When a gynecologist at McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, examined Taylor Parker on October 9, 2020, he found no evidence that she had just given birth – or had ever been pregnant. Parker, 27, who was stopped by police on the way to hospital, claimed she gave birth to her baby in the car, and had the placenta in her pants as supposed evidence. But as doctors quickly discovered, the baby was not hers.
That same morning, Parker – who had been faking a pregnancy for 10 months – had attacked her pregnant friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock 15 times with a knife, then performed an impromptu cesarean section, cutting the fetus from her body with a scalpel and removing it from the uterus. Neither the baby nor Simmons-Hancock survived. Parker was ultimately charged with capital murder, murder and kidnapping in Texas, where the crime took place, and sentenced to death. She is currently the youngest woman on death row in Texas.
Parker’s story, chronicled in the Netflix documentary “Maternal Instinct,” shines a spotlight on a crime known as “fetus robbery.” The film traces the months of manipulation and deception that preceded the crime.
What is Fetus Robbery?
“Fetus harvesting is the abduction of an unborn child by attacking a pregnant woman and forcibly removing her fetus, usually near the end of the pregnancy, with the intent to pass the baby off as one’s own child,” explains Becky Steinbach, senior producer at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In the United States, NCMEC – the country’s largest non-profit child protection organization – records cases of fetal robbery to prevent the crime and assist law enforcement.
What makes someone rip another person’s fetus out of their mother’s womb and pass it off as their own child? And how common is fetal robbery? The most important thing about this brutal crime at a glance.
Fetal abduction is a form of infant abduction defined as the abduction of a child under one year of age. “[Säuglingsentführung] is a long-established criminal pattern—whether to compensate for the effects of infertility or to extort money from a family desperate to get an abducted child back,” says Michael Welner, MD, forensic psychiatrist, chair of The Forensic Panel and clinical professor of psychiatry at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
Kidnappings from hospitals are hardly possible anymore
But in recent decades, maternity wards and neonatal care centers have taken additional measures to prevent the abduction of newborns when they are separated from their mothers – to the point that the crime has effectively stopped occurring in medical facilities, he says.
Without this option, Welner said, “a small group of women” took a different approach: They killed a heavily pregnant person and removed the fetus from the womb. Although the crime is commonly referred to as “fetus robbery,” Welner coined the term “fetal abduction by maternal evisceration” (FAMAE) to emphasize the forced cesarean section component and the usually fatal consequences for the mother. “It’s not like the mothers are anesthetized and then somehow ‘delivered,'” he tells Rolling Stone. “This is a brutal crime.”
Since 1974, 24 cases of fetal robbery have been reported to the NCMEC in the United States, Steinbach said.
Rare but extremely violent
“Fetus robbery is incredibly rare, but it is one of the most violent crimes affecting children and families,” she tells ROLLING STONE. “In the cases recorded by NCMEC, 22 mothers were killed or died as a result of the attack, and almost half of the abducted fetuses also did not survive.”
The NCMEC receives reports of fetal harvest from law enforcement and guardians. “Depending on the circumstances, both the pregnant mother and the unborn child can initially be reported missing,” says Steinbach. “In other cases, the mother is found while the baby is subsequently reported missing.”
While fetus harvesting occurs worldwide, the same crime is more likely to go unreported or even detected outside the U.S. in societies where individual rights are less enforced, law enforcement is weakened, violence is endemic and media scrutiny is lacking, Welner said. As of 2022, there have been eight reported cases from South Africa, Colombia, Hong Kong, Brazil and Mexico.
Who commits these crimes?
Although each case is unique, some common characteristics can be identified among the perpetrators based on the cases recorded by the NCMEC, says Steinbach. “The primary perpetrators of fetal robbery are women,” she explains. “Many have suffered a miscarriage or are unable to conceive.” In all but one of the cases recorded, the perpetrator falsely claimed to be pregnant.
A landmark 2002 article on fetal robbery published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences identified a dual motive for the crime: “to repair a failing relationship and to fulfill a fantasy of childbirth and motherhood.” In many cases, the woman is convinced that she can maintain the relationship by becoming a mother to her partner’s child, says Welner.
“Intentional murder is a deeply dysfunctional way to resolve such a conflict, which is why the crime is so rare,” he explains. “The perpetrators show an unusual coldness towards others, which enables them to pursue and kill a pregnant woman under the pressure of desperation – without hesitation or inner conflict.”
Profile of the victims and perpetrators
Victims of fetal robbery are often young expectant mothers – the average age is 23 years, 71 percent are between 17 and 23 years old. “Many were lured with offers of free or discounted baby clothing, baby equipment or transportation services,” says Steinbach. The average age of the perpetrators is 33 years, almost two thirds are between 30 and 41 years old.
According to Welner, fetal robbery is deviant behavior and not a psychiatric illness. “The crime occurs among individuals whose identity depends on maintaining a particular relationship through consummated birth,” he says.
The murder of the pregnant person and the forcible removal of the fetus from the womb are the culmination of a crime that requires extensive planning.
Planning and execution of the act
Timing is a key element in fetal predation, Welner said. “The perpetrator falsely told her male partner that she was pregnant for months, faked the pregnancy and hid this lie from him,” he explains. “With the ninth month just around the corner and no real baby to come, the perpetrator is faced with the choice of telling the partner she has ‘lost’ the child or otherwise ‘giving birth’.”
In order to identify a heavily pregnant woman as a possible victim, the perpetrator visits shops selling baby clothes and gynecological clinics and observes them. “The perpetrator is looking for someone who she believes would give birth to a baby that she could pass off as her own – an optical assessment also plays a role in this,” says Welner.
Online contacts have also become an important factor in these cases. “Over the past decade, the NCMEC is aware of seven cases of fetal robbery, 71 percent of which had an online component – the victims came into contact with the perpetrator through social media or online marketplaces while searching for baby items,” says Steinbach.
Gain trust, then strike
The perpetrators often use tricks to gain the trust of their victims. Once they have identified and made contact with a potential victim, they build enough trust in the pregnant person that they are willing to meet with them alone at a later date. These included: perpetrators who pretended to be conducting a survey in their car; posed as a social worker giving away free baby supplies at home; accompanied victims to a doctor’s appointment at a non-existent clinic; or luring them to fake baby showers.
“As soon as they are alone, the perpetrators overpower the pregnant woman, kill her and remove the fetus as quickly as possible to save its life,” says Welner. “The perpetrator is passing the baby off as her own.”
Hospitals that treat the supposed “mother” after birth are often the first to suspect whether she actually gave birth to the newborn she brought with her.
Known cases of fetus robbery
There have been other cases similar to Parker’s story. In 2015, a decade before Parker killed Simmons-Hancock, Dynel Lane of Denver, a 34-year-old mother of three, killed 26-year-old Michelle Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant, and her fetus – after luring Wilkins to her home through a Craigslist ad for baby clothes.
That same year, Ashleigh Wade, 22, faked a pregnancy and then murdered her childhood friend Angelikque Sutton, 22, in the Bronx – after the two reconnected and bonded over their supposed simultaneous pregnancy and similar due date.
Some cases of fetal robbery, like the one a drug cartel allegedly orchestrated in northern Mexico in 2025, are organized crimes. In that case, Martha Alicia Méndez Aguilar, also known as “La Diabla,” was accused of running a human trafficking ring in which pregnant women were kidnapped, the fetus removed from their bodies, and the newborns were then sold to buyers in El Paso, Texas, for around $14,000 each.
Although rare, it is important for the public to know that fetal predation occurs, Steinbach says. And thanks to the Netflix documentary, more people now know about this crime – a step in the right direction. “Public awareness, vigilance and rapid reporting of suspicious behavior can play an important role in preventing these tragedies and ensuring a rapid response when they occur,” she says.