She did it to protect daughter, convince suspect to face charges in PTC

A former Peachtree City resident testified Monday that she was so afraid Julian Dale Pipkins would attempt to molest her daughter again that she rekindled their relationship even after Pipkins was charged in March 2006 with the crime.

The mother said she allowed the relationship to become physical in large part to gain Pipkins’s trust so she could protect her daughter.

The mother, whose name is being withheld to conceal the identity of the now 13-year-old victim, said she moved back to Texas with her kids but she knew that Pipkins, her former fiance, would likely find them if he wanted to; Pipkins lived with the family in Texas before they had relocated to Peachtree City.

In rekindling the relationship, the mother admitted to having sex with Pipkins several times in large part also to protect her daughter. The mother said she wanted to convince Pipkins to go back to Georgia to face the criminal charges “... so he can go to jail for what he did to my daughter.”

“I figured I needed to get his trust and that’s what I did,” the mother said, noting that Pipkins had said numerous times that he didn’t want to go back to court here to face the two counts of child molestation because he “couldn’t go to jail.”

In March of last year, the mother walked into her daughter’s bedroom to find Pipkins on top of her daughter under the covers of the bed, and after walking out of the room and then back she saw him “fixing his pants.”

Pipkins, 41, faked his own death in November on the day before he was scheduled to go on trial here. Police said PIpkins convinced one of his sons to report him missing off shore where the two had been boating near Galveston, Texas, police said. Weeks later Pipkins was located in Miami, Fla. at a homeless shelter and taken into custody.

The trial, which began Monday, resumed Tuesday and Pipkins was expected to take the stand in his own defense. Pipkins is accused of two felony counts of child molestation.

The mother said that after she walked in on the alleged molestation, she took her daughter on a ride and they parked in the nearby Wal-Mart parking lot so they could talk one-on-one. Although the girl initially said nothing was wrong, she began to cry after her mother admitted that she herself was molested when she was a child.

"She said, 'Daddy was on top of me,'" the mother testified. "She said he was trying to put his penis inside of her."

The mother also said that when she confronted Pipkins later back at the apartment, he told her that he too had been molested “by a cousin” when he was a child.

Weeks later, when she met with him in Texas, the mother said Pipkins denied ever hurting her daughter. She said he also threatened to commit suicide by getting into a confrontation with police and forcing them to shoot him.

After the talk with her daughter in the parking lot, the mother said she returned to the family’s apartment at the Summit apartment complex to get pick up her young son. Then after speaking with a Peachtree City police officer, the family went first to Fayette Community Hospital and then to Egleston Children’s Hospital so the victim could be examined by medical personnel.

Afterwards the mother said she went to the ATM to get money for plane tickets so the family could leave the area, but she found that Pipkins had taken most of the money out of their joint account. She said he also turned off the victim’s cell phone.

In an attempt to question the victim’s credibility, attorney Paul Liston asked the mother about an incident where the victim was caught text messaging on her cell phone to “an older man.” The mother confirmed that she reported the incident to the Peachtree City Police Department.