Netflix's Maternal Instinct omits moment Taylor Parker admits to cutting baby out of friend's womb
The case of Taylor Parker has received renewed interest after a brand new Netflix documentary, Maternal Instinct.
Parker was given the death penalty in 2022 after admitting to the 2022 killing of her pregnant friend Regan Simmons-Hancock.
No documentary can include every small detail, even Netflix’s other recent hit true crime documentary The Crash was criticised for leaving out details about proof that Mackenzie Shirilla killed her boyfriend and his friend, Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan.
Maternal Instinct has some incredibly emotional interviews, including one with Reagan’s mother who recounted the horrifying moment she found her daughter dead at her home, but does not include the full vital moment where Taylor’s story changed and she admits to getting in a fight with Regan and removing the baby from her womb.
Warning: This article contains graphic content and descriptions of crime that some readers may find distressing.
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Parker killed Regan in order to abduct her baby, having lied to her boyfriend Wade Griffin and his family and claimed to have been pregnant for the previous ten months.
She stabbed Regan over 100 times and caused over 35 blunt force trauma injuries in a disturbing attack, eventually cutting the fetus from her belly in a crude C-Section using a scalpel. Her actions led to the death of the baby as well as Regan.
In the documentary there are clips of Parker’s interrogation at the hospital, having first told a State Trooper who pulled her over that the baby was hers and that she had given birth on the side of the road. She even stuffed the baby’s umbilical cord down her pants and claimed the blood she was covered in, Regan’s, was her own.
This story fell apart fairly quickly when ultrasounds and a doctor’s examination showed she had not recently given birth.
Footage of the subsequent interview was released under a Freedom of Information request, and is almost two hours long.
For the first half hour of the interview Taylor maintains her story that the baby is hers, but Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Chad Dansby who is interviewing her eventually tells her ‘we know it happened’. This came after they received the report of Regan’s body being discovered and that her baby had been missing.
This is the point where Taylor admits that Regan ‘checked on her’, and invited her over, claiming that she ‘grabbed a hold of her’ and told her she was a liar.
Whilst she does not admit in this interview to the real story, that she murdered Regan in order to steal her baby, she does eventually admit that they had a ‘fight’ and that the victim had ‘hit her head’.
She then admits to officers that she cut Regan open and ‘pulled apart the amniotic sac’ to remove the baby, who was later named Braxlynn.
Taylor is eventually arrested by the officers, and would later admit to the murder in appeals despite having pled guilty in the trial.
During trial she claimed that this was not a premeditated attack, that she had mental conditions which caused her to do this, and that therefore it didn’t meet the standard for capitol murder.
Ultimately the jury denied this and, due to the aggravating charge stating she ‘kidnapped’ Braxlynn, she was sentenced to death.
Speaking in the documentary, Regan’s sister Emily Simmons, said that she hoped that Taylor prayed for forgiveness from God because 'Hell is too good for her'.
A timeline of Taylor Parker’s crime
2014
Mother-of-two and wedding photographer Taylor Parker decides to get her tubes tied after suffering pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition which raises blood pressure, during her last pregnancy.
2015
Parker goes to her doctor with bleeding, who concludes she has had an ectopic pregnancy. She undergoes a hysterectomy, permanently removing her ability to conceive children.
July 2019
Parker, who is now twice divorced, meets hog trapper Wade Griffin at a local rodeo and they start a relationship. She lies to him that she is the heir to a $6 million estate.
September 2019
Jessica Brookes hires Parker as the photographer at her daughter Reagan Hancock’s wedding to longtime boyfriend Homer Hancock. Parker also previously took their engagement photos.
January 2020
Parker tells Griffin she’s pregnant, who doesn’t know about the hysterectomy. To maintain the ruse, Parker wears a fake pregnancy bump, takes maternity photos and throws a gender reveal party. She claims her due date is September.
Staffers at the hospital where Parker had her hysterectomy are ‘very confused’ about her social media updates, but are bound by privacy laws.
May 2020
Hancock tells her mum Jessica that she’s pregnant with her second child. Jessica later says that after Parker finds out Hancock is pregnant and expecting a girl, she starts to have more contact with her.
September 2020
After her ‘due date’ passes, Parker tells Griffin she will need to be induced or have a C-section.
9 October 2020
Parker watches a video on how to deliver a baby pre-term at 35 weeks, the length of Hancock’s pregnancy. She tells Griffin she is travelling to Idabel, Oklahoma to be induced. Instead, she travels to Hancock’s home, killing her and cutting her unborn child, Braxlynn Sage, from her womb. Hancock’s three-year-old daughter is later found in the house unharmed.
Parker is later pulled over by a Texas State Trooper for erratic driving. As the trooper is approaching her car, she calls 911 and asks for an ambulance, saying: “I’m starting to have my baby.”
The trooper finds Taylor covered in dried blood and holding Hancock’s dead baby, with the umbilical cord still attached.
She is taken to hospital, where it is soon determined she has not given birth. She is arrested the same day.
December 2020
Taylor is indicted by a grand jury on charges of capital murder and kidnapping.
October 2022
Parker is convicted of capital murder.
November 2022
Parker is sentenced to death. Jessica says a ‘heavy burden has been lifted’.
May 2026
The Supreme Court says it will not review Parker’s case. She remains on death row. A date of execution has not been set.
12 June 2026
Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct is released.
Maternal Instincts is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: True Crime, Netflix, TV and Film, Documentaries, Crime
Michael Slavin