When Your Friend Disembowels You To Steal Your Unborn Child (Taylor Parker)
Reagan Simmons Hancock was born on November 14th, 1998, in Hope, Arkansas, to parents Jessica and Brandon Simmons. By 2020, they had divorced and both remarried. When Reagan was nine, her mother married her stepfather, Marcus Brooks. Reagan was part of a big blended family with two sisters, Emily Simmons and Destiny Brooks, and two brothers, Clayton Brooks and Sawyer Simmons. Reagan had blonde hair and a sunny smile. At the time of our story, she was only 21 years old. Reagan married Homer Hancock in September of 2018 and became the mother of two daughters. She and Homer bought a home in New Boston, Texas, about a half-hour away from the Arkansas border. According to her family, Reagan was an amazing mother and a joy to everyone who knew her. She belonged to the JC Cowboy Church across the state line in Arkansas. She worked in customer service at the Flying Burger restaurant in Texarkana, Texas, and was proud of the new 2020 Nissan Rogue she had worked so hard to buy. Reagan could be tough when she needed to keep customers in line, but she could also be gentle and sweet. Her favorite flowers were sunflowers. She was planning to start attending college classes in the spring, even though she knew being a parent, working, and going to school would be very difficult. Reagan was Jessica’s firstborn child, and they had a special relationship. They talked and texted each other constantly. They texted each other “good morning” and “good night” every day; they said “I love you” every single day to each other. Reagan enjoyed helping people. When she trusted someone, she loved them with her whole heart. She could always make her friends smile, even if things were tough. She was a good friend and a good person.
Reagan was a good friend to a young woman named Taylor Parker. Taylor Parker, though, was not a good friend to anybody. Around 2011, she wasn’t Taylor Parker yet; back then, she was Taylor Wacasey. She was a single mom to a baby girl when she met a man by the name of Tommy Wacasey. When they got married, he raised the little girl as his own, and the couple soon had a son together. Around this time, Taylor had her tubes tied. This is a type of sterilization that is meant to be permanent; there are procedures to reverse it, but they don’t always work. She also had gastric bypass surgery and lost a lot of weight. Then, in 2015, Taylor had surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. While she was sedated, surgeons discovered a complication and asked her husband and mother if they could perform a hysterectomy, to which they both agreed. But when Taylor woke up, she was furious with Tommy. She blamed him for taking away her ability to carry a child, even though she was already unable to get pregnant and even though her mother had helped him make the decision. It didn’t make logical sense, but it did place an emotional burden on Tommy.
After the hysterectomy, Taylor told her friends that she had stage 4 uterine cancer. This wasn’t true either, but friends felt bad for her. In 2016, Taylor claimed she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. A friend then introduced her to a woman named Caitlyn Glass, who also had recently been diagnosed with the disease. The two soon became close friends, bonding over what Caitlyn thought were shared experiences. Between the two, Taylor told Caitlyn about a stroke she had years ago and about her difficult struggle to walk again. Caitlyn also had to learn to walk again because of the disease, and she felt close to Taylor because of it. They even got matching feather tattoos on their collarbones. Caitlyn described multiple sclerosis as a hidden disease. She had numbness, tingling, and trouble seeing; sometimes she could not walk, but on the outside, she looked fine. She hated having to convince people she was sick and had no reason to doubt Taylor’s claims.
Taylor complained to Caitlyn about her husband all of the time. She was under the impression that Tommy was a terrible husband, so when Caitlyn saw Taylor flirting with other men—which she did often—she said it almost seemed okay. Caitlyn was a member of a Jeep club called the Pirates Off-Road Nation. She invited Taylor to one of their rides, and she liked it so much that she and Tommy bought a Jeep and joined too. But Taylor didn’t allow Tommy to attend the club events; while he was home with the kids, Taylor’s flirting turned into more. She had several affairs with other members. On a camping trip, she spent the night in another member’s tent. At another event, Taylor hooked up with a married member, and the man’s wife caught the two together. Still another time, Tommy actually went out looking for Taylor. He found her having an affair with another man inside of a truck out in Bringle Lake Park.
Caitlyn lived with her two young children and her mother in Texarkana. Taylor began spending more and more time at their house, often bringing her daughter and son when she visited. She talked Caitlyn’s mother into watching her kids as well. Taylor often accompanied Caitlyn to her doctor’s appointments and eventually started seeing the same doctor. Over time, Caitlyn became suspicious. Whenever her disease relapsed and sent her back to the hospital, Taylor would visit the ER a few days later, but she was rarely admitted. And unlike Caitlyn, Taylor’s symptoms never seemed to get worse after a relapse. She never needed to be given steroids and IV treatments; instead, Taylor went through bottle after bottle of Stadol nasal spray and opioid pain medication. Caitlyn didn’t take any opioids to manage her disease.
Caitlyn had other suspicions too. She saw Taylor posting selfies on social media. In the selfies, Taylor wore a stethoscope and implied she was a nurse or a doctor. Caitlyn was a nurse, but Taylor had no medical training. She also heard from friends that Taylor was telling people they got their tattoos after a terrible car accident. This was not true at all. Caitlyn had been in a very bad car accident years earlier, but Taylor had not. She realized Taylor was stealing real events from her life and turning them into lies that she told other people. Caitlyn realized Taylor had been lying to her as well. In reality, Taylor never had a stroke. She claimed that the father of her daughter had died in a car accident; he did not. By this time, her marriage was in trouble, but it hadn’t been when Caitlyn first met her. Tommy wasn’t a terrible husband; Caitlyn and her husband actually befriended Tommy. He was a pretty nice guy. When Taylor had an affair with one of Caitlyn’s good friends, Caitlyn tried to get Taylor to admit that she was lying, and Taylor wouldn’t. Instead, Taylor told Caitlyn that Tommy was abusing her and started showing off fresh bruises. But Caitlyn was already skeptical. She thought Taylor was causing these injuries running into walls and furniture. Taylor said that she and Tommy had a brutal fight, but Caitlyn thought she was lying about that too. Taylor used the fight as an excuse to spend the weekend with another man in El Dorado, and after that, Caitlyn said their friendship fell apart.
Taylor’s marriage to Tommy was falling apart as well. She had racked up about $40,000 going to doctor after doctor trying to get diagnosed with MS. She was leaving him with the kids for days at a time without telling him where she was or making up stories to explain her absence. In 2018, she was fired from her job at a medical clinic for pretending to be a nurse practitioner and lying to get a prescription for pain pills refilled early. Eventually, the children realized what was going on. Taylor’s daughter told Tommy that her mom was sleeping with someone else, and his son told him she went to get a tattoo with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be at work. Tommy filed for divorce. Their 7-year marriage ended in March of 2018. They got joint custody of their son. Despite having raised her from an infant, Tommy and his parents could only see Taylor’s daughter with her permission. When she got upset with them, which happened frequently, they could not see their little girl.
A few months after the divorce was finalized, Taylor married Hunter Parker and changed her name to Taylor Parker. She also made two new close friends, McKenzie Bright and Abby Bell. She told McKenzie that Hunter was a good father, she wanted him to adopt her daughter, and she wanted to have a baby with him. Taylor said her ex-husband Tommy didn’t want anything to do with their daughter. McKenzie had no reason to suspect Taylor was keeping the little girl away from Tommy and his parents, though that was exactly what she was trying to do. When they married, Hunter didn’t know Taylor couldn’t have any more children. He didn’t find out until a doctor mentioned her hysterectomy during an ER visit. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him earlier, but she refused to talk about it. Later, she tried to convince Hunter they should hire a surrogate so she could have another baby together with him. At different times, she asked both McKenzie and Abby to carry a baby for her. She offered to pay $100,000. She told both women her uterus had been eaten up by cancer. She also told them her first marriage ended because she had a stroke and Tommy couldn’t deal with it. Neither statement was true, but the women had no reason to suspect that she was lying.
McKenzie was struggling to get pregnant, and Taylor went with her to all of her doctor’s appointments. McKenzie said Taylor seemed obsessed with her fertility issues and seemed overly excited when McKenzie finally found out that she was pregnant with a little girl. Abby got pregnant around the same time. She said Taylor lost interest in her pregnancy after finding out that she was having a little boy. Taylor also told both women that she had learned to perform a C-section while working in the clinical division of a women’s clinic. In reality, she worked as a receptionist there and never participated in any patient care.
In December of 2018, Taylor started a side hustle as a freelance photographer. She advertised her services on Facebook and offered a buy-one-get-one-free sale: any expectant mother that paid for a maternity shoot could have a free photo shoot the day the baby was born. Taylor would come to the hospital and photograph the new mother and baby there. This was the start of a dangerous obsession with pregnant women and their babies, especially newborn baby girls. While she was focused on having a new baby daughter, she wasn’t taking very good care of her son. She wasn’t paying child support and often didn’t show up when she had visitation. One time, she returned him to his father with a sore on his backside. When asked how long he’d been wearing his current pair of underwear, he told Tommy’s new wife it had been 5 days. The couple took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a staph infection. Eventually, Tommy sought to remove Taylor’s parental rights. Taylor did not even show up at court, and Tommy was awarded full custody.
As months went by, trouble began to surface in her new marriage. When Taylor and Hunter fought, Taylor often got sick or had a seizure. She also told Hunter that if he left, it would devastate her daughter. She told him she had inheritance money that should be arriving soon; in the meantime, they could get a loan to pay for a surrogate. To prove that the inheritance was real, Taylor crafted a story. A man named “Tim Hightower” texted Hunter. He wanted to meet and deliver the money. After he missed the meeting, Hightower texted again: he had gotten into a car accident, and the paramedics who responded stole the bag of money. Hightower included a picture of a blue duffel bag stuffed with money. Skeptical, Hunter Googled “blue duffel bag full of cash.” The first result was an exact match of the image Hightower had sent. He suspected Taylor had created a fake account to send these messages. The couple separated in April 2019, less than a year after getting married. Their divorce was finalized by that summer, and Taylor never legally changed her name from Parker.
After her separation, Taylor dated McKenzie’s brother, Bo. He was a single father of a 9-year-old girl and he really wanted a mother figure for her. McKenzie did not think it was a good idea. She thought Taylor acted like a good mother in public, but when no one was watching, she thought she was neglectful and uncaring. Taylor posted pictures on her Facebook showing her spoiling the little girl. She took her to work and out for treats, snapping multiple selfies. Her own daughter was almost the same age, but McKenzie said she didn’t treat her own daughter the same way. Bo’s relationship with Taylor only lasted a few weeks. McKenzie’s friendship with Taylor ended as well.
Around that time, Taylor befriended Reagan Hancock. In July of 2019, Taylor took Reagan’s engagement photos and posted a message on her Facebook page calling them her “favorite family.” In September, she was the photographer at Reagan’s wedding to Homer. The two were friends, but according to Homer, they were not close. Taylor’s messages and account have since been removed.
In July of 2019, Taylor met Wade Griffin at a rodeo. He worked as a roofer and also made money trapping hogs and managing livestock. The two started talking on social media and were soon dating. Her entire relationship with Wade was built on lies. Big surprise there. Right away, she told him she was supposed to inherit a massive amount of money. She showed him some land she said her family owned about an hour away in Bryan’s Mills. She asked about how much he charged to clean it up and install a fence, and he estimated it would cost about $50,000. She convinced him to hire extra workers to help with the job, saying she’d pay his salary. Wade hired a friend, and Taylor paid him for the first week. After that, she said her mother, Shawna Prior, didn’t want to pay Wade for the work and canceled the job.
In August of 2019, she told him she was pregnant with twins. A few months later, Wade got a text from Taylor’s father, Mark Morton. In the text, Mark said he’d wrecked his bush hog mower. He said Taylor tried to help him tow the broken machine, but the winch had snapped. The towing cable allegedly whipped into Taylor’s stomach and hurt one of the babies, causing a miscarriage. Wade didn’t know that Taylor couldn’t get pregnant, and he didn’t know he wasn’t texting with Mark.
Around that time, Taylor had been fired from yet another job and needed a place to live. She had recently befriended the wife of Wade’s boss, named Angela. Taylor used her to manipulate Wade, though she didn’t realize it at the time. Angela met Taylor one evening when she and her husband joined the couple for dinner at a local restaurant. At that first meeting, Angela said Taylor was overly friendly. Soon, Taylor was confiding in Angela. She told her about her troubled relationship with her mother, Shawna. She said her mother hated her, she had never wanted her, resented her, and treated her badly as a child. Shawna also didn’t like Wade and thought he was using Taylor for her money. She told Angela all about the supposed money, oil and gas leases, and farmland she was going to inherit, but explained her mother was causing problems. Angela asked Taylor how she could have holes in her shoes and ill-fitting clothes if she had so much money. Taylor said her parents wanted her to be normal. She also said Shawna had recently stolen $3 million from her account.
A little later, Taylor revealed a frightening new development. She told Angela a police officer named “Coburn” had given her a serious warning: Shawna had used the stolen $3 million to hire a hitman to kill Taylor. He said the Mexican Mafia was involved and that Taylor shouldn’t be alone. Angela was concerned. Taylor also told Wade about the murder-for-hire plot. Eventually, the story expanded, and there was an entire hit squad after her. Villains named Maravan, Lex, Dewey, Louie, Jace, and one ominously referred to as “The Reaper.” Around this time, Angela received a violent and deranged email from “Shawna” warning against being a mother figure to Taylor. The email said she should let Taylor fail, and that Shawna was plotting against her daughter to make it look like she was a liar. Shawna’s goal was to make Wade leave and make Taylor so depressed that she would self-cancel. The email also implied that Shawna was following Angela online. Angela said she and her family feared for their safety. They reported the threatening email to the Texarkana Chief of Police. Angela had no way of knowing that Taylor had created this email account and was posing as her own mother.
Wade was getting similar messages from Shawna, or at least he thought he was. Taylor told him she needed to take his phone so a computer-savvy friend could install software to keep Shawna from hacking his phone. In reality, Taylor blocked the legitimate phone numbers of all her family members so they could not contact him. During the relationship, Wade would have extensive text conversations with many of Taylor’s relatives: her grandmother, mother, Aunt Katie, brother Zachary, and father Mark. In all of these text conversations, he was really talking to Taylor. Wade was still reluctant to let Taylor move in, so she increased the danger. “Coburn” texted that they had arrested the middleman, Jace, and had him in jail on an $800,000 bond. He had given information indicating the hit on Taylor was going to happen very soon. For her safety, Coburn said Taylor and her daughter should stay with Wade. Wade finally let Taylor move into his cabin where she would be safer, which is what she wanted all along.
Coburn texted to say the police were setting up 24/7 surveillance of Wade’s home. The texts Taylor showed Wade included details about his neighborhood. According to Coburn, they had to use night vision goggles to avoid being noticed by a neighbor who was up at 4:00 a.m. in his recliner. The next day, Coburn texted it was good that Taylor had stayed with Wade. The hitman snuck in despite their surveillance, but police captured good images of them on the camera. He said they had damaged the front door of the place she had been staying before moving in with Wade. He texted a picture of the damaged door. Coburn also reported that police had arrested Shawna. There had been a shootout, and she had some facial lacerations, but she was finally behind bars. His team had made sure the media didn’t report on the shooting. While in prison, Coburn said that Shawna had self-canceled. Coburn, of course, was really Taylor. Shawna was not arrested, and she was not dead.
In December of 2019, Wade told Taylor about a property he’d worked on called Pecan Point. It was located a couple of hours away in McCurtain County, and it was for sale. The land sat alongside the Red River and came with hog and duck hunting rights, which Wade was very interested in. It also had a pecan grove and a lot of grazing cattle, which both had the potential to generate a lot of money. The land was listed at $4.7 million, but Taylor offered $3.5 million. She told the real estate agent she was an heir to the Blackburn’s Syrup fortune. On the paperwork, she listed herself as “Taylor Parker Griffin,” even though the couple had not married. Normally, when somebody is making a cash offer on a piece of real estate, they need to provide a bank account record to show they even have the money, or else they’re not taken seriously. So it’s really surprising that she was able to offer this money and was taken seriously by the sellers.
Now she needed $200,000 of earnest money to start the sale. As part of the deal, they would be able to use the land for hunting as soon as they put the money down. She wrote two large checks to the real estate agent but called a short time later to take them back. She said her bank preferred she complete the deal through a wire transfer.
That same December, Taylor also met and befriended Stephanie. Not long after they met, Taylor asked Stephanie to take her to the bank to access some of her inheritance money. According to Taylor, her grandmother would meet her there and help her withdraw $200,000. Stephanie waited outside in the car. She never saw Taylor’s grandmother. Taylor left the bank in a panic and said something went wrong with the deposit. She said the bank shredded her money because it was “old money.” She also said the staff had kicked her out after she got angry and yelled at them. Taylor wanted Stephanie to call Wade and tell him she had gotten kicked out of the bank. When Stephanie refused, Taylor made the call. Apparently, Wade believed her, because when she hung up, she said to Stephanie that it was easier than she thought it would be. She also told Stephanie a secret: she claimed that she had aborted the twins. Wade thought she had miscarried because Wade wasn’t ready to be a father. Stephanie had no reason to suspect she was lying—not just about terminating her pregnancy, but about being pregnant, period.
Every day, Wade was getting dozens of emails full of official-looking documents about the Pecan Point deal. Later, a forensic analysis of her phone would show that Taylor was Googling how to fake UPS tracking numbers and financial documents. But Wade believed what he was seeing. She ordered checks online that looked like they came from the oil and gas company; she paid extra to have them delivered quickly. Once they arrived, she texted Wade a photo of a check made out to the two of them in the amount of $8.7 million. In anticipation of all of that cash, the couple financed a number of expensive new items: a new heavy-duty pickup truck for Wade, a new Nissan Altima for his mother, a brand new ATV, and 20 head of cattle. Well over $100,000 worth of items and animals. Wade got an email stating $7.7 million had been deposited into his credit union account, but then got a message from the “director of accounts” stating the transfer had failed because of a problem with their system. Supposedly, they had switched to a new software system, and during the install, all of their data had been wiped clean. To help fix the problem, the director suggested Wade open a joint bank account with Taylor.
Because of the trouble with the wire transfers, Taylor told the agent she was going to pay for the Pecan Point property with money from her oil and gas leases. She also expanded the deal, saying she wanted to purchase two other nearby pieces of property. The total cost of the deal would have been around $20 million. She listed an attorney named Shelly Lynx on the new paperwork. Ms. Lynx communicated with the real estate agent via text and email. The agent was eager to verify the funding; he stood to earn a very large commission on the property, but he was concerned to see that the attorney’s email address was listed as “[email protected]”. It seemed unlikely that an attorney for a global energy company would have an AOL email address. Ms. Lynx emailed several times to tell the agent to stop contacting the banks Taylor had listed in an effort to verify funding. The agent tried to verify the paperwork that she sent; it was fraudulent. When he tried to locate her or figure out where she worked, he was unable to do so. The real estate agent told Taylor the gas leases wouldn’t work, so she said her Uncle Butch would provide the payment. She was annoyed and told the agent to stop trying to access her banking records. She said her uncle had made much larger land purchases and never had to release the information the agent was asking for. The imaginary attorney, Ms. Lynx, soon emailed the agent again with the same message.
At Christmas, Taylor and Wade joined her family for a holiday dinner. Shawna was there, very much alive. Taylor told Wade that Coburn had lied when he said that she was dead. At the get-together, Shawna glared at Wade and barked orders at the couple. Her demeanor made Wade more sure she was behind all of Taylor’s troubles, but in reality, Shawna was irritated because Taylor was only planning to stay for a few minutes and she wanted her to spend more time with the family instead of leaving with her new boyfriend.
By January of 2020, Wade was in serious financial trouble. Payments were coming due on all of the purchases that he had financed, and there was still no inheritance money. Taylor was secretly asking her mother for help; Shawna—the real Shawna—paid for Taylor’s car payment that month. Around this time, Taylor called her ex-husband Tommy to ask if her daughter could come live with him. She told him Wade was probably going to break up with her and kick her out of his home. Sensing that she was losing Wade, in February, she started a new con by calling Angela, Wade’s boss’s wife. Angela worked as a chiropractor and offered sessions to help her clients listen to their bodies. Taylor wanted a session because she thought her body was telling her she was pregnant. She said she’d noticed the color of her aura had changed. After the session, Angela told her the results were inconclusive, but Taylor acted as if Angela had confirmed a pregnancy. Taylor asked for advice about how to tell Wade. Angela told her she should take a pregnancy test first. Taylor texted back that the pregnancy was “intended by God,” even though it was impossible due to her hysterectomy.
She told Wade she was pregnant. She also told her friend Stephanie. Stephanie was excited; they talked about baby clothes and baby names. She agreed to host a gender reveal party on March 14th. Soon though, Stephanie became suspicious. The paperwork Taylor gave her wasn’t written on business letterhead, and it was dated 2016 instead of 2020. When she pointed out the errors, Taylor said she would check to see what went wrong. Later, she told Stephanie the clinic had a computer error; they had sent out 342 gender reports with misprints on them. Stephanie called herself to check, and they told her that wasn’t a service they offered; they didn’t send out printed gender reveal reports at all. Taylor gave Stephanie an ultrasound image to display at the gender reveal. The image was discolored and it looked old, but Taylor said it was just damaged from being kept in her wallet. She said she’d have the office reprint it, but she never did. Taylor also posted the old ultrasound image on social media. The Northeast Texas Women’s Health Clinic’s name appeared on the image. This clinic not only handled Taylor’s last pregnancy but also did the tubal ligation and hysterectomy surgeries. Staff there knew she could not be pregnant. The manager of the clinic, Melissa Mason, was very concerned. She told Taylor the clinic was not comfortable with their name being associated online with a pregnancy they knew did not exist. Taylor explained she really was pregnant but was using the old image because her mother was making trouble. She told Ms. Mason, “I’d like for my stuff to be kept HIPAA from my family because they have been snooping when they have been removed.”
Around this time, Taylor told Stephanie she was having contractions and needed an injection of medication to stop them. It sounded odd since Taylor was only supposed to be about 8 weeks along. Stephanie Googled to see if this was even medically possible. She was so concerned she called and asked the clinic about it. They said they could not provide information about a specific patient but assured her they would never use that medicine on someone who was 8 weeks pregnant. When she told them Taylor’s name, they transferred her to Melissa Mason. Mason could not give her any specific information either but encouraged Stephanie to “go with her gut.” Stephanie was deeply concerned, but without conclusive proof, she didn’t want to cancel the gender reveal. When Taylor’s dad, grandmother, and other family members showed up at the party, she thought maybe her suspicions had been wrong all along.
On March 18th, Taylor announced on social media that she and Wade were expecting a girl in September of 2020. Taylor said the baby was the size of a large lemon and that her name was going to be Clancy Gale. Attached to the announcement was a picture of a heifer calf wearing a big pink bow. The picture was snapped at the gender reveal party. Taylor’s son and daughter had been in charge of leading the calf out to announce that their new sibling would be a girl. On March 31st, Reagan made her own announcement on social media. She and Homer were expecting their own “Lil Peanut.” Attached were three ultrasound images.
Now, around that time, Wade called the clinic to find out if Taylor was really pregnant. They couldn’t give him any information. However, concerned that Taylor might try to steal a newborn, Ms. Mason did notify the local hospitals to be on the lookout for her.
Taylor started a new job as a payroll clerk at Cooper Tire. She did great during her interview, but staff there soon realized her job performance was lacking. She had lied about her credentials. She spent a lot of time in the breakroom conducting personal business on her phone, and she never mentioned to them being pregnant.
On April 9th, Taylor emailed Angela a “pregnancy verification letter” as she called it, and asked her to print it out for her. The due date was listed as September 22nd. Angela noticed that it listed another woman’s name on it, not Taylor’s. When she mentioned the error, Taylor claimed her mother must have a mole in the clinic. She was frustrated that no one believed that she was pregnant. Angela took Taylor to Walgreens and bought several pregnancy tests. When those came back negative, they bought more tests. Those also came back negative, but Angela thought she might have seen a faint line. Eventually, she took Taylor to a different clinic for an official urine test. Angela said Taylor went into the clinic holding only her wallet and came out with a proof of pregnancy form dated the same day. Later, the records at the clinic would show her results were negative for pregnancy. But Angela believed Taylor. At her request, she called Wade and told him that Taylor was pregnant. Angela’s husband, Roger, also believed Taylor was pregnant; they both thought they had felt the baby kick on several occasions. Angela spoke to Wade and warned him that too much stress was bad for Taylor and her baby. When Wade worried that Taylor did not look pregnant, Roger assured him that she was and that he would be a father come September.
Later that month, Taylor told Wade that her mother had lied to her about all the money she was going to inherit. The millions, the oil and gas leases, the rich Uncle Butch—were all lies made up by Shawna. She contacted the real estate agent and told them the same story. The Pecan Point deal was officially over. Wade was angry, but Angela reminded him that he needed to stay calm for the sake of the baby. Soon, Taylor was posting “baby bump” selfies on social media. She posted about doctor’s appointments to check the baby’s progress, but these appointments were imaginary. She even posted a brief video that she said showed the baby kicking in her belly. She purchased a fake baby belly online. In August, she and Wade posed for maternity photos. In some of the photos, his hand rested on the fake belly. Taylor positioned her hands above and below his. Later, he would say he had no idea; he said it felt like her real stomach.
By this time, the couple was no longer intimate with each other. Taylor complained to Stephanie that Wade no longer kissed her or paid any attention to her whatsoever. She said he wasn’t excited about the new baby. She made similar complaints to Angela. Angela thought it was clear to everyone except Taylor that Wade did not love her and did not want a baby. Still, she and Roger thought she was a sweet girl, and whether he wanted a baby or not, she and Roger were both convinced that she was going to have one.
Around that time, Taylor got her final warning from Cooper Tire about her performance issues. Instead of waiting to be fired, she sent a text message saying she quit. She started a new job at a temporary staffing agency. She told no one at her new job she was pregnant. Co-workers later said that she did not look pregnant. Reagan, however, was more than 6 months along, and she looked pregnant. On August 16th, she posted new ultrasound photos on Facebook. She announced the new baby was going to be a girl and she had chosen the name Braxlynn Sage. One of the ultrasound images captured the outline of the baby’s face and her little arm up above her head. Reagan was due on November 10th. Taylor was supposed to do a maternity shoot for her, but she had to cancel. She said her doctor told her that she needed to rest because of health reasons.
Taylor didn’t announce her pregnancy at work, but she made sure Wade heard her throwing up in their bathroom every morning. She’d often tell him the baby was moving or kicking. On multiple occasions, she told Wade that her doctor’s visits went well and her blood work looked normal. In mid-September, Taylor’s first husband, Tommy, texted Wade anonymously. He said Taylor was lying about being pregnant. He told Wade about the hysterectomy in 2015. He said she was using old ultrasound images from her other pregnancies as proof. He told Wade that all the local hospitals were on high alert watching to make sure that she did not steal a baby. Wade showed these texts to Taylor. In response, she created fake text conversations with multiple family members, including her mother, her grandmother, and her Aunt Katie. She used screenshots of the fake conversations to prove it was all part of an elaborate lie. She convinced Wade that Shawna was again plotting to ruin their relationship. In reality, Taylor’s mother knew that she could not be pregnant but never confronted her about it. When Wade’s mother, Connie, called and asked if Taylor could be pregnant, Shawna told her the truth: it was not medically possible. Connie tried several times to convince Wade that Taylor was lying, but eventually gave up to save their relationship. She thought Taylor would eventually fake a miscarriage and that Wade would stop seeing her altogether.
With her September 22nd due date approaching, Taylor began frantically searching online for places pregnant women might gather, including local clinics and maternity stores. She was also watching birthing videos on YouTube, both natural deliveries and C-sections. Over the next few weeks, she made many trips to sites that she found online. She visited locations in Idabel, Longview, Texarkana, Mount Pleasant, and Shreveport. She made six trips to Paris, Texas, a town over an hour away from Wade’s cabin in Simms. Taylor was in Paris on September 30th. She had scheduled a new patient appointment at a maternity clinic there, where staff noticed her sobbing in the lobby. Taylor said she needed to reschedule her appointment because her mom couldn’t come. When they asked why she was so upset, Taylor said her husband was in the military and had recently been killed. The staff tried to console her. They offered to do a quick sonogram so she could see the baby before her scheduled appointment; she, of course, declined. Later that day, staff saw her behind the clinic. She was sitting on a bench near the parking lot. Later, her phone records would show she was logging the license plate numbers of the pregnant women entering the clinic. She was looking up the numbers online, trying to find out where the women lived.
Near the end of September, Taylor was also working on a way to get Wade out of town and keep him busy for at least half of a day. She contacted the owner of a ranch in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. The ranch sold hunting trips where clients could pay to hunt and shoot feral hogs. The owner sometimes bought feral hogs to restock his property, but he’d never bought from Taylor or Wade before. When Taylor tried to sell him 150 feral hogs for about $6,000, he was interested enough to talk to her, but he soon worried it was a scam as Taylor didn’t know how to get the right kind of license to transport the livestock. She wanted to bring the hogs across state lines, which is illegal. He told her he wasn’t interested. Five days later, on September 27th, she texted him again, saying she had all the licenses and wanted to make the deal. He declined her offer. Not one to be inconvenienced by the truth, Taylor created fake texts from the owner. Using the fake texts, she convinced Wade they had an order to sell 150 hogs in October.
By October, she had stopped working at the staffing agency. Wade had taken Family Medical Leave starting October 1st. He wanted to be there for the baby’s birth, and since she was weeks past her original due date, he thought the baby could come at any time. If she didn’t go into labor before then, Taylor said she was scheduled to be induced on October 5th at the Titus Regional Medical Center. In the early morning hours of October 5th, a fire started beneath Wade’s cabin. The couple got up and put the fire out, but not before it knocked out the plumbing and the electricity. Later, a forensic fire investigator would find that the fire had been intentionally set. At 5:12 that morning, Titus Regional received a bomb threat. The streets around the hospital were shut down, the hospital’s emergency room had to close, and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals. Patients were evacuated to the Civic Center, and all procedures for that day were canceled—including Taylor’s. Later, data recovered from her phone would prove she made the call that was responsible for that threat.
Unable to shower at the cabin, they went to Wade’s mother’s house to clean up. Taylor told Connie her induction had been canceled because of the bomb threat. Connie immediately thought Taylor was the one who was responsible. While Wade showered, Connie mentioned a post that she had seen from Shawna—the real Shawna—on Facebook. Taylor’s mom had taken the kids on vacation; from the post, they looked like they were having a good time sightseeing in Colorado. Taylor did not respond. Letting the kids travel with her mother didn’t fit the story she made up about her. While Taylor showered, Connie tried again to convince Wade that Taylor couldn’t be pregnant because of the hysterectomy she had years before. She also told him he needed to go back to work. She worried he’d lose his job for taking family leave time when there wasn’t going to be a baby. Wade became angry. Once Taylor finished her shower, the couple stormed out.
However, something must have gotten through to him. That night, he and Taylor argued. He told her he’d be going back to work the next week if the baby hadn’t come by then. Taylor told him that by Friday, everyone would know she wasn’t lying. She was angry at Connie and was furious that Wade had listened to her. As she had many times before, she discussed the argument with her “relatives” via text and showed Wade the screenshots. Her mother even texted Wade to say, “How’s your mom doing? I love how you and your family treat her. They’re on my side now. Great job, Wade. I’ll clap for you. This time, I win every single time.” Of course, all the texts were written by Taylor and sent by spoof accounts.
Taylor had found a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where she wanted to have the baby, but she needed a story to explain why she wanted to drive an hour away and cross state lines. She told Wade the hospital was out of her mother’s reach. More likely, they hadn’t gotten a warning that Taylor might kidnap a newborn. Wade was so wrapped up in her stories he did not question her decision. She told Wade she’d schedule an induction at McCurtain County Hospital on October 9th. The same day, they needed to deliver the hogs to the ranch in Oklahoma. She said the two of them would leave early in the morning to make the 4-hour drive. They would drop off the hogs in Wynnewood and then head down to Idabel to have the baby.
(Host commentary note: The host provides a PSA here urging viewers in toxic or manipulative relationships, like Wade’s, to seek help and recognize their worth, regardless of the fear of being alone.)
Sometime around the beginning of October, Taylor had started texting Reagan again. According to her husband Homer, the two had been in constant contact for about a week. Reagan’s mother was surprised to hear the two were getting together. On October 7th, Taylor gave her a gift for the baby and a Starbucks gift card. Reagan thanked her via Messenger for the sweet gifts.
On October 8th, Taylor and Wade went out to dinner. On the way home, they stopped at an automotive store to pick up a part for Wade’s truck. He wanted to make sure it was running well for the long drive. While Wade worked on his truck, Taylor visited Reagan at her house in New Boston. On the way, Taylor purchased two burner phones. Reagan and Taylor went into the bedroom to talk. Homer figured they wanted privacy, perhaps to talk about Wade. About 45 minutes after Taylor got there, Homer texted Reagan and said he was tired. The women left the bedroom and went down the hall. As he went to bed, he heard Reagan showing Taylor the nursery. The two talked about redecorating, and Taylor said she would help. She left around 10:00 that night and went back to Wade’s cabin. Taylor had set up a baby bouncer in Wade’s living room and a crib in their bedroom. The crib was full of baby supplies and clothes for a newborn girl. She had installed a newborn car seat in Wade’s truck.
It is unclear whether Taylor got any sleep that night. At midnight, her phone was still using data as if she were searching the internet. Between 3:11 and 3:30 a.m., she used her new burner phone to make five calls of varying lengths to the hospital in Idabel. The longest was over 6 minutes. Wade got up at around 3:30. She told him she’d been having cramps all night and wouldn’t be able to make the trip. He wanted to stay home with her, but she told him that she would be fine. She also reminded him that they needed the money. She told him she bought burner phones so they could communicate without her mother interfering. She gave him the number for her burner. He called that phone from his cell phone at around 3:45 a.m. 15 minutes later, he was on the road hauling a gooseneck trailer filled with 150 feral hogs.
In the early hours of October 9th, Taylor was watching more videos about how to deliver a baby, but for the first time, she was looking specifically for videos about preterm deliveries. She looked up how to do a physical exam on a 35-week premature baby. Around 5:30 that morning, Taylor left the cabin in Wade’s Toyota Corolla. Around 6:30 a.m., Wade called her on the burner phone. She was still talking to him when she pulled into the EZ Mart parking lot. She got $10 worth of gas and paid inside. She was captured on the store surveillance camera. She went to the McDonald’s next door and got a coffee and a hash brown. Around the same time, Wade arrived at the ranch in Oklahoma to deliver the hogs. He’d soon find out that the owner hadn’t placed an order for 150 hogs and didn’t want to buy them. As she ate her breakfast, Taylor drove to Reagan’s house.
On the morning of October 9th, Reagan’s husband could not find her. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be at all. She hadn’t dropped her three-year-old off at daycare. She hadn’t shown up for her 9:00 a.m. shift at the restaurant. She was not answering her phone. Reagan had sent Homer a few texts that morning, but they didn’t sound like her. He texted, “I love you.” She didn’t respond. Their neighbor messaged him on Facebook saying their garage door was open and their new puppy had gotten out. Reagan’s car was still in the garage. The neighbor sent another message; she had knocked on the door inside the garage and it was ajar, but no one answered. Something did not seem right, so Homer called Reagan’s mother, Jessica, to see if she had heard from Reagan or not, and she hadn’t. Homer told Reagan’s mom he would leave work and head home. She said she would meet him there. On her way, she called her husband, Marcus.
When Jessica arrived at the house on Austin Street, she saw streaks of blood in the driveway. Inside the garage, she saw bloody fingerprints on the doorknob. When the door opened, she saw a shoeprint on the kitchen floor. Frightened but knowing her daughter was in trouble, she entered the home. She found Reagan face down on the living room floor in a large puddle of blood. A blanket nearby was soaked with blood and amniotic fluid. She called out to Reagan but got no answer. Jessica went back out into the garage. Her husband Marcus and a family friend named Chris Hughes soon arrived. She told Marcus not to look, but he went into the house anyways. When he came back out, he collapsed in the driveway with chest pains. He kept calling his granddaughter’s name.
At 10:18 a.m., Jessica called 911 screaming for help. She told dispatchers her daughter had been murdered. There was blood everywhere: on the floors, walls, ceiling, furniture, and other items. She looked for her three-year-old granddaughter but didn’t see her. Dispatchers heard her ask Marcus if she was okay. She sobbed, “Oh my babies… oh my God.” Their friend Chris walked around the house to the front door but found that it was locked. Finally, Marcus heard a faint response from the little girl. Jessica and Marcus couldn’t find the strength to go back into the house where their daughter was laying. Chris had to walk around Reagan’s lifeless body to get to the little girl. He found her hiding under a blanket in her bed. Once she recognized him as her grandpa’s friend, she ran to him. He picked her up and covered her with the blanket so she couldn’t see anything on their way out. He took her to the front door, and 3 minutes into the 911 call, the little girl asked, “Where’s Mommy?”
When Homer arrived a few minutes later, Chris and Marcus kept him outside. Police and paramedics soon arrived. Body cam footage showed Reagan’s right arm under her forehead and her left arm stretched above her head. Blood stains and spatter indicated she had struggled with her attacker in several places in the home before falling down in the living room. She had been stabbed so deeply in the side that layers of fat were exposed. There were no signs of life. Initially, paramedics stayed outside to preserve the crime scene. When Bowie County investigator Chad Ford asked Jessica about the pregnancy, she had told him that Reagan was almost 35 weeks pregnant and due to deliver in about a month. Concerned that the baby could be viable, he brought the medics in. When they turned her body over to check, they found a large gash across her belly. Reagan had been cut from hip to hip. The baby wasn’t there. Investigator Ford issued an alert to every hospital and clinic within 100 miles: a 6-week premature baby was missing.
Almost an hour earlier, and some 13 miles away, Taylor had also called 911 intent on getting to the hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma. She had been speeding and driving erratically. She was swerving over the double yellow line and had her hazard lights on. She almost hit a pickup truck, and moments later, she almost hit a cyclist. A Texas State Trooper pulled her over near DeKalb, Texas. She called 911 and told them she was having her baby. By the time the trooper approached the car, she was talking to emergency dispatchers on her cell phone. She changed her story. She told them she had just given birth in her car and the baby wasn’t breathing. The trooper saw an infant on her lap. It was still connected to the umbilical cord. The other end of the cord disappeared into Taylor’s black yoga pants. The 911 dispatcher was giving instructions for CPR. Taylor held the phone in one hand, shaking; the other hand was on the baby, which did not appear to be breathing.
The first thing she said to the State Trooper was she needed to get to the hospital in Idabel. He said she seemed more concerned with getting to Idabel than she did with following the CPR instructions. She gave the baby a few breaths and did a few compressions, but then went back to asking him to take her to Idabel. He noticed she had blood on her hands, face, legs, and feet. However, much of this blood seemed to be dry, so it didn’t match her story of having just given birth. There was no puddle of blood or amniotic fluid on the driver’s seat of the car, and there was no blood whatsoever on the baby. Seeing the commotion alongside the road, two Good Samaritans pulled over to help the baby and Taylor. One was a nurse, and the other was an off-duty EMT. The nurse started CPR on the baby in Taylor’s lap. The baby was cold, clammy, and slightly blue.
When the medics arrived, they took over CPR. Concerned about post-delivery bleeding, the nurse and the off-duty EMT cut off Taylor’s black yoga pants and bikini underwear. The baby’s placenta fell out of Taylor’s pants and landed on the floorboards of the car. The nurse helped Taylor change into clean pajama bottoms. They moved her to the patrol car. She walked slowly, as if she was weak and in pain. Through it all, Taylor insisted on being taken to McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Oklahoma instead of a closer local hospital. She said she did not want to go to the closest hospital because, in her words, they had “hurt her last baby.” This was not true. She said she needed to get to Idabel because her doctor practiced there. She did not have a doctor there. She said her husband was meeting her there; while Wade was planning to head there, he wasn’t going to for a few hours. She didn’t say that staff at the local hospitals might have been alerted that she was going to steal a baby potentially. Instead, she threatened to take the baby and drive herself if they wouldn’t agree to go to Idabel. EMTs eventually moved her to a gurney. When they asked what happened, she said she was walking around Walmart when she felt pressure, so she left and got in her car. While she was driving, she said she felt like she had to push. She said her water broke and the baby came out. She also said the baby was almost a month overdue. Her story didn’t match what the medics were seeing. The baby was small, much smaller than a full-term baby. She looked like she’d been wiped clean. There was no vernix (a white substance that coats babies in the womb), and the amniotic fluid on her skin was dry and flaky, which meant she had been born some time before Taylor said she was.
Taylor did a lot of talking and crying at the scene, but she didn’t ask if the baby was okay until they were both in the ambulance on the way to Idabel. The baby hadn’t been breathing when paramedics arrived; her heart had stopped. They gave her a shot of epinephrine and inserted a breathing tube, and the baby’s heart started beating again. They continued to help her breathe on the way to the hospital. Paramedics quickly realized the two cases were connected and notified the New Boston police, who had already received an anonymous phone call letting them know it was medically impossible for Taylor to be pregnant.
At the hospital, Taylor listed the baby’s name as Clancy Gale Griffin on the admission forms. She listed herself as the mother and Wade as the father. She said she planned to breastfeed and gave the hospital permission to register the birth in Oklahoma. Nurses were skeptical. They tried to clamp down on her uterus to make sure the bleeding had stopped, but they couldn’t find it. They did an ultrasound and it showed no signs that she had just given birth. She wouldn’t let anyone examine her pelvic area. They tested her blood, and it didn’t find hCG in her system—a hormone created by the placenta that remains elevated for weeks after a baby is born.
(The following is a transcribed interrogation at the hospital between law enforcement, hospital staff, and Taylor Parker):
Nurse: She shows no signs… you can’t check for hemorrhaging. She should be hemorrhaging. Now, what is hCG? It’s a hormone that is secreted by the placenta. If there’s a baby in there, the hCG is the hormone that mandates getting the nutrients and bringing it to the baby. It’s in mama’s blood, mama’s urine, mama’s everything, and it stays up for 6 weeks.
Officer: She refuses to have a vaginal check to make sure she’s not hemorrhaging?
Nurse: They’ve done an ultrasound and hCG, and it doesn’t show that she’s been pregnant. They have the placenta.
Officer: Where is she?
Nurse: She is in the room.
Officer: I’ll try to sidetrack her a little bit. Just talked with the ER doctor. They took blood work. hCG levels… it’s not showing she was pregnant. And they’re saying that they can send the placenta off to test whether it comes back to her or not.
Investigator (entering room): What’s your name?
Taylor: Taylor.
Investigator: Hey, my name’s Jaz, I’m an OSBI agent up here, and I heard you brought your baby in. Did you give birth on the side of the road or something?
Taylor: Yes, sir.
Investigator: Oh, okay. Where was that? Down in Texas?
Taylor: Yes, sir.
Investigator: So what happened this morning? Did you just go into labor on the side of the road or something?
Taylor: No, man… my… I was supposed to ride with my fiancé and we own a hog facility and we were going to come through here. But I was having contractions and stuff and wasn’t feeling good, so I stayed at home and told him we would just meet here after he dropped the hogs at 7. He got tied up… I mean, he’s on his way.
Investigator: How did you get here? Did you drive yourself?
Taylor: No, an ambulance brought me. From DeKalb. I had a LifeNet nurse lady help me.
Investigator: What’s your fiancé’s name? Wade Griffin? Have you gotten a hold of him?
Taylor: Yeah, he’s on his way. He said he was about an hour out.
Once the police showed up, nurses convinced her to submit to a pelvic exam for her own good. They told her she needed to make sure the bleeding had stopped, explaining the severe risks of internal hemorrhaging. Taylor eventually agreed.
Investigator: What did you have? Did you have a boy or a girl?
Taylor: A girl.
Investigator: Did you do something wrong? No… I’m just going to be up front with you. I’ve been talking to the DA down in Bowie County and they’ve been working on a case down there. We know that you had a hysterectomy some time back and that you claimed to be pregnant for a while, but that you really weren’t. So we’re trying to figure out where this baby came from. But you didn’t give birth this morning.
Taylor: What do you mean?
Investigator: We want to know where this baby came from. That’s why I’m here. So what happened?
Taylor: I just told y’all what happened.
Investigator: What’s the doctor going to find when he comes in to check? He can tell in about a second if you gave birth or not. Is he going to find that you gave birth this morning?
Taylor: Yes.
Investigator: But the information I’ve got is that you’ve had a hysterectomy in the past. If you had a hysterectomy, you can’t be pregnant. And you came into a hospital with a newborn. We want to know where this newborn came from. So you’re still saying it came from you?
Taylor: Yes.
Investigator: We can do DNA on it, be able to tell pretty quick. They have the placenta and they can see if the placenta… you gave birth to this child?
Taylor: Yes.
Investigator: I found a woman this morning on the side of the road and her baby had been removed from her body. And then you show up with a baby, and the information is you’ve had a hysterectomy. There’s no way you could have been pregnant, even though you’ve been telling people for a while you’ve been pregnant.
Taylor: I didn’t hurt anybody on the side of the road.
Investigator: I’m not saying you did. I just want to know what happened, where this baby came from. Who is the lady? Do you know who she is?
Taylor: I don’t know what lady y’all are talking about.
When the doctor examined her, he found that she didn’t have a cervix, which is sometimes removed during a hysterectomy. When he finished the examination, the doctor told police, “It surely doesn’t look like a baby came out of there.”
Investigator: That means it’s not your baby. So what happened? Most of the people are going to assume the worst. They’re going to assume you’re an evil person and that you just butchered this lady and left her to die. I don’t think that was the case… but where did this baby come from?
Taylor: I did not kill anybody. I didn’t kill anybody.
Investigator: Was she alive when you left? How’d you get her baby?
Taylor: It’s mine!
Investigator: Did you mean to hurt the woman? Is it a deal you just wanted a baby so bad that it just kind of overpowered your brain?
When the officer told her he knew she had a hysterectomy and couldn’t have delivered the baby, she told him she had a stroke in 2015 and her head had been hurting. This was a story she had told before, and it still wasn’t true. Eventually, she changed her story. She told him she went to the lady’s house to take a shower. The lady attacked her and she defended herself. She said she didn’t remember a lot of what happened. When they asked her who the lady was, Taylor didn’t answer. She said the lady called her a liar and stabbed her with a knife, and told her that she was going to kill her. The lady then stabbed herself in the neck and told her that everyone would think that Taylor had done it. Once she was hurt badly, Taylor said the lady asked her to cut her open to save the baby. DNA tests proved that the baby’s mother was Reagan Hancock.
Meanwhile, Braxlynn Sage was taken off life support. Doctors said that there wasn’t anything they could do; she’d gone without oxygen for too long, causing extensive brain damage. She died at 1:22 p.m. on the same day as her mother. A nurse stayed with her so she didn’t have to die alone.
While she was being examined at the hospital, investigators were searching the car she had been driving. They found a loaded Taurus Judge revolver on the passenger seat. They had pulled a syringe filled with an animal tranquilizer from a purse inside the car. They found the discarded placenta and umbilical cord on the floorboard. They also found the black bikini underwear that had been cut off of Taylor’s body. They had blood on them and, according to the Texas Ranger who searched the car, smelled strongly of feces. It seems likely that Taylor had perforated Reagan’s bowel; contents of the bowel transferred to the placenta and then to the underwear when Taylor stuffed it down her pants. The placenta also started decomposing once it was removed from Reagan’s body, which would have contributed to the bad odor. Investigators did not find Reagan’s cell phone. They also didn’t find the fake baby belly or the shirt and shoes Taylor was wearing when she was captured on the surveillance camera the morning of the attack. Cell phone data showed that Reagan’s phone, Taylor’s smartphone, and Taylor’s burner phone all moved away from Austin Street around 9:14 a.m. She was pulled over and made the 911 call at 9:36. The distance she traveled would have taken about 17 minutes or less since she was speeding. This left roughly 17 minutes unaccounted for; she must have disposed of the items at some point during this time. Police suspected she dumped the items in the Red River. The area was searched on land and with diving teams, but nothing was ever recovered. More importantly, the whole trip took 24 minutes. During that time, Braxlynn wasn’t getting help to breathe. 24 minutes is a long time for a newborn preemie to go without medical care.
Officers led Taylor, still wearing her hospital gown, to a waiting patrol car that afternoon. She was arrested in Oklahoma on charges of capital homicide and kidnapping. She was quickly extradited to Texas, where she was held in the Bi-State Justice Center. She remained in jail on a $5 million bond.
On October 14th, Taylor told Texas police a different version of the crime. She’d had a bad headache, so bad that she was driving around New Boston and didn’t really know how she got there. In this confession, she knew Reagan’s name. In fact, she only went to the house because Reagan called multiple times and asked her to come talk. She got to the house, Reagan accidentally scratched her, and Taylor wanted to leave, but Reagan shut the garage door. Reagan was shaking her and hollering, and she pushed Reagan, who fell and hit her head on the car. Taylor said she knew something bad was going to happen. She also claimed to be suffering from some sort of mental or medical problem, just drifting in and out, blacking out, and couldn’t understand what was going on. Reagan tried to help her but also kept hitting her. Taylor admitted she hit Reagan, but it was always in response to Reagan being violent first. She also said Reagan poked her with a knife and hit her over the head. None of her stories matched the evidence. Taylor’s only injury was a scratch on her chest. She said Reagan asked her to help get the baby out and get help for the baby. She said the baby wasn’t breathing. She said Reagan was still alive when she left. The only part of this confession that was likely true was that the baby wasn’t breathing.
When discussing motive, the detective said Taylor wanted to prove everyone wrong. He said, “This lady trusted you to let you in her house. You went into her house with a diaper bag and a scalpel… what you needed for the baby. You had Wade arranged to go out of town. You got your baby. Wade believed you. You proved to all these people you weren’t lying for the last 10 months. You had your ‘aha’ moment at the expense of that.” He pointed to an autopsy photo of Reagan. “You had your ‘I proved you all wrong’ moment.” Taylor went quiet. After several seconds with no response, she asked to go to the bathroom.
Her trial started on September 12th, 2022, and it lasted almost 2 months. Over 140 witnesses testified. Assistant District Attorney Kelly Crisp called Taylor an “actress of the highest order.” One of the lead detectives, Lieutenant Andrew Venol, said it took his team weeks to untangle her web of lies. He said she lied continuously from the start of the relationship with Wade to the end. The hog sale on the day of the murder was one such lie. The ranch owner was furious when Wade showed him the fake text confirming the deal. The owner pulled out his phone and showed Wade the real conversation: the one where he told Taylor he wasn’t interested. Wade was so wrapped up in Taylor’s stories he thought Shawna must have hacked his phone and set him up.
Taylor continued the scheming in prison. She wrote two fake confession letters in an attempt to frame someone else for the murder. The first letter blamed a fictional person, but the second letter blamed Hannah Hollar, an addict housed in the pod next to Taylor. One of the letters remained unopened when turned over to authorities; only Taylor’s fingerprints were found on that letter. The letters told another one of Taylor’s convoluted stories: the real killer and her gang members kidnapped Taylor and took her to Reagan’s house. Much like the “Coburn” character she had created earlier, these gang members had Taylor, Wade, and even Reagan under surveillance. They also had names like J-Dog, Doughboy, and Kodiak. The letters were written in the voice of someone trying to sound like a gang member. Prosecutors said Taylor lived the experience while writing in detail about the violent struggle with Reagan. She also included details only the killer would know—details like the fake baby belly and the black hoodie Taylor was wearing on the day of the murder. The letters also mentioned using a crowbar to hit Reagan, a detail police never released to the public. Taylor even went as far as to write a message to God in her prayer devotional, asking the Almighty to blame the women she wanted to frame.
The state’s forensic psychologist said Taylor was manipulative and a pathological liar. She continued her manipulation in prison. She told guards that Netflix was making a movie about her and convinced one of them to sneak another prisoner into her cell to braid her hair. Shakedowns of her cell revealed an assortment of contraband items. She had mascara and a ring; inmates weren’t allowed to have makeup or jewelry. She also had more dangerous items like a razor and a schematic drawing of the Bowie County Jail. One contraband item was a cloth sunflower face mask. Taylor knew sunflowers were Reagan’s favorite flower. She wore the mask during pre-trial hearings. Reagan’s family found it hurtful and offensive, as they should.
The medical examiner’s testimony showed that Reagan fought desperately for her life and the lives of her children. Taylor attacked her in at least five different areas in her home, starting with the garage where Taylor hit her with a crowbar. Blood was smeared on the door in a pattern that suggested Reagan’s blood-soaked hair was pressed against it. From the blood residue, analysts could tell she was pushed against the wall, slid to the left, and down to the floor. DNA testing done on blood samples from the crime scene matched Reagan and Braxlynn. None of the blood belonged to Taylor. The struggle continued in the kitchen. At some point, Reagan fell against the refrigerator, leaving another bloody hair print above the print. Reagan’s ultrasound photos still hung on the fridge. In the living room, there was a large blood stain along the edge of the couch. During the struggle, clumps of Reagan’s blonde hair ended up stuck in the blood. She was stabbed more than 100 times. At least 39 of those stab wounds were focused on her head and neck. Her nose was broken. Her skull was fractured in five different places. She had an indentation above her left temple that matched the size and shape of a 4lb mason jar. The jar, filled with blue and pink sand with a monogrammed “H” for Hancock, was from her wedding—the same wedding where Taylor had been her photographer. Investigators found the blood-spattered jar near her body on the living room floor. The wall near her body was splattered with blood. In some areas, there was so much that it dripped down the wall. The quantity and the direction of the drops indicated she had been severely beaten while lying there. In addition to the wound from the mason jar, she had wounds consistent with being beaten with a hammer, both on the claw end and the blunt side. Her hands were bruised, scraped, stabbed, and cut. One of her fingers was dislocated. The tip of another finger was almost cut off. The injuries to her hands were all defensive wounds.
Taylor claimed she didn’t bring a knife, but she said she always carried a scalpel in her purse to use if the dogs got hurt during hog hunting. Eventually, she admitted to using this scalpel to cut open Reagan’s abdomen. She ripped out her uterus from the back, meaning she stuck her hand deep into Reagan’s belly up near her diaphragm while she was still alive. The uterus was damaged during the violent removal. Once it was out, she cut it open, pulling the baby and the placenta from inside. In immeasurable pain and bleeding out the last of her life, Reagan must have regained consciousness to fight one more time to protect her baby. Fragments of her purple glitter press-on fingernails were found embedded in the placenta.
Although officers found the syringe of animal tranquilizer in the car—medicine strong enough to put a large animal to sleep and certainly strong enough to knock out a person—there was no evidence it was used. She could have used it, but instead, Taylor cut out the baby while Reagan was still alive and awake, resulting in significant blood loss. This blood loss not only hurt Reagan but also hurt the baby’s oxygen levels. Had the baby been born in a hospital under normal circumstances, doctors said she would have been perfectly healthy. Braxlynn also had a bruise on her scalp that was likely caused by a blow to Reagan’s belly. Her umbilical cord was also bruised. Reagan’s death was ruled a homicide. Her ultimate cause of death was sharp force and blunt force injuries. She could have also been strangled; it was impossible to tell because there were so many deep stab wounds in her neck. Baby Braxlynn’s cause of death was traumatic extraction from her mother’s womb. Her death was also ruled a homicide.
During the police interview, Taylor said she was pretty much 100% positive that she set down the scalpel after cutting Braxlynn free. Investigators couldn’t find it at the crime scene. During the autopsy, the scalpel was found buried deep in Reagan’s neck.
Reagan’s 3-year-old daughter was home during the attack. She was alone in the house with her mother’s body for over an hour after she was killed. One of her nighttime pull-up diapers soaked with urine was found on top of a pool of blood in the living room next to the couch and her mother’s body. Given its placement on top of the blood, it was dropped there after the murder. There was also urine soaking into the couch cushions near Reagan’s body. Investigators believe that it came from the little girl. She had blood smeared on her arms in several places. The bottoms of her feet were stained from walking through her mother’s blood.
The jury took less than an hour to find Taylor guilty on October 3rd, 2022. Sentencing began on October 12th. Because Taylor faced the death penalty, the sentencing portion of the trial was extensive, lasting another 25 days. Reagan’s mother read a victim impact statement during this stage. In it, she called Taylor an “evil piece of flesh demon.” She said, “My baby was alive, still fighting for her babies when you tore her open and ripped her baby from her stomach. You watched her die. You did not care about Braxlynn either, spending so much time making sure you would not get caught.” On November 9th, jurors took 90 minutes to decide she deserved the maximum sentence: death by lethal injection. Judge John Tidwell’s last words in the trial were, “Take her to death row.” A few hours later, Taylor was sent to the Mountain View Unit at the Texas state prison in Gatesville. She joined six other women on death row. She’s still there as of the date of this recording.
Reagan’s death gutted her entire family. She was the glue that held them together. Years after she was gone, her mother Jessica still kept picking up the phone to text her before remembering that she couldn’t. Homer and their little girl had to start all over again. He moved back home with his parents and tried to make sense of his new, emptier life. At the trial, he said the first time he got to hold little Braxlynn Sage, she was cold and lifeless. He never got to hear her say “I love you, Daddy.” By the time the trial was over, Reagan’s little girl was 5 years old. On several occasions, her grandmother said she walked up to a pregnant lady and asked to see her belly. She wanted to see if they were hurt or bleeding. No one knows exactly how much the little girl saw and heard that day, but it was too much. Reagan was supposed to be her sister Emily’s maid of honor. Emily had to carry a picture of her big sister down the aisle at her wedding.
After Taylor’s sentence, her mother said the family was glad justice had been served. She went on to say, “Everybody says you can have memories. Well, you don’t want to just have memories. You want to have your baby. And we never got to meet Braxlynn. We’re in pieces. I’d never wish this on anyone.”
It’s hard to feel sorry for much of Taylor’s family, particularly those who knew she wasn’t pregnant and didn’t confront her, but her children—ages 8 and 10 at the time of the murder—were victims too. Shawna was awarded custody of Taylor’s daughter. At the trial, she promised to take the girl back to counseling. She also told Taylor that she needed to get it together because she was upsetting the girl during phone calls. Tommy and his wife Amy still have custody of Taylor’s son. They decided he shouldn’t talk to his mother in jail. Tommy said, “Why does she want to be a mom now? She wasn’t a mom before, so why now? Why should I let my son talk to somebody that did this?”
On October 17th, Reagan and Braxlynn’s funeral was held at the Trailhead Park Pavilion in New Boston. They were buried together in Reed Hill Cemetery. Community members raised money for her husband and surviving daughter. Volunteers sold t-shirts and held car washes. They raised money online through Facebook and PayPal. People from across the country and around the world donated. When asked about Reagan, her mother said she loved unity. She did not like any discord in any relationship. She didn’t like confrontations. She wanted unity, and the response of the community would make her so proud. “All we can ask for is prayer.” Reagan’s sister Emily said, “She’s just something you can’t replace. The good thing about it is she’s everywhere now. She always held us close, and she’s holding us closer now.”
This case is hard to process, and it doesn’t even sound real. At the beginning of this story, it’s hard to believe that so many people would have believed in and enabled Taylor’s lies. But even for those that saw through her charade, nobody thought she could be capable of such an extreme, premeditated murder, as she had no history of violence. Now, normally with cases involving a woman who murders another woman to steal their unborn baby out of their womb, a mental health component exists or is argued by lawyers, as was the case when Lisa Montgomery murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett. To our knowledge, Taylor’s lawyers never attempted this defense, and she had no history to even justify defending her in this way. So what do you think possesses someone to do something so unthinkably heinous such as this? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below.
