New Netflix Documentary Maternal Instinct Reexamines Terrible Texas Crime

Watching T.V. with the bestie last night, and he asks, "Have you heard about this new one on Netflix?" Just from the grainy interrogation still and the title "Maternal Instincts," I knew exactly who that was. I couldn't help but say:

That's Taylor Renee Parker, and she's the worst person who ever lived. 

Read More: Unspeakable: A Look At Taylor Parker, The Youngest Woman on Texas Death Row

Who Is Taylor Parker?

Information about Taylor is all over the internet, and the documentary does a great job of painting the picture of who Taylor is, which I can distill into a sentence: What if a ditsy country bumpkin were a pathological liar and a psychopath?

And that's all you really need to know. Taylor is a fairly young Texas woman with a heavy accent who was willing to lie, manipulate, and eventually brutally murder her way into whatever she wanted, consequences be damned.

But don't be fooled for a second that she was smart about any of it. In fact, all of her lies were easily disproven, and the real horror of this story is that everyone saw something coming, but no one was able to stop it from happening.

Read More: How Many Women Are On Texas Death Row And Why?

I Take It Personally

There was little information that the documentary revealed that I didn't already know about this case, as I've written about it before, doing deep dives into podcasts, court documents, and the incredibly unsettling footage of Taylor in the hospital after "giving birth."

However, this documentary does a great job of giving the survivors of Taylor's mayhem a voice. I feel deeply for her victims' surviving family, and for the friends of Wade (Taylor's then-boyfriend) who tried so desperately to warn him of Taylor's manipulations. In Wade, you see a deeply defeated, tragic shadow of a man who did nothing wrong except let a master manipulator into his life.

Normally, True Crime documentaries can disturb me and chill me to the core, but ultimately, I'm able to set them aside after watching them. Weirdly, I hate Taylor Parker. It feels personal even though I've never met her. I despise her for what she did to her victims and the people around her, but I hate her for how deeply she betrayed Regan, a woman who felt sympathy for Taylor and believed Taylor to be her friend.

Taylor is currently the youngest woman on Texas Death Row, and if any of the women deserve to be there the most, it's her.