Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 5, 1995 TAG: 9501050071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEWISBURG, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
Tracy Lippard, 23, cried at her sentencing and apologized to the couple attacked last February.
``There's no reason to fear me. I just want to go on with my life,'' she told Circuit Judge Charles Lobban.
Lippard, from Newport News, Va., set out for the Lewisburg home of Rodney and Lynn Weikle the night after she crowned her successor as Miss Williamsburg. The Weikles' daughter, Melissa Weikle Scott, was pregnant by Lippard's former boyfriend, Todd Scott, at the time of the attack.
Lippard was accused of pulling the pistol on Lynn Weikle and using a hammer to hit Rodney Weikle, a former Secret Service agent who put her in a headlock and disarmed her.
Lippard said she went to the Weikle home to confront her former boyfriend after he failed to show up at the pageant, where she had dedicated a song to him.
She said she became enraged after Weikle told her Scott and his daughter planned to marry. They did so in August.
Lippard had faced sentences up to 61/2 years for her Nov. 22 conviction on charges including two counts of second-degree attempted murder.
The jury, apparently unswayed by testimony from a cellmate that Lippard said she had wanted to slit her pregnant rival's belly and ``flop her baby on a table,'' convicted her of misdemeanor rather than felony charges.
Lobban sentenced Lippard to two years in jail, saying Lippard's actions "scared the living daylights" out of the Weikles.
Defense attorney Paul Detch said he may appeal. Lippard remained free on bail.
by CNB