Taylor Parker becomes seventh woman on Death Row in Texas

Taylor Parker is set to become the seventh woman on Death Row in Texas, following her sentencing Wednesday in Bowie County for the capital murder of Reagan Hancock and the kidnapping her unborn baby, Braxlynn Sage. The baby did not survive. The last woman to be handed a death sentence in the state was Kimberly Cargill in June 2012 for the slaying of her developmentally disabled babysitter in Smith County, who was set to testify against her in a custody battle.

None of the women currently on Death Row in Texas are scheduled for execution. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, six women have been executed in Texas since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, more than any other state, according to Death Penalty Information Center. The last woman to be executed in Texas was Lisa Coleman, on September 17, 2014, for torturing and starving her girlfriend’s 9-year-old son to death. The last woman to be executed in the U.S. was Lisa Montgomery in January 2021. It was the first execution of a female inmate carried out by the federal government since 1953, and her case is chillingly reminiscent of Parker’s. She was convicted of using a rope to strangle an expectant mother to death and using a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from her womb. Afterward, Montgomery tried to pass the baby off as her own. Although the murder took place in Missouri, she was housed in federal prison in Texas before her execution.