Taylor Parker sentenced to death for killing pregnant friend to steal her unborn baby

A Texas jury sentenced a woman to death Wednesday for killing a pregnant woman she knew to take her unborn daughter.

Jurors returned with the sentence for Taylor Parker, 29, after deliberating for just over an hour, the Texarkana Gazette reported. The same Bowie County jury convicted Parker on Oct. 3 of capital murder in the 2020 slaying of 21-year-old Reagan Simmons-Hancock, whose baby was cut from her womb and did not survive.

In a statement to the court, Simmons-Hancock's mother addressed Parker as an "evil piece of flesh demon."