ACTON — Police believe an Acton woman stabbed her ex-husband to death in front of their two children Wednesday shortly after she learned that a judge had awarded him primary custody, a relative of the victim said.
Gay Weyland, the mother of Scott Weyland, 42, said her son was stabbed to death just steps from her home after Kandee Weyland received a copy of their divorce judgment, dated Feb. 17. Scott Weyland had been staying with his mother since he and his wife split up, and Kandee Weyland drove there from the couple’s home on the same road.
“She had just got the notice in the mail,” said Gay Weyland, a retired Sanford police detective who learned details from state investigators. “She rammed his truck first, and he came out to see what the ruckus was. She jumped out and started stabbing him. We fought her for 10 months to get those kids away from her. She was toxic.”
Kandee Weyland
Kandee Weyland was arrested Wednesday night and charged with murder, police said. She is being held without bail on the murder charge and a charge of violating a protection order, and is scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. Friday in York County Superior Court in Alfred. If convicted of murder, she will face 25 years to life in prison.
Losing custody of her children appears to have been the final development in a series of grim circumstances for Kandee Weyland, court records show.
She had worked in elder care for more than a decade at Southern Maine Health Care, but was out of work on temporary disability, she wrote in court filings that began in April.
She was under a doctor’s care for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and recurrent depression, as well as anxiety and panic attacks, which made it difficult for her to leave her house, according to the divorce judgment.
HOME UNINHABITABLE, IN FORECLOSURE
Scott Weyland
A Department of Health and Human Services investigator had found that the home she had shared with her ex-husband at 2455 Milton Mills Road was rendered uninhabitable by clutter and mess, according to court records. The home’s boiler had broken and its basement was flooded, the divorce judgment said.
Weyland told a judge during a two-day divorce hearing this month that she had not yet found a place to live.
“(Kandee Weyland’s) ability at this time to provide a safe, clean, secure and comfortable home for the parties’ two minor children is severely compromised,” the judge wrote in his judgment. “(Weyland) has testified that she has not yet secured housing for herself, or the children, once she is obligated to vacate the marital home due to foreclosure. (Weyland) is at great risk of becoming homeless in the near future.”
The couple split in April 2016 after an argument that Kandee Weyland said had become physical. She alleged that Scott Weyland had pressed his finger into her throat, causing her to choke, and that he had hit her four times in the previous year and had attended a batterer’s intervention program in Sanford, according to court records.
HUSBAND, WIFE HAD PROTECTION ORDERS
She sought and was granted a two-year protection-from-abuse order on April 21.
Scott Weyland was granted his own protection order against his wife in May. Gay Weyland was also granted a protection-from-harassment order against her daughter-in-law.
According to Gay Weyland, Kandee Weyland was issued a total of three summonses on charges of violating the two orders against her. One was dismissed, Gay Weyland said, a second was awaiting an initial court date and a third violation was pending in Superior Court.
In an interview Thursday, Gay Weyland said her daughter-in-law had become emotionally manipulative and unreliable, making baseless accusations and using the children as pawns in the divorce proceeding.
Court records show Scott Weyland alleged that his 11-year-old son had been instructed by Kandee Weyland to ask his father about adult matters related to the divorce, and that she once had hidden an audio recorder on the boy to record a supervised visit with his father.
‘HE DIDN’T WANT TO LOSE THE KIDS’
Scott Weyland, who worked at a local packaging company, had wanted to be a good father to his children, ages 11 and 7, Gay Weyland said, after his own father – Gay’s husband – died in an accident before Scott turned 3.
“He stayed with her as long as he did because he didn’t want to lose the kids,” Gay Weyland said.
The exact cause of Scott Weyland’s death is expected to be disclosed after an autopsy is completed by the state Medical Examiner’s Office.
Police said the couple’s children were staying with a grandparent, but Gay Weyland would not say whether it was her.
Police said during a news conference at the crime scene Wednesday that when police arrived around 1 p.m. at Gay Weyland’s home at 1097 Milton Mills Road, they found a “severely injured” man they later identified as Scott Weyland.
Gay Weyland, who was not at home at the time of the incident, said she came home to find police at her house. She said officials told her the couple’s son called 911 after witnessing the attack.
Matt Byrne can be contacted at 791-6303 or at:
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