*There are unsettling reports of violence in the information that follows. Use caution is recommended.*
The jury deliberated for ninety minutes before returning a unanimous verdict in the first round of voting. Taylor Parker, 29, was given a death sentence for the November 9, 2022, murder of Reagan Simmons-Hancock, 21, following the testimony of 142 witnesses and the presentation of more than 100 pieces of evidence by the prosecution.
Parker scowled during the trial, according to one jury, "She didn't look remorseful."
In 2020, Parker assassinated Simmons-Hancock, whom she knew, in order to take the newborn daughter of the expectant mother. Braxlynn Sage Hancock, the baby born out of Simmons-Hancock's womb, did not live. According to ABC News, Simmons-Hancock's 3-year-old daughter was there in the home at the time of the incident.
Parker is the seventh woman to be put to death in Texas's history.
The Reason For The Crime
Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Healthfound that although homicide is the leading cause of death for expectant mothers, it usually occurs at the hands of a partner. The incidences of women killing other women for their unborn children are far more uncommon.
Burgess, who wrote "A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind," tells in an interview, that while she acknowledges that narcissism is a major factor in motivation, she can only think of one instance out of the 21 cases in the United States where a defendant was found to have experienced a psychotic break.
She told The Guardian in 2015, "This is not the maternal urge run amok," offering narcissism and grandiose fantasies as an explanation for the crime. "There's no proof that they form an attachment with the infants they abduct. Frequently, these ladies are skilled con artists. The bulk of them are not psychotic, but they are psychologically compromised.
Theresa Porter, a forensic psychologist who specializes in female aggression and is coauthor of "Female Aggression," thinks that there is a far deeper reason for fetus abduction than just wanting a child. A Minerva Forensic Medicine study from October 2022 mentioned eight cases that were reported in South Africa, Colombia, Hong Kong, Brazil, and Mexico.
In order to release the first study that interviews the offenders rather than relying solely on court documents to explain their motivations and actions, a team of Brazilian researchers is currently examining nine cases throughout Brazil in collaboration with an American team that includes Ann Burgess, a pioneer of the FBI's criminal profiling methods.
In September 2022, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) released a report stating that "fetal abductions" were for 6% of all newborn abductions documented (there have been 336 since 1964). According to the NCMEC, there have been 21 occurrences of fetal abduction in the United States since 1987. Nine of these cases resulted in the fetuses' deaths, while 19 of the cases resulted in the mother's death.
Early Warning Symptoms Of A Fetal Abductor
Fetal abduction is referred to as a "elimination crime" by Dr. Gary Brucato, a clinical psychologist who specializes in mental illness and violence and is co-author of "The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime."" He tells that some criminals "view a pregnant person as a chess piece to be knocked out." "There's not enough compassion."
Social media has made some of those methods simpler to pull off than they were in the past since it allows future offenders to find and contact pregnant victims. According to Burgess, "it heightens the opportunity for offenders to find victims."
A fetal abductor will "often utilize confidence style tricks to persuade their victims," according to the 2022 Minerva Forensic Medicine study, even if victims may or may not be known to their attacker prior to the crime.
At least in the United States, the women who perpetrate these crimes don't seem to have many characteristics at first glance. They are diverse in terms of age and race; some are childless, while others are already mothers. However, the same deception is usually used to begin fetal abductions: the victim's claim to be pregnant. Furthermore, the crime frequently follows a fear of losing a romantic partner.
He claims that because they are addicted to the attention that comes with being pregnant, fetal abductors "are quite similar to that subtype of serial killer." Burgess and Brucato concur that warning indicators of fetal abduction may include an excessive interest in other people's pregnancies and a reputation for being a pathological liar. According to Brucato, fetal abductors also frequently display personality disorders, albeit they might not all have the same ones.
Brucato also draws a parallel between the crime and mothers who murder their own children for the attention that follows the death.
Ladies Who Have Murdered To Take Babies
In 2015, Angelikque Sutton, then twenty-two, was killed in New York City by her childhood friend Ashleigh Wade. Because of their pregnancies, the two had recently reconnected on Facebook. However, Wade, 22, used a sonogram that she most likely acquired off the internet to persuade her boyfriend and other people, including an OB-GYN nurse neighbor, that she was pregnant, according to the Guardian.
Fanning remarks, "I'm still perplexed that she received the death penalty." "She had such an obvious mental illness." Not that Fanning doesn't think Montgomery was a very dangerous man. Say she made it off with it, she suggests. What would occur if, for the first time, that infant failed to return all of the love? Mothers are frequently defied by toddlers. What then does she do to that kid? She has already claimed one life.
She asserts, "Being psychotic does not imply that you lack intelligence or that you are incapable of acting with purpose." "For many years, there have been crimes in our nation when individuals commit horrific acts of violence as a result of delusional ideas or cognitive processes. Lisa Montgomery is not an exception. She performed this while suffering from severe mental illness.
Montgomery was assessed for almost eighteen hours by clinical psychologist Dr. Katherine Porterfield, who testified that she thought Montgomery was insane.
The penalty generated debate. In an article headlined "Punch After Punch, Rape After Rape, a Murderer Was Made," the New York Times revealed that Montgomery's post-conviction attorney spoke with about 450 witnesses, including family members, medical professionals, and educators, who said Montgomery suffered from mental illness as a result of her traumatic experiences. (A BCC interview with Montgomery's half-sister and Baby Be Mine both detailed a childhood rife with sexual and physical violence.)
Lisa Montgomery was convicted of federal kidnapping with fatal consequences. "Heinous" was how the US Justice Department described the murder and kidnapping. Following an appeal, Montgomery's death sentence was upheld, and "every court that considered it rejected her request for collateral relief." She was the first female federal execution victim in about 70 years in 2021.
Montgomery was forced into that sterilization, according to her lawyers, by Boman and her violent mother Judy Shaughnessy. Apparently, Bowan had also threatened to reveal the sterilization to Kevin Montgomery.
Montgomery took Stinnett's baby, Abigail, home to her delighted husband, Kevin Montgomery, and fled the scene of her crime. They rejoiced over "their" new arrival for a single day. Kevin was unaware that his wife had fabricated her pregnancy, that she had previously fabricated miscarriages and pregnancies, or that she had undergone sterilization following the birth of her fourth child with her former spouse, Carl Boman, her stepbrother.
Later, Stinnett, a 23-year-old mother of one who was eight months pregnant, came into focus for Montgomery. Stinnett lived in Indiana, a few miles away from Montgomery in Missouri.
According to Diane Fanning, who wrote the book "Baby Be Mine," which is about the murder, "[Montgomery] first picked a victim who was carrying twins,". "And although she had been telling everyone she was carrying twins, that woman lost one of the babies, and suddenly [Montgomery] wasn't carrying twins."
In December 2004, after talking to pregnant dog breeder Bobbie Jo Stinnett about purchasing a puppy, Lisa Montgomery, 36, killed her. Montgomery, who had also lied to her husband and numerous other people, informed Stinnett that she was also pregnant.
A renowned case of fetus abduction may have also originated from an internet discussion forum.
The Figueroas are facing numerous allegations, including two counts of murder. Piotr Bobak, Clarisa's lover, admitted guilt in January 2023 to covering up the murder, but the Figueroas are entering a not guilty plea. In November 2019, Desiree gave birth to a kid while she was incarcerated pending her trial.
Weeks later, the baby passed away in the hospital, right in front of his father.
Three weeks after the murder, a tip regarding the Facebook exchange between the expectant mother and Clarisa Figueroa was received by authorities investigating Ochoa-Lopez's missing person's report. At that point, authorities were able to verify Yovany Lopez was the child's real father. They discovered Ochoa-Lopez's remains shortly after.
Declaring that Ochoa-Lopez was the mother, Clarisa Figueroa dialed 911 when her newborn boy began exhibiting indications of distress. The baby was brought to a nearby hospital.
Figueroa and his daughter Desiree Figueroa ambushed her when she returned a second time. After killing Ochoa-Lopez, they did a rudimentary C-section and disposed of her body outside their house in a trash can.
Through a post in a Facebook group for mothers, 46-year-old Clarisa Figueroa enticed a stranger, 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, to her Chicago residence in May 2019. As reported by the Chicago Sun Times, she gave the young woman free baby clothes. Ochoa-Lopez, who was already a mother of a 3-year-old son, did in fact receive garments when she first visited Figueroa's house, according to People.
Wade was apprehended nearly right away following her act, and in 2017 she was convicted guilty of both murder and kidnapping. She was given a 40-year to life sentence.
Wade told officials, "Holding her felt right and I believed that the little girl was mine," after taking Sutton's kid out of her womb. Jenasis, the girl, made it through the Caesarean section alive.
Wade claimed to have experienced a hysterical pregnancy, a fake pregnancy that may genuinely manifest as pregnancy symptoms, but she mistakenly thought she had lost the child.
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