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Elder Sim
The desperate search for a five-year-old girl has entered its third day, as the grim circumstances in the case continue to mount and the girl's mother breaks off cooperation with police.
Taylor Rose Williams was reported missing in Jacksonville, Florida at around 7.22am on Wednesday morning by her mother, Naval Petty Officer 1st Class Brianna Williams.
Brianna Williams claimed that she had put Taylor to bed the prior evening, but woke up in the morning and noticed the girl wasn't in her room and the back door to their home was wide open.
Now, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams says that Brianna Williams is no longer cooperating with investigators, and that it may have been months since anyone besides the mother has seen young Taylor.
In a bleak development, cadaver dog picked up on scents in the trunk of Brianna Williams' car, sources told WJXT-TV.
Although authorities haven't confirmed the accuracy of the statement, they towed Brianna Williams' car from her home in the Brentwood neighborhood on Wednesday.
'There's not one scenario of theory that we're not exploring, and every possibility is being looked at,' the sheriff said at a press conference on Thursday.
Sheriff Williams asked anyone who has seen the girl in the past six months to come forward and speak with investigators.
Asked if he could confirm when Taylor was last seen by anyone other than her mother, the sheriff said: 'We don't know. So that is part of what we are digging into.'
At least one community member has come forward to say that she saw Taylor on June 5 at an on-base daycare her own child also attended on Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
'The kids were in the same class all year long, so I had seen her basically every day until the last day' of day care, the mother told Action News Jacksonville.
However, it's unclear whether Taylor was ever enrolled in school for the fall, and investigators are trying to piece together her mother's movements in recent months.
On Sunday, Brianna Williams moved within Jacksonville from Southside Villas to the Ivy Street home in Brentwood.
However, a woman who helped her on the move says that she did not see the little girl during the move.
We never saw a child. We never heard a child. Nothing,' Tiffani Nicole, who was hired to help on the move, told WJXT-TV. 'I was assuming the kid was in day care, or the child was with a friend, so she can get her apartment cleaned out.'
Nicole said Brianna Williams' house was messy, and the child's mother was behaving strangely.
'It honestly looked like she had been recently evicted or something because it was not well lived-in if there was a child there,' Nicole said. 'There was old food all over the floor, underneath the couches. There was trash everywhere.'
However, one of the items that Nicole helped move was a toddler's bed, she said.
Neighbors at Brianna William's new home in Brentwood said that they had never seen the young girl since the mother moved in on Sunday.
As of Thursday night, a Jacksonville detective was headed to speak with Taylor's biological father, Maurice Tate, who lives in Alabama.
Family members in Alabama said he hasn't seen his daughter in roughly two years, after Brianna Williams moved from that state to Jacksonville.
Sheriff Williams was quick to point out that Brianna Williams has not been arrested or charged, despite refusing to cooperate after investigators pointed out inconsistencies in her statements.
'Here's what we know: We know that Brianna Williams was the last person to see Taylor, and we need for her to cooperate with us in this investigation,' Sheriff Williams said