Taylor Parker denied final Death Row meal after what Texas inmate did with huge banquet request
Taylor Parker, who killed a pregnant woman and attempted to abduct her unborn child, has been denied her final Death Row meal all thanks to the actions of one Texas inmate.
New Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct has resurfaced the heinous crimes committed by 33-year-old Taylor Parker, after she stabbed Reagan Simmons Hancock, a mom-of-one who was eight-months pregnant, more than 100 times to remove her unborn baby from her womb in 2020.
This came after Parker, a mom-of-two, faked her own pregnancy, hoodwinking even her family and partner at the time for nine months.
A judge concluded that her crimes were elaborately premeditated, and that she had been plotting for months to find a real baby to claim as her own.
Advert
After being convicted of capital murder in 2022, Parker is now one of six women in Texas on death row.
But unlike many other death row inmates in America, Parker will not be allowed a final meal before her execution - the date of which is yet to be confirmed - after one former inmate ruined the privilege.
Why aren't Death Row inmates in Texas allowed a chosen final meal?
Lawrence Russell Brewer, a white supremacist, was jailed in the late 1990s along with three other men for murdering James Byrd Jr., who they brutally dragged for three miles along a road after tying him to a pick-up truck.
According to a report from the Houston Chronicle, Brewer asked for a banquet to mark his final meal on earth, which included chicken steaks, fried okra with ketchup, and a cheese omelette with ground beef, jalapenos and bell peppers.
He also requested a 'triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, three fajitas, one pound of barbecue and a half loaf of white bread, pizza meat lover's special, one pint of 'homemade vanilla' Blue Bell ice cream, one slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers'.
While officers did their best to supply the enormous food buffet, when it was presented to the inmate, he went on to simply claim he wasn't hungry - he didn't eat even a morsel.
Brewer was executed by lethal injection as planned in September 2011.
Following his refusal, Texas senator John Whitmire ended the 87-year-old tradition of the chosen final meal, meaning from that day forward, nobody on death row in Texas would get their 'special meal'.
A date has not been set for Parker's execution, but one thing is for sure - the last thing she eats won't be a decision she makes.
A timeline of Taylor Parker’s crime
2014
Mother-of-two and wedding photographer Taylor Parker decides to get her tubes tied after suffering pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition which raises blood pressure, during her last pregnancy.
2015
Parker goes to her doctor with bleeding, who concludes she has had an ectopic pregnancy. She undergoes a hysterectomy, permanently removing her ability to have children.
July 2019
Parker, who is now twice divorced, meets hog trapper Wade Griffin at a local rodeo and they start a relationship. She lies to him that she is the heir to a $6 million estate.
September 2019
Jessica Brookes hires Parker as the photographer at her daughter Reagan Hancock’s wedding to longtime boyfriend Homer Hancock. Parker also previously took their engagement photos.
January 2020
Parker tells Griffin she’s pregnant. He doesn’t know about the hysterectomy. To maintain the ruse, Parker wears a fake pregnancy bump, takes maternity photos and throws a gender reveal party. She claims her due date is September.
Staffers at the hospital where Parker had her hysterectomy are ‘very confused’ about her social media updates, but are bound by privacy laws.
May 2020
Hancock tells her mum Jessica that she’s pregnant with her second child. Jessica later says that after Parker finds out Hancock is pregnant and expecting a girl, she starts to have more contact with her.
September 2020
After her ‘due date’ passes, Parker tells Griffin she will need to be induced or have a c-section.
October 9 2020
Parker watches a video on how to deliver a baby pre-term at 35 weeks, the length of Hancock’s pregnancy. She tells Griffin she is travelling to Idabel, Oklahoma to be induced. Instead, she travels to Hancock’s home, killing her and cutting her unborn child, Braxlynn Sage, from her womb. Hancock’s three-year-old daughter is later found in the house unharmed.
Parker is later pulled over by a Texas State Trooper for erratic driving. As the trooper is approaching her car, she calls 911 and asks for an ambulance, saying: “I’m starting to have my baby.”
The trooper finds Taylor covered in dried blood and holding Hancock’s dead baby, with the umbilical cord still attached.
She is taken to hospital, where it is soon determined she has not given birth. She is arrested the same day.
December 2020
Taylor is indicted by a grand jury on charges of capital murder and kidnapping.
October 2022
Parker is convicted of capital murder.
November 2022
Parker is sentenced to death. Jessica says a ‘heavy burden has been lifted’.
May 2026
The Supreme Court says it will not review Parker’s case. She remains on death row. A date of execution has not been set.
June 12 2026
Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct is released.
Topics: Food and Drink, Death Row, Netflix, Documentaries, Crime
Mia Williams