Taylor Parker shocked the world when she murdered her pregnant friend, Reagan Simmons Hancock, in the wake of a fake pregnancy. The case took another twist when she claimed she had given birth and tried to pass off the baby as her own.
Since her story was shared in the Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct in June 2026, many true crime fans have wondered if Parker has been diagnosed with a mental disorder, which might explain what drove her to commit crimes.
Us Weekly breaks down everything you need to know about Parker’s mental state and crimes below.
Has Taylor Parker been diagnosed with a mental disorder?
After Parker was arrested in October 2020, her case went to trial in 2022. During the trial and sentencing hearing, several psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health experts testified that Ms. Parker had not been formally diagnosed with a mental illness.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Arambula, who evaluated the case but did not treat Parker, said he was looking for “some kind of mental deterioration” to explain the horrific crime. He added that she “sticked to her plan and had no regrets after that,” according to KTAL News.
“In this case, there’s nothing about mental illness, there’s nothing about intoxication, and Ms. Parker falls into the category of a fetal abductor. This is rare, but it puts her in the category of a woman who doesn’t have a mental illness,” Arambula testified. “The murder is planned. It’s premeditated. There’s a plan for the aftermath.”
Mr Arambula claimed he could not formally diagnose Mr Parker, but said it was possible she suffered from a “Cluster B” personality disorder.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, this type of personality disorder “involves impulsive and dramatic behavior” and includes people who are “often unaware that there is a problem with their thoughts or actions.”
Lauren Elmore, an Austin-based licensed master social worker, also testified that she met with Parker for a five-hour “biopsychosocial evaluation” to better understand her upbringing and the biological and social factors that may have influenced her behavior. During the conversation, Ms. Parker told Mr. Elmore that she had been sexually assaulted when she was 13 years old.
Ms. Parker’s defense attorney used testimony from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gripon to describe Ms. Parker’s mental state after meeting with her twice. Gripon acknowledged that Parker had some characteristics of mixed personality disorder, but said he could not diagnose Parker with a mental illness.
“This is considered a mental illness because it affects the person, their quality of life, their stability in life, their ability to maintain relationships, their ability to maintain employment at some point, but it’s not a full-blown disorder at the time we’re diagnosing it,” Gripon explained.
After FedEx driver Tanner Horner pleaded guilty to killing 7-year-old Athena Strand, her mother broke down in tears as she discussed the crime in court. “I’m so angry at him. I just want to tear his ass apart,” Horner’s mother, known as Mrs. Horner by her lawyers, said tearfully at Wednesday’s hearing.
Dr. Timothy Proctor, a psychologist, also testified that after meeting with Parker and administering various standardized tests, he came to believe that Parker “exhibited psychopathic traits,” including “pathological lying and manipulativeness.”
Mr Proctor said Ms Parker had a variety of “anti-social traits” which resulted in her “inclination to disobey the law and break rules, and certainly has a history of reckless disregard for others, irresponsibility and lack of conscience”.
Neurologist said Taylor Parker’s brain was ‘broken’
Also during the trial, neurologist Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni said, “There is something very wrong with her brain,” according to KTAL News.
Based on Parker’s tests and various brain scans, he said, “She has frontal lobe dysfunction, frontal lobe syndrome.”
Nadkarni added that there are gaps in the folds of Parker’s brain that may correlate with her impulsivity and inhibition.
What did Taylor Parker do?
After Parker met Wade Griffin in 2019, the two began a whirlwind romance, and she claimed in January 2020 that she was pregnant with his baby, with a due date of September 22. Many of Griffin’s loved ones questioned the legitimacy of Parker’s pregnancy because she was past her due date.
Former TV news anchor Angeline Mock was arrested and found mentally unfit to stand trial on suspicion of killing her mother, Anita Avars. When Mock, 48, appeared in the Sedgwick County District Court in Kansas on Thursday, January 15, Judge Jeffrey Gehring ruled that she was not mentally fit to continue the trial, according to the State of Kansas (…)
In October 2020, Parker brutally murdered Simmons-Hancock in her home, performed a brutal Caesarean section to remove the baby and placenta, and then fled the scene. She claimed she had just given birth to a child and was on her way to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, when she was stopped by a police officer for speeding. When she arrived at the hospital, doctors quickly determined that she had not given birth and was unable to bear children after undergoing a hysterectomy years earlier.
Parker was later questioned at the hospital and quickly arrested in connection with the deaths of Simmons-Hancock and her unborn daughter Braxlyn Sage. She was found guilty and sentenced to death in October 2022.
She is currently awaiting execution as the youngest female death row inmate in Texas.
