ALFRED – If a judge grants Kandee Collind’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea to murdering her ex -husband and if she is subsequently convicted at trial, she could face decades in prison and prosecutors could ask for a life sentence.

Collind, 48, formerly known as Kandee Weyland, of Acton, pleaded guilty in August to stabbing her her ex-husband, Scott Weyland, to death in his driveway in February 2017 after she learned he had been awarded custody of their two young children. On Thursday, her motion to withdraw her guilty plea was continued until January so her defense counsel could review new evidence – her medication records from York County Jail and the jail’s recordings of her telephone conversations – that had just been received by prosecutors the previous day.

“I urge you to think carefully about this,” York County Superior Court Justice Wayne Douglas told Collind toward the end of Thursday’s brief hearing.

The plea agreement that Collind now wants to a judge to allow her to withdraw calls for a capped sentence of 32 years. The minimum sentence for murder is 25 years.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese told Justice Douglas that Collind should be aware that she goes to trial and convicted, the state would ask for “substantially” more prison time, “in the area of decades more,” said Marchese.

Marchese also said premeditation and children being present during the commission of the crime are two factors that could lead the prosecution to ask for a life sentence.

“I’m not suggesting we’d 100 percent ask for a life sentence but it would be in the mix,” she said.

Marchese said the offer of a capped 32 year sentence was made so the couple’s children would not have to testify at a trial.

Speaking with reporters following her guilty plea on Aug. 22, one of her attorneys, Clifford Strike, said Collind did so to spare her children the trauma of a trial and that she was “at peace with her decision.”

Collind told York County Sheriff’s Office deputies that on Feb. 22, 2017, the couple’s two the two children were in the car with her when she pulled into her ex-husband’s driveway and crashed into a pick-up truck parked there. She and Weyland had a confrontation, sparked by a letter Collind received after the couple’s divorce was finalized, which awarded primary physical custody of their two children to her ex-husband.
One of the children called 911 at 12:55 p.m. that day, according to a court affidavit, and said Collind had stabbed Weyland in the chest.

When Deputy Tom Searway arrived at the Acton home where Scott Weyland had been living with his mother, he found Collind administering CPR to her former husband outside on the ground. She was crying hysterically, and allegedly told Searway that she had stabbed him in the chest, and that he had pulled out a knife as well.
An autopsy revealed Weyland died of a stab wound to the chest, with penetration of the heart.

Four days after she pleaded guilty to intentional and knowing murder, she told one of her defense attorneys, Molly Butler Bailey,that she wanted to withdraw her plea. The two later had a conversation, but at its conclusion, Collind told Bailey she didn’t want to pursue the withdrawal, according to paperwork on file at the court.

Then, on Oct. 15, Collins again told Bailey she wanted to withdraw her plea.

Collind allegedly told Bailey she hadn’t taken her psychological medication on the day she entered the guilty plea that day and that there were some elements of the murder charge she didn’t understand.

Bailey, in the motion to withdraw, wrote that Collind was pursuing an abnormal condition of the mind defense.

“That is a very complicated concept,” Bailey wrote, in part.“She has struggled to understand the application of this defense to the elements of the murder. She has maintained throughout the case that she was not in her normal state of mind when these events occurred. This is essentially an assertion of innocence.”

“The defendant has now whiplashed those children with her new request to proceed to trial,” said assistant attorney general Megan Elam in her objection to the withdrawal request. “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 as well.”

She said she believed Collind was trying to “get a better deal.”

On Thursday, Douglas asked Collind if she understood that if he grants her motion to withdraw her guilty plea that the state could ask for more jail time if she is convicted at trial.

“Yes, I do,” Collind replied.

The hearing on Collind’s motion to withdraw has been tentatively set for Jan. 16.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.

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