Taylor Parker shocked the world when her fake pregnancy led her to kill her pregnant friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock. The case became even more twisted when she claimed she gave birth and tried to pass off the baby as her own.
After her story was shared in Netflix’s June 2026 documentary Maternal Instinct, many true crime fans are wondering if Parker has been diagnosed with a mental disorder that may offer an explanation to what drove her to commit the crimes.
Us Weekly breaks down everything to know about Parker’s mental health and crimes, below.
Was Taylor Parker 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 professionals testified that Parker had not been formally diagnosed with a mental illness.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Arambula, who evaluated the case but never treated Parker, said he was looking for “some kind of mental deterioration” that would explain the terrifying crime. He added that she “stuck to her plan and (there was) no remorse afterwards,” according to KTAL News.
“In this case, there is nothing regarding any mental illness and nothing regarding intoxication and Ms. Parker falls in the category of fetal abductors, which are rare but fall into a class of women who don’t have a mental illness,” Arambula testified. “The murders are planned. They’re premeditated. They have plans for after.”
Arambula insisted he couldn’t officially diagnose Parker, though he said she could potentially have a “Cluster B” personality disorder.
The type of personality disorders “involve impulsive and dramatic behavior” and include people who “often don’t realize their thoughts and behaviors are problematic,” according to Cleveland Clinic.
Lauren Elmore, an Austin-based licensed master social worker, also testified after she met with Parker for a five-hour “biopsychosocial assessment” to get a better understanding of her upbringing and any biological or social factors that may have influenced her actions. During their conversation, Parker told Elmore she had been sexually assaulted when she was 13 years old.
Parker’s defense attorneys utilized forensic psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gripon’s testimony to speak to her mental state after he met with her twice. Gripon said he couldn’t diagnose Parker with a mental illness, though he acknowledged she had some of the characteristics of mixed personality disorders.
“It’s considered to be a mental condition because it affects the person, the quality of their life, the stability of their life, their ability to maintain relationships, maintain employment sometime, those sort of things, but they don’t have a full-blown disorder as we diagnose it,” Gripon explained.
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Psychologist Dr. Timothy Proctor also testified after he met with Parker and administered various standardized tests, which led him to believe she “presents with psychopathic traits,” including “pathological lying and manipulativeness.”
Proctor said that Parker possessed various “antisocial traits,” which resulted in her “tendency to be willing to break rules, not follow laws, which she certainly has a history of reckless disregard for others, being irresponsible, lacking remorse.”
A Neurologist Said that Taylor Parker’s Brain Was ‘Broken’
Also during the trial, neurologist Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni said there was something “very wrong with her brain,” per KTAL News.
Based on his examination of Parker and various brain scans, he said “she has frontal lobe dysfunction, frontal lobe syndrome.”
Nadkarni added that there were gaps in the folds of Parker’s brain, which could correlate with her impulsivity and inhibition.
What Did Taylor Parker Do?
After Parker met Wade Griffin in 2019, they began a whirlwind romance and she claimed she was pregnant with his baby in January 2020, with a due date of September 22. As she passed her due date, many of Griffin’s loved ones questioned the validity of Parker’s pregnancy.
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In October 2020, Parker brutally killed Simmons-Hancock in her home, performed a crude C-section to cut out her baby and placenta and fled the scene. When she was pulled over by an officer for speeding, she claimed she had just given birth to the child and was on her way to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma. Once she arrived at the hospital, doctors quickly determined that she had not given birth and was unable to have children after she underwent a hysterectomy years prior.
Parker was then interviewed at the hospital and was arrested soon after in connection to the deaths of Simmons-Hancock and her unborn daughter, Braxlynn Sage.. She was found guilty in October 2022 and was sentenced to death.
She is currently awaiting her execution as the youngest woman on death row in the state of Texas.