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No new charges now in death of NC girl, police say

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – Investigators handling the death of a 5-year-old North Carolina girl say they can't file more charges until they decide where crimes occurred.

Fayetteville police had said they planned to file more charges in the death of Shaniya Davis, the girl whose body was found Monday beside a rural highway in Lee County. But Police Chief Tom Bergamine said Wednesday they won't file more charges until jurisdiction is determined.

Authorities are trying to decide where the girl was killed and if the case will be prosecuted in Lee County or neighboring Cumberland County, where she lived.

Her mother, Antoinette Davis, is charged with human trafficking and child abuse involving prostitution.

Mario McNeill is accused of kidnapping after surveillance footage from a Lee County hotel showed him carrying the girl.

A dog trainer who was present when the girl's body was found says searchers initially overlooked the area because they saw only deer carcasses in trash bags.

But Jeff Riccio of Tarheel Cainine Training Inc. said Tuesday his team returned to the area after getting information that the body might be near deer carcasses.

The searchers then found the body Monday afternoon underneath kudzu along a rural highway southeast of Sanford.

The child's mother, Antoinette Davis, has been charged with human trafficking and felony child abuse, and accused of selling her daughter into sex slavery.

Police also charged Mario McNeill with kidnapping after he was captured on a hotel's surveillance video with Shaniya.

The girl was found about 7 miles from a hotel in Sanford where she was last seen, officials said. 

On Monday, Fayetteville Police spokeswoman Theresa Chance said officers were searching along the highway based on "reliable information" that indicated that Davis' body may have been dumped there.

Police had previously believed they would find the girl alive.  About 200 searchers fanned across several miles southeast of Sanford.  Some walked along roads, ravines and fields while others drove on four-wheelers.

Shaniya was last seen on Tuesday, Nov. 10 when a surveillance camera recorded Mario Andrette McNeill carrying the girl into a hotel room.  He was arrested Friday and charged in her kidnapping.

Police said a hotel worker spotted a child matching Shaniya's description at the hotel in Sanford, about 40 miles from Fayetteville.  Relatives helped confirm that the child on the recording was Shaniya.

Authorities have said McNeill admitted to taking the girl, though his attorney says he will plead not guilty to the charge.  They have not said if McNeill and Davis knew each other.

A kidnapping charge against a man described as Davis' boyfriend was dropped.

Authorities arrested Shaniya's mother on Sunday.  According to arrest documents cited by The Fayetteville Observer, the child's mother "knowingly provide(d) Shaniya Davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and she "permit(ted) an act of prostitution."

Shaniya had only been living with her mother since last month.  Davis reported the girl missing Tuesday morning from a mobile home community in Fayetteville, and authorities began searching nearby wooded areas.

Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, told The Associated Press that he raised his daughter for several years but last month decided to let her stay with her mother.

"I should've never let her go over there," he said Saturday.

Lockhart said he did not know McNeill. 

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)