A Florida woman learned this week that she will be spending the rest of her life behind bars for the 2019 starvation death of her 5-year-old daughter, Taylor Rose Williams, People magazine reports.
According to the report, Court records confirm that Brianna Shontae Williams, 30, appeared in court on Tuesday, six months after she pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her daughter Taylor Rose Williams.
The former Navy chief petty officer, who had been stationed in Jacksonville, was accused of neglecting Taylor Rose Williams to the point of starvation.
Williams reported her daughter Taylor Rose Williams 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, the Florida woman 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.
“The victim was not valued from the time of conception by either her father or mother,” the judge said. “Her mother suffered from an eating disorder. The father complained that the victim was not being properly fed. The defendant then removed the victim from child care about four months prior to the victim’s death.
Taylor remained home alone and unprovided for throughout that time period.”
During a pre-sentencing hearing on Friday, a statement Williams had written was read aloud in court.
“I failed as a mother, a protector and as a decent human being,” the statement read, Jacksonville.com reports. “I didn’t take advantage of any timely opportunity to right my wrongs. I apologize to everyone affected by this tragedy. I am punished every day since losing my baby.”
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 dishonour the death of Taylor Rose.”
Williams received credit for the 1,043 days she has already served.