Warning: This story contains details that may disturb some people.
A US woman has been convicted of capital murder after she killed a pregnant woman and cut the baby out from the womb.
A Bowie County jury in northeast Texas found 29-year-old Taylor Rene Parker guilty of the October 2020 murder of 21-year-old Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock.
Parker murdered Simmons-Hancock before cutting her daughter out of the womb and abducting the unborn child, who later died.
The verdict of a jury of six men and six women came after an hour of deliberating, following three weeks of sometimes grisly testimony, CBS News reported.
Parker's lawyer Jeff Harrelson argued Simmons-Hancock's baby was never alive and attempted to dismiss a kidnapping charge, in a bid to lower the capital murder charge to murder.
"That's why in opening statements we spent so much time on definitions. You can't kidnap a person who has not been born alive," Harrelson told the jury.
Prosecutor Kelley Crisp though, said several medical professionals testified that the unborn child had a heartbeat when born.
"The best evidence the state of Texas has that baby was born alive, is that Taylor Park said it wasn't."
CBS News reported Parker even made up a series of lies to people she was close to leading up to the killing, which included her lying about being pregnant.
A state police investigator testified that Parker researched how to fake a pregnancy convincingly and even on the day of the killing, watched a video on the physical exam of an infant delivered pre-term at 35 weeks.
"She's a liar, a manipulator, and now she's gonna be held accountable for it," Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards told the jury.
Richards highlighted that Simmons-Hancock was beaten in the head at least five times with such force that her skull compressed into her brain.
"The pain Reagan must have felt when Taylor started cutting her abdomen, hip to hip … indescribable," Richards said.
"When Taylor had the baby and Reagan was still alive, that's when Taylor started slashing and cutting. She can't leave her alive. It was no quick death. She just kept cutting her. I guess Reagan would not die fast enough for Taylor to get out of there and get on with her plans."
After Taylor murdered Simmons-Hancock and abducted her baby, she travelled 19kms northwest of the crime scene.
CBS reported Taylor was stopped by a Texas highway patrol officer and told them she had given birth on the side of the road, and that the baby was not breathing.
Taylor's punishment has not been handed down yet, but that process will begin on October 12.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, but jurors could opt for a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, CBS News reported.
