All Blog Posts from Crimesider

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (CBS/AP) Basketball star Shaquille O'Neal was so moved by the horrible fate of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, who police say was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in rural North Carolina, that he paid for the little girl's funeral.

O'Neal's spokeswoman says the Cleveland Cavaliers player was touched by the stories and got in touch with the family to see what he could do to help.

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NEW YORK - Bradley Lockhart, father of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, appeared with his sister Carey Lockhart-Davis on CBS' "Early Show" Monday to beg for the girl's safe return.

But their tearful plea was in vain; After a massive, nearly week-long search effort, Shaniya Davis was found dead Monday afternoon in Sanford, N.C., about 30 miles from her Fayetteville home. Sanford is 42 miles southwest of Raleigh.

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SANFORD, N.C. - Police still hope 5-year-old Shaniya Davis will be found alive, but that hope is dwindling.

About 200 searchers fanned out across several miles southeast of Sanford, N.C. on Monday based on "reliable information" that the missing girl's body may have been discarded, said Fayetteville Police spokeswoman Theresa Chance.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Police have released horrifying still frames from a hotel surveillance video that shows a man carrying missing 5-year-old Shaniya Davis through a hotel hallway and towards an elevator.

Officials say a hotel worker called police to report seeing a child matching Shaniya's description, but by the time police got there, the man and child had left.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - North Carolina police now say that the mother of 5-year-old Shaniya Nicole Davis, who has been missing since Tuesday, forced her child into sexual servitude and prostitution.

Fayetteville police charged Antoinette Nicole Davis on Saturday with charges including human trafficking, child abuse involving prostitution, filing a false police report and resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer.

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

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Cumberland County authorities say foul play is suspected in the disappearance of Shaniya Nicole Davis. The 5-year-old girl went missing from her home in Fayetteville, N.C. Tuesday morning.

An Amber Alert was initiated for Shaniya just before noon, Lt. David Sportsman said.

Police responded to the home around 6:50 a.m., and Shaniya's mother told officers that she last saw her daughter at 5:30 a.m. The mother’s boyfriend and her sister, along with an infant and Shaniya's 7-year-old brother were also in the home when the girl went missing.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (CBS/AP) People who knew William Maxwell say that the 47-year-old real estate developer and active church member loved his family more than anything.

But police say that didn't stop him from shooting to death his wife and two children then himself Monday night in a gruesome murder-suicide that has shaken an upscale Fayetteville, N.C. community, one hour south of Raleigh.

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