Police: Body is that of North Carolina girl
William Harris Shaniya Davis, 5, was reported missing last week. Authorities have identified the body as hers.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Grieving father, speaking to media, urges people not to ignore children in peril
- Shaniya Davis, 5, was reported missing last week
- Mother Antoinette Nicole Davis faces human trafficking, other charges
- Davis was "prostituting her child," police spokeswoman says
Watch full coverage of the Shaniya Davis case -- including an interview with her half brother Byron Coleman -- on HLN's "Nancy Grace" at 8 and 10 p.m. ET.
(CNN) -- A body found Monday beside a North Carolina road is that of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, who was reported missing a week ago, police said Tuesday.
The official cause of death was undetermined as of Tuesday afternoon, Fayetteville police said in written statement. An announced afternoon media briefing was rescheduled for Wednesday morning.
Earlier Tuesday, police said additional charges are expected in connection with the case and any charges will be made public as soon as they are filed.
Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, has been charged with human trafficking and other offenses. Davis was "prostituting her child," police spokeswoman Teresa Chance said after Davis' arrest over the weekend.
Another suspect, Mario Andrette McNeill, has been charged with kidnapping in the case.
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Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, made a tearful appeal before reporters Tuesday afternoon, asking that "everybody makes it a point not to ignore, to look past a situation where a person, a child, or anybody might be in danger ... so that we don't have another tragedy like Shaniya."
He said authorities have given him limited information, but he was to meet with them later.
"It's not the result I wanted, it's not the result any father or family would want for their children," he said. "But God has a greater calling for all of us."
Shaniya's mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville home in a mobile home park on November 10. According to police, surveillance video taken that day from a hotel in Sanford shows Shaniya in the company of McNeill.
"The investigation at this point indicates that Shaniya Davis was alive at the time she left the Sanford hotel," police said in the statement Tuesday.
The road where the body was found is near Sanford, which is about 30 miles northwest of Fayetteville.
Shaniya's half-sister, Cheyenne Lockhart, said on HLN's "Nancy Grace" Monday that she found it difficult to believe Davis had treated her daughter so poorly.
"She seemed like the sweetest woman. She didn't come from much, but ... she had the sweetest voice, she had the sweetest personality, and especially toward me. I would never think that she would do anything like that," said Lockhart, who shared a father with Shaniya.
Their father said Shaniya went to her mother's home on October 9.
CNN's Gabriel Falcon contributed to this report.
