Left: Haley Metz (Etowah County Sheriff’s Office). Right: Aydah DiMaso (GoFundMe).
An Alabama woman has, after a long delay, accepted legal culpability for the blunt force trauma death of her 3-year-old stepdaughter.
Haley Dee Metz, 33, entered a blind plea this week on one count of aggravated child abuse — meaning that the range of her eventual sentence was not hashed out as part of her plea deal.
In exchange for pleading guilty, prosecutors in Etowah County agreed to drop one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.
Metz’s admission of guilt is the penultimate chapter in the dual criminal cases against the stepmother and father of Aydah DiMaso, 3, who died nearly three years ago. Meanwhile, a civil case against child welfare authorities is likely to go on for months, if not years, to come.
