Ex-Biloxi official accused of molestation befriended victims’ mothers. He paid for everything.

Once she broke her silence about the molestation she endured for years beginning in the fifth grade, the depression hit her like a ton of bricks.

She started having nightmares, panic attacks, sleepless nights, bouts of starvation and times when she cut herself to ease the emotional pain she endured due to the alleged molestation that had haunted her since the day it first began at the age of 9.

The depression hit her so hard that she even took a bottle of pills at one point in an attempt to end her life and her suffering.

Since then, she got help, including about two years of counseling and other treatment. She is doing much better now. And her alleged abuser, Fredrick Cliff Kirkland, 69, is on trial this week on nine counts of touching a child for lustful purposes.

That and other information came out during trial proceedings Friday for Kirkland.

Kirkland is accused of sexually abusing the minor girl and two other minor girls for years at “the blue house” on Thomas Street that Kirkland calls home. If convicted, Kirkland faces a maximum sentence of 15 years on each count.

Kirkland, dressed in a navy suit, has mostly kept quiet during the trial, taking notes and talking to a couple of people with him in the courtroom during breaks.

He is accused of molesting three minor girls at different times between August 1, 2013, and July 13, 2017.

‘I called him a friend’

The girl’s mother testified at the trial Friday, often weeping as she recalled how Kirkland had befriended her at a flower shop in Biloxi.

She said her daughter never told her about the molestation and still doesn’t talk to her about it. Her daughter confided in her cheer coach, who then called the girl’s mother and father to meet so she could tell them about what their daughter had been going through.

The girl’s mother said the police investigation began almost immediately. They reported the incident to Biloxi police. Her daughter also identified two other minor victims who confirmed they had been victims of alleged molestation by Kirkland at the same home.

Until the allegations of molestation surfaced, she said, “I thought of him as a friend, a best friend.” Now she feels like he was grooming her to get to her minor daughters.

She said she had developed the type of friendship with Kirkland to where she “confided in him about everything.”

“I valued his opinion as a parent, as a grandparent, and I went to him with everything for advice,” the mother said.

She even provided prosecutors with handwritten letters that Kirkland had sent to her during their friendship.

One read: “Though too many years separate our lives to make a closer relationship seem wise, I wanted to take this moment to tell you how much I care for you. You are a great mother and wonderful friend. I am blessed to have you in my delivery area. As Valentine’s Day arrives, please know, I love you sincerely, passionately and endlessly. Thank you, (the mother’s name) for allowing me in your life. Love always, Cliff.”

The girl’s mother often cried as she recounted how her daughter never once hinted about what allegedly happened to her when she stayed the night at Kirkland’s home.

Her daughter and other minor girls often slept in the couch bed in Kirkland’s apartment on the upstairs floor at his home, which is where authorities said the alleged abuse occurred.

Assistant district attorneys Alison Baker and George Huffman are prosecuting the case. According to them, the girls often woke up in the couch bed with Kirkland in it. On some occasions, the girls said, Kirkland was naked in the bed when they woke up.

On other occasions, one girl claims, she woke to find Kirkland rubbing her thigh area, but she reached for a phone and acted like she was calling someone and it stopped.

Kirkland allegedly molested the girls mostly while on the couch bed, usually sticking his hand down their pants and fondling them.

‘I trusted him’

The girl’s mother grabbed a tissue and cried as she then recalled for jurors how she had thought so much about Kirkland at one time she asked him to be a godfather to her youngest daughter, and Kirkland agreed to do so.

She regrets that decision now.

After her oldest daughter started going to school at a school that Kirkland’s relative didn’t attend, she said, he still asked to give her eldest daughter rides.

She said he took her out to dinner, to watch a baseball game and to eat ice cream, but she just thought he was a good friend with a kind heart.

She said he always insisted on paying for everything.

She said Kirkland was just “a big gift-giver” as well because he even bought big-ticket items for her eldest daughter on her birthday.

On one occasion, she said, he bought her a smartphone, for example.

He’d also do other things just to spend time with her eldest daughter, she said, like driving her to Slidell on occasions to buy lottery tickets.

Looking back, she feels like Kirkland was using her to get to her children.

However, she said her eldest daughter never once told her she didn’t want to be around him or express any fear of him, so she had no reason to think something was going on.

The police investigation

An investigation into the alleged wrongdoing by Biloxi police began shortly after the minor girl told her cheer coach the allegations.

The family went to Biloxi police the following day and then took their daughter to the Child Advocacy Center in Gulfport for an evaluation.

Her daughter went into counseling right away.

Before the alleged abuse, the girl’s mother said her daughter was “happy, funny, silly, the life of the party” and “innocent.”

Now, she said, her daughter struggles.

“She fears men, all men,” she said. “She is depressed, and she has to take medication for depression and nightmares.”

A counselor at the Child Advocacy Center in Gulfport also testified, confirming the minor girl’s recollection of the alleged molestation and the depression the young girl suffered as a result.

The girl’s mother said she looks back at all the things she believes Kirkland did early on to convince them he was a trustworthy friend and confidante and is sickened by that thought.

“He was always bringing food and stuff to the shop,” she said. “On the phone, he would always tell me, “You are such a great mom, you are doing everything right, and the girls are so lucky to have you.”

“What he was doing was grooming me,” she said, to get to her daughters.

A date, a tattoo and a testament of strength

Since the day the first victim shared her claims against Kirkland, she has since found a way to mark the day she stood up and spoke up to try to prevent others from possible abuse.

Forever etched on her body is a simple tattoo of a date.

The date is the same day the young girl ended her silence and spoke up for the first time about the seven years she lived as an alleged sex crime victim.

Testimony in the trial continues Monday.