NEW BOSTON, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) – The State has rested its case in the penalty phase of the Taylor Parker capital murder and kidnapping trial in Bowie County.
Parker was convicted on Oct. 3 and prosecutors wrapped up one day into their fourth week of presenting their case that Parker should face the death penalty for the murder of 21-year-old New Boston mother Reagan Hancock and the kidnapping of her unborn baby, Braxlynn Sage.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and spent the morning laying out the differences in security between life in prison for Taylor Parker and life on death row, pointing to the litany of bad behavior and criminal acts committed by Parker since her arrest that they have established over the last week of testimony.
That has included attempts to frame a fellow inmate for the murder, possession of contraband, manipulating, threatening, and bullying corrections officers and jail staff into allowing violations of security protocols, and a history of faked sick calls.
They say life in prison would give Parker too much opportunity to scheme and sew chaos in jail, as she has since she has been in custody at the Bi-State Detention Center in Bowie County.
“These are all things the jury has heard evidence on that Taylor Parker has while she’s in ad seg,” Crisp asked Texas Department of Criminal Justice Director of Classification and Records Timothy Fitzpatrick. “If a person cannot be controlled in seg, what are the chances of that working out in the general population?”
“If its happening in administrative segregation, that would only be compounded in gen population. Gen population provides more time, more access to more people. It’s my opinion that would only compound and make things egregious or worse.” Fitzpatrick said.
Unlike death row, Parker would be housed with other inmates in the general population if she gets life in prison. She would be able to form friendships, new romantic relationships, possibly get job, and establish a life inside the prison.
While an inmate’s charges are taken into consideration in the process of classifying the level of security for each inmate, the state also takes into account each inmate’s disciplinary history at the county jail they are coming from.
Crisp said the State has proven Parker committed several felony offenses during the trial, but they have not resulted in convictions. Those offenses have included arson and terroristic threats. But Crisp established through Fitzpatrick’s testimony that the TDCJ would be able to see all that because she has not been convicted on those extraneous crimes and there is no disciplinary history in her records at Bi-State, where they are short-staffed and Parker has managed to get others in trouble – including jailers – but avoided discipline herself.
That means Parker would enter the Texas prison system at a level that would allow her even more time to cause similar problems if she were to get life in prison and end up in the general population.
“It would have to be something egregious for us to start the individual at a higher level of custody coming into TDCJ.”
Female death row inmates are housed in the Texas state prison system at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville. If sentenced to life in prison without parole, Parker would be housed at a separate women’s unit in Gatesville but have far more opportunities to move around and socialize.
The trial recessed briefly after the State rested just after 2:30 p.m. The defense is expected to begin presenting its case when the trial resumes Monday afternoon.
