ROCKLAND, Maine — A mistrial was declared after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the trial of a Louisiana man accused of causing the death of 22-month-old Quayshawn Wilson, who died in the parking lot of the Thomaston Walmart last year.
The lead prosecutor said the state will retry 24-year-old Aziayh Scott for manslaughter.
“The state is extremely confident that Aziayh Scott is responsible for the injury that lacerated the liver of Quayshawn and caused his death,” Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin said after the mistrial was declared.
Scott will remain free on $50,000 cash bail.
Defense attorney Christopher MacLean said he was not surprised that the jury deadlocked.
“The prosecutors presented an excellent case, but there was simply no evidence that Aziayh Scott harmed Quayshawn Wilson. The State’s medical examiner, Dr. Funte, did a poor job on the autopsy. I am still surprised that Dr. Funte made findings in his report that Quayshawn had 9 broken ribs when there was no evidence of even a single broken rib. If the jury had been allowed to hear more of the background about Dr. Funte that was excluded, I think the jury would have placed less weight on his testimony. I deeply respect the jury process. I knew this was going to be a close call for the jury. It is so emotional when a baby dies. I respect the views on both sides of the argument, but this is a case where there clearly was reasonable doubt,” MacLean said Wednesday night.
The 12-member jury began its deliberations about 1 p.m. Monday at the Knox County Superior Court on the sixth day of the manslaughter trial of 24-year-old Scott, who has been charged in the May 29, 2024, death.
The jury deliberated for four hours Nov. 10 before sending out a note, saying they were having difficulty reaching a verdict. Justice John O’Neil said he was letting the jury go home and to return Wednesday morning and continue to try to reach a unanimous verdict.
Tuesday was a holiday (Veterans Day), and the court was closed.
The jury returned Wednesday morning and began deliberations at about 9 a.m. and asked for testimony to be read back to them from the state deputy medical examiner and from a defense forensic pathologist.
At 1:30 p.m., the jury sent out a note, telling the judge saying there was an impasse and how to proceed. O’Neil read them instructions and asked them to continue their deliberations. He told the jurors that the time they have spent deliberating was not out of the ordinary. The jury came back out after 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and the forewoman said further deliberations were not likely to result in a verdict. No juror raised a hand when the judge asked if they thought more deliberations would be worthwhile.
The maximum sentence for manslaughter in Maine is 30 years in prison. There is no minimum sentence. The last manslaughter conviction in Knox County related to the death of a child resulted in a 15-year prison sentence with all but nine years suspended. That death occurred in 1994 in Rockland and a conviction came in the third jury trial with sentencing being imposed in 1998.
The prosecution and defense made their closing arguments Monday morning.
Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Ackerman said in closing arguments that Quayshawn was not able to tell jurors what happened to him, but that his body can. She noted the autopsy performed by the state’s deputy medical examiner determined that blunt force trauma to his abdomen caused a lacerated liver and damaged kidney, which led to internal bleeding.
Dr. Nicholas Miles, a pediatrician specializing in child abuse cases, told jurors the injuries had to have come from a violent blow.
The prosecutor outlined the events from when Scott, Quayshawn and Quayshawn’s mother, Shaneka Washington, arrived in Owls Head early in the morning of May 28. Quayshawn’s mother had a job at Breakwater Commons in Rockland.
Videos from the mother’s cellphone showed Quayshawn throughout May 28 and he was healthy and happy, Ackerman noted.
On May 29, the mother went to work early and came home at about 10:30 a.m. for lunch and the child ate lunch and was happy. She then went back to work.
There were then multiple texts and audio calls between Scott and the child’s mother that afternoon but no video calls.
An upstairs neighbor where the family was staying in Owls Head testified she saw Scott carrying Quayshawn that afternoon and the child’s head was tipped back and Scott waved to the neighbor. Scott put the child in the car and left.
Scott picked up the boy’s mother and took her to Walmart. She was in the store for 20 minutes. When she came out, Scott asked the mother to check on the child. Scott got out of the car and vomited. The mother put the groceries away and then checked on Quayshawn and found him unresponsive. The mother took the child out of the car seat and called for help in the parking lot.
Two former certified nursing assistants with training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation responded and one of them performed CPR for three minutes. During her closing arguments, Ackerman showed the jury the surveillance video of the arrival of Scott, Quayshawn and Quayshawn’s mother in Walmart’s parking lot
Ackerman said the state cannot say why Scott assaulted Quayshawn but pointed out there was evidence that the child’s mother had told him the relationship was not working and he should return to Louisiana. Scott was then left with a child that was not his, and Scott had gotten only a few hours of sleep after the long trip to Maine.
Dr. Liam Funte, the state’s deputy medical examiner, performed the autopsy on the child. In addition to the lacerated liver and bruised kidney, the child had nine broken ribs.
MacLean reiterated his opening statements to stress that the state’s case was circumstantial and there was no direct evidence that Scott assaulted Quayshawn. He said there were no confessions and no one witnessed Scott abusing the child. MacLean said Scott loved the child and had been with the child since shortly after he was born prematurely.
In his closing arguments, MacLean offered different meanings of the evidence presented by the state. He noted Scott was the first person to call 911.
MacLean also said the fact that the mother was not cooperating with police against Scott should speak volumes. The defense lawyer also pointed out there was no evidence of prior injuries to the child.
The child’s mother, Washington, submitted a letter to the court on Nov. 13, 2024. She said the state is falsely accusing an innocent man, according to the letter. She did not testify.
The defense’s only witness was a forensic pathologist from Utah who reviewed the autopsy records by the Maine medical examiner’s office and police reports. Dr. Erik Christensen, who was Utah’s chief medical examiner and is now a forensic pathologist consultant, said during his Nov. 7 testimony he could not rule out that the child died from myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle. Christensen said that with the information he obtained, he would have ruled the cause of death as undetermined.
The Utah doctor said he also could not say whether cardio-pulmonary resuscitation performed by a woman in the Walmart parking lot caused the injuries to the boy’s liver and kidney.
Christensen said more tissue samples should have been examined by the Maine medical examiner.
MacLean said the medical examiner did not follow proper standards in conducting the autopsy.
Miles said he was confident the injuries were not caused by CPR. He said injuries from CPR are rare and minor.
The woman who performed it, now a phlebotomist, testified Nov. 4. She said she performed the CPR properly, using two fingers atop two other fingers and that she did not push on the abdomen but at the sternum.
“I did everything I was trained to do. I did not do anything wrong,” she said.
She estimated that she performed the CPR for a few minutes but said it felt like an eternity.
The defense called her back Nov. 7 for a single question, on whether she recalled telling his private investigator that her body hurt after performing the CPR. She initially said she could not recall that but on Nov. 7 said after hearing a tape of her interview that she does recall saying it.
Scott did not testify during the trial.
An effort by the defense to call a person from Scott’s church in Louisiana as a character witness was dropped when the judge ruled that the state could then ask the witness whether the person was aware that Scott had been arrested for a robbery shortly before coming to Maine. The judge ruled, however, that text messages by the child’s mother to Scott expressing her concern about his anger, could not be raised to the jury. Those rulings were made when the jury was not in the courtroom.
The robbery charge was later dismissed. MacLean said that incident simply involved his refusing to return someone’s cellphone.
Jurors were shown a video made by Maine State Police detectives of a walkthrough at the apartment in Owls Head where Scott, the child’s mother, who is a traveling certified nursing assistant, and the child lived for two days. Detectives asked Scott to show them what transpired the previous day. On the video, the mother broke down in tears and Scott, in the courtroom, put his face in his hands.
The pediatrician also said that after suffering an injury that would have caused the internal damage, the child would not have been able to play, eat or dance. He said that an abdominal injury would have worsened if not treated.
A jury of 12 plus three alternates was selected Nov. 3 with opening statements made in the afternoon by Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin and lead defense attorney MacLean.
A 911 call to Knox County Regional Communications was made at 7:28 p.m. and at 7:31 p.m. Thomaston Police Officer Mark Tibbetts arrived and took over CPR efforts until Thomaston emergency medical services personnel arrived two minutes later. Quayshawn was rushed to MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital in Rockport and despite their best efforts, the child was declared dead at 8:30 p.m., the prosecutor said.
Scott was arrested June 5, 2024, in Louisiana on a warrant issued out of Knox County. He was extradited to Maine on July 18 last year. The manslaughter charge alleges Scott “did recklessly or with criminal negligence cause the death of a minor child.” Bail was lowered twice while he was being held and he eventually was released on bail, pending the trial.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.
