Laura Prater

Tanya Leigh Thaxton was born to John Allen Thaxton and Wanda Ruth Roden. She married at 20 years old to 26 year old Raymond. Tanya Reid was the mother of 2 who's infant daughter supposedly died of SIDS but turned out it was shaken baby syndrome - her son had seizures and respiratory problems but it was found out to be MBP ( Munchausen By Proxy ) and she insisted she was Innocent. She was the subject of Gregg Olsen's "Cruel Deception: The true story of a Munchausen mom and her tiny victims" which tells the story of how she was charged and convicted with felony child abuse of her son. There was also an episode about her on Forensic Files. A copy of a news article about Tanya is below. On February 7, 1984, Deaf Smith County Emergency (EMS) personnel were summoned to the home of Tanya and Raymond Reid because their infant daughter, Morgan Reid, had suffered an apnea 2 episode.   When the EMS personnel arrived, appellant was attempting to resuscitate Morgan.   After an initial visit to the hospital in Hereford, Morgan was taken to Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo.   Efforts to revive her were unsuccessful and, after it was learned the child was brain dead, she was removed from the ventilator and she died some fourteen hours later.   After an autopsy, her cause of death was determined, and is shown on her death certificate, as brain death secondary to cardiorespiratory arrest of undetermined etiology. The Reids also had another child, Robert Matthew Reid, who had apnea episodes beginning in 1985 and continuing until March of 1988.   In March 1988 in Des Moines, Iowa, by court order, Matthew was adjudicated a child in need of assistance, removed from the Reid home, and placed in foster care.   After that time, Matthew suffered no further apnea episodes. She was released from prison in 2008 and as of 2014 was working at McDonalds. An article from 1988 reviews the case at Nurse charged with cutting off son's air. A more recent article (2021) is here: Tanya L (Thaxton) Reid killed her son .