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More charges filed in Fayetteville girl's kidnapping, death

Prosecutors have filed additional charges against a man accused of buying, raping and killing a 5-year-old Fayetteville girl in November 2009.

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Mario McNeill in court
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Prosecutors have filed additional charges against a man accused of buying, raping and killing a 5-year-old Fayetteville girl in November 2009.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, has been charged with second-degree exploitation of a minor and third-degree exploitation of a minor. He previously was charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in the death of Shaniya Davis, whose body was found in a kudzu patch near the Lee-Harnett county line on Nov. 16, 2009, six days after her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, reported her missing from her Fayetteville home.

His trial on all charges is scheduled to begin April 8. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

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 separately, and prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty against her.

Authorities say Davis was complicit in her daughter's death. Arrest warrants stated that she "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."

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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