SANFORD - The body of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis was found this afternoon on Walker Road off N.C. 87 south of Sanford.

There was no information immediately available on the cause of her death.

Police had been searching for the Fayetteville girl since Tuesday morning, when her mother reported her missing from their home in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park off Murchison Road.

Police initially focused on and arrested a man described as the boyfriend of Shaniya's mother, but he was released when a surveillance tape showed another man holding Shaniya in a Sanford hotel about 40 minutes after she was reported missing.

That second man, Mario Andrette McNeill, surrendered to police Friday and admitted kidnapping Shaniya but was otherwise "extremely uncooperative" and the child's whereabouts remained unknown, police said. McNeill, who is 29, was charged with first-degree kidnapping.

On Saturday night, police charged Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Davis, with human trafficking, felony child abuse involving prostitution, filing a false police report and interfering with the investigation.

Police said Antoinette Davis had not cooperated with law enforcement. She will make her first appearance in court today at 2:30 p.m.

On Sunday, police started searching for Shaniya in heavily vegetated areas off Walker Road near its intersection with N.C. 87 south of Sanford. They said they received reliable information that Shaniya was there.

A daylong search was fruitless and was suspended at dusk.

This morning, the search recommenced and police said they were searching for a body.

About 250 people joined the search, including police and sheriff's deputies from Fayetteville, Sanford and Lee County, fire department personnel and civilians who live in the area and who know the woods. Police used a helicopter, dogs and officers on horseback.

Antoinette Davis reported her daughter missing at 6:53 a.m. Tuesday, telling police she had last seen Shaniya at 5:30 that morning.

According to the surveillance tape, Shaniya was with McNeill at the Comfort Suites hotel on Bragg Street in Sanford at 6:11 a.m. Chance said today that police know that McNeill left the hotel with Shaniya at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. She said police don't know what condition Shaniya was in at that time.

McNeill is a felon who since 2001 has been convicted of multiple charges of assault inflicting serious bodily injury and a laundry list of drug charges, including selling and manufacturing controlled substances, according to the N.C. Department of Correction Web site.

Shaniya had been living with her mother at the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park for about three weeks.

Before that, she had been living with her father, Bradley Lockhart of Fayetteville. Lockhart has said he had reservations about letting Shaniya go to live with her mother but allowed it because Antoinette Davis had shown responsibility in her life and interest in the child.

"She had asked if she could be a mother, and I felt that she was sincere in asking and I figured to give her a chance," he said on "The Early Show" on CBS this morning.

He said she'd found a place to live and had held a job for six months. Antoinette Davis, who is 25, has been working as a caregiver at the Carolina Inn at Village Green, an assisted living facility on Forsythe Street.

Lockhart was never married to Antoinette Davis and described their relationship as a "one-night stand." He told the Associated Press they had never argued about him raising Shaniya.

Since Shaniya's disappearance, Lockhart has made appeals on TV for her return. On "The Early Show" this morning, he described Shaniya as "a precious little angel, full of joy" and said that when he heard about the charges filed against Shaniya's mother, his reaction was "just everything inside of you falls out."

He said he maintained hope.

"I've been feeling hopeful every day that someone out there would do the right thing and take my daughter somewhere, to a hospital, police station, just anywhere safe," Lockhart said on the show.

Chance said Lockhart had been "a huge help" to police in the search for Shaniya. He identified Shaniya on the surveillance tape from the Comfort Suites hotel.

Leona Cromartie, Antoinette Davis' aunt, said Sunday she believes the accusations against her niece are false and that McNeill is talking to police in an effort to get a plea bargain in court.

Cromartie said she once met McNeill, whom she called "Mano," and doesn't know the relationship between him and Antoinette Davis.

"This is shocking to me," she said. "It just don't make any sense to me. Antoinette would not hurt her kid. That girl loves her daughter."

Cromartie said Davis isn't an unfit mother. She said her niece had worked double shifts for more than a year.

She said Davis also has a son and is pregnant again.

Davis had been living at a house on Wall Street, according to Cromartie, and then lived in different motels until moving in her with her sister, Barbara Davis, at the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park.

Clarence Coe, the man who was first arrested in Shaniya's disappearance and then released, is Davis' boyfriend, Cromartie said.

The priority, Cromartie said, is finding Shaniya.

"I still say I can't believe it," Cromartie said of the allegations against Antoinette Davis. "But if it does come up like that (Davis is involved), she needs to pay the price."

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call (910) 433-1585.