ALFRED — An Acton woman says she had not taken her psychological medication and was not thinking clearly when she pleaded guilty in August to stabbing and killing her ex-husband.
Kandee Collind, 48, formerly known as Kandee Weyland, was originally set to be sentenced for the murder this week. Instead, she has asked to withdraw the guilty plea she entered this summer. The prosecutors from the Maine Attorney General’s Office have opposed that request.
The parties appeared Thursday morning in York County Superior Court to discuss Collind’s motion, but the judge continued the hearing until January because of new evidence the defense team still needs to review.
During the brief hearing, Justice Wayne Douglas warned Collind of the implications of her motion. The plea agreement she previously negotiated would cap her sentence at 32 years, but a guilty verdict at a trial could open her up to more prison time.
“The sentence for the conviction to this charge is 25 years to life,” Douglas said. “I would urge you to think carefully about this and talk to your lawyers about that.”
Police have accused Collind of killing Scott Weyland last year after she learned that a judge had awarded him primary custody of their two young children following their divorce.
Scott Weyland, in an August 2016 photo posted on Facebook.
Court records show she was under a doctor’s care for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and recurrent depression, as well as anxiety and panic attacks that made it difficult for her to leave her house. A Department of Health and Human Services investigator had found that the house she had shared with Weyland was uninhabitable because of clutter, but Collind had not yet found another place to live, according to court records.
A Maine State Police affidavit states that Collind drove to her former mother-in-law’s home on Milton Mills Road in Acton on Feb. 22 with her two children in the car and crashed into the back of a pickup truck in the driveway. The former couple fought, and the children reportedly witnessed the stabbing. Both Scott Weyland and his son called 911 for help.
When police officers arrived, they found Collind “hysterically crying” and giving CPR to her ex-husband. She told an officer that she had stabbed Scott Weyland in the chest and that he had also pulled out a knife, the affidavit states.
Scott Weyland was taken to the hospital, where he died several hours later. An autopsy showed Weyland died from a stab wound to the chest that penetrated his heart. Kandee Collind was treated for minor lacerations and was found to have a small knife stuck in her abdomen, according to the affidavit.
In August, Collind pleaded guilty to a charge of intentional and knowing murder. The Journal Tribune reported that Clifford Strike, one of her attorneys, said she wanted to spare her children “the trauma of a trial.”
“She is at peace with her decision,” Strike said at the time.
In the motion to withdraw her guilty plea, Collind’s attorneys wrote that she almost immediately changed her mind. Four days after that hearing, she called her lawyers and left a message saying she wanted to withdraw the plea. Another one of her attorneys, Molly Butler Bailey, wrote in the motion that their team was pursing an “abnormal condition of the mind” defense.
“That is a very complicated concept, and as testing of Ms. Collind has shown, her IQ is in the ‘extremely low’ range,” Butler Bailey wrote. “She has struggled to understand the application of this defense to the elements of murder. She has maintained throughout this case that she was not in her normal state of mind when these events occurred. This is essentially an assertion of innocence.”
But the prosecutors argued in their own motion that Collind is not claiming to be innocent, but trying to get “a better deal.” Lisa Marchese and Meg Elam from the Maine Attorney General’s Office said the two young children have been told they will not need to testify at trial.
“The defendant has now whiplashed those children with her new request to proceed to trial,” they wrote. “This manipulation of these minor children, who were present for the murder of their father, and are likely trial witnesses, causes prejudice to the state’s ability to present those witnesses and potentially other witnesses at trial.”
During the hearing, Elam said they had just received records from the York County Jail related to Collind’s medication and phone calls, which are relevant to her request to withdraw the plea. The defense team had not yet been able to review that evidence, so the judge continued the hearing until next month.
Collind appeared at the hearing wearing a black shirt with pink flowers and a leg brace. She spoke only to answer when the judge asked her if she understood his advice.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
Megan Gray can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
mgray@pressherald.com
Twitter: mainemegan
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