The Case Files: Taylor Parker (part 4)
Jailhouse romances, letter-writing, and attempts to frame other inmates for Reagan’s murder become Taylor’s new prison hobbies
Taylor Parker became a reckless, destructive bird caught in a cage too small, who squawked too much and had to puff out her chest so everyone could see her. Being within prison walls and complaining constantly about boredom and loneliness certainly didn’t deter Taylor from her pretentious behavior, nor did the fact she killed a mother and baby seem to deter other women from flocking around her.
Perhaps incarceration gave her too much time to think. Too many hours and empty days to scheme and fabricate more stories to try and escape accountability for her heinous actions. Staring at bland walls only gave her time to conjure up more drama and drag other inmates into her problems.
Even before she was formally sentenced, Taylor wasted no time in finding ways to gain the jailhouse spotlight.
“Since her arrival at the jail, she has repeatedly and continuously engaged in criminal behavior, violations of jail policy, and has continued her fraudulent pattern of lying and misrepresenting most all aspects of her medical history and medical status,” Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp said in a notice to the court.
Crisp sought out from the judge the ability to present evidence of Taylor’s “extraneous offenses, bad acts, and other wrongs” while in prison awaiting her sentencing, in order for said acts to be used as means for a handing down a harsher sentence. The prosecution wanted to use Taylor’s actions from before and around the time of the murder that weren’t necessarily relevant to the crime as means of proving what type of manipulative character she truly is.
The court documents filed by Crisp accuse Taylor of “welfare and benefits fraud” from Dec. 17, 2010 right up until Oct. 9, 2020. Taylor allegedly misrepresented or misreported facts in order to receive more benefits or welfare than she was entitled to.
“The defendant, at a minimum, repeatedly and continuously pursuant to a continuing criminal episode or scheme, reported a series of lies that include, but are not limited to, lies about her personal finances, lies about household finances, lies about total household income, lies about bogus health conditions (including pregnancy), lies about persons living in the household, lies about her marital status, etc. to qualify for these benefits,” the documents say.
The State of Texas said they wanted to present to the court evidence of this fraud and Taylor’s full medical, employment, cell phone, social media, and banking records.
Since arriving at the Bowie County jail, the documents say Taylor “has repeatedly and continuously engaged in criminal behavior, violations of jail policy, and has continued her fraudulent pattern of lying and misrepresenting most all aspects of her medical history and medical status.”
Indeed, Kelly Gilchrist, the supervisor of the jail’s medical staff testified at the trial that Taylor quickly became one of the most frequent visitors to sick call Gilchrist has ever seen, and one of the most difficult.
“It’s been quite challenging. Sometimes, we have to go down the rabbit holes to find information on her, and sometimes at the end of that rabbit hole we do not find anything,” Gilchrist said.
Additionally, Gilchrist noted, Taylor has been taken to Wadley Regional Medical Center at least ten times for a list of symptoms: tightness in her chest, shortness of breath, vomiting blood, and a bleeding ulcer. Taylor received plenty of tests with no confirmations of any medical issues.
Crisp noted that these hospital trips, which require Taylor to be escorted by two correctional guards 24 hours a day, costs tax payers each time. Taylor claimed after one visit that a doctor refused to treat her due to her crimes, which Gilchrist denied ever happening.
Taylor also kept claiming she had a history of multiple sclerosis, stroke, pulmonary embolisms, and a rare blood clotting disorder her doctor states she doesn’t have. At one point, medical staff became suspicious that Taylor would intentionally breathe shallowly to manipulate her respiration and oxygen levels.
When doctors failed to feed her bids for attention and validation, Taylor turned to yet another claim. On her medical records, she had previously stated that she had no history of sexual assault, but she marked “yes” to a question which asked if she felt as though she were at high risk for sexual assault in prison.
Wadley Regional Medical Center saw Taylor yet again when she claimed to have fallen and hurt herself at the jail. She complained that she had troubles walking. When doctors found no signs of an injury, she was discharged and returned to prison. In her medical records, doctors left a note from her physical therapist that stated something all too familiar: Taylor may have been embellishing or exaggerating her symptoms. While medical staff believed she was faking her symptoms, they offered to give Taylor access to mental health counseling, which she refused.
Three months later, Taylor demand access to counseling, disclosing that she did have a history of sexual abuse, after all. This did come up at her trial, though I will discuss this in-depth in the next installment of this series, which focuses on Taylor’s psychology.
Gilchrist continued her testimony to say that Taylor reported hearing voices in April 2022. Since being placed on medication for it, she hasn’t reported it again.
Gilchrist added that Taylor showed aggressive and abusive behavior towards the jail medical staff, recalling an instance where she reminded the correctional officers escorting Taylor to her weekly therapy session that she was to be handcuffed from behind. It was jail policy, and one Gilchrist claims Taylor didn’t want to comply with.
“And she got mad and kicked the door and said, ‘I’m not putting up with this ****,’” Gilchrist said.
Outside of a medical room, Gilchrist heard an exchange between Taylor and a male inmate. When the man complimented Taylor on her looks, Taylor replied:
“You obviously don’t know who I am and what I’m capable of.”
Taylor also allegedly filed a complaint against a jail nurse, claiming she didn’t get her medications.
“Fake complaints are very difficult for a nurse. When a nurse gets turned over to the board, they are automatically guilty. They have to prove their innocence,” Gilchrist explained.
After the accusation, Gilchrist made it jail policy that two nurses be in the room at the same time to deal with Taylor. Gilchrist even adjusted another jail policy that rerouted Taylor to another medical zone within the prison to prevent her from conversing with the male inmates. After this, Taylor began to refuse her sick calls.
Next, Taylor began complaining about the lights in her cell being on 24/7. She penned another letter, this time to the warden, stating that her neurologist was concerned that the constant lights would trigger her seizures. Taylor’s defense attorney, Jeff Harrelson, also wrote a letter regarding this:
“The lighting situation is not merely an annoyance to Ms. Parker, but is detrimental to her health, I have discussed this matter with Judge Tidwell and he suggested I discuss the matter with you.”
According to her medical records, Taylor self-reported two seizures in this time, but these were believed to be caused by medication reactions, not the lights. When Crisp asked Gilchrist during the trial if turning off the lights was possible, Gilchrist replied:
“It would be impossible and it would be dangerous.”
A full investigation was undertaken to find out if the lights would indeed cause Taylor’s seizures. In response to Harrelson’s letter, nurse practitioner Karen Ashley stated there have been no findings that Taylor had seizures.
“Our provider has reviewed her chart extensively and has not found anywhere that she has been diagnosed with seizures,“ Ashley wrote, adding “that the lights cannot be turned off in segregated cells due to the need to be able to see the patient at all times and so that security can do their visual checks on the inmates.”
Ashley said Taylor had also refused her medications on claims that her family couldn’t afford them.
Gilchrist could confirm that blood pressure and thyroid issues were legitimate medical problems for Taylor. She is taking medication for thyroid, Eliquis for blood clot prevention, and Excedrin twice a day for her complaints of headaches. Gilchrist said Taylor’s medical records point out that Taylor complained of complicated migraines, though Gilchrist emphasized on the word “complains.” Taylor had never been diagnosed with anything for certain while running from one doctor to another in search of answers to her symptoms — or for a doctor who would fit into the narrative of her medical problems.
Taylor began targeting corrections officers (CO) who disciplined her. She filed a bogus grievance against CO Amber Monk after Monk denied Taylor her dayroom time after she was caught being out all night against jail policy. In retaliation, Taylor claimed that Monk threatened to cut her throat and used a racial slur.
Monk testified how before that, she’d had no problems with Taylor. Taylor had bragged to her that she had a Netflix deal coming through to tell her story and asked Monk who would play her in the documentary.
“I don’t talk like that,“ Monk said of the grievance. “It made me upset because I’ve never had an inmate put a grievance on me.”
Monk observed that Taylor appeared to differentiate between “weak” and “strong” jailers. Taylor didn’t ask Monk to do anything against jail policy, but other correction officers would bend to Taylor’s threats of grievances and legal action. With their jobs and income on the line, such jailers permitted Taylor to pass her notes, granted her a little more freedom than she was entitled, and allowed her contraband she wasn’t supposed to have.
Mascara, a razor, a teddy bear, a ring, and an extra mat were all items allegedly found in Taylor’s cell; items she wasn’t permitted to keep. She even somehow had a sheet from the complex across the street from the facility imprisoning her.
McKenzie Nichols, another corrections officer, confirmed that the prison housing Taylor didn’t have sheets like the one discovered in her cell, and any razors given to inmates were to be returned. The one found in Taylor’s cell wasn’t a standard issue razor, and Nichols couldn’t explain how Taylor got the extra mat.
Taylor claimed that Capt. Nathaniel Johnson allowed her to have those things because she had been there for so long — but Johnson testified that such permission had never been granted, at least not by him. Taylor had been wearing a ring to court that she didn’t have upon entering the jail. Johnson confirmed that unless they were married before being imprisoned, then inmates aren’t allowed to have jewelry.
“If they don’t come in with it, it doesn’t belong to them and they got it from other means,” Johnson said.
Nichols admitted during the trial to being one of the corrections officers giving Taylor more freedom than the other prisoners received. One video played in the court room showed Taylor out and about in the jail pod long after she was supposed to be in her cell. When confronted, Taylor told Nichols:
“I’m supposed to be on TV tonight.”
Nichols told the court that on the night in question, the officers were busy, so she let Taylor’s escapade slide. Taylor was supposed to be in solitary confinement, allowed out for only one hour a day, but she kept finding ways to bend the rules.
Taylor was shown on camera that night having an animated conversation with someone while watching the coverage of her own trial on the news. Nichols was seen on video coming and going from the dayroom at least three times, where Taylor lounged as her fellow inmates watched from their cells. Taylor returned to her cell at 10:06 p.m., promptly when coverage of her trial ended.
Nichols also testified that Taylor claimed the ID channel filmed her in the courtroom every day and would make a movie about her, and she even claimed to have a hair and makeup team. The corrections officer noted that Taylor seemed to believe she was “really popular.”
Murder made her well-known, that’s for sure, even if it’s more out of infamy than popularity. But Taylor Parker is a woman who can fabricate a stage out of anything, even a solitary confinement cell.
A still photo from another day showed that Taylor somehow managed to get an inmate from general population into her jail pod to visit. The other inmate, a woman serving time for allegedly sexually assaulting a child, sat braiding Taylor’s hair in the dayroom on Aug. 7, 2022.
The corrections officer who permitted the general population inmate into Taylor’s pod was disciplined, yet Taylor walked free of any punishment.
Johnson pointed out that the jail is short-staffed, and they could spend more time writing up the inmates than they could watch them. He added that Taylor had yet to be disciplined for anything. Between commissary and visiting time, there isn’t much left to take from Taylor, Johnson said, noting that she never has visitors, anyway.
In March 2022, Taylor took it upon herself to move into a vacant cell, from RO1C to RO1D, and claimed she wanted to stay there. Upon being sent back to RO1C, Taylor filed yet another grievance.
“RO1D it’s a smaller cell – I’m able to see the TV – it only has one light which helps w/my migraines on a daily basis. I was approached by CO (who) told captain said we have to move back to RO1C – I’m requesting to be permanently housed in RO1D,” she explained.
The jail lieutenant’s response was short and blunt:
“You were given a direct order to not switch rooms. You disobeyed orders. This is a non-grievable matter.”
“In all the time you’ve been there, has she ever shown remorse and shown that she was sorry for the family?” Crisp asked Nichols.
“Never once,” Nichols replied.
Kristina Brooks Keaton agreed. The 20-year-old encountered Taylor upon taking her first corrections officer job at the Bowie County jail, and worked there for about a year.
“If you see Taylor Parker in the jail, you’d never know that’s what she was in for,” Keaton said. She described Taylor’s demeanor in prison as being on vacation and just heading home.
She added that Taylor was “fine as long as she got what she wanted,” and was “sweet and nice” until she was denied something. When that happened, Taylor would “go off” with cursing, yelling, and threatening that she would have the officers’ jobs.
“I wasn’t scared of her. Not like friendly, but just casual. But someone who didn’t interact with her on a daily basis, I’m sure they would be pretty scared,” Keaton said.
The former corrections officer described the disturbing look that Taylor would give when angered, calling it a “scary stare.”
“She just went completely blank. It looks like a light turned off in her head and she just became mean. It wasn’t acting out, but you could see her entire demeanor had changed.”
Taylor remained convinced that the court would see some sort of light, realize she was innocent of murdering Reagan, and would let her free. She told Keaton that she fully expected to be released and wouldn’t get the death penalty. Taylor would tell anyone who listened that “it was gonna go her way,” Keaton said. “She likes to be the center of attention and put on a show.”
One day, Taylor handed Keaton a manilla envelope, claiming it was a manuscript for her memoir. She requested that Keaton make copies so her mother could send copies out to publishers. Keaton stated that she read a few lines, put it back into the envelope and gave it right back.
“I didn’t wanna do it.”
The few lines Keaton read, she described as Taylor’s rambles about how sorry she felt for Reagan and Braxlynn, that she missed her boyfriend, and claimed to be baffled at how people could think she committed such a crime. It didn’t convince Keaton of any remorse Taylor might have.
“I don’t believe Taylor Parker has the capability of feeling sorry,” Keaton said.
The prison life: medical fraud and multiple romantic pursuits
Taylor had access to an email kiosk and the jail phone. Between emails, phone calls, and jail letters, she discussed her “bogus medical claims.” She even insisted on having an oxygen tank in her cell with her, but staff observed her not bothering to use it. Medical testing afterwards confirmed she had no need for it.
Despite everything, Shonna still enabled Taylor during this time, too. Taylor is accused of violating jail policy by having her mother “put money on other inmate’s commissary accounts to avoid paying Bowie County monies that Parker owes for her medical bills.” Money owed to the jail is garnished from the inmate’s account until the full amount is paid. For her medical expenses as of February 2022, Taylor owed over $2,260.
Shonna and Taylor allegedly bought the other inmates commissary items as payment. Ten inmates who helped Taylor in this scheme are named in the documents, accused of using their commissaries to assist the mother and daughter.
Furthermore, the documents say that Taylor “repeatedly and continuously rips up or modifies her jail clothing and then complains about it to her parents. The defendant will ask her parents to send her money for new jail clothes.”
She allegedly told her father on Jan. 5, 2022 that she was “in lockdown from yesterday until Friday cause we have the shit crew”, in reference to the correctional officers, and claimed she wasn’t able to call until Friday. Taylor went on to tell him that her jail clothes, which she claimed she’d had for a year, had holes in the front. She failed to tell him that she was the one who ripped the shoulders and neck to make them “more revealing.”
On Jan. 6, 2022, she thanked her dad for the money and said she ordered new clothes. Then, on Jan. 28, 2022, she sold the same story to her mother. The documents accuse Taylor of ripping her clothing to “appear more provocative.”
“Each time the defendant logs onto the jail email kiosk, the kiosk takes the defendant’s photograph. These photographs reveal that the defendant’s clothing has been intentionally altered,” the documents say.
Taylor has also apparently maintained romantic relationships with other inmates. Upon altering her clothing, she flirts with her fellow inmates and “maintains various jailhouse romances.” On Sept. 24, 2021, Taylor made mention to a provider that “she was lonely” and “was tired of being around all females.”
She missed manipulating and destroying men as though it was a hobby, clearly.
Taylor did manage to strike up jailhouse romances with two male inmates, named in the documents as Travis Blocker and Adam Post. She also wrote to inmates at other correctional facilities. She allegedly rounded up her family and friends to get in contact with potential romantic interests. In Sept. 2021, she asked her family to “contact her boyfriends.” Taylor emailed her mother on Sept. 2, 2021:
“Do me a favor please, look up Travis Blocker on Facebook. He told me to call him when I got my kiosk working but I trashed his number by accident. He was a trustee here but went home. Kirkland his trustee buddy left for SAFP yesterday so I can’t get it from him. Just say Parker got her kiosk what’s your email, he will give it to you.”
Between Sept. 2021 and Jan. 2022, she used jail phone calls and emails to get family and friends to arrange communications with Blocker. She emailed fellow inmate Christina Merrell, who had been in on the commissary scheme:
“need a sugar daddy to load me (s)ome money on this damn thing. Lmao…anything on blocker aka travis? Oh 903-219-2226 is brad obenosky from simms. Txt him to add me so I can talk to him. Or message him for me on fb please. I miss you bunches…im lonely :( I hate this…”
She continued after that email to ask Merrell if she’d gotten in touch with Blocker on Facebook, and asked her to text Obenosky, complaining once more that she was bored and lonely.
In an email conversation with Allan Pauley, Taylor wouldn’t talk details of why she was in prison, but maintained her innocence.
“I do free lance recruiting for manufacturing industrial plans in the killed trade departments on top of breading and selling cattle. You can say im a farm girl. Please don’t think I want anything from you a very ndependent respectful person..”, that email read.
However, she appeared to begin the cycle of love bombing one man in particular, Augustine Diaz. Their jailhouse letters were sexually explicit but she expressed the wish to make a life with him.
“I’m gonna snuggle down with my book if you keep me warm at night I definitely wouldn’t mind a poke..just sayin. I’m very reserved and I’m one to leave our private bedroom time to ‘us’ only. But honey I’m a freak js,” one letter said.
She went on to claim that her “ex used to call her fat” and that she “disgusted him.”
“If I gained an ounce, he’d hit me. It broke me really. More my heart than anything,” she continued.
“I’d love to build a home and family with you based on God. That’s a dream and hope I will hold onto and pray,” she said. “I would never play someones emotions. Games are not for me. I will voice that loud and fucking clear. I want to plan for the future…”
The notion that she’d mention “building” a family with yet another man is rather telling that she learned nothing from destroying Wade and murdering Reagan. She is remorseless and would do it again.
Taylor claimed that she loved writing and, ironically, “every part of putting together a story.” Taylor also told him that she is a good singer and a “few venues” wanted her to sing before.
Still, she continued pestering Shonna about messaging guys on Facebook for her for them to get in contact with her. Shonna became the messenger between Taylor and her various men. Taylor, in one message she had Shonna forward to Blocker, told him not to write “about your perverted dreams. I would hate for my mom to read what your thinking about her daughter lmao xo xo.”
On Jan. 31, 2022, Taylor even asked her father to send Blocker some messages.
“To whom it may concern…”
Writing had become one of her hobbies, all right. In what feels oddly reminiscent of Ted Bundy offering to help detectives capture the Green River Killer, Taylor wrote a letter to the FBI offering her services in helping catch other criminals. This letter remained unsent and was discovered in her cell. Smuggling this letter out of prison was probably more difficult than her normal penmanships. Such assistance to the FBI would have labeled her as a rat and would likely complicate her life among the other inmates to top off the special treatment she already received.
Yet the prosecution revealed it during the sentencing phase of the trial.
“I’m reaching out to correspond with someone within the federal bureau to offer my services, in exchange for my own help. For the last year I have been mingling with many different types of criminals,” Taylor wrote.
She maintained her innocence, but added that she wanted to help the FBI capture criminals to try and avoid receiving the death penalty.
“Part of this is for me and my future or what’s left of it,” Taylor continued. “The other half is my obligation to her or maybe I’m just mad as a m**** because I’m going down for something I didn’t do. I’ve accepted that but being a part of and seeing what unfolded an being unable to change the outcome…that’s something I’ll never get over because I can’t understand it.”
She claimed to accept that she was going to get either life in prison or the death penalty, but said she’d “rather one over the other.”
In this letter, she fully admitted to being manipulative and that she could “play sexual mind games” with the other female inmates. She claimed to run the jail and that no one crossed her. She understood criminals and the way they think, she said, as her year in prison had given her insight into such matters.
“I have a way of dissecting into a delicate balance the mind. Knowing it, connecting to it, and them, makes me good at what I do. In a year Ive allowed myself time to help educate myself. Profiling what motivates a criminal. My favorite are the murders and their proxy,” she wrote.
“Your job is to follow up looking into, monitor, correspond, pursue avenues, and through all this you put together a ‘theory.’ You look at this as a problem which is meant to be solved. And that may very well be true. But the way you measure, cut and fit the pieces together until it works the way you want it to work isn’t always how it truly happened…
What I mean is you can be logical and objective all day long but if you don’t allow yourself to step outside and look at the whole from – someone who has seen first hand you will never put it together right.
Proxy are driven by motivation similar to a dog ‘play, praise, reward and pleasing the ones who dole all that out.’ But the problem with them is they usually deviate. From their motives and in the end got caught.
Motivation matters because why do you do something connects to how you do it, who you do it to, or for, and what you want at the end.”
Crisp used the letter as an essential confession from Taylor which admitted to her manipulative ways. It was far more telling than Taylor could fathom — or maybe she could, and that’s why she didn’t ever send it.
“She writes it all out here,” Crisp stated.
From behind bars, Taylor tries to frame another woman for Reagan’s murder
The documents also allege that Taylor had a “massive fraudulent scheme directed at fabricating evidence, tampering with witnesses and ultimately framing a mentally fragile inmate named Hanna Hullender for the crime.”
Hullender, a fellow inmate, is the one who ultimately alerted jail staff of Taylor’s scheme. Once again, Taylor had concocted a complicated web of lies and deceit in an attempt to implicate Hullender of Reagan’s murder and make Taylor look innocent.
Taylor told Hullender the details of the crime and had her write them out in what would become a fabricated witness statement. Hullender informed law enforcement that the letter was false, and the information had come straight from Taylor. Hullender was to tell police that she witnessed a black car driven by a black male making drug drops around the jail, and that it was the same vehicle she saw at the murder scene. Hullender’s interview was to corroborate the witness statement and confession.
In what is a highly unlikely story, Taylor told Hullender that she had gone to the Hancock residence the night before the murder. Taylor claimed she and Reagan had gotten into an argument. Reagan knew she was faking her pregnancy, Taylor would say, and refused to call Wade Griffin to pose as a nurse and tell him Taylor had lost the baby while he was hauling hogs.
However, Taylor did say she had with her a medical bag and used a scalpel, a knife, and a jar to kill Reagan, which matches what was found at the scene the day of the murder. Taylor said she removed the baby from Reagan and tried to perform CPR. She didn’t leave the residence until she watched Reagan die, then planned on fleeing to Idabel, Oklahoma, where she would tell hospital staff she’d just given birth and would present the baby to Wade as theirs. This much was probably true.
Hullender expressed fear of Taylor because the way she so easily manipulated people, and was sure Taylor would hurt her if given the chance.
However, Taylor wrote a letter to her fellow inmate and girlfriend, Lana Addison, presenting an alternate version of events on the morning of Reagan’s murder, which prosecutors claim furthered her attempt to frame Hullender. The letter reads more like some disturbing way of placing herself at scene, only as a victim, and reliving the murder in a way that doesn’t incriminate her.
Taylor told Addison that she had been in Reagan’s house that morning, but she didn’t commit the murder. A gang of women had kidnapped Taylor from the side of the road that morning and took her to Reagan’s house. Taylor claimed that Reagan was severely beaten while she remained in the backseat of Wade’s car, barely conscious herself. When she awoke, the gang dragged her into Reagan’s house.
“My head was so heavy Lana. I knew I heard voices, females. But I couldn’t stay awake,” Taylor wrote in the letter. “I heard the door open. Then I remember falling hard to the garage floor. I can still remember how cold and hard it was. When my eyes open I’m on the floor in front of the washer.”
Reagan begged her to save the baby’s life, Taylor said, and that was why she removed the unborn child from her friend’s uterus.
Taylor said that she could hear someone screaming at her to get up.
“I’m thinking in my head what’s wrong with me? Pick yourself up Taylor but I can’t my head is still pounding. Next thing I know I’m slamming into cabinets. I could here the silverware jingle. I was a rag doll Lana!”
Taylor claimed she was finally able to come to and go to Reagan’s side. She said her friend was already bleeding out on the living room floor by this point.
“As I fell back I stepped on something and realized I was barefoot and slipped in something wet. I still have nightmares. The sound. The gurgle noise,” Taylor wrote.
“Reagan says Im dying shes dying get her out. Save her. I couldn’t do anything but say oh God. I said I can’t Reagan I have no clue where the hell she had a knife in her hand a seraded knife. She tried to drag it over her stomach. I snatched that knife so fast and said no. I slug it across the room….I thought of the knife but oh God I couldn’t. I couldn’t bare to do that. She was my friend not a steak. I don’t know how but I remembered the leather surgical kit I had custom made for Wade I got for him in Paris. It was his surprise for his birthday.”
After this, Taylor details how she removed the baby, then claimed she was taking the baby to the hospital to save it, not steal it. Reagan was supporting Taylor as she prepared to come clean with Wade about the pregnancy, Taylor claimed.
“Reagan was going to come home with me to tell him everything when we got back. Lana She was only helping me! Reagan and I were like sisters. I did not kill her!!” Taylor wrote.
There is more to this letter, but of course, we know the gang theory is simply not plausible. I don’t see much point in rehashing the rest of it. Basically, Taylor claims that she somehow, miraculously recalled Hullender’s voice from the crime scene when the gang had her in the house with Reagan, and claimed that Hullender wanted her to remember it.
Framing Hullender fell flat before it ever got off the ground. No other DNA was present at the crime scene. Taylor confessed shortly after being pulled over, telling police she’d gotten into an “altercation” with Reagan before killing her. Only Taylor can be placed at the scene by car GPS, DNA, and her own admission. No one else has been placed in that home with Reagan that morning with any other motive to murder her. Hullender was a woman with mental health and addiction issues; not the cruel manipulative mind it would have taken to carry out what Taylor did. Like she did with everyone, Taylor was merely using someone she perceived as inferior and weak.
In what appears to be another attempt at framing someone else, Taylor allegedly tried to get another inmate to write out a supposed confession. Shonnaree Yeager told Texas Department of Public Safety Special Agent Briscoe Davis on Jan. 28, 2021 that Taylor gave her a 13-page handwritten document in a sealed envelope. Taylor asked her to get the document to the Texarkana Gazette newspaper, where Shonnaree was previously working.
“The document is an elaborate story detailing events leading up to and including the murder of Reagan Hancock and kidnapping of Braxlynn Hancock,” the documents state.
Taylor gave Shonnaree the letter and told her to copy the letter in her own handwriting and destroy the original. Shonnaree told Davis that she never read it.
Taylor addressed another letter to someone she called “Momma Sylvia”, who was later identified as an inmate named Sylvia Plunkett. This time, Taylor denied having involvement with murder and claimed that the authorities fabricated or withheld evidence that would have proved her innocence. Taylor also wrote that she didn’t recall what happened “on my way home”, in reference to the period during which Reagan was murdered and Taylor was pulled over with Braxlynn. Taylor accuses law enforcement of withholding information of what happened during this time she claims to have no memory of.
The documents note that a handwriting comparison between the 13-page letter and the one written to Sylvia may have been in different handwriting. But in comparing known samples of Taylor’s handwriting, she has used a variety of different handwriting styles, and it is believed she penned both letters. Multiple inmates, including the ones named, noted that Taylor was known to have different variations in her handwriting.
On April 6, 2022, the documents say that a TDPS handwriting expert reported on the letters. They “include distorted and potentially unnaturally prepared handwriting, low individuality, moderate to high reproducibility, pen lifts and hesitation which could all be an attempt at disguise or deliberation. Therefore, it may not be possible to identify or eliminate a subject as the writer of these particular documents.”
Taylor tried to bribe her fellow inmates into getting her letters out of the jail. Shonnaree was allegedly offered $5,000 to send the 13-page document to the Gazette. Phyllis Dawson was offered $15,000 to send an envelope to another newspaper.
“Even while incarcerated, Parker continues to engage in criminal activity by deceiving and manipulating other criminals into committing crimes for Parker, with the expectation of being paid large sums of money that Parker does not have,” the documents allege.
TDPS Special Agent Briscoe Davis also spoke with Phyllis regarding the letter in her possession, which was from the same fictitious “D.C.” and addressed to “Sylvia.” Phyllis explained that Taylor told her the “D.C.” name was a Texarkana detective who was “helping her out” and ensuring nothing bad would happen to her. Taylor also claimed she was “going to get out.” Taylor asked Phyllis to write to him, though Phyllis said he never wrote her back.
Phyllis gave to Davis a 10-page letter in her possession from Taylor, which turned out to be yet another confession letter in a sealed envelope. Taylor had tried recruiting Phyllis to mail the letter out once she was out of jail. Like the letter given to Shonnaree, it outlined the details leading up to Reagan’s murder. It also tried to paint someone else as the monster who committed the crime and maintained Taylor’s innocence.
Both letters, the documents note, contain details of the murder which have never been publicly released and that only someone who was present for the murder would know of.
Taylor also gave Phyllis a puzzle book containing papers, and instructions within the book on where to send certain documents for Taylor. Taylor also left notes within the pages telling Phyllis to find someone to lie to the police for Taylor, including a script for the fake witness to follow. These documents contained the same details as the previous two long letters but with the intention of having an eyewitness corroborate the details of the confessions.
“[b]e smart Granny! Pick someone smart who will bring the details to life. Once it’s done and Detective Chris says I will mail you $500.00,” Taylor wrote in the book.
Still a third inmate also had a document from Taylor at the Bowie County Jail which provided details for Taylor’s fabricated “evidence” and “witnesses” she planned to use to get herself out of this mess. Taylor told Lana Addison not to hand over the document to law enforcement, but a search of Lana’s cell saw the document confiscated anyways.
Taylor seems to believe that some miraculous “new evidence” will suddenly appear and exonerate her of the murder. She tried to set up Hanna Hullender as the murderer and was ready to use Shonna Yeager, Kaleigh Bromsley, and Lana Addison as the magic witnesses who would set her free. Taylor planned to have Kaliegh and Lana unearth “evidence” somewhere in Bowie County and to hand it over to law enforcement. Taylor yearned to play them like her own puppets, each having their own parts, their own elaborately fabricated statements and evidence to rescue her from the “boring” and “lonely” prison life.
There are only seven women on death row in Texas, none of which have an execution date as of this writing.
Taylor realized that prison meant a loss of control over her life. From within those walls, she could no longer be a puppeteer over men who became recklessly mesmerized by her. The policies, structure, and rigidity of her new day-to-day stifle her extravagant falsities. Those periods where she coerces or threatens a little extra time outside of her cell is all she has, unless she is still able to keep her mother reined in as an enabler to her schemes.
Claims of having money are basically pointless in prison.
She can never again ravel a man into such a complicated web and destroy his life.
The hospitals no longer have to keep that 60 mile radius watch in place, worried about whether Taylor Parker will walk in to try and steal a baby to maintain her illusion.
She will no longer sit outside of clinics, hunting for her unsuspecting victim.
And most importantly, Taylor Parker will never again befriend someone just to horrifically murder her and steal her unborn child in her own home, where she should have been safe. Where both of her children should have been safe. Where her husband shouldn’t have had to worry about what might happen to her.
Tragically, it happened to Reagan Hancock and Braxlynn Sage. Amid all of Taylor’s lies, deceptions, her continued pretentious behaviors in prison, and her claims of innocence, none of it changes that an innocent woman who shared the joy of becoming a parent for the second time with her beloved husband, a woman who loved her family, was robbed from them.
The little girl who was home that day, three-years-old, forever scarred and traumatized by the mortifying violence of her mother’s death. A newly born infant, torn from its mother, whose first breaths on this planet were spent in the arms of the woman who whispered “say bye to Momma” before carrying her out of the house and away from her dead mother. Reagan, a 21-year-old with her entire life before her, snuffed out due to the malicious selfishness of another woman who merely wanted to get her way.
As much as Reagan’s killer wants to try and make herself out to be a victim of the system, the truth is that Reagan and Braxlynn are the true victims of a heartless crime with heart-wrenching ripple effects that will last for decades to come, and no amount of jailhouse gloating or letter-writing can ever change that.
Sources
KTAL
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/taylor-parker-fbi-letter-offers-help-solving-crimes/?ipid=promo-link-block1
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/court-documents-taylor-parkers-schemes-continue-in-jail/?ipid=promo-link-block6
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/taylor-parker-trial-testimony-reveals-cruel-details-in-babys-death/?ipid=promo-link-block2
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/former-jailer-claims-taylor-parker-victim-of-vendetta/?ipid=promo-link-block3
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/crime/taylor-parker-trial/jurors-in-taylor-parker-capital-murder-trial-hear-jail-calls/?ipid=promo-link-block5
Death Row list
https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_women_on_dr.html