GRIM

Remains Found in Alabama Identified as 5-Year-Old Taylor Williams: Police

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office announced that the girl’s mother, who is being charged with child neglect and giving false information, remains uncooperative.

Human remains found earlier this month in a wooded area between the cities of Linden and Demopolis in Alabama were identified as those of 5-year-old Taylor Rose Williams, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office announced today at a news conference. DNA analysis confirmed the identity of the child who was reported missing by her mother, Brianna Williams, from their Jacksonville, Fla., home on Nov. 6. JSO Chief of Investigations T.K. Waters said at the news conference that the agency is not ready to say how investigators found the remains, and the cause of death cannot be released while the investigation is ongoing. Williams initially told the police that her daughter had vanished from her bedroom overnight but when authorities noticed multiple inconsistencies with her story and confronted her about them, the 27-year-old mother stopped cooperating with the investigation, according to authorities.

The sheriff disclosed that Williams attempted suicide by overdose and was hospitalized on the same day that the remains were found by search teams. On that same day, Williams was charged with two counts of child neglect and one count of giving false statements to police. Williams, who police said is uncooperative, remains in the Duval County jail on a $1.1 million bond. Waters said that she would be told “very soon” that Taylor’s body has been identified.