
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 23, 1994                   TAG: 9411230131
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LEWISBURG, W. VA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

JURY: SPURNED WOMAN'S ATTACK NOT FELONY

``PSYCHO BARBIE DOLL gone bad,'' one lawyer called the case. But the tale was more sad than sordid: an articulate, striking woman who never found a man who cared enough to put her photo in his wallet; a young man who could not settle for one lover at a time; a middle-class couple whose kitchen was invaded by a furious, wounded woman.

In the end Tuesday, jurors decided Tracy Lippard was guilty of misdemeanors, not felonies. They convicted her of two counts of second-degree attempted murder, which means they concluded she had not premeditated her attack on a female rival and her family. Lippard also was convicted of battery, brandishing a pistol, disguising her license plates and carrying a concealed pistol and knife.

Lippard, 23, had been charged with 10 crimes, including three felony counts of attempted murder. Her sentence, to be imposed Jan. 4, could range from probation to 61/2 years in prison. She will remain free on $42,000 bond until then.

Lippard testified that after her boyfriend missed last year's Miss Williamsburg pageant where she crowned her successor, she put a loaded pistol in her pocket and went looking for him the next morning. Then, suspecting that he was seeing another woman and wanting revenge, she drove 275 miles from her home in Newport News to Lewisburg, where the other woman lived.

``I had laid awake all night, wanting to know the truth,'' she testified. ``Any woman who has ever been two-timed, or three-timed, or whatever knows the feeling.''

The boyfriend, Todd L. Scott, 26, testified that he had been dating Lippard in Virginia, had impregnated a woman in West Virginia and had been engaged to a third woman in North Carolina. Lawyers told the jurors he was a ``Don Juan,'' ``a gadabout'' and ``a serial monogamist.'' He has since married the pregnant woman, Melissa Weikle Scott, and they expect a second child in May.

The attack occurred at the home of Melissa Scott's parents about 4 p.m. on Feb. 27. Lippard feigned car trouble and was let into the kitchen by Rodney and Carlynn Weikle.

The county prosecutor, Richard H. Lorensen, said Lippard hit Weikle twice on the head with a hammer, but Weikle, a former Secret Service agent who is a teacher, disarmed her and held her until police arrived.

Lippard, a dentist's daughter who completed two years of college and hoped to become a travel agent, said she had armed herself with a 9-millimeter pistol, a butcher knife and a bottle of lighter fluid. She said she believed nothing she could say would bother Scott, but she could hurt him by vandalizing his car.

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for nine hours over two days before reaching its verdict.

Lippard wiped her eyes as the verdict was read and said afterward, ``I really don't feel like this is a total victory for me because I know I did not come here to harm anybody.''

by CNB