In Part I, we left off with Taylor Rene Parker, 29, receiving the death penalty in November 2022. Taylor was charged with the murder of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock, and for kidnapping her unborn fetus. The crimes occurred on Sunday, October 9, 2020, the same day of Taylor’s scheduled induction. She was nearly 10 months pregnant.
Well, that appointment was a big problem for Taylor, because she wasn’t pregnant and never was.
It’s hard to imagine what might provoke a 29-year-old, twice-divorced woman and mother of two to fabricate a third pregnancy with a man she barely knew. But in February 2020, Taylor did just that and told Wade she was pregnant—for the second time. The first pregnancy announcement was only weeks after Taylor and Wade started dating—and that was a lie, too.
What’s more, is Taylor didn’t have custody of the two children she already had. By many accounts, she was especially neglectful towards her son, her youngest child. So, why a third?
As we’d come to find out, Taylor wasn’t after the prospect of another baby or experiencing motherhood for a third time. She only wanted Wade. A master manipulator, Taylor created fake scenarios to present herself as a totally different person. She wanted Wade to find her utterly irresistible, so he would never leave her.
And she was willing to do anything to keep him around, including murder.
Bottled Blonde Meets Country Boy
On Thursday, July 25, 2019, a typical humid summer’s day in East Texas, Taylor met Wade Griffin, 27, at a rodeo. The Annual Naples Rodeo & Watermelon Festival, held at the Naples Rodeo Club, is a big to-do in Texarkana. Then in its 81st year, the event features barrel racing, steer wrestling and team roping, along with a king and queen crowning and mounds of fresh and delicious watermelon.
The rodeo was held three weeks after Taylor divorced her second husband, Hunter Parker. She was officially single and ready to mingle. And that’s when she ran into Wade, a tall, burly, red-haired country boy.
Wade worked hard and long hours. Never married and without children, he had a reputation for being a hard worker and an all-around good guy. Wade was a roofing supervisor, and he also bought and sold wild hogs to a meat-processing plant. He lived in a modest cabin in Simms, a small town in Bowie County that’s home to some 1,400 residents. He enjoyed a simple, quiet life.
Wade had no idea what he signed up for when he met Taylor.
Where Control Meets Psychopathy.
Every relationship is different…obviously.
Some people are slow to warm up to each another, while others jump headfirst into intense, can’t-live-without-you romances seemingly overnight. Over the course of our lives, some of us will experience both kinds of relationships—from the perspective of others as well as our own. Taylor has a tendency to rush, but Wade didn’t reciprocate fast enough for her liking. So, she manipulated everything about their relationship from the start, without giving it a fair chance to grow.
Less than a month into dating, Taylor decided she wanted to live with Wade. She decided, because he wasn’t allowed much input at all. Instead of them of making a shared decision, Taylor fabricated a completely outlandish story to manipulate Wade into inviting her to stay. She gave him no choice. And what do you know—it worked.
It was the first of many lies she told and continues to tell.
Making Her Mother The Villain.
Theatrically, which is typical of Taylor’s behavior, she told Wade she feared for her life. She explained that her mother, Shona Prior, hired a hitman to murder her. Shona wanted to access a bank account in Taylor’s name—that had $6 million in it.
Having Taylor killed was the fastest way for Shona to get ahold of the money, she said.
Here’s the story Taylor told Wade:
Taylor explained that her family owned a significant amount of oil-producing land throughout Texas. Her family leased their land to companies and collected weekly royalty checks from theses oil and gas leases. The money accrued from the royalty checks made-up her family’s multi-million-dollar fortune.
Recently, Taylor’s grandparents transferred $6 million to her bank account. Taylor’s grandparents wanted her to maintain a property known as Nolan Place, which they could no longer maintain themselves. The large sum of money was exclusively to upkeep Nolan Place.
Distraught over not having access to the account, Shona hired a hitman to murder Taylor. Just in time, Texas police caught up with the hired hitman and a shootout ensued between him and the Mexican Mafia. Shona was arrested and jailed, where she committed suicide while awaiting trial. The crimes weren’t covered by local media because it was “under wraps,” Taylor said.
None of this was true.
There was no family fortune. There is no oil-producing land, leases or royalty checks. Shona did not hire a hitman to murder her daughter. Taylor’s mother was completely oblivious to all the slanderous lies her daughter said about her.
Holding On By A Thread.
When Wade’s mother, Connie Griffin, learned Taylor didn’t have custody of her own kids, it rubbed her the wrong way. She and many others wondered, why? What happened?
What happened, is that Taylor is pathological. She lies and lies, and then creates more lies to backtrack out of lies. She uses these lies to emotionally enrapture the people around her and garner control over them. As they say, there’s nothing like a mother’s intuition, and Connie was spot-on about there being something “off” about Taylor.
Not long after Taylor lied about her and Wade’s first pregnancy, she lied again and claimed to suffer a miscarriage. Taylor felt the “experience” brought them closer together.
Because of Wade’s busy schedule, he wasn’t home too much. When he was home, he expressed little interest in Taylor’s drama, personal and family-related. He didn’t know her for long, so he trusted her that Shona, Taylor’s mom, was “crazy.” Whenever something went wrong, Taylor seemed to connect it back to Shona. Besides, why would Taylor lie about something so ridiculous?
In the beginning of their relationship, Taylor was a decent houseguest. She made herself constantly available to Wade, after all. While he worked, Taylor cared for his property and livestock. He looked forward to steamy, home-cooked meals that she prepared every night for dinner. He thought she was one of the best cooks around.
A Crisis Waiting To Happen.
Try as she might, Wade wasn’t in love with Taylor. While she was head-over-heels, Wade was hardly invested. He told his mother he cared for Taylor, but he didn’t love her.
Connie wasn’t happy to see her son settling, but he cruised along. Taylor fed Wade promise after promise of land, lucrative business opportunities, a family estate, after all. Eventually, the news came of “another” pregnancy. Wade stuck around to eventually find himself “stuck” with Taylor.
As time wore on, Taylor felt the space growing between her and Wade. It rattled her nerves. Taylor’s constant drama turned Wade off from the relationship and from Taylor in general. He wanted to disengage.
Taylor complained to Wade about their lack of intimacy. Despite her pleading, he still hardly reciprocated . So, you can imagine Wade was less than enthused when Taylor turned up pregnant “again” in late February 2020.
A Fake Pregnancy And No Intent To Come Clean
Taylor told friends, family, Facebook followers and Wade that their baby was due September 28, 2020. As the date drew closer, she announced they were having a girl they’d name Clancy Gail.
Physically, Taylor progressed in her pregnancy as well—which was yet another lie.
Taylor wore maternity clothes and regularly posted detailed updates about her pregnancy on Facebook. In these posts and to whoever asked, she shared sonogram photos of her growing baby; fake images she purchased from fakeababy.com. She customized the baby’s gender and gestational period, as well as the clinic and physician’s name.
To dissuade growing suspicions, Taylor ordered a silicon pregnancy belly from that same website. She wore it during her and Wade’s maternity photoshoot in August of 2020, and also for her gender reveal party and baby shower.
Conveniently, because Taylor was “pregnant” during the pandemic, she met with her doctors alone while Wade waited outside. No one accompanied her due to coronavirus safety precautions. Privacy laws, like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), also kept everyone, including Wade, from accessing her medical information. He called the OBGYN for updates with no such luck.
Obviously Taylor’s OBGYN doctor knew she was faking a pregnancy, and office staff assumed she would claim a miscarriage. Her family did, too. Taylor was ballsy enough to invite her doctor to her “gender reveal” party, despite her knowing the truth. The OBGYN office eventually discontinued their patient-provider relationship with her.
Taylor’s due date came and went, and all eyes were on her to explain herself or turn up with a baby. She was unwilling to sacrifice her pride, worried she could lose Wade. Taylor was determined to preserve her relationship; it was more important to her than anything else.
An Ex-Husband’s Ominous Warning.
Taylor’s first husband, Tommy Wacasey, with whom she shares a son, learned Taylor was “pregnant.” He knew without communicating with Taylor, that it was a lie. He texted Wade to warn him about Taylor’s tendencies.
Her ex told Wade that area hospitals were on “high alert,” because of concern that Taylor might attempt to kidnap a newborn from a maternity ward.
He told him something else, but keep reading to find that out.
A Plan For Murder.
On the day of Taylor’s scheduled delivery, she unfriended her mother from Facebook, as well as Homer Hancock, the husband of Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock. But it was three days before that, on September 14, 2020, that Taylor’s internet search history revealed her premeditated plan.
Scouting Her Victims.
On this Monday, Sept. 14, Taylor searched the web for local places that pregnant women frequent. Results turned up for maternity consignment stores and OBGYN clinics throughout East Texas and Shreveport, Louisiana. Taylor made appointments at these clinics and was seen both outside and inside. At some of the clinics, she sat outside for a time, observing pregnant women come and go.
Taylor wrote down the license plates of these women and later searched them in Google to locate their addresses. Less than 10 days before the murder of Reagan Hancock, she looked up teen pregnancy support groups in Texarkana and allegedly attended a meeting.
Fortunately for investigators, Taylor used her phone for all her research. These searches helped incriminate her.
Taylor’s phone revealed searches for information on midwifery certification and private adoptions. While deciding on a plan, it’s believed Taylor considered posing as a midwife to gain access to a newborn. She also searched for instructions on how to complete an out-of-hospital birth certificate, and watched YouTube videos on vaginal and C-section births. Some of the videos discussed performing C-section deliveries and delivery of the placenta.
On October 7, Taylor searched Reagan’s current and former addresses, and the address of Reagan’s OBGYN office. On the morning of October 9, she looked up information about giving birth vaginally at 35 weeks and also how to perform a physical exam of a 35-week infant.
And she kept going, despite all the evidence she left in her wake.
Arson And A Bomb Threat.
Remember, Taylor’s due date was scheduled for September 28, 2020, but she didn’t “give birth” on this day. She had to think fast to find an excuse to prolong her birth.
So, she started a fire in Wade’s home.
The fire on October 5, 2020 caused pipe damage, which prevented the home from having running water or power. Fortunately, State Farm, Wade’s home insurance, hired a fire analyst to investigate the origins of the fire. The analyst determined the fire was not electrical, as originally believed, but it was intentionally set using a lighter. Investigators ultimately connected Taylor to the arson.
The following day, Taylor was scheduled to be induced again, but couldn’t because someone called in a bomb threat to Titus Regional Medical Center in Mount Pleasant, Texas, around 5 am. That “someone” was obviously Taylor, but the false alarm required hospital staff to evaluate more than 100 patients. She used a voice-changing app to disguise her voice by sounding masculine.
And If That Isn’t Enough…
What makes this case even crazier, is that Taylor couldn’t pregnant, even if she wanted to. Taylor worked at an OBGYN clinic in 2014, and not long after she gave birth to her son, she had her tubes tied. A subsequent and unrelated medical complication resulted in Taylor having a full hysterectomy in 2015—and other people were aware of this, like Taylor’s entire family.
In August of 2015, Taylor received care for pelvic pain and bleeding. The doctor found that Taylor suffered an ectopic pregnancy, and that she also had endometriosis. Because of the condition of her uterus, the doctor suggested a full hysterectomy for her safety and wellbeing. While Taylor was still under anesthesia, Shona allegedly gave the doctor permission to perform the hysterectomy. Taylor blamed her mother for years, but she voluntary underwent a surgery in 2014 to have her tubes tied.
This is the information her ex-husband, Tommy, relayed to Wade via text. Wade didn’t believe him.
Stay tuned for Part III, where we delve into Taylor’s financial frauds against Wade and the trouble she stirred with her own employers.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to read Part I of this case coverage, here.