When a terminally ill, Virginia mother relinquishes custody of her child to a supposed good Samaritan,

she has no way of knowing she's being deceived. A young girl goes missing while in the care of a woman

who exploited vulnerable children in this episode of Last Seen Alive.

I'm your host, Leah, crime analyst by day and true crime storyteller by night.

I'm your co-host Scott.

A quick word of warning to our listeners regarding today's episode. The victim we're going to tell you about today is a young, innocent, and particularly vulnerable child. Although this

episode doesn't contain any explicit accounts of violence against children, it's still potentially

very upsetting. Brittany Williams was last seen alive on August 18, 2000 in Richmond, Virginia. Brittany was only

seven years old at the time and had faced a challenging start to life. Her mother, Rose,

found out that she had AIDS while she was pregnant with Brittany. Unfortunately, this meant that by the

time Brittany was born, she'd already contracted

the condition as well. So, both mother and daughter had serious medical needs, a tough

situation, to be sure. Rose's life was full of hardship, and Brittany was sometimes cared for

by foster parents, according to Community United Efforts profile on her case.

She wasn't always in foster care, though. Sometimes she was in her mother's care, and caring for

Brittany came with some extra medical challenges due to her illness. For example, she needed treatment

often enough that she had a porticath placed below her collarbone. This is a type of catheter

meant for long-term use. Patients may keep them for years in some cases. They tap directly into

the superior vein of vena cava, which is a large vein that connects directly to the heart and can

be used to administer medication or to withdraw blood.

Brittany also needed to attend frequent medical appointments,

and it was at one of these appointments that her mom, Rose, met a woman who would change the course of Brittany's life.

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