‘Maternal Instinct’ Director Reveals Why Reagan Simmons Killer Taylor Parker Was Not Included in Doc

Netflix's "Maternal Instinct" director Jessica Dimmock has explained why convicted killer Taylor Parker was left out of the documentary about the 2020 murder of Reagan Simmons Hancock.

Jessica Dimmock, director of Netflix's "Maternal Instinct," has opened up about her decision to keep Taylor Parker — the woman convicted of murdering then-pregnant Reagan Simmons Hancock — out of the documentary entirely.

Taylor Parker and her ex-boyfriend Wade Griffins | Source: YouTube/Netflix

The film revisits the disturbing 2020 case in which Parker orchestrated an elaborate fake pregnancy to hold onto her boyfriend, before killing 21-year-old Hancock and attempting to pass off her newborn as her own.

Parker, who had previously served as Hancock's wedding photographer, was subsequently convicted of capital murder and kidnapping. She did not participate in the making of "Maternal Instinct," and Dimmock has since confirmed that was a deliberate call.

A screengrab of a post shared by Taylor Parker on her now-defunct Instagram page | Source: YouTube/Netflix

"We decided not to interview Taylor," the director told Oxygen in an interview published June 18, explaining that she wanted the film to center the people Parker had wronged rather than Parker herself.

"Obviously, Reagan and her family are the most severe and the biggest victims in this, but [there are] other people that she deceived, other people that she hurt along the way, coworkers, former friends," Dimmock said. "It just felt like it really needed to be told from their perspective."

A screengrab of a post shared by Taylor Parker on her now-defunct Instagram page | Source: YouTube/Netflix

Despite Parker's absence on screen, viewers still get a thorough look into her world. Dimmock highlighted contributions from Parker's ex-boyfriend Wade Griffin, his loved ones, and community members swept up in her web of deception.

Parker's doctors — who had known she was incapable of conceiving due to a prior hysterectomy but were barred from disclosing that information under medical privacy laws — also appear in the film.

Wade Griffin on "Maternal Instinct" | Source: YouTube/Netflix

Archival footage of Parker features prominently as well, including body cam video from her emergency room interrogation, where she insisted that Hancock's baby girl Braxlynn Sage Hancock — who did not survive — was hers.

For Dimmock, that existing record made a sit-down interview feel unnecessary, and ultimately counterproductive.

"We have her text messages. We have videos of her," she said. "But it felt like, you know, I think as a director, 'What is she going to say?' From everything that I've read, from the way that the trial went, I don't think she's remorseful."

Body cam footage from Taylor Parker's emergency room interrogation | Source: YouTube/Netflix

"There doesn't really seem to be evidence that she's remorseful. If she said she was remorseful, could I even believe her, and does that matter?" Dimmock continued.

"I just wasn't sure that there was anything that she could say that would be additive, or that I could believe — and it felt disrespectful to those that she hurt the most to include her take."

Parker has not spoken publicly since the documentary's release. Her last public appearance was at her 2022 sentencing trial, during which prosecutors alleged her pattern of deception had carried on behind bars.

Court documents filed by the Bowie County District Attorney's Office and obtained by WDBJ indicated that Parker had allegedly continued "her fraudulent pattern of lying and misrepresenting almost all aspects of her medical history and medical status" while awaiting trial.

She was also accused of engineering a "massive fraudulent scheme directed at fabricating evidence, tampering with witnesses and ultimately attempting to frame a mentally fragile inmate" for her crime.

Her defense attorney, meanwhile, argued during sentencing that Parker suffered from mental health issues that may have impaired her judgment.

Her conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in November 2025. For Hancock's family, the affirmation brought a measure of closure.

"I'm overwhelmed with happiness it's over," Hancock's sister Emily Simmons told KSLA News 12 at the time. "Because she has been such a burden in our life for so long now that I haven't been able to think about my sister without thinking about her."