Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411170109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEWISBURG, W. VA. LENGTH: Medium
Tracy Lippard, 23, of Newport News, Va., told an inmate at the Greenbrier County Jail in February of her foiled attempt to attack Melissa Scott, then eight months pregnant, said county Prosecutor Richard Lorensen.
He told jurors in Lippard's trial on attempted murder and weapons charges that the 1993 Miss Virginia runner-up told jail inmate Theresa Dixon ``that she intended to go to this house and cut the baby of Melissa out of her and flop it on the table.''
Police say Lippard crowned her successor as Miss Williamsburg (Va.) in February and embarked the next day on a 250-mile trip to the Scott home in West Virginia armed with a pistol, butcher knife, lighter fluid and hammer.
Lippard had dated Todd Scott, 26, whose baby Melissa Scott, 24, was carrying. The couple lived with Melissa Scott's parents, Rodney and Carlynn Weikle, near Lewisburg. Rodney Weikle, a former Secret Service agent, wrestled Lippard to the floor of his house and foiled the attack, officials said.
``She realized she was going to have to kill the Weikle family members, thereby dispatching her rival for Todd Scott,'' Lorensen said.
Lippard was arrested Feb. 27 but wasn't charged with attempted murder until after she told Dixon what she had intended to do, Lorensen said.
Defense attorney Paul Detch told the jury of nine men and three women that his client was a distraught, ``scared, and rather immature young lady'' who went to Lewisburg to determine her place in a love triangle.
Police have said Lippard entered the Weikle home claiming her car had broken down and asking to use the phone. She struck Rodney Weikle in the head twice with a hammer and was subdued as she pulled a 9mm pistol from her coat.
Police said they found in Lippard's car a list of questions she apparently intended to ask Todd Scott. But Detch said that if Todd Scott had rejected her, Lippard planned only to use the lighter fluid to etch a phallic symbol on his car and use the 6-inch knife to slash his tires.
``She came up looking for this confrontation,'' Detch said.
Detch denied Lippard knew anything about the hammer. He said his client later showed Rodney Weikle the silver-plated, wood-grip pistol from her right coat pocket, but only when he asked her, ``Do you have any weapons?''
``She said, `Yeah, I've got a gun.' She had no intention of ever using that gun,'' Detch said.
Rodney Weikle denied asking Lippard about weapons. He said she pulled the pistol after his wife heard a scuffle and rushed to investigate it.
``The act of bringing the gun out was unsolicited?'' Lorensen asked.
``Yes,'' Rodney Weikle said.
by CNB