Antoinette Davis, Mom Accused of Selling Shaniya Davis as Sex Slave, is Pregnant Again
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Antoinette Nicole Davis, the woman accused of selling her 5-year-old daughter, Shaniya Davis, into sexual slavery before the girl was murdered, has got an unnerving surprise. She's pregnant again and carrying the baby while sitting in a North Carolina prison and awaiting a potential trial.
PICTURES: Shaniya Davis, Murdered "Angel"
Thus far, Antoinette Davis has been charged with human trafficking. Arrest documents said she "knowingly provide[d] Shaniya Davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and she "permit[ted] an act of prostitution." Fayetteville, N.C. police have not yet said if those charges will be amended to include murder.
Shaniya Davis was found dead Monday as searchers discovered the girl's body off a rural road in Sanford, N.C., around 30 miles from her Fayetteville home. The discovery brought a gruesome end to a week-long search carried about by hundreds of officers and volunteers. Antoinette Davis reported her daughter missing Nov. 10.
News of Antoinette Davis' pregnancy comes from her aunt, Leona Cromertie, who also said Sunday that her niece has a second child who is now seven.
PICTURES: Shaniya Davis, Murdered "Angel"
Cromertie, who believes in her niece's innocence, says that Antoinette Davis, 25, was dating Clarence D. Coe at the time, the man whom Antoinette Davis initially accused of kidnapping Shaniya Davis, according to The Fayetteville Observer.
Police investigated Coe, but he was quickly let go as hotel surveillance video surfaced last Tuesday showing another man, Mario Andrette McNeill, carrying Shaniya Davis through a hallway of the Comfort Suites hotel in Sanford, N.C., about 40 minutes from Raleigh.
McNeill, 29, has so far been charged with kidnapping. Police claim he admitted taking the girl, but his lawyer, Allen Rogers, said he will plead not guilty. Either way, Fayetteville police said he was of no help in finding Shaniya Davis.
On Monday, Antoinette Davis was calm and quiet during a court appearance. She provided one-word answers to the judge's questions. She requested a court-appointed attorney and did not enter a plea.
Her sister, Brenda Davis, 20, said she does not believe the charges.
"I don't believe she could hurt her children," said Brenda Davis, who spoke with her sister at the jail Sunday. Antoinette Davis' aunt, Yvonne Mitchell, said the mother had two jobs and would never harm the child.
PICTURES: Shaniya Davis Found Dead
Fayetteville police spokeswoman Theresa Chance declined to talk about additional charges. She also wouldn't comment on a cause of death or the condition of Shaniya's body.
Antoinette Davis only recently took custody of Shaniya Davis, according to the child's father Bradley Lockhart, who said he raised her for the first four years of her life.
Lockhart described his relationship with Davis as a "one-night stand" and said he did not know McNeill.
Davis struggled financially over the years, but she recently got a job and her own place, so Lockhart said he decided to give her a chance with their daughter.
"I should've never let her go over there," he told The Associated Press on Saturday.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? What Should Happen to Antoinette Davis' unborn child?
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PICTURES: Shaniya Davis Found Dead
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