Maternal Instinct director reveals why she chose not to interview Taylor Parker in prison

The people behind Maternal Instinct could have interviewed Taylor Parker on death row and included it in the documentary, but they made a conscious decision not to, and the director has explained why.

Airing on Netflix now, the new true crime documentary follows the heinous true story of Parker, who murdered 21-year-old expecting mother Reagen Simmons-Hancock at her home and cut her unborn baby from her womb after faking a pregnancy to her boyfriend Wade Griffin, family and friends.

After having two children, Parker had a hysterectomy and wasn’t able to have any more kids. So, she staged a pregnancy and tried to pass Simmons-Hancock’s daughter off as her own. She was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death on 9th November 2022.

Credit: Netflix

Speaking to USA Today, the director Jessica Dimock explained that she didn’t want the documentary to be about Taylor. She wanted it to be told from the perspective of the people it affected, including her boyfriend and family.

“What I really wanted to do was include the perspectives of the people that it affected the most. How did Wade feel about it at the time? How does he feel about it now, looking back? How is Reagan’s family altered forever?” she said.

“In making films, sometimes when there’s a fact that’s going to go in [to the project] or stay out, I often say, ‘That’s what Wikipedia is for’. It’s not always about including all of the facts as much as it is about the feelings that go along with them.”

So, she never had any intention of reaching out to Parker, who is currently behind bars at the Patrick L O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

Most Read

Oliver Tree shared heartbreaking details of his money and will just weeks before his tragic death

I was at Bonnie Blue’s g*lden shower event – here’s the gross lowdown of what happened

‘I don’t remember’: Brazil bungee staff speak for first time as woman dies in horror jump

“To me, so much of the film is hearing Taylor’s perspective because we see what she’s doing in some ways. We have her [internet] searches. I didn’t feel that for this film, from this vantage point and including these characters, that I wanted to necessarily put them in the same bucket,” Dimmock continued.

Credit: Netflix

She was incredibly “honoured and grateful” that Wade was willing to talk about what he went through. “It was really hard to bring him through that. The memories are muddled. There are things he doesn’t totally remember. There is trauma there, for sure,” she said.

“Wade’s interview, in part, works because the interview with his mum [Connie Griffin] supports things that he can’t really speak to… He would talk about, ‘Well, she moved in.’ But the mother would say, ‘She moved in really fast, and something felt weird.’ That one-two of it all really helped our ability to tell this story so much.”

She said Simmons-Hancock’s mother, Jessica Brookes, was “strong beyond words” too. “They are such an exceptional family. They are so strong. They are coming from the right place. They only do this to remember Reagan, to talk about Reagan, to talk about what happened to her.”

For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Featured image credit: Netflix