor Rene Parker, 29, repeatedly stabbed Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, 21, and caved her skull in with a hammer before trying to steal her infant daughter in New Boston in October 2020.

She spent months plotting the horrific attack while researching how to fake a pregnancy in a warped bid to stop her boyfriend leaving.

The mum-of-two was unable to have any more children after a hysterectomy, which she kept secret, and was desperate to give him a child.

Jurors heard she faked ultrasound scans, threw a sham gender reveal party and posted fictitious pregnancy updates on social media while trawling for a victim.

Parker befriended Ms Simmons-Hancock because she was pregnant and watched videos detailing how to deliver babies preterm at 35 weeks – which is how far her victim was when she was killed.

On the day of the murders, October 9, 2020, she told her partner she was going to hospital to be induced to deliver their baby, according to TXK Today.

That morning she bludgeoned Ms Simmons-Hancock and stabbed her more than 100 times in her own home before using a scalpel to remove her unborn baby daughter, Braxlynn Sage Hancock.

She then fled with the infant, who later died, while her victim bled to death in front of her three-year-old daughter.

Ms Simmons-Hancock’s mum, Jessica Brooks, called Parker ‘evil’, saying: ‘My baby was alive still fighting for her babies when you tore her open and ripped her baby from her stomach.’

Her sister, Emily, added: ‘You need to understand what you took from me and my family.

‘No more celebrating her birthday. I was barely 19 when I got the call my sister was gone.

‘She will never be my maid of honor. If I visit my sister I have to go to a gaveyard and see a headstone. I will never get a text or phone call from her again.’

Parker, who was convicted of capital murder after just an hour’s deliberations and sentenced to death in two, is entitled to appeal the sentence.

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