Welton enters not-guilty plea

PALMER - A Wasilla child-care worker accused of deliberately setting a fire that killed her 14-year-old son in order to collect life insurance money, pleaded not guilty in Palmer Superior Court on Friday.

Suzette Welton, 37, was arraigned on a count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, a count of attempted first-degree murder, and first-degree arson.

A Palmer grand jury handed up the indictment last week.

Welton, who appeared wan, sat quietly next to her court-appointed attorney, George Davenport, who entered the not-guilty plea for his client.

Judge Beverly Cutler retained Welton's $500,000 cash-only bail and a court-approved third-party custodian.

Samuel Welton died of smoke inhalation Sept. 15 after a fire raced through the upper level of a Mulchatna Drive duplex apartment he had shared with his mother, 16-year-old brother, and 6-year-old sister.

His brother, Jeremiah Welton, narrowly escaped the fire by smashing a front window and jumping from a second-story bedroom.

During a two-month-long investigation, Alaska State Troopers claimed that Welton slipped diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter antihistamine found in Benadryl allergy and cold medicine, into her two sons' juice and soft drinks before pouring a flammable substance on the floor outside the bedrooms where the boys were asleep and setting it ablaze. Welton and her daughter escaped without injury.

Investigators say Welton deliberately set the fire in order to collect $100,000 life insurance policies she had taken out on each of the boys in June.

Welton's arrest in November was not her first in Alaska.

In 1996, Welton, who until recently worked at a day-care center on Bogard Road in Wasilla, was convicted of a domestic violence-related offense against her now ex-husband Dennis Welton.

According to Kenai charging documents, Welton hit her husband on the head with a telephone during an argument in their home.

Welton pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge, a conviction which was later set aside by a Kenai judge.