Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: Docu: A Fake Pregnancy, a Web of Lies, and a Fatal Crime. How Taylor Parker’s deception shocked a Texas community
Transcript
- 0:12Speaker 1: Welcome back to Killer Thriller DOCU edition. I'm your host,
- 0:16Speaker 1: Jennifer Fessler. So today we're diving into one of the
- 0:19Speaker 1: most shocking and I must I feel like you guys,
- 0:23Speaker 1: I say this a lot, but seriously, one of the
- 0:25Speaker 1: most disturbing true crime cases in recent memory. I mean
- 0:30Speaker 1: this one is whoa The story at the center of
- 0:34Speaker 1: Netflix's new documentary, Maternal Instinct is the name of it,
- 0:37Speaker 1: you guys. And this doc follows the story of Taylor Parker,
- 0:42Speaker 1: who is a young woman claiming to come from a
- 0:45Speaker 1: wealthy family, claiming to who fell for a man named
- 0:49Speaker 1: Wade Griffin who was a local hog trapper in a
- 0:53Speaker 1: small East Texas town. And they meet and their relationship
- 0:59Speaker 1: seems great, and within months she announces that she's pregnant.
- 1:04Speaker 1: And then as this pregnancy mounts, her family and her
- 1:09Speaker 1: partner and the wider community, they all begin to sort
- 1:11Speaker 1: of voice their doubts and then this shocking truth surfaces
- 1:16Speaker 1: and there are the most horrible, unspeakable consequences. It's just
- 1:24Speaker 1: the story is horrific, but it is beautifully told by
- 1:30Speaker 1: the director who is joining us today, Jessica Dimmick, who
- 1:33Speaker 1: is an award winning filmmaker known for her deeply human
- 1:36Speaker 1: approach to storytelling. Jessica takes viewers beyond the headlines to
- 1:40Speaker 1: explore the people at the heart of this tragic case
- 1:42Speaker 1: and the lasting impact of a crime that shocked the nation.
- 1:45Speaker 1: We'll talk about the challenges of telling such a sensitive story,
- 1:48Speaker 1: the process of bringing the documentary to life, and the
- 1:50Speaker 1: deeper themes that emerged along the way. Jessica, thank you
- 1:55Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I'll be honest with you,
- 1:58Speaker 1: I don't remember this story in the news. I'm from Texas,
- 2:02Speaker 1: originally southwest Houston. Yeah, and this wasn't that long ago, right,
- 2:07Speaker 1: this happened.
- 2:08Speaker 2: This is a twenty twenty case, which maybe is part
- 2:12Speaker 2: of it. But I also hadn't heard of this until
- 2:16Speaker 2: I was brought the story, you know, in to consider
- 2:22Speaker 2: directing this, and I was surprised by that.
- 2:24Speaker 1: That was sort of my first thought when I, you know,
- 2:27Speaker 1: sort of wrapped my head around what had happened.
- 2:29Speaker 3: I was like, how is it? This is?
- 2:30Speaker 1: How is this story escaped me? I mean, I've been
- 2:33Speaker 1: living in New Jersey, you know, when this happened, But still,
- 2:37Speaker 1: what was it? So I'm sure you are introduced to
- 2:39Speaker 1: a lot of potential documentaries that people that want you
- 2:43Speaker 1: to direct them. What was it about this story that
- 2:45Speaker 1: drew you in?
- 2:46Speaker 2: I mean, there is there's a brutality and a senselessness
- 2:53Speaker 2: to the crime that happens to Reagan. There's also just
- 2:58Speaker 2: like a kind of had scratching element for how Taylor Parker,
- 3:05Speaker 2: the types of manipulations that she was, you know, involved
- 3:09Speaker 2: in the idea that she thought something like this could work.
- 3:13Speaker 2: It was also this like, you know, theme of motherhood
- 3:16Speaker 2: that I thought was really interesting, you know, which we
- 3:19Speaker 2: can talk about. But you know, I just thought that
- 3:21Speaker 2: I had a lot of a lot of layers.
- 3:23Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very and again I do a lot
- 3:26Speaker 1: of these. I watched a lot of true crime. This one,
- 3:29Speaker 1: for whatever reason, this really freaked me out. And I
- 3:33Speaker 1: think that there were there were a lot of reasons
- 3:36Speaker 1: for that, but one of which was that I didn't understand.
- 3:39Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that you asked Taylor's family if they
- 3:42Speaker 1: wanted to be part of the documentary. I'm just guessing
- 3:45Speaker 1: that they probably didn't correct Taylor.
- 3:48Speaker 2: Yeah, Taylor's Taylor. You know. We Yeah, that we didn't
- 3:52Speaker 2: hear from members, and.
- 3:53Speaker 1: I would Yeah, I figured that, but so hard to
- 3:57Speaker 1: sort of figure out where this all came from, right,
- 4:00Speaker 1: Like it was, every single bit of this documentary was fascinating, scary, fascinating, thrilling,
- 4:07Speaker 1: And but I felt like, there's no way, it's hard
- 4:11Speaker 1: to tell how she got. Please forgive me. I I
- 4:14Speaker 1: don't want to be you know, I want to try
- 4:16Speaker 1: to give everyone grace. But how she got so fucking crazy?
- 4:20Speaker 1: Like what happened?
- 4:21Speaker 3: Because again, I mean we had we.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Heard snippets of her mom and what you know she
- 4:26Speaker 1: was saying, and that she had relationship with the granddaughter.
- 4:29Speaker 1: But what was Taylor's past like that she turned so pathological?
- 4:34Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean from all accounts, it seems like
- 4:37Speaker 2: this was a very long pattern in terms of lying.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Lying was like, you know, something well established in her
- 4:45Speaker 2: in the accounts from her past. No violent history. I mean,
- 4:51Speaker 2: there was a there was a an ex boyfriend you know,
- 4:54Speaker 2: who talks about like her maybe like running around after
- 4:57Speaker 2: him in the kitchen with a knife or something. I
- 4:59Speaker 2: thought it like by all accounts, had never been had
- 5:02Speaker 2: never gone to jail, had never been arrested, but had
- 5:05Speaker 2: always lied. And you know, in talking to this, in
- 5:09Speaker 2: talking about this story, me and my team sometimes when
- 5:13Speaker 2: we were describing it, we'd be like, you know, we
- 5:14Speaker 2: all knew someone like Taylor at some point in our lives. Yes, yeah,
- 5:18Speaker 2: in terms of like the person that's at school and
- 5:21Speaker 2: always has embrace or crutches or is always you know,
- 5:27Speaker 2: coming back from vacation and telling these wild stories about
- 5:31Speaker 2: you know, a boyfriend and you just know that it's
- 5:33Speaker 2: not real, fantastical things about her family, Like, we have
- 5:36Speaker 2: all known someone like this up until a certain point,
- 5:39Speaker 2: and so there's certainly a pathological liar aspect to her
- 5:43Speaker 2: personality for sure, But then her ability to kind of
- 5:47Speaker 2: take it to the extremes and also to this violent
- 5:50Speaker 2: level is crazy.
- 5:51Speaker 1: I'm thinking that I've no idea what her IQ is,
- 5:54Speaker 1: but she has to be very bright, very right. I mean,
- 5:57Speaker 1: this is not the stuff that she concocted. Even understand
- 6:01Speaker 1: how that would have been possible for I don't know,
- 6:04Speaker 1: And it sounds like she didn't come from means. It's
- 6:05Speaker 1: not like she had a lot of money to buy
- 6:07Speaker 1: twenty different cell phones and voice changers, and I don't
- 6:11Speaker 1: know how you know she had the wherewithal to come
- 6:14Speaker 1: up with these plots and these schemes and then execute them.
- 6:18Speaker 2: She's clearly she's got to be. It's the something I
- 6:22Speaker 2: always say about Taylor is like she's always one step
- 6:24Speaker 2: ahead of people, but she's never two steps ahead of people.
- 6:27Speaker 2: I like that.
- 6:28Speaker 3: I feel like say, I'd just say it with that
- 6:29Speaker 3: for a second.
- 6:30Speaker 2: You know, when you think about what she actually does,
- 6:32Speaker 2: like what, how would she ever have gotten away with this?
- 6:35Speaker 2: How would she ever have gotten even like through the
- 6:38Speaker 2: night with the crime. I mean, there was no way
- 6:40Speaker 2: that this was gonna work. It's a tiny community. Everyone
- 6:43Speaker 2: had been questioning whether or not she's pregnant. There's a
- 6:46Speaker 2: dead woman that she's connected to, you know, miles away.
- 6:51Speaker 2: It's like, but her ability to kind of manipulate and
- 6:55Speaker 2: throw people off her trail is very strong. But then
- 6:59Speaker 2: her ability to think think two steps ahead, three steps ahead,
- 7:01Speaker 2: four steps ahead, like really think like a chess player
- 7:04Speaker 2: is quite weak. She's always just scrambling to like get
- 7:08Speaker 2: through and avoid being held accountable in the moment, and
- 7:11Speaker 2: she will do whatever it takes to not be held
- 7:14Speaker 2: accountable in the moment.
- 7:16Speaker 3: There are so many examples of that.
- 7:18Speaker 1: I was looking throughout it for like a psychotic break
- 7:21Speaker 1: almost because at the beginning of the film it felt like, yes,
- 7:26Speaker 1: she was definitely definitely whacky, and you heard her friends,
- 7:29Speaker 1: but she had friends, and you heard them describe her as,
- 7:31Speaker 1: you know, a great friend. She was always desperate for attention.
- 7:35Speaker 1: They were very aware of that, but as somebody that
- 7:39Speaker 1: they could kind of count on. And certainly these women
- 7:42Speaker 1: that these young women that you interviewed, there's nothing there
- 7:46Speaker 1: was nothing that seemed out.
- 7:48Speaker 3: Of the ordinary about them. They seemed like they are
- 7:51Speaker 3: right and they are lovely young women.
- 7:53Speaker 1: So what happened, Like, where was where's the disconnect? Because
- 7:58Speaker 1: also at the beginning of it, just the story again,
- 8:00Speaker 1: I mean, this is I didn't know what exactly how
- 8:03Speaker 1: this was going to play out, but it all seemed
- 8:07Speaker 1: sort of almost I could consume it.
- 8:10Speaker 3: I could kind of understand it. Okay, here's what's happening.
- 8:12Speaker 1: This girl is she falls in love and they said
- 8:15Speaker 1: all she ever wanted to do was be the pretty
- 8:17Speaker 1: girl that got the guy. She finds her cowboy, and
- 8:22Speaker 1: she starts lying about her wealth and her background and
- 8:25Speaker 1: all of them. Okay, okay, but there's a huge leap
- 8:29Speaker 1: right from that to stabbing a woman to death and
- 8:32Speaker 1: taking the baby, right, and like, where do you feel
- 8:35Speaker 1: like there was in your following the story, you could
- 8:37Speaker 1: you could ever see that break like what happened?
- 8:40Speaker 2: It's a really good question. The way I think about
- 8:42Speaker 2: it more is that the break happens long before the
- 8:48Speaker 2: trajectory of the story. It's just that the behaviors that
- 8:52Speaker 2: she's manifesting, we assume are going to stay within the
- 8:55Speaker 2: realm of normal. Right, So, Like, you know, faking a
- 8:59Speaker 2: pregnancy is not the most uncommon thing in the world.
- 9:02Speaker 2: People have faked pregnancies. It's not a very kind thing
- 9:05Speaker 2: to do. It's not a particularly moral thing to do.
- 9:08Speaker 2: But faking a pregnancy to keep a man is a
- 9:10Speaker 2: thing that a woman has done before. But they have
- 9:14Speaker 2: a fake miscarriage, they eventually fess up that, you know.
- 9:18Speaker 2: Like it's so it's like, you know, she's using these
- 9:21Speaker 2: tactics that are within this realm of normal. But I
- 9:24Speaker 2: think something is broken in her a long time ago.
- 9:28Speaker 2: And I you know, I certainly cannot suggest or pretend
- 9:34Speaker 2: to know like how to pathologize her, But you know,
- 9:38Speaker 2: I was so struck by the idea that she would
- 9:40Speaker 2: go to the hospital. You know, her friends Mackenzie and
- 9:42Speaker 2: Abbey are talking about she'd go to the hospital. She
- 9:44Speaker 2: had MS. She had you know, cancer, she had seizure,
- 9:49Speaker 2: she had had a stroke, like and she would go
- 9:51Speaker 2: to the hospital for these conditions, and she was sent
- 9:55Speaker 2: home all the time without a diagnosis, you know, or
- 9:58Speaker 2: with like looking at her blood work and saying, you know,
- 10:02Speaker 2: you don't have the diagnosis of this thing you're claiming
- 10:04Speaker 2: to have. I always think about, like, there was quite
- 10:08Speaker 2: possibly a diagnosis she could have been sent home with.
- 10:11Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't the thing she was in the
- 10:13Speaker 2: hospital for. But someone along the way maybe could have
- 10:18Speaker 2: or should have realized that this woman was very unwell.
- 10:23Speaker 3: Not right.
- 10:24Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think I mean, I remember that she
- 10:28Speaker 1: would go to different doctors. I mean, I'm sure she
- 10:30Speaker 1: was so good at sort of like sure moving around
- 10:33Speaker 1: that I'm sure she didn't see the same doctor for
- 10:36Speaker 1: the same stuff. But yeah, I would have thought that
- 10:41Speaker 1: in her how many how old was she Jessica.
- 10:43Speaker 2: She was twenty six when this when she meets Wade,
- 10:47Speaker 2: She's twenty six, twice divorced with two kids, so she
- 10:52Speaker 2: lived a lot at twenty six.
- 10:54Speaker 1: You would have thought that there would have, I don't know,
- 10:56Speaker 1: been some indicator. And then there's a you only had
- 11:00Speaker 1: so long to tell the story but the fact that
- 11:02Speaker 1: she wasn't completely clear to me.
- 11:04Speaker 3: I know, she didn't have.
- 11:05Speaker 1: Custody of her other son and daughter, but they were
- 11:08Speaker 1: still she could still see them, correct, like they were
- 11:12Speaker 1: living with the mother maybe.
- 11:13Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I understand she was, it was like
- 11:17Speaker 2: a joint custody with her son, who she you know,
- 11:22Speaker 2: by all accounts from just in terms of like me
- 11:26Speaker 2: reading court, you know that the husband and his biological
- 11:32Speaker 2: father had no issue with the son seeing his mother Taylor,
- 11:36Speaker 2: but that she wouldn't show up. She would say, oh,
- 11:38Speaker 2: I'm coming. You know, it's his birthday. She wouldn't show up.
- 11:41Speaker 2: It's his graduation from kindergarten, she wouldn't be there. It's
- 11:45Speaker 2: truly heartbreaking. So she had a son that she could
- 11:49Speaker 2: see but she just didn't see. And she had a
- 11:52Speaker 2: daughter that a lot of times was staying with her
- 11:55Speaker 2: mother and sometimes was staying with her brother as well.
- 11:59Speaker 2: So you know, technically there wasn't like any kind of
- 12:04Speaker 2: court mandated removal of her children.
- 12:23Speaker 1: You would know this better than I do, right, you
- 12:25Speaker 1: do this professionally, but like you can't for me, I
- 12:28Speaker 1: watch these, I can't make sense out of them. There's
- 12:30Speaker 1: never any like one more. I'm like, okay, that makes sense.
- 12:32Speaker 1: But I am always searching, you know, like, how did
- 12:35Speaker 1: she get here? I mean, so she had two children.
- 12:38Speaker 1: Was it she was simply that she wanted to hang
- 12:41Speaker 1: on to wait or do you think that she it
- 12:42Speaker 1: wasn't the idea of having another child. Who knows, but
- 12:46Speaker 1: she had these two children already, So it was like,
- 12:49Speaker 1: was it that she so desperately wanted another one?
- 12:51Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, listen, I am not
- 12:55Speaker 2: in her head. I you know, this is just my
- 12:57Speaker 2: personal opinion from the way that thing's un I think
- 13:01Speaker 2: what she wanted desperately was to keep wide. I didn't
- 13:05Speaker 2: get the sense that what she desperately wanted was to
- 13:07Speaker 2: be able to mother again. I don't really when it
- 13:11Speaker 2: comes to I think she wanted to be able to
- 13:13Speaker 2: tell him that she could mother again. I think she
- 13:16Speaker 2: was in a part of the country with you know,
- 13:19Speaker 2: very specific gender roles. She's a young woman, she's already
- 13:22Speaker 2: had a hysterectomy. I wonder if you know, and a
- 13:25Speaker 2: lot of value is placed on women and their ability
- 13:28Speaker 2: to reproduce, you know, and so I wonder if she
- 13:34Speaker 2: was frightened that without being a mother, she couldn't keep
- 13:37Speaker 2: this man. I don't know if she ever asked him.
- 13:39Speaker 2: I don't know if she ever broached that conversation with him.
- 13:41Speaker 2: It's a big assumption, but I don't in my heart
- 13:45Speaker 2: of hearts, my personal opinion, I don't actually think. And
- 13:49Speaker 2: this is the like this is also tragic, but this
- 13:53Speaker 2: is like the extra tragic part. I don't really think
- 13:56Speaker 2: it was about having a baby that she abducted, because
- 14:01Speaker 2: if she cared that much, I think, you know, the
- 14:04Speaker 2: baby did not survive.
- 14:06Speaker 3: Right, I found no in watching it. I that's I
- 14:09Speaker 3: completely agree with that.
- 14:10Speaker 2: I don't. To me, I don't.
- 14:12Speaker 1: I still I don't even know what it was about.
- 14:14Speaker 1: I think she was a really unwell woman because did
- 14:18Speaker 1: she have that was she so obsessively in love with Wade?
- 14:22Speaker 2: Maybe?
- 14:23Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess I just couldn't. I couldn't
- 14:26Speaker 3: figure out what was driving her, and that was so weird.
- 14:30Speaker 2: You know.
- 14:31Speaker 1: I have these questions that just occurred to me that
- 14:33Speaker 1: I want to just throw in a little off topic,
- 14:35Speaker 1: So forgive me.
- 14:36Speaker 3: But like, it was great the way you did show
- 14:39Speaker 3: pieces of.
- 14:39Speaker 1: Her history, for instance, that she had a gastric sleeve,
- 14:43Speaker 1: so she was very overweight. Yes, and you didn't see
- 14:46Speaker 1: that until you actually flashed back to that time in
- 14:49Speaker 1: her life, right, So she had.
- 14:52Speaker 3: This gastric sleep.
- 14:53Speaker 1: That was after she had had the babies, the other
- 14:57Speaker 1: two babies, do we know?
- 14:58Speaker 2: You know, I that is a you know, in terms
- 15:01Speaker 2: of the timeline, it's all pretty close it actually, I
- 15:04Speaker 2: think might have been before she had her babies. I
- 15:07Speaker 2: think it was like post you know, like very early
- 15:11Speaker 2: early twenties. You know, it's in the same A lot happens,
- 15:16Speaker 2: you know, from the time she like graduates call high
- 15:19Speaker 2: school to you know, her mid twenties. Yeah, but she
- 15:23Speaker 2: had been quite overweight, definitely all through high school and childhood.
- 15:28Speaker 1: Because I didn't see until you showed us that, I don't,
- 15:31Speaker 1: you know, realize it. What about that did you think
- 15:33Speaker 1: was important to show?
- 15:35Speaker 2: You know? I think it speaks to a couple of things.
- 15:39Speaker 2: One is that there is a kind of all prove
- 15:42Speaker 2: it to everyone that I think Taylor is spending some
- 15:46Speaker 2: of her like early adult years playing catch up. Like
- 15:50Speaker 2: I was never the pretty girl in high school. I
- 15:52Speaker 2: could never get the guys. I had to catfish them,
- 15:54Speaker 2: I had to pretend to be someone else. And now
- 15:56Speaker 2: I've lost this way and look, and I'm going to
- 15:59Speaker 2: prove to everyone that this is a skill and a
- 16:02Speaker 2: power that I have. And so I think it's about that.
- 16:08Speaker 2: It's a deep insecurity, it's yeah, And it's also like
- 16:15Speaker 2: a desire for people to see the outside and not
- 16:19Speaker 2: the inside with her. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot
- 16:21Speaker 2: of people that were really close to her at times
- 16:24Speaker 2: in their life don't actually know who this person is.
- 16:28Speaker 2: And that is not their fault. That's very much her fault.
- 16:31Speaker 2: Like I just there's a kind of inability to truly
- 16:35Speaker 2: let people in, in part because what's inside is pretty dark.
- 16:39Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 16:40Speaker 1: I found it that interesting because I think she was
- 16:43Speaker 1: almost like morbidly obese, at least that's what it seemed
- 16:45Speaker 1: to me in a way. So you cut off and
- 16:47Speaker 1: I don't know where she got the money to get
- 16:49Speaker 1: a gastric sleeve. Who knows, maybe insurance, whatever.
- 16:52Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure she went to I'm pretty sure she
- 16:54Speaker 2: went Overseas to do it. I think she went to
- 16:56Speaker 2: Mexico for it.
- 16:57Speaker 1: So think about the wherewithal you have to have at
- 16:59Speaker 1: this point, you're you're she doesn't. I mean the mother
- 17:02Speaker 1: said she had, they had no money. It's not all
- 17:04Speaker 1: this that she made up was all bullshit, right, So,
- 17:07Speaker 1: but as a young woman to have it together to
- 17:12Speaker 1: get yourself overseas and the drive or the maybe she's
- 17:17Speaker 1: driven by her misery and her insecurity. I don't know,
- 17:20Speaker 1: but I don't know why. Just thought that aspect was
- 17:23Speaker 1: was interesting and how you know she transformed, Yeah, you
- 17:28Speaker 1: know afterwards, and you know, there was a lot of
- 17:31Speaker 1: talk about how pretty she was.
- 17:33Speaker 3: She really was.
- 17:33Speaker 1: She was, she was a very pretty girl, you know,
- 17:37Speaker 1: And and I don't know, I guess, I guess I'm
- 17:39Speaker 1: looking at her at the beginning, I'm thinking, like I know.
- 17:41Speaker 3: This girl and I didn't and I don't.
- 17:43Speaker 1: But the way that you represented or not represented her,
- 17:47Speaker 1: but what you showed me at the beginning felt like
- 17:50Speaker 1: somebody that I absolutely could recognize, right, Like this young
- 17:55Speaker 1: girl very just the needy, wanting me to tension, wanting
- 18:01Speaker 1: specifically maybe she grew up very heavy, so she wanted
- 18:03Speaker 1: boys attention, love bombing to everyone that she love bombing, right, all.
- 18:08Speaker 2: Bring people's affection. I mean, this was something that didn't
- 18:11Speaker 2: make the cut, in part because it's not as important
- 18:14Speaker 2: as so many of the things that we do to
- 18:16Speaker 2: talk about, you know, But like former friends of hers
- 18:19Speaker 2: talking about, you know, always showing up with Starbucks every
- 18:22Speaker 2: time they went out to get the bill, you know,
- 18:26Speaker 2: just like you know, a way of kind of relying
- 18:31Speaker 2: again on things that are relatively superficial. I mean, they're
- 18:34Speaker 2: nice when they're done from a genuine place, but when
- 18:36Speaker 2: they're done because you fear that people don't like you
- 18:41Speaker 2: for who you really are, you know, and so there's
- 18:44Speaker 2: always stories about that, like you know, always kind and
- 18:47Speaker 2: it's part of the way that she inserts herself back
- 18:51Speaker 2: into Reagan's life. You know, she knows this woman is pregnant.
- 18:55Speaker 2: She absolutely knows why she's going over there, but she
- 18:58Speaker 2: like brings her a gift card, she brings a little
- 19:00Speaker 2: present for the baby. It's like, you know, and and
- 19:04Speaker 2: that's nice when you think it's genuine, like of course,
- 19:07Speaker 2: so nice when you think that someone's like thought about
- 19:11Speaker 2: you a little bit extra that day or went out
- 19:13Speaker 2: of their way to do something for you. And so
- 19:16Speaker 2: she also really like praise on you know, she uses
- 19:20Speaker 2: the the kind of niceties of a small town community,
- 19:25Speaker 2: the kind of social norms of like you know, looking
- 19:29Speaker 2: out for one another in close and also really praying
- 19:32Speaker 2: on on the best parts of people, which is like,
- 19:37Speaker 2: you know, Reagan, her victim was one of the few
- 19:40Speaker 2: people still giving her the benefit of.
- 19:41Speaker 1: The d I know that broke my heart when her
- 19:44Speaker 1: when when when Reagan's mom said something to the fact
- 19:47Speaker 1: like she had no one left right that believed in her,
- 19:49Speaker 1: and that it was so typical Reagan to you know,
- 19:53Speaker 1: rally around someone.
- 19:55Speaker 3: Yeah, had no one.
- 19:56Speaker 2: And in part because Reagan, you know, wasn't in her
- 19:59Speaker 2: inner circle. So it's certainly not like, oh, Reagan should
- 20:02Speaker 2: have known better. It's like this wasn't a person that
- 20:04Speaker 2: was particularly close to her, and she had a good heart,
- 20:08Speaker 2: you know, and we but she Yeah, we've definitely seen
- 20:12Speaker 2: in like a digital age, people can get bullied for nowhere.
- 20:14Speaker 1: You know.
- 20:14Speaker 2: It's like her instincts were I don't know, why would
- 20:17Speaker 2: I have any reason to believe this.
- 20:19Speaker 1: She's not my best friend, my wedding photographer, I mean,
- 20:23Speaker 1: for alone, be nice to her.
- 20:24Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 20:25Speaker 1: I thought that was also really fascinating, how like all
- 20:28Speaker 1: of a sudden, one day she's a recruiter and now
- 20:30Speaker 1: she's a wedding photographer.
- 20:32Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 20:32Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't like what is happening.
- 20:34Speaker 1: This person is she can transform herself and sell herself, right,
- 20:40Speaker 1: like did she have experience really in photography before she
- 20:44Speaker 1: started taking and she was apparently good at it. And
- 20:46Speaker 1: Reagan they had she was like they said, she was
- 20:48Speaker 1: like a bridesmaid. You know, she's like her very scenario
- 20:52Speaker 1: it's on. That part was just unbelievable.
- 20:55Speaker 2: Lots of jobs, lots of but always like you know,
- 20:58Speaker 2: we we have from the kind of coret evidence. We'd
- 21:03Speaker 2: have text message exchanges between Taylor and Angela, the kind
- 21:09Speaker 2: of mentor older woman who the chiropractor, the one where
- 21:13Speaker 2: she first comes to with her pregnancy, you know, and
- 21:16Speaker 2: Taylor had been telling her that she had been telling
- 21:19Speaker 2: Angela that, you know, she used to be a nurse
- 21:21Speaker 2: and she used to work in the medical field, and
- 21:23Speaker 2: like you'd watch these text messages. I think one day
- 21:27Speaker 2: at Taylor's work there had been an emergency. I don't
- 21:30Speaker 2: even know if that's true, if there had been an emergency,
- 21:32Speaker 2: but it's like by Taylor's account, she sprang to action
- 21:35Speaker 2: and you know, it reminded her of her old days
- 21:38Speaker 2: in the medical field. Meanwhile, this woman is twenty six,
- 21:41Speaker 2: Like what are we talking? When? When did you do
- 21:43Speaker 2: these things? But her ability to just kind of have
- 21:46Speaker 2: these things roll off the tongue. Also with Wade, you
- 21:49Speaker 2: know that she like convinces him that she knows a
- 21:52Speaker 2: lot about hogs, she knows a lot about, you know,
- 21:55Speaker 2: raising cattle, all of these things like that. That's very questionable.
- 21:58Speaker 2: I mean it's it's small town in Texas. Everyone's got
- 22:01Speaker 2: a little bit more familiarity with livestock than like here
- 22:05Speaker 2: in Brooklyn where I live. But like, you know, had
- 22:08Speaker 2: Taylor ever truly been hands on with hogs, I don't know.
- 22:12Speaker 3: And she got away with it.
- 22:13Speaker 1: I think about how she took her boss's title right
- 22:16Speaker 1: when she was at the recruiting She literally just said, Okay,
- 22:18Speaker 1: now I'm the vice president of recruit whatever she called herself.
- 22:22Speaker 3: Who it's yeah.
- 22:25Speaker 1: And but the so I always feel we're saying fascinating
- 22:29Speaker 1: because the whole thing is so awful and so tragic.
- 22:32Speaker 1: There is of course, that's what drives us, I guess
- 22:34Speaker 1: to a lot of this. Is it just I cannot
- 22:36Speaker 1: believe what she was able to get away with until
- 22:40Speaker 1: she wasn't right, you know.
- 22:41Speaker 2: I think part of it is that, you know, and
- 22:44Speaker 2: this is when I put myself, I can't put myself
- 22:49Speaker 2: in the position of Reagan's family. But when I imagine
- 22:53Speaker 2: how random this was for them, how because this is
- 22:56Speaker 2: not what we think evil looks like. This is not
- 22:58Speaker 2: what we think danger like, This is not what we're
- 23:01Speaker 2: taught to avoid. That, this is not someone who was
- 23:05Speaker 2: stalking Reagan. I mean, you know, as you know from
- 23:09Speaker 2: being interested in subject matter like this, like being a
- 23:12Speaker 2: pregnant woman is a very vulnerable time in a woman's life.
- 23:15Speaker 2: They are, you know, pregnant women get hurt, murdered, you know,
- 23:22Speaker 2: assaulted by their boyfriend's husbands, you know, their side like
- 23:27Speaker 2: all the time. But not by a girl that was
- 23:31Speaker 2: at your wedding, like you know, And so this just
- 23:34Speaker 2: isn't what we think danger looks like. And I think
- 23:38Speaker 2: that's part of what is so chilling, and it's it's
- 23:42Speaker 2: why there was nothing that Reagan or her family could
- 23:47Speaker 2: have done, Like there was no there was no warning,
- 23:50Speaker 2: there was no weird behavior. Taylor was actually crazy. But
- 23:54Speaker 2: like when it came to their interactions with her.
- 23:58Speaker 3: I would have never suspected, of course.
- 24:00Speaker 2: No, nothing. No, someone comes over and says, I'm pregnant too. Ps, yes,
- 24:04Speaker 2: we're both pregnant. Right, let's have a girl's day, right.
- 24:22Speaker 1: I just want to mention to you that I loved
- 24:25Speaker 1: the cinematography of it all.
- 24:27Speaker 2: Thank you.
- 24:28Speaker 1: There were moments that I thought we're so brilliant, specifically
- 24:32Speaker 1: some of the hogs.
- 24:34Speaker 2: I've found the hogs so interesting because you know, of
- 24:38Speaker 2: course we have to as a storyteller, I have to
- 24:42Speaker 2: think about how can I bring people into like an
- 24:46Speaker 2: emotionally evil hot you know, yes, mistake need to be high.
- 24:51Speaker 2: And so there is this thing when we would go
- 24:55Speaker 2: with my amazing cinematographer Jared Alterman and the second cinematographer
- 25:01Speaker 2: that came onto the project, Jeff Hutchins, when we would
- 25:04Speaker 2: go down to Texas and we first visited Wade at
- 25:08Speaker 2: his property, that the hogs that like, you know, they're
- 25:12Speaker 2: not these are not like farm piggies.
- 25:17Speaker 3: No time about Wilbur.
- 25:18Speaker 2: This is not this little piggy went to that like
- 25:20Speaker 2: these are they are you know, two hundred and fifty
- 25:25Speaker 2: pound roaches. Basically they are feral, they are aggressive, they're dirty,
- 25:31Speaker 2: they shriek like the sound of murder. They provided, you know,
- 25:36Speaker 2: to me this opportunity to be like things are happening watching.
- 25:40Speaker 1: It was it just it was between the hogs and
- 25:43Speaker 1: I don't know if they were crows, but there were
- 25:45Speaker 1: seven shots of when there were it felt like there
- 25:47Speaker 1: were just millions of crows. Yes, it all was so creepy, right,
- 25:53Speaker 1: and completely in line with what was happening you know
- 25:59Speaker 1: in the documentary like it was. It was all just
- 26:02Speaker 1: felt and that the way that you you sort of
- 26:07Speaker 1: juxtaposed the creepiness with the other piece of it, which
- 26:11Speaker 1: felt like, here's this young girl, she had friends, yeah,
- 26:16Speaker 1: she you know, the whole thing was so weird and
- 26:21Speaker 1: mind blowing. I mean, how do you feel like, you know,
- 26:24Speaker 1: you've now done it, You've made this film, you've wrapped it.
- 26:27Speaker 3: What are you left with?
- 26:28Speaker 1: And that's not my last By the way, that sounds
- 26:30Speaker 1: like a last question. You're not getting away from that easily,
- 26:33Speaker 1: But like, you do you think about this a lot now?
- 26:36Speaker 2: It was sure, yeah, yeah, for sure. To me, I
- 26:39Speaker 2: think that this is a film about red Flags. I
- 26:45Speaker 2: think that this is a film about you know, it's
- 26:50Speaker 2: not like when you get to the end of the
- 26:53Speaker 2: film or when you're getting to like the things that
- 26:56Speaker 2: Taylor ultimately does where it's like ha ha ha it
- 27:00Speaker 2: her all along, it's like, yeah, we know, like everyone says,
- 27:05Speaker 2: I never thought Taylor would do something like this. I
- 27:07Speaker 2: never thought she would kill someone. The second I heard
- 27:09Speaker 2: about what had happened over in New Boston to.
- 27:12Speaker 3: This time, I knew it was Taylor, right, you know.
- 27:14Speaker 2: So it's like it's this thing where both rays are true,
- 27:18Speaker 2: and I'm interested in the idea that this is a
- 27:21Speaker 2: film about gut instincts. This is a film about red flags.
- 27:25Speaker 2: Everyone in her orbit felt things were off. You know.
- 27:30Speaker 2: Wade is kind of busy and distracted and overwhelmed and
- 27:35Speaker 2: like out of his depths. But his mom thinks something's weird,
- 27:39Speaker 2: you know, and she plays people off of each other.
- 27:41Speaker 2: The friends think something is weird, you know, Wade's friends,
- 27:45Speaker 2: Cody and Steffanely. They It's like everyone has this kind
- 27:48Speaker 2: of gut feeling. So I think it's a film about that.
- 27:51Speaker 2: I also think it's a film about, you know, how
- 27:53Speaker 2: Reagan was was failed. You know, there were medical practitioners
- 27:59Speaker 2: who I am absolutely not blaming because they are following
- 28:02Speaker 2: the law, but they were really their hands were really
- 28:05Speaker 2: tied right.
- 28:06Speaker 1: But there was the want I don't remember the name
- 28:09Speaker 1: of this medical practitioner. They went to her and asked
- 28:14Speaker 1: her about the hysterectomy, and she said there are hippolaws.
- 28:17Speaker 1: But trust your she I mean, right, which to me,
- 28:22Speaker 1: that's that was a service that she did as so
- 28:25Speaker 1: much as she possibly could.
- 28:27Speaker 2: Right. But the idea that, like, you know, it could
- 28:30Speaker 2: be so blatantly obvious that someone within your community is
- 28:37Speaker 2: seemingly like up to no good. You don't know where
- 28:39Speaker 2: it's going. I mean, lots of people in the film
- 28:41Speaker 2: are saying, like what is she going to do? We
- 28:43Speaker 2: were all questioning what's she going to do? But the
- 28:45Speaker 2: idea that like someone in your community you can know
- 28:47Speaker 2: is up to kind of no good. The medical system
- 28:50Speaker 2: can know that something is not adding up, but they
- 28:53Speaker 2: can't actually do or say anything specific really feels like
- 28:58Speaker 2: in this case, it failed Reagan and her family. You know,
- 29:02Speaker 2: could there have been other ways to Warren? Could there
- 29:06Speaker 2: have been an intervention?
- 29:07Speaker 1: That's a big question. That's a big, a very big
- 29:10Speaker 1: interesting question. I mean, hippo laws are obviously set up.
- 29:13Speaker 2: To protect, yes, right, and in this case.
- 29:16Speaker 3: Yes they failed.
- 29:17Speaker 2: It's so you know they do the opposite, right, because
- 29:21Speaker 2: you know, even I mean, all of this is you know,
- 29:24Speaker 2: it's just all of this is a big game of if.
- 29:28Speaker 2: But like if a medical facility in this case, could
- 29:34Speaker 2: have said like, there is no First of all, you're
- 29:37Speaker 2: not coming here like you're you're posting things that say
- 29:39Speaker 2: that you're getting lab work and stuff done at our facility.
- 29:43Speaker 2: You are not. You have not come here, We have
- 29:46Speaker 2: not said that you're you know, like, could that have
- 29:48Speaker 2: stopped it in its tracks? Again, no blame to these.
- 29:52Speaker 3: Of course not, of course not.
- 29:53Speaker 2: They're doing the right thing. They're following the law. But
- 29:55Speaker 2: the idea that like you know, they couldn't in this
- 29:59Speaker 2: case interven with the truth right to protect the confidentiality
- 30:05Speaker 2: of a liar.
- 30:07Speaker 1: Right Even at the end, though even with all of
- 30:09Speaker 1: her lies, I was still and again I didn't know
- 30:13Speaker 1: the story, but before I watched, I knew what was
- 30:15Speaker 1: going to happen.
- 30:16Speaker 3: But yeah, I was still shocked.
- 30:19Speaker 1: By the ending, by the fact that it just was
- 30:21Speaker 1: there was such a leap between this pathological sick woman,
- 30:26Speaker 1: sick young woman and that kind of brutal violence, right,
- 30:31Speaker 1: and the way you opened it up also with her
- 30:34Speaker 1: being pulled over, it was just, I mean, gripping unbelievable.
- 30:41Speaker 1: I cannot believe that you had that footage to watch her.
- 30:45Speaker 2: I know, right, what strikes me so much in that
- 30:48Speaker 2: footage is there's this moment when she's like in the
- 30:50Speaker 2: back of the cop car. When we cut to that
- 30:54Speaker 2: scene later, it's so clear that like all she cares
- 30:56Speaker 2: about is Wade. She's like, will you call my husband?
- 30:58Speaker 3: Her husband called? Right right?
- 31:00Speaker 2: Hus been my husband and my husband. But there's this
- 31:02Speaker 2: moment where like a nurse were one of the e mts.
- 31:05Speaker 2: It's like wiping the.
- 31:06Speaker 3: Blood of yes, yes, yes, yes.
- 31:08Speaker 2: That's that's Reagan's blood. And here this EMT is thinking
- 31:15Speaker 2: that she is like helping this portrait woman just ate
- 31:18Speaker 2: birth on the side of the road is unclear.
- 31:20Speaker 3: It was so tender, right, No.
- 31:22Speaker 2: Tender of course, you know. And the idea that like
- 31:25Speaker 2: this this that Taylor could sit there and let someone
- 31:30Speaker 2: care for her in that way like receive.
- 31:33Speaker 1: Yeah, receive that kind of love when she had just
- 31:36Speaker 1: done this unspeakable.
- 31:38Speaker 2: Is a level of being off, evil, cruel.
- 31:43Speaker 1: Do you think that she's because I talked to you know,
- 31:47Speaker 1: I talked to directors and writer like, do you a
- 31:51Speaker 1: lot of I feel like that's a lot of them
- 31:53Speaker 1: are torn, right, Like you've been so immersed in this
- 31:55Speaker 1: story and you know Reagan and you know her beautiful family,
- 31:59Speaker 1: and you are you know, I'm sure I would think
- 32:01Speaker 1: at this point you're close with them. How do you
- 32:04Speaker 1: look at Taylor now? I mean, do you believe that
- 32:06Speaker 1: she's evil?
- 32:08Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, you know, this is a big
- 32:11Speaker 2: philosophical I guess I wonder what evil means in some ways,
- 32:16Speaker 2: because yes, there's part of me that's like, I'm not even.
- 32:20Speaker 3: Sure what that means?
- 32:22Speaker 2: What is that? Is there such a thing? I mean,
- 32:24Speaker 2: she wasn't tried on a defense of insanity. They didn't
- 32:29Speaker 2: find anything, but like, clearly something's very wrong with her.
- 32:33Speaker 2: She's she's cruel. She I do think she's evil. I'm
- 32:38Speaker 2: just not even sure. You know, on some level, I'm like,
- 32:41Speaker 2: what what does that mean? It's not a past to
- 32:44Speaker 2: see I ask you broken? You know, I'm grappling with
- 32:47Speaker 2: this all the time. I'm like, you know, it's certainly
- 32:50Speaker 2: not a past to say that something is broken in her?
- 32:53Speaker 2: Does she have a personality disorder? It was definitely premeditated.
- 32:57Speaker 3: Showed up with a scalpel or whatever.
- 32:59Speaker 2: She and she was thinking about what crime to commit
- 33:04Speaker 2: far before she decided that Reagan was going to be
- 33:08Speaker 2: her victim. She was kind of out there prowling for
- 33:10Speaker 2: like someone. She needed to find someone, and so, you know,
- 33:15Speaker 2: but there's a cruelty, there's like, you know, I'm I'm
- 33:19Speaker 2: a mom, I have an eight year old. The idea
- 33:22Speaker 2: that she did this to Reagan, to Regan's onborn child,
- 33:26Speaker 2: and Paul Reagan's daughter was at home, her three year
- 33:29Speaker 2: old daughter, and left her there. She left a three
- 33:32Speaker 2: year old in the house with her murdered mommy. How
- 33:36Speaker 2: can you describe it as anything but evil?
- 33:38Speaker 3: I grapple with that.
- 33:39Speaker 1: We've we've done we've done interviews with directors who you know,
- 33:46Speaker 1: directed a documentary about two fifteen year old who killed
- 33:49Speaker 1: their best friend, stabbed her death over one.
- 33:52Speaker 3: Okay, so and then but they were kids, right are
- 33:56Speaker 3: they kids? What is that sort of like or this
- 33:59Speaker 3: film in the crowd that I it's so whoa that one?
- 34:05Speaker 3: But it's not. But this one.
- 34:07Speaker 1: I'm telling you, this one has taken a toll on me,
- 34:10Speaker 1: like it's It's one of those documentaries where I'm going
- 34:13Speaker 1: to be thinking about it and I think in large part,
- 34:15Speaker 1: first of all, Reagan's beautiful mother and beautiful sister and
- 34:20Speaker 1: their her their beautiful family and very incredible and to.
- 34:24Speaker 3: Hear her mother's screams. Right, they had. It was so
- 34:28Speaker 3: heart wrenching and so.
- 34:30Speaker 2: And they've had to be so strong, They've had to
- 34:33Speaker 2: endure so much. It is so unfair what was done
- 34:36Speaker 2: to themful change their lives forever.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Yeah, their mother said, half of me is gone and
- 34:43Speaker 1: I don't even know what happens still here. I mean,
- 34:45Speaker 1: that's that would be what I would picture as well,
- 34:49Speaker 1: right of course, So they'll stay with me for sure,
- 34:53Speaker 1: as well as wade as.
- 34:55Speaker 3: But as this this horror show, right, this this.
- 35:01Speaker 1: Young woman who had two kids and was able to
- 35:06Speaker 1: commit this atrocity.
- 35:09Speaker 3: You know, do you does this stuff keep you up
- 35:11Speaker 3: sometimes at night?
- 35:12Speaker 1: Is it?
- 35:12Speaker 3: Does it sit with you like it would be?
- 35:14Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 35:14Speaker 3: Does it?
- 35:15Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure? I mean I absolutely.
- 35:20Speaker 3: I mean.
- 35:23Speaker 2: Because it's a real thing. This is a real thing.
- 35:27Speaker 2: Yeah happened, you know, right, Reagan was a twenty one
- 35:30Speaker 2: year old mother. She was there. I always think there's
- 35:34Speaker 2: this moment when she's like getting her sonogram and she's
- 35:38Speaker 2: like kind of looking over her shoulder and she's this
- 35:40Speaker 2: like twenty one year old young mother and like the
- 35:42Speaker 2: contentment and glow on her face about the prospect of
- 35:45Speaker 2: having another is like.
- 35:47Speaker 1: All over all she wanted to do was be a mother, right, yeah,
- 35:49Speaker 1: that's what her mom she was seventeen, or a psychedister.
- 35:52Speaker 2: He's a great mother, he's a great daughter. Like yeah,
- 35:55Speaker 2: think about I absolutely yeah, think about all of it.
- 36:00Speaker 1: It's a lot because I always grapple with like this actually,
- 36:03Speaker 1: like you just said, this actually happened, and I still
- 36:06Speaker 1: with now I've seen the film, I still don't get it,
- 36:11Speaker 1: Like what the fuck? You know?
- 36:13Speaker 3: It is so crazy. And anyway, I cannot thank you
- 36:18Speaker 3: enough for coming.
- 36:19Speaker 2: On so I talk to you and meet you.
- 36:22Speaker 3: I think that this.
- 36:24Speaker 1: Documentary was and again I've seen a lot of them,
- 36:26Speaker 1: now one of the most and I said this to
- 36:29Speaker 1: my producers gripping, you know, I think there was a
- 36:32Speaker 1: lot of reasons for that. I think the story in
- 36:34Speaker 1: and of itself is gripping, but also the way that
- 36:37Speaker 1: you told this story. I mentioned the cinematography, the way
- 36:40Speaker 1: that you showed us kind of as much as you could,
- 36:42Speaker 1: who she was, you know, before Gastric's sleeve, after what
- 36:47Speaker 1: kind of friends she was with the friends without the friends.
- 36:50Speaker 1: It was just really fascinating. So congratulations to you
- 36:53Speaker 2: Than so much