‘TORE HER OPEN’

Texas Woman Sentenced to Death Over Grisly Womb Scalpel Murder

It took a jury less than two hours to make the decision about the fate of Taylor Rene Parker.

A Texas woman who killed her friend and then kidnapped her unborn child was sentenced to death Wednesday after juror deliberations lasted less than two hours, TXK Today reported. Six men and six women came to the final conclusion on the fate of 29-year-old Taylor Rene Parker, who was found guilty of capital murder last month over the grisly killing of 21-year-old Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock and her infant daughter in New Boston on Oct. 9, 2020. Parker attacked Simmons-Hancock with a hammer and stabbed her more than 100 times before using a scalpel to remove the baby from the womb. Parker, who could not conceive after a hysterectomy, faked her own pregnancy for 10 months prior out of fear her boyfriend would leave her, prosecutors said. She even had a gender reveal party and wore fake pregnancy suits. After the murder, Parker was pulled over by a state trooper for speeding and erratic driving and claimed she’d just given birth. The baby was subsequently taken to a hospital in Oklahoma but was pronounced dead. “My baby was alive, still fighting for her babies, when you tore her open and ripped her baby from her stomach,” Simmons-Hancock’s mom, Jessica Brooks, said in a victim impact statement before the jury deliberated, according to the Texarkana Gazette.