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Published: 05:53 AM, Sun Nov 15, 2009

Mother faces charges in girl's disappearance
By John Ramsey
Staff writer


Mario McNeil makes first court appearance
Grandmother of missing girl reacts to daughter's arrest
Mother faces charges in missing girl case

The mother of a missing 5-year-old girl was charged Saturday with allowing her daughter to be taken "with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude," according to police and arrest paperwork.

Shaniya Davis has been missing since Tuesday morning, when her mother reported she was abducted from her home in Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park off Murchison Road.

Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, was charged at 9:12 p.m. Saturday with human trafficking, felony child abuse - prostitution, filing a false police report, and resisting, delaying or obstructing justice.

The search for Shaniya Davis continues. Asked if police think the girl is still alive, Fayetteville police Sgt. John Somerindyke said, "We sure hope so."

According to arrest documents, Davis "knowingly provide(d) Shaniya Davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and she "permit(ted) an act of prostitution."

Police have not charged anyone with molesting Shaniya, but said the investigation is ongoing.

The man accused of taking her, Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, turned himself in Friday. Police said he admitted to kidnapping the child.

Investigators reviewed the timeline Davis had originally given them and found several inconsistencies, Somerindyke said.

Antoinette Davis had reported her daughter missing at 6:53a.m. Tuesday. She told police that she had last seen the child at 5:30 a.m. Meanwhile, police have said, surveillance video at an unnamed Sanford hotel showed McNeill carrying Shaniya to a room at about 6:11 a.m. that day.

A hotel worker called police after recognizing Shaniya's description, according to police. Shaniya and the man were at the hotel for about an hour, police said.

Ann Summers, Antoinette's mother and Shaniya's grandmother, was standing outside the police station downtown shortly after Antoinette was charged. Summers said she doesn't believe her daughter is involved.

"I know my daughter ain't had nothing to do with her child's disappearance," said Summers, who begged for Shaniya's safe return. "Bring my baby home."

Shaniya had been living with her mother for about three weeks before her disappearance, according to her father, Bradley Lockhart.

Lockhart said Friday that Shaniya had lived with him for the past three or four years. He said he let the child go to live with her mother because Antoinette Davis had found a place to live and had held a job for six months.

"I just wanted her to be a mother," he said. "She was never part of her life."

Lockhart told the Associated Press that police have not told him whether they are any closer to finding his daughter.

"I just want her to come back safe, my friend," he said. "I love her very much, and I hope she is OK."

The girl's parents had never married. Police have said Lockhart has been ruled out as a suspect.

Somerindyke said Saturday that Antoinette Davis's initial report had prompted the arrest of Clarence D. Coe on Wednesday.

Coe, 30, was charged with first-degree kidnapping. Police said then that witnesses had seen Coe drive out of the park with Shaniya on Tuesday. The charges against Coe were dropped after McNeill turned himself in.

Saturday, standing in his front yard off Ramsey Street, Coe said he plans to take legal action against the Fayetteville Police Department.

Coe said police wrongfully accused him and ignored a tip about McNeill before Coe was charged.

"They came after the easy target instead," said Coe, who said he was at his house when Shaniya went missing. "I was here the whole time."

Coe said he and Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Davis, were in a relationship and that Davis is pregnant with his child. He said Shaniya, though not his biological daughter, called him "daddy" and was wearing his other daughter's clothes when she was kidnapped.

Coe said he's had trouble getting a job because he's a convicted felon. He said that having a kidnapping charge added to his record, regardless of it having been dropped, will make finding work impossible.

Coe said he doesn't know McNeill, nor what his motive may have been.

The case has turned into a nationwide search for Shaniya, involving the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service. Fayetteville police say they've received hundreds of tips, and Shaniya's pictures have aired on national television shows.

But the search has been fruitless thus far.

"We still have no idea as to the whereabouts of Shaniya," Somerindyke said Saturday night.

Anyone with information about the girl is asked to call 433-1585.
Staff writer John Ramsey can be reached at ramseyj@fayobserver. com or 486-3574.

FayObserver.com - Mother faces charges in girl's disappearance

a dread!? a lie!

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God, that poor little girl! My heart aches at the fear and confusion she must have felt. People are truly becoming more and more depraved. Unfortunately, I doubt we will ever see that child alive again.

Huh so this bitch let's her sisters EX take her baby to da hotel to fuck her????? Wth??? I hope they beat the shit out of her and cause her to have an abortion with the baby she is carrying!!! She doesn't deserve to be a mother and fo shole doesn't deserve to be alive!!! If this is true!!! Burn that bitch!!!!!!!

I feel for her father. And, if this report is true, I am still suspicious of Coe. She was being raised by her father, yet she calls this man she's been around for 3 weeks "Daddy"? And why talk in riddles about the child never being in the living room? You know something is amiss but you keep laying up with the mom like it's all good? No. IMO, he is either a party to what happened or he knows more than he is saying. I am praying for Shaniya's safe return...and that women will finally get it that A CHILD'S SAFETY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAYING YOU HAVE A MAN! Have a safe weekend, everyone.

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Damn my feelings was right! I was hoping that I was wrong,,I know her dad is probably feeling a lot of guilt right now for even letting her go live with her mom. She had only been there 3 weeks and then got sold into sexual servitude. WTF is wrong with people. I am sure her newborn will get taken from her as soon as the baby is born.

I am wondering if he meant that she was never in the livingroom because the mom kept her in the room and men would come molest her? What the hell could he have meant by that. I pray the find that girl fast, I am just hoping that man did not injure her or kill her after he did god knows what in the hotel room.

I hope that she is found safe and gets the help she needs to heal from this horrific ordeal.

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It is just horrible they are now doing a ground search for Shaniya in Lee County they stated that they have gotten some tips I pray to God that the tips will lead them to her

i saw it on Nancy Grace & HLN ...

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This is the first I have heard of this case. I hope they find this little girl alive.

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This is what I just read from another site. This breaks my heart.
Image made from surveillance video shows a man identified as Mario Andrette McNeill carrying 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in a hotel in Sanford, N.C.
Image made from surveillance video shows a man identified as Mario Andrette McNeill


Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, told The Associated Press he raised his daughter for several years but last month decided to let her stay with her mother. He said Davis struggled financially over the years, but she recently obtained a job and her own place, so Lockhart decided to give her a chance to raise their daughter.
"I should've never let her go over there," he said Saturday night.
Lockhart said police have not told him whether they are any closer to finding his daughter.
"I just want her to come back safe my friend," he said. "I love her very much and I hope she is OK."
He described his relationship with Davis as a "one-night stand" and said he and Davis never argued about him raising Shaniya.
"Shaniya is a precious young lady and she is special," Lockhart said.
Lockhart said he did not know McNeill.

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I just heard about this yesterday and already I am just disgusted by the whole thing. There are times where I decry the methods of police interrogation but at this point they need to beat the shit out of the momma and the men she had around that little girl. Ick I taste bile in my mouth. I hope they find that little girl alive.