JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A woman accused of kidnapping an hours-old infant from a Jacksonville hospital in 1998 will not be cooperating with investigators, according to court documents.
Gloria Williams, 51, is charged with kidnapping and interfering with custody for taking Kamiyah Mobley in July 1998 from what was then University Medical Center.
Williams raised the girl as her own daughter and named her Alexis Manigo.
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After recent tips to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Williams and Alexis, now 18, were found living in Colleton County, South Carolina.
Williams was arrested there last week and transferred this week to Jacksonville to face the charges.
Before her transfer, Williams filed a document demanding that no law enforcement officers or prosecutors “attempt to engage me in any conversation whatsoever, concerning any crime or criminal activity, whether presently charged or not, without the presence of my attorneys.”
READ: Gloria Williams court filing
Attorney Gene Nichols, who is not connected to the case, said that ban includes the three-hour car ride from Walterboro, South Carolina, to Jacksonville.
“You know that every sheriff’s office, whether it's here or somewhere else, are going to be taking that time in that car ride to have a conversation and to get as much evidence -- that's their job, to get as much evidence as they possibly can,” Nichols said.
The three-page filing was submitted by an attorney from Charleston, along with an attorney in Jacksonville, who are representing Williams.
In it, Williams states that she intends to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment.
Because of the filing, her attorneys must now be present for any conversation, including those with inmates who have been asked by police or prosecutors to get information from her, or her constitutional rights will be violated.
But other inmates could still try to talk to her on their own.
“As long as they weren't prompted to do it, they are in individual actor, just like any of us who would ask a defendant something that happened,” Nichols said.
Nichols said those conversations often do happen behind bars, as some inmates look for any way they can to try to help themselves in the eyes of prosecutors. He said that might happen in this case as well.