Tarshia Williams told a federal court jury that the last time she saw her daughter Talia was when her little girl left South Carolina to live with her father in Hawaii in December 2004.

And despite a court order from a South Carolina family court judge granting her two telephone conversations with her daughter each week, Williams said she talked to her daughter only three times after the girl left and before Talia died on July 16, 2005.

Talia’s father, Naeem J. Williams, is on trial for capital murder for the child abuse beating death of his 5-year-old daughter.

He is the first person to stand trial for a death penalty offense in Hawaii since the territorial Legislature abolished capital punishment in 1957.

Williams, 34, a former Schofield Barracks soldier, is facing the death penalty under federal law for killing a child through child abuse or as part of a pattern and practice of abuse and torture.

Before Tarshia Williams testified Wednesday, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright admonished her to refrain from emotional outbursts and talking directly to the defendant while on the witness stand. She wept briefly in front of the jury after federal prosecutor Steven Mellin showed her a picture of Talia, then composed herself for the rest of her testimony.

Naeem and Tarshia Williams were never married but have the same last name. Talia is the product of a brief relationship they had in their native South Carolina in 1999.

They fought over Talia’s custody, and a Family Court judge in South Carolina awarded custody to Naeem Williams on Dec. 1, 2004.

Tarshia Williams said the last time she spoke to her daughter was by telephone on July 2. At that time she said she asked Naeem if he was going to send Talia back to South Carolina to live with her for the entire month of July as spelled out in the custody order. She said Naeem told her then and on previous occasions that Talia was staying in Hawaii because she needed to attend school year-round.

By July, however, Naeem and his wife, Delilah Williams, had pulled Talia from the Child Development Center, the child care facility on Schofield Barracks, and Wheeler Elementary School after they were investigated for child abuse on Feb. 28.

Workers at the center testified at the trial they found bruises on Talia’s arms and back and circular marks on her buttocks and hips. One of the workers called military police and took Talia for an examination at the medical facility on base. The military police returned Talia to her parents after the doctor at the facility said he found no evidence of abuse.

The prosecutor told the jurors in his opening statement Tuesday that Naeem Williams kept his daughter isolated at home, unsupervised and with no food in the weeks leading up to her death.

Neighbors in military housing at Wheeler Army Airfield testified Wednesday that they heard constant yelling and screaming coming from the Williamses’ household.

Bethany Madrid said the yells from Naeem and Delilah Williams were directed toward a child about soiling herself or himself. She said she assumed it was a child because she never heard or saw any one else from the Williams household, other than the couple’s newborn baby.

Madrid said she recalls Delilah Williams yell, "I hate you. I hate doing this. Don’t want to do this anymore."

She said she heard Naeem yell, "You ain’t s—. You think you big. You ain’t s—," as though he was challenging someone to a fight.

Maribel Lanham-Colmenares said she not only heard a man and a woman yelling profanities, but also heard thumps, bumps and other sounds as if someone was getting thrown around a room, and the constant, desperate cries of a child.

After celebrating Independence Day on base, Lanham-Colmenares said, she returned to her home with her husband and children to hear what sounded like someone getting a "beat-down" with a belt. She said she heard a woman yelling and counting as though she was trying to teach someone to count to 15. She said each time the woman counted she heard the "whoosh" sound of a belt being swung through the air, followed by high-pitched screams. She said the woman counted to 15 three times.

Lanham-Colmenares said she called military police to the Williamses’ household about the screaming less than a week earlier and felt as though the July 4 beating was in retaliation. She was afraid that calling police again was only going to make it worse for whoever was getting beaten. So, she said, she took her children and left.