In October 2020, 21-year-old Reagan Simmons-Hancock was found murdered in her home in New Boston, Texas. She was 35 weeks pregnant. Her daughter Braxlynn Sage was removed from her body and died hours later. Reagan's three-year-old daughter Kynlee was found hiding in another room of the house, physically unharmed. The person responsible was Taylor Parker — a woman Reagan knew well enough to let photograph her wedding. This episode covers the full story of the Taylor Parker case: the ten-month fake pregnancy, the elaborate fraud schemes running parallel to it, the meticulous planning that went into October 9th, 2020, and the 49-day capital murder trial that followed. Taylor Parker was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in November 2022. In November 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed her conviction and death sentence in full, overruling all 25 points of error. In this episode: Who Taylor Parker was before the murder — two marriages, two children she didn't have custody of, and a decade-long pattern of elaborate deception documented across employment records, medical files, and court testimonyThe 2015 hysterectomy that left her permanently infertile — and how she weaponized the grief of it rather than processing itThe fake pregnant belly, recycled sonogram images, staged maternity photoshoot, and gender reveal party that formed the architecture of a ten-month lieThe parallel schemes running alongside the fake pregnancy: a staged $20 million real estate fraud, a manufactured murder-for-hire plot, fake personas including a fictional father, a fictional police contact, and a fictional detective she invented from inside a jail cellWhat her former friends Kenzie Bright and Abby Bell testified to at trial — including Abby reaching out two days before the murder and never getting a responseHow Taylor got Wade Griffin 200 miles away on the morning of October 9th — and why she'd been planning that specific detail for weeksThe events of October 9th, 2020, as established by the physical evidence and crime scene testimonyWhat Taylor's own mother Shonna Prior knew, when she knew it, and what she testified to at the penalty phase — including the exchange on the stand that stopped the courtroomThe 49-day trial, 142 witnesses, the verdict, and the sentencingWhere things stand now: Reagan's family, Kynlee, Homer Hancock, and Taylor Parker on death row at the Patrick L. O'Daniel Unit in Gatesville, TexasReagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock was born November 14, 1998, in Hope, Arkansas. She was 21 years old when she died. She loved sunflowers. She let her three-year-old announce the pregnancy. She is buried alongside her daughter. Braxlynn Sage Hancock was born and died on October 9, 2020. She had a heartbeat. She was a few hours old. Kynlee Grace Hancock is approximately eight years old. She goes to the gravesite when she wants to see her mom. Sources & further reading: KTAL/KMSS Texarkana trial coverage (day-by-day)Texarkana Gazette trial reportingTexas Court of Criminal Appeals opinion, November 6, 2025Bowie County District Court records
