NEW BOSTON, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) – Frantic 911 calls from both Taylor Parker and Jessica Brookes from the morning of the murder of Reagan Hancock were played in court Wednesday morning, following a series of witness testimony placing Parker at a gas station less than two miles from the crime scene just before the New Boston mother was killed.
The following is testimony as it unfolded starting at 9 a.m. on the seventh day of the trial.
The courtroom is packed. Up first on the stand, EZ Mart store manager Trista Griffin (no relation to Wade Griffin, apparently). A receipt shows Taylor paid $10 for gas at 6:46 a.m. Photos from surveillance cameras show Parker at the register paying for the gas.
Reagan Hancock 2 (Image: courtesy of Reagan Hancock’s family)Reagan Hancock with her grandparents on her wedding day in Sept 2019. Taylor Parker was the photographer at Reagan’s Sept. 2029 wedding. (Image: Family of Reagan Hancock)Reagan Hancock (Image: Family of Reagan Hancock))
This EZ Mart is a four-minute drive from Reagan Hancock’s house on Austin St., 1.8 miles away.
Next on the stand is TX DPS Special Agent Eric Estess, who got the search warrant for the surveillance video and transaction records from the EZ Mart from the morning of the murders between the hours of 6:30 and 7 a.m.
There was an issue with the video that did not allow it to be saved, but they have the stills. In the surveillance image, she is wearing a black jacket with leopard print lining the hoodie and a white t-shirt.
Next, the jury sees a photo taken from Parker’s phone of Parker inside a McDonald’s restaurant on Oct. 8, wearing what appears to be the same jacket.
Estes also wrote the search warrant for Reagan Hancock’s Facebook account. We see contacts between Reagan and Taylor going back to Sept. 2019. Taylor photographed Reagan’s wedding. We see that Reagan sent Taylor a message via Facebook on Oct. 7, two days before the murder, thanking her for” the sweet gift and Starbucks card!”
The State also shows a series of Reagan’s Facebook posts announcing her pregnancy with Braxlynn and counting down over the months.
Previous testimony and evidence presented in the trial included receipts that show Parker purchased the Talkatone app for 99 cents on the morning of Oct 8. It’s a VOIP app that allows users to call and text over the internet. One minute later, she texts herself.
We know from previous testimony Taylor Parker has a history of using these apps to text herself and others. Reagan’s phone records show that she was also communicating with a spoofed number connected to Parker, and later her husband, Homer, on the morning of the murder.
Estes says Reagan’s cell phone was never recovered.
Next on the stand: The New Boston ISD. Dir. of Technology, who downloaded security video footage from the bus that passes by Reagan’s house on Austin St. from the morning of the murder.
The jury bus footage from the bus camera, looking down Austin St. as the bus heads east. We see Reagan’s house in the curve as the street turns south. There’s a trailer parked beside the driveway. The garage door is down and there are no cars in the driveway. The timestamp shows it is 7:22 a.m.
Reagan’s neighbor Patricia Bradford takes the stand and testifies to seeing an unfamiliar dark-colored Toyota Corolla with mismatched rims parked in front of the house sometime between 7:30 and 7:40 a.m. that day. Bradford heads to work. Her son works at night, so he usually sleeps during the day but she got a call from him a little after 10 a.m. saying something was going on next door. Someone is screaming or crying. She told him to go make sure they were alright. She rushes home and arrives to chaos. Police asked her if she recognized the dark-colored vehicle.
No questions from the defense. Testimony has been fast-paced this morning. We’ve heard from 4 witnesses in just over an hour.
Next, the jury hears from Brittany Thompson, who lives across the street from the Hancocks. Brittany says she knows Homer from school. She was getting ready to go to Walmart with her mother, Andrea Wyrick, around 7:45 a.m. when she noticed their Hancock’s new black lab puppy was wandering in the street. The garage was up, and Reagan’s car was in the garage. She didn’t have Reagan’s number, so she texted Homer to let him know the puppy was out.
Brittany Thompson breaks down crying on the stand, recalling how she followed her mom over to the Hancock’s house after seeing her go into the garage, approach the door inside, and knock. The door was not pulled all the way shut, so it opened slightly. No one answered. Brittany says she texted Homer again to let him know.
Homer texts Brittany to tell her he’s going to try to call Reagan. Brittany and her mother lifted the puppy over the Hancock’s back fence and headed out shopping. At 10:35 a.m. Brittany gets a thirty-second call from Homer as she was walking into Walmart. He tells her “My wife is dead.” Brittany is crying on the stand.
“I was in shock for a second. I was like, “What?! We were just over there!”
Brittany describes seeing a dark-colored sedan outside the Hancock’s home the night before.
Her mother takes the stand next, describing how she knocked on the door and it opened slightly. Despite knocking and calling out, there was no response.
It is now 11 a.m. and the jury has already heard from five witnesses. We’re about to hear the 911 calls. It is expected to be difficult to hear. Judge John Tidwell excuses the jury briefly to warn observers that they should leave now if they feel they can’t maintain composure. Several family members leave. Others pass around tissue boxes.
New Boston PD 911 dispatcher Katie Jiminez takes the stand. She took two separate 911 calls the morning of the murders. One at 9:36 a.m. from Taylor Parker, the other between 10:15-18 a.m. from Reagan’s mother, Jessica Brookes.
On the 911 call from Taylor Parker, we hear her crying and telling the dispatcher, “I have a state trooper behind me and I need an ambulance because I started having my baby!”
The dispatcher notes it appears Taylor is at 780 W Front St. In DeKalb, relays to LifeNet that she says she’s gone into labor and that she has a state trooper behind her. He was pulling in behind her when she called.
They ask what number she’s calling from. She’s saying she’s got to get to Idabel, “that’s where my doctor is!”
“I started having my baby!” More crying.
Now the jury hears the 911 call from Jessica Brookes.
“Help me my daughter’s been murdered!” Brookes frantically tells the dispatcher, who asks what happened. Brookes is so distraught it is hard to make out everything she is saying.
“I don’t know! Somebody (unintelligible)…there’s blood everywhere! Oh, my babies! Oh my God!”
The dispatcher tells Brookes that officers are on their way.
Brookes can be heard crying, calling out to her husband Marcus, who went over to the house with her that morning. She is asking him, “Did they hurt her? I can’t do this. My baby, my baby, my baby!”
Jessica is heard asking if Kynlee, Reagan’s 3-year-old daughter, is okay.
“I can’t tell what happened. Did they just hurt her? What did they do? There’s so much blood. There’s so much blood!”
Three minutes into the Kynlee is heard asking, “Where’s mommy?”
The dispatcher hangs up as police arrive. No questions from the defense. People are sniffling.
The jury hears dispatch recordings. Trooper tells the dispatcher the baby is not breathing and that she (Taylor) is doing CPR right now. He tells dispatch where they are. right across from DeKalb Middle School on US 82.
Taylor is heard yelling, “We gotta get to Idabel, there’s where my husband is! I’m not going to St. Michael’s!”
At this point, Taylor was on the phone with 911.
Taylor continues to insist on going to Idabel, not St. Michaels, crying as she pleads with the trooper.
“Please, just put us in your car, I’m begging you!”
“How old is the baby?” the trooper asks.
“The baby is only like maybe 35 minutes old!” Taylor responds.
After playing this recording, First Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards asks the dispatcher on the stand, “Is that the same as someone saying, “I’ve started having my baby?”
“No.”
Meanwhile, the other call is going on simultaneously with EMS. The LifeNet dispatcher asks Parker if the baby was just born. LifeNet dispatch asks a few questions about whether the baby is breathing, or any green stuff in the nose or mouth, and gives her CPR instructions.
Taylor can be heard saying, “Come on Clancy, come on!”
“I’m going to Idabel! Okay then I’ll take myself!” she tells the trooper. “I refuse to go to St. Michaels. I don’t want to go to St. Michael’s I want to go to Idabel. My husband’s in Oklahoma, please!”
We also hear Taylor’s side of her call to Wade, telling him, “I started having her, I could not drive! I was trying to push a baby out! The ambulance is here!”
The defense asks a few questions, apparently to confirm the timeline of the events during the stop and to confirm there is a video corresponding to this event. The dispatcher confirms there is.
Richards returns for two more questions to confirm that the trooper’s body cam would not have captured everything because it moves with him. so the entire call to Wade would not be captured on it. The dispatcher also confirms sometimes she was crying, sometimes she wasn’t, depending on who she was addressing.
As testimony ends, Taylor sits with her elbow on the defense table, holding her head in her hand.
At this point, the Court recessed for lunch. After the break, the trooper who pulled Parker over that morning took the stand. Continue to check back for updates.
