Man gets probation for collecting money in slain girl's name
A Cumberland County man has been placed on probation for collecting donations in Shaniya Davis' name shortly after the 5-year-old girl was found slain in November, authorities said.
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Donald Lee Roddy Jr., 36, of Hypony Lane in Parkton, was arrested on Nov. 18 and charged with obtaining property by false pretense. Police said he was using Shaniya's name to collect money from drivers on McPherson Church and Skibo roads.
Shaniya was reported missing from her home on Nov. 10. Her body was found in a patch of kudzu off a rural road near the Lee-Harnett County line six days later.
Roddy pleaded not guilty to the charge on Tuesday, but his lawyer, Larry McGlothlin, said that Roddy wouldn't resist a guilty verdict to a reduced charge of attempted misdemeanor larceny.
A judge sentenced Roddy to a year of unsupervised probation and ordered him to pay a $100 fine and perform 10 hours of community service.
McGlothlin said the case was a misunderstanding, that Roddy was only trying to help raise money for Shaniya's funeral and didn't believe he was doing anything wrong.
Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, of 2613 Pine Springs Drive, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree kidnapping in Shaniya's death.
The girl's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, is charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse–prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing a police investigation.
An autopsy determined that Shaniya died of asphyxiation and that injuries she suffered were consistent with a sexual assault. A medical examiner noted in the autopsy that investigators believe the girl was used to pay off a drug debt.
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