Services at Hickam set
for young trauma victim

The 5-year-old girl will be
buried in her mother's
hometown in South Carolina

Five-year-old Talia Williams, the victim of an alleged fatal beating by her father, a Schofield Barracks soldier, will be buried tomorrow in her mother's South Carolina hometown.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Warren Chapel Baptist Church in Orangeburg, S.C., followed by burial in Belleville Memorial Garden.

Talia will be remembered at an 11:30 a.m. Mass tomorrow at the Hickam Air Force Base chapel. Netta Johnson, who formerly worked with the Hickam Family Services Center, said she arranged the special prayers for the child who "shouldn't leave here and be forgotten."

The 25th Infantry Division arranged for the child's body to be returned to her mother, Tarshia Williams.

Talia Williams died July 16 at her father's home at Wheeler Army Airfield near Wahiawa. The Honolulu medical examiner found the cause of death to be "inflicted cranial cerebral trauma due to battered child syndrome."

The child's father, Army Spc. Naeem Williams, 25, was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with murder, conspiracy and other counts and is being held at Pearl Harbor brig. His wife, Delilah Williams, 21, was charged with first-degree murder in U.S. District Court and is held at the federal detention center.