Man convicted of killing Shaniya Davis kept separate from other inmatesPublished: 07:22 AM, Thu Oct 17, 2013
By Michael Futch
Staff writer
The man convicted of murdering 5-year-old Shaniya Davis is largely being confined to his death row cell at Central Prison for security reasons.
Mario Andrette McNeill, who was sentenced to death in May for killing Shaniya in November 2009, will remain on intensive control status on death row indefinitely, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
"I don't know when it will end," he said Wednesday. "He has regular control reviews. He's evaluated periodically."
According to the state Department of Correction Division of Prisons, intensive control status is a long-term removal from other inmates for repeatedly disruptive behavior, noncompliance with instructions and orders, or a transition following assignment to maximum control status.
In June, McNeill was reassigned from maximum to intensive control status at the prison, Acree said.
"He's confined to his cell 23 hours a day. He comes out for a shower and brief recreation period," Acree said. "It's very limited contact with other (death-row) inmates, and he probably has reduced privileges."
McNeill, 33, was involved in an assault in January 2011 during a safe-keeping period at Central Prison before his trial in Cumberland County, Acree said, and there has been at least one other infraction since.
But those infractions, he said, are not the reason he is being held in confinement.
"It was a management decision based on security concerns," he said. "These concerns have existed ever since he has been there."
On May 29, a 12-member jury took 39 minutes to recommend that McNeill be sentenced to death. The same jury convicted him of kidnapping, sexually abusing and murdering Shaniya, whose body was found in woods off N.C. 87.
...more at linkhttp://www.fayobserver.com/articles/201 ... c=fo.local