This woman killed a pregnant woman to steal her baby: "The pain when she began to cut the abdomen must have been indescribable"

By The Associated Press via

A Texas woman was convicted of murder Monday for killing a pregnant woman to steal the baby she was carrying and faces a possible death sentence for that crime.

A jury in Bowie County, in the northeast of the state, deliberated just an hour before convicting Taylor Rene Parker, 29, guilty of the October 2020 murder of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, 21, and the kidnapping of the daughter who was ripped from her womb and who later died.

Taylor Rene Parker. Bi-State Detention Center via AP

The verdict of the jury, made up of six men and six women, came after three weeks of testimony, which was sometimes hair-raising.

Parker's attorneys argued the baby was never alive and asked that the kidnapping charge be dismissed, which would have lowered the charge to capital murder.

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“That's why we spend so much time on definitions in opening statements.

You can't kidnap a person who wasn't born alive,” Jeff Harrelson said in his final address to the jury.

Prosecutors noted, however, that several medical professionals testified that the baby's heart was beating when he was born.

“We have methodically exposed what she did, why she did it, all the moving parts and all the collateral damage.

The best proof the state of Texas has that the baby was born alive is that Parker said she wasn't," prosecutor Kelley Crisp said.

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Her colleague Lauren Richards recounted all the lies that Parker told different people, including faking a pregnancy.

“Over the last two weeks, the evidence has never been clearer,” Richards told the jury, “she is a liar, a manipulator, and now she will be held accountable for it.”

Parker was unable to get pregnant after undergoing an operation to remove her uterus known as a hysterectomy, according to Fox News.

According to prosecutors, she faked a pregnancy so her boyfriend wouldn't leave her and watched multiple videos of premature births at 35 weeks, which was Simmons-Hancock's gestation time when she was killed. 

In addition, he told those around him that they would induce labor on the day he killed Simmons-Hancock.

When the day came, he hit the victim's skull several times with a hammer, inflicted countless cuts on her and stabbed her more than 100 times before removing her baby from the womb with a scalpel.

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"The pain that Reagan must have felt when Taylor began to cut into his abdomen, from hip to hip ... is indescribable," Richards said.

“When Taylor took the baby and Reagan was still alive, that's when Taylor started cutting and slashing.

He couldn't let her live.

It was not a quick death.

She kept cutting it.

I guess Reagan wouldn't die fast enough for Taylor to get out of there and get on with her plans,” she stated.

The punishment phase has been scheduled to begin on October 12.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, although jurors can opt for life in prison without parole.