Slain girl's mother moved to women's prison in Raleigh

Raleigh, N.C. — The mother of a slain 5-year-old Fayetteville girl was transferred Tuesday from the Cumberland County Detention Center to the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, authorities said.

Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, has been charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse–prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing a police investigation in the disappearance of her daughter, Shaniya Nicole Davis.

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.

She died of asphyxiation, according to preliminary autopsy results.

Arrest warrants state that Davis "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."

Davis hasn't been charged in the girl's death.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, of 2613 Pine Springs Drive, has been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree kidnapping in the case. Police have characterized him as a family acquaintance.

Davis was being held in a safe-keeping cell away from the general prison population in Raleigh, according to state Department of Correction spokesman Keith Acree.