Antoinette Davis, Mother of Shaniya, and Mario McNeill Indicted for First Degree Murder

I saw all the traffic regarding Shaniya’s death, and saw that this news is a day old. Sort of hidden from view with all the excitement and outrage regarding Caylee Anthony‘s mom getting off, but it is true. Antoinette Davis, as well as Mario Andrette McNeill, have been indicted for first-degree murder in the case of Shaniya Davis. Finally.

Unfortunately, no trial date has been set as yet.  From the Fayetteville Observer:

The mother of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis was indicted Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder, rape of a child and human trafficking.

A Cumberland County grand jury also indicted Antoinette Davis, 27, on charges of taking indecent liberties with a child, committing a sexual offense, sexual servitude, and making a false police report, authorities said.

Shaniya was killed and her body was dumped along a roadside in Harnett County in 2009.

Davis had been free on bail since being charged in November 2009 with human trafficking, child abuse involving prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing an investigation.

Davis was booked into jail Wednesday morning, said Debbie Tanna, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

There is no bail for the murder charge, Tanna said. Bail on the other offenses was set at $1.5 million.

Indictments also were returned Wednesday against Mario Andrette McNeil, 31, who is charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder.

“It was long overdue,” said Bradley Lockhart, Shaniya’s father. “Now, may justice be served.”

He declined to comment further, saying he was only recently briefed about the charges by District Attorney Billy West.

“It’s all kind of fresh, really,” Lockhart said.

West said, in a statement released Wednesday afternoon, that police sent their case file to his office several weeks ago.

The case was submitted to the grand jury on Tuesday, West said.

He declined further comment because the cases are pending.

Right. They turn to Bradley Lockhart to respond for Shaniya? If I were Lockhart, I’d better lawyer up, especially when I got on the witness stand. I’d sure like for the prosecuting attorneys to really throw some light on how he came to hand Shaniya over to her murderers.

At the time of her re-arrest, Antoinette Davis had been residing at 607 Mechanic Street in Fayetteville. She looks a lot different from her first mugshot. The dreadlocks are gone, and her face has filled in since her pregnancy. She’s been eating–whether or not she’s lost the baby fat– and she’s probably off drugs.  It’s too bad that she’s in better health than her daughter–and that it took Shaniya’s death to get her well.  No doubt, she will be segregated from the general population, so the opportunities will continue to be rather thin for her to get high in jail.

McNeil or McNeill is still an inmate at the North Carolina Central Prison in Raleigh. He had the nerve to ask the authorities, through his attorney(s), to let him off on bail several months back. That it would be “easier.” No way is this guy going anywhere soon.

I’d feel better if I knew when the trial would be.  I would not be surprised, though, if it took until next January for proceedings to begin.  I wonder how long it will take for Nancy Grace to pick up where she left off with Shaniya’s case–and hopefully without seeing Bradley Lockhart’s mug next to hers like last time.   Shaniya Davis is another case that caught the imagination of North Carolinians of all races and sexes all over, just as Caylee Anthony’s upset Floridians from Orlando to Jacksonville to Miami.  I think, though, that there is a distinct difference between these two cases, and that these people are not going to escape justice.

~ by blksista on July 7, 2011.