news-record.com

The circumstances of Shaniya Davis' death are horrendous and stunning. The mother of the 5-year-old girl, whose body was found in Lee County Monday, is charged with felony child abuse and human trafficking. Authorities say she offered her daughter for prostitution, maybe to settle a debt.

The man charged Thursday with her rape and murder, Mario Andrette McNeill, had a criminal record and a history of lenient treatment in the criminal-justice system.

Shaniya was born from what her father, Bradley Lockhart of Cumberland County, described as a "one-night stand" with Antoinette Davis. He raised her for the past three or four years but recently agreed to let her mother keep her in Fayetteville.

In speaking to the media Tuesday, Lockhart referred to a reported investigation of Antoinette Davis by the Cumberland County Department of Social Services, saying he wished he'd had more information about it.

What that agency knew should be revealed as the investigation proceeds.

McNeill, of Fayetteville, was first charged with kidnapping. A surveillance video at a Sanford motel showed him with Shaniya on June 10, the last time she was seen alive.

His experiences with the judicial system are troubling. Convicted of assault for a 2001 shooting, he was in prison from 2003 to 2006. Later, he was sentenced to supervised probation for other offenses. In November 2007, the Fayetteville Observer reported, his status was downgraded to unsupervised probation, even though just two months earlier he'd been charged with assaulting a police officer. He was convicted of that charge in April 2008 and given two more years on supervised probation -- which again was downgraded early to unsupervised probation, just weeks before Shaniya's death. "McNeill appears to have been treated with leniency for years," the Observer stated.

Any child's death is a tragedy. When her death involves abuse, exploitation and the deepest depravity, words can't adequately express the horror of it.

Shaniya deserved a better, longer life. She deserved the chance to go to school, to grow, to become an adult making her own way in the world.

She deserved help to get there, first from her parents. Then, if needed, from social service agencies that are supposed to intervene in troubled families on behalf of children in danger. And, like all citizens, she deserved the protection of a criminal-justice system that is supposed to adequately punish and properly monitor offenders who pose a threat to society.

These support systems failed Shaniya. She suffered, but the shame and grief belong to us all. Let's do better for other children in need.