A 29-year-old woman has been sentenced to death in Texas, USA, for killing a pregnant mother in October 2020 in order to extract and steal the foetus from her womb.
Taylor Parker was convicted in Texas on Wednesday after a weeks-long trial that began in September, according to court documents.
The death row inmate had for months led her boyfriend and relatives to believe she was expecting a child, posting about her fictional pregnancy on social media and even buying a fake silicone belly. In reality, she could not have a child, having had a hysterectomy.
On 9 October 2020, Taylor Parker went to the home of Reagan Simmons-Hancock, a 21-year-old woman in the final months of her pregnancy and stabbed her over 100 times. After cutting open her stomach to take her foetus, she left, leaving the victim’s 3-year-old daughter asleep in another room.
Taylor Parker was arrested shortly afterwards, about 15 kms from the murder scene, at the wheel of her car, with the newborn baby on her lap. She said she had just given birth. The baby was hospitalised but did not survive.
Parker was tried in the small town of New Boston, east of Dallas. During the hearings, police told the court that a few weeks before the murder, she had begun to look for pregnant women in maternity wards and specialty shops.
Shortly before the events, she had watched numerous videos of deliveries and caesarean sections
