Taylor Parker: Part 2, Reagan Hancock, Braxlynn Sage, and the Lie That Collapsed

[00:00:00] Taylor Parker, Assistant Attorney General Engineer David Day Today on the Compendium, we're diving back into one of the most horrific crime scenes Texas has ever witnessed. It wasn't a sudden change in Taylor, it had been building for years. A deception involving fake illnesses, fake identities, imaginary inheritances, and fabricated pregnancies where new lies are created to cover old lies. So up until now, no one had really come to any serious or lethal danger.

[00:00:29] That was until Reagan Simmons Hancock. The scene was horrifying and investigators stepped carefully around pools of amniotic fluid while forensic teams worked to preserve evidence. Oh my God. The 21-year-old's stomach had been cut open and the child she'd been carrying for 35 weeks had been removed from her body. And suddenly, Taylor's version of events? It was never going to stand up before. This is premeditated and pure evil.

[00:00:58] This has got to be the most horrifying case we have ever done on the compendium. 100%.

[00:01:31] Welcome to the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. A weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. We explore strange true stories from the world of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and of course, remarkable people. I'm Adam Cox, your ringmaster for this episode. And I'm Kyle Recy, your popcorn machine whisperer for this week. Why do you need to whisper to the popcorn machines? Adam, just they're so unstable.

[00:02:01] Basically, I'm just there to liaise with the popcorn machines. The ones that are experiencing burnout, the mood swings, the kernel rebellion. You know, I use approved calming techniques. Most of it is inappropriate and sexual. Obviously. Like just encouraging taps and gentle affirmations. Like, you can do this. It's not over for you. And also ritual lid adjustments. Are you trying to encourage the unpopped kernels? Like, come on, you can do this.

[00:02:31] You can pop. Oh, yeah, of course. Did you not know if there's an unpopped corner? It's a psychological barrier that the popcorn machine is having to deal with. Hence why there's unpopped kernels. Cornels? Kernels. Wow, you really make up some shit. I'm just scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I think you've dug a hole through the barrel. So guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us, then the absolute best way to do that and enjoy exclusive perks is to join us over on Patreon.

[00:02:59] Signing up is free and you get next week's episode seven days early. Yes, and for as little as $5 a month, you can become a fellow freak of the show, which will unlock all of our back catalog of episodes. And as we go into season four, coming up very, very soon, we are going to be looking to start offering some exclusive episodes just for our Patreon. So keep an eye out for that. Potentially. Potentially. And now I've actually said it online. And so... You've really got to do it. You've got to pull your finger out. I've actually got to do it. Yeah. But let's be honest.

[00:03:28] The real reason to sign up to become a certified freak or a big top tier member is to get access to our exclusive compendium keychain. So we can always be dangling there near your crotch. That's right. You take the fun out of everything. We say so seductively every week. It's time to shake it up a little bit. All right. And guys, lastly, please follow us on your favorite app. Leave us a review because your support will help us attract new members to the community. And hit the follow button. Yeah. Don't forget that. Yeah. Give it a little tickle. A little caress.

[00:03:59] Okay. So enough of the housekeeping. Because Kyle, today on The Compendium, we're diving back into an assembly of fake pregnancies, a history of lies, one of the most horrific crime scenes Texas has ever witnessed. Yes. Yes. Oh my God, Adam. The end of that last episode about Taylor Parker. I am a little bit disappointed in myself for not seeing that coming. I mean, you did pick up that you weren't really sure about some of the lies that she was spouting.

[00:04:29] Yeah. I was very suspicious of her, but I just did not know that she would go to the point that she would be doing a fetal abduction. Oh my God, that poor woman. So I'm really desperate to find out exactly what this woman's comeuppance is going to be. But the thing is, though, they've also arrested Wayne. So they've handcuffed him at the least. So yeah, God knows what he must be thinking. Because you said that he thought that he was being busted for the delivery of the hogs. Across state lines. Exactly.

[00:04:59] Guys, if you've not listened to the first part of this, then I'd suggest you go back and listen. It is a wild story. By the way, is there a documentary coming? There may be a documentary. I may have jimmied this in between a documentary release on Netflix. Adam, it is going to be massive. We missed the boat completely on the Crash documentary that came out not that long ago. People are still talking about it online. And it's two months later. This is going to be wild and massive. So I'm excited. I'm excited to find out what happened.

[00:05:26] So we're going to explore the motivations behind Taylor Parker's actions. The increasingly elaborate deceptions that convinced friends, family and Wade that she was carrying a child and the moment those lies finally began to collapse. We'll retrace the horrifying murder of Reagan Hancock and her mother's discovery that would send shockwaves across Texas. Yeah, God, what must her mother be thinking? Because she just ended up being just an old lady in the end. Not capable of harassment. Not harassing her daughter. Oh, Taylor's mother. Yes.

[00:05:56] And we're going to be following the investigation as it unraveled. One of the most disturbing crimes we've ever covered on the compendium. Absolutely. And then, Kyle, we're not going to end there. We're going to head into the courtroom because even with the overwhelming evidence stacked against Taylor, Taylor wasn't ready to stop lying. Are you telling me she pleads not guilty? Let's just say she's got a few tricks up her sleeve. God, this woman makes me so angry. Yeah, the nerve.

[00:06:24] Actually, the first part was a bit of a wild ride of all the lies. But actually, this woman, let's face it, she is evil. She is evil. And the thing is, now that we know what she has done, because all throughout the last episode, it was all speculation, right? Is she pregnant? Is she lying? Is she really an heir to this multi-million dollar black fortune? Now that we know that she's lying, I think it gives us license to stop the speculating, put that aside and start hating on this bitch for what she has done. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:06:54] So before we get into the second part of the story, just going to quickly remind ourselves where we left things. Because on October the 9th, 2020, Taylor Parker arrives at hospital in Oklahoma, claiming she had just given birth on a Texas highway. She was covered in blood and a newborn baby girl was in her arms. And at first, everyone believed they were dealing with this traumatic roadside birth. But as doctors began examining Taylor, the story quickly started to unravel because the medical

[00:07:22] staff determined that Taylor had not recently given birth. In fact, she wasn't pregnant at all. Yeah, because that doctor was caught on camera saying, there's no way that baby came out of there. Yeah. Damn. And the baby she brought to the hospital obviously then wasn't hers. And suddenly there's this horrifying question. If Taylor wasn't the mother, then where was the real one? And within hours, investigators had the answer to that question because a young woman named

[00:07:49] Reagan Hancock had been found murdered inside her home in New Boston, Texas. She was just 21, wasn't she? She was, yeah. And her unborn daughter had been taken from her body. And the woman claiming to be the baby's mother had instantly become the prime suspect. Now, ordinarily, that's where most true crime stories would begin. But this case is a little bit different because prosecutors would later argue that what happened in October of 2020 didn't appear out of nowhere.

[00:08:17] It wasn't a sudden change in Taylor just kind of flip the switch. It had been building for years. A deception involving fake illnesses, fake identities, imaginary inheritances, and fabricated pregnancies. And a woman who seemed capable of convincing almost everyone around her that her fiction was reality. That's it. Yeah. She had a propensity for lies and deceit, like nonstop. Sounds like really elaborate stuff as well.

[00:08:46] After we left that episode, the thing that kept coming back to me was after she had told Wade that her mother took her life in prison only to find out that she hadn't killed herself. And then immediately after that, they get invited to Christmas dinner and Wade is meeting the family for the first time. So God knows what he must have been thinking going, like, she's called all this herruck us. She's messed up our lives. The police have said that she's committed suicide. And then they've invited us to dinner. And then she's trying to act as if like, well, why are you not getting involved in the Christmas

[00:09:16] luncheon? Do you know what I mean? What must he have been thinking? Which made me think he's an idiot. But she did explain it. And that's what I mean is she was able to convince him. Exactly. Otherwise. So that shows her ability to deceive. And the thing is, though, as we're about to find out, is that ability to deceive started years and years ago. She had time to basically become a perfectionist at it. Yeah. Pathological liar manipulator. Yeah.

[00:09:42] Now, Taylor, she grew up in Mount Pleasant, Texas with her parents, Mark, Shona and her brother, who FYI is definitely just a regular mom. She's not got a connection with the mafia or anything like that. And at first glance, her childhood looked fairly normal. She did well in school. She played sports, cheerleading, and her parents loved her. Nothing outwardly suggested the person she was going to become. However, multiple people who later spoke about Taylor described her as someone who frequently

[00:10:10] told or exaggerated the truth from a young age. Several former classmates claimed she would invent dramatic scenarios involving illness, family problems, or personal crisis. Now, some of these were quite extreme. And apparently, Taylor had told classmates that she had cancer or that her family had mafia connections. So she was starting that one pretty young. Yeah. But the fact that she was, some people she had cancer, I just cannot get over people that do that.

[00:10:40] Belle Gibson did the same thing. And it's just so infuriating because cancer is an awful thing. And the second you tell someone that you've got cancer, you cannot help but feel sympathy for her because cancer is awful. And so is that what's the motivation behind this? Is it just attention that she's looking for? I think so. So yeah, she would invent these medical conditions to get sympathy, to get, you know, get her way into certain people's lives.

[00:11:06] Witnesses testified that she falsely claimed to suffer from various illnesses, so not just cancer. Now, Taylor's parents eventually divorced. And she later lived primarily with her father while her younger brother remained with their mother. Now, friends and acquaintances later described Taylor as struggling emotionally during parts of her teenage years, including periods of anxiety and low self-esteem. Now, there's also repeated claims from former classmates that Taylor falsely claimed to be

[00:11:33] pregnant on multiple occasions during her school years. Then claimed to have miscarriages. So she is like 16 at this point saying that she was pregnant and had a miscarriage. This girl has got problems. Now, apparently there was another student that was genuinely pregnant. And what Taylor used to do was manipulate the photographs, perhaps using computer software to put her face on this person's body. As a way of bullying or like what was the purpose of this?

[00:12:01] So she could use that image to... But that doesn't make sense. So she's posting these pictures on social media and then she's showing up at school with no belly. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. But this is the kind of thing that she would do. Now, I don't know if it's necessarily she was putting on like a social media. It might have been putting on dating profile. I have no idea. Dating profile. But yeah, like other sites where she's not speaking to her classmates, where she can be like a different person. Exactly. And I think it demonstrates a pattern that she develops early on.

[00:12:29] So by the time that she meets Wade, she knows all the answers just to say she's practiced being pregnant or she has been pregnant. But she's got all this knowledge of faking these illnesses and whatever it might be that, yeah, 10 years down the line, she can just recall stuff off the back of her. Sure. And she's so well versed in just being deceitful. But also probably a pathological element there as well, where she probably doesn't even know that she's lying sometimes.

[00:12:54] And what tends to happen with these people is that do have pathological lying problems is they will just lie for the sake of lying. And then they don't ever want to be called out in the discovery of that lie. And so it just perpetuates and compounds and goes further and further. And so a new lie is created to cover an old lie. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine she has gotten herself into a big titty. I don't believe even no matter how evil she is, I think she even intended to want to go down this route of having to have killed this woman to steal her baby, right?

[00:13:24] It's just a means to an end, something that she had to do in order to cover up her tracks. Yes. And we'll go into other things that she tried to do in order to get a baby before this. Oh, God. Now, one of her first boyfriends is a guy called Tommy and Taylor's just 18. Now, according to Tommy, the relationship moved very quickly in the beginning. They got married early on and Taylor was very invested in him early on. A very obsessed, intense, intense girlfriend.

[00:13:52] But then according to Tommy and others who later spoke publicly about Taylor, the marriage slowly became dominated by financial pressure, medical crisis and increasingly elaborate personal stories. Does this sound familiar? Oh, yeah, very much so. This is exactly what we covered last episode. This was her like practicing ground, I guess. One of the biggest lies involved Taylor's family. She alleged that she came from significant wealth, like generational money. But this time, not from the black syrup fortune, but from Morton Salt Fortune.

[00:14:23] So, yeah, a different company. Morton Salt? We use Morton Salt. So, yeah, apparently she was due a large inheritance because she was part of that family. But, of course, that money never appeared. And so that put a gap between Taylor and Tommy quite early on. Why? Because he was after the money. I think he was promised that there's going to be money coming. And equally, there was this financial burden that was going on in their marriage as well. So it basically is a like-for-like copy of what happened with Wade.

[00:14:53] Yeah, she's got her MO, hasn't she? Yeah. And again, very early on, she was painting a dark picture of her mother to Tommy, saying that she was manipulative, dangerous, controlling, actively trying to sabotage her life. And by her early 20s, Taylor's life had already become complicated. She was already a mother or two. She'd had her first child as a teenager and later had a son with Tommy. Now, it's also reported during this period that Taylor underwent gastric band surgery

[00:15:22] in Mexico and lost a significant amount of weight afterward. Oh, she actually did go through that, so that's not making that up. What was she telling people, though? I don't know what she was telling people at the time, but that apparently was legitimate. And the transformation was quite dramatic. She lost a lot of weight. But around that time, she was diagnosed with legitimate gynecological issues, including endometriosis. Endometriosis, yeah. It's a bit of like a mystery for a lot of doctors. They still don't know what causes it. Sometimes you can also have cysts and stuff on your ovaries.

[00:15:50] But yeah, brutal. I do wonder, though, so when she was in her younger years, was she quite overweight then? And do you think that a lot of the lies and the attention was stemming from a low self-esteem wanting the attention because she was maybe struggling with health issues? Because having gastric band surgery is not something that you just flippantly go and do, right? It would be a last resort because depending on the type of gastric band surgery you get, they could just put a band in there. Sure, that can be reversed.

[00:16:19] But if you get like part of your stomach taken out, that's irreversible. So I'm wondering if a lot of this comes down to low self-esteem. They did say that she did suffer from low self-esteem, particularly after the breakdown of her parents' marriage. So maybe. I mean, that's no reason for the way that she behaved later on. But perhaps that's why she struggled, why she perhaps lies. But I think, you know, people might exaggerate when they're a teenager, but she told some very dark lies, I think.

[00:16:46] And with the problems with her ucerus, this is when she underwent a hysterectomy connected to the complications from that condition. Yeah, and you said it was a partial hysterectomy, right? I think so, yeah. They might have just maybe taken a bit of a fallopian tube out or whatever, or maybe the ovaries, I don't know. But then she did go off to have more children. So was this after she'd had her children? Yeah, she'd already had two children by this point. And then she has this condition, which this one is real. And that's when she has part of her reproductive system removed.

[00:17:15] Sure. So I'm assuming the part hysterectomy is where they probably just left behind the womb, likely. One friendship in particular around this period, which would stand out, is a woman called Caitlin Glass. Now, she had suffered with multiple cirrhosis. And according to Caitlin, Taylor soon began claiming that she had MS as well. Caitlin said that she became suspicious because Taylor always appeared to mirror the same symptoms, experiences and struggle to connect with her own sort of diagnosis.

[00:17:44] And by this point, people around Taylor were beginning to notice a pattern. Not just exaggeration, but this, yeah, this imitation. She would be copying other people, really paying attention to what was going on in their life, and then using that to back up her lies, essentially. So I guess she's got access to these people with these illnesses, but she's also seeing, like the girl that was pregnant in her school, the sympathy and the attention that she was getting, right? And so people can't help but be compassionate. And she probably wants that. I'm wondering whether or not that's something that she's thriving off.

[00:18:14] But in order to fuel that, she's obviously using these people that she is familiar with in real life to get information around their illnesses. Yeah. Also around this time, Taylor becomes heavily involved in a local Jeep club, an off-road community. A Jeep club? Yeah. So something that she had persuaded Tommy to get her, she was like, I really want a Jeep. And so he buys her a Jeep. When they're having financial problems. Exactly. Very responsible. But don't worry, she's got a fortune coming, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's not a problem.

[00:18:44] So I don't know, he still loves her and everything like that. So he gets her this Jeep. And so what that meant is Taylor would go on these Jeep meetups and events and weekend trips around the country. It sounds like she's talking. It does. It really does. Well, she often said that she was attending like nursing school or some kind of medical training during those absences to justify that she was away from the family. Because remember, she's got two young kids at this point. Oh, I see.

[00:19:10] But actually, that was just a cover story because several people later claims that Taylor starts having an affair with other members of the Jeep community. And at this point, she's still married to Tommy, albeit they're probably having issues in the relationship, right? Well, yeah, probably there's a strain with the finance and just maybe he's fed up of some of her lies and stuff like that. But the thing is, she says to other people in the Jeep community that Tommy is controlling and abusive

[00:19:38] to basically justify her behavior with her new set of friends. Yeah, yeah. This is the man that loves her and has just given her a Jeep. Yeah, exactly. And that's how she repays him. Piece of work. He, of course, finds out and not long after that files for divorce, taking primary care of their son. Because let's face it, it doesn't feel like Taylor has really any focus on being a good mother. No, you said at one point she doesn't get custody of this younger boy. Is it Trey is his name? Yes, yeah. So she doesn't get custody.

[00:20:07] And that's because, of course, a court was seeing like, well, actually, you're out on the jollies at this Jeep club dogging. Yeah, exactly. So she's not the, well, is not probably equipped to be the primary caregiver given that Tommy is better suited to this. Sure. And the thing is, this is the complete opposite impression. She always tried to give her partners about wanting children. She was like, yeah, I love being a mother. I love being pregnant. And fair enough, maybe she likes that sort of fairy tale.

[00:20:34] But when it comes to actually doing the work of being a parent, she couldn't really care less. Well, it sounds like she's using these pregnancies anyway, purely just to trap her men, right? It's interesting because at first, Wayne didn't really want the child. He didn't feel like they were in a financial position to have a child, but he did warm up to it. And so while it didn't start out as intended for her in terms of the entrapment, he eventually warmed around to the situation. And he did want to have that kid, didn't he? Exactly, yeah.

[00:21:03] And I think that's what she's using it for here in these instances. I think it's quite hard for someone to leave straight away after they've been told that you're going to be a father. Yeah. And the thing is, she must be picking her men quite strategically as well, knowing that these are men that she could potentially manipulate anyway. So she's probably done maybe a subconscious vetting of these people, knowing that, yeah, I know how to pull their strings. Quite possibly, yeah. And similarly, this was the case with her next husband, Hunter Parker.

[00:21:32] So we haven't gone on to Wayne yet. But according to people who knew the couple, the relationship moved very quickly in the beginning. So again, very, very similar. But the thing is, Hunter wanted to have a family. But we know from this point in time that Taylor was unable to have any more kids. Right, okay. But she didn't tell Hunter that. And he only found out that she had a hysterectomy during a medical appointment when the doctor revealed the condition, which Hunter was unaware of. He was like, what? You never told me about this.

[00:21:59] Yeah, and he is like, I'm heading into a future with you where I see children. And you knew that. And you never said anything. And so that creates this major tension within the relationship. And after that, people close to the couple say Taylor became intensely focused on finding a surrogate. Two of her friends at the time would corroborate this and would testify against her in court. They said just how obsessed Taylor had become.

[00:22:25] Both women said that Taylor had given them a very different explanation for the reason why she had had a hysterectomy. And rather than saying that the procedure was linked to complications from... The endometriosis that she had. Yeah. Taylor claimed that cancer had destroyed her uterus, leaving her unable to have children. So again, she's coming up with this cancer lie. Yeah, I don't know. I can't pretend to understand. Especially when they're so elaborate, right? Cancer just doesn't go away.

[00:22:55] Like you've got to have to go through all this treatment. And as a lie that you're architecting there, that's just way more than I can even be bothered with. Having to like, oh now I'm going to the doctors. Got to pretend I'm taking medication. Got to pretend I've been real sick. What's her line of thinking? I don't get it. I think she used this to speak to her friends, to get sympathy like we know. And then hopefully she was going to be able to then convince them to become a surrogate for her.

[00:23:24] Oh, she's targeting these women to be her surrogates. That's right. Her friends, and she's offering more than $100,000, which of course she doesn't have. But this is what she's offering them to carry a child on her behalf. Molten salt fortune, guys. Molten salt. Both women declined. I think they obviously had sympathy for her, but they were like, we're not going to do that. You know, they wanted to have kids themselves. In fact, one of her friends, Mackenzie, testified that she had struggled to conceive herself. And during that time, Taylor became heavily involved in her fertility journey.

[00:23:53] She attended appointments, checked in constantly, followed every update with just wanting to know what was going on. Yeah. Which is kind of creepy. I mean, it depends though, because we know which angle she's coming from. Because of course, if she's doing this because she genuinely has concern for a friend, that's amazing. But we know she's probably just studying this for whatever she's got cooking up. Yeah. And then when Mackenzie eventually did become pregnant, Taylor was thrilled.

[00:24:20] And when she learned that the baby was a girl, even better. Another friend, Abby. So this is the other friend described a very similar experience. But the thing is, when Abby became pregnant, she found out she was having a boy. Soon as Taylor found out about that, she called off. So she was targeting Mackenzie very specifically because she was having a girl. Oh my God. Because she was trying to get a baby and she wanted a girl. I think so. And I think whether she was going to come up with a plan to fake a pregnancy, but because

[00:24:48] she probably could use the scans and things like that, that she had with her own child. I'm just thinking, was she trying to use some of her own documents and stuff like that to prove she was pregnant, then would fake a pregnancy and then would somehow get the baby from Mackenzie? I'm so sorry, but to come back to it again. How does she think this is going to end? Because yeah, sure, she can go and grab her friend's ultrasound photographs. And the documents and stuff.

[00:25:14] But there's going to come a point where she's going to come to her due date. How is she going to explain that to her partner? Unless she's like dating some moron who doesn't understand how long babies gestate for. Yeah. And so these two women, in hindsight, they felt like they had a very lucky escape. Yeah, you would think so. Especially when the news broke about Reagan. Then another witness, a former co-worker, Lindsay Brown, said that she experienced something very similar.

[00:25:44] Lindsay had previously suffered a miscarriage and had confided in Taylor about the trauma of losing her baby. But during her testimony, she became emotional as she described what happened next. She says that Taylor preyed on her and that as soon as she had lost her baby, Taylor was like, great. Now you can carry a baby for me, essentially. And it's like, that is not the right timing. Gives a woman a chance to grieve. She's just lost her baby and she's probably not going to want to carry yours. Exactly.

[00:26:14] If anything, once that person finally recovers from that trauma, she's probably going to want to try again. Because that's the thing for a lot of women. I think the same thing happened to my sister. When she fell pregnant the first time and sadly lost it, it was decided. She was meant to be a mother. Do you know what I mean? So no way is a woman who's just had a miscarriage going to be like, oh yeah, the next one you can have. Yeah. Twos, dibs. Do you know what I mean? What is she thinking?

[00:26:41] I've reserved 2026 for your baby and then I'll follow up after that. And so with Taylor not being able to get pregnant, not being able to find a child for Hunter because he obviously wanted a family, their marriage starts to fall apart. But not just because of that. Again, because of false promises of inheritance money. Apparently, Taylor does have a story ready. She says that Tim Hightower, a family representative, which sounds like a character from Game of Thrones. Tim Hightower does.

[00:27:09] She claimed Tim Hightower had been involved in a car accident on the way to meet them. With the money. Yep. And somehow she claimed that the money had disappeared in the chaos that followed. Hang on. Is he carrying cash? He's carrying cash. Yes. Okay. Of course, it would have to be cash. So it's like, oh yeah, the money is in his account, but the crash lost the money. They lost the bank account. Some raccoon came in, stole the money. Stole the money. It's crazy. And it's all rhyming, doesn't it?

[00:27:37] It all rhymes with exactly what we know happened with Wayne, right? He got to the point where he was just so worn down by the lies and that started breaking down their relationship. Exactly. And so Hunter is struggling to believe this lie about Tim Hightower. So to reassure him, Tim Hightower, in quote marks, sends Hunter a photograph of a blue duffel bag overflowing with cash. Taylor's like, proof, see, the money was there. And so Hunter's like, that image looks a bit sus.

[00:28:06] So he does a quick Google search and the first image to come up is blue duffel bag with cash. Right, okay. Exact same way that Tim Hightower had sent. Do you think that if this case had happened today in the world of AI generated images, that things would be so much easier for her? She'd be like, oh, I need an ultrasound. Got it. AI generated. Damn. The AI revolution has just enabled a lot of people just like this chick. To be honest, you don't need AI. I'll come on to it. There's a whole website for this. Oh, really?

[00:28:36] Yeah. Damn. Or even like pregnancy peace samples. I don't know about that. That's another website. So eventually the marriage does collapse. Once again, Taylor finds herself starting over. And so that brings us on to Wade. And by this point, we already know much of what Taylor had told him wasn't true. One thing we didn't cover in the first part was the fact that Taylor, she had tried to do a good deed and offered to buy his mother, Connie, a new car.

[00:29:05] At first, it seemed incredibly generous until Taylor started missing the payments. And so suddenly Taylor had an explanation. A raccoon came in and stole the car payment. Well, it was her that was covering the payments, but it was Connie that had the car. And so Taylor's like, the car's got a fault. We're going to have to get it recalled and get it repaired. And so she takes the car to the garage to return it. And Connie's like, weeks go by. Where's my car? And eventually she calls up and says, there's no faults on that particular model.

[00:29:35] What are you talking about? And so this is one of the ways that Connie starts to understand that Taylor is a pathological liar. Sure. She was one of the first people that just kept having these like mini interventions with her son to say like, she's lying. She's probably not pregnant. But where did she say the car was? Like surely it's gone back to be recalled only to come back later on. But it just never did. No, because it got repossessed because she kept missing the payments. Ah, I see.

[00:30:03] And so by the time prosecutors laid out the full picture at the trial, it became clear that Taylor's deception went far beyond exaggeration or wishful thinking. According to investigators, she used spoofed phone numbers, fake email accounts, fabricated documents and entire fictional personas to support her stories. Wow. If a family member needed to call, someone would be calling.

[00:30:25] And so Taylor Parker would use voice altering software, sometimes apps that would disguise her number to impersonate various people, including members of her family. And if you remember, it was the dad or her dad that broke the news of the first miscarriage to Wade. Yes. And of course, she's had a hysterectomy. So she couldn't have even been pregnant with twins in the first place anyway. Exactly. And Wade didn't find out about this until the trial.

[00:30:52] So it's just, you know, he's learning so much about Taylor. Can you imagine being in trial? Like knowing your wife has done all this stuff and then for that to come out and then you're sitting there in the docks going, what? But I had the phone call. Yeah. And they go, well, here's the software she used. Exactly. Damn. And Wade says that she always had an answer for everything. And more importantly, she had backup paperwork on all of it. The deeper he got into the relationship, the harder it became to separate fact from fiction.

[00:31:22] And because contrary to what people assume, Wade wasn't blindly accepting everything he was told. He did have doubts. His family had doubts. His friends had doubts. And at various points, almost everyone around him questioned some part of Taylor's story. But every time those doubts surfaced, Taylor somehow managed to explain it away. And it's because there's a tug of war there, right? There's a tug of war between obviously logic and fact and what other people are saying. But then also the fact that you love this person. You care about them and you want to trust them as well.

[00:31:52] So I get it. And it's not that Wayne is an idiot. Just Wayne is just a trusting guy. Do you know what I mean? I think so, yeah. And then there was the pregnancy. Obviously, he was excited to be a father at one point. But Wade would say that he did repeatedly try to attend these appointments and be involved in the pregnancy. But there was always a reason why he couldn't because of the COVID restrictions at the time. Exactly, yeah. And in some ways, it was the perfect opportunity to fake a pregnancy.

[00:32:20] Because I doubt Taylor could have ever got away with it for so long had it been any other time. Yeah. And I think maybe she was counting on lucky stars if it wasn't for COVID. And actually, what would probably happen and what probably she was banking on was probably faking a miscarriage at some point. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But the COVID restrictions allowed her to continue on concealing this without too much trouble. Yeah, for quite some time until the end.

[00:32:47] And because he had never experienced a pregnancy before, he only could go off what she was telling him. And as we know, we had his friends or their friends corroborate saying they felt the baby kick. He then would be shown all these bits of documents that would confirm her pregnancy. And then, of course, she looked pregnant. Yet Wade testified that he absolutely had no idea it was a prosthetic belly that she was wearing. Hang on. Hang on. I was going to come to this.

[00:33:14] I thought, honestly, she just gained a few pounds. How can you be intimate with them and not know that she was wearing a prosthetic? This is the bit I can't get my head around because I want to understand Wade. Obviously, he was tricked. He's somewhat of a victim in all of this as well. But I don't understand how he could have not seen that the belly was fake because it's either very realistic. He said when he would touch it, it would feel like a stomach.

[00:33:41] But that also means he wouldn't have seen her naked or half naked for several months, right? Like when she goes to shower. Like what is that arrangement? How did she manage to get away with it? Yeah, do you know what? I'm so reluctant to call Wade an idiot here. There must have been a logical explanation for why. Must be. I don't know. You're sleeping together. Now, doing some research, where can you find one of these bellies, essentially? Great question. Right.

[00:34:10] So one website, it looked like it was geared towards film and TV. So it's very convincing when you look at the pictures. But I imagine that's quite expensive. Yeah. I don't think she's going to be going for one of those. Oh. Where I think she went. And I don't know if it's this site. It was claimed on one source I read. But this site does exist. You can go to it now. It's called fakeababy.com. Can I go there now? You can go there now and you can buy fake ultrasounds, pregnancy documents, and even fake bellies for like $100.

[00:34:40] Now, why would you want to do this? Well, the website says if you want to prank someone. Well, that is a very elaborate prank. Yeah. No. I mean, that's what they say to kind of sell this stuff. Otherwise, it would be very unethical. Yes. If you want to play a joke on your boss or your partner. But if you're coming in with a pregnant belly. Yeah. Let me quickly have a look at this website. fakeababy.com reviews. Interesting. Oh, okay.

[00:35:05] So, I mean, straight away, you can get fake sonograms, 4D fake ultrasounds as well. Personalized fake proof of pregnancy documents. That's what's so crazy. That's wild. But Angela noticed that one of the documents contained the wrong name. How do you explain that? That was a nurse's name. So I think she'd just stolen another person's. Document. Sure. So this is a lot of like documents and ultrasounds basically.

[00:35:31] But in terms of the products that you can get, you can also get things like fake pregnancy bellies for as little as $9.99, Adam. Yeah. But if you look at them, they don't even cover your full waist. There's no way you can. If you were to lift up your top, you'd know that's a fake belly. Yeah, for sure. We can get some fake titties. Don't know what for? Just want them. Yeah. You get the whole package. Yeah.

[00:35:58] And if this is where she was getting them from, then I am. Yeah, Wade's an idiot. I don't know if she did get it from them. But these sites exist. Exactly. Especially with the documents. I'm assuming they would look quite legit, right? No one's going to be inspecting a ultrasound document to go. I think this is fake. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Where's the watermark? And so it just feels like this website was supposed to be a prank. It feels like they are encouraging a certain type of behavior with this, maybe. I don't know. But yeah, very weird.

[00:36:28] So yeah, I think we can say was Wade a little bit ignorant, I guess, or stupid. But the thing is, he would say that when he did doubt her, she would make him look stupid. Almost gaslight him, I guess, by saying, I can't believe you don't believe me. I'm carrying your child. So I think that was her way of making him just really accept anything she said. Yeah, no, I can understand how that coupled with a bunch of other things would be easy to manipulate someone.

[00:36:56] And I guess if you're starting to get excited about the prospect of having a child, I don't know. That's what you're latched on to, isn't it? A bit of blindness there. Yeah. And so some people can say he should have seen this coming. And no way is he worse off than Reagan and her family by any means. But I do think he is, like I said, somewhat of a victim in this. He does incur a lot of debt. He's promised a child. His reputation is actually ruined. He loses his job.

[00:37:23] And no doubt, he probably has a level of guilt over what's happened as well because he didn't identify or stop this from happening, did he? Oh my God, you're so right. I didn't even think about that. I was just about to say you're completely wrong. He's not a little bit of a victim. He is 100% the victim. But yeah, think about the guilt as well. She's gone off. She's killed a woman. Essentially. And a baby. Of course you could have prevented this had you seen through all the lies. Poor Wade. So that, I think we have to be sympathetic to him.

[00:37:53] 100%. Yeah. Now his mother, of course, tried to warn him and confront him about it. And this made him question because for his mom to do this, she must have some point, right? Why would she do that otherwise? And it was the final few days where that confrontation happens, where I think Taylor probably feels that kind of her grip over Wade loosening. And that's when she finally decides to up the stakes and put the final part of her plan into action. She was going to need a baby one way or another.

[00:38:21] So what we're saying is this is less of a premeditated long bubbling thing that she's been planning for like eight months to something that is like, okay, people are expecting me. A, to fake a miscarriage. I cannot let that happen. And also now my partner is losing trust in me. I'm going to potentially lose him. Something drastic is going to need to happen.

[00:38:42] And so this is almost, I mean, it doesn't excuse it, but I wouldn't be surprised if her lawyers then use that as a, well, this wasn't a long bubbling thing. This was a spur of the moment desperation thing that she felt that she needed to do and quickly. We'll come on to whether it was a spur of the moment thing, but I don't know if we can safely say that that was the end goal. That's what she'd be doing. Sure. And she clearly was not thinking no matter what. Like maybe she thought that she'd be able to get her hands on a baby.

[00:39:10] I don't know, through other means like surrogacy. Maybe she could just steal a baby, right? I don't know whether she always thought this was the way. She did steal a baby, but in the most brutal way. I see what you're saying, like go to a hospital and just nab one. Yeah, I think there's probably other options before she perhaps got to this. Yeah. And so by early October, Taylor's due date had already come and gone. And so up until now, most of the damage Taylor had caused had fallen on the people closest to her.

[00:39:35] She had lied and betrayed, but no one had really come to any serious or lethal harm, I probably should say. That was until Reagan Simmons Hancock. Friends describe Reagan as gentle, kind-hearted, hardworking, the kind of person who kept going no matter how exhausted she was. Even at 35 weeks pregnant, swollen ankles and all, she was still working shifts at a restaurant to help support her family. Shame. She and her partner Homer had only recently bought their first home together.

[00:40:04] So back to October the 9th, 2020. And this bit is a bit of a difficult listen. And sometimes I avoid some of these details in other stories, but part of me felt not covering them today. Doesn't really show the severity and the horror and the torture that Taylor inflicted on Reagan. And why the outcome of Taylor is 100% justified, in my opinion. Okay, I'm not sure if I'm ready for this, really.

[00:40:29] So police flooded the Hancock home shortly after Reagan's mother, Jessica, had dialed 911. What happened next was described in court by Reagan's mother. And honestly, it's one of the most heartbreaking parts of the entire case. Jessica says that Reagan's husband couldn't get hold of her that morning. And at first, it didn't immediately feel like an emergency. But something felt wrong enough. So Jessica decided to drive over and check on her daughter herself. And on the way, she stopped at Reagan's daughter, Kinley's daycare.

[00:40:59] Because Reagan would never keep Kinley home without saying anything to her mother. Like if she was ill or something like that. Yeah. And the daycare worker came back and said, Kinley's not here. So immediately, Jessica like, well, something's odd then. Because she would know. So when she arrives at her daughter's house, the garage door was open. And that immediately stood out to her. Because that's never left open. And then she notices blood on the driveway. And at first, she tries to rationalize it. She says that she thought maybe one of the dogs had cut their paw.

[00:41:29] It was something else. She's trying to avoid thinking the worst at this point. But as she got closer, she saw more blood. And then a bloody fingerprint on the doorknob. Inside, she finds Reagan lying face down on the floor. And even though later she says she already knew, she couldn't help to scream for her daughter to respond to her. She stumbles back and she dials 911. And through tears, she screams the word no parent should ever say, someone's murdered my baby.

[00:41:57] Moments later, Reagan's father, Marcus, arrives at the house. And Jessica begs him not to go inside. She didn't want him to see their daughter like that. Well, that's strong, isn't it? Like the mum has witnessed this and she's trying to protect the father. He goes in anyway. And when he comes back out, all he can muster is why. Whilst collapsing on the driveway, clutching his chest. That's awful. There was still another fear hanging everywhere. Because Reagan's daughter was supposed to be in that house too.

[00:42:24] Marcus says that he could hear faint responses coming from deep inside the house. But neither he nor Jessica could bring themselves to step back through the blood-covered living room. Eventually, a family friend forces them through the room and down the hallway. And he finds Kinley hiding under a blanket in a bedroom. She's perfectly safe. But she's asking, where's mummy? Essentially. She knows exactly what's happened. The fact that she's hiding. She's obviously heard the commotion. Or she has gone down and seen and not understood.

[00:42:55] It's awful. That's so heartbreaking. At first, investigators believed they were dealing with just a brutal homicide. But the moment paramedics turned Reagan's body over, the case becomes something else entirely. So at this moment in time, they have no idea that the baby's been abducted. Yeah. Obviously, they assume that the baby's not going to survive. But when they turn her over, they see that the unborn baby is gone. The 21-year-old's stomach had been cut open. And the child she'd been carrying for 35 weeks had been removed from her body.

[00:43:24] The scene was horrifying because blood covered the walls, the furniture, the floor. And investigators stepped carefully around pools of amniotic fluid while forensic teams worked to preserve evidence. Oh my god. How did she even get through all that muscle to do the C-section? Do we know what she used? Did she use a scalpel or did she just butcher her with a knife? She does use a scalpel. Yeah. That's a bit of premeditation right there already. Exactly.

[00:43:53] She's prepared for it. And everywhere investigators look, they see signs that Reagan had fought desperately to survive. Her hands were covered in cuts. There's defensive wounds. There's bruises that line her arms. One finger had nearly been severed completely. Whoever attacked her hadn't just killed her. They'd tortured her. Incredibly, it didn't take long for police to realize they already encountered the person responsible

[00:44:19] because less than an hour earlier, another hospital across state lines in Oklahoma had reported something deeply suspicious. A woman claiming to have given birth on the side of the highway to a premature baby. And now suddenly everything is fitting together. Yeah. Wow. They did this quick then, didn't they? It's a very easy puzzle. Exactly. Yeah. The woman in the hospital bed was Taylor Parker. And the baby she arrived with wasn't hers. It was Reagan Hancock's daughter, Braxland Sage.

[00:44:47] Now investigators rushed to the hospital and confronted Taylor while she lay in a hospital bed pretending to recover from childbirth. At first, she tried to maintain the story, but it quickly fell apart because medical examinations were already confirmed that she was never pregnant. Eventually, Taylor said that she had gone to Reagan's house and she had admitted that there had been a physical altercation. And she admitted she had taken the baby. Yes. But she also has, like I said, an explanation. An explanation.

[00:45:14] She said it wasn't a murder, not a kidnapping, but some kind of tragic misunderstanding because according to Taylor, she had been suffering from migraines and blackouts. What? Which I think we've heard several murderers try and use as a get out of jail kind of card to say, oh, I blacked out. Yeah, I wasn't in control. Yeah. Now she said that Reagan had invited her over to rest while Homer was at work. And then she said everything became blurry.

[00:45:40] She blacked out on the drive over and only vaguely remembered stumbling up the driveway before going in the house, which is obviously very convenient. Now Reagan grabbed her and started shouting at her to wake up. And Taylor claimed there was a bit of a struggle which broke out and then Reagan somehow fell and she was mortally injured. And then came the bit that the investigators, well, found almost impossible to listen to. Because Taylor says that Reagan was dying, begged her to save the baby and was like, cut her out of me.

[00:46:09] But she's got all these defensive wounds on her. And how can you explain that? You can't. Hence why she's being busted, I'm assuming. Exactly. Because Reagan had dozens of injuries. In fact, she had over a hundred stab wounds across her body. What? A hundred? Thirty-nine were concentrated around her head. Her skull had been fractured in multiple places after being beaten with a blunt object. And the scalpel used to cut Braxen from her wound.

[00:46:37] Well, it hadn't been left on the side. It had been stuck back in Reagan's neck. To finish her off, I'm assuming. What an evil woman. And then this bit is the bit that does break my heart. Because the autopsy reportedly found fragments of Reagan's fingernails embedded around the abdominal area near where Braxen had been removed. And it proved that Reagan was actually alive when this all happened because she was fighting back. She was doing whatever she could to protect her baby.

[00:47:07] Oh, I just got chills, Adam. The struggle was so violent that fingernails were torn away in the process. And suddenly, Taylor's version of events, the idea that there was this, I don't know, this panicked attempt to save the baby, it was never going to stand up in court. This is premeditated and pure evil. When the case finally does reach trial, Taylor's defense team didn't really try to argue that the fake pregnancy hadn't happened. Because by that point, there was just so much evidence against her.

[00:47:35] Instead, the defense focused on something else entirely. Her state of mind saying that Taylor was mentally unstable, suggesting that she'd become trapped inside this elaborate world of lies she created. And at times, the defense even shifted blame towards the people around her, questioning why no one had gone to the police if everyone suspected that she was faking a pregnancy. Because we're not accountable. Like, a rational human being would not know that another evil woman like this would resort to these lengths to get hold of a baby.

[00:48:04] No one would even fathom it. Like, we tell stories about true crime all the time. And we got to the very end of that last episode, and I was like, I did not see that coming. Do you know what I mean? Who would ever think that someone would go and abduct a baby from somebody's womb? Exactly. And in fact, faking a pregnancy, that's not illegal, but no one thought this would happen. And she was so convincing about it. That makes me so angry that the defense used that.

[00:48:30] It really bugs me when the defense, like, cling on to these really shitty rubbish excuses when they know they are dealing with someone horrendous. Clearly. And how do you live with yourself? What kind of defense person, clearly dealing with a pathological liar and an absolutely evil human being, would sit there and go, I can defend this woman? I don't know how. It makes me so angry. It makes me sick, actually.

[00:48:56] So the prosecutors, they argued that Taylor believed that she was losing Wade. So she returned to the one thing that had repeatedly pulled him back in, and that was this pregnancy. And only this time, according to the state, she intended to carry the lie all the way through. Wow. Now, prosecutors said that Taylor fabricated a due date, announced the pregnancy publicly, planned a gender reveal, forged medical paperwork, and of course, create all those fake conversations between her and other family members.

[00:49:22] So at this point, a question I'd like to know is, did she fabricate all of that around her intention to take Reagan's baby? Or did she fabricate all of that and then had to find a woman that fitted that? Because remember, I think it's the latter, because remember, Reagan was only 35 weeks pregnant, right? She had delayed her due date by a couple of weeks, probably waiting for the opportunity for Reagan to come closer to term, giving the baby more chance to survive.

[00:49:52] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Others had tried to warn Wade directly, but according to testimonies later presented at trial, every concern was explained away as another attack orchestrated by Shona. And then someone sent Wade a message, an anonymous warning at first, which he dismissed it completely. What was that? Actually, it was Taylor's ex-husband, Tommy. Oh. He had messaged him saying, in fact... Bitch, run!

[00:50:15] Well, he said, I know for a fact that she isn't pregnant and is running out of time, and I'm concerned how far she might go with this. And he also, I think he said, all hospitals are on high alert because she may go to the extent of stealing a child. Yeah. And so I think that was the worst that people were thinking at this point in time in terms of stealing a child from a hospital that's already born. So you said in the first episode that, obviously, we know that Angela knew that she'd had this partial hysterectomy and she was dubious, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:50:43] Then later on, there was an anonymous text that came through, and I initially thought that was that Angela. Was that text, Tommy? That's right, yeah. Wow. And so the prosecutors described that message from Tommy as a pivotal moment in the case because it seemed that Wade had sent a screenshot of that to Taylor saying, I've just got this. And it's not long after that, Taylor begins searching online for out-of-hospital births. Okay, so she, at this moment in time, realizes the walls are closing in and she has to do something.

[00:51:12] So that is the pivotal moment. I think so, yeah. Then came the clinics because investigators later testify that Taylor visited multiple maternity-related businesses in the weeks leading up to the murder, not always for treatment, sometimes just sitting in parking lots, watching pregnant women come and go. And prosecutors believed that by that point, Taylor was hunting for a victim and she'd also been researching how to carry out a C-section. That's awful. It's like slam dunk, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:51:40] And so she eventually settles on someone she already knew, Reagan Simmons Hancock, a woman who trusted her, confided in her and welcomed her into her home. And by the time the trial begins, the defense was like, well, an almost impossible position. There was so much evidence against Taylor, digital evidence, geolocation data, witness testimonies, medical evidence, jail recordings, search histories. Jail recordings?

[00:52:05] We'll come on to that. Fake identities and forged documents. It just painted the same picture. Now, one of the more fascinating witnesses is, of course, Taylor's own mother, Shona. Because throughout her relationship with Wade, she's made out to be obviously this villain. This mobster, crime lord, underground, evil woman. Exactly. And she was the root cause of all the evil and everything that's going wrong in their life. Please tell me she's just like a regular old lady who likes to do flower arranging and cross-stitch.

[00:52:35] As far as I'm aware, yes, in terms of she's just a regular woman. She confirms there's no, like, big family fortune. There's no millions waiting to be released. And Wade is like, aww. Yeah. Interestingly, she does describe years of these fabricated stories and increasingly elaborate lies that Taylor's always said. Yeah, my daughter's a pathological liar. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And Shona insisted that she had been warning people long before Reagan's murder that Taylor was not pregnant herself. How? What do you mean?

[00:53:03] I guess, or she knew about her daughter going under her. Of course. But we didn't hear any of those concerns in the first episode. We knew there were rumors and other people and speculation and stuff like that. People posting online, friends of Taylor saying, we know you're not pregnant. So they may have even spoken to Shona. So it was there. But I think because Taylor had planted the seed that Shona is evil, no one's kind of even listening to her. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. She says that she just figured that Wade would eventually figure it out and that the lie would be exposed.

[00:53:33] The man will eventually figure it out. Wrong! Yeah. And I think, yeah, she put a little too much faith in Wade. And that's the real sort of tragedy. I don't know. It just feels like, I get it. It's concerning. But then there's also sometimes it's not completely your business. But then also you have no idea how far it's going to go. And then also part of these excuses are saying, I figured that Wade would figure it out.

[00:53:56] But it's kind of also passing the buck as well. I don't know. In hindsight, there's probably more you could have done. But then at the same time, you probably didn't realize how far this would go. I think that's it. No one did. And so with this kind of damning evidence, instead of trying to prove that Taylor was innocent, the defense team knew they couldn't do that. What they tried to focus on was keeping her off death row.

[00:54:18] Oh, no! She's facing the death penalty here. I guess she's been tried in, what, Texas or Oklahoma, where she was arrested and they had the death penalty? Yeah, that's right. And to be fair, like the defense's closing arguments apparently only lasted like eight minutes. No. Yeah. Okay. That means there's a slam dunk. She's guilty, right? Pretty much. There's not much that they can do. All they could do is try and not get her. Yeah. Capital punishment.

[00:54:45] The thing is, the defense team tried to challenge like technicalities with the case. Most notably, they said that Braxton Sage had legally never been alive because she was never born. And so therefore you couldn't kidnap a person. That is bullshit. I know. You've literally taken the baby out from his mother and taken it away. Yes. And then doctors also said that Braxton had a heartbeat after being removed from Reagan.

[00:55:11] She was alive. And so the hospital team had tried to work on her for hours. So yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Shitty defense team. Yeah, exactly. So what would it have been if like she had just stolen someone's kidney? I guess you can't get death row for that. They're trying to say that baby Braxton is no different than someone going in, slicing your back open and taking your kidney. That's what they're trying to say here. The fact that's what they're resorting to.

[00:55:37] And Adam, that is so shocking because we're talking Texas and Oklahoma who are probably very anti-abortion. A big Christian population, right? I'm shocked that is the defense that they chose to go down. And I wouldn't be surprised if they are Texas lawyers that deep down inside, they even believe that if they're from that area. Quite possibly. I have no idea. People will just put aside their morals and their ethics aside just to win a case. Guarantee you.

[00:56:07] That's sickening. Yeah. And so going into this trial, because one of the possible outcomes was going to be the death penalty, which you would expect to make Taylor think about her next actions, what she was going to say, what she was going to do. You know, try being good behavior. But according to the jail staff, therapists and inmates, while she was waiting for a trial, Taylor never stopped scheming, even behind bars. She began trying to control the narrative surrounding the case.

[00:56:35] She told different inmates different stories. She said that she had been framed. She claimed that Reagan had attacked her first. And then she says that other people were involved. And at times, she portrays herself as the real victim. And then she also tries to recruit fellow inmates to help her create fake evidence for her trial. Like what? Well, it's bizarre. Apparently, Taylor wrote multiple so-called confession letters, supposedly from the perspective of the real killer.

[00:57:05] And the letters described an alternative version of events involving gangs, kidnappings, drugging, surveillance, and orchestrated all by a fellow inmate that Taylor was in prison with at that same time. She was basically trying to get another inmate to take the fall. This is wild, Adam. What she was doing in prison, did that make it to the courtroom?

[00:57:26] I think it did because what I said earlier, like all the evidence that was stacked up against her, they used this to show that she was still manipulating and trying to orchestrate what was going on. She was saying that there were these gang members like J-Dog, Doughboy, and Kodiak. And there were claims that she had been abducted from the side of the road, forced into Reagan's house, and was made to remove the baby while Reagan begged her to save it. Isn't that shocking? It is so shocking. And it's just so wild.

[00:57:55] This has got to be the most bizarre, most horrifying case we have ever done on the compendium in the three years that we've done it. 100%. Totally. And so prosecutors, they look at the letters and they say there's details in here only the real killer could have known. Specific injuries from Reagan's autopsy. Details about weapons investigators believed were used. Information about evidence missing from the crime scene. And they say that Taylor tried to manipulate, like I said, fellow inmates into helping sell the story.

[00:58:24] One inmate testifies against Taylor asking her to plant a fake suicide note in another woman's jail cell in an attempt to frame her for the murders. So I don't know how she thought she can get away with it. But again, I think it's just her brain that's going like, what do I do next? Yeah. And she's not thinking things through. So let me just get this straight. She got another inmate to plant a suicide letter in another person's cell who she was planning on pinning the murder on. Question.

[00:58:50] Did she even check to see if this person that she was trying to pin this on was even free? I don't. She's like, no, I was right here in my cell. But then it's a suicide letter. So she then needs to follow through. And now she has to get this person to A, kill themselves or kill this person to make it look like it's a suicide. What is she thinking? It's too elaborate. It is, isn't it? It's just... Everything is just so... Far-fetched. That shit crazy.

[00:59:18] At one point, prosecutors said that Taylor claimed she had a Netflix documentary deal waiting for her after the trial, which is sort of true. But I don't think she's getting any money for that. Absolutely not. And finally, prosecutors argued that if she could manipulate people this effectively inside a county jail... Effectively? Effectively? Well, she got people to plant... Yeah. Okay, true. Yes. She's still trying to pull the strings, essentially.

[00:59:40] And if she can do that this well, even though, yes, obviously it's not believable, but she's still doing it inside a prison, she could continue doing it for the rest of her life. And that became the core of the state's argument for execution because she had shown no remorse. She was still a future danger. And it wasn't about what she had done. It's about what she's capable of doing. Yeah. And the fact that, yeah, the lack of remorse, right? It's just, I'm going to keep digging. I will eventually dig myself out of this.

[01:00:10] Exactly. And so whilst the defense begged jurors to believe that Taylor was still human, but just deeply flawed, I don't think any of them bought that because during most of the trial, all they see is this calm, still detached, motionless woman. And so on November the 9th, 2022, that changed. After just over an hour, the jury deliberates and they make the final decision that she's guilty and that she will face death. Wow. So she is on death row.

[01:00:38] And that's the first time that she breaks down. She bursts into tears and her hands are shaking. And I guess now for the first time in however many years, there's no lie left to tell. No new story was coming to save her. Yeah. It's incredible how this is the moment that she breaks down, but she's literally robbed a young 21-year-old mother of her baby, her fetus, brutalized her and ripped that baby out. Where was the emotion when that was being said in court?

[01:01:07] Even if you did not do it, having to sit there and listen to that being recounted about what had happened, was she emotional then? No, probably not. It's difficult for us to not be emotional listening to it, right? And we weren't even there. Okay. So she's on death row. Yeah. Is she dead yet? She's not. And as for today, Taylor still remains on death row in Texas where she continues to pursue appeals and hopefully they will not be upheld.

[01:01:33] But for Reagan, Hancock's family, no verdict was ever going to feel like a victory. No sentence can bring Reagan or Braxland back. Or Kinley's mother. Yeah. Don't forget about Kinley. And Homer now continues to raise Kinley by himself. And by all accounts, he has worked tirelessly to make sure Reagan and Braxland are not forgotten. Reagan is still remembered as a devoted mother, a loving daughter, a loyal friend and someone who worked hard for the life she was building.

[01:01:59] And Braxland Sage remains a part of that story too, as a little girl who was loved long before she was ever born. And in many ways, that's what makes this case so difficult to comprehend because it's the fact that one person's desperate need to maintain a lie destroyed an entire family's future. And while Taylor Parker's name will probably always be attached to the story, the people worth remembering are Reagan, Hancock and Braxland Sage.

[01:02:25] This is the thing that always makes these stories so difficult because the people that deserve to be remembered here are all the people you've just said. And yet, to post this episode up there with Reagan's name on it, like, it doesn't get the traction, right? It's because the people are going to be remembering the notoriety, the notorious Taylor Parker. We had this conundrum with the Oscar Pistorius, right? Should it be Oscar Pistorius whose name is on that episode? That's the question, right?

[01:02:53] It should be Reva Steenkamp. She was the victim here. She's the one that should be remembered. And yet, in light of this tragedy, the vehicle of getting her story out there to finding out the horrors of what happened to her, unfortunately, that vehicle has to be Taylor's name, right? That's why I want people to remember when they take away from this story. Yeah, but it's nice that you've got this little section to remember her, really. Yeah.

[01:03:17] One last thing on Taylor, which I did thought was interesting, or at least the kind of American punishment or capital punishment system, that I think she's like the seventh person on death row in Texas or Oklahoma. Really? Or woman, I think it might be. But there's other women on death row that have been on there for 29 or 30 years. Yeah, it's a slow burner. So you think, what's the point? I don't understand why. Obviously, maybe for new evidence to come to light and stuff like that, I understand you might have to give time.

[01:03:45] But in Taylor's case, I don't think there's going to be any new evidence. I mean, it's such an interesting question. What would you prefer? As someone who has been sentenced to death row, would you rather be sentenced to death and have it done very quickly? Or would you rather have 20 years and then be executed with the slight chance that new evidence could come or you could be acquitted or whatever?

[01:04:09] But as the family of Reagan, would you rather her be alive and know that she's suffering in prison, never with the option of ever being let out, and then at the end to face execution? It's real tricky. Or would you want her to be executed straight away? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if there is any of those answers or solutions actually would give them any peace. Yeah. I mean, all the US system is designed to make executions happen only after like a long chain of appeals and reviews.

[01:04:38] I mean, it's checks and balances in a way. It's so that the state is as certain as possible before carrying out any like irreversible punishment. Because at the end of the day, as horrific as this is, there could have been someone that forced her to do this, right? It's very unlikely, but this is the reason why they have the system as they have it. Yeah. And I get for other crimes, we know that new evidence has come to light and people have been released, not necessarily on death row, but in cases of just other crimes. So I do get that.

[01:05:06] And she is entitled to her mandatory appeals as well. So that has to be afforded to her, regardless of whether or not they're successful or not. But she does have a right to these appeals and post-conviction challenges, habeas corpus as well, petitions. And these delays in scheduling, they all kind of play a part in scheduling these executions in the end. And then once I guess those are all exhausted, that's when she will then get her comeuppance. And right now, sounds like she's done this almost certainly, right?

[01:05:36] It's irrefutable. And so I guess bring it on. It's just a waiting game now. Yeah. And that is the story of Taylor Parker and the horrific murder of Reagan Hancock and Braxton Sage. I'll say it again. It's probably the most horrific story we have ever done. What a rollercoaster of all the emotions, the outrage in the first episode of all the lies.

[01:06:00] And clearly she's lying to the escalation of what that escalated to that I honestly still did not see coming. And then just the infuriating lack of remorse and the continued lies and all the red flags in the second episode. Yeah. Is awful. And poor Paul Reagan. Absolutely. Like researching this, it was kind of almost laughable when you read the lies and you learn about those. You kind of think like who would go through this?

[01:06:28] But it is the horrific end that we're dealt with. And yeah, just hope this never happens again. You did say like you never heard of these fetal abductions, but you said there'd been like 35 or something over something. 10 or 15 years, something like that. And it typically comes down to these women who as a last resort, from what I could tell, have to provide a baby because they are so obsessed or they want to keep a man. And unfortunately, that seems like a common reason for some of this.

[01:06:58] Yeah. It's horrendous. And I mean, the thing that sticks out from the first episode is I think she had done something really outrageous. And I was like, that is shocking. And you were like, if you're shocked at that. And boy, am I shocked. It's heartbreaking. I can't stop thinking about Paul Reagan and what she must have gone through on that day. And the defensive wounds. Trying to do all she can. Yeah. She did. She did everything she could. Awful. Awful. Okay. So you said there's a documentary coming out. Tell me about it.

[01:07:27] When's that coming out, Adam? So there is a documentary on Netflix called Maternal Instinct, which tells the true story. And that should be, well, it's either just been released or it's around about now. So go check Netflix. It should be on there by now. I see. I always love it when you time like a documentary to a release because I get to watch the documentary to see what a good job you did. Or not a good job. Yeah. Hopefully. I don't think you've ever done a bad job.

[01:07:54] In fact, sometimes like I think Adam did a really good job telling a better story than the Netflix did. Thanks. I get a gold star. But what a title. Maternal Instinct. I mean. That doesn't really sit well with me. It doesn't. And actually, when you think about it, that's not maternal instinct. Yeah. That's killer instinct. Yeah, that's it. Eternal killer instinct. Yeah. Do you fancy running the outro then? Yeah.

[01:08:19] And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. If today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then do follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly does make a world of difference. And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget, next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon and it's completely free to access.

[01:08:42] Also, don't forget to join up as a certified freak or a big top tier member because that will unlock our entire archive and allow you to delve into some exclusive content and also get a sneak peek of what's coming next. We drop new episodes every Tuesday. So until then, when somebody builds their life around a lie, there's no telling how far they'll go when the truth starts closing in. Yeah. We'll see you next time. See ya.