Cliff Kirkland’s young victims speak: ‘I cannot escape the memories and flashbacks.’

Other than occasional sobs from grieving parents, the Biloxi courtroom mostly fell silent as jurors listened to the young girl explain how her life had been all but shattered after Fredrick Cliff Kirkland sexually abused her for years.

The parents and friends of the girl and two others Kirkland molested for years huddled together in three or four rows in the courtroom to offer their support for the three victims. They often passed around a box of tissues to wipe away their tears.

The Biloxi police officers who investigated the case sat nearby as an added support to the girls after a jury convicted Kirkland, who was a top city official at the time of his arrest, late Wednesday on nine counts of touching a child for lustful purposes. From 2013 to 2017, Kirkland molested the girls at different times at his home on Thomas Street in Biloxi.

Two victims shared their stories with Judge Larry Bourgeois and the courtroom before Kirkland, 69, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, day for day, for his crimes.

The courtroom was closed to the public and media when the victims testified on the stand during the trial, so Wednesday was the first time those in the courtroom would hear the victims’ voices during the near five-day trial.

Victim ‘reliving a nightmare’ on MS Coast

As the first victim walked up to the podium and spoke, Kirkland sat just a few feet away at a table with his attorney. His face, locked on the girl as she spoke, appeared emotionless.

“He took my childhood, and I can’t ever get that back,” she said to Bourgeois. “Now, I am left with a lifetime of continuous repair that myself and my family will have to push for and fight to overcome — Every. Single. Day.”

She said life after years of sexual abuse is like “reliving a nightmare every time I walk into a therapy session.”

“It’s fighting back tears walking into restaurants when someone reminds me of him,” she said. “It’s the multitude of panic attacks I get when going out in public for the fear of seeing him or his family.”

She said the abuse left her anxious and afraid to “trust anyone that says they care about me.”

“It’s not being able to take things offered to me by my friends for helping them with something because it feels like a handout,” she said. “It’s shutting people out because I can’t find the words to talk about my past.”

And, she said, it’s meant having trouble even thinking about liking a boy because her trust in almost anyone is still all but irrevocably broken.

“I shouldn’t feel like I have to keep changing where I live to make sure he can’t find me,” she said. “I want this to be over. I need this to be over. I need to heal from all the trauma he put me through. But the first step in my long complicated road to healing is admitting how damaged I am — all because I trusted him.”

Victim details flashbacks, pain of sex abuse

The girl explained how what happened to her at the hands of Kirkland still affects her life as she tries to heal from the emotional pain that accompanies sexual abuse.

She developed severe anxiety and two eating disorders because Kirkland constantly commented on her weight for years while he sexually abused her.

She still has trouble sleeping or being in a room without any lights on because “I cannot escape the memories and the flashbacks. “

“They will live in my brain forever,” she said.

“If you want to know how I’ve been impacted by this abuse, ask the countless scars on my hips and arms from when I felt like I had no other option but to harm myself to release the pain I feel nonstop on the inside,” she said.

She revealed she tried to end her life when she said it felt like death would be better than continuing to live with the memories that haunt her.

“What if this happens again?” she said. “What if I do not ever learn the difference of sincerity and ill intentions? I just want to be happy. I just want to be free of this nightmare.”

And though the girl said she knows she can never erase the trauma that consumed her life so long, she said what she can do “is put up a fight and make sure he can’t do this to anyone else.”

“People tell me I’m strong for going through what I went through and healing from it, but it feels like a never ending fight to keep myself alive and to live my life to the best of my ability,” she said. “They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes an army to help a child get through a traumatic experience like what I went through. I am so thankful for my army and there is no way I could ever express how grateful I am for that.”

‘A monstrous man’

Assistant District Attorney Alison Baker read a letter to the judge from another minor that Kirkland molested.

Before the girl shared just how badly the sexual abuse had affected her life, she let the judge know that she is determined “to let something good come from this terrible situation.”

In her comments, she addressed her abuser directly, thanking Kirkland for teaching her as a little girl that “humans with evil do exist” and that she must always remember to keep an eye out for people like him who want to do nothing but inflict harm on people.

“I may have been young and naive then, but believe me when I say this will NEVER happen again,” she wrote. “I now know that it is OK to stand up for myself, that it is OK to speak out and tell someone.”

She said she’s learned that speaking about being a victim of sexual abuse “doesn’t make you weak.”

“It gives you a story to tell others that may help someone else some day,” she said. “I now know my friends and family always have my back, and I have nothing to be ashamed of. Cliff, on the other hand, has plenty to be ashamed of.”

In some of her final remarks, the girl talked about how she felt lucky in a lot of ways because she has “the most supportive friends and family around.”

“I am not sure I would have been able to get through something like this without them,” she said. “Not everyone has that, though, and I worry that other girls are afraid to speak up because of this.”

The girl said the thought of anyone else enduring what she did “disgusts” her and ever more so when she thinks about someone who might not have the support they need “to help them heal and recover from the emotional trauma that situations like this can cause.”

In one final remark, the girl told the judge she knows a lot more than she did when the “monstrous” man attacked her.

“I am more than what happened to me,” she said, “and I know that now.”