ALFRED — An Acton woman who pleaded guilty to killing her ex-husband by stabbing him in the chest with a knife in his driveway nearly two years ago wants to withdraw her guilty plea.

Scott Weyland, in an August 2016 photo on Facebook.

The motion by Kandee Collind, formerly known as Kandee Weyland, will be heard by Superior Court Justice Wayne Douglas on Thursday, the same day Collind had been scheduled to be sentenced for killing Scott Weyland.

Collind had pleaded guilty in August to intentional or knowing murder in the death of her ex-husband and was facing a minimum of 25 years in prison.

Clifford Strike, one of Collind’s attorneys, said after the plea hearing that there was an agreement to cap the sentence at 32 years and that Collind had decided to plead guilty to spare her children the trauma of a trial.

Collind later told another of her attorneys, Molly Butler Bailey, that she didn’t understand some of the elements of the murder charge and that she hadn’t taken her psychological medication on Aug. 27, the same day she pleaded guilty to the murder charge, according to the motion to withdraw filed at the court.

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. “Instead, she believes she can get a better deal.”

Bailey said Collind contacted her attorneys by telephone four days after pleading guilty, leaving a message that she wanted to withdraw her plea. She said the first appointment she was able to get to see her client was Sept. 19, when she said Collind showed a lack of understanding of some of the elements of the charge and told her she hadn’t taken her medication. Bailey wrote that by the end of that meeting, Collind didn’t want to pursue a withdrawal.

On Oct. 15, Collind again told Bailey that she wanted to withdraw her plea. Bailey said that all witnesses are local and all evidence remains readily available.

Bailey wrote that Collind is pursuing an abnormal-condition-of-the-mind defense.

“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 wrote.

Elam said the trial witnesses, including Collind’s two minor children, had been informed that they would not need to testify because their mother had accepted responsibility for Scott Weyland’s murder.

“The defendant has now whiplashed those children with her new request to proceed to trial,” Elam said 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.”

Elam pointed out that the plea hearing was not deficient in any way, that the defendant didn’t assert her innocence then, or now, and that the lapse in time between the plea and the Oct. 26 filing for a request to withdraw puts the state at a disadvantage in its ability to proceed to trial.

According to a court affidavit filed by Maine State Police after the Feb. 22, 2017, stabbing, Collind told Deputy Tom Searway of the York County Sheriff’s Office that both of the children were in the car with her when she pulled into the driveway, crashed into a pickup truck parked there and got into a confrontation with her ex-husband.

The confrontation was apparently sparked by a letter Collind had received a few days after the couple’s divorce was finalized, which awarded primary physical custody of their two children to Scott Weyland.

The affidavit also noted that one of the couple’s two minor children called 911 at 12:55 p.m. that day and said Collind had stabbed Weyland in the chest.

Nine minutes later, Searway arrived at 1097 Milton Mills Road in Acton, where Weyland had been living with his mother.

Searway allegedly 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.

Collind was taken into custody on the day her ex-husband died. She was treated at Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford for minor lacerations, and according to the affidavit, was found to have a small knife stuck in her abdomen.

Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or at:

twells@journaltribune.com