Re: Mario Andrette McNeill found guilty of killing 5 yr old Shaniya Davis, not of raping her

by Wrapitup Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:24 pm

What a load of CRAP!! They've had YEARS to evaluate this POS!!!! angry

by Guest Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:42 am

Thanks BJ.

by Wrapitup Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:01 am

Evaluations revealed that the defendant experiences paranormal powers and dreams with special meanings.
By Kelly Twedell Email the author 12:30 am

The jury panel were set to begin Mario McNeill's trial on Monday, April 22 but it was postponed for the defendant to undergo a mental evaluation due to some strange behavior inside the courtroom.

A team of four psychiatrists corroborated on a final outcome following various evaluations and determined that McNeill did suffer from three diagnosed disorders: schizo-typal, narcissistic, and anti-social personalities.

Dr. James Hilkey took the stand Friday morning and testified that he administered an extensive battery of psychological evaluation that included personality assessments, a self-report inventory and even test of malingering.

One of McNeill's behavior that prompted the evaluation was when he appeared to be asleep, with a "waxy" posture, rigid with his eyes closed. McNeill explained to Dr. Hilkey that by cutting off his sense of sight, when closing his eyes, it heightened his other senses.

McNeill revealed to Hilkey in the two-hour evaluation that at that time he had identified with "Sophia", a deity, god or alien who represented wisdom in his mind. shocked3

The psychiatrist shared that information on file predating the trial, McNeill said he had experienced special powers at the age of 6 or 7 years old when he could sense things that occurred before they happened and he was known in his neighborhood for forecasting events including the sex of unborn babies.

"Anyone could enhance their ability to have paranormal experiences by curtailing the liquids that they took in, and decreasing meat intake, which he referred to as the Daniel diet, referencing Daniel in the old testament that used the practice to enhance clairvoyant or extra paranormal experiences," said Dr. Hilkey of his conversations with McNeill.

Dr. Hilkey said that McNeill denied that he was crazy was happy with the jury selection even going as far to say that he had a special connection with three of the jury members and that they would be helpful in his case. This was base on that there were electromagnetic fields inside the courtroom helpful to his potential defense strategy.

During one session, McNeill expressed that he wanted to get on with the trial because he was getting older and would be older by the time he was released.

Dr. Hilkey spent a total of 16 hours over 5 visits between October 2011 through January 2013 evaluating McNeill where he also reviewed his family background and found no documented mental health history in McNeill's past.

"If anything, there was a tendency for McNeill to minimize or to deny psychological problems," said Hilkey of the test outcomes. "The generic term is called 'faking good'."

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by Wrapitup Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:03 am

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by NiteSpinR Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:24 am

oh WOW!
I don't really know what to say.

So I'll just add this: an angel who looked like Olivia Newton John visited Hemy Neuman and on her way out a demon with Barry White's voice came in behind her. Neuman was competent to stand trial, found guilty even though he's mentally ill and will spend his life in prison with no possibility of parole.
I have no problem with Mario McNeill getting the same.
Maybe his special dreams will help him know when he's about to be raped!

by Wrapitup Sat Apr 27, 2013 2:16 am

True. And that comment re: he wants to have the trial now so he can get out faster? He's also delusional. I've never heard of Schizotypal before.

by NiteSpinR Sat Apr 27, 2013 2:34 am

Not to be confused with Semantic Pragmatic Disorder or Schizoid personality disorder.
Schizotypal disorder
Antisocial
Borderline
Histrionic
Narcissistic
Avoidant
Dependent
Obsessive–compulsive

Not specified
Depressive
Sadistic
Self-defeating

Schizotypal personality disorder is a personality disorder characterized by a need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs. People with this disorder feel extreme discomfort with maintaining close relationships with people, and therefore they often do not. People who have this disorder may display peculiar manners of talking and dressing and often have difficulty in forming relationships. In some cases, they may react oddly in conversations, not respond or talk to themselves. They frequently misinterpret situations as being strange or having unusual meaning for them; paranormal and superstitious beliefs are not uncommon. People with this disorder seek medical attention for things such as anxiety, depression, or other symptoms. Schizotypal personality disorder occurs in 3% of the general population and is slightly more common in males.

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by Lilone Sat Apr 27, 2013 3:14 am

Who gives a chit? He knows right from wrong and he committed a heinous crime. Let's get on with it, FGS!

by Guest Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:02 am

NiteSpinR wrote:oh WOW!
I don't really know what to say.

So I'll just add this: an angel who looked like Olivia Newton John visited Hemy Neuman and on her way out a demon with Barry White's voice came in behind her. Neuman was competent to stand trial, found guilty even though he's mentally ill and will spend his life in prison with no possibility of parole.
I have no problem with Mario McNeill getting the same.
Maybe his special dreams will help him know when he's about to be raped!

by Guest Mon Apr 29, 2013 7:50 am

AYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- The trial of the man charged with raping and killing a 5-year-old Fayetteville girl in 2009 is scheduled to start this week after a judge ruled the man is mentally competent to stand trial.
Jurors are expected to hear opening statements when the trial of Mario McNeill begins Monday in Cumberland County court. McNeill is charged with raping and killing Shaniya Davis in November 2009.

Last week, Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons ruled that the 32-year-old McNeill is competent to stand trial.

Ammons is expected to rule Monday on a motion by McNeill's lawyers to prevent prosecutors from telling the jury that McNeill knew where Shaniya's body had been hidden.

Doctors took the witness stand Friday to talk about the mental state of McNeill. His was postponed at the beginning of last week while the defendant's mental "capacity to proceed" was evaluated by psychiatrists from Central Regional Hospital in Butner and Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro.

The move came after a jury was already seated - and lawyers were expected to make their opening statements.

First on the witness stand Friday was Dr. James Hilkey who told the judge he has recently diagnosed McNeill with three personality disorders: narcissistic, anti-social and schizotypal. Hilkey said McNeill has been tapping into a deity named "Sophia" and believes he has supernatural powers to see the future.

McNeill's defense asked for the evaluation after expressing concern about his ability to assist in his defense. It grilled Hilkey on why he never saw schizotypal warnings during five evaluations prior to last Saturday - when Hilkey spent two hours with him.

Prosecutors also asked why McNeill has not shown mental issues in the years he's been awaiting trial.

Hilkey testified McNeill didn't want mental tests because of his desire "to get on with the trial."

The defense says McNeill denies being mentally ill, and accuses the doctor of telepathically altering his mental evaluation.

Hilkey said he believes McNeill's mental condition would impair his ability to help in his defense.

McNeill has rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors that would spare him a possible death sentence and give him life in prison instead. His lawyers say McNeill continues to maintain he's innocent.

The doctor testified Friday that McNeill told him he has special connection with three jurors and predicts two jurors will get sick during 2nd/3rd weeks of the trial. He said McNeill predicted over the weekend there's an 11.4% chance he'd be acquitted, based on his "connection" to jurors.

The third doctor on the stand - Dr. Steven Peters from Cherry Hospital - said he agrees with Dr. Hilkey in diagnosis of three personality disorders, but said McNeill is perfectly capable and intelligent enough to stand trial and assist his counsel during the trial.

In his rebuttal, defense attorney Terry Alford said "it's a little beyond narcissism when we don't know who we're talking to..." to which the state objected and the judge sustained.

The fourth doctor - Greg Hazelrig from Central Regional also agreed McNeill is competent to stand trial.

After listening to all the testimony and the arguments from both sides Friday, Judge Ammons ruled the McNeill is competent to stand trial and said the defendant appears alert and attentive - pointing out he's verbally corrected his attorney at one point during jury selection.

McNeill is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child, first-degree kidnapping, human trafficking with a child victim, sexual servitude with a child victim, sexual offense of a child and indecent liberties with a child charges.

Authorities said the girl's body was dumped just off N.C. Highway 87 near the Lee-Harnett County line.

The trial is expected to be lengthy, with the state alone expected to argue two to three weeks. The state has 357 tagged exhibits. There are eight women and four men on the jury, and three of the four alternates are women.

Shaniya's mother also faces charges that she sold her daughter to pay a drug debt. Antoinette Davis hasn't been tried yet.
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by Wrapitup Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Published: 04:33 PM, Mon Apr 29, 2013
By Michael Futch
Staff writer
Mario Andrette McNeill found guilty of killing 5 yr old Shaniya Davis, not of raping her - Page 3 Im84ew

Mario Andrette McNeill found guilty of killing 5 yr old Shaniya Davis, not of raping her - Page 3 Im84ew

A defense lawyer closely questioned the aunt of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis this afternoon and implied she had changed her story on one point.

Lawyer Terry Alford asked Brenda Davis if she had been boiling water the morning Shaniya was reported missing in order to remove feces from a railing. Eeewww

Brenda Davis testified that she didn't recall that. When Alford asked Davis if she hadn't told investigators that she had been boiling water, she then said, "I wasn't going to clean it off."

Earlier today, Davis testified that her sister, Antoniette Nicole Davis, screamed at Mario McNeill the day after Shaniya Davis was reported missing in November 2009.

Brenda Davis testified that McNeill had driven to her aunt's house in a four-door black car that she had never seen him drive before. McNeill asked if he could speak to Antoniette, she said.

Her sister came out of the house and screamed at McNeill: "I don't have (expletive) to say to you. I just want to know where my (expletive) baby is," Brenda Davis said.

Brenda Davis was one of the first witnesses to testify today in McNeill's murder trial.

McNeill, 32, is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child. If convicted of first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to death.

He is accused of kidnapping and killing Shaniya, who disappeared Nov. 9, 2009.

Initially, Brenda Davis said she did not tell authorities that she had been texting McNeill.

On the night of Nov. 9, Brenda Davis said she woke up when someone opened a faulty door outside her bedroom at 1116A Sleepy Hollow Drive in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park. At the time, Antoniette Davis and her two children - Shaniya and Carlisio - also lived at the residence off Murchison Road with Brenda Davis, her two children and the children's father.

Brenda Davis testified that she had known McNeill to open the door to the mobile home with a small knife.

The next morning, when her sister reported her daughter missing, Carlisio told Brenda Davis that "Mano" had been there that night. Mano is a nickname for McNeill.

It was only after that angry outburst from her sister on Nov. 10 that Davis said she told Fayetteville police about a previous flurry of text messages with McNeill.

Davis said she had a previous sexual encounter with McNeill but it wasn't a relationship. She referred to it as "something to do."

When Shaniya was first thought to be missing, Davis said she texted McNeill to ask if he had been at their house on Sleepy Hollow Drive. He responded by texting, "No, why," she said.

"You're lying," she texted him back, she testified.

During opening statements this morning, Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West said the state would present a "21st century case'' against McNeill. He said the state would present DNA evidence and soil samples that implicate McNeill.

"Basically, we know McNeill is the one who raped and murdered the child," West said.

West said pubic hairs found on the comforter in a motel room in Sanford matched McNeill's. He also said soil in McNeill's car was consistent with soil found where her body was found. He said metal found in the soil was consistent with metal found in McNeill's car.

Alford, one of McNeill's lawyers, told jurors that his client was stuck in the middle of this thing.

"Something was going on in that trailer," he said. "They weren't covering up for Mario. They were covering up for themselves."

Before opening statements, Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons told prosecutors they could tell the jury that detectives obtained information about the location of Shaniya's body from McNeill's original lawyers.

But, Ammons said, they cannot say the information came from McNeill.

On Friday, testimony started on whether McNeill ever had a deal with prosecutors to save him from the death penalty if he revealed the location of Shaniya's body. The state says no such deal existed in the days after the November 2009 murder.

Charles Kimble, an assistant chief with the Fayetteville Police Department, testified Friday that he was never aware of any deal. He described how information about where to look for Shaniya's body was relayed to police through McNeill's lawyers at the time, Allen Rogers and Coy Brewer.

McNeill faces seven charges.

Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, 28, is charged with murder, child abuse, sexual servitude, human trafficking, child rape and other offenses. She is accused of giving Shaniya to McNeill to settle a drug debt. She is awaiting trial, but does not face the death penalty.

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by Wrapitup Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:55 am

Soil, calls link man to site where slain Fayetteville girl dumped

Defense insists Fayetteville man not involved in Shaniya Davis' death
Accused child killer deemed competent for trial

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Prosecutors told jurors Monday that they can link a man accused of raping and killing a 5-year-old Fayetteville girl in 2009 with the location where her body was found.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in the death of Shaniya Davis. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Shaniya's body was found in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 near the Lee-Harnett county line on Nov. 16, 2009, six days after her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, reported her missing from their mobile home on Sleepy Hollow Drive in Fayetteville.

McNeill was seen with the girl on a Sanford hotel security camera hours after her disappearance, and Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West said in his opening statement that investigators found cocaine and some of McNeill's pubic hair in the room.

Cellphone calls made by McNeill that morning used towers near N.C. 87, West told the eight-man, four-woman jury, and soil found later on the gas pedal in McNeill's car is consistent with soil from the area when Shaniya was found.

West described the wooded area where her body was dumped as having "the stench of dead deer carcasses" and said the body was cold and lifeless when searchers located it.

McNeill has admitted taking Shaniya to the hotel but maintains he didn't kill her.

"He doesn't know what happened beforehand, and he doesn't know what happened after (the hotel)," defense attorney Terry Alford said in his opening statement. The infamous "fog"??

Alford said McNeill was only trying to help the Davis family by taking Shaniya to Sanford to meet some relatives, who would ensure the girl stayed in school. He never tried to hide who he was and lied about it to investigators later only because he's a known drug dealer who doesn't trust police, Alford said.

"He didn't go in with a hoodie on. He didn't go in with a mask on. He just simply walked in," Alford said. "He did fudge a little bit about the girl's situation, but he did tell (hotel employees), 'I got a little girl with me.' It's not like he tried to sneak her into the back of the room."

Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons ruled before opening statements that prosecutors could tell jurors that McNeill's attorneys tipped off Fayetteville police as to the location of Shaniya's body.

Defense attorneys said such information would violate attorney-client privilege, arguing that McNeill provided information based on his original attorney's advice that prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty if he cooperated.

Prosecutors denied there was any deal, and Ammons ruled that McNeill waived his attorney-client privilege by giving police a statement.

Davis will be tried after McNeill's case is over, but prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty against her.

Investigators say she sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt.

She is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.

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by Guest Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:54 pm

Wrapitup wrote:Published: 04:33 PM, Mon Apr 29, 2013
By Michael Futch
Staff writer

A defense lawyer closely questioned the aunt of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis this afternoon and implied she had changed her story on one point.

Lawyer Terry Alford asked Brenda Davis if she had been boiling water the morning Shaniya was reported missing in order to remove feces from a railing.

Brenda Davis testified that she didn't recall that. When Alford asked Davis if she hadn't told investigators that she had been boiling water, she then said, "I wasn't going to clean it off."

Earlier today, Davis testified that her sister, Antoniette Nicole Davis, screamed at Mario McNeill the day after Shaniya Davis was reported missing in November 2009.

Brenda Davis testified that McNeill had driven to her aunt's house in a four-door black car that she had never seen him drive before. McNeill asked if he could speak to Antoniette, she said.

Her sister came out of the house and screamed at McNeill: "I don't have (expletive) to say to you. I just want to know where my (expletive) baby is," Brenda Davis said.

Brenda Davis was one of the first witnesses to testify today in McNeill's murder trial.

McNeill, 32, is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child. If convicted of first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to death.

He is accused of kidnapping and killing Shaniya, who disappeared Nov. 9, 2009.

Initially, Brenda Davis said she did not tell authorities that she had been texting McNeill.

On the night of Nov. 9, Brenda Davis said she woke up when someone opened a faulty door outside her bedroom at 1116A Sleepy Hollow Drive in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park. At the time, Antoniette Davis and her two children - Shaniya and Carlisio - also lived at the residence off Murchison Road with Brenda Davis, her two children and the children's father.

Brenda Davis testified that she had known McNeill to open the door to the mobile home with a small knife.

The next morning, when her sister reported her daughter missing, Carlisio told Brenda Davis that "Mano" had been there that night. Mano is a nickname for McNeill.

It was only after that angry outburst from her sister on Nov. 10 that Davis said she told Fayetteville police about a previous flurry of text messages with McNeill.

Davis said she had a previous sexual encounter with McNeill but it wasn't a relationship. She referred to it as "something to do."

When Shaniya was first thought to be missing, Davis said she texted McNeill to ask if he had been at their house on Sleepy Hollow Drive. He responded by texting, "No, why," she said.

"You're lying," she texted him back, she testified.

During opening statements this morning, Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West said the state would present a "21st century case'' against McNeill. He said the state would present DNA evidence and soil samples that implicate McNeill.

"Basically, we know McNeill is the one who raped and murdered the child," West said.

West said pubic hairs found on the comforter in a motel room in Sanford matched McNeill's. He also said soil in McNeill's car was consistent with soil found where her body was found. He said metal found in the soil was consistent with metal found in McNeill's car.

Alford, one of McNeill's lawyers, told jurors that his client was stuck in the middle of this thing.

"Something was going on in that trailer," he said. "They weren't covering up for Mario. They were covering up for themselves."

Before opening statements, Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons told prosecutors they could tell the jury that detectives obtained information about the location of Shaniya's body from McNeill's original lawyers.

But, Ammons said, they cannot say the information came from McNeill.

On Friday, testimony started on whether McNeill ever had a deal with prosecutors to save him from the death penalty if he revealed the location of Shaniya's body. The state says no such deal existed in the days after the November 2009 murder.

Charles Kimble, an assistant chief with the Fayetteville Police Department, testified Friday that he was never aware of any deal. He described how information about where to look for Shaniya's body was relayed to police through McNeill's lawyers at the time, Allen Rogers and Coy Brewer.

McNeill faces seven charges.

Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, 28, is charged with murder, child abuse, sexual servitude, human trafficking, child rape and other offenses. She is accused of giving Shaniya to McNeill to settle a drug debt. She is awaiting trial, but does not face the death penalty.

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Some of this article does not go along with the charges brought against Antoniette?? confused

by Guest Thu May 02, 2013 11:37 am

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Shaniya Davis' older brother testified Wednesday that the man who kidnapped his sister in 2009 looked like the Fayetteville man accused of killing her, but he isn't sure it was him.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in Shaniya's death. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

The 11-year-old boy, who now lives with foster parents, said he was 7 and living in a Fayetteville mobile home in November 2009 with his mother, sister, aunt and two cousins. He said he was awakened one night by someone with dreadlocks and gold teeth coming into the home.

"I didn't recognize him. I couldn't see his face because it was too dark," the boy said.

Shaniya and her mother, Antoinette Davis, were sleeping in the living room at the time, the boy said, and when he got up the next morning, Shaniya was missing. Davis said she didn't know where the girl was, so the boy said he searched the surrounding trailer park for her.

Prosecutors used stick-figure drawings the boy provided to help him describe what happened, and he then singled out McNeill in the courtroom as the man who came into the trailer the night Shaniya disappeared. He said he had previously seen McNeill with his mother and knew who he was.

Defense attorney Terry Alford pounced on the discrepancy in the boy's testimony, saying the inflection in his voice when he identified McNeill sounded more like he was asking a question of Assistant Cumberland County District Attorney Rita Cox.
"You said (to your mother) you didn't know who came in?" Alford asked.

"Yes, sir," the boy replied.

"You were being truthful then, weren't you?" Alford asked.

"Yes, sir," the boy replied.

"You really don't know who came in, do you?" Alford asked.

"No, sir," he said.

The boy told Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons that he was nervous about testifying, and in response to Cox's questions, he said he told authorities previously that McNeill was the man who came into the family's mobile home.

"When you said it was Mario who came in the house, why did you say that?" Cox asked.

"Because it looked like him," the boy answered.

Tasia McClain, who lived in the same mobile home park as the Davis family, also testified Wednesday that McNeill planned to go to her house on the morning Shaniya disappeared so they could drink and play cards. She said she fell asleep before he got there, and she never saw him that day.

A Fayetteville Police Department forensic technician testified that he found a child's comforter covered in feces in a trash can outside the Davis home as police searched for Shaniya.

Her body was found in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 near the Lee-Harnett county line on Nov. 16, 2009, six days after she was reported missing.

McNeill was seen with the girl on a Sanford hotel security camera hours after her disappearance, but Alford told jurors in his opening statement Monday that McNeill took the girl there after her aunt asked him to hand her off to relatives to ensure she would get to school.

McNeill has repeatedly said he didn't kill her.

Investigators say Davis sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt.

She is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.
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by Guest Thu May 02, 2013 11:40 am

More Witnesses and Evidence Presented in Mario McNeill's Trial
The jury saw video footage, date and time stamped from the Sleepy Hollow mobile home park from November 9, 2009.

Thursday morning in courtroom 4A evidence continued as witnesses and jurors viewed photographs and video footage.

Jurors watched security tape footage from the Sleepy Hollow mobile home park that showed the suspect going into the trailer 1116A, belonging to Brenda Davis, where 5-year-old Shaniya Davis had stayed with her mother before she was reporting missing.

The large projector screen where footage was displayed was not facing towards the spectators in courtroom 4A, only able to viewed by the jurors and the legal teams.

On the early morning video footage from November 9, 2009 prosecutor Robby Hicks paused the screen shots and asked witness Barbara Davenport if she saw the defendant in the selected track. She replied, "yes".

At the time Davenport served at as the apartment manager for the trailer park and knew all of the residents as stated in her testimony on the stand.

"I see someone walking from the trailer toward the car," stated Davenport as she watched the footage. "It looks like they are walking down the hill now."

Photographs were also presented on the screen as evidence showing the highlighted areas on the video where the person in question could be seen walking down the hill.

"Pay special attention right here at 5:26a.m." said Hicks as he showed another video selection from the security camera's tapes showing someone walking toward a car.

"Soemone's walking around the back side of the car, I can't tell, but it looks like they may have gotten into the car," said Davenport.

The Honorable Judge Ammons dismissed the juror panel for a break at 11:31a.m. for a 20 minute recess.
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by Guest Fri May 03, 2013 5:42 am

by Guest Fri May 03, 2013 5:44 am

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The jury in the trial of a Fayetteville man accused of killing 5-year-old Shaniya Davis heard testimony Thursday from witnesses who said he was with a little girl at a hotel days before her body was found.

The fourth day in the trial of 32-year-old Mario Andrette McNeill was spent reviewing security video from the Comfort Suites hotel in Sanford, where McNeill checked in Nov. 10, 2009 – the same day Shaniya’s mother reported the girl missing from the family’s mobile home in Fayetteville.

Jacqueline Lee said she was working the front desk at the hotel when McNeill walked in shortly after 6 a.m. and asked for a room. He told her he had his daughter with him, although Lee said she never saw the child in person.

McNeill paid for a room with cash and stayed a little more than an hour.

“He said he just wanted to rest because he was going to Virginia to take the daughter back to the mother,” Lee testified.

Lee said she saw McNeill on a security camera carrying the girl, who was wrapped in a blue blanket. He walked through the back entrance and down a hall.

The following morning, when Lee ended her shift, she'd heard about an Amber Alert. She asked the incoming desk clerk what time McNeill left.

"I said, ‘because I think that little girl was here.’ And she said, ‘Did you see her?’ I said no. It’s just the texture of her hair is what stood out,” Lee said.

She called the Amber Alert hotline, only to get voice mail.

Regina Bacani relieved Lee on the desk at 7 a.m. the morning McNeill checked in. She said he checked out at 7:38 a.m.

She described him as "very cordial," saying he had to get on the road to Virginia
with his daughter.

But later that day, she said, a housekeeper came to her with a small packet of white residue she found in the room. Bacani thought it was cocaine. Her manager threw it in the trash.

The next day, when Bacani started her shift, she saw the Amber Alert.

Attorneys asked Bacani if she saw the child.

“I actually wondered where she was at when he came and checked out,” she testified. “But I never saw her.”

Seth Chambers was staying at the hotel and said he passed McNeill in the hallway. A child was slumped over his shoulder.

“It wasn’t an affectionate hold,” Chambers said.

He said McNeill gave him a nod, and the child flipped her hand in a slight wave - and that was it.

Testimony will resume tomorrow in the case against McNeill, who is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in Shaniya's death. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Her body was found in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 near the Lee-Harnett county line on Nov. 16, 2009, six days after she was reported missing.

His defense attorney told jurors in his opening statement Monday that McNeill took the girl to the hotel after her aunt asked him to hand her off to relatives to ensure she would get to school.

McNeill has repeatedly said he didn't kill her.

Investigators say Shaniya’s mother, Antionette Davis, sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt.

She is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.
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by Guest Sat May 04, 2013 8:28 pm

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The Fayetteville police officer who headed the search for a missing 5-year-old girl in 2009 testified Friday that a tip from the suspect’s attorney led to the discovery of her body.

Charles Kimble – now an assistant chief for the Fayetteville Police Department - testified Friday, the fifth day of the trial of Mario Andrette McNeill, who is charged in the kidnapping, rape and murder of Shaniya Davis. He told the jury he was a captain during the search for Davis, who had been reported missing by her mother in November 2009.

McNeill was arrested after witnesses identified him as the man holding Shaniya in surveillance images from Sanford hotel, but the child was still missing. Information from an FBI analysis of McNeill's cellphone led officers on a fruitless search for Shaniya along N.C. Highway 87, between Spring Lake and Sanford.

“We mobilized a huge search and rescue effort,” he said. “We had a game plan.”
Then Kimble said he received a phone call Nov. 15, 2009, from Allen Rogers, the lawyer representing McNeill at the time.

“The information he gave me is we should look between Spring Lake and Sanford in an area where deer are killed,” Kimble testified.

The tip helped officers narrow down the search area, he said. Cornel Espirit, a canine handler whose dog found the girl, testified that he found her body in a kudzu patch, partially under a log.

In the courtroom Friday, the jury was asked multiple times to leave because of objections from defense attorney Terry Alford.

Alford tried to block part of Kimble’s testimony, saying the information from he got Rogers was protected under attorney-client privilege.

Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons overruled that objection and another against the state showing photographs of where McNeill lived with his then-girlfriend, April Autry.

The pictures showed motivational posters throughout the home and a kitchen that was closed off. Two dogs were in the kitchen, and the floor was covered in feces.

During cross examination, Alford said the dogs had been left alone in the house for several days after McNeill was taken into custody.

Fayetteville police Detective Elizabeth Culver, who picked up McNeill from the home, testified that he came willingly came to police headquarters. She said McNeill turned to Autry before leaving and said, "You know what this is about."

Alford also objected to other evidence shown from McNeill’s home, including a music CD entitled “Road Rash Jail Break,” saying it was prejudicial.

Testimony is expected to continue Monday.

Investigators say Shaniya’s mother, Antionette Davis, sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt. She is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.

McNeill, who faces the death penalty if convicted, has repeatedly said he didn’t kill the child.
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by Guest Sat May 04, 2013 8:30 pm

Bill Kirby Jr.

You won't find Perry Mason up there on the fourth floor of the Cumberland County Courthouse.

Or Ben Matlock in his seersucker suit.

Or prosecutors Sam Waterston and Steven Hill from "Law & Order" television fame.

"The state's evidence," District Attorney Billy West said Monday in his opening statement of the Shaniya Davis murder trial, "will show it was the defendant, Mario McNeill, that sexually abused, raped and murdered 5-year-old Shaniya Davis."

West says the state has a "21st century case" with state-of-the-art evidence that will prove McNeill raped and strangled the 5-year-old child in November 2009 and left her among vegetation along N.C. 87 in Harnett County.

Not so, a defense lawyer said.

His client did indeed transport the child to a Sanford hotel in the early hours of Nov. 10, but nothing else.

"That's all he did," Terry Alford said. "That's all the involvement he had in this case."

McNeill, 32, with a criminal past of assault and drugs, is on trial for his life, charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child.

The child's mother, Antoniette Davis, 28, awaits trial, accused of handing over her daughter to McNeill in payment for a lingering drug debt.

So far, prosecutors Rita Cox, Robby Hicks and West are presenting their evidence, including testimony from a city police forensics investigator.

"Did you do a luminol test (for traces of blood)?" Cox, 57, questioned forensic technician Kenneth Winschel Jr.

Winschel said he and another technician performed a trace evidence investigation throughout the home in Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park, where the child lived.

The questioning and the testimony can be painfully methodical, meticulous and mundane.

Some jurors seem attentive, while others seem to be elsewhere.

This is what you don't see in the 30 minutes or so that it takes for Perry Mason, Ben Matlock, Sam Waterston or Steven Hill to try a case.

"They cannot risk losing this case," says a longtime Fayetteville lawyer, who understands the prosecution's leave-nothing-to-chance vigilance of crossing every legal "t" and dotting every legal "i."

Bradley Lockhart, the 43-year-old father of the murdered child, sat on a front-row seat Wednesday, and he followed every word and every piece of evidence presented by Cox to the jury. Often, Lockhart would wring his hands together.

Across the way, on the other side of the courtroom, also on a front-row seat, McNeill's mother, Juanita Ball, sits with stress and worry written all over her face. She, too, would occasionally wring her hands.

Meanwhile, the diminutive McNeill appears undaunted by the prosecution's evidence, and he projects a calm persona for one accused of such a heinous crime.

Ultimately, eight women and four men will render justice for Mario Andrette McNeill or Shaniya Nicole Davis, where the evidence, pro and con, slowly unfurls on the courthouse's fourth floor.
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by Guest Tue May 07, 2013 6:36 am

Kudzu and other thick vegetation had entangled the body of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis when investigators found the child in November 2009, six days after she was reported missing from her aunt's mobile home in Fayetteville.

Chad Royal, a crime scene investigator with the State Bureau of Investigation, testified Monday in the Mario McNeill capital murder trial that the child was wearing a dark-colored shirt and pink-striped underwear. Her feet were partially in water.

"Around her mouth was a little discoloration," Royal said in Cumberland County Superior Court. "Vegetation was intertwined around her. The skin appeared to have goose bumps."

The child's body was located partially under a log in a depression in a wooded area where the carcasses of hunted deer are discarded off Walker Road in Lee County.

"You could barely see the legs," he said.

Authorities say McNeill assaulted the little girl in a Sanford hotel room before strangling her and hiding her body not far from the Carolina Trace community on N.C. 87.

Much of Monday's testimony came from forensic technicians, including those who shot photographs, gathered evidence and collected latent finger and palm prints from McNeill's black 1997 Mitsubishi Galant.

Jurors heard testimony and were shown photographs taken from the recovery scene on Nov. 16, 2009.

McNeill, 33, is being tried on seven charges, including the first-degree rape and murder of the child. He could, if found guilty, face death for first-degree murder.

Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, 28, is accused of giving her daughter to McNeill to settle a drug debt before reporting the child missing on Nov. 10.

Davis will be tried on similar charges, but she is not facing the possibility of execution.

During Monday's proceedings, McNeill's lawyers repeatedly objected to photographs and a video shot of Shaniya's body during the recovery process that the prosecution seeks to present as evidence.

Lawyer Terry Alford based the defense team's objections on a previous motion filed with the court and because of what he termed "heinous" photos.

Last week, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons ruled on the motion that McNeill's lawyers had filed to suppress knowledge that tips from their client helped investigators find the child's body.

Ammons ruled that the prosecution could tell the jury that police had received the information from Allen Rogers, McNeill's lawyer at the time, but could not say it came from the defendant.

Earlier Monday, Ammons ordered jurors out of the courtroom before he examined some of the photographs from the recovery scene.

In particular, the defense objected to three of them, including a pair of photos that identified the child's face.

"You want to include seven photographs from the recovery scene?" Ammons asked Rita Cox, the assistant district attorney. "I notice in (state's exhibit) 322, there's a discoloration around the mouth and chin. Is that forensically important?"

Cox said it was.

"There is a bruise around the left cheek," she said.

Ammons acknowledged that he noticed the bruise, too.

The judge questioned a photo of the body on a white sheet, again questioning its forensic value to the case.

Ammons agreed with the defense that a photograph depicting shears near the body was "inflammatory." The shears, which were used to cut the thick vegetation around the body, must be redacted from the photo before being shown to the jurors, he ordered.

Matthew Argyle, a former maintenance worker at Comfort Suites in Sanford, testified that he saw McNeill carry a child over his shoulder out of the hotel on the morning of Nov. 10, 2009, and place her in the right rear side of a car. Argyle said he thought the child was asleep.

He said the child appeared to be about 6 years old and female.

Argyle, who was picking up trash in the hotel's parking lot, said the scene bugged him.

"I just had a feeling something was amiss," he said. "Something wasn't right."

Argyle said the child's legs moved as McNeill carried her, but he saw no independent movement.

"I did not see any movement from the child," he said.

Trudy Wood, who works for the Fayetteville Police Department, testified she found white stains on a child's pair of jeans in McNeill's car while examining it for latent finger or palm prints. Wood said she processed a jacket, belt and jeans.

Under questioning from defense lawyer Alford, Wood said the jacket was size 4 and the jeans were size 24 medium.

"Are you aware 24 medium is for a child 18 to 24 months old?" Alford said.

Wood said she was unaware of that.

Did Wood know the clothes were for a smaller child than Shaniya Davis, Alford asked?

"I don't know," she said.

Alford told her that at the time McNeill had a small child who wore clothes of that size.

"You're not up there testifying the clothes belonged to Shaniya Davis?" Alford said.

"No, sir," Wood said.

The state called Deana Smith, a latent print examiner for the Fayetteville Police Department, who photographed items from the Galant, McNeill's car. Smith said she had noticed some white stains on the front pants legs of the jeans.

Prosecutors introduced evidence showing that McNeill had a business called "Myn Yrs Handyman."

Cox, the assistant district attorney, asked Smith about a license receipt from the city of Fayetteville that listed McNeill as a general contractor.
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by Wrapitup Wed May 08, 2013 10:12 am

Published: 05:48 AM, Wed May 08, 2013
By Michael Futch
Staff writer

A veteran FBI agent testified Tuesday that accused rapist and murderer Mario McNeill surprised him when McNeill spoke of killing 5-year-old Shaniya Davis during a November 2009 interview with investigators.

"After he talked about dropping her off," the agent said in testimony for the prosecution, "he suddenly stated that he was waiting to get a call to come to kill her.

"The interviewers, everybody, kind of stopped. 'What did you say?'

"He actually said he was waiting to come to kill her," the agent testified. "When we tried to get him to expand on that, we couldn't."

Except for the loud hum of the air conditioner, a hush fell over the courtroom.

Later, in defense questioning in the capital murder trial, one of the defendant's lawyers asked the agent whether McNeill had corrected himself during the exchange.

The agent said McNeill did correct himself, saying that he was waiting for someone to get - not kill - the child.

Lawyers for the state asked that the agent, who specializes in criminal matters, not be identified or photographed.

Authorities say McNeill assaulted the child in a Sanford hotel room before strangling her and hiding her body not far from the Carolina Trace community off N.C. 87.

The five-hour taped interview with McNeill, according to testimony, began about 9:30 or 10 p.m. Nov. 12, before the agent was asked to assist in the interrogation about 1 a.m. Nov. 13.

The FBI became involved in the case, the agent said, because the agency is tasked with assisting other law enforcement on missing children cases reported by an Amber Alert.

At the time, the agent said, the Fayetteville Police Department had received a tip from Comfort Suites in Sanford that McNeill had been at the hotel with the child.

After McNeill was contacted by authorities, defense lawyers said Tuesday that their client voluntarily went to talk with police. The little girl was still missing when authorities first questioned McNeill.

The FBI agent, after watching half of the interview, used information that he had gleaned from the interrogation, as well as a list of text messages he had received from a cellphone carrier that McNeill had sent and received Nov. 10 - the day Shaniya went missing.

"We needed to keep him talking," the agent testified, "to find Shaniya."

The federal agent said McNeill told him he was "skied up" - under the influence of cocaine.

At one point, the agent testified, he had to get McNeill to move because he was slouching and falling asleep during the interview.

"Mr. McNeill was not always telling the truth," the agent said. "Sometimes he would giggle. He needed to stop closing his eyes and laughing."

While McNeill admitted he had been at the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park after midnight on Nov. 10, the agent said, he initially denied being at Brenda Davis' trailer, where Shaniya was living with her brother and her mother.

The agent testified that McNeill denied he had Shaniya with him, and he denied he had been at the hotel in Sanford.

At first, the agent said, McNeill denied that he was the person in the hotel surveillance video that showed him holding the child in his arms.

That video was released to media outlets in hopes that it would assist investigators in the case.

After initially denying that he knew the child, the agent said that McNeill told police the girl's aunt sent him a text message asking him to pick up Shaniya from the family's home in the mobile home park.

McNeill, according to the agent's testimony, said he was driving around and sending out multiple texts "to hook up with someone."

During the interrogation, the agent said, McNeill continued a story about getting text messages to come pick up the child at the mobile home park.

McNeill, according to the agent, said the hotel was "a waiting area" to bring her to a dry cleaner in Fayetteville to meet unidentified people.

Upon further probing, the agent testified, "he admitted he had her in" the hotel, "and he had cocaine."

The agent described the defendant that night as coherent. He did not appear to be impaired in any way, he said.

McNeill, 33, is being tried on seven charges, including first-degree rape and murder. He could face death if found guilty of first-degree murder.

Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, 28, is accused of giving her daughter to McNeill to settle a drug debt before reporting the child missing Nov. 10. Davis will be tried on similar charges, but she is not facing the possibility of execution.

Jurors watch video
Earlier Tuesday, jurors watched a video that showed the child's body in the woods where she was found.

The 14-minute video, shot by SBI crime scene investigator Chad Royal, was shown on a screen that could not be seen from the courtroom's general seating area. There was no audio.

But jurors watched intently.

McNeill mostly sat with his back to the screen, but he turned at times to watch some of the footage.

Cheyenne Locklear, Shaniya's half-sister, hurriedly walked out of the courtroom, sobbing as the video played.

McNeill's mother, Juanita Ball, sniffled as she sat in the courtroom gallery.

Afterward, defense lawyer Harold "Butch" Pope questioned the way the recovery of the body was handled.

He asked if footprint impressions had been taken. No, Royal said.

Pope asked if DNA tissue had been collected from Shaniya's body at the site, but Royal said he wasn't aware of that happening.

Later, when Assistant District Attorney Rita Cox asked why footprint impressions hadn't been taken, Royal said there was too much vegetation covering the ground.

On Monday, Royal told jurors that kudzu and other thick vegetation entangled the body when it was found.

During Tuesday's lunch break, McNeill apparently made a comment to the FBI agent after he had stepped off the witness stand.

After a lunch break, prosecutor Robby Hicks asked Judge Jim Ammons to tell McNeill not to speak to witnesses. Hicks told the judge that McNeill had called the federal agent a liar.

"I asked why was he lying," McNeill told the judge.

Ammons said the testimony is emotional. He asked whether the comment was made outside the presence of the jury, and the agent said yes.

The trial is scheduled to resume today at 9:30 a.m.

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by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 4:31 pm

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A 5-year-old Fayetteville girl was sexually assaulted before she was killed more than three years ago, a medical examiner testified Wednesday.

Shaniya Davis was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, six days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in Shaniya's death. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Dr. Thomas Clark, the former deputy chief medical examiner for North Carolina, said the girl's body was partially decomposed and could have been in the overgrown area for days before it was found. She was wearing a only sweatshirt and striped underpants and was covered in leaves, twigs and vines, he said.

Clark said she had abrasions around her vagina that were "consistent with a sexual assault" that occurred shortly before she died. He also noted a bruise on her cheek that could have been left by a hand as she was suffocated.

"There is no other reason this child is dead," he testified, noting there were no other signs of trauma that would have killed her. "Thus, I concluded (the cause of death) is external airway obstruction, or asphyxiation."

Clark said there was no evidence that Shaniya was strangled, and he said it would have taken her killer a few minutes to suffocate her.

On cross-examination, he acknowledged that he couldn't state with any degree of certainty when Shaniya died, and he said the injuries she suffered could have occurred several hours before she was killed.

McNeill was seen with Shaniya at a Sanford motel hours after she was reported missing. His attorneys maintain that he was asked to take the girl there to meet up with relatives who would ensure she went to school.

An FBI agent who analyzed McNeill's cellphone records testified that calls made to and from the phone put him in the mobile home park where Shaniya lived with her family at about 3 a.m. and showed him at the Sanford motel about four hours later.

Shortly before 8:30 a.m. that morning, the phone's signal was bouncing off a cell tower near N.C. 87 about 6 miles from where Shaniya's body was found, the FBI agent said. A little over an hour later, the phone was using towers near McNeill's home in Fayetteville, he said.

Defense attorney Terry Alford requested a mistrial when prosecutors tried to introduce evidence of photos found on McNeill's computer. He said they were irrelevant to the case and would suggest to jurors that they were illegal.

McNeill faces sexual exploitation charges in connection with some of the photos, but the don't pertain to Shaniya.

"Do you realize how close you are (to a mistrial)?" Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons asked Assistant Cumberland County District Attorney Rita Cox. "Is the sole purpose of this witness that he found nothing?"

Cox said she wanted a Fayetteville cyber-crime investigator to provide other evidence.

"Focus on what information you want to get from this witness," Ammons said in denying the request for a mistrial.

Ammons also spoke to a juror Wednesday afternoon after a court clerk said she overheard the woman speaking about the case on the phone during a break.

The juror denied discussing the case, and the judge said she could remain on the jury.

Earlier in the day, Ammons also admonished people attending the trial who he said were "acting in an inappropriate manner" on Tuesday when jurors were watching a video of investigators recovering Shaniya's body.

"If you feel you have to laugh, giggle or cry, get up and leave," he said. "If the bailiff sees you and removes you, you cannot come back."
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by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 4:46 pm

"If you feel you have to laugh, giggle or cry, get up and leave," he said. "If the bailiff sees you and removes you, you cannot come back."

Mario Andrette McNeill found guilty of killing 5 yr old Shaniya Davis, not of raping her - Page 3 3870802818

WTH is wrong with people?

by Wrapitup Wed May 08, 2013 5:00 pm

I hear you, Linda Marie. How could anyone laugh or giggle???

by NiteSpinR Wed May 08, 2013 9:37 pm

"After he talked about dropping her off," the agent said in testimony for the prosecution, "he suddenly stated that he was waiting to get a call to come to kill her."

Who was calling and sending him text about picking Shaniya up, was it Antoniette Davis, her sister? Something went down and that poor little girl was entered into the barter. Sure hope LE has Antoniette's cell phone records. The whole thing is just sickening. Shaniya's mother wanted her for one reason only... Drugs.

by Guest Thu May 09, 2013 6:16 pm

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Forensic technicians said Thursday that they found little physical evidence linking a Fayetteville man to the 5-year-old girl he's accused of raping and killing more than three years ago.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in the death of Shaniya Davis. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Shaniya was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, six days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.

Prosecutors told jurors at the start of the trial last week that a hair was found in a Sanford hotel room to show McNeill was there with Shaniya shortly after she disappeared.

On Thursday, however, three State Bureau of Investigation agents testified about what they didn't find as they combed over the evidence.

DNA analyst Jody West said he found no evidence of any semen on swabs taken from Shaniya's body and clothing.

A medical examiner testifying Wednesday that abrasions around the girl's vagina were "consistent with a sexual assault" that occurred shortly before she died.
McNeill "cannot be excluded as an outside contributor" of DNA found on Shaniya's clothing, West said, but he wasn't a match for DNA found on a comforter from the hotel and a blanket found in a trash can outside Shaniya's home.

Forensic examiner Karen Morrow testified that McNeill's shoes don't match a footprint left on the blanket from Shaniya's home.

Trace evidence analyst Jennifer Remy said hair found on the girl's clothing didn't match McNeill. Her testimony is expected to continue when the trial resumes Monday.

An autopsy determined that Shaniya had been suffocated, but it's unclear how long her body was in the woods before it was discovered.

Investigators say Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt.

She is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report. She will be tried after McNeill's case is over, but prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty against her.
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by Guest Tue May 14, 2013 6:54 am

An expert in forensic geology and forensic geochemistry analysis testified Monday that soil found in the area of Lee County, where the raped and murdered body of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis was found, matched soil embedded in the gas pedal of Mario McNeill's 1997 Mitsubishi Galant.

Heather Hanna of the N.C. Geological Survey specializes in the study of mineral grain, which she called the building block of a rock.

In this case, she examined collected grains of soil less than a millimeter in size, which is similar to the thickness of a worn dime.

Hanna, who examines soil samples and specific mineral grains to assist in criminal cases, said the mineral garnet was found on the gas pedal and in soil samples taken 4 feet, 10 inches from the child's body and from the shoulder of Walker Road by where the child's body was found.

"Do you typically see garnet in Fayetteville?" Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West asked Hanna.

"No," she said, "I do not."

Garnet, Hanna testified, is found in some igneous and metamorphic rocks.

She told jurors that Shaniya's body was recovered very close to "a metamorphic packet of rocks."

And just a little ways beyond that unit of rocks, she said, is an igneous unit that could contain garnet.

According to previous testimony, Shaniya's body was found in a depression near a stream bed, not far from N.C. 87 and the Carolina Trace community.

McNeill is accused of raping and killing the little girl and dumping her body in woods off N.C. 87 in Lee County in November 2009.

"When you trace the stream bed," Hanna said, "it drains the igneous and metamorphic units upstream from it.

"That kind of makes it way south toward Fayetteville. But it doesn't go through Fayetteville. It just goes through a very, very eastern portion of Fayetteville.

"What that means, material from Fayetteville drains into this little stream, but this stream doesn't drain into Fayetteville," Hanna said. "So, if you have garnet in the stream, it's going to stay in that area. It's not going to be transported to Fayetteville."

So, West said in summarizing Hanna's conclusion, the garnet found at the body site is the transfer of the mineral from the nearby units of igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Garnet, she said, was not found in collected index samples in soil taken from McNeill's residence on Washington Drive, in the Mount Sinai apartment complex where he parked his car or in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park, where Shaniya was living with her mother.

"Was it significant you saw garnet in these three places and nowhere else?" West asked.

"Yes," Hanna said.

"Did it help you form your conclusion in this particular case?" the district attorney asked.

"Yes," Hanna said, "it did."

At that point, the trial recessed for the day.

The case, which has entered its sixth week in Cumberland County Superior Court, is scheduled to resume today at 9:30 a.m.

McNeill's lawyers have admitted that their client transported the child to Sanford and got a hotel room at the Comfort Suites on Nov. 10. But his lawyers say the defendant did not harm or kill the child.

McNeill's lawyers have not said whether their client will testify on his behalf.

Also Monday, Christine Hughes, who does forensic DNA analysis for the State Bureau of Investigation, testified that no male DNA was found in swabs taken from Shaniya's body.

Hughes said that genital and oral swabs collected during the autopsy failed to show Y-STR DNA, or male DNA.

Typically, DNA results are most conclusive when collected within 72 hours of a sexual assault, Hughes testified.

An SBI agent had testified Thursday that he was unable to determine whether semen was present on the child's body or clothing.

Hughes said it is not unusual for an analysis to come up negative for male DNA in cases where no semen is found.

Hughes was asked to analyze nuclear DNA on hairs removed from a comforter found in a trash can near where Shaniya was living, and a comforter from the Sanford hotel where McNeill has admitted taking her.

None of those, Hughes said, resulted in a match to Davis or McNeill.

A witness in earlier testimony said some hairs found were consistent with those from Shaniya and McNeill, but further testing proved inconclusive. That testimony came from Jennifer Remy, an expert hair examiner with the SBI.

Remy said Monday that one hair taken from a comforter found near the home in Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park was microscopically comparable to McNeill's head hair. But the comparison meant there were some similarities and some differences, Remy said.

Hair found on a hotel comforter was consistent with McNeill's pubic hair, Remy said. Further testing on all the hairs proved inconclusive.

Defense lawyer Harold "Butch" Pope then launched a cross-examination designed to question the validity and credibility of Remy's testimony.

Pope questioned why the SBI had sent out evidence from the case for mitochondrial DNA testing to two different laboratories.

"Is it unusual to send mitochondrial DNA to two different labs?" he asked.

Remy said it was.

Evidence was sent to an FBI lab in Minnesota, Remy said, because of time restraints with a crime lab in Arizona.

"Well, we learned a lot about hair analysis here," Pope quipped.

Pope questioned Remy's method of laboratory analysis of evidence hairs with a hair standard, which she admitted could vary by examiner.

"Hair analysis is a side-by-side visual analysis," she said, referring to the simple technology used.

Pope brought up the fact that hair can be transferred in a secondary manner, from person to person or person to object.

"Hairs are pretty tough," he said.

Remy did not disagree.
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I find it sad that so little attention is being given to this Trial. Someone on twitter agrees with me as the tweets are few and far between. So the sex murder trial of a skank is more important to many people instead of a little girl who was raped and murdered. I don't get it.

by NiteSpinR Tue May 14, 2013 12:46 pm

lindamarie wrote:
I find it sad that so little attention is being given to this Trial. Someone on twitter agrees with me as the tweets are few and far between. So the sex murder trial of a skank is more important to many people instead of a little girl who was raped and murdered. I don't get it.

I agree Lindamarie. It's very sad this little soul was a victim and when you take into account the reason why it makes her murder all the more heinous. I think the Media should be all over this story.

Although T.Alexander's murder is beyond our comprehension, he was an adult who chose to continue a relationship with the person who would become his murderer. Shaniya was an innocent victim of her environment, carelessly handed over to her killer.

by Guest Tue May 14, 2013 3:50 pm

Thanks nitespinr. No one is really following it except a few reporters on Twitter.

by Wrapitup Tue May 14, 2013 11:00 pm

This really surprises me. There were so many people all over the world that were horrified by her brutal murder. STABBY

has now taken over and other cases are falling by the wayside in the media and by the general public. It's very, very sad!

by Wrapitup Tue May 14, 2013 11:29 pm

by Guest Wed May 15, 2013 6:32 am

Interesting video. I wonder why Mario went against his lawyers wishes?

by Wrapitup Wed May 15, 2013 11:19 am

Because he's a whack job. I truly think he has no clue how serious his charges are.

by Guest Wed May 15, 2013 3:29 pm

by Wrapitup Wed May 15, 2013 3:43 pm

I didn't mean for it to be but it is what it is. He's nuts..he's oblivious. I still am in shock about his psych diagnosis.

by Guest Wed May 15, 2013 4:15 pm

Exactly it is what it is. He is POS.

by raine1953 Thu May 16, 2013 2:21 am

NiteSpinR wrote:
lindamarie wrote:
I find it sad that so little attention is being given to this Trial. Someone on twitter agrees with me as the tweets are few and far between. So the sex murder trial of a skank is more important to many people instead of a little girl who was raped and murdered. I don't get it.
LM, I agree with you. I don't understand why such a few very few cases are intensely followed but a trial like this is not.

I agree Lindamarie. It's very sad this little soul was a victim and when you take into account the reason why it makes her murder all the more heinous. I think the Media should be all over this story.

Although T.Alexander's murder is beyond our comprehension, he was an adult who chose to continue a relationship with the person who would become his murderer. Shaniya was an innocent victim of her environment, carelessly handed over to her killer.

And I also agree with what you've said too Nite, I just don't get it.

by Wrapitup Thu May 16, 2013 11:26 pm

Posted: Thu 3:38 PM, May 16, 2013

Closing arguments will be presented next week in the trial of a Fayetteville man accused of raping and killing a 5-year-old girl more than three years ago.

Mario McNeill is charged with rape and murder in the death of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in November 2009. After prosecutors finished presenting evidence Thursday morning, McNeill said he wouldn't testify.

His attorneys rested without presenting any evidence.

Closing arguments will be held Tuesday morning in a Cumberland County courtroom. The 32-year-old McNeill could face the death penalty if convicted.

Shaniya's body was found Nov. 16, 2009, six days after her mother reported her missing.

Investigators have said Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Davis, gave her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt. Prosecutors say they'll try Davis after McNeill's trial ends.

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video above link.

by Wrapitup Mon May 20, 2013 2:03 pm

Published: 01:54 PM, Mon May 20, 2013
Lawyers, judge meeting for charge conference at Mario McNeill capital murder trial today
Monday, May 20, 2013.

By Michael Futch
Staff writer

Lawyers for the defense and prosecution in the Mario McNeill capital murder case met with the trial judge this morning to conclude a charge conference that started Thursday.

A charge conference is a detailed meeting to determine what law the judge is going to give to the jury after closing arguments.

Cumberland County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons spent the morning with lawyers for the defense and prosecution finalizing what elements of the legal mandates will be allowed from the seven charges that McNeill is facing. They also discussed which instructions in the case will be presented to the jury.

McNeill is on trial for the rape and murder of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in November 2009. He faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.

He was present this morning, but was not in the courtroom for the charge conference.

The state rested its case Thursday, and Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West and Assistant District Attorney Robby Hicks will deliver closing arguments beginning Tuesday morning.

On McNeill's behalf, lawyers Terry Alford and Harold "Butch" Pope will give closing arguments.

The prosecution's closing arguments are expected to last through lunchtime on Tuesday, with the defense starting in the afternoon. The defense did not present evidence, and the defendant decided last week not to testify on his behalf.

As planned, Ammons will address the jury on Wednesday before its members begin deliberations in the case, which entered its seventh week on Monday.

"I don't expect a verdict from the jury in an hour, two or even three," Ammons said.

Court resumes at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, but Ammons asked the lawyers to meet with him in an open courtroom 30 minutes before the session starts.

On Thursday, Ammons denied the defense's request to dismiss all seven charges against McNeill. Those charges include first-degree rape.

Over the course of the trial, which started on April 8, a total of 44 witnesses, including one outside the jury, testified for the prosecution.

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by Guest Thu May 23, 2013 6:38 am

Jurors in the Mario McNeill capital murder trial deliberated for nearly four hours Wednesday before being sent home for the day.

"You are the 12," Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons told the jurors before releasing them until this morning. "We don't have any alternates. Be careful. Be safe."

McNeill, 33, is accused of raping and killing 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in November 2009.

He also is charged with sexual offense of a child, indecent liberties with a child, sexual servitude with a minor, human trafficking of a minor and first-degree kidnapping.

If convicted of first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to death.

McNeill's lawyers maintain their client is innocent. They have told jurors since the start of the trial that while McNeill may have taken Shaniya by car to Sanford where he got a hotel room with her, he did not harm her.

Jurors began their deliberations at 11:30 a.m.

Twenty minutes later, they made their first request of the court. They asked to see photographs from the Sanford hotel where McNeill took the child on the morning of Nov. 10, 2009. They also wanted to see photos of Shaniya's brother's bedroom in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park. Shaniya, her brother and their mother were living there at the time Shaniya disappeared.

Just before noon, jurors asked for the chief medical examiner's report.

And before the jury went on a lunch break, its members also asked for the instructions on the kidnapping charge and parental consent. Ammons brought the jury back in and reread his instructions regarding kidnapping.

"I'm ordering you to remember all these instructions and abide by those instructions," he told them.

Later in the day, jurors asked for photos of McNeill from the time of his arrest.

Shaniya, her brother, Carl, and their mother lived with the children's aunt on Sleepy Hollow Drive off Murchison Road at the time Shaniya went missing.

During the trial, the now-11-year-old Carl testified that he saw McNeill enter the mobile home in the predawn hours of Nov. 10. He later changed his testimony, telling defense lawyers that he remembered telling investigators that he didn't know who entered the mobile home the night his sister disappeared.

Four alternate jurors who sat through the case were sent home Wednesday. Should the 12-member jury find McNeill guilty of first-degree murder, the alternates would be called back for the sentencing phase of the trial.

Defense arguments
Earlier Wednesday, jurors heard the final defense arguments for McNeill from lawyer Harold "Butch" Pope.

Pope told jurors the state "jumped the gun" when it charged McNeill with raping and murdering Shaniya.

Pope said the state hadn't proven that a sexual assault took place or when or where the child was killed. He said evidence linking McNeill to the site where Shaniya's body was found was not conclusive.

"They don't know what happened, they don't know when it happened, and they jumped the gun on Mario McNeill," he said.

Pope told the jury it should question the validity and value of the evidence presented by the state. He said much of the state's case was spent linking McNeill to the Sanford hotel when the defense had already admitted McNeill was there with the child.

"We put that out front," Pope said. "We put that on the table."

Pope referred to testimony that said a hair found on a comforter in the hotel room was consistent with McNeill's pubic hair.

"That hair doesn't prove a thing," he said. "But it sounds relevant. ... We told you he was in the room."

He told the jury to remember that testing found no evidence of sperm on Shaniya's body or clothing.

Pope told the jury that it should disregard testing data that declared matches between minerals and tiny fibers in soil embedded in the gas pedal of McNeill's car and soil near where Shaniya's body was found in Lee County.

Pope said no testing was done on other possible sources of the soil, including McNeill's mother's yard and the road McNeill was walking up from when investigators first told him they wanted to talk to him.

"None of that was done," Pope said.

He asked the jury to consider the likelihood of McNeill knowing the location of a wooded site off Walker Road, where hunters often leave deer carcasses. Shaniya's body was found at that site.

"Folks, does this man look like a hunter to you?" Pope asked in his final argument. "Does he look like somebody who's been around deer carcasses? This is a city boy here."

He said the date of Shaniya's death remains in question. She was reported missing Nov. 10 and her body was found Nov. 16. Pope said the state didn't prove when Shaniya died and "our contention is the child died closer to the 16th."

Authorities say Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, gave the child to McNeill to settle a drug debt then falsely reported that she was missing.

The state argued that McNeill took Shaniya to the Sanford hotel and assaulted her before killing her and dumping her body on the outskirts of Sanford.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. today in Cumberland County Superior Court.
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by Wrapitup Thu May 23, 2013 10:48 am

I have NO DOUBT he will be found Guilty!

by raine1953 Thu May 23, 2013 11:36 am

I sure hope he's found guilty!!!! Fingers Crossed

by Nama Fri May 24, 2013 1:56 am

by Nama Fri May 24, 2013 1:58 am

A jury on Thursday convicted a Fayetteville man of kidnapping and killing a 5-year-old girl more than three years ago, but he was acquitted of raping her.

The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for about 7½ hours over two days before finding Mario Andrette McNeill, 33, guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, sexual offense of a child, indecent liberties with a child, human trafficking and sexual servitude in the death of Shaniya Davis.

McNeill showed no emotion as the verdicts were read in the quiet courtroom.

Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, said sitting through the trial has been difficult – and it's not over.

"I've had to relive this whole thing again, and we've still got several more months of court proceedings to relive this," Lockhart said. "Then, I've got the rest of my life to kind of always look back on it. So, it's something that we'll never get over. It's something we've got to learn to deal with."

McNeill's family has declined to speak with the media during the trial.

Jurors will return next Tuesday to hear evidence before deciding whether McNeill should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Shaniya's body was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, six days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.

An autopsy determined that she had been suffocated, and she had injuries "consistent with a sexual assault" shortly before she died, according to a medical examiner.

Prosecutors presented 12 days of testimony from 44 witnesses, tying McNeill to Shaniya through a security video at a Sanford hotel, hair from a hotel comforter and a blanket found in a trash can outside the girl's home, and soil from the gas pedal of his car, which a geologist said likely came from the site where Shaniya's body was found.

McNeill's original defense attorney also provided Fayetteville police with information that led to the discovery of Shaniya's body.

McNeill presented no evidence in his defense, and his attorneys argued that prosecutors couldn't prove where Shaniya was assaulted or when she died.

His DNA wasn't found on the girl, and he has maintained that he took her to the Sanford hotel at the request of her aunt and later handed her off to someone he thought was related to her.

Investigators say Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt. Antoinette Davis is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.

She will be tried later this year, but prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty against her.

McNeill has maintained since his arrest that he didn't kill Shaniya. He even rejected a plea deal last month before his trial started that would have kept him off death row. That decision now lies with the jury.

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by Wrapitup Fri May 24, 2013 2:02 am

Fayetteville man guilty of killing Shaniya Davis, not of raping her

Father of Shaniya Davis pleased with verdict
Jury to decide whether girl's murder warrants death sentence

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A jury on Thursday convicted a Fayetteville man of kidnapping and killing a 5-year-old girl more than three years ago, but he was acquitted of raping her.

The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for about 7½ hours over two days before finding Mario Andrette McNeill, 33, guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, sexual offense of a child, indecent liberties with a child, human trafficking and sexual servitude in the death of Shaniya Davis.

McNeill showed no emotion as the verdicts were read in the quiet courtroom.

Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, said sitting through the trial has been difficult – and it's not over.

"I've had to relive this whole thing again, and we've still got several more months of court proceedings to relive this," Lockhart said. "Then, I've got the rest of my life to kind of always look back on it. So, it's something that we'll never get over. It's something we've got to learn to deal with."

McNeill's family has declined to speak with the media during the trial.

Jurors will return next Tuesday to hear evidence before deciding whether McNeill should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Shaniya's body was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, six days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.

An autopsy determined that she had been suffocated, and she had injuries "consistent with a sexual assault" shortly before she died, according to a medical examiner.

Prosecutors presented 12 days of testimony from 44 witnesses, tying McNeill to Shaniya through a security video at a Sanford hotel, hair from a hotel comforter and a blanket found in a trash can outside the girl's home, and soil from the gas pedal of his car, which a geologist said likely came from the site where Shaniya's body was found.

McNeill's original defense attorney also provided Fayetteville police with information that led to the discovery of Shaniya's body.

McNeill presented no evidence in his defense, and his attorneys argued that prosecutors couldn't prove where Shaniya was assaulted or when she died.

His DNA wasn't found on the girl, and he has maintained that he took her to the Sanford hotel at the request of her aunt and later handed her off to someone he thought was related to her.

Investigators say Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, sold her daughter to McNeill to pay off a drug debt. Antoinette Davis is charged with first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, felony child abuse, felony sexual servitude, rape of a child, sexual offense of a child by an adult offender, human trafficking and making a false police report.

She will be tried later this year, but prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty against her.

McNeill has maintained since his arrest that he didn't kill Shaniya. He even rejected a plea deal last month before his trial started that would have kept him off death row. That decision now lies with the jury.

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This was a no brainer. Now, if he can just get the DP!! Raine, thanks so much for posting that video. I see the smirk is gone from his face.

by Wrapitup Fri May 24, 2013 2:03 am

by Wrapitup Fri May 24, 2013 2:05 am

How could he be acquitted on the rape charge??

by raine1953 Fri May 24, 2013 2:28 am

I am so damn glad he was found guilty!!!!! But I also don't understand how/why he was acquitted on the rape charge. I guess that does not affect his sentencing thou' - let's hope he gets Electric Chair

!

by Wrapitup Fri May 24, 2013 2:49 am

Ya, that really shocked me. He was even convicted of Human Trafficking but not rape? WTH?? I DO think he w/get the DP.

by Nama Fri May 24, 2013 2:53 am

When I heard that there was no DNA to tie McNeill to the rape of Shaniya this is what came into my mind.
After Shaniya's mother gave her to McNeill, for payment of a drug debt, is it possible that McNeill gave her to someone that HE owed $$ to. It's possible that McNeill offered to find a child for the person to pay off his own debt.

by Nama Fri May 24, 2013 2:55 am

Wrapitup wrote:How could he be acquitted on the rape charge??

His DNA wasn't found on the girl

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