A group of U.S. missionaries in Haiti was charged Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for allegedly trying to take children illegally out of the earthquake-hit country.
After announcing the charges, Haitian Deputy Prosecutor Jean Ferge Joseph told the 10 Americans their case was being sent to an investigative judge.
"That judge can free you but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings," the deputy prosecutor told the five men and five women in a hearing.
The 10 members of an Idaho-based Baptist Church were arrested last week on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic when they tried to cross with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the devastating Jan. 12 quake.
They deny any wrongdoing.
The group's lawyer, Edwin Coq, said the church members face three to nine years in prison if they are found guilty at trial. If there is a trial, it could be three months away.
"We're not 100 percent sure if they will find them guilty. I don't think they will, I don't think there will be a charge," he said.
Earlier, Coq said that nine of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but added that “if the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.” He appeared to be referring to Laura Silsby, who helped organize the mission to Haiti and has spoken for the Americans since they were detained last Friday.
The Idaho-based church group contends it was trying to rescue orphaned and abandoned child victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Haitian officials say many of the 33 children found with them at Haiti's border still had parents, though they may have handed over the children willingly.
According to Haitian authorities, the group was trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic without the required documents.
People in the village of Callebas have contradicted claims that the children, aged between 2 and 12, came from orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.
They said they had surrendered their children after a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present an offer from the Americans.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Adrien said he met Silsby in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That day, he had a list of 20 children. Many parents said they had jumped at the offer.
"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, a 58-year-old who gave her 10-year-old daughter, Jovin, to the Americans.
Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician who gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6, said: "I am living in a tent with a friend. My main concern is that if the kids come back I'm not going to be able to feed them."
Lelly said he was worried the Haitian judicial system would not properly investigate the case.
"I would like to find out if these people were really going to help the kids or were trying to steal them," Lelly said.
Representatives of the missionary group said Wednesday from the Dominican Republic that the missionaries "willingly accepted kids they knew were not orphans because the parents said they would starve otherwise."
Prime Minister Max Bellerive has suggested the Americans could be prosecuted in the United States because Haiti's shattered court system may not be able to cope with a trial.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the attempt to bring undocumented children out of Haiti was "unfortunate whatever the motivation" and the Americans should have followed proper procedures. She said U.S. officials were in discussions with Haitian authorities about how to resolve the case.
Its no secret Haiti's Cruel Gov't has a notorious history of Corruption.
This Corruption includes stealing Foreign Aid to live like Royalty, keeping Haitian Citizens in extreme Poverty (Children too) and allowing Child Trafficking/ Sex Slavery to occur.
The Haitian Gov't than keeps those Children in its Orphanages as a means of bringing in even more International/ Foreign Aid and for Human Trafficking/ Sex Slavery purposes.
Why don't Haitian citizens use Birth Control or practice Safe Sex you ask?
If the Haitian Gov't doesn't allow Birth Control to be distributed or Sex Education to be taught, how do you expect its citizens to practice Safe Sex?
If you do your research many of Haiti's Orphanages even those run by U.S. Citizens, are nothing more than Money Laundering Schemes which use Poor, Black Children to procure millions of dollars.
However that money is NOT used to care for the Children.
Sort of like how many State Governors in the U.S. use Black Foster Care Children to obtain Federal dollars (North Carolina) of which is mostly wasted versus being spent on the Children.
If you think I'm lying take a visit to Haiti to see with your own eyes or better yet since most of Haiti's structures were recently destroyed in the Earthquake, just do your own research.
You'll see.
Why do you think Haiti's Gov't Leaders consistently hinders the Adoption Process?
Now do you understand why the Haitian Gov't and many U.S. Citizens who operate Orphanages are fighting so hard to keep those Children in Haiti?
The Haitian Gov't plans to continue this Child/Human Trafficking Money Laundering Scheme by falsely accusing innocent U.S. Missionaries or other Americans with sincere motives, of stealing children for illegal purposes.
I along with millions of other Americans don't believe the 10 U.S. citizens from an Idaho Church and currently jailed in Haiti are guilty of Child/ Human Trafficking.
These false accusations are nothing more than a ploy to divert the U.S. State Dept from discovering Haiti's illegal activities as it relates to Child/ Human Trafficking and Misuse of International Aid (Corruption).
Every Haitian Orphanage run by Haitian Gov't Officials or Americans isn't a Child Trafficking Scheme, however most of them are.
Instead continue to allow Haitian Orphans to be legally adopted by U.S. Citizens.
I also suggest concerned citizens who love Children discontinue their Financial Support of Haitian Orphanages even those owned by Americans, until they find out how their money is really being used.
That may be the only way to rescue thousands of Haitian Children from Child Slavery and lifelong Poverty.
Please contact the White House, Congressional Members and U.S. State Dept officials to protest or express your concerns about this Corruption as it relates to Haiti's Forgotten Children and............
to demand release of the 10 U.S. Missionaries falsely accused by Haitian Gov't leaders of Human Trafficking.
Jesus loves the little Children, all the children of the world.
Red, Yellow, Black & White they are precious in his sight.
Ten Americans jailed amid allegations they were trafficking Haitian children are expected to meet a judge here again on Tuesday, a day after Haiti's prime minister said the missionaries knew that "what they were doing was wrong."
Prime Minister Max Bellerive also told The Associated Press that his country is open to having the Americans face prosecution in the United States, since most government buildings — including Haiti's courts — were crippled by the monster earthquake.
"It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents," Bellerive said. "And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong."
If they were acting in good faith — as the Americans claim — "perhaps the courts will try to be more lenient with them," he said.
U.S. Embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceedings for the Americans, who are mostly from Idaho. For now, the case remains firmly in Haitian hands, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.
"Once we know all the facts, we will determine what the appropriate course is, but the judgment is really up to the Haitian government," he said.
Haitian officials insist some prosecution is needed to help deter child trafficking, which many fear will flourish in the chaos caused by the devastating Jan. 12 quake. The government and aid groups are still struggling to get food, water, shelter and basic health care to hundreds of thousands of survivors, and many parents are desperate to get help for their children.
U.S. diplomats have had "unlimited" access to the 10 detainees, and will monitor any court proceedings, Crowley said. They have not yet been charged.
Nine of the 10 Americans met with a Haitian judge on Monday but because of uncertainty in the quality of translation, another interpreter "more acceptable to both sides" was being sought for a meeting on Tuesday.
Humanitarian Aim?
Members of the church group insisted they were only trying to save abandoned children — but few appear to have had any significant experience with Haiti, international charity work or international adoption regulations.
Pastor Clint Henry told the TODAY show on Tuesday that the church members were doing what they thought was right and what "they thought they had permission for."
Since their arrest Friday near the border, the church group has been held inside two small concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers have makeshift offices and give disaster response briefings.
"There is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing," Attorney Jorge Puello told the AP by phone from the Dominican Republic, where the Baptists hoped to shelter the children in a rented beach hotel.
One of the Americans, Charisa Coulter of Boise, Idaho, was treated Monday at a field hospital for either dehydration or the flu. Looking pale as she lay on a green Army cot, the 24-year-old Coulter, was being guarded by two Haitian police officers.
"They're treating me pretty good," she said. "I'm not concerned. I'm pretty confident that it will all work out."
Investigators have been trying to determine how the Americans got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved. Their detained spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said they were "just trying to do the right thing," but she conceded she had not obtained the required passports, birth certificates and adoption certificates for them — a near impossible challenge in the post-quake mayhem.
The 33 kids, ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years, arrived with their names written in tape on their shirts at a children's home where some told aid workers they have surviving parents. Haitian officials said they were trying to reunite them.
"One (9-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," said George Willeit, a spokesman for the SOS Children's Village.
The prime minister said some of those parents may have knowingly given their kids to the Americans in hopes they would reach the United States — a not uncommon wish for poor families in a country that already had an estimated 380,000 orphans before the quake.
Haiti's overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti. Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.
The arrested Americans' churches are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, which has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide, but they decided to mount their own "rescue mission" following the earthquake.
Lely Laurentus thought he was doing the right thing when he handed his two young children over to an American woman who promised to take them to a better place.
Laura Silsby, a member of Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge, had given him a flyer from her charity saying that it wanted to help "children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them."
She promised schooling, soccer fields and even a swimming pool. She told Laurentus that she had government permission to carry out her plan, he said.
Laurentus loved his girls. They were everything to him, he said. But he also thought of his own life -- he dropped out of school at 15 and worked two jobs to put food on the table.
In the devastating January 12 earthquake, he lost the meager home he had sitting on a hillside in Calebasse.
"I can't stand that they were suffering here," Laurentus said. "I had confidence in the Americans. I trusted them."
So Thursday night, when Silsby came with a bus, he placed his girls, Soraya, 4, and Leila, 5, on two seats towards the front. He didn't pack any of their things, he said. Not even their teddy bear. The American woman had bags filled with clothes, toys and snacks.
"Will you remember me?" he asked the young girls, who could not, by his own admission, comprehend what was happening. Then he watched them drive off, with 18 other children from the village.
But the girls never made it out of Haiti.
Silsby and nine other American Baptist missionaries from Idaho, Kansas and Texas were arrested at the border with the Dominican Republic on Friday. They were detained on charges of illegally trying to take 33 children -- the 20 from Calebasse and 13 others -- out of the country.
They are being held in a jail in Port-au-Prince. Members of the group described conditions to CNN as sparse, but they said they are getting sufficient amounts of food and water.
P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the State Department, said Monday that U.S. officials have been given unlimited consular access to the Americans and that U.S. and Haitian authorities are "working to try to ascertain what happened (and) the motive behind these people.
"Clearly there are questions about procedure as to whether they had the appropriate paperwork to move the children," he said.
Crowley said the group was scheduled to appear before a Haitian judge Monday afternoon, but that hearing apparently didn't happen.
A hearing for the group will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to Haitian Information Minister Marie Laurence Lassegue, who said the group will be provided with a professional interpreter.
The missionaries say they were just trying to help the children leave tragedy behind and start life anew.
"We believe we've been charged very falsely with trafficking, which is the furthest possible extreme," said Silsby, whose group describes itself as a Christian ministry dedicated to rescuing orphaned, abandoned or impoverished Haitian and Dominican children. "We literally gave up everything and used up our own income to help these children and by no means (are we) part of that horrendous practice."
Clint Henry is senior pastor at Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, a church attended by many of the group's members. He remade that point, saying the group's intentions were "upright and pure."
"The intention was simply to go down and try to be an aid in ministering to children that had been orphaned in the quake," Henry said. "It was our intention to be part of a new orphanage. The decision was made that we could house those children in the temporary sites."
But the incident has focused the spotlight on the issue of orphans in Haiti, where aid groups say the quake left tens of thousands of children without anyone to care for them.
The government has accused the American missionaries of kidnapping and is investigating the incident before releasing the children back to their families.
"The children certainly were not fully willing to go, because in some cases, from what I heard, they were asking for their parents, they wanted to return to their parents," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN.
Haiti's government requires documentation stating approval for children to exit the country. Silsby acknowledged she had none.
"They really didn't have any paperwork and this is probably a misunderstanding on my part, but I did not really know they would be required," she said.
Church pastor Drew Ham said "our understanding is, they were given some directives, some instructions on the paperwork they needed, and they did exactly what they were told to do. So upon the arrival at the border, 'Sorry, you're missing a piece,' OK, let's go fix that problem' ... We don't know of any mistakes that were made."
On Monday, Information Minister Lassegue appealed to Haitians to not give up their children to strangers.
"We're talking about people who are coming to countries in distress, after a hurricane, after a tsunami, after an earthquake," she said. "You will never see the children again."
The United States has already expressed concern over the fate of vulnerable orphans and the potential for child trafficking.
Laurentus said he first heard of Silsby through another Calebasse resident, Isaac Adrien, who was trying to get a job at a Port-au-Prince Christian school.
Adrien said he met Silsby at the school. She asked him whether he knew of people who had suffered in the quake and needed help. Adrien thought of his own community.
On Thursday, Adrien took her up on an hour-plus drive up to Calebasse, where clouds touch land and people live a simple farming life.
"All the schools are closed here," Adrien said. "I thought it would be a good idea to send the children away."
Silsby assured the residents of Calebasse that she would stay in touch with them, Laurentus said. And that they would be able to see the children whenever they wanted.
Silsby's group told CNN they were going to house the children in a converted hotel in the Dominican Republic.
But without proper documentation, Silsby and the other missionaries were turned away by Haitian police at the border.
"They wouldn't listen to her," Adrien said about Silsby. "She was crying."
Adrien said the 33 children were forced to sleep outside the police station Friday night before Haitian authorities placed them in the care of SOS Children's Villages in Port-au-Prince.
Laurentus said he bore no ill-will toward the Americans; that he still trusted them. But he wants his girls back home.
As did Adrienne Paulime, who put her 10-year-old daughter, Benatide, on the bus Thursday.
"We gave her to the Americans so she could have a better life," said Paulime, wiping her eyes dry.
Benatide's brother, Alain Paulime, said he received a phone call Friday from a woman at SOS orphanage. She said his kid sister was crying.
"Can you come pick me up?" Benatide asked Alain.
Paulime said he was anxious to let the orphanage know that Benatide did not belong there. She had a family.
Monday, Alain Paulime and his sister Carline Paulime joined Laurentus in the long trek down the mountain into the crowded capital.
"I want them back home," Laurentus said.
But in the end, they were forced to leave empty-handed, without even seeing them. The children were traumatized, said Georg Willeit, head of SOS Children's Villages.
"The emotional security of the kids is very unstable at the moment," he said.
Willeit told "Anderson Cooper 360" that at least 20 children are not orphaned. They are receiving "care and attention" at his facility, he said.
Many of them did not think they would ever see their parents again. He said he would not allow a visit now for fear of raising the children's expectations.
They would have to wait to go home, until the investigation is over.
Tiffany Wright and Shaniya Davis: Two Black Children recently murdered due to NC DSS Negligence during a Child Abuse investigation.
Along with NC DSS obviously not doing its job to protect North Carolina's Minority Children especially Foster Care Children, its also quite apparent the state has a serious Human Trafficking, Sex Slavery/ Statutory Rape Crisis, with Black Girls being the female of choice for this market.
Even more shocking is that when Black Children in North Carolina are reported missing no Amber Alert is issued by NC Law Enforcement officials until several days later, as opposed to immediately when Caucasian Children are reported missing.
Something is definitely wrong with this picture!
I guess since these are Black Children being Abused, Sold into Slavery and Dying, Gov. Bev Perdue doesn't appear to give a darn!
If she does care than why hasn't she publicly addressed this issue? After all she IS the first Female Governor of NC and most of these victims are very Young (Minors), Female, Valuable Human Beings. Black Females that is.
More importantly the $64 Billion Dollar is would Gov. Bev Perdue be ignoring such a critical, heartbreaking issue if these young girls were Caucasian victims?
Seems to me Gov. Bev Perdue has forgotten that were it NOT for so many of North Carolina's Black Citizens voting for Pres. Barack Obama, she wouldn't even be NC's current Governor because she rode into office on his ticket.
Shouldn't she show some loyalty to her Black Constituents by using her Executive Authority to help stop the Abuse, Statutory Rape, Human Trafficking and Murder of North Carolina's Black Children?
And....Where's the outrage from North Carolina's Black Leaders? Don't they care about such tragic circumstances occurring in the lives of these Black Children?
Both Gov. Bev Perdue and North Carolina's lame Black Leaders should be called to testify before Congress on this crucial issue.
If Bev won't step up I'd say its definitely time for a thorough Federal Investigation and DSS Reform for North Carolina. Wouldn't you agree?
Please Check out the articles below. After reading them perhaps you'll see where I'm coming from. I beg of you to also Speak Out for these children. Since dead children can't speak someone else needs to vindicate them. Thank you
Missing N.C. girl's body found. North Carolina authorities say they have found the body of a 5-year-old girl who disappeared a week ago. Msnbc's Melissa Rehberger reports.
What happened to Shaniya Davis shouldn't have happened. The 5-year-old giggly cherub should be alive and looking forward to first grade next year. Instead, despite hopes, prayers and a legion of searchers, her lifeless body was pulled from a thicket of kudzu along the border of Lee and Harnett counties, 30 miles from Fayetteville.
Police are still trying to piece together what happened to the little girl who disappeared from her Fayetteville home a little more than a week ago. But they think they know part of the story.
They've arrested Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Davis, who reported the youngster missing. Police have charged Davis with human trafficking, felony child abuse and making a false report. Mario McNeill, caught on a surveillance video carrying Shaniya toward an elevator at a motel in Sanford the morning she was reported missing, was arrested and charged with kidnapping.
The charges are horrifying, particularly those against the mother. Mothers are supposed to love and cherish their children, not push them into sexual servitude.
Davis' relatives don't believe she's involved, and it's still early in the investigation. But if the charges are proven to be true, Davis would be as responsible for her daughter's death as anyone else involved - and would deserve to be treated as such.
Sadly, human trafficking is not unusual in North Carolina. If Shaniya is a victim of it, she joins thousands of others law enforcers suspect are being victimized. Last month, the Observer reported Charlotte has become a center for sex trafficking along the East Coast. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has now stationed agents here to focus on human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation.
Law enforcers say North Carolina is a particularly attractive site for sex trafficking due, in part, to the presence of military bases, interstates and a large immigrant population. N.C. lawmakers were concerned enough to approve a bill in 2007 making human trafficking a felony offense and offering state assistance to victims.
We repeat what we said last month about human trafficking. It is a vile, loathsome activity that we must all work to rid our communities and state of. If you suspect trafficking, abuse or sexual exploitation, report it immediately.
Yet even if Shaniya's case turns out not to have involved human trafficking, something went terribly wrong for her to have turned up dead just a month after going to live with a mother with a troubled past. Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, is anguished and regrets giving the girl's mother a chance to raise the daughter he had custody of for five years. But she had a job and seemed to be getting her life together. He had no crystal ball to tell him things would turn out so badly so quickly.
Still Shaniya's death is a warning to all adults of the critical responsibility we share for the safety and well-being of children. We must be vigilant and look for signs that parents or others might be putting kids in harm's way. We must be willing to report our suspicions of wrongdoing, even about those close to us.
Happy, giggling, caring little girls like Shaniya deserve every chance to become happy, caring adults. We've got to do more to help them get that chance.
A teenage girl on her way to a friend's house Sunday disappeared in Gastonia, and police are asking for the public's help in finding her.
Authorities say 15-year-old Kenesha Sanders of Gastonia left her house to visit a friend. But she never arrived there, and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
Police say Kenesha is 4-feet-3 inches tall and weighs 85 pounds. They haven't said whether they suspect foul play.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call Gastonia Police Detective Marty Smith at 704-866-6939 or 704-866-6702.
A week after a 5-year-old Fayetteville girl disappeared and a day after her body was found near Sanford, police are still trying to sort out the evidence in the case to determine who to charge in her death.
Shaniya Nicole Davis was reported missing from her home, at 1116-A Sleepy Hollow Drive, by her mother last Tuesday morning. Volunteer searchers found her body Monday afternoon in some woods off N.C. Highway 87 near the Lee-Harnett county line.
Two people have been arrested in Shaniya's disappearance – charges against a third person were dropped – but no one has been charged with killing her.
Lee County authorities have referred all questions to the Fayetteville Police Department. The department has a news briefing scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, but it's unclear whether new charges will be announced then.
Police arrested Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, on Friday and charged him with first-degree kidnapping in the case. Investigators said McNeill has admitted to taking Shaniya from her home, and hotel security video from a Comfort Suites in Sanford last Tuesday shows the girl being carried by a man believed to be McNeill.
Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, was arrested late Saturday and charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse–prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing a police investigation. Arrest warrants state that Davis "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and she "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."
After those arrests, police wouldn't comment on Shaniya's whereabouts. On Sunday, investigators received "reliable information" that Shaniya's body had been dumped off N.C. 87, which led to an extensive search of the area and the discovery of a child's body.
The body was removed from the woods late Monday and sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Chapel Hill to determine a cause of death. The medical examiner confirmed Tuesday that the body was Shaniya's.
Police wouldn't say whether McNeill, who is described as a former boyfriend of Davis, provided the information that prompted the search, but they made clear Monday that the information didn't come from an outside tip.
Both McNeill and Davis are being held in isolation at the Cumberland County Detention Center for their protection, authorities said.
Authorities confirmed Tuesday that Davis is pregnant and that Clarence Coe is the father of the child.
Davis initially accused Coe of kidnapping Shaniya, but police dismissed the charge and released him from jail after determining the information to be false and then arresting McNeill. Father to speak with media
Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, plans to speak with reporters at his Fayetteville house at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Lockhart attended a candlelight vigil for Shaniya Monday night and cried out as people held him up.
"Lord, I come to you with open arms, and it is hard. It is hard," Lockhart said, his legs shaking and tears in his eyes as he spoke to the crowd of about 500. “Don’t give up on me, and don't give up on Shaniya."
During a Monday morning interview on CBS' "Early Show," he said he and his sister had been caring for Shaniya until a few weeks ago, when she went to live with her mother. Davis had worked to get her life together and had been working for at least six months and gotten a place of her own, he said.
"She had asked if she could be a mother, and I felt she was sincere in asking, and I figured to give her a chance," he said.
Cumberland County Schools officials said Shaniya was a kindergarten student at Morganton Road Elementary School until October, when she was taken out of the school and wasn't enrolled elsewhere. No reason was given for the move.
A search of court records turned up no previous criminal charges against Davis, but she has been investigated by the Cumberland County Department of Social Services.
Her uncle, Michael Davis, said DSS looked at her with regard to her 7-year-old son, not Shaniya. The case was closed, and Antoinette Davis was able to retain custody of the boy, her uncle said.
DSS Director Brenda Jackson has declined to comment on her agency's involvement with the Davis family.
Antoinette Davis worked in the kitchen at Carolina Inn at Village Green, an assisted living facility in Fayetteville.
CES, a South Carolina-based staffing company that has a contract with Carolina Inn, hired her in June 2008 after an extensive background check, an official said. She had a good employment record at both Carolina Inn and the Haymount Nursing Rehabilitation Facility, but she is no longer employed by the company, the official said.
Authorities in North Carolina say they have found the body of a 5-year-old girl who disappeared a week ago.
Fayetteville Police spokeswoman Theresa Chance told The Associated Press on Monday that searchers found the body of Shaniya Davis off a road southeast of Sanford in the central part of the state.
Two people have been charged in Shaniya's disappearance, including her 25-year-old mother, Antoinette Davis. Police have charged Davis with human trafficking and felony child abuse, saying Shaniya was offered for prostitution. Davis was due in court Monday afternoon.
Authorities have also charged 29-year old Mario Andrette McNeill, who was seen in surveillance footage carrying Shaniya at a Sanford hotel.
Shaniya's mother reported her missing last Tuesday.
Authorities have said McNeill admitted taking the girl, though his attorney said he will plead not guilty to the charge. Police have not said if McNeill and Davis knew each other.
Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, said he raised his daughter for several years but last month decided to let her stay with her mother.
"I should've never let her go over there," he told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The movie sensation "Precious" ends with the line "for precious girls everywhere." Director Lee Daniels's story of Precious, a poor, abused, illiterate and overweight African American teenager, is indeed a tribute to the forgotten girls living at the edges of U.S. society. When was the last time that a teen mother in Harlem, raped and impregnated by her father, brutally abused and exploited by her mother, and left behind by a dysfunctional educational system, emerged as the hero of any movie -- especially a movie with a high-profile cast that is generating Oscar buzz?
I cannot recall another opportunity raised by popular culture that invited us to thoughtfully address the largely hidden issues of incest, violence and girls at the margins. As the executive director of a national organization that works to raise awareness about and to reduce violence against vulnerable women and girls, I am moved and grateful that attention is finally being paid to our forgotten girls.
But this movie is in many ways a fairy tale. The character Precious gets to be saved by a caring caseworker and a loving teacher. In real life, poor, undereducated and sexually victimized girls are most likely to end up in the juvenile justice system.
I see it all the time. There is the 13-year-old who became pregnant to stop her uncle from raping her -- a girl whom I met not at an incest survivors group but in a girls' detention facility. Or the girl raped so many times by age 13 that she feels worthy of being prostituted and cannot see a life for herself beyond jail. Or the girl who was kidnapped by a pimp, repeatedly raped by him, prostituted by him -- only to be arrested and placed behind bars for prostitution.
Girls in the United States are subject to violence with horrifying frequency. One in three American girls will experience sexual violence by age 18, regardless of race or class. Girls ages 16 to 19 across the ethnic and economic spectrum are four times more likely than others to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. No girl is safe from being raped, exploited or abused.
Yet when girls in economically stable families are hurt by sexual violence, the protective layers of functional schools, safe neighborhoods and access to mental-health services tend to buffer them from further exploitation. For girls at the margins, sexual violence often funnels them into the criminal justice system.
Sex Trafficking or running away from abusive homes and foster-care placements are the primary reasons for girls' incarceration. These girls are not being detained for violent offenses or because they are becoming gang-bangers or murderers. Girls are ending up behind bars after the damage they endure from rape and sexual abuse. A recent Oregon Social Learning Center Study of Chronically Delinquent girls found that the median age of the first sexual encounter among detained girls was 7.
The judges sentencing these girls to detention aren't necessarily another bad guy in their stories. Often, judges don't want to return girls to abusive homes or to a ruthless pimp, so they detain the girls as a way to keep them safe.
Unfortunately, detained girls often endure sexual violence and exploitation behind bars. Many girls are placed in solitary confinement, where self-mutilation often occurs. Some facilities require girls to shower in front of male guards or subject them to cross-gender strip searches. Girls in detention facilities are also routinely sexually coerced or abused by staff. While girls make up only 11 percent of the population of state-operated juvenile facilities, they account for 34 percent of the victims of sexual violence in these facilities.
There are few model programs for vulnerable and abused girls. So the vast majority of abused girls don't have access to trauma-recovery residential programs, comprehensive mental health services or safe alternatives to detention. They are expected to simply "deal with it" -- as if there is something inevitable about being poor, female and abused.
I hope that Lee Daniels's movie will change how girls at the margins are treated. Maybe, at long last, they will be considered precious girls -- who deserve love, safety and healing. I hope this because right now, these precious girls everywhere are denied the happy endings of Hollywood movies.
FAYETTEVILLE Authorities in North Carolina say they are now searching for the body of a missing 5-year-old girl.
Fayetteville Police spokeswoman Theresa Chance said Monday officers are searching along a central North Carolina highway based on "reliable information" that indicated the body of Shaniya Davis may have been dumped there.
About 200 searchers fanned across several miles southeast of Sanford. Some walked along roads, ravines and fields while others drove on four-wheelers.
Shaniya has been missing since Nov. 10. Her mother, 25-year-old Antoinette Davis, has been charged with human trafficking and felony child abuse. Police have also charged 29-year old Mario Andrette McNeill, who was seen in surveillance footage carrying Shaniya at a Sanford hotel.
Authorities acted on a tip Sunday and searched a wide area in south-central N.C. trying to find Shaniya. Capt. Charles Kimble of the Fayetteville Police Department said several agencies spent the day looking for signs of Shaniya between Spring Lake and Sanford, which are about 25 miles apart. The N.C. Highway Patrol sent a helicopter to aid in the search, Lt. Everett Clendenin said.
Kimble would not elaborate on what information officers had received. They suspended the search at dark. The area included woods and some homes, police said.
Earlier Sunday, authorities arrested Antoinette Nicole Davis, Shaniya's mother. The charges against Davis are related to her daughter's disappearance, said Theresa Chance, a spokeswoman for Fayetteville police.
Shaniya hasn't been seen since Tuesday, when a surveillance camera recorded the man charged in her kidnapping carrying the girl into a hotel room.
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."
Shaniya had only been living with her mother since last month. Davis reported the girl missing Tuesday morning from a mobile home community in Fayetteville, and authorities began searching nearby wooded areas.
Camera footage showed Mario Andrette McNeill carrying Shaniya into a hotel room, and he was arrested and charged with kidnapping on Friday. A kidnapping charge against a man described as Davis' boyfriend was dropped.
Authorities have said McNeill admitted to taking the girl, though his attorney says he will plead not guilty to the charge. They have not said if McNeill and Davis knew each other.
Police said a hotel worked spotted a child matching Shaniya's description at the hotel in Sanford, about 40 miles from Fayetteville. Relatives helped confirm that the child on the recording was Shaniya.
Fayetteville police officer Brian Gainey said Davis did not have an attorney and was scheduled to appear in court today.
Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, told The Associated Press that he raised his daughter for several years but last month decided to let her stay with her mother.
"I should've never let her go over there," he said Saturday.
The mother of a missing North Carolina girl has been charged with human trafficking and other offenses, authorities said Saturday night.
Other charges against Antoinette Nicole Davis include felony child abuse, prostitution and filing a false police report, according to the Fayetteville Police Department. No more details were released on the arrest.
The whereabouts of her daughter, 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, remain unknown. Her mother told police Tuesday that she vanished from their mobile home in Fayetteville.
However, hotel surveillance video taken around the same time Shaniya was reported missing shows the girl with a man identified as Mario Andrette McNeill. He has been charged with first-degree kidnapping.
Police dropped kidnapping charges against another man, Clarence Coe, who was arrested Thursday.
Anyone with information on Shaniya's whereabouts is urged to contact the Fayetteville Police at 910-433-1856.
A North Carolina man has admitted to kidnapping a 5-year-old girl, authorities said Friday, but investigators still have not found the child more than three days after she disappeared from a mobile home park.
Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, admitted to taking Shaniya Davis, said Fayetteville Police Department spokeswoman Theresa Chance. He was charged with kidnapping while authorities dropped charges against another man, Clarence Coe, who was initially arrested in the case.
"We're hoping we find her alive," Chance said at a news conference. "We found Mr. McNeill, and Miss Davis was not with him."
Surveillance footage had showed McNeill carrying Shaniya into a hotel room on Tuesday morning, when she was reported missing from a mobile home park. A hotel worker called police to report seeing a child matching Shaniya's description, but by the time police got there, McNeill had left.
McNeill faces a first court appearance Friday afternoon.
Investigators had used police dogs but could not pick up the child's scent during a search of the neighborhood. They found a blanket that may have belonged to Shaniya in a garbage can outside a neighbor's home.
Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, made a tearful appeal Thursday for his daughter's safe return.
"Shaniya, if you're listening to daddy, I miss you so much, honey," he said. "I'm waiting for you. I'm not going to give up. You don't give up either, honey."
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, 1116-A Sleepy Hollow Drive in Fayetteville, 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.
“There is definitely something not right about the situation. Foul play is suspected,” Fayetteville police spokeswoman Theresa Chance said Tuesday evening.
It is unclear how the child left the home.
"The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are very odd. A 5-year-old usually...(is) not awake at 5:30 a.m. normally, and they just wouldn't leave their home," Chance said. "If she would have wandered out of her home, she would be around here somewhere."
Chance said the family has a history with the Department of Social Services.
"There have been major DSS issues with this family – who has custody, switching back and forth," Chance said.
Chance said it's unknown whether the child's disappearance is related to those issues. Police said Shaniya's father flew in from out of state Tuesday afternoon and was talking to investigators.
"We're treating this as a child in danger, with the information we have," Chance said.
Chance said police have been called to the home before. This summer, officers served a search warrant at the home and found a variety of drugs inside.
The family was not allowed inside the home Tuesday evening after it was deemed a health hazard due to extensive sewage leaks, authorities said.
Police K-9s, firefighters and sheriff's deputies searched the area throughout the day Tuesday.
“We are searching for her and hoping to find her alive, but we just don't know at this point,” Chance said.
Chance noted that search dogs did not pick up Shaniya's scent, which they would have if the child was wandering around outside.
Shaniya is described as 3 feet tall and 40 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue T-shirt with pink underwear. She is thin and has a scar on her foot.
Fayetteville police say three registered sex offenders live in the neighborhood. Theresa Chance said the offenders, along with everyone else in the neighborhood, have been interviewed.
The sex offenders are not considered suspects, Chance said.
Anyone with information is urged to call Fayetteville police at 910-433-1856 or call or call 911 or *HP.
A Mooresville man who sparked an Amber Alert when he disappeared with his 12-year-old pregnant adopted daughter and her 11-year-old sister now faces rape and incest charges.
Mathew Charles Hess, 40, had already been charged with misdemeanor child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile after, authorities say, he took his two adoptive daughters to Tennessee despite the condition of the daughter who was nine months pregnant.
Now he faces additional charges in Lincoln County - indecent liberties with a child, first-degree rape and felony incest between near relatives. Details of the charges were unavailable. Authorities haven't said whether they believe Hess is the father of the older daughter's baby.
Hess and his wife, who is the girls' biological mother, are separated, authorities said. The girls were living with Mathew Hess in Lincoln County when the older girl became pregnant.
The Observer published the girls' names when they were the subject of a large-scale search, but is not naming them now because authorities say at least one was a victim of a sex-related crime.
Authorities believe Hess drove away with his daughters on Sept. 24 after leaving a note for his wife saying he was taking them to school. The girls' mother called authorities soon after, when the pregnant daughter didn't show up for a doctor's appointment.
Last week when the pregnant girl missed an important medical procedure, authorities issued a nationwide Amber Alert.
A motorist in Tennessee who saw the alert on an interstate sign recognized the family's faded green Ford Explorer and called the Tennessee Highway Patrol on Wednesday. Less than half an hour later, the search was over. Social services took temporary custody of the girls.
Two members of the Iredell Sheriff's Office's warrant squad drove to Tennessee on Friday and brought Hess back to North Carolina. His first court date for the Iredell County charges is Nov. 16 in Statesville.
Now, he's in Iredell jail under a $12,000 bond. He's also deemed a flight risk because of the charges in Lincoln County.
Tiffany Wright stood alone in the dark, waiting for her school bus.
It was just before 6 a.m., and her foster grandmother had walked back home to get Tiffany's water bottle.
Tiffany, 15, was eight months pregnant but determined to stay on track in school. She wanted to be a lawyer. And after just a few weeks at Hawthorne High, she had impressed teachers as smart and ambitious, despite a difficult childhood.
At 5:51, Tiffany sent a text.
"Wheres the bus?"
One stop away, replied her friend, already on the bus.
At 5:55, as the bus lumbered toward Tiffany's stop, people began calling police to report gunshots.
A school bus dispatcher radioed Tiffany's bus driver: Change course - something's happening ahead.
Tiffany lay dead in the road, shot in the head, that morning, Monday, Sept. 14. Her baby girl was delivered at the hospital and lived a week, but died Sunday.
Nobody's charged in the killings, but police call Tiffany's adoptive brother, Royce Mitchell, a "person of interest."
In the months before she died, local agencies took steps aimed at stabilizing her home life and keeping her safe. But her story exposes failures in the system that was supposed to protect her.
Among the missteps:
•In February, a Mecklenburg court clerk appointed Mitchell as Tiffany's temporary guardian — even though he was a felon who served time in federal prison. He was also tried in 2006 for murder, but found not guilty. And last year, he was accused of domestic violence, though the case was dismissed.
•In July, social workers told police that Mitchell, 36, might have committed statutory rape with Tiffany, but police didn't question him about it for seven weeks, and didn't charge him with the rape until after Tiffany was killed.
•This month, Mecklenburg social services failed to cut off communication between Tiffany, who was in foster care, and Mitchell, said a source close to the investigation.
On the day of Tiffany's killing, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police jailed Mitchell for statutory rape and indecent liberties with a child, naming Tiffany as the victim.
Police defend their work, saying they followed the industry's best practices - which takes time. Police didn't feel a need to rush, they say, because they believed Tiffany was secure, hidden in a foster home with no threat to her safety.
Police say it's hard to prove statutory rape: Of the 262 reports of statutory rape police received over three years, only 16 percent - 42 cases - were accepted by prosecutors.
Experts say statutory rape cases are complicated because they involve victims ages 13, 14 or 15 who often consider themselves voluntary participants in sex with someone at least six years older. So victims can be reluctant to help police.
But child advocates say in cases like Tiffany's, police should act more aggressively. An immediate arrest sends a signal to a suspect and can persuade them to stay away from victims.
"The cases may be difficult to win, but they're not difficult to charge," says Brett Loftis of Charlotte's Council for Children's Rights.
UNCC criminologist Paul Friday says: "Often, nothing is done in these kinds of cases because they're based on improper assumptions about the rationality of someone that age. But the minors are often unaware of disease, birth control and they can be exploited by someone."
Adopted by foster mother
Tiffany first entered the child welfare system as a toddler in Buffalo, N.Y., when her mother lost custody.
She was adopted at 4 by her foster mother, Alma Wright, an older woman with eight grown children, who was excited about raising another child.
One of Wright's grown sons was Royce Mitchell, a star quarterback in high school who'd gone on to play for a semi-pro team in Buffalo. But Mitchell also was indicted in 1999 as part of a drug trafficking ring and went to federal prison.
While he was in prison, authorities also charged Mitchell with an earlier murder, but a jury found him not guilty.
In 2004, Alma and Tiffany left Buffalo for North Carolina, settling near Kings Mountain. Tiffany made friends easily at school and church. She ran track at Bessemer City High School.
In 2007, Mitchell was released from prison and followed his mother to North Carolina.
But last fall, Alma Wright got sick. Friends at church helped out with Tiffany, inviting her for dinners and weekends. Tiffany spent time with Mitchell and his wife, too.
Alma Wright died Jan. 25, and Tiffany moved in with the Mitchells in Charlotte.
On Jan. 30, Royce Mitchell asked a Mecklenburg court to appoint him and his wife as Tiffany's guardians.
On his application, he wrote: "We are seeking guardianship because we were requested to do so by Mrs. Alma Wright before she died."
He wanted to transfer Tiffany to West Mecklenburg High School.
The court set a hearing for Feb. 5 and appointed a child advocate to study the situation and look after Tiffany's best interests in court.
There's no transcript of what happened in court, and the clerk who handled Tiffany's case declined to discuss his decision.
Frederick Benson, a Mecklenburg assistant clerk of superior court, appointed Mitchell the temporary guardian of Tiffany's welfare.
It's unclear if Benson, a lawyer, knew about Mitchell's criminal background. Court clerks are not required to perform background checks in guardianship cases, says Clerk of Superior Court Martha Curran. It's up to each clerk to decide what checks are necessary, and they often rely on court-appointed child advocates to advise them in such cases.
Tiffany's advocate, lawyer Martha Efird, declined to discuss her actions in the case.
It was in the weeks surrounding the Feb. 5 court hearing that Tiffany got pregnant, if hospital estimates are accurate.
But friends say Tiffany, who started at West Mecklenburg High in February, wouldn't realize for four or five months that she was pregnant.
On Feb. 27, clerk of court Benson ordered DSS to conduct a "home study" of the Mitchell household. Officials won't release their findings.
But Mitchell didn't keep custody long, according to several of Tiffany's friends in King's Mountain.
In late March, Mitchell left Tiffany at a group home called With Friends in Gastonia, according to Marlene Jefferies and Cruceta Jeffeirs, two adult family friends who watched Tiffany grow up.
The group home wouldn't confirm that. But the friends say the home reported to social services that Tiffany was abandoned. And she was soon back in foster care.
On March 31, Jeffeirs, a Shelby pastor, wrote a letter to Benson seeking custody of Tiffany: "My desire is to see Tiffany accomplish all the goals that she has set for herself and I believe she can do that in a stable environment with lots of guidance and love."
DSS officials in Gaston and Mecklenburg won't discuss Tiffany's case or answer questions about what steps they took to protect her.
But friends and family say Tiffany was eventually placed in the care of foster parent Susan Barber, in a townhome off Mallard Creek Road in Derita.
By July, it was clear Tiffany was pregnant, friends say.
Barber tried to shield Tiffany from talking to those she believed might be bad influences, according to Tiffany's cousin Brittany Page. But a source close to the investigation said Tiffany and Mitchell continued communicating.
Despite repeated attempts, Barber could not be reached.
As the school year approached, Tiffany prepared to change schools again, this time to Hawthorne High in Charlotte, which offers a special program for pregnant students.
Delayed Investigation
On July 27, social workers reported to police that Royce Mitchell might have committed statutory rape with Tiffany.
It took eight days for a detective to look at the case, and three days more for it to be officially assigned to Teresa Johnson, a detective with CMPD's youth crime and domestic violence unit.
Another 12 days passed before Johnson interviewed Tiffany.
It's unclear when detective Johnson discovered Mitchell's background, but it wasn't enough to ramp up the investigation. Investigators say they believed Tiffany was safe in a foster home and faced no threats from Mitchell.
Police say their performance in the case followed procedure and met standards.
Police interview alleged victims immediately if the crime has occurred within the previous 72 hours, so they can gather evidence that may remain. But in cases like Tiffany's - where months had elapsed since the alleged offense - police try to arrange just one interview when children and teen victims of abuse are involved.
Police acknowledge that strategy takes time but minimizes trauma and reduces the chances that young victims might be led into inaccurate testimony by repeated questioning.
Police also let such victims decide when they want to be interviewed at the county's child-victim center called Pat's Place. There, specially trained interviewers talk to victims, while social workers, psychologists, police and others watch from another room.
Tiffany chose an Aug. 19 interview. She didn't say much during the formal interview. But later that day, Johnson won her trust and obtained enough information to move forward with the investigation.
The next day, Aug. 20, the detective made her first call to Mitchell to ask him about the charge, she says. Johnson left a message and gave him a few days to call back.
When Mitchell didn't respond, she made calls over the next two weeks to social workers and a federal probation officer to ask Mitchell to come talk to police.
Police say they didn't immediately arrest him because they believed they could get better information if he talked voluntarily.
On Sept. 9, a federal probation official told Johnson that Mitchell was not coming in.
On Sept. 10, a team of social workers, police and other agencies held a standard follow-up meeting to discuss how to proceed in Tiffany's case.
On Friday, Sept. 11, detective Johnson phoned Mitchell's wife and left a message. She asked her to call back to discuss Tiffany, Johnson says, but didn't give details of the rape allegation.
That Monday, Tiffany was shot and killed.
As emergency vehicles rolled to the scene, Tiffany's school bus was diverted from its normal route. But the students could see flashing lights. Tiffany's friends on the bus, Cimone Black and Tamia Corpening, began to worry.
"I kept texting her phone...," Cimone said. Then she started calling, but all she got was voice mail.
The bus continued on to Hawthorne. For Tamia, the hourlong ride was excruciating.
Sources: Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, Fayetteville Police, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, WIVB, WRAL, Washington Times, CDF, Lionsgate Films, Under Privileged Journalism, Rainn, Amber Alert, Examiner, Wikipedia, Creepygif.com, Google Maps
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