SHANIYA DAVIS UPDATE: Mario McNeil's Capital Murder Trial Set For February 2013

By Alicia Cruz 
Associated Content
nj.newsroom.cruz@gmail.com

Despite several attempts by defense attorneys to delay the murder trial of Mario Andrette McNeil, now 32, Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons has ordered McNeil to be prepared for a February 2013 court date for his capital murder trial. McNeil is accused of murdering little Shaniya Davis more than three years ago in North Carolina.

Antoinette Davis, Shaniya's mother, has also been charged in connection with her daughter's rape and murder.

Shaniya was spending time with Davis, who gave birth to another child following her arrest, when she was allegedly kidnapped from Davis' trailer home in Fayetteville, NC and later found dead in a deserted area of Lee County.

A subsequent autopsy ruled Shaniya’s cause of death as asphyxiation. She had also been raped.

Ammons denied a requests Friday by McNeil's lawyers to delay the trial for 60 days, as well as a request to drop the possibility of the death penalty.

Prosecutors say it was McNeil, later seen in video footage from a Sanford, NC hotel carrying little Shaniya, that snatched the five-year-old allegedly in exchange for a drug debt the child's mother owed to him.

Davis, who was released in 2010 from the Central Women’s Prison in Raleigh, has not responded to repeated requests for an interview. She remains free in lieu of a $51,000 bond.

The Black Urban Times spoke with a legal assistant at the office of Davis' attorney, D.W. Bray and was told that Davis is still facing filing a false police report, resisting a public official (both misdemeanors), child abuse for the purpose of prostitution and human trafficking a child victim, both felonies.

No word on a trial date for Davis. Meanwhile, Cumberland County prosecutors say McNeil's trial could last up to three months. Jury selection will begin on February 18, 2013.

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