Texas woman who cut baby from mother's womb could face death penalty
NEW BOSTON, Texas - Prosecutors asked a Texas jury Wednesday to sentence a woman to death for killing a pregnant woman and stealing her unborn daughter from her womb.
The appeal came as the penalty phase of Taylor Parker's capital murder trial began.
A Bowie County jury previously found Parker guilty of capital murder for the October 2020 murder of Reagan Simmons-Hancock and theft of her unborn baby.
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Prosecutor Kelley Crisp told jurors that the evidence would show Parker, 29, faked a pregnancy and repeatedly lied before killing Simmons-Hancock, 21, at the woman's New Boston home on Oct. 9, 2020. Her goal was to get the infant she claimed to have been carrying, but the baby also died.
Parker's attorneys hope to persuade the jury to spare her life and let her serve life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Defense attorney Jeff Harrelson said they would show that Parker was mentally ill.