'Maternal Instinct' Review: What the Absolute ...

I have watched my fair share of true-crime for whatever reason it is that our ghoulish curiosity compels us to do so. I genuinely thought I’d seen it all, that nothing could surprise or shock me anymore. Hell, I watched a series a couple of weeks ago about a woman who intentionally drove a car into a brick wall in order to kill her boyfriend. But this? I was left absolutely gobsmacked. GOBSMACKED. Jaw-on-the-floor, what-the-absolute-hell-did-I-just-watch gobsmacked. Remember Dear Zachary? (Of course you do.) It may have been more devastating, but Maternal Instinct still wins out in terms of pure what-the-f***-ery. Good God.

And it happened only six years ago, and somehow I’d never heard about it, because we live in a world now where local news — no matter how messed up or tragic — rarely breaks through the national news cycle unless it involves a politician or a celebrity.

The story concerns a woman named Taylor Parker. The documentary opens with police pulling her over. She claims she just gave birth. She says she’s trying to get to the hospital. She’s bloody and holding a baby. The baby does not appear to be alive. The police and an EMT transport Parker to the hospital, where a doctor eventually reveals that Taylor did not deliver a baby.

Ummm… what?

The timeline jumps back about a year, and we slowly learn, through testimonials from those involved, how Taylor Parker found herself on the side of the road holding a deceased infant despite never having given birth. See, here’s what happened: she met a man named Wade. A pig farmer. Seems nice enough, but clearly not the brightest bulb. They start dating. Things move fast, and before you know it, Taylor has bought a car for one of Wade’s family members and started the process of buying a $4 million property for him, based on an inheritance she’s set to receive.

She does not receive an inheritance. Obviously there is no inheritance. But for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Taylor really wants to hang on to this man, so she claims to be pregnant. She produces ultrasound photos, throws a gender reveal party, and eventually even does a pregnancy photoshoot after she’s supposedly eight months along.

Only she ain’t pregnant, y’all. She couldn’t even get pregnant — she’d had a hysterectomy at 21. But she went to extraordinary lengths to convince Wade and his family otherwise. Wade’s family eventually figures it out. Wade? Not so much. Again: not the brightest bulb. Bless.

But Wade does finally call her out one day, and Taylor turns it around on him: How dare he accuse her of faking a pregnancy. His family has gotten into his head. Of course she’s pregnant, and she’s going to prove it — by having this baby.

Y’all. Taylor wasn’t pregnant. Taylor had been catfishing an entire pregnancy, and you would not believe the lengths she went to in order to pull it off. But that’s nothing compared to what she did next. Most people who’d lied their way into a corner like this would eventually fold — claim a miscarriage, something.

Not Taylor Parker.

Taylor had befriended a woman named Reagan, for whom she’d once taken engagement photos. Reagan was pregnant, genuinely and joyfully. With her own fabricated pregnancy now impossible to sustain, Taylor went to Reagan’s home and committed an act of violence almost too horrifying to put into words: she cut Reagan’s baby from her body. Reagan did not survive. Neither did the child. The ruse Taylor had spent a year maintaining only ended because two people died to end it. She was ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

I do not believe in the death penalty. But Dear God in Heaven, if there was ever a case to test that conviction, this is it.

‘Maternal Instinct’ is streaming in Netflix.