Body of missing N.C. girl found

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A little more than a week before Shaniya
Davis vanished, her mother told Carey Lockhart, the aunt who helped raise the
5-year-old, that she would never see Shaniya again.

Those words echoed in Lockhart’s head Monday, hours before
searchers pulled a body police think was Shaniya’s from a thicket of kudzu
along the border of North Carolina’s Lee and Harnett counties.

“If I’d only known…,” Lockhart, who had helped
rear her since infancy, said Monday, her voice trailing off into sobs.

Shaniya disappeared a week ago from her Fayetteville, N.C.,
home, where she had been staying with her mother, Antoinette Davis, since the
end of October. Police think Davis, who had reported her missing, had allowed
her to be taken for “sexual servitude.”

Davis is charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse
and making a false police report. Another man, Mario McNeill, was charged with
kidnapping Shaniya after a surveillance video caught him carrying the girl
toward an elevator at a motel in Sanford, N.C., the morning she was reported
missing.

It’s not clear what arrangement police think Davis had made
for Shaniya. Police have offered little explanation of Shaniya’s possible
abuse, though they have indicated county social workers had been involved with
Davis and her family.

Davis, who works at an assisted living facility, has no
criminal history in North Carolina. McNeill has faced many drug charges but has
no sex crimes on his record.

Following a tip, searchers found a child’s body Monday about
100 feet off a rural highway about six miles south of the motel where McNeill
was spotted with Shaniya. Investigators were waiting on family to positively
identify Shaniya and wouldn’t comment on the condition of the body.

Davis, who is in police custody, couldn’t be reached for
comment. A judge appointed her an attorney from the public defender’s office
but no one had been assigned by late Monday.

Davis’ sister, Brenda Davis, 20, told the Associated Press
on Monday she does not believe the charges.

“I don’t believe she could hurt her children,”
Brenda Davis said. The sisters were able to speak at the jail Sunday, and
Brenda Davis recalled that her sibling said she would not do that to her
daughter.

Shaniya has bounced between homes since birth, shared
between a mother and a father who conceived her during a chance encounter one
night. Carey Lockhart had been the girl’s primary guardian because her father,
Bradley Lockhart, worked long stretches as a building contractor at
out-of-state jobs.

“There was no denying that she was his,” Lockhart
said of the resemblance between Shaniya and her father.

Lockhart described Shaniya as a joyful girl who loved to
dress up in pretty clothes and make her cousins laugh. She was a kindergartener
at Morganton Road Elementary School in Fayetteville.

Though Bradley Lockhart and Antoinette Davis never married,
they shared responsibility for Shaniya from the start, though Davis’
interaction was typically relegated to occasional weekend visits, Lockhart
said. Their custody arrangement was never formalized by the courts.

But 2 1/2 weeks ago, the informal parenting arrangement
dissolved, Lockhart said.

Shaniya went to visit her mother on Oct. 31. Lockhart said
she packed Shaniya enough clothes for two days and expected to pick her up that
Sunday.

But on Sunday morning, Lockhart said Davis called and told
her she would never see Shaniya again. Lockhart said Davis was angry she had
disciplined Shaniya for getting into a fight with her cousins.

“I was at a loss; I had no idea what to do,” said
Lockhart, who had no formal custody of Shaniya and could not demand her return.

“I knew when (my brother) came home, we were going to
have to go to court and make some changes so we didn’t have to endure
this,” Lockhart said.

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That resolution never came. Bradley Lockhart had not yet
returned from a job in Oregon when Shaniya disappeared.

Last Tuesday, Lockhart rang his sister with bizarre news. A
neighbor called him to say police were looking for Shaniya.

As they spoke on the phone, police knocked on Carey
Lockhart’s door.

They had found her name listed as a guardian at Shaniya’s
elementary school.

A million thoughts raced through Carey Lockhart’s head:
maybe her mother was hiding her? Maybe someone wanted to collect a ransom from
her brother?

She peppered police with questions. They grilled her right
back. She feared they suspected she had done something to Shaniya. She buckled
in tears and remembers police relenting.

“I was about to die,” Lockhart said. “I
cannot describe the devastation. All the things I could have done
different.”

Timeline

Nov. 10

6:11 a.m.: Mario Andretti McNeill is seen in a surveillance
video carrying Shaniya Davis toward the elevator at Comfort Suites in Sanford,
N.C.

6:53 a.m.: Antoinette Davis, Shaniya’s mother, reports her
daughter missing from their home at Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park in
Fayetteville, N.C. She said she last saw Shaniya about 5:30 that morning.

Nov. 11: Davis’ boyfriend, Clarence D. Coe, is arrested and
charged with kidnapping after a neighbor said he saw the two leaving the mobile
home together that morning.

Nov. 13: McNeill turns himself into police, a day after
police release the surveillance video from the motel. Police say he acknowledges
taking Shaniya. McNeill’s arrest leads to charges against Coe being dropped.

Nov. 14: Davis is charged with human trafficking and felony
child abuse. Police say they believe Davis allowed her daughter to be taken
“with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude.”

Nov. 15: Police and rescue workers begin a massive search
along the Lee-Harnett county (N.C.) line.

Nov. 16: Shaniya’s body is found in woods 100 feet off
Walker Road.

Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.