Authorities in North Carolina said Wednesday that they will need to determine where the killing of a 5-year-old girl occurred before additional charges are filed in the case. The body of Shaniya Davis, who was reported missing in Fayetteville last week, was found Monday beside a road near Sanford, which is about 30 miles northwest of Fayetteville, police said.
The girl's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, has been charged with human trafficking and other offenses, and another suspect, Mario Andrette McNeill, has been charged with kidnapping in the case.
A Tuesday statement from the Fayetteville police says that jurisdiction is "governed by where the criminal conduct occurred. Right now, this is an ongoing investigation and as such we are still determining the details surrounding the death of the child."
On Wednesday, Fayetteville Police Chief Tom Bergamine said jurisdiction will need to be determined before other
charges are filed.
He did not elaborate on what charges might be pending.
"Several of the details regarding the investigation have a direct impact on which county will assume jurisdiction and prosecute this case," Bergamine told reporters at a news conference.
"The district attorneys from the involved jurisdictions are discussing the matter and ultimately will make that decision," he said.
Fayetteville is in Cumberland County, while Sanford is in Lee County. The district attorneys from those counties did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Davis
reported her daughter missing last week from their home in a mobile home park. According to police, surveillance video taken November 10 from a hotel in Sanford shows Shaniya in the company of McNeill.
"The investigation at this point indicates that Shaniya Davis was alive at the time she left the Sanford hotel," police said.
Following Davis' arrest over the weekend, police spokeswoman Teresa Chance said Davis had been "prostituting her child."
Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, made a tearful appeal before reporters Tuesday afternoon, asking that "everybody makes it a point not to ignore, to look past a situation where a person, a child, or anybody might be in danger ... so that we don't have another tragedy like Shaniya."
These perverts didn't need to kill that girl. What they did was horrible, but the sad truth is that it happens to thousands of children every year. But those unfortunate children are given the chance at escape: foster care, the other parent or relatives, even adulthood. But they killed Shaniya anyway. They should receive the death penalty if for no other reason than that. She would have been scarred for life, but she would have had a chance to build a better life sooner or later. And that crack head mother of hers is ten times more guilty than anyone. You don't prostitute your child to pay a drug debt. A mother's job is to protect her child from the evil out there in the world. There should be special punishment for her. It's the South, weren't they lynching people not too long ago.
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