Moshe Williams

A Cody man who is alleged to have caused the death of his toddler in 2021 is set to go to trial this fall. However, a prosecutor said last week that he thinks the case against Moshe Williams will be resolved through a plea deal.

Williams is alleged to have intentionally and/or recklessly inflicted fatal injuries to his 2-year-old daughter, Paisleigh, in March 2021. He has pleaded not guilty.

The child died after a forceful blow to her abdomen severed her intestines — and, prosecutors say, after Williams and his then-girlfriend Carolyn Aune failed to get the girl to the hospital until it was too late.

Aune took her case to trial in April and was convicted of first-degree murder for her failure to get medical attention for Paisleigh.

A trial for Williams, who also stands charged with first-degree murder, will likely be scheduled for late October. However, at a Wednesday status conference, Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Hatfield said his office and Williams’ defense team are continuing to discuss a possible plea bargain.

“… we do think that plea negotiations are going to be successful,” Hatfield said, referring to his office’s opinion.

The prosecutor told District Court Judge Bobbi Overfield that he expected to be able to give an update on negotiations by “no later than the end of this month.”

Investigators were never able to determine how Paisleigh was injured. In interviews with Cody police in 2021, Williams and Aune each hinted that the other must have been responsible for the abuse, but said they didn’t know what had happened.

At her trial, Aune changed her story, testifying that she saw Williams “stomp” on the child’s stomach; Aune added that she hadn’t realized the blow had seriously hurt the child.

Hatfield continued to argue that Aune had inflicted the abuse, but jurors rejected that account. The panel did, however, find that Aune caused the child’s death by failing to seek potentially life-saving medical attention.

“… To a reasonable caregiver, these injuries would have been recognized as being something not right. And she [Paisleigh] would have been very, very, very sick for several hours if not more than a day,” Dr. Kathryn Wells, a child abuse expert at Children’s Hospital Colorado, testified at trial. “And I think a reasonable caregiver would have tried to seek care for her.”

Williams, who was Paisleigh’s primary caregiver, is facing the same allegation. His case was delayed and separated from Aune’s in part because of questions about his competency. However, Williams was found mentally fit by two different experts and Judge Overfield said last week that she wants to get his case back on the court’s docket. Oct. 30 was mentioned as the most likely potential start date for the trial.

Scheduling is being complicated by an upcoming overhaul of the HVAC system at the Park County Courthouse. Overfield said her understanding is that the district courtrooms will be unavailable for roughly three months while work is underway this fall, followed by the circuit courtroom being off-limits for a similar amount of time. During the six-month period, Overfield said the district and circuit courts will have to share courtrooms, and “it’s going to be tight.”

The issue could be avoided through a plea deal or by the trial being moved to another county due to the local attention given to the case. One of Williams’ court-appointed attorneys, Dylan Rosalez, indicated Wednesday that he is unsure whether he’ll seek a change in venue.

Meanwhile, Aune is facing an additional felony count of aggravated assault and battery, for allegedly fighting with Park County Detention deputies while incarcerated on the murder charge. Aune’s defense attorney said last month that a plea agreement has been struck in that case, and she requested that Aune be sentenced on both the assault and murder charges at the same time. She faces a sentence of life in prison for the murder conviction, with it being up to Overfield to determine whether Aune will ever have the possibility of parole.

As of Monday, no date had been set for Aune’s sentencing or Williams’ trial.