TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
The trial was held at the Bowie County Courthouse in New Boston, Texas.
continued throughout the morning, Jessica sat numb in the police chief’s car, trying to make sense of a senseless act. They were still relatively in the dark as to what had happened. Other than what Jessica and Marcus had personally witnessed, they knew nothing. What Jessica learned next was truly horrific. “About 11:30 a.m., Marcus gets a phone call,” Jessica said. “It’s his brother who lives in Texarkana, and I hear Marcus say, ‘What? On Facebook? Yeah, we’ll keep her off of it.’” But Jessica said, “NO!” and picked up her phone, opening Facebook. “As soon as I opened it, there was the article. ‘New Boston Mother Murdered, Baby Cut from Womb.’ We had no idea she (Baby Braxlynn) had been abducted until that article.” Jessica ran to the investigators. “Is this true?” she demanded, holding out her phone. “Is this real? Is the baby gone?” Jessica understood that the investigation limited what law enforcement was allowed to say. However, they eventually confirmed that the baby was “not here with her mother.” “I wanted to be there until they brought her out,” Jessica said, “but I just couldn’t do it anymore.” After hours of waiting and talking to investigators, she said, “It was all just too much!” As they drove home, the world around them looked hauntingly normal, but in reality, everything had been irreversibly torn apart. By the time Jessica and Marcus arrived, their home was already full of friends and family who had gathered to support them, to grieve with them, and to wait for answers with them. Phone calls had been made to family, and everyone who loved Reagan was reeling from the devastating loss. A close family friend had driven to Conway to pick up Reagan’s sister, Emily, and bring her home. Jessica’s mother, Cindy Groce, was sitting at her desk at the church where she worked. Her son, Jessica’s brother, Jerrod, called. “Mom, are you sitting down?” he asked. Cindy said she was immediately worried. Then came the devastating blow: “Mom, somebody has killed Reagan.” Jerrod told her. Cindy couldn’t breathe and screamed, “NO!” Cindy shared that her son, Jerrod, had been deeply involved in Reagan’s life from birth. When Jessica went into labor with Reagan, complications forced her into emergency surgery. As Cindy feared for both her daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives, Jerrod held his parents and prayed. Two decades later, when Reagan died, Jerrod offered the same comfort, telling his mother, ‘God is going to get us through this.’”
Investigation and Trial
A s the hours passed, information surfaced across the scanners and conversations throughout the Brookes’ living room. Although the news was initially unverified, it contained fragments of the answers Reagan’s family was desperately seeking. Who did this? And why? A familiar name was circulated, and while Jessica said she did not immediately recognize who it was, other family members did. It was a young woman, Taylor Parker, who photographed Reagan and Homer’s wedding the previous year. She was in Reagan’s home just the night before. She was someone whom Reagan considered a friend. Jessica recalled, “Some people have said they were not friends, but to Reagan, she was a friend.” The family would soon discover what would be nearly impossible to comprehend. This woman had faked a pregnancy. She had intentionally befriended Reagan and had done so for one horrifying purpose: to steal Reagan’s unborn child. With her house full of family and friends, Jessica had been praying all day—praying for peace, praying for answers, praying for Kynlee and the future she would face without her mother. She walked into her bedroom and saw her Bible lying on the table. Silently pleading for answers, she opened her Bible, and her eyes fell on the passage in Romans 12:19: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.” Those words became an anchor in the days that followed—assurance in the middle of devastation. Jessica believed it, but she also understood that justice in this world would require people willing to fight for Reagan, for Braxlynn, and for the family left behind.
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LIFE & STYLE
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