THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411170459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEWISBURG, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
A Virginia beauty queen out to avenge being spurned by a man she had dated planned to slit the abdomen of a woman he had made pregnant and ``flop'' the fetus out on a table, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Tracy Lippard, 23, of Newport News, told an inmate at the Greenbrier County Jail in February of her foiled effort to attack Melissa Scott, then eight months pregnant, said county Prosecutor Richard Lorensen.
He told jurors in Lippard's attempted murder and weapons charges trial 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 in February and embarked the next day on a 250-mile trip to the Scott home in West Virginia. She allegedly was armed with a pistol, butcher knife, lighter fluid and hammer.
Lippard had dated Todd Scott, 26, whose baby her 24-year-old rival bore. 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.
Earlier, he had asked potential jurors how they felt about his client, a 6-foot, slender dentist's daughter with a bright smile and long blond hair pulled back from her face by a blue ribbon.
``Anybody think it's Barbie doll gone bad?'' Detch asked.
None of the jurors responded.
Police have said Lippard entered the Weikle home after claiming her car had died and asked to use the phone. She struck Weikle in the head twice with a hammer and was subdued as she pulled a 9mm pistol from her coat.
Lippard could be imprisoned 39 years if convicted. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Lippard
KEYWORDS: ASSAULT
by CNB