Infertile womb raider sliced open friend and stole her baby

Taylor Rene Parker had been faking her pregnancy and ultimately she needed to find a newborn baby to back up her lies

- GAIL SHORTLAND

Two expectant mums in Texas were excitedly counting down the days until they’d meet their newborn baby girls – proudly showing off their ultrasound pictures and posing for bump snaps on social media.

Reagan Simmons-Hancock, 21, lived in New Boston, with her husband Homer. They already had a three-year-old daughter and couldn’t wait for her to be big sister to the new baby who they had already named Braxlynn Sage.

Living nearby was Taylor Rene Parker, 29. Parker had done some photography for Reagan when she’d got engaged and again when she’d married in 2019. Parker was a mum-of-two, but this pregnancy was with her new boyfriend Wade Griffin. She’d had a gender reveal party and reconnected with expectant Reagan – giving her a gift and sending her texts.

In October 2020, the friends and family of Reagan and Parker believed they were both 35 weeks pregnant. But while Reagan was waiting for a natural birth, Parker told her boyfriend she was going to be induced on 9 October at a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, which was a distance away. Parker said it was where her preferred doctor was located, so her boyfriend agreed to meet her there.

That morning, at about 9.30am, a Texas state trooper pulled over a black car for speeding and driving erratically.

In the driver’s seat was Parker, with a newborn baby girl on her lap. There was blood on her face, clothes and feet – although a lot of it seemed dry. There was also an umbilical cord coming out of her trousers and attached to the baby – as though she’d just given birth. But the baby wasn’t breathing and Parker was performing CPR on the infant.