Overview

On October 9, 2020, a Texas State Trooper pulled over a woman driving erratically on Highway 59. She was covered in blood. In her lap was a newborn infant with an umbilical cord still attached. She told the trooper she had just given birth. She was lying. Twenty miles away, in the small town of New Boston, Texas, the body of twenty-one-year-old Reagan Simmons-Hancock lay on her living room floor. She had been stabbed more than one hundred times. Her skull had been fractured with a hammer. Her abdomen had been cut open, and the baby she had been carrying just weeks from being born was gone. The woman in the truck was Taylor Rene Parker. She had photographed Reagan's wedding. She had texted with her about pregnancy and baby names. She had been welcomed into Reagan's home as a friend. She had also spent ten months faking her own pregnancy. MATERNAL INSTINCT is the haunting true story of one of the most disturbing crimes in recent Texas history-a meticulously constructed deception that ended in murder. With the same literary restraint that made THE CRASH a bestseller, Daniel Beckett traces the path from a single lie told to a hog trapper named Wade Griffin to the unspeakable violence that ended three lives: - Reagan Simmons-Hancock, a twenty-one-year-old wife and mother who trusted the wrong person - Braxlynn Sage Hancock, the daughter who lived for seven days - Wade Griffin, the boyfriend whose life ended the moment he learned the truth This is the story of silicone bellies and forged ultrasounds. Of baby showers thrown for a baby who didn't exist. Of a friendship cultivated for the sole purpose of betrayal. Of the morning when ten months of lies required something more than props and performance to sustain. It is also the story of the families left behind, the small town forever changed, and the haunting question of why some people, when backed into a corner by their own deceptions, choose violence over confession. Drawing from court records, trial testimony, and extensive research into the case, MATERNAL INSTINCT goes beyond the headlines and the Netflix documentary to deliver the definitive account of how a fake pregnancy became a real murder-and what the performance of motherhood can hide. For readers of I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK, THE STRANGER BESIDE ME, and IN COLD BLOOD. A devastating, essential work of literary true crime.

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