Welch sentencing delayed until March 28

A sentencing hearing for a Lincoln County woman who has admitted to killing her husband was postponed until later this month after a judge determined the defense attorney had not been given enough time to review a pre-sentencing report. 

Kristina Welch, 53, was scheduled to receive her sentence from District Court Judge James B. Wheelis on Thursday, but the hearing was delayed until 9:30 a.m. March 28.

Welch’s attorney, Jennifer Streano, had requested at least two weeks to review the pre-sentencing investigative report, according to court documents filed Tuesday, just two days before the hearing. 

State Probation and Parole Officer Steve Watson said the report was filed Feb. 21, one week prior to the scheduled sentencing. Watson said it was important to make sure the document was as complete as possible.

“The report was filed last Thursday,” Watson said. “We got it done in what we thought was plenty of time.”

Lincoln County Attorney Bernie Cassidy, the prosecutor in Welch’s case, agreed to postpone the sentencing. So did Catherine Truman of the state Attorney General’s Office. 

Welch had accepted a plea agreement that would have required her to plead guilty to homicide in the shooting death of her husband, Charles Bryan Welch. She admitted shooting him with a Smith & Wesson revolver in the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 2011, in their home on Granite Lake Road south of Libby. The couple quarreled about money shortly before the shooting, according to court documents. Charles Welch was a retired prison warden from Florida.

Wheelis, however, rejected the plea agreement, which could have allowed Welch to be released from prison as early as 2015. Police questioned Kristina Welch after the fatal shooting, further drawing suspicion upon her for delaying in calling for an ambulance. When emergency officials responded to the Welch home on Granite Lake Road they found a Charles Welch who had died as a result of the gunshot wound hours before.