A mistrial was declared Wednesday after a Knox County jury deadlocked on whether to find a Louisiana man responsible for the death of his girlfriend’s toddler.

Aziayh Scott, 24, has been on trial in Knox County Superior Court since Nov. 3. Jurors deliberated for nearly 12 hours this week before failing to reach a verdict Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors alleged Scott assaulted 22-month-old Quayshawn Wilson at some point on May 29, 2024, hours before the toddler’s mother realized that evening that the child was unresponsive. 

Scott pleaded not guilty to the charge in November 2024 and has been out on bail, living in Rockland and working for a local restaurant, his attorney said.

A prosecutor told the Midcoast Villager that the state plans to retry Scott and that the state “is extremely confident” he is responsible for Quayshawn’s injuries and death. A spokesperson for the Office of the Maine Attorney General told the Press Herald that they had no comment and that prosecutors are “evaluating all our options.”

During the trial, the defense challenged the chief deputy medical examiner’s opinion of Quayshawn’s injuries, the most significant being a severely torn liver.

A child abuse pediatrician testified that bruising on Quayshawn’s stomach was a “well known clinical red flag” for nonaccidental injuries and dismissed the defense’s suggestion that life-saving efforts could have been to blame.

Defense attorney Christopher MacLean said the pediatrician’s opinions were based on an autopsy report by Dr. Liam Funte, chief deputy medical examiner, that said Quayshawn had nine broken ribs. MacLean said Funte had no evidence to support that there were broken ribs and that an X-ray didn’t show any clear fractures.

Funte said during trial he wasn’t a radiologist and that “if you have subtle fractures in any bone, that’s not my training to identify.”

“That’s one of the reasons why the jury deadlocked, I’m sure,” MacLean said Wednesday afternoon.

Scott’s family, from Louisiana, was in court for the trial.

“We’re grateful,” Scott’s mother, Eddie Scott, said Wednesday evening. “We trust God, our faith has been in God since the beginning.”

She said her son is innocent and that prosecutors have “tried to defame my son’s character from the beginning.”

“My son would never harm a child,” Eddie Scott said. “They never mentioned that he has children of his own, that he loves, embraces.”

Prosecutors told the jury Quayshawn suffered an “obviously violent injury to his abdomen,” but couldn’t say how the injury occurred. The prosecution did not present direct evidence that Scott had injured the toddler, but said he was the only person with Quayshawn the afternoon before his death.

Quayshawn’s mother, Shaneka Washington, was working as a traveling nursing assistant in the area. The couple and Quayshawn had just arrived in Owls Head from New Orleans on May 28, 2024, a day before the toddler’s death.

Washington was not called to testify and wrote the court a letter last year, expressing concern with the state’s case and claiming her son hadn’t been feeling well leading up to his death, according to reporting from the Midcoast Villager.

MacLean said Wednesday that the defense was “really pleased with the effort the jury made” and that the mistrial was not surprising.

Scott is still on bail, MacLean said, although the defense plans to request less restrictive conditions.

“He’s a really resilient young man,” MacLean said, adding that Scott grew up in a religious household where “they have an abiding faith that things happen” and “the Lord acts in mysterious ways.”

“The trial was stressful for me, and I’m a seasoned criminal defense attorney,” MacLean said. “I can only imagine how stressful it was for him.”