Wood murder trial date set for January 2021

The trial of a Polson woman accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend in Thompson Falls in 2018 has been rescheduled for early next year.

Danielle Jeanette Wood, 56, is charged with deliberate homicide and is being held on a $1 million bond in the Lake County Jail.

According to the Sanders County Clerk of Court Candace “Candy” Fisher, attorneys representing Wood requested a continuance on July 15. The new trial date is set for Jan. 18, 2021.

Wood’s trial was set to begin in April 2020, but earlier this year Kirk Krutilla, one of Woods’ defense attorneys, gave notice Feb. 19 that “it will be very unlikely or almost impossible he would be working for the Office of the Public Defender” in July.

Kalispell attorney William Managhan is representing Wood while attorneys from the Montana Department of Justice are handling the prosecution.

She is accused of shooting and killing Matthew George LaFriniere, 51, May 2, 2018. She was arrested in March 2019.

Wood was LaFriniere’s ex-girlfriend and had a child with him, according to charging documents filed in Sanders County District Court.

LaFriniere was found dead by one of his co-workers on May 3, 2018, underneath a piece of plywood, lying face down on the ground. He had been shot three or four times in the chest, back and hand.

Based on Wood’s purchase of a handgun less than two months prior to the death of LaFriniere, connections between Wood’s cellphone and a disposable phone linked to Wood and statements from family members and neighbors, “probable cause exists that the defendant (Wood) has committed the alleged offense of deliberate homicide,” court documents stated.

The couple were never married, and were involved in a custody dispute that resulted in LaFriniere getting primary custody of their child.