He thought he found love at a rodeo—but it turned into a nightmare that shook a small Texas town. Wade Griffin never imagined the woman he was dating would commit one of the most 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 crimes in recent memory.
Griffin met Taylor Parker in the summer of 2019 while he was working as a hog trapper and rodeo competitor. By October she had moved in with him, and soon she told him she was pregnant with his child. But according to the Netflix documentary “Maternal Instinct,” released June 12, almost none of it was real.
Parker allegedly claimed she was heir to a syrup fortune and expecting millions. The couple even looked at a $4. 7 million property and made big purchases.
But when the inheritance never came, their relationship started to crack. Friends and family grew suspicious when Parker’s supposed pregnancy didn’t add up—some even found out she’d had a hysterectomy.
On Oct. 9, 2020, Parker told Griffin she was going to a medical center to induce labor or have a C-section. Instead, she went to the home of her friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock, who was 35 weeks pregnant.
According to court records, Parker brutally attacked and killed Reagan, then cut out her unborn baby and tried to pass it off as her own.
Griffin later learned the truth when police told him the baby had not survived. “Everything from day one was a lie,” he recalled in the documentary. He admitted his family had been right all along to question Parker’s story.
In October 2022, Parker was convicted of capital murder and kidnapping and sentenced to death. Since then, Griffin has tried to move on but remains in his small East Texas community, where some people avoid him. His mother, Connie, said in the film, “It never goes away, never will.”
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Griffin by Reagan’s husband, alleging he should have known Parker was a reckless driver. Griffin testified he had no idea what she was planning.
Now living with the weight of that day, Griffin rarely speaks publicly. But with the Netflix documentary bringing new attention to the case, many are asking: Can someone ever truly rebuild after being caught in the middle of such a tragic lie?
