Authorities in Florida have released body camera video showing a police officer interviewing an inconsolable military mother who reported her five-year-old daughter missing last fall - a week before the child's badly decomposed remains were found buried in rural Alabama.
The mother, 28-year-old Naval Petty Officer 1st Class Brianna Williams, was later charged with child neglect, aggravated child abuse, providing false information to police and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of her daughter, Taylor Rose Williams.
An autopsy report that was released last week in Alabama found that by the time Taylor's body was recovered on November 12, 2019, the child had likely been dead for anywhere between one and six months, judging by the condition of her remains, which had been scavenged by animals.
The Alabama medical examiner wrote that the discovery of the body was 'suspicious for homicide,' and some evidence pointed to 'neglect or severe illness,' but her cause and manner of death could not be determined.
Authorities in Jacksonville, Florida, this week released more than 160 body camera recordings stemming from the case of Brianna Williams, who reported her daughter missing last year
A video shows Naval Petty Officer 1st Class William's first interview with a police officer the outside her home in Jacksonville on November 6, 2019. The woman sobs and shakes as she reports her five-year-old daughter missing
Williams says through tears she woke up to get ready to work and her child was not in her room
Williams said she last saw Taylor Rose at midnight when she put her to bed
Court records allege that Brianna 'did willfully torture, maliciously punish or willfully cage' Taylor sometime between the last time the girl was seen alive in April 2019 and when her mother tearfully reported her daughter missing on November 6 of last year.
She also was accused of destroying or removing evidence, and transporting human remains.
A year later, the Jacksonville County Sheriff's Office released more than 160 body camera recordings related to the intense search for the missing girl, reported The Florida Times-Union.
The trove of video footage includes what appears to be Brianna Williams's first-ever recorded interview with a police officer, in which she is seen sobbing outside her home in the Brentwood section of Jacksonville on the morning of November 6, 2019.
Williams offered some inconsistent information about when she had moved into the home in the Brentwood section of Jacksonville
A sergeant ordered the officer on the scene to 'tear the house apart' to try and find the missing girl, but she was not there
The mother, dressed in her Navy fatigues, shakes and weeps as she recounts for the responding officer how she woke up to find her daughter missing.
'I woke up this morning, started getting ready for work, and she wasn’t in her room,' Williams says through sobs.
'Have you had any problems with anybody?' the officer asks, to which Williams shakes her head to indicate 'no.'
The cop asks the mother a series of questions, including whether her daughter had tried to run away before, or if she was taking any medications.
As the interview continues, Williams offers seemingly contradictory information about when she had moved into the home in Brentwood, saying it was either two days ago or a week ago.
No one appeared to have seen Taylor in the months leading up to her mother's reporting her missing. The girl last attended day care in April 2019
A group of women on Ivy Street gathered in the morning on November 7, 2019, to wait for news about Taylor Rose Williams
Law enforcement investigators in dry suits search the small retention pond near the entrance of the Southside Villas apartment complex off Southside Blvd. in Jacksonville, Florida, in search for Taylor Rose
In a separate interview with another officer that took place later, Williams said that she had moved into the home either in June or on July 4, and that her daughter possibly came to live with her in October, after staying with her grandmother in Alabama.
During her conversation with the first officer on the scene, Williams showed him the unlocked exterior door she claimed was open. She said she last saw Taylor at around midnight when she tucked her in. She described the five-year-old wearing a pink-and-purple T-shirt and pajama bottoms.
The police officer on the scene then radioed a sergeant, who ordered him to search the house for the missing child.
'Go in the house and tear that house apart to make sure she is not hiding somewhere in that house,' the sergeant is heard on the radio.
But Taylor was nowhere to be found. Her disappearance sparked a massive search spanning two states and involving both law enforcement officers and volunteers.
Williams stopped cooperating with detectives after being questioned about inconsistencies in her account.
A week later, the child's decomposed body was found in the woods near Demopolis, Alabama
Data from Williams' cellphone eventually took officials to Demopolis, Alabama, where Williams grew up, and where remains later identified as Taylor's were found in a wooded area near the city on November 12.
Williams was reported to have attempted suicide by overdosing on pills on the same day her daughter's remains were discovered, but she survived and was arrested.
She has not been charged with causing her daughter's death.
Police documents previously revealed the girl last attended day care in April 2019, months before she was reported missing, and the child's grandparents said they had not seen her in more than a year.
Williams was arrested and booked into jail in Florida after a failed suicide attempted
A neighbor said prior to her disappearance, Taylor was often seen wandering alone around the apartment complex where she lived with her mother, dressed in the same purple-and-pink pajamas she always wore.
No one appeared to have seen Taylor in the months leading up to her mother's reporting her missing.
According to reports, Williams' car 'smelled of decomposition' and had 'been stripped bare and cleaned with chemicals'.
Meanwhile, her apartment was said to have been 'in disarray with a strong odor of feces and urine'.
Feces and urine were found in a closet, while a stained piece of carpet, which had a chunk removed, was also discovered on site. Suspected bloodstains were observed in six locations throughout the apartment, reported News4Jax.
Williams has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. She is being held on $1.1million bond and is due back in court for a pre-trial hearing on January 5.
