NEW BOSTON, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) – Taylor Rene Parker, 29, faces the death penalty following her conviction on charges of capital murder and kidnapping last week in the October 2020 death of 21-year-old Reagan Hancock and the kidnapping of her unborn child, Braxlynn Sage.
Parker was convicted on Monday after 13 days of testimony at trial in Bowie County. Prosecutors have said they are seeking the death penalty due to the heinous and pre-meditated nature of the crime and because Parker showed no remorse.
The following is a summary of testimony in each day of the trial, with links to the full stories, starting with Day 1, when the State and Parker’s defense team gave their opening statements.
Prosecutors told the jury that Parker pretended to be pregnant and schemed to find a baby to claim as her own, not because she wanted one but because she was desperate to keep her then-boyfriend. The mother of two was unable to bear any more children of her own after having her tubes tied and a partial hysterectomy long before she met Wade Griffin.
Parker’s defense attorney spoke briefly, simply imploring the jury to listen carefully and follow the law.
During the first day of testimony, prosecutors brought several witnesses to the stand, including the OBGYN who performed Parker’s tubal ligation and partial hysterectomy in 2014, who established that Parker was unable to become pregnant and bear children. The jury also heard from her former best friends, former co-workers, and her ex-husband about lies they said only grew bigger when she was called out on them.
Testimony on the first day of the trial wrapped up with a Texas DPS special investigator who obtained Taylor Parker’s Facebook data, which showed her connection to the victim on the social media site and messages they exchanged.
Testimony on the second day of the trial detailed a mountain of evidence showing just how far Taylor Parker was allegedly willing to go to fake her pregnancy and come up with a baby in time for her purported due date.
Texas Department of Public Safety Special Agent Dustin Estes returned to the stand, continuing his testimony for Monday afternoon, diving into Parker’s social media posts and interactions, Google searches, and YouTube views.
Jurors also heard from Texas Rangers Lt. Jared Brown, the digital forensics expert who analyzed data in the case. He testified that, in addition to trying to contact Reagan two days before the murder, Parker used VOIP apps to fake conversations with her grandmother and her aunt, which she would then screenshot and send to her boyfriend to back up her deceptions. She would then delete the conversations from her phone in an apparent attempt to hide the evidence.
On day three of the trial, prosecutors continued to build their case against Parker with testimony and evidence showing she was not only capable of running a big con but bold about it. On the stand, the real estate agent detailed his involvement in the $20 million real estate deal Parker attempted to pull off despite only having an office job and how he saw red flags but continued to try to verify she had the funds.
Jurors saw evidence showing how Parker posed as bank and oil company account managers, fabricated wire transfers, and had fake checks printed for millions of dollars. Jurors also heard from Angela Pate, who became friends with Parker and was married to her boyfriend’s boss at the roofing company where he worked. Pate testified about how she got to know Parker and about the bizarre events that followed, including a convoluted murder-for-hire plot that had her and her husband in fear of for their own safety. She also testified about how Parker seemed far more invested in her relationship with Wade Griffin than he was.
On day four, the prosecution made a point to remind the jury that the woman accused of killing Reagan Hancock and cutting her unborn baby from her womb was found competent to stand trial. This came after Parker’s defense attorney, Jeff Harrelson, asked Parker’s ex-husband, Tommy Waycasey, whether she ever had a mental evaluation.
By this point in the trial, Parker’s defense team had not denied even the most outrageous of the lies and schemes detailed in testimony. Instead, they questioned how anyone believed them. The defense also questioned why no one contacted law enforcement if they suspected Parker was faking her pregnancy.
Wacasey testified about the decision he had to make to go ahead with a partial hysterectomy when his then-wife was on the operating table for surgery on an ovarian cyst. He talked about how upset she was when she woke up and found out about it.
Wacasey also testified that he sent an anonymous text to warn Wade Griffin in January 2020 after learning she was claiming to be pregnant. He didn’t want Parker to know it was him because it would have made his life difficult.
Jurors also heard from Texas DPS Lt. Andrew Venable, who followed leads and evidence uncovered by search warrants on Parker’s devices and financial records. Venable testified that the seemingly incredible fabrications detailed in previous testimony that include a bogus $20 million real estate deal and a supposed murder-for-hire plot arranged by Parker’s mother did not even begin to scratch the surface of the schemes Parker had orchestrated.
Jurors also heard from Wade Griffin’s former co-worker and close friend, who also says he tried to tell Wade something wasn’t right about Taylor’s pregnancy. Cody Ott and his wife hosted the couple’s gender reveal, despite their reservations.
A former co-worker at the Northeast Texas Women’s Health Clinic in Mount Pleasant, where Parker had previously been a patien,t also took the stand and testified about the day Parker came into the clinic looking for a copy of her medical records and claiming she had a mass in her abdomen that had a heartbeat. She said her doctor wanted to do a biopsy to determine whether it was viable.
Suzie Ramirez said she knew that was impossible, but did not question it. She said the clinic staff knew Parker had a hysterectomy and could not be pregnant, but they could not call her out because of patient privacy laws. Instead, the clinic warned the hospital. Still, Ramirez says she and others at the clinic thought it was more likely to end the way they had seen other fake pregnancies end: with a fake miscarriage.
Wade Griffin‘s mother also testified on the fifth day of the trial, telling the jury that there were red flags early on in the relationship between her son and Taylor Parker and that she tried to talk to her son about the possibility that Taylor might not be pregnant. She said he did not want to listen.
Connie Griffin also testified about the couple’s relationship and the big spending the couple was doing in anticipation of millions of dollars coming in from family oil and gas money, only for the checks to bounce. Among other things, Parker “bought” Griffin a car as a surprise, only for the car to be reposessed. She also testified about getting caught up in Parker’s lies to her son about paying bills.
Connie Griffin continued her testimony on the sixth day of the trial, growing tearful as she testified about how she doesn’t know what more she could have done about her suspicions that Parker was faking her pregnancy. She said she even considered hiring a private investigator to bring evidence to Wade but ultimately decided to back off and preserve her relationship with her son. But she says she did confront Wade once more in the week leading up to the murders and all but directly accused Taylor of faking the pregnancy.
Jurors also heard from the Mount Pleasant Police Department investigator who connected Parker to the bomb threat and a forensic fire investigator who determined the fire under Wade‘s house had been intentionally set.
Also taking a stand were employees of an OB/GYN clinic in Paris Texas, more than an hour away from where Parker lived in Simms. The clinic employees testified about the day on Sept. 30, 2020, when Parker came in for a new patient appointment and broke down in the lobby, claiming her mother couldn’t make it and that her husband had died in the military.
Later, the clinic employees say they saw Parker still outside the back entrance to the clinic. Prosecutors say she was looking for pregnant women to target.
Jurors also heard from two former employers, both of whom described thinking they’d hit the jackpot with her hire, only to later find that her performance did not live up to expectations.
Frantic 911 calls from both Taylor Parker and Jessica Brookes from the morning Reagan Hancock was brutally murdered were played in court on the seventh day of the trial, following a series of witness testimony placing Parker at a gas station less than two miles from the crime scene just before Reagan Hancock was killed.
Jurors also watched police bodycam and dashcam video from the traffic stop where Parker was pulled over on the morning of the murder with the baby prosecutors say she cut from Reagan’s womb lifeless in her lap.
In all, 11 people took the stand on the seventh day of the trial, including paramedics and an employee of the nearby middle school who stopped to help give the baby CPR after Parker was pulled over. She testified to helping Parker wipe the blood from her face and feet.
Neighbors also testified about what they saw on the morning of the murder, helping establish the timeline that prosecutors presented to the jury. One neighbor’s mother went so far as to go into the garage and knock on the door, which was not fully latched and opened slightly as a result. She closed the door quickly, unaware of the horrific scene inside.
Homer Hancock was the last to take the stand on the seventh day of the trial, choking up at times as he recounted his life with Reagan, how excited they were about her pregnancy with Braxlynn Sage, and his desperate attempts to get in touch with his wife on the morning of her murder before learned she had been brutally murdered.
Reagan Hancock‘s mother took the stand on the eighth day of the tria. Over 30 minutes of heartwrenching testimony, Jessica Brookes spoke tenderly of her daughter as she talked about how close they were and how they talked every day, and how she discovered the grisly scene on the morning of her daughter’s murder.
Reagan’s stepfather also testified, along with his best friend, who helped the devastated couple find their frightened granddaughter hiding in her bedroom and carried the child out with a blanket over her head to keep from seeing anything else.
Jurors also heard testimony from the paramedics who attended to Reagan’s baby and to Taylor Parker after she was pulled over in De Kalb less than an hour before Reagan’s body was found.
Jurors viewed photos from the crime scene and heard from the paramedics and investigators about how they put the pieces together to connect the horrific scene on Austin Street in New Boston with Taylor Parker’s supposed roadside birth. They also heard from the ER nurse who tried to assess Parker at the hospital, believing she had just given birth.
On day nine of the trial, jurors viewed detailed photographs of Parker‘s bruised body and bloodied hands following her arrest and heard testimony from an expert in call detail records and geolocation analysis who said Parker’s travels and search activity intensified in the three weeks leading up to the murders in what prosecutors say shows a clear pattern of planning and intent, specifically after Wade got that anonymous warning that hospitals were on alert that Parker might try to take a baby.
Crime scene expert Det. Kevin Burkleo said he believes Parker did a “trial run” the day before the murders. He also testified that both Parker’s primary phone and her burner phone moved away from the scene of the crime on Austin Street around 9:14 a.m., along with Reagan’s phone. That phone has never been recovered.
The jury also heard from the nurses and doctors at McCurtain County Memorial Hospital, who determined that Parker had not just given birth, and EMS and emergency room personnel continued their efforts to save baby Braxlynn’s life.
On the tenth day of the trial, an expert in crime scene reconstruction testified that what he saw at the scene of Hancock’s murder indicates she was beaten and stabbed in four or five areas of the home before she bled out on the living room floor.
Texarkana Texas Police Department crime scene investigator Marc Sillivan walked the jury through photos from the crime scene, testifying that Hancock’s death was not quick and that she fought hard for her life. Jurors also heard from the medical examiner who conducted Reagan Hancock’s autopsy, who detailed the extensive cuts, scrapes, bruises, and blunt force trauma Hancock suffered in the attack.
Jurors heard for the first time from Taylor Parker herself as they watched videos of Parker’s interviews with police. In those interviews, Parker claimed Reagan was badly hurt when they got into a violent physical confrontation and that Reagan begged her to take the baby because she was afraid she was dying.
Texas Ranger Josh Mason testified that he did not find Parker’s claims believable and that she told “wildly different stories” over the course of five hours in two separate interviews.
Earlier in the day, Hancock’s OB-GYN took the stand and testified that Hancock was about eight months along and that the pregnancy was progressing normally at the time of her death. Dr. James Scales told the jury that there were no signs of anything wrong with the baby.
The man prosecutors say Taylor Parker faked her pregnancy to keep took the stand on the twelfth day of testimony in her capital murder trial. Wade Griffin described his relationship with Taylor Parker as an “emotional rollercoaster” and acknowledged all the red flags he either missed or ignored over the course of their relationship.
He testified about how she had him convinced she was pregnant for more than ten months before she was arrested on the afternoon of the murders and described what happened when he arrived at the hospital and was greeted by police.
Jurors on Thursday also watched Parker’s first interview with police while she was still in the hospital just before her arrest. Her version of what happened on the morning of the murder was different from what she later told investigators in follow-up interviews.
As soon as testimony wrapped up for the day Thursday and the State rested its case, Parker’s defense attorney asked the judge to throw the charges out, arguing the state failed to prove the baby was actually “born” and, therefore, a “person” as defined by Texas law. The judge denied the request and the defense rested its case without bringing a single witness.
During closing arguments on day 13 of the trial, prosecutors summarized the mountain of evidence jurors saw over three weeks of testimony that they said proves Taylor Parker is a liar, master manipulator, and an “actress of the highest order,” who plotted and intended to kill Reagan Hancock and take her baby.
Parker’s defense attorney spoke for a total of eight minutes in his closing arguments, reminding the jury of the definitions he told them at the beginning of the trial would be important and explaining how Texas law defines a person when it comes to kidnapping.
“For kidnapping, it’s a human being who has been born and is alive. It’s our position that you can’t kidnap someone unless you’ve been born and alive.”
Harrelson asked the jury to acquit Parker and find her guilty of murder, asking them to “take the evidence you heard and filter it and follow this law as the judge has given you” and apply the law “even if you don’t like it.”
The jury did not buy that argument and deliberated for less than an hour before returning a unanimous guilty verdict.
Now that Parker has been found guilty, the trial will enter a second phase with the same jury that will include testimony meant to aid the jury in determining whether she should receive a death sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Parker opted not to testify in the guilt or innocence phase of the trial but could take the stand during the penalty phase if she is convicted. That phase of the trial is expected to begin October 12 and it is expected to last two to three weeks.
