A second person has been charged in last week’s child abuse death of a 3-year-old Alabama girl.
Aydah DiMaso was found dead Monday, Oct. 4, in the bathtub of the Gadsden home she shared with her father, who family says had only gotten custody of her less than eight months ago.
Last week, Aydah’s father, 23-year-old Nikolas Joseph DiMaso, was charged with capital murder. He remains in the Etowah County Jail on no bond.
Friday afternoon, Gadsden police announced the arrest of 30-year-old Haley Dee Metz. Sgt. Marcus Hill said Metz is charged with aggravated child abuse, which is a Class A felony.
Details of the allegation against Metz have not yet been made public. Police described her as Aydah’s stepmother.
She was booked into jail at 3 p.m. Friday and remains held on $750,000 bond.
According to charging documents against DiMaso, Aydah was killed with DiMaso’s “hands and/or fists.”
She was found unresponsive after family members asked police to go to the DiMaso home on Crestview Drive that Monday afternoon for a welfare check. Aydah’s maternal grandparents had unsuccessfully tried to get custody of the little girl and have vowed to get justice for her.
“Aydah was a sweet soul with an infectious giggle, loved deeply by her grandparents who had been fighting for custody of her,’’ according to a GoFundMe launched by friends of the family. “The system let her down, and so sadly, this tragedy was utterly preventable.”
“As friends and colleagues of the family, it’s our hope that we can rally together to help a grief-stricken family at this horrific time with the costs of Aydah’s memorial and to fund a trust to ensure that the family can get #JusticeForAydah.”
Donations can be made here:
“Saying that my heart is shattered is an understatement but what keeps me moving forward is the anger that I have towards this corrupt system,’’ Shundra Powe Davis, Aydah’s grandmother said in a Facebook post. “I will fight this system to the end.”
“She knows I won’t rest until I know that her death was not in vain,’’ Davis said. “I want everyone to know how hard we fought to keep her safe, how the system failed us on every level and how so many other families all over the country are going through the same hurt dealing with this horrible system.”
“We are going to fight this to the end,’’ Davis said. “Believe that.”
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