FAYETTEVILLE, NC — The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the death sentence and conviction of Mario McNeill Friday in the September 2009 murder of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis of Fayetteville.
WTVD-TV reports McNeill wanted the court to overturn his conviction because he says his attorneys should not have told police where to find the little girl's body. His attorney Andrew DeSimone argued McNeill got poor representation.
"Mr. McNeill would have been better off without any lawyers because if this condition of anonymity was not going to be honored if he was not going to get any promise of a benefit or protection from use of this evidence against him, he could have done this himself," said DeSimone.
The child's mother - Antoinette Davis - gave her to McNeill pay off a drug debt. At McNeill's original trial, prosecutors said the girl was sexually assaulted in a hotel room before she was murdered and her body dumped in a wooded area.
The hunt for the missing child and the discovery of her body made national news.
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