Killer challenges parole restriction

An Evergreen man who killed a woman and then turned the shotgun on himself after they signed an apparent suicide pact is seeking to overturn his sentence.

Kenton Richard Weimer, 20, was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to mitigated deliberate homicide for the 2007 shooting death of 18-year-old Tarisia Caron, also of Evergreen.

During that hearing, Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus ordered that Weimer serve 20 years of his prison term before becoming eligible for parole.

But defense attorney William F. Hooks of Helena filed court papers in April alleging that prosecutors' argument in favor of the parole restriction - recommended in a standard pre-sentence report from the Office of Probation and Parole - breached the terms of Weimer's plea bargain.

The plea bargain called for the state to seek a straight 40-year prison term and did not permit the state to endorse parole restrictions, Hooks argued.

Prosecutors, however, deny that a breach of the plea bargain occurred and oppose a new sentencing hearing.

Deputy Flathead County Attorney Lori A. Adams said during a hearing Thursday in District Court that she will file an amended reply to Hooks' motion by the end of next week.

Court papers already filed in connection with Hooks' motion must be re-submitted on legal grounds.

Lympus is expected to rule on whether Weimer will be resentenced in about three weeks.

Caron was killed early on the morning of May 1, 2007, by a shotgun blast to her head. Weimer, then 18, subsequently shot himself in the head with the same 12-gauge shotgun, and ended up with serious injuries to his jaw and lower part of his face.

During Weimer's sentencing hearing, attorneys played recordings of phone messages Caron and Weimer left for friends minutes before the shooting. In one of them, an intoxicated Weimer is heard saying he can't go through with it as Caron laughed in the background. In another, Caron tells a friend she gave Weimer permission to shoot her.

Investigators believe the shooting occurred just before 4:17 a.m. in the Meadow Manor Mobile Home Park on Shady Lane. Another Meadow Manor resident phoned 911 to report hearing two gunshots, but could not positively identify where they originated.

Officers responded but could not find anything before leaving the scene about 10 minutes later.

At 4:49 a.m. dispatchers received a second call from someone unable to speak, who turned out to be Weimer. By using a system of tapping to answer the dispatcher's questions, he directed emergency responders to the home.

The two young people, who family members said had been dating off-and-on for about six months, reportedly had made enough noise to waken people inside the house sometime around 3 a.m.

Weimer was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle hours after authorities found him next to Caron's body in the yard of the home he shared with his father, Rick Weimer, and Vicki Gunderson. He returned to the Flathead County Detention Center in September 2007 to face murder charges.

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com