An Alabama woman has been sentenced to life in prison for the abuse of her stepdaughter, who had more than 50 signs of trauma covering her body and whose head had been shaved when she died three years ago.
In September 2024, the stepmother, 33-year-old Haley Dee Metz, entered a blind plea of guilty to aggravated child abuse of 3-year-old Aydah DiMaso.
A blind plea means that there was no previously agreed upon sentence as part of the deal and a judge would decide her fate.
On November 1, Etowah County Circuit Judge William Ogletree handed down the life sentence to Met with the possibility of parole.
Metz’s husband, 25-year-old Nikilas DiMaso, pleaded guilty earlier this year to capital murder and conspiracy to commit child abuse. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On October 4, 2021, Aydah was killed with DiMaso’s “hands and/or fists.” She was found unresponsive in the bathtub after family members asked police to go to the DiMaso home on Crestview Drive in Gadsden for a welfare check.
Family said DiMaso got custody of Aydah less than eight months before her death, despite her maternal grandparents’ fight to have her in their care.
Attorneys for Aydah’s family filed a lawsuit last year against the Alabama Department of Human Resources and individual caseworkers for their alleged roles in the girl’s death.
The lawsuit, filed by Birmingham attorneys Tommy James of Tommy James Law and Jeremy Knowles of Morris Haynes, alleges multiple failures by DHR and caseworkers to protect Aydah from ongoing abuse and neglect.
According to the lawsuit, Aydah’s filthy living conditions included animal feces and urine throughout the home, reports of DiMaso’s drug use, particularly a heroin addiction, and observations of Ayda exhibiting sudden behavior changes.
The suit alleges systematic failings and neglect that allowed the young child to remain in a severely harmful environment despite clear indications she was in danger.
