Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Tot girl in PJ's wandering in parking lot goes missing. Where is 5-year-old Taylor Rose?

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

Florida girl, 5-year-old Taylor Williams, is reported missing by her mother. When authorities find a child's remains in Alabama, Briana Williams, the mother, tries to take her own life. What happened to Taylor?Joining Nancy Grace to discuss the case: Ashley Wilcott- Judge and Trial Attorney, Anchor on Court TV Steven Lampley- Former Detective, Author of "Outside Your Door"  Dr. Debbie Joffe-Ellis - Psychologist, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Karen Smith- Forensics Expert at Bare Bones Consulting   Leigh Egan- Investigative Reporter at CrimeOnline   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Do you ever notice your neighbor's children or the children you see at drop-off or pick-up at school? Do you remember which one is which? Which one didn't have a coat on? Which one looked disheveled or dirty. Well, neighbors noticed that little Taylor Rose always walked around the apartment complex, pretty upscale apartment complex too, in the same pink and purple pajamas, always carrying the same doll, sometimes even in the parking lot. They noticed when they looked through the family's sliding glass door that she would be in there alone. Never saw anyone else in there.

But then Taylor Rose goes missing. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace in the morning hours of wednesday november 6th young taylor was reported missing from her family home on ivy street located on the north side of jacksonville so since that time more than 300 officers and a host of assets from our canine unit mounted unit dive team, air unit responded to carry out various aspects of the search. Officers have knocked on more than 600 doors in the last 30 hours in an attempt to gain some additional information. I want to take a minute and say that

we're thankful for our partners in the community and surrounding counties who provided us with additional manpower to help in these efforts. Our partners at Jackson Fire Rescue have been assisting with various searches and surrounding state, local and federal partners have sent search teams and are continuing to assist in various aspects of this investigation. And here's what we know. We know that Brianna Williams was the last person to see Taylor, so we remain hopeful that we'll find Taylor. We're not gonna stop in our efforts to locate her, and there's not one scenario or theory that we're not exploring,

and every possibility is being looked at. Where is 5-year-old Taylor Rose Williams? I'm looking at her photo right now, and I just can't help but think about the twins, John, David, and Lucy, at age 5, so tiny, so helpless. What happened to this little girl? You were just hearing the voice of our friend, Sheriff Mike Williams, who, as you hear in his own words, really doing everything they can,

knocking on over 600 doors, pulling out all the stops to find Taylor Rose Williams. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with me. With us, an all-star panel, and I can't be more sincere. Ashley Wilcott with me, judge, trial lawyer, anchor, Court TV. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Stephen Lampley, detective and author, Outside Your Door on Amazon. Joining me, adjunct professor, Columbia University, Dr. Debbie Jaffe-Ellis, forensics expert, Karen Smith, founder of Bare Bones Consulting. But right now to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Lee Egan. Let's just start at the beginning. Who is Taylor Rose Williams? Where was she last seen? Hi, Nancy. Well, Taylor Rose Williams is a five-year-old little girl supposedly last seen in the Brentwood area of Jacksonville.

What? Right there. You know, maybe it's just me, but when I hear the word supposedly seen, Ashley Wilcott, that just sets off all sorts of alarms in my head. When you hear somebody say supposedly or according to, or well, from what I know, or even to be honest, in other words, you're not honest other times. And when I hear supposedly last seen, that makes me think it may not be true. Is it just me? Have I been in the courtroom way too long? No, not at all. Because supposedly not seen, you know, to me, that's like a piece of

property, something you set down, like I've set my cell phone down. Well, oh, yeah. Well, you know, supposedly I think it was over there on the kitchen counter. That's not about a five-year-old. A five-year-old is not something that no one can say exactly when they were last seen. There should be a definitive. This is where this child was last. You know, we're talking about a missing five-year-old little girl. And according to Lee Egan-Larick, Lee, I am so sorry. What were you saying? Supposedly seen where, when? November 6th in the Brentwood area of Jacksonville is where her mother, Brianna Williams, says she was last seen. But Brianna is the only person that says that.

No one else. Her family hasn't seen her in years. Neighbors haven't seen her in months. Family hasn't seen her in years. Neighbors haven't seen her in months. Family hasn't seen her in years. Okay, I've got a problem with that, too. Guys, this is exactly the kind of discussion you would hear at the district attorney's office when we're trying to figure out a case or in the cops, in the police station headquarters, in the hallway, trying to make sense of something that seems illogical. But to Stephen Lampley, detective, author of Outside Your Door, Stephen Lampley, when a child goes missing, what's the first thing cops do?

Well, Nancy, there's a couple of things that we do. First of all, we start organizing a search party. Your officers can begin looking and canvassing the neighborhood. The second thing, we start looking for potential suspects in case this is foul play. So we're going to be doing a couple of things right off the bat. So usually those are the two things we're looking at. Okay, this is what I know too. Karen Smith, a forensics expert, founder of Bare Bones Consulting.

When a child goes missing, the first thing you do is immediately search the area where the child last was. And I've told the story many times about when John David went missing inside of a giant Babies R Us. And I was looking for, don't judge me, organic sunscreen, way down on the bottom of a shelf, which was at floor level. So I was down there on my hands and knees looking, literally, and the shelves went way up above my reach. I turned around, Lucy was there, John David was not. So the first thing you do is sound the alarm, which I did by screaming, to lock the doors and start literally running. Because a child, if they've got a head start, can outrun you. They can hide in little nooks and crannies you would

never think of. So the very first thing you do is search the area. If it's a park, you got to look in all of the play equipment. You got to look in the little fits in a home. Think back to the JonBenet Ramsey case. You got to look under every bed in every closet, in the garage, in the cars. What if she's playing in the car? My little nephew and I would sit in the car for an hour pretending we're driving to Savannah and back where he was living. In that case, remember, they didn't look down amazingly. What a coinkydink. Didn't look in the one room in the home where JonBenet was. Long story short, you've got to start looking. Then when you don't find them, you can't waste any time. You have to call police immediately because if your child is with a predator in a car, they're going 60 mph.

That's right. And they're 60 miles away in an hour. So help me out. Well, you're absolutely right, Nancy. That's exactly what we do. Unfortunately, it takes time to put together these search teams. So you have one or two responding officers. You put out a bolo, a be on the lookout.

All the officers from the area start swarming. They start formulating all kinds of like cordoning off the area. And they start searching block after block after block, knocking on neighbors' doors. And at that point, if you don't find the child after you've looked in every nook and cranny, listen, minutes become hours very, very quickly. You can put out what's called an amber alert. And if you sense that this child has been abducted and that their life is in danger or that they are in some kind of other danger, that is when the amber alert gets sounded. Okay. Back to Lee Egan. Joining me,

investigative reporter with CrimeOnline.com, where you can find this and all other breaking crime and justice news, including the story about Taylor Rose Williams, five years old, who goes missing. Lee, tell me a little bit about their home. So she was last seen in the home. Is it an apartment? Is it a freestanding structure? Is it a condo attached to other townhomes? Is it a gated community? What can you tell me? Does the mother live alone? Does she drive back and forth to work?

Where is this child in daycare? Tell me, Lee, everything. Okay, well, the last place that the neighbors saw the baby in was an apartment complex on the south side of jacksville on november 3rd the family wait does that mean that's where they live they live in an apartment complex and near jacksville they did they did okay so whoa whoa whoa whoa stop right there steve lampley okay that gives me another problem you got a huge problem in an apartment complex and i'll tell you why. Because

you're around, depending on the size of the apartment, every single person living there, 200, 300, 500 inhabitants, every one of them is a suspect. You don't know if that child went out on the playground or went to the swimming pool or was just playing outside on the back stoop. Anybody could take her in an apartment complex. Nancy, that's right, and that's a problem. You've got immediately, you've got, like you said, two, three, four, five hundred homes to be looking at. That is a challenge, especially if you have a small department. Now, Jacksonville, of course, is not. But you have an immediate issue right there with looking at several hundred homes.

And not just the homes. You've got the laundry room. You've got the recreation area. You have the playground. You the recreation area, you have the playground, you have the pool, you have the pool house. It goes on and on and on about where a child could be missing if the family lives in an apartment complex. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. The disappearance of Taylor Rose Williams has reverberated throughout the Jacksonville community.

What happened to the five-year-old little girl last seen apparently by mom, Brianna, or possibly by neighbors? We were just speaking with Lee Egan, investigative reporter with CrimeOnline.com, who advised us that they were living, mom and baby, living in an apartment complex. But now we are learning the timeline shows that just before baby Taylor goes missing, mommy moves from that apartment. Lee Egan, to where did she move? She moved around 18 miles away to the Brentwood area of Jacksonville. And when she moved, they moved into a single family home in a neighborhood, a lot less, I mean, it's a neighborhood, so they have neighbors around that can, you know, see what's going on. But it wasn't as crowded and jumbled in as the apartment complex was. Now, I understand, Lee Egan, that the mom moved to a house and that after that move is when

Taylor Rose goes missing. But Steve Lampley, detective and author of Outside Your Door, what do the neighbors in the apartment complex say? Nancy, several neighbors in the complex would see this little girl walking around the complex. Now, five years old, Nancy, five years old, walking around the complex by herself. They would look in the apartment sometimes and see this girl from all appearances in the apartment by herself. This girl was left alone. You mean through the sliding glass door? Yes, they would see her through the sliding glass door by herself apparently with no adult supervision whatsoever. So they don't know that from the outside looking in. They just see the girl in there through the sliding glass door. So she must be on, I guess, a ground level in the apartment complex.

Now, you were telling me that the neighbors would see her through the sliding glass door, but then suddenly, one day, they didn't see her anymore. Take a listen to our friends at CBS News. This is Maria Villarreal. Over the weekend, Taylor's family moved out of this apartment complex. Tiffany Nicole says she helped them Sunday. The whole 45 minutes we were there loading things up, I never once saw a child. It's strange because I'm like, I didn't even know she had a little girl. Investigators are asking anyone who's seen Taylor with her mother in the area in the last six months to call police.

So we remain hopeful that we'll find Taylor. We're not going to stop in our efforts to locate her. Brianna Williams is a petty officer stationed with the Navy here in Jacksonville, but most of her family is in Alabama, and that's why Florida authorities are working with law enforcement in Alabama right now. Okay, I've got a problem. Actually, as you might say, I've got a problem. Actually, as you might say, I've got many, many problems. But right now my problem is that someone helping the mom move,

a friend of Breonna Williams, did not know she had a child, didn't know she had a daughter. Did I hear that correctly, Lee Egan? Isn't that what the guy just said? I didn't even know she had a daughter? That's correct. I'm not sure if they were friends or acquaintances, because I know that Brianna hired these people to help her. So I don't know if she took out an ad to hire them or they were friends, but whoever they were, they didn't, they never saw the child, not even once. Now that's interesting too. Dr. Debbie Joffe Ellis, who is a professor at Columbia University psychologist. Dr. Debbie, and I don't mean to do this, but I don't think I can have a full, I guess I could if I tried, but I don't recall a full on conversation with anyone over a period of 30 minutes. Let's say that I don't bring up the twins, one of them or both of them. When you have a child and they play such a big role in your

life, I find that very odd that you don't even mention them. Or a friend doesn't know you have children or movers don't notice they're moving baby stuff or children's clothing or furniture or toys. I mean, it would take somebody forever to cart out all the twin stuff out of our place. How could the movers not know she had a daughter? Yeah, I agree with you, Nancy. It's unusual. It's alarming. And it's a huge red flag because a healthy mother, in other words, a woman who is a mother who doesn't have severely disturbing issues would share about her that there was a child or children in her life and one of the things that that strikes me as I've been listening to you and your guests is I'm seeing and hearing social isolation and that it's becoming more and more a norm where people in a community don't bother to get to know a neighbour, don't talk to them.

It seems this is increasingly a new norm and what society seems to be hungry for if our goal is to care for our children and adult individuals, is to restore a norm of social interest where we do become aware. You know, I noticed some publicity for this new Tom Hanks film about Mr. Rogers, and that was one of his popular messages. Let's teach children to care for others so that when they're adults, they care about others. You know what? You're right, Dr. Debbie Jaffe-Ellis. And I'm certainly not in any position to argue with an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Oh, sure you are. I'm a human too. Argue with me, Nancy. But, okay, since you asked. But, I mean, all that is true, and all that is absolutely correct. How could this girl, according to the court documents we've managed to obtain, and you can read about them at CrimeOnLine.com, a neighbor says in court documents that they observed Taylor Rose home alone at least every other day, and she was always wearing the same pajamas and always holding the same doll. Now I'm okay with holding the same doll because I had a Mrs. Beasley and I loved that doll so much. I also had a Thumbelina and mysteriously they both went missing. I don't know what happened to those dolls but after that I just tore the heads off my sister's Barbies. Probably something to do with

you're what? I'm concerned about you. I am too. I'm sure now in retrospect, that means something very serious. Ashley Wilcott, holding the same doll doesn't bother me, but always in the same PJs. Neighbors see her out and about alone, unattended every other day. Here's my hope is that, or wish, is that they had called someone about that, called police for a welfare check. Because remember, this child, this daughter, this beautiful little girl is only five. And to see a child of that age unattended once, maybe, but multiple times, all of the time, hearing the child by themselves, unsupervised, same clothes, all of those things amount to

neglect, in my opinion well another thing and this is breaking my heart i hate to even say it when people would approach the little girl walking around the parking lot i said what are you doing in the parking lot and she would say i'm looking for my mommy. There are two way, way too many red flags in this scenario. Anybody could have taken this child out of the parking lot. But I want you now to listen to what we've learned from our friends at CBS 47, Fox 30. This is Courtney Cole talking. Breonna Williams didn't report Taylor's disappearance until last Wednesday, November 6th. the Alabama was taking care of Taylor and that she drove down there on Halloween to pick her up. But it turns out William's mother hadn't seen little Taylor Rose since January 2019. In fact, the maternal and paternal grandparents said they hadn't seen Taylor Rose in more than a year.

Detectives also asked about child care over the last few months. And according to the report, Brianna told police Taylor had been attending daycare at NAS Jacks. Then she said she had a schedule change that caused her to pull Taylor from regular daycare. The warrant says Taylor previously attended kindergarten daycare. So we stopped by the facility closest to where Brianna lived on Jacksonville's south side. When I went inside to ask if they could confirm Taylor Rose came to this facility, the woman at the front desk told me she didn't recognize the girl and didn't remember seeing her. Crime stories with Nancy Grace.

And a neighbor here at Southside Villas actually told investigators that he would see littered Taylor Rose alone every other day. She would often wave to him from her apartment. He said he noticed she always had on those same pajamas with that same little doll. A neighbor of Brianna's only identified in this arrest warrant as a B told detectives the first time he noticed Taylor Rose wandering Southside Villas alone was on April 17th. It was eight or nine in the morning and the little girl told him she was quote looking for my mama. So he took the little girl back to her apartment. He says she was wearing the same purple and pink pajamas her mother claimed she was wearing when she disappeared last week. He described the inside of the apartment as cluttered with trash bags and boxes stacked on top of each other. A.B. said he

also noticed Taylor alone again two more times in May. The last time he saw Taylor and Brianna together was on May 21st. When A.B. asked Breonna where the child was, she told him with her grandparents in Alabama. He told investigators he had not seen any visitors or boyfriends at the apartment. That's our friend Courtney Cole at CBS 47 Fox 30 reporting. And I'm looking at a picture of Taylor Rose Williams, who's five years old right now. And she's clutching a little pillow that says Taylor Rose Williams, who's five years old right now. And she's clutching a little pillow that says Taylor on it, and it's covered with pictures of Dr. McStuffins.

I don't know if you know who that is. I think she's on PBS, but she's a lady doctor that fixes everybody and drives around in a mobile unit. And she's just clutching that, and her little brown eyes just looking out with a big smile on her face she's got little pink barrettes her hair it's so easy for a child to just slip through the cracks the kindergarten doesn't know what happened to her, the school doesn't know, the daycare doesn't

know. It's all up to the parent. And if the parent's not taking care of the child, there's really no record before they're in first grade as to where they are. We are talking about a five-year old little girl, Taylor Rose Williams. And you hear from a neighbor the state of the interior of that apartment. And that neighbor goes on to say that he had, thank goodness, he was kind and well-wishing because anybody could have taken that child and molested and killed her. Mom wouldn't have known. She's out wandering in the parking lot in her PJs clutching a doll. He took her back to the apartment and saw and that it was not a good living condition for this little

girl the mom is a chief petty officer in the military she's making good money to ashley wilcott you know the neighbor has commented several times she was always wearing the same pjs and always holding the same doll you know when i drop the children off i notice who for instance in cold weather is still wearing shorts i notice who doesn't have a coat on i notice when i'm over there for whatever reason which children are look look dirty or disheveled or their hair's not done. Or I hear at the supper table who never has a snack, who the children gives their snacks to because they're not packed one. You know, people know what's going on, whether they're told point blank or not, Ashley. That's what bothers me so much in this case. And that is any, there were

so many different red flags. People knew, people suspected they should have done something. They should have reported. We know statistically a lot of times people will not report because they don't want to get involved. They don't want to deal with the system, the bureaucracy, the DHR, the agency that protects children, the law enforcement, they're afraid. But the reality is had someone, one person, one person, Nancy, stepped up, like you said, who knew this child was wandering, looking for her mother, living in a house in deplorable conditions, if one person had stepped up, I promise you we would have this child now. Take a listen to Maria Villarreal at CBS. Brianna Williams said when she woke up

Wednesday morning, her daughter was gone. But the sheriff is now saying there are some inconsistencies in her story. Search teams have knocked on more than 600 doors, looking inside dumpsters and divers scouring a nearby lake, hoping to find five-year-old Taylor Williams. And while nothing substantial has been found, volunteers say they don't want to give up until they find out what happened to her. We know that Breanna Williams was the last person to see Taylor,

and we need for her to cooperate with us. Sheriff Mike Williams says Taylor's mom, Breanna, was initially working with police, but is now no longer cooperating. We were talking to her about some inconsistencies in her statement, and that's when she chose to stop cooperating with us. The young girl's mother reportedly told police when she woke up Wednesday morning, Taylor wasn't in her bedroom and the back door was open. But Sheriff Williams says investigators do not believe the five-year-old walked away from the home. Interesting. Why do they believe the five-year-old did not

walk away from the home? To Karen Smith, forensics expert, founder of Bare Bones Consulting in Florida. Karen, first of all, I would order forensic testing inside the apartment and inside the home, both of them. And yes, the apartment may have been cleaned and a new family living there, but that doesn't mean that trace evidence, invisible to the naked eye, is not still on walls or surfaces, as well as the home. Where do they go right now? And why do you believe cops don't think she just walked out of an open door? For Pete's sake, she's done it repeatedly because mommy wasn't watching her. Well, that's true.

But you have inconsistent statements from the mother, Breonna Williams. That's their first clue. She started spinning a story. And, you know, good detectives, I worked with all these people. I know they're good detectives. They're dadgum good at what they do. And the first time that Breonna Williams started spinning that story is the first time they went, hold on a minute. They're going to look for any type of forced entry on that rear door. If they didn't find any, that's a clue. They're going to go into her bedroom. Did they find any

evidence that there was a struggle? There's a clue. They're going to go back to that apartment. And you're right, if it's been re-rented, and likely it has, it's a very busy part of Jacksonville. But even if it's been re-rented, if that child was harmed in that apartment, you know what they do to apartments when they re-rent them? They might vacuum the carpet and run a real quick cleaner over it, but they're not going to go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Anytime you move into one of those apartments, you have to clean it yourself because it's still gross and it's still got remnants of the person before it. And that's what I'm hoping, is that there's remnants before that trace evidence. God forbid that there's any blood in that apartment.

But if there is, we have chemicals and we have testing that we can use to find that. So these forensic detectives that I worked with are going to be very, very busy. They have not one, not two, not three. They probably have four or five crime scenes to work at this point, Nancy, and it's going to be a long, long road in front of them. Well, you actually lived in the very same apartment complex, Karen Smith. What can you tell me? I did. It's three story apartments. And, you know, a lot of times when you have apartments, they're squished together. These aren't. They're very spread apart, the apartment buildings themselves. So when you say neighbors getting to know neighbors, you literally have to walk across the entire parking lot to get to the next building. So yeah, maybe neighbors in a building

would know each other, but you're, you know, from building 32 to 31, you're talking a 50-yard walk. It's a very, very large complex. So that unnerves me a little bit. And thank goodness that the person in the affidavit found the little girl and placed her back. But like Ashley Wilcott said, I wish that somebody had reported seeing this little girl alone. And you know what really makes me mad? I was also stationed at NAS Jacksonville when I was in the military. They have every single resource that you could possibly imagine on that base. It's huge. It's enormous. There's daycare, there's dentists, there's medical, there is everything

that Breonna Williams would have needed to care for that little girl. And if she's stationed at Commander 11, which she was, I was at 49 in the same hangar. I can tell you right now that even though the military, once you're in there, they've got you, but they're not going to give you a schedule that is going to be incompatible with caring for a five-year-old little girl. They knew she had a little girl. That schedule changed. That raised a red flag for me because I don't think the military would give her an overnight shift, if that's what she was referring to, if she has to care for a little girl. So all of these things to me make no sense at all.

Take a listen to our friend Anthony Austin at Fox 30. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says Taylor's mother, Brianna Williams, Brianna Williams is now considered a person of interest in this case. We heard Sheriff Mike Williams say that earlier today. The sheriff says that Brianna Williams is not cooperating with the investigation and has not spoken with investigators. Also, investigators have narrowed down the window of when they're looking for information about when Taylor was last seen. Last week, the sheriff's office said she could have been seen last May. However, today they're looking specifically in the last two weeks.

Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams confirms the child's mother, Brianna Williams, is now named a person of interest. We feel pretty comfortable that this is the right step to take and to bring some closure to this case. The sheriff's office will not say exactly when Williams may have traveled to Alabama. She is a 2010 graduate of Linden High School. Terry Randall finds his property at the center of a two-day search effort. And I'll never use that road again that I don't think about that. I'll have to go by there every time I go into my property right there and I'll think about that and it's just not a good feeling. And while Randall is hoping for the best. Hopefully find the girl alive somewhere else. He fears the worst. Williams remains uncooperative according to

investigators. They will not reveal any evidence they may have found during today's search. They are asking anyone who may have seen Taylor and Breonna Williams in the last two weeks to call 911. You're hearing our friend Elizabeth Lane at ABC 3340. And it disturbs me deeply that they are looking down a dirt road in Demopolis, Alabama. Now, you know, they were living in Jacksonville, Florida. This is about 500 miles away. Demopolis, may not have ever heard of it. It's the largest city of Marengo County, Alabama, but it's only about 8,000 people. What else do we know about Demopolis? It's there around the Black Warrior and the Tombiggy Rivers. It's a small area, not a lot of people in and out, not too close to an interstate.

So why is Breonna Williams going back to Demopolis? Lee Egan with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What is in Demopolis that draws Breonna Williams? That's where she's from. That's her hometown. She graduated high school there. Her family lives around the area. So I'm guessing it was an area she knew well. You know, I find that to be true in so many cases. Steve Lampley, detective, author of Outside Your Door. People go to commit a crime where they feel comfortable. For instance, look at Scott Peterson. He's a fisher. Okay. So what did he do? He murders his pregnant wife, Lacey, in their home on Covina Avenue in Modesto, then takes her dead body all the way to San Francisco Bay, goes out fishing, and dumps her body.

That's true in so many cases, and people go back to the scene of the crime. It's instinctive. So what do you make, Steve Lampley, of her going back home to Demopolis? Well, Nancy, you're correct. So many people, so many criminals will go back to the scene of the crime, excuse me, to the place where they're comfortable. I guess it's a sense of, quote, unquote, comfort. And it disturbs me that the fact that she's been in cooperative with police at one point when her stories didn't match up.

The girl has disappeared. There are so many indicators here that, to me, as a former investigator, this woman was involved at least in some part in this little girl's disappearance. That's my take. And then a stunning turn of events in the search for little Taylor Rose. Search teams uncovered the remains of a child in a wooded area in Alabama. Teams on the ground there are working on recovering the victim and while indications are that this may be Taylor Williams, the exact identification of the victim will be made pending some detailed forensic analysis of those remains. Brianna

Williams, the mother of Taylor Williams, has been arrested this evening on charges of child neglect and giving false information to investigators during the search for Taylor. The suspect has been absentee booked at a local hospital after being admitted today due to an apparent overdose of some sort. Wow, you're hearing Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams' press conference alerting everyone that remains found on a dirt road in Demopolis, Breonna Williams' hometown, the mother. But not only that, we hear the mother, who has not been cooperating with police, tried to commit suicide. Lee Egan, what happened?

Breonna was staying on base, and she was under suicide watch while she was there, but apparently somehow she ingested something and tried to take her own life. You know, when you hear that, Stephen Lampley, I understand a mother grieving and being beside herself that her daughter's remains had been found, but I would think she would want to give the daughter a funeral and find out who killed the daughter, how she ended up on a dirt road in mommy's hometown. Of course you would, Nancy. You would unless you knew you were involved.

And according to the information that I read, cadaver dogs picked up a scent on the trunk of her car, the mother's car. So, yeah, you're right. You would want to see your child off in the proper fashion. You would want to find justice for your child unless you were involved. To Dr. Debbie Joffe Ellis, adjunct professor at Columbia, psychologist, what about her behavior? I mean, wouldn't she want to know who killed her daughter? If she was in a rational state of mind, yes. But there's a ton of evidence that even before her hearing this news, she wasn't thinking in rational ways

according to the way she was behaving. So we can't assume when a tragedy like this happens that a person will want what someone in a healthy state of mind, even though they're in agonizing grief, will want what someone in a healthy state of mind, even though they're in agonizing grief, will want. We don't know her mental state, but from the behavior, it was not in a healthy state. To Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor at Court TV. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Wait in, Ashley. You know, exactly the same thing. There's so much evidence

in this case that this is not a typical quote-unquote or average better word mother right caring for her child rather there's something else going on she's in the military but yet listen to the conditions of the home deplorable listen to how many times this child was seen outside looking for her mother I don't know what else it is with this mother whether it's mental health substance abuse domestic violence who knows what it is but there's so many red flags pointing to the fact that this was not an average mother taking care of her child. Rather, she neglected to the point of abuse, and I personally believe that she must know something about what happened to her daughter.

The mother of five-year-old Taylor Rose Williams charged after attempting suicide after human remains are discovered in the search for her missing child. Breonna Williams, the mother of missing Taylor, was charged with child neglect and giving false information to police. Where does it stand now, Lee Egan? Well, right now they're waiting to identify the human remains. They were child remains there. The police believe it's Taylor Williams, but they need official confirmation. And until then, they can't really say how she died or even where she died. And I think once they get that information, we'll find out where they go from there as far as charges. We wait as justice unfolds, but I can't help but wonder, how did this child slip through the cracks of our system?

Not reported missing from school, not reported missing from daycare. The father hadn't seen her in two years. The grandparents hadn't seen her in a year. And nobody said a word. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.