Conviction, death sentence upheld for Fayetteville girl's killer

The body of Shaniya Davis 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. An autopsy determined that she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated.

WRAL.com archive: Shaniya Davis case

Mario Andrette McNeill, now 37, was convicted in May 2013 of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, sexual offense of a child, indecent liberties with a child, human trafficking and sexual servitude and was sentenced to death.

But he appealed the conviction and sentence, arguing they should be thrown out because his original attorneys violated attorney-client privilege and provided ineffective counsel.

Investigators took McNeill into custody after finding security video from a Sanford hotel that showed him with Shaniya, but he repeatedly told them that he didn't kill the girl, saying that her family had asked him to hand her off to somebody else at the hotel.

His attorneys later provided the location of Shaniya's body, and prosecutors used that information "to devastating effect" during the trial, appellate lawyer Andrew DeSimone told the Supreme Court last year. He noted 13 references in the trial where prosecutors told jurors that Shaniya's body was found because McNeill's lawyers told them where to look.

"His identity was privileged. He told his lawyer he wanted it kept confidential," DeSimone argued. "The fact that Mr. McNeill's own lawyers provided this information meant it was coming from the horse's mouth, and so the jury likely treated it just like it would a confession."

But the court unanimously dismissed that argument, ruling that McNeill agreed to provide the information as part of a strategy to spare his life and noting that he later turned down a plea agreement that would have given him a life sentence.

Authorities said Davis handed her daughter over to McNeill to settle a $200 debt. She is now serving a sentence of 17 to 21 years in prison after pleading guilty in October 2013 to second-degree murder, human trafficking, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree sex offense, felony child abuse with prostitution, child abuse involving a sex act, sexual servitude, indecent liberties with a child and conspiracy to commit sex offense of a child.