Maternal Instinct, one of the latest true crime documentaries to hit the 2026 TV schedule, is one of the most messed-up stories I’ve ever heard. The doc, which you can watch right now with a Netflix subscription, has me shaken, and I usually stay pretty even-keeled when watching these kinds of movies. It’s hard to believe just how terrible people can be, and it’s a doc like this that really wakes one up to the horrors this world can produce.
In Sea Of Disturbing Stories, This Stands Out
Maternal Instinct tells the story of Taylor Parker, a woman who would be impossible for an amateur like me to break down psychologically. I’d never heard of Parker or her horrific crimes before watching the trending doc on Netflix, which was a little surprising, because it seems like it should have been news nationwide. Instead, it seems like the story stayed local in East Texas, around the town where it happened, New Boston.
The documentary doesn’t spend a lot of time debating whether Parker is guilty of her crimes (I’ll get into the crimes below), because there is no question she did what she was convicted of. Instead, it focuses on the timeline leading up to them. It follows her story as a disturbed con artist who befriended a woman named Reagan Simmons-Hancock after Parker was hired to be the photographer at Simmons-Hancock’s wedding. While doing so, Parker was scamming people left and right with fake real estate deals and manipulative relationships with Wade Griffin and his family. Where that leads is hard to even contemplate.
There are spoilers beyond this point! Though all the details were out there long before the documentary was released, if you want to know the details, proceed with caution.
The Crimes Are Astoundingly Horrific
The documentary spends its first hour or so leading up to the murder of Simmons-Hancock at the hands of Parker and gets into a lot of detail about the scams Parker pulled in the year or so before the crime. The most upsetting scam is the fake pregnancy that Parker portrays to her boyfriend, Griffin, and his family. As Taylor’s “due date” approaches, she clearly becomes more desperate to figure out a way out. Murdering her friend, Simmons-Hancock, who is actually pregnant, and performing an amateur C-section is her solution.
Parker goes to Simmons-Hancock’s home and attempts to literally cut her baby out from her stomach. Yes, you read that correctly. I warned you that it was disturbing. After killing Simmons-Hancock, Parker gets in her car, with the baby, umbilical cord still attached, and starts driving erratically. She is pulled over, and it takes almost no time for the police to figure out what happened. Parker was convicted of capital murder in 2022 for her slaying of Simmons-Hancock and sentenced to death by a Texas jury.
This woman CUT A BABY out of a pregnant woman’s stomach and, at least in the documentary, not only showed no remorse for what she had done, but seemed in total denial of her actions. It’s completely f’d up. As someone who watches a fair amount of true crime docs, this one really sent my head spinning, and it still is, 12 hours after watching.
