Taylor Rose Williams.Photo: Jacksonville Police Department
A Florida woman learned this week she’ll be spending the rest of her life behind bars forthe 2019 starvation deathof her 5-year-old daughter.
Court records confirmBrianna Shontae Williams, 30, appeared in court on Tuesday — six months after she pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of daughterTaylor Rose Williams.
The former Navy chief petty officer, who had been stationed in Jacksonville, was accused ofneglecting the girl to the point of starvation.
Williams reported her daughter missing on Nov. 6, 2019.
She told investigators she discovered her back door was unlocked when she woke up that morning and soon after, realized Taylor was gone.
Police said she stopped cooperating with the investigation after they questioned some inconsistencies in her accounts of what happened.
One week later, Taylor’s badly decomposed body was found in a “wooded area” of Alabama, where she’s originally from.
Her body had been placed inside a garbage bag and buried in a shallow grave.
Search teams uncovered the girl’s remains between Demopolis and Linden, Ala.
On Nov. 12, 2019, Williams was charged with child neglect and giving false information to investigators.
Williams was “absentee booked” at a local hospital, police said, where she had been admitted following an apparent intentional overdose.
Taylor was last seen alive in April of 2019.
According to Jacksonville.com, Circuit Court Judge Kevin Blazs called the murder “a tragedy all around.”
He told Williams he’d spent the weekend looking over all of the evidence.
During a pre-sentencing hearing on Friday, a statement Williams had written was read aloud in court.
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As he delivered her sentence, Blazs said that he “wanted to ensure that the community is protected and that the decision is rendered in a way that does not dishonor the death of Taylor Rose.”
Williams received credit for the 1,043 days she has already served.
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
source: people.com
