Case of Texas woman on death row over grisly murder back in spotlight

Taylor Parker, who was convicted of capital murder in 2022. Photograph: Texas department of criminal justice Taylor Parker, who was convicted of capital murder in 2022. Photograph: Texas department of criminal justice Case of Texas woman on death row over grisly murder back in spotlight New film revives story of Taylor Parker, convicted in 2022 of cutting unborn daughter from womb of friend she killed In an America so often saturated with brutal crime stories, it takes special circumstances to truly register shock. But the story of Taylor Parker, now sitting on a Texas death row after being convicted of murdering her pregnant friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock in 2020 and cutting her unborn daughter Braxlynn from her womb, is horrific in part because it appears almost against nature itself. Such a terrifying act is also rare. Fetal abductions by maternal evisceration number just 15 in the US from 1987 to 2011, and perhaps 100 worldwide. Until 1973, none had ever been recorded in the US. Parker’s case is now receiving the Netflix documentary treatment in the shape of Maternal Instinct , which airs next week. Parker was 29 at the time she set upon and killed her friend, taking her baby. Parker was arrested almost immediately, the blood of the mother on her hands and dead infant in her lap, and confessed in the Oklahoma hospital she was headed for to check, as any mother of a newborn might, that all was well. At trial, Parker’s defense did not try to prove their client did not do it. Instead, her attorneys wanted to keep her off of death row. If Parker had been convicted of kidnapping, she would have faced up to 10 years in prison. If found guilty of murder, 99 years or life. But if convicted of both, she would face life without parole – or death by lethal injection. Prosecutors argued that Parker’s crime was elaborately premeditated and she had plotted for months to find a real baby to claim as her own. A neurologist testifying for the defense said “something is very wrong with her brain”, describing Parker’s condition as “frontal lobe syndrome,” a condition that describes a complex web of cognitive, behavioral, emotional and motivational disturbances. In October 2022, Parker was convicted of capital murder. A month she later was sentenced to death. On appeal, lawyers argued Parker should not have been charged with capital murder because the baby may not have been alive when she was cut from the mother’s womb, so the aggravating crime of kidnapping was moot, because you cannot kidnap a person who has not been born. They also argued that Parker did not receive a fair trial due to extensive media coverage and social media commentary during the penalty phase. Parker, 34, is just one of just seven women on death row in Texas, according to the Texas department of criminal justice . Her crime, conviction and sentence were upheld by the Texas court of criminal appeals, and last month the US supreme court said it would not review her case on grounds that she di