ALFRED — An Acton woman who pleaded guilty last year to stabbing her ex-husband to death in 2017 is scheduled to appear before a judge Monday to ask to be allowed to withdraw the guilty plea.

Kandee Weyland Collind, 48, had pleaded guilty in August to the murder of Scott Weyland in his driveway in February 2017 after she learned he had been awarded custody of their two young children.

She had been scheduled to appear at York County Superior Court on her motion to withdraw the guilty plea in December, but the hearing was postponed then and on two other occasions.

A motion to produce records connected with the case was granted by a judge in March.

The agreement that had been worked out as a result of her guilty plea called for a capped sentence of 32 years. The minimum sentence for murder is 25 years.

In a brief hearing in December, York County Superior Court Justice Wayne Douglas urged Collind to think carefully about her decision.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese told Douglas that Collind should be aware that if she is convicted at trial, the state would ask for “substantially” more prison time, “in the area of decades more,” Marchese said at the December hearing.

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 at that hearing.

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.

Collind allegedly told York County Sheriff’s Office deputies that on Feb. 22, 2017, the couple’s children were in the car with her when she pulled into her ex-husband’s driveway and crashed into a pickup truck parked there and that she and Scott Weyland had a confrontation.

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 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 deputies she had stabbed him in the chest, and that he had pulled out a knife as well, according to the affidavit.

An autopsy revealed Weyland, 43, died of a stab wound to the chest, with penetration of the heart.

In October, Collind allegedly told her attorney, Molly Butler Bailey, that she wanted to withdraw her plea, that she hadn’t taken her psychological medication on the day she entered the guilty plea and that there were some elements of the murder charge she didn’t understand.

Bailey, in Collind’s motion to withdraw the guilty plea that was filed with the court last fall, wrote that Collind is pursuing a defense based on an abnormal mental condition at the time.

“That is a very complicated concept,” Bailey wrote. “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 facts tend to show that Collind was confused and not thinking as clearly as she would have been had she taken her medication when she entered her plea,” Bailey further wrote.

Assistant Attorney General Megan Elam objected to Collind’s request to withdraw the guilty plea.

“The defendant did not assert her innocence, nor does she now,” Elam wrote in response to the motion. “Instead, she believes she can get a better deal.”

The hearing is set for 1 p.m. Monday at York County Superior Court in Alfred. Collind remains at the York County Jail.

Tammy Wells — 207-780-9016

twells@journaltribune.com.

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