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Police ask: Was girl payment for a drug debt?

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WBTV/WRAL/AP) – Authorities are investigating whether the Fayetteville girl who was raped before being fatally asphyxiated was given to the suspect in her murder by her mother as payment for a drug debt.

Meanwhile, Mario McNeill, charged with raping and killing Shaniya Davis, was expected in court Friday, a day after authorities revealed what they believed happened to her in her final days.

Authorities said that Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated before her body was dumped off a rural road. McNeill is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child, Fayetteville Police Chief Tom Bergamine told reporters at a news conference.

Earlier in the week, authorities said McNeill admitted taking the girl, but Bergamine did not say whether McNeill admitted to the child's death.

A search warrant says McNeill picked the girl up in front of her home and drove her more than 30 miles to a hotel in Sanford, where she was last seen alive. Surveillance video captured McNeill carrying the girl in the building.

The girl's mother, Antoinette Davis, is charged with trafficking her daughter and child abuse involving prostitution.

WRAL reported that an arrest warrants state that Davis "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."

Fayetteville police told WRAL-TV in Raleigh that they are trying to determine if Shaniya was given to McNeill by her mother as part of a payment for a drug debt.

“Lots of people are saying that, so it’s part of the investigation,” Theresa Chance, spokeswoman for the Fayetteville Police Department, told WRAL.

Chance refused to tell WRAL whether Davis owed money to McNeill.

Police issued the warrant containing the new charges against McNeill after they collected hair and fibers, clothes, and a straw from his 1997 Mitsubishi Galant.

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