Spin Docs: Maternal Instinct (2026)

Summary

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Murder Sheet: Spin Docs – Maternal Instinct (2026)

Release Date: July 8, 2026
Hosts: Áine Cain (journalist) & Kevin Greenlee (attorney)
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer

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Overview of the Episode

In this episode of Murder Sheet, Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee review and analyze the recent Netflix true crime documentary Maternal Instinct. The film examines the shocking 2020 case of Taylor Parker, who murdered pregnant mother Reagan Simmons Hancock in DeKalb, Texas, committing a horrifying fetal abduction. The hosts use their “Spin Docs” format to assess the documentary’s coverage, what it included and omitted, and offer journalistic and legal insight into this rare but disturbing crime, with reverence for the victims.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Content Warning & Cultural Context (00:48–04:30)

• Áine issues a strong content warning given the graphic nature of the case (pregnant mothers, infants, fertility/infertility themes).
• The episode will touch on the technical term "fetal abduction by maternal evisceration."
• Áine: “It is scary and I do want to note that. And I… my heart goes out to Reagan Simmons Hancock’s family and people who loved her, as well as those…who were very excited to meet her daughter, Braxland Sage Hancock.”

2. Purpose and Focus of the Documentary (03:18–04:32)

• Kevin notes the documentary focuses on the crime rather than the trial or investigation, a common trend in true crime docs.
• The hosts aim to fill in legal and investigative details not covered by the film.
• Áine praises the documentary’s handling but notes it “skims over” legal aspects.

3. Victim vs. Offender Focus & Relatability Factor (08:52–13:29)

• Hosts critique that the documentary zeroes in on perpetrator Taylor Parker, with limited attention given to Reagan, the victim.
• Kevin: “I would have preferred to learn more about her [Reagan]. I think there was an awful lot in this program, people talking about Taylor.”
• Áine suggests the focus may be for audience “relatability”: small-town drama, friendship group dynamics, relationship troubles, and the charisma of liars.

4. The Crime Unfolds – Case Overview

The Initial Crime Scene & Immediate Aftermath (09:13–12:52)

• A dramatic opening with body/dash cam footage as Taylor Parker is stopped by police, claiming she has just given birth.
• Medical staff are immediately skeptical: “She definitely didn’t give birth.” (12:04)
• The documentary then flashes back to lay out the web of lies and pretense around Parker's supposed pregnancy.

5. Taylor Parker’s Pattern of Deception (19:42–22:06)

• Parker constructs complex lies about inheritance and pregnancy to maintain her relationship with Wade Griffin and earn status in her community.
• Kevin: “These stories don’t add up. …But basically, she’s telling them things that don’t really make sense, and they at least initially believe it.”
• Áine empathizes with those fooled by Parker, highlighting how remarkable it is they allowed themselves to be interviewed after being conned: “I commend them for telling their story… they’re helping the next friend group…”

6. Community Response & Moral Responsibility Debate (25:49–34:15)

• The hosts debate whether Parker’s friends, doctors, or Wade Griffin had a responsibility to intervene when suspicions grew.
• Kevin relays Taylor’s defense attorney’s claim from trial: "There was no safety net when everyone saw the wheels were off." (28:59)
• Áine’s passionate rebuttal:

  “Any hint that other people should be blamed for Taylor Parker’s demented actions is frankly appalling. …Taylor Parker knew she wasn’t pregnant…she ordered a fake belly…” (29:58)

• HIPAA is cited as a legal constraint preventing her doctors from warning the community.

7. The Lead-Up to the Murder (36:12–43:31)

• A period of escalation: fake pregnancy belly, fake maternity appointments, shifting stories, and increased isolation for Taylor.
• Taylor sets the stage for violence with distractions (house fire, bomb threat), keeping Wade away as she lures Reagan for a friendly meetup.
• Detailed, heart-rending recounting of the crime and its discovery by Reagan’s family. Áine notes: “Listening to her mother’s 911 call again made me cry because the just raw brutality of her screams is haunting…” (43:34)
• The authorities piece together the truth through stark circumstantial evidence and Taylor's inconsistent behavior.

8. Legal Dimension: The Trial & Death Penalty (48:51–53:33)

• Kevin explains the challenge of charging capital murder: prosecutors had to prove the kidnapped baby, Braxland, was alive upon abduction—a key technical, legal hurdle:

  “You can’t kidnap someone who is deceased. …You have to be able to convince the jury and have good evidence that at the time she removed the child from that house, that the child was still alive.” (48:51)

• Appellate courts ruled enough evidence existed to support this claim, making Parker eligible for the death penalty.
• Body cam evidence indicated the infant had signs of life immediately after abduction.

9. The Psychology & Motivations of the Crime (53:52–59:52)

• Áine stresses these crimes are not about love of babies or infertility, but about control and especially about keeping a man or salvaging a relationship:

  “The perpetrators of these kinds of crimes are trying to keep their man. They don’t care about the baby. The baby is an instrument to keep a flagging relationship alive…” (56:14)

• They discuss gendered justice—women rarely receive the death penalty, but the extreme brutality here left jurors little doubt.
• Áine teases an upcoming deep-dive episode on the public warning signs and prevention of fetal abduction.

10. Documentary Review – Strengths and Weaknesses (60:00–69:27)

• Strengths:
  • Raises awareness of a rare but severe criminal pattern.
  • Humanizes those affected ('circle of the crime'), showing how ordinary people are duped.
  • Powerfully emotional—heartbreaking insights from Reagan’s family (e.g. “half of her died that day” – Reagan’s mother, 62:13).
  • Successfully conveys urgency and the slow-building dread leading to the crime.
• Weaknesses:
  • Over-focus on Parker, insufficient on victim Reagan and the legal aftermath.
  • Some viewers may be frustrated by lack of detailed trial footage/interrogations.
  • Title “Maternal Instinct” may mislead—crime is about distorted relationships, not maternal love.
• Quotable Critique:
  Áine: “What was problematic? …The documentary was definitely, probably you could consider it biased against Parker…But there’s not really much of an effort to showcase her…What was her defense at trial, did she claim any mental illness, was there something in her background that would explain this?” (64:12)

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Notable Quotes / Memorable Moments

• On the emotional toll:
  Áine: “When you learn what Reagan suffered, it really doesn’t surprise me that the jury…were like, yeah, death. This is…one of the worst crimes you could do.” (55:44)
• On community reaction:
  Kevin: “It’s very easy after something is over, to look at it and say, oh, you should have seen this, you should have seen that. In the benefit of hindsight, all that is very easy to do.” (22:41)
• On the ethics of medical privacy (HIPAA):
  Kevin: “You want to encourage a situation where people feel completely free to talk to their doctor or their lawyer about everything...that confidentiality is very important.” (36:18)
• On women and the death penalty:
  Kevin: “I believe she’s just the seventh woman on death row in Texas. Is that correct?” (55:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:48 — Introduction, content warning
• 03:18 — Focus on crime over trial/investigation
• 08:52 — Victim Reagan’s story vs. Parker focus
• 12:04 — Opening scene, police and medical staff skepticism
• 19:42 — Parker’s web of lies
• 28:59 — Legal and moral obligations discussion; defense attorney quote
• 36:12 — Parker’s escalation & “ticking time bomb” before murder
• 43:34 — Discovery of crime & emotional family accounts
• 48:51 — Legal intricacies around capital murder charge
• 53:52 — Psychology: Parker’s motivation
• 60:00 — Documentary review and critique
• 62:13 — Reagan’s mother on victim loss
• 69:27 — Wrap-up, prevention & reflection

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Takeaways for Listeners

• This is a devastating, rare, but real crime type: the abduction of a fetus through violence, almost always with motives rooted in desperate attempts to solidify personal relationships, not true maternal longing.
• Documentaries and true crime media can shape audience empathy and understanding based on which voices and perspectives they feature or omit—here, some critique for not centering the victim enough.
• Community members, even when suspicious, often lack the tools and authority to prevent such crimes—hosts hope awareness can help other friend groups be more alert in analogous situations.
• The handling of patient privacy, legal responsibility, and gendered dynamics of crime and punishment are all complex—this case raises discussion points well beyond its horror.

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Conclusion / Final Thoughts

• Both hosts recommend the documentary despite its shortcomings, especially as a discussion starter and source of awareness about a chilling and little-known crime pattern.
• They express deep empathy for the victims, and encourage consideration of warning signs, red flags, and nuanced understanding of both perpetrator motivation and systemic/legal constraints.
• Upcoming episodes will address the broader context of fetal abduction crimes and what communities can learn.
• Áine: “It was heartbreaking. I generally thought it was good and I would recommend it to people. It’s a hard watch, but I think it’s a necessary watch.”

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Further Listening

• Listeners interested in the legal, psychological, or community-prevention aspects of similar crimes are encouraged to subscribe for future Murder Sheet episodes, including a promised deep-dive on fetal abduction by maternal evisceration.

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Transcript

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[Anya Cain]

Hi, I'm Anya. And today we're going to be talking about a very disturbing new Netflix documentary on an infamous murder case. Content warning this episode contains discussion of violence and murder, including the murder of pregnant mothers and infants. And also it includes discussion of fertility and infertility. So today on the Murder Sheet, we are bringing back our format spin docs. This is where we talk to you about some of the big true crime documentaries and docu series out there. We go through the entire case that they cover. We talk about what they put in, we talk about what they left out, and we talk about, you know, if there's a big spin, if it's a generally good project or something that we look askance at. And we're going to be doing that today with Maternal Instinct. This is a 2026 documentary that came out pretty recently on Netflix, and it concerns the murder of Reagan Simmons Hancock and that of her daughter, Raxlyn Sage Hancock in a really horrifying fetal abduction by maternal evisceration case. So we're gonna, we watched it. We're gonna be getting into all that now. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[Anya Cain]

And this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.

[Anya Cain]

And this is spindox Maternal Instinct 2020.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

It.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm really looking forward to discussing this with you, Anya. Not just the documentary itself, but what wasn't covered so much in the documentary, which was the trial. I think this, this program focused primarily on what happened and not how it was adjudicated. And I think there's a couple of interesting elements or one interesting element in particular about the trial that I'll look forward to talking about when we get there. It's not something that's visually exciting or interesting, so I understand why they didn't include it. It's also a bit morbid, but it is interesting and it is crucial when it came to determining the punishment that she got.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. Kevin, we're relying on today to bring what this documentary didn't, which is a lot of the legal facets of this. This is not a trial documentary. The trial, like so many true crime documentaries, is. Is skimmed over for. For lack of a better word. And you know, that that's, maybe that's criticism, but I actually don't really intend that to be like, it's not worth your time because I actually have a pretty positive view of this documentary overall. But that is a note. Kevin will be bringing that. So you're going to be getting something totally new from this that's not in

[Kevin Greenlee]

the documentary just a little bit, but I think it's interesting just a little.

[Anya Cain]

I mean, like, you know, I mean, they didn't have anything in here, so anything is something. I just want to say before we really dive into this case that, you know, if cases about expecting mothers, babies bother you, this is definitely a very tough one. I will say that, like, I think this is a necessary discussion for anyone whether you are pregnant, want to eventually become pregnant, whether, you know, pregnant people, if you know a pregnant lady who's your friend or your daughter or whatever, you know, like, I think we should be talking about this, but it is scary and I do want to note that. And I. I will also just say my heart goes out to Reagan Simmons Hancock's family and her friends and people who loved her, as well as those, you know, who were very excited to meet her daughter, Braxland Sage Hancock, especially her husband and Braxland's father and. And her surviving child. The whole thing is so tragic. And I just, I feel like it's really need. Needed to say that going into this, I was reminded of a quote from a book called the Zygote Chronicles, which is about Suzanne Finnemore, kind of the author recounting her pregnancy. And it had this quote that I always found very moving. When you moved, I felt squeezed with a wild infatuation and protectiveness. We are one. Nothing, not even death, can change that. That is the. The author writing to her unborn child. And I think it's really, you know, just. This isn't like, woo, woo. I love my baby stuff. I mean, babies and the mothers carrying them are connected, like quite literally. Fetal cells exit the womb, go into the mother's body, their bloodstream, and then reside in their organs for, for, for years to come. They're in their heart, their brain. I mean, this is a biological reality. You know, maternal cells go into, you know, to the fetus and, and that's what helps build the baby's immune system. I mean, pregnancy is, I mean, I myself have never been pregnant, but pregnancy is something that is both uncomfortable and difficult with, you know, people talking about how labor was the hardest thing they've ever been through, physically and emotionally. It's so tough, but it's so necessary and it can be a really beautiful thing. And to me it's, it's something very special. It's something very sacred. And to have a case where that is so horrifically violated, not just violated, but violated by another woman, because that is at the heart of this. We have a female victim, two female victims, and we have a female offender. It's what makes this case unusual, but it also is what makes it, you know, fit squarely into the profile of a classic fetal abduction by maternal evisceration case. I'll touch on that topic a little bit, but I think I'm going to actually do a. Guys, I got way into the, I mean, I got in the weeds about the topic of fetal abduction by maternal evisceration. That is the technical term for what happened here. So I will be getting into that probably in a future episode where I'm going to be talking about warning signs. And while this is a very rare case, it is also a very horrific case. And you know, I mean, listen, true crime, we're talking about how to avoid serial killers all the time. And you know, serial killers are also pretty rare. I mean this, this is maybe even rarer, but it's still, I think, worth talking about. Just so I agree completely, you know, have some peace of mind, I guess. So anyways, the two central figures in this really, one central figure is Taylor Parker, at the time of this incident was 28 years old, mother of two. And basically, I don't want to say pathological liar. I mean like, if I say that, it's in a very non clinical sense because I'm not a psychologist, but certainly a frequent liar. And then Reagan Michelle Simmons Hancock, 21 years old. She had already had one child previously when she was 17 and was pregnant with her. Second, that she was very much looking forward to, you know, expecting with her husband.

[Kevin Greenlee]

She was the victim in this case. And frankly, I would have preferred to learn more about her I think there was an awful lot in this program, people talking about Taylor. I would have liked to have seen more people talking about Reagan and making her more of a presence.

[Anya Cain]

You know, I think when we'll get into this, I completely agree with you. Reagan seemed like a really nice young woman, and I loved hearing from her family. We got to hear from her stepfather, her mother and her sister, and they did a great job, but they weren't in this as much. This is very much the Taylor Parker Show. So I think while there are some strengths to that, generally I tend to prefer the victim centric approach. I feel like. I wouldn't say this is like a. This is certainly not something where they're glorifying Taylor Parker, and it's certainly not something where they're making excuses. So generally, like, I felt it was okay, but I would have liked more Reagan as well. So how do we open up? We open up a dramatic fashion. We sort of see this sort of dash camera, dashboard camera, presumably attached to a. A Texas Highway Patrol officer's car. And there's kind of like a woman speeding. They're calling. This is in DeKalb, Texas. And they're stopped by the. The officer. And she is, you know, you're seeing body camera footage. She's in the car. She's all sweaty and pale. She's saying she just gave birth along the side of the road. She's kind of hysterical. She's crying or at least.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And people are pretty skeptical of that claim. They know from their experience that, in fact, she doesn't have the physical characteristics of someone who's just given birth. And they're not looking at a scene where someone just gave birth. So they know right away she's lying.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. I mean, do you think that the trooper was skeptical in his reaction to her?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I think so.

[Anya Cain]

I feel like he was, too, because I feel like if it was like, really a lady covered in blood holding a baby, they, you know, it might be more like, ah, you know, I mean, like, not panicking, but like, let's get, you know, like, more sympathetic. But this is kind of like, okay, did you. And, you know, and. And this reason. I mean, she's not covered in blood. You think he'd be, I don't know, hemorrhaging a bit. She. She looks mostly just kind of frazzled and she's shaking. But there's something very performative about her whole mannerisms. I don't know if you picked up on that. Yeah, there's something. And I don't know, I feel Like, I have, like, a weird spidey sense when someone's being kind of fake or performative where I'm just like, you know, like, get me out of here. And. And that kind of went off with her. So she goes to the hospital, and as you said, they're skeptical, the nurses. There's some great body camera footage where I think the nurses are talking to one of the officers, and they're kind of like, this isn't right. Like. Like something's really wrong here because we have a woman with a clear newborn who's in serious distress, and she doesn't appear to have given birth to it. So where did it come from?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And so then we cut back to earlier to try to get some context to all of this.

[Anya Cain]

Yes. And I'll say, like, they're definitive in the beginning that kind of a doctor kind of with a mustache comes by flippantly. It's like, she definitely didn't give birth. Like. Like, they're like, you know, and then they're basically like the. The investigators go to her and they're like, what happened? So then we learn what happened. We go back to August 2019, and this is where we bring on the talking heads. Okay. This is not going to be the perfect neighbor where it's all body camera footage. We're going to be interviewing people. It's more of a standard true crime fare in that sense. We see pictures of a more dolled up, dyed blonde hair, Taylor Parker. And you have people kind of in the beginning, they're doing the sort of true crime convention that we always see where it's like, this person seems great, and then at some point it'll be like, or are they. That's kind of a standard thing.

[Kevin Greenlee]

This was something else that I wanted to comment on. We have a lot of people talking about Taylor and their impressions of Taylor and what they thought of Taylor at this point or this point or this point. It's very clear that the makers of this film had access to some interrogation footage of Taylor. I would have liked to have heard more from Taylor herself to see what this person is really like so we could see her directly as opposed to seeing her through these. Through the lens of people she at least temporarily fooled.

[Anya Cain]

I think that's a really good point. And I. I think I have a feeling on why they didn't do that. And we'll get into more about what these talking heads had to say in a moment. But for me, the reason why they didn't do that is I feel like a lot of These Netflix documentaries have a, a strain to them. And this is, this is a neutral comment. It's not really a criticism or praise, but there's like a relatability factor. And I think that's the reason why this case. There are other fetal abduction cases. This one was profiled because you have all. I think they feel like the kind of majority viewing audience is going to find something to relate to here. You got the friend group trauma. You got friends don't like the new girlfriend. What's going on there? You got, this lady seems to be lying. But, like, some people aren't listening to the people who are saying that. You've got small town drama. You've got the, you know, mother in law slash boyfriend's mother versus the new girlfriend slash wife. Who's the good guy, who's the bad guy? You've got relationship drama. You've got, I'm a really good friend, but now I'm kind of obsessed with you and I'm kind of creeping you out and you got to distance yourself. You just, There's a lot you got like, oh, I hired a wedding photographer and they turned out to be totally evil. Like, there's just certain things where people can almost look back on their lives and say, oh, I've been there. Or oh, yeah, I remember some of my friends really supported my girlfriend, but others thought she was bad and they turned out to be right. I think there's just a relatability factor. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

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[Anya Cain]

is primarily not a documentary about the investigation. It is not a documentary about the trial. It is a documentary about like everyday normal people. Normal being relative Term, obviously, But everyday people, ordinary people you might meet in the street, meeting somebody who did something pure evil in an attempt to actually keep up the facade that she was one of them, that she was just a good old country girl who wants to have a baby and stands by her man and all this nonsense. And, like, that is what the documentary is about. And I think there's some strengths to that. I think there's certainly weaknesses. As somebody who tends to prefer a more technical fact e thing versus, like, here's how we feel about this. I was, you know, I. I yearned for the interrogation tapes. I also feel like that is a more raw version of Taylor. But I think this is really more of. About the people she fooled. And in a way, there's a strength to that. And the reason I say that is because I think raising awareness that there are people like this out there can make other people who might find themselves in this situation more savvy.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. And I want to talk about the people she fooled, but before we do, let's talk about how she fooled them. I don't know how much detail we need to go into, but basically, she claimed, I have a lot of money. It's. It's coming to me. Oh, there's problems, but it's definitely coming. And she's, like, buying them, buying her boyfriend trucks and all this other stuff. They start getting suspicious. Does she really have this money? Is this money really coming? There doesn't really seem to be any verification of maybe there starts to be a few cracks in their relationship. And then she says, oh, guess what? I'm pregnant.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, that's pretty much. I'll go into some more detail, but I think you summed it up very nicely. And what you're seeing there is a pattern, Right. Make a big, exciting claim, it starts to fall apart. Drastic maneuvering is required. And this is all taking place, by the way, in New Boston, Texas, which is near. In Texas, but it's near Arkansas, and it's also near Oklahoma. So we go back to August 2019. That's when we're told that Taylor Parker meets the man she wanted to marry, the man she wanted to love her, apparently, a guy named Wade Griffin. They meet at a rodeo, and, you know, they kind of go into this whole, they're both country people, and they love the country, and they're doing country things and that, you know, like, they're a good match. Great, wonderful. And, you know, it's funny, at one point, I think somebody said she lit up the room when she walked in which is something that you don't know. You normally hear about the victim in kind of a cliched way in true crime documentaries. But they said about her here, and she's claiming to everyone she's just. I mean, she seems like a normal, like, working person where she's working at a hiring agency, you know, that can be a good job, I'm sure, but it's not like you're a millionaire. But she's claiming to people that, oh, my grandma and grandpa own a lot of oil wells in the sulfur river bottoms of Bassett in Texas. And I've got a lot of money coming, but my mom is trying to block me out of my grandma's inheritance, but my grandma wants me to be a millionaire. And it's like, just from the jump. That doesn't make any sense. Like, why would your mom be able to block your grandma from giving you the money she wants to give you if it's her money?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. These stories don't add up.

[Anya Cain]

They don't add up.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I don't know if we need to go through and list every single one. But basically, she's telling them things that don't really make sense, and they at least initially believe it.

[Anya Cain]

I mean, like, okay, I'm gonna say this. I. I've seen people kind of ripping apart the people who appear on this documentary, and I understand the frustration. When you're watching it, part of you wants to reach through the screen and shake them and say, that's not how inheritance works. What are you guys on? You know, and. And, like, I get that. But at the same time, I will give all of these people, including Wade, credit. They are going on a NETFLIX documentary and talking about an instance where they were made complete fools of. And that's a nice way of putting it. And it had tragic and awful results.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And it's very easy after something is over, to look at it and say, oh, you should have seen this. You should have seen that. In the benefit of hindsight, all that is very easy to do. I remember. I think it was perhaps President John F. Kennedy. And if there's another president, I apologize. Who. Who said something to the effect that an average schoolboy 60 or 70 years from now, looking back at the history of this time, will know more than I do. And after something's over, we know more than all these people do because we know how the story ended.

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[Kevin Greenlee]

And the thing to keep in mind is I think we all have a natural tendency, if someone tells you something, to believe it. You don't think you're going to be encountering a once in a lifetime con person who is spinning a web of lives. Maybe you should. But that's not the way most of us work or think or approach others.

[Anya Cain]

You know, it's not. And it's frankly antisocial to be that paranoid. And, and I don't, I mean, listen in, in a, in a work setting, as a journalist and, and doing true crime, I am very skeptical of a lot of claims. But in my, if someone, if my friend introduced, oh, here's my new girlfriend, you know, I'm not going to be like, you know, oh, and she's pregnant. I'm not gonna be like, you know, rip up your shirt so I can make sure it's a real pray. Like, what, you can't do that? You know, like, no. So, yeah, I, I ask to people who are being very judgmental of these people, first of all, what were like to a certain extent beyond like physically assaulting Taylor and exposing that her pregnancy belly wasn't real, which, you know, you shouldn't do. I. There's a lot like a level of like, yes, maybe they could have tried to do an intervention or confront her in a gentle way where it's like, we all know you're not pregnant. But like, I don't think people have a roadmap for dealing with a personality like Taylor Parker in this setting. I don't think they had any ability to know that this was going to turn violent and deadly. And I commend them for telling their story. The reason why I commend them for telling their story because even though sometimes they come across as defensive or, oh, it's this guy who, he was really fan of Taylor. And then blah, blah, blah, they don't, they don't come across great. But I think by speaking about it, they're helping all of us because they're helping the next friend group who sees this maybe take a different tack or do something different or be aware that, okay, this seems just like friend group drama because like, my, my friend is dating a crazy woman. But actually it could have greater, more violent implications than that. So I commend them for that because they're doing a public service, so attacking them and saying, oh, they're, they're the reason this happened. Taylor Parker made the choices she did. We can pick apart, and I will pick apart some of these people at certain points, but like, I commend them at the end of the day and I think what they're doing is good.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So why don't you Talk a little bit about her pregnancy claim and how different people reacted to that. And then after you do that, I want to mention a little detail from the trial.

[Anya Cain]

Yes, okay, totally. So, you know, I just want to. So the pregnancy claim comes on the heels of this disastrous attempt to buy millions, a ranch worth millions at Pecan Point in Harris, Oklahoma. And Taylor, at this point, has also been doing things like buying Wade Griffin's mom a car they want, like a sportsman's paradise. So all, like, they do a whole family dinner where they're presenting it, and it's something that Wade really wants. So after that falls apart, Taylor goes crying to Wade. Oh, my. You know, my mom blocked the inheritance, so I can't get the money. And there's all these indications that that's not true. But Wade at this point seems to be more distant towards her. It's like he didn't get the property, so he's not. He's not as into it. And he also has some common sense to the extent that he's at least like, well, we're moving really fast. What is going on? But he's kind of like, more distant. So at that point, that's when she claims pregnancy. And actually, that's exactly part of the profile that she fits. So she claims she's pregnant. She is. You know, everyone's very excited. Wade even seems excited. They're going to name their little girl Clancy Gail. And to be clear, Taylor Parker is a mother already. She already has two children from previous relationships, and it seems like at least one of them. She doesn't have full custody. And there are claims made about how she's not a very present mother with either of these children that she already has. But suddenly everything's all about the new baby. Right? That's kind of where the baby stuff comes in. If you. If that's a good point for you to come in, Kevin, I want you

[Kevin Greenlee]

to talk about how people reacted to it.

[Anya Cain]

Oh, about how they thought she was lying?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Yes. Well, here's where we kind of twist it all on its head. We get to hear from Mackenzie and Abby, who are two of Taylor's ex friends. They talk about Taylor is almost like hitting them like a tornado where she comes in and she's this bubbly, exciting personality who makes them feel like the best person ever and, like, just kind of insert, like, just kind of latches onto them and is, like, very, very close. But the reason they don't believe her is because they know for a fact that she had a hysterectomy that after she got pregnant at like, 17, she went to the Northeast Texas Women's Health Clinic, and she didn't want to have any more children after her second. So she. I think she did something to her fallopian tubes. Then there was an issue with that. So she just got a hysterectomy. For. For those who don't know, a hysterectomy is when your uterus is removed. The uterus is where the baby grows when you're pregnant. No uterus, no pregnancy. If you get a. If you get a hysterectomy, you're done. You cannot get pregnant again. That's it. And they're like, okay. So then you hear from her old physician, Dr. Christopher Mason, Melissa Mason, I think his wife, the manager of this health clinic, they're aware she's posting all this, but they can't say anything because of hipaa. Where things start unraveling, though, is where.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let me jump in. Okay, so I'm going to temporarily jump way, way ahead to the trial. And a comment that her attorney, Jeff Harrelson, made at the trial, he said that Taylor was let down by people who knew her because they did not confront her about this false pregnancy and burst this bubble, for lack of a better word. She. He said, quote, there was no safety net when everyone saw the wheels were off. So I'm curious, Anya, what responsibility, if any, do you think people have to confront friends or acquaintances who are doing something like this? And what responsibility, if any, do you think these people have for not confronting her? For. For what happened afterwards?

[Anya Cain]

I think any, in any hint that other people should be blamed for Taylor Parker's demented actions is frankly appalling. And I'm disgusted by that attorney's comments. I mean, like, oh, she has no responsibility for herself. Let's be clear about something. Let's be clear. Taylor Parker knew she wasn't pregnant. You know how we know she knew? Because she ordered a fake belly and did everything she could to conceal the fact she was not pregnant. This is not a woman who was in the grips of an uncontrollable mental illness, who didn't know what she was doing.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Not just that. She took all sorts of steps to further this hoax, like fake ultrasounds, things.

[Anya Cain]

She was not legally insane. And frankly, I really question this because having seen the documentary, the first people who knew were people who were bound by hipaa, who can't say anything legally. Then we have her ex friends who I don't. What is their responsibility to her? They cut her out of her life because she's a weird creep. Okay, so what. What, are they supposed to go around and hold her hand for the rest of her life so she doesn't kill anybody? What then? Let's go. Okay, so we go into that. The. The ex friends, at least. At least Mackenzie conveyed when. When someone reached. When one of the odds. Stephanie Ott, I think, from Wade Griffin's friend group, she got suspicious. She messages the old friends, you know, what's this pregnancy? We're suspicious. And the old friends are like, no, yeah, she can't get pregnant. So they did tell people. And then it's, you know, basically, people, you know, it sounds like the OTS confronted Wade and were like, you know, I think this woman's leading you down the primrose path. And he didn't, you know, he didn't react well to it, and he didn't want to hear it. So, like, at some point, who is supposed to be the babysitter of Taylor Parker to prevent her from murdering people? Is someone just supposed to follow her around constantly, like, and pop a bubble to all her delusions? I mean, listen, now, from a practical standpoint, I think it might be important to have a conversation where the person who I think could make a difference in instances like this is the boyfriend, is the husband, is the Wade Griffin character, the guy who is kind of checked out of the relationship, who suddenly the woman is trying to impress with this fake baby. If that person gets wind of this, I think they might have the power to sit the. The woman down and say, listen, I know you're not pregnant, and it's okay. We'll get through this. Even if you plan to dump her later, like, pop the bubble so nobody gets killed because they have to procure a baby at nine months. Like, that might be the. But that's not. There's a difference between saying, that's how you handled this situation and, oh, all of these people should have been on Taylor Parker crisis management, you know, for, like, what?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I had a feeling you'd have a strong reaction.

[Anya Cain]

I'm just. What happened to personal responsibility? Like, I feel like I sound like an old person now.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You. You do.

[Anya Cain]

But, like, I. Personal response. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But, I mean, seriously, no one had any obligation to this woman whatsoever, as far as I'm concerned.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I mean, defense attorneys are going to. Defense attorneys. I just went to. Yeah, I mean, I didn't mean to interrupt too much. Why don't you get back to where you were?

[Anya Cain]

I want to know what your Take is, am I, do you think I'm being too reactive to that? Do you think that there is some truth to that? What the defense attorney is saying is some nuance I'm missing out on?

[Kevin Greenlee]

No, I, I, I, I agree with you, but I, I do think that if you're in a situation where someone is doing something this crazy, it maybe if you can, you could do something like this to pop the bubble. I don't blame these people in this particular situation. It was very foreign to them.

[Anya Cain]

But that's the thing. It's for, See, that's the other thing. Like the I, do you have an obligation to act? Yes. If you, if you know, if you know about fetal abduction by maternal evisceration, if you know about infant abduction, if you know the risk factors, if you know the profile. Yeah. Maybe there is something where you can sit somebody down and say, this has got to stop.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I would think in most circumstances, let's say, oh, Susie down the block is saying she's pregnant and we know she's not. We'd probably think, oh, isn't this funny? She's probably going to fake something to get out of it.

[Anya Cain]

I wouldn't think it was funny. I would be very concerned. I mean, but I know about this stuff. People in small town Texas do not, who are not morbid like I am, do not necessarily, like, have all the tools to put together that this could end in a death. They think it's going to end in Taylor being embarrassed and admitting she was lying or faking something or whatever, or maybe adopting a baby surreptitiously. Like, I mean, there's all sorts of things that they're not really expecting. So to say that these folks had some kind of moral responsibility they didn't fulfill when they didn't know this was coming is totally nuts. But I think maybe as this kind of crime becomes more well known, there can be more of a conversation. And that's why I commend the people for talking about it, because we can learn from their mistakes. I'm not saying that they came across well in this. I'm not saying they did not make mistakes. I'm just saying Taylor Parker is responsible for Taylor Parker's actions.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, I kind of jumped the timeline. So why don't you, that's okay. Why don't you jump back where you were and talk about the unraveling and the tragic conclusion?

[Anya Cain]

Well, I wanted to ask you a little bit. You know, this was one of the things that was so frustrating. The Masons, Dr. Christopher Mason and Melissa Mason of the Northeast Texas Women's Health Clinic. And I. They didn't come across badly, but they really wanted to tell people because they knew she was lying and they saw this all over social media, but they couldn't because privacy laws demand that they can't. And one thing I was wondering, Kevin, as an attorney, like, and I think I know the answer to this, but, like, is there any way in this instance, like this, where they say they can tell people when there's, like, imminent danger, but you can't assume someone in this situation is going to murder someone? They might. They might just adopt a kid really quietly and pass it off as their own.

[Kevin Greenlee]

First of all, for doctors, I mean,

[Anya Cain]

I guess my question is, could there be some kind of carve out here?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I guess in theory. But the thing is, for doctors, like lawyers, you want to encourage a situation where people feel completely free to talk to their doctor or their lawyer about everything in their lives, even embarrassing matters, with the knowledge they don't have to worry about the doctor or the lawyer going out and repeating it and putting it on Facebook and say, ah, look at what this guy did. And so that confidentiality is very important because if a person doesn't feel safe to fully confide in their doctor, then they're not going to get the best care that they deserve to bring it back to lawyers. There's another old saying that tough cases make bad law. And I think if you look at something like this and say, oh, we should change the system and make it easier for doctors to publicly reveal people's medical information if they have a hunch that would be a good idea. I think that would be. That would create a huge potential for abuse, and it might make people feel less comfortable confiding in their doctors, and it might cause more harm than good.

[Anya Cain]

I think you're right. It's very frustrating. It's very frustrating because when you know the signs of fetal abduction by maternal evisceration, you can see that this is just a ticking time bomb. And I think you experience the ticking time bomb watching the documentary. But I agree with you that if you just say, well, okay, but if you kind of get a vibe that it's a bad situation, just say something, then you know that's not going to work. And one thing I will note, just, it sounds like. Like there were rumors all over town, oh, she's not really pregnant. So, I mean, people were talking about it, like, and we're talking about a woman who's totally beyond anything. I. I mean, I don't know if confronting her would have worked unless it came from Wade with an assurance of I love you anyway. You know, I mean, that's the thing. So, okay, things start unraveling. Things get even weirder. Wade starts getting all these crazy emails and texts from unknown numbers about, like, someone trashing Taylor to him. Plot twist, it's Taylor and, oh, you know, oh, it's my mom. She's stalking me. They're getting emails, they're. They're real estate agents are getting stuff and like, you know, being told, oh, the mom's causing all the problems, and da, da, da. And. And then we learn about Taylor. Then we go back in time, we learn about Taylor how she was very, you know, as a teenager. She was insecure about her weight. She was obsessed with getting male validation. One of her classmates, Deborah Jones, says that she would go to other girls and ask them to take basically nude pictures for her from the, you know, without their head in the picture so she could send them to boys and pretend to be them. Like, totally shameless. Not normal. Having been a teenage girl who was insecure about her weight, that's really not normal to be doing that. And just somebody who almost, like, didn't have their own personality, but would almost magpie various aspects of other people's personalities. And we've seen that in sort of these. Some of these antisocial personalities that you encounter in the case. I've always said that I feel that Temujin Kenzu, a male example and who's someone who's been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. He is somebody who will make all sorts of bizarre statements that seem like they're actually pilfered from someone else. You know, I see that in Taylor here, but she's doing that to a lot of people. She seems great, but there's one example where, like, her co worker talked about, like, I lost my baby, I lost my youngest daughter. And then she's acting like she had the same experience even though she didn't. You. It reveals that she gets fired. And this is where things start to get towards the homicide. September of 2019. Reagan, the victim here, has. Is married. She gets married and she has a photographer at her wedding. And turns out that Taylor Parker has set up a little photography business on the side. And you hear from Jessica Brooks, Reagan's mother, and Emily Shirey, Reagan's sister, and they talk about how Taylor seemed really nice. She really got along with everyone. She was super professional. They were thrilled with her work. She almost felt like a bridesmaid. Because she kind of getting in selfies with people and having a good time and made everyone feel super comfortable. And, you know, they talk about how Reagan was pregnant again, and they were also excited for her and for Homer, her new husband.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He was also very, very excited.

[Anya Cain]

Yes, everyone was thrilled. And, you know, they talked about how she was a wonderful mother. She got. She was first became a mother at 17, but was just a terrific mom, very present, very dedicated to her children, unlike Taylor Parker, who again, her friends made comments about how she really wasn't there for her kids. And, you know, I think that's notable and I'll have a comment on that. And the sort of ending and toward the end about the title and whatnot of maternal instinct. So we go into all of the measures that Taylor took to obscure the fact she was not pregnant. Ordering cheap silicon pregnancy bellies, telling that her, you know, Wade that he couldn't go to maternity appointments with her because of COVID 19, or saying, oh, they're just randomly canceled because it was an emergency. She'd put her hand behind her fake belly and pretend it was the baby kicking. People started noticing, like, in some pictures she looks really big in terms of her belly, and then others she doesn't. And like, it just seems kind of inconsistent as far as how pregnant she looks. And, you know, they like, do all these pregnancy photo shoots. And like, I think that again, is supposed to be about the related. It's like the banality of evil. Like, you know, like we're doing these cheesy photo shoots with like, pretending to brand animal or something. And like, it's. That means it's a girl. And I think. I think people like, you know, it's like things like gender reveal parties, things like baby showers, things like, you know, weddings. Those are things that every. Like a lot of people, that's part of their culture, that's part of something that they're going to be looking at and experiencing. So this is like a twisted version of that kind of whatever. You know, it's something a lot of people can relate to. It's kind of appealing to a monoculture, I think, right? To a certain extent. I mean, not everyone is into those things, but a lot of people are. So anyways, everyone just starts to kind of like the people who suspect her think she's going to just pretend that she had a miscarriage. And, you know, at some point, Wade's friends just straight up confront him and he doesn't react well to it. So by. By this time, I guess the. The clinic where they knew she had a hysterectomy. They. They do put a code pink out there about, like, just be careful to make sure no one steals your baby. So they. I mean, like, what. Can you imagine getting that?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, that's kind of creepy.

[Anya Cain]

And again, I don't really know how that stuff works. So, I mean, they. Basically, what they thought was that this was gonna be an infant abduction. If anything, like, she'd try to steal a baby from a hospital. I will note they were smart with that because basically the, like, there's a big connection between infant abduction and fetal homicide by maternal evisceration. Like, those are linked, obviously, because the. The op. The goal is to procure a baby for sinister purposes. You know, Wade's house catches on fire. So at this point, she's like, over nine months pregnant, apparently, like, you know, ten months or something. And again, like, everyone had to be like, what the heck? So October 5, 2020, she sets the house on fire. Wade's got to deal with that. So that cancels what they were going to do. Then she calls in a bomb threat to Mount Pleasant Hospital, where they were supposed to go to, so they can't go there. Then October 7th, she invites Reagan to Starbucks to hang out, and they do so. And, you know, people say that Reagan was probably trying to be there for a woman she became friendly with who is kind of, you know, also very pregnant. October 9, 2020, Taylor sets it up. So Wade is out doing a hog delivery to a customer that didn't actually want the hogs, so she gets him out of there. Then she. Then we hear from Reagan's family. And this, to me, is a part of the documentary that made me cry and was heartbreaking. No one's hearing from Reagan. And, you know, they basically, her family goes there. Jessica, her mom, and then her stepdad Marcus go to Reagan's house. They go inside and they see the worst thing possible. They see her body, this blood everywhere, and she's been cut open. And listening to her mother's 911 call again made me cry because the just raw brutality of her screams is haunting and just sums up the horror of what she had to see because that's her baby on the floor. Like, I can't even imagine that. And, you know, they come in, they do get Reagan's surviving daughter, who was three years old, out of there. I mean, again, like doing this in a house with a three year old. The baby's gone out of Reagan. Braxland is gone. You do see some crime scene pictures, but it's nothing too graphic. You do see blood spatter on, like, the fridge. The police arrive and they're like, there's no baby in here. So everything's on high alert. Meanwhile, then you got Taylor Parker doing her whole song and dance and sob story about how she gave birth on the side of the road. And you learn from body camera footage where, you know, police officer is talking to another police officer, where they note, like, the babies didn't make it, Braxland didn't make it, she died as well. Um, and I mean, it's just brutal. And then you find out that Taylor Parker is arrested. So the reckoning. Then the cops come interview Wade and they tell him, you know, I mean, one thing you have to look at if you're the police here. Did Wade know? Did Wade know? Did Wade plan this? Because there are a number of these cases where I think in every case that I've seen, the perpetrator is a female seeking a baby. In a number of cases, they have either one male accomplice or multiple male accomplices. Sometimes it's a son, sometimes it's a cousin, sometimes it is the boyfriend. So they gotta look at Wade and he's just baffled. Um, he just, at some point in the interview, just sort of takes off his hat and is just kind of sitting there emotional. I mean, he, he knows that. He basically says, at some point, like, my family was right and I, I took up for her. Um, you know, they can. He consents, I think, to a search at his house. They find cribs, clothes, diapers. Um, and then you see some. You see some interview stuff with her where she's being interrogated by the police and she's very defensive, very abrasive, yelling and saying, I, you know, deny, deny, deny, denied. She didn't do anything. Somebody handed her the baby. And this is a, like, this is a classic fetal abduction thing where it's like selective amnesia. Oh, I don't even remember what happened. You know, and just as a note for folks, when you're doing. In true crime, offenders have an incentive to lie and pretend like they don't remember and to avoid pinning themselves down at all costs. And I will just say this, Just remember that, okay? Amnesia doesn't work that way. You know, like if someone has a memory disorder, someone has, you know, like some kind of amnesia related disorder, usually they're not gonna just not remember their crime. It's usually that, you know, they'll not remember a bunch of stuff, right? So very convenient. They know. And here's where we get into the trial. September 2022.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let me talk just a little bit about this because the, the state, to be blunt, wanted to kill her. They wanted to subject her to the death penalty. And so there's a couple of complications of that. First of all, you have to convince, you know, this person deserves to die for these reasons. But you also can't say, oh, I don't like this person, they jaywalked, let's kill them. You have to charge them with a crime that, that carries the death penalty as is a punishment, which in this case is capital murder. And in order to get to a capital murder charge, they needed to charge her with kidnapping in addition to the murder. Who did she kidnapped? Well, she kidnapped the baby. But here is the complication and this is a little bit morbid and I apologize for that. You can't kidnap someone who is deceased. So if you want to subject her to the death penalty, you have to be able to convince the jury and have good evidence that at the time she removed the child from that house that the child was still alive. And so that's what a lot of it came down to there. This reached the appellate courts. That was the big issue in the appellate decisions I was reading. Is there evidence that that child was alive when she left the house? And ultimately the conclusion was there is enough evidence for a rational juror to come to that decision. And again, not to be too morbid, but the way that she cut into that poor woman, she cut into her in such a way as to try to protect and spare the child. So obviously her intent was to walk out of that house with a living child. And we know the child died. And the state was able to successfully argue that the child did not die until after she left the house and that is why she was ultimately subjected to the death penalty.

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[Anya Cain]

There was body Cam footage that I recall from the documentary where a police officer indicated that there were some pulses, like they. The. The child did not die right away, but subsequently did so. Yeah, I'm not surprised that the. I mean, the jury went for the death penalty, and that doesn't surprise me. I mean, I think women. The stats show that women tend to get more of a pass with juries. Right. You know, I think there's a perception, you know, whatever you want to call it, reverse sexism or, you know, I mean, it's more of like. It's more of like kind of some kind of sexism where it's like, oh, women aren't, like, as bad as men. I mean, I don't know. I mean, to a certain extent, the numbers do bear that out in terms of violent crimes, but in the other sense, this kind of crime is all women. And this is. This kind of crime is pretty much as brutal as you can get. Attacking a pregnant woman carrying a baby to cut her open and steal the baby is as brutal as you get. It's one of those things where it's like the level of mutilation and. And goriness and horror and torture and pain with that is something that, you know, you don't necessarily see in a ton of female perpetrated crimes, but certainly exists here. And it's horrifying, it's unnecessary, it's despicable. And there's almost no. Like, people always try to argue insanity here. Or not always, but even like, people, oh, you have to be nuts to do something like this because you know you're gonna get caught. But the thing is, you can't. It's very hard to argue insanity when you have this level of premeditation.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. It's hard to understand why she didn't think she would get caught if I. When you produce a newborn child, when it's clear medically you do not give birth yourself, and then someone nearby who's a pregnant woman was murdered brutally and her child was taken. How do you think you can get away with that?

[Anya Cain]

Well, I think Braxland was not supposed to die. I think what she expected is that she could come home with this baby and say, oh, teehee, I gave birth on the side of the road. Look at me and stave it off. You know, and that, you know, I guess at that maybe the police are, you know, she thinks the police are dumb and they're not going to put two and two together for, like, a woman everyone says is lying, plus a woman who is eviscerated. On the. You know, just before giving birth. But I think, like, in this case, actually, I've been reading this book, which is Murder in the Heartland by M. William Phelps, is about the murder of Bobby Jo Stinnett. Similar case in many ways. In that instance, Lisa Montgomery, the perpetrator, she claimed to have given birth in the parking lot of a Long John Silvers and went home with the baby and didn't take it to the doctor, and that was it. And. And I think she was just, like, waiting to take it and get checked up and whatnot, because, like, she didn't want to set anything off. But I think that can be a mode of doing things where you avoid the doctor entirely and you're hoping that no one traces it back to you. But certainly you cannot argue. And I mean it. To me, an illegally insane person might be someone who is in the throes of a schizophrenic break and is psychotic, you know, truly psychotic. Goes out, kills somebody and takes their baby and walks out into the street and being like, it's my baby. You know, like, they're not like, there's not planning to it. There's not like, oh, I'm going to order stuff to pretend to be pregnant. There's not any of that. There's not any of the duplicity, because that would indicate premeditation.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Right. I believe she's just the seventh woman on death row in Texas. Is that correct?

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. And she's the youngest. She's the youngest. I mean. Yeah. When you learn what Reagan suffered, I mean, it really doesn't surprise me that the jury, I mean, they said basically this was a trial that was not guilt or innocence. This was a trial that was death or not death. And they were like, yeah, death. You know, I mean, there's. There's. This is. I mean, to me, this is one of the worst crimes you could do. Like, it is. It is so evil. I wanted to. Did you have anything else on the trial?

[Kevin Greenlee]

No, that's what I wanted to mention.

[Anya Cain]

I'll go into one aspect of the relationship at the center of this documentary, documentary between Wade Griffin and Taylor Parker that I wanted to mention. And this will set up future coverage I'm going to do on this topic, but. And then we'll get into the docu series, elements of what we felt worked and what didn't work and all of that. So let's talk about the relationship between Wade and Taylor. It moved very quickly. Wade felt that it was happening too fast, but he also liked that she would Mow the yard, have supper ready for him, have a good meal cooked, and take care of the animals that they lived with. So basically, he wanted domestic help. I mean, like, and again, like, I, I've. I've defended the guy and I. I think he should be defended. I think he's being very bluntly honest here. But, you know, I think there is this level of inertia in their relationship where he's getting something out of it and isn't going to break up with her. And it just kind of spiraled. Again, this isn't his fault that this happened. But I think men should be especially aware because I think a man in this situation is the only one who could stop it. And the reason for that is the perpetrators of these kinds of crimes are trying to keep their man. They don't care about the baby. The baby is an instrument to keep a flagging relationship alive. And that is it. And that's it. And so that's why I say the men can stop it, because the men are the ones who can say, baby, I love you anyway, let's take this fake silicon belly off of you. And. And then, you know, a month later, you know, afterwards, you can dump her, but, like, pop the bubble first so nobody gets killed. You know, stuff like, oh, she won't be naked around me and she won't let me touch her belly, and she won't do all this red flags, right? And also just weird in a relationship, I think, you know, there's lots of drama with her. She's not just fighting with her mom. She doesn't like his mom. She's alienating him from his friends. All of those things are red flags. She's lying about a bunch of other stuff. She says a bunch of stuff about money that's totally implausible. She has a history of lying. All of those are red flags. And him growing distant and then her claiming pregnancy, that's a red flag for this kind of crime. Big red flag. And he notes that he never told her he loved her. And it's just like, why are people like this even together? But I think the convenience and the inertia for him and for her, it just makes her more obsessed with, like, keeping him and locking him down. And fundamentally, that is what this kind of criminal wants, is the man. They center men in their lives. They center male approval and validation in their lives. And they will kill their fellow women and babies to get that. It's something that I find just beneath contempt. Like, you are a traitor to your whole sex and I think there's a lot of women who, who do this. Not to that extent, but I think there's a lot of women who live this way where it's just about male validation and male approval and listen, Kevin, I love getting your validation and approval, but you know, I think any self respecting woman has to kind of have that come from within. Like it's not the most important thing in the world to get men to be interested in you or like you. In fact, sometimes, you know, I mean, I, I just, I can't imagine living this way. I mean, what do you think?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, I, I, I agree completely. Did you want to talk about what was good or bad about this documentary or what?

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. First I'll do my list of interviewees just to give people a sense of. I think this really showcases how Taylor centric. This was Wade Griffin, Taylor's boyfriend Roger and Angela Pate who were friends of Griffin's. I think Roger employed him. Cody and Stephanie Ott, friends of the Griffins. And I really liked Stephanie shout out to her. She was the one like kind of investigating Taylor and I feel like she was a real one. Lindsay Brown Jones was a co worker of Taylor. Connie Griffin was the mother of Wade. Rusty Lowe and Renee Harvey Lowe were two real estate agents working with them. Tiffany Maynard was a neighbor of the of Wade and Taylor. Jessica Brooks was Reagan's mom. Mackenzie Bright was Taylor's former friend. Dr. Christopher Mason was the physician for Taylor at one point. Melissa Mason was the manager of the Northeast Texas Women's Health Clinic. Abbey Bell was Taylor's former friend. Emily Shirey was Reagan's sister. Marcus Brooks was Reagan's stepfather. And Kelly Mae May was a photographer who photographed Taylor. And Chris Hughes was a friend, a friend of Reagan's family. That's, I think that's most of them, if not all of them. Footage from this, they used body camera footage from law enforcement, dashboard camera footage from law enforcement, I believe. Lots and lots of talking head interviews. Lots of B roll of those talking heads doing stuff like on the Farm. Lots of social media videos and pictures, B roll of people looking up ominous things that Taylor was looking up. Interrogation footage, very briefly, some trial footage, very briefly, 911 audio from the murder, which was heartbreaking. Some crime scene photos that had some blood but were not super graphic otherwise. And yeah. So what was good in your opinion, Kevin?

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's always important to raise awareness of this sort of crime. It's, it's a rare crime, but it does happen. People need to be aware of that. I think it had kind of a humanistic approach. It was just from a technical point of view, is very compelling in the way they put it together. When you had a feeling that something bad was going to happen, there was certainly some suspense in there.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, the dread. There's, you know, there's a ticking time bomb because, you know, at the end of her due date, what's she gonna do? You know, something really bad happened from the opening. I liked the humanistic approach about, you know, getting to know some of these people who were affected by it in the circle. And also how they were duped and how it never came to, like, you know, how some of them were duped and how other than, you know, like, the fighting between them. That was just interesting From. From that perspective, the stuff from Reagan's family is just heartbreaking, gut wrenching. Just. I remember Jessica, at one point, I wrote down this quote. She said, you know, having a baby, it's quote, physically, part of you grew inside of you. The day she died, she never felt anything like that. And that half of her died that day, and she's never coming back. And it just. Oh, man, that just broke my heart. Um, I loved her sister who was saying that, you know, she used to pray that Taylor would go to hell. But for a demon like Taylor, hell would be easy. That was powerful. I just. I think it really. This documentary does an excellent job capturing the central facet of fetal abduction by maternal evisceration, which is male approval, male validation, keeping the man. And I give it credit for that because I see way too much stuff where it's like, this is one quibble I have. I'll get to my quibble later. But I thought that was good. And I thought raising awareness of this and making it relatable to people and making it like this could happen to people, you know, or even you. And you gotta be more savvy, and you gotta be prepared for weird liars to do weird stuff.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I would like to have seen more information on the victim. There was an awful lot. I think I mentioned this earlier, a lot of people talking about Taylor. You have her interrogation videos. I would have liked to have seen more of that. I would like to have seen more information on the trial and the appeals.

[Anya Cain]

I concur. I think that would have been better. And. And frankly, you know, it's like we. It's like they just. They formatted this more, I think, for entertainment in that sense, where it was like, okay, now we got it. And it's like, no, I mean, like, information came out at trial that I'm sure was interesting, but they almost like wanted it to have a certain climax. So everything after that was very much abbreviated was my feeling about how that happened. More on the investigation, more on the trial, more on the context. There's a, there's, there's other crimes. I think they may have alluded to some at one point, but talk about this type of crime, what does it look like? Um, I mean, at one point you see Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Chad Dansby, he's one of the investigators. What's he doing? Like what, what's going on with Dansby? Like, like I think there's stuff like that where we could have gotten more in depth. I understand from a storytelling perspective why they cut that. But from a really getting nerdy about true crime and wanting more information, I like that maybe the general audience doesn't. What's problematic? Well, I'll tell you something, I don't really actually consider this problematic, but I think it's. If I'm going to be intellectually honest, I ought to say it. The documentary was definitely, probably you could consider it biased against Parker Taylor. Parker. But then again, like she's got no excuse for what she did. So I guess on some level I don't care. But there's not really much of an effort to showcase her. What, her, what was her defense at trial? Did she claim any mental illness? Was there something in her background that would explain this? And the answer is obviously not. And obviously mental illness can't explain this because the level of premeditation and obviously like no matter what happens to you, lots of bad stuff happens to a lot of people when they're kids and they don't lure young pregnant women with three year olds in the house into a death trap where they then eviscerate them and take their baby and kill the baby in the process. So on some level, like I don't really care that it's biased against her, but I do feel like I should say that, you know, they want that Taylor needs to be just kind of a villain. And so there's not really much attempt to humanize her. But again, I think she kind of dehumanized herself with what she did on some level. So I don't know, I feel like it's worth saying. What do you think?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I think there was a bit too much about her friends and their lack of appreciation of what was happening. I can, I can see myself being in that situation.

[Anya Cain]

Kevin, you are way too smart. You are a very intelligent man. I'M sorry, but don't, don't self deprecate yourself to that extent. If you knew these people, you would be telling me they're nuts. Let's get out of here. And you would be correct.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Anya Cain]

I mean, like, you have very good judgment about people. But anyways, what were you going to say?

[Kevin Greenlee]

That's, that's fair. And then, I mean, I've already said this. It was too much about the, the killer and not enough about the victim.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I would have rather. More victim. More, more Reagan. She seemed like a great young lady. And I think that, yeah, I agree with the, like, you know, I don't know. People are very naive. There's a lot of people who are not true crime brain. They're not morbid, they're not thinking anyone's going to kill anyone, even when there's a weird situation. But I feel like framing it for storytelling purposes where the climax is simply the murder and not like much about the aftermath, presents a structural problem where you kind of do cut out probably some good information. And as a true crime nerd, I like to get that information. I did one thing that's a quibble. It's really a quibble. I'm not really criticizing them, is that maternal instinct is obviously probably a play on, like, I don't know, Basic Instinct or something, or like, oh, here's a really bad lady who's doing bad things. And I get that. And you know, maybe it's a good title, but on some level, I think the documentary does a better job within the. Within. Within the actual work than with the title. Because women who do this are not motivated because they love babies, they're not motivated because they want babies. They're not motivated by anything other than seeking male approval. And that's it. It's far more sinister, I think. I hate it when people say, oh, well, people do this because they lost a baby, or people do this because they're infertile. That's insulting to anyone who's had suffered child loss, who suffered infant loss, who suffered the loss of, of a, of an unborn child. That's insulting to people who've struggled with infertility. That is not the people. Those are, those are very common issues across the board. Those are not the women who are doing this. The women who are doing this put their entire self worth into validation from a male that they will do anything to keep around and they will kill for them, and that's it. So maternal instinct doesn't even come into it in My view.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well said.

[Anya Cain]

So questions I think I asked about the privacy laws, and it sounds like there's not really a good way to change that. Was Parker mentally ill? I'm going to say no. And, you know, how can people handle this if it happens to people? You know, what do you think, Kevin? If we were in. If we were in this friend group suddenly and some.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Oh, here.

[Anya Cain]

Here's what's happening. How would we deal with it in the. I don't know what you would. I don't know what you would do.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Honestly, I don't know what you would do.

[Anya Cain]

Like, I see people. Oh, the, The.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The.

[Anya Cain]

The friends all knew, and they hit it. I don't think they knew. I think they suspected. But what were they supposed to do? Call the cops? I mean, like, what. Who. Who had any jurisdiction over this if you're just a random civilian? And it sounds like people would almost fall out with Wade about it, and he would still be in denial. So, like, the only person who really. Even if he. He confronted her, she might have, like, who knows what she would have done? I mean, like, I guess I just, like, I'm, like, I don't know what you're really supposed to do, but I think if you're friends, you don't really have a lot of power. You can maybe talk about it openly or confront the person, but I think. I think the better thing would be to have the man that the person's trying to keep really do, Do. Do a de. Escalation. And that's in the literature. I've read that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, we can probably talk more about that in the episode you mentioned, which will focus just on this crime itself.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's disturbing, but interesting. I've done some deep dives into reading about different maternal, rather fetal abduction by maternal evisceration cases. And I want to frame that episode of, like, as being as helpful as possible and, like, as public servicey as possible of, like, how can we protect the pregnant women in our lives? It's a rare crime, but it's obviously a crime that is devastating. And to me, it's like stranger danger. Stranger abductions are rare, but they do happen, and so we brace for that. And, um, this kind of crime is also extremely rare. And certainly I would say pregnant women are probably more in danger from intimate partner violence than this.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I wanted to say.

[Anya Cain]

But it's still worth talking about.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I wanted to say something before we wrap. Was there anything else you wanted to say about this documentary?

[Anya Cain]

It was heartbreaking. I generally thought it was good and I would recommend it to people. It's a hard watch, but I think it's a necessary watch. And for all the complaints I had, I generally had a positive view of it and I have a view that it will start a helpful discussion about crimes like this and about detrimental personality like Taylor Parker's. And so in general I'd recommend it.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And then I, I wanted to say that recently we've really tried to beef up our premium content both on Patreon and on Apple. So if that support we get really helps make this show possible. And so if you're able to do that, we'd really appreciate it. We're going to give you ad free episodes, early episodes when possible. And we're also, so far we've been able to do an extra premium episode a week.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, it's been fun. I think people have enjoyed them, so definitely check that out. And we've got a couple more spin docs, I think, where we're going to tackle some documentaries that people have requested. So we're really excited about that too.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So thank you so much for listening.

[Anya Cain]

Thanks.