Court of Criminal Appeals Affirms Capital Murder Conviction and Death Sentence in Bowie County Case

The decision

On November 6, 2025, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Taylor Rene Parker on automatic direct appeal from Bowie County. Parker raised twenty-five points of error. In an opinion by Judge Finley, the court held that the evidence was sufficient for a rational juror to find that the infant Parker removed from the victim’s body was “born and is alive” when Parker kidnapped or attempted to kidnap her—the element that elevated the murder to capital murder. It overruled the remaining points either on the merits or because the complaints were not preserved or adequately briefed. The opinion states: “Finding no reversible error, we affirm Appellant’s conviction and sentence of death.”

Background

According to the opinion, Parker had two children and later underwent a hysterectomy, after which she could not become pregnant. During a later marriage, Parker asked several friends to serve as surrogates. After that marriage ended she began dating a man; witnesses testified she was “obsessed with him,” and in January 2020 she told him she was pregnant. In the following months she bought a silicone moon belly, prepared a nursery and held a gender reveal party.

Her stated due date passed. On the morning of October 9, 2020, Parker went to the home of a woman she knew was pregnant. After the killing, Parker performed what the opinion calls a “crude C-section” to remove the victim’s unborn child. Cell tower data showed Parker left the house between 9:09 and 9:14 a.m.; at 9:36 a.m. a state trooper stopped her for erratic driving and saw an umbilical cord going into her pants and a limp infant who was not breathing. Parker and the infant were taken to a hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where Parker was arrested and the infant was later pronounced dead.

The State charged Parker under Penal Code § 19.03(a)(2), which makes it capital murder to intentionally commit murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit kidnapping. A Bowie County jury convicted Parker in 2022 and answered the special issues under Article 37.071 in favor of death.

The court’s reasoning

Sufficiency of the evidence

Parker did not contest that the evidence showed she murdered the victim. She argued only that the State failed to prove the infant was “born and is alive,” as the kidnapping statute requires, and asked the court to reform the judgment to first-degree murder. Under Penal Code § 20.01(5), an individual for kidnapping purposes is “a human being who has been born and is alive.”

Applying the Jackson v. Virginia standard, the court rejected Parker’s argument on two alternative grounds.

First, the court held that a rational juror could find the infant was born alive. A flight paramedic testified that the amniotic fluid on the infant was dried and flaky and that blood in the umbilical cord had already separated, supporting an inference that the infant was born “elsewhere and sometime before” the traffic stop. The paramedic and the treating physician testified that paramedics restored a pulse during transport and that, on the known timeline, it would have been impossible to restore the heartbeat of a stillborn baby. Two physicians testified the infant was viable, and one testified the C-section did not injure her. A jail inmate testified that Parker described holding the baby to the mother’s cheek and then driving toward a hospital.

Second, and alternatively, the court held that a rational juror could find attempted kidnapping. Testimony that the C-section was not poorly performed and that the assault was concentrated on the victim’s head and neck supported an inference that Parker sought a live baby, and the evidence of the faked pregnancy supported an inference of intent. The court concluded: “Appellant’s crude C-section was an act that amounted to “more than mere preparation” that tended to effect a kidnapping.” Even if the infant was not born alive, the court wrote, Parker “simply failed to effect the commission of the offense of kidnapping.”

Change of venue

The court held that denying a change of venue was not an abuse of discretion under Article 31.03. Relying on Tracy v. State, an earlier Bowie County capital case, it found the record established that the media coverage was not pervasive, prejudicial or extensive. It also rejected Parker’s due process claim after weighing four presumed-prejudice factors drawn from Skilling v. United States. It found the size of the community and the nature of the publicity weighed against presumed prejudice, the time between offense and trial was neutral, and the jury’s verdict weighed in favor of presumed prejudice. It concluded that “the Skilling factors weigh against a presumption of juror prejudice.”

Continuance

The court overruled three points challenging the denial of a pretrial continuance without reaching the merits. Articles 29.03 and 29.08 require a sworn motion; Parker’s written motion was unsworn, and the court held her assertion that attached affidavits from a mitigation specialist, two experts and an investigator satisfied the rule was inadequately briefed: “At no point does Appellant explain why her unsworn motion with sworn affidavits satisfies Article 29.08; she simply asserts that it does.”

Extraneous offense evidence

Assuming without deciding that error was preserved, the court found no Rule 404(b) notice violation. It held that guilt-phase evidence of Parker’s surrogacy requests and of false stories she told was within the zone of reasonable disagreement as motive and intent evidence, and that any error in admitting testimony that she seemed “normal” and knew when she was lying was harmless. At punishment, it held that the trial court could conclude within the zone of reasonable disagreement that evidence of an undelivered fundraiser purchase was relevant to future dangerousness, that another false claim of wealth “also arguably related” to that issue, and that other passing references were harmless. Claims that the extraneous evidence was “excessive” and invoked gender stereotypes were not preserved because Parker had not objected on those grounds at trial.

Photographs, video and 9-1-1 call

Relying on Estrada v. State, the court held that a recorded 9-1-1 call by the person who discovered the body was admissible to provide a framework for the State’s evidence. It held that crime scene photographs, autopsy photographs of the victim and the infant, two hospital photographs of the infant, and a crime scene video were admissible within the zone of reasonable disagreement, citing Ripkowski v. State for the proposition that the gruesomeness of a crime is not a sufficient reason to exclude evidence depicting it. Having found no error, it found no cumulative harm.

Prosecutor statements

The court held that complaints about prosecutors and witnesses calling the case “the worst” and using derogatory names were not preserved because they rested on pretrial motions in limine with no contemporaneous objections. A prosecutorial misconduct claim was likewise unpreserved because, as to each question Parker cited, she did not complete the steps of objecting, requesting an instruction to disregard and moving for a mistrial.

State’s penalty-phase experts

Under Chamberlain v. State and Lagrone v. State, the court held that because Parker presented her own psychiatric experts, she waived her Fifth Amendment right to refuse examination by the State’s experts, and it declined to draw what it called, following Davis v. State, a “hairsplitting distinction” between the defense topics and a State expert’s opinion on future dangerousness. It also held that the State’s rebuttal expert testimony about psychopathy checklist results was within the scope of the defense experts’ testimony that Parker had brain atrophy and traits of several psychiatric disorders.

Separate opinions

Judge Walker, joined by Presiding Judge Schenck and Judges Richardson and Parker, joined the majority opinion and wrote separately to emphasize that the Penal Code contains two definitions of “individual.” Section 1.07(a)(26), which applies to the code generally, includes “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth”; section 20.01(5) provides that “notwithstanding” that section, an individual for kidnapping purposes is a human being who has been born and is alive. He wrote: “Because of the plain language of § 20.01(5), an offender cannot be charged with two counts of kidnapping for abducting a pregnant mother.” Because the capital murder charge was predicated on kidnapping the infant, he wrote, the kidnapping definition “was arguably the most contested issue in the case.” He added: “I strongly agree with the § 1.07(a)(26) definition of “individual.”” Judge Keel concurred.

Status

The court affirmed the judgment of the trial court. The opinion does not direct any further proceedings. The decision was reported by KETK-TV, Texas Scorecard, Texarkana Today and the Texarkana Gazette.