Maternal Instinct subject Taylor Parker is awaiting execution after she was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of her pregnant friend Reagan Hancock-Simmons and Hancock-Simmon’s baby in 2022, and Us can exclusively reveal that Parker has faced disciplinary action while on death row.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed to Us that Parker, 33, got in trouble for sleeping on the prison floor with her mattress. The prison guard who caught Parker said that she disobeyed his order to get up, and her behavior was then noted in the system.
It is not currently clear when the incident happened or how she was punished.
Parker has been incarcerated at the Patrick L. O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where she was transferred after she was sentenced to death in November 2022.
After Parker worked as Hancock-Simmons’ photographer at her 2019 wedding, the two quickly became friends and later bonded when they were both pregnant at the same time. However, Parker was keeping a sinister secret – she was lying about being pregnant with Wade Griffin’s child.
When Parker’s alleged due date on September 22, 2020, came and went, Griffin’s family grew skeptical about her pregnancy.
On October 9, 2020, Parker was at Hancock-Simmons’ home when she killed her friend, cut out her unborn child and fled the residence with the baby. Parker was then pulled over for speeding, moments before she called 911 to claim that she was in labor.
Parker was taken to the hospital, where doctors quickly determined that she had not given birth to the child. In fact, doctors later learned that she wasn’t able to get pregnant because she had previously undergone a hysterectomy.
An officer began questioning Parker, and she was arrested for the murders of Hancock-Simmons, 21, and her daughter Braxlynn Sage Hancock hours later.
Parker was found guilty of capital murder and kidnapping in October 2022 and she was sentenced to death. Her execution has not yet been set, but Parker remains the youngest woman on death row in the state of Texas.
The case has recently re-entered the spotlight after it was featured in Netflix’s June documentary Maternal Instinct. While many of Parker’s victims were included in the project, director Jessica Dimmock explained that the creative team never intended to interview Parker.
“Obviously, Reagan and her family are the most severe and the biggest victims in this, but [there are] other people that she deceived, other people that she hurt along the way, coworkers, former friends,” Dimmock told Oxygen, explaining she wanted the focus to be on the victims.
